Super Short Reviews of Random Movies
1. The Orheim Company
This movie is centered around a high school kid in the mid-80s, who attains political awareness, steals records, starts wearing intellectual glasses and a ridiculous cap, and his alcoholic violent, and aggressively patriotic father. This Norwegian film from 2012 paints a realistic and hard-hitting picture of a family in gradual decline. What I liked about this film particularly is the sense of moderation seen throughout the film’s execution. Nothing seemed excessively dramatized to invoke audience response. Yet when the film ends, it leaves you with a deep sadness for the characters in the film and perhaps prompts you to reflect on your own relationships.
2. In the House
A high school French teacher gives a writing assignment to his students to write about their weekends. One of the students, Claude, writes about the weekend he spent doing maths with his classmate Rafa and all the observations he made about Rafa's house and his mother. The writing intrigues the teacher, who’s somewhat of a failed writer himself, and gives him confidence in Claude's potential as a writer. Week after week, Claude continues writing about his time with his friend’s family and the story keeps getting more bizarre and mysterious with every new chapter. A great screenplay and tight direction make this French thriller about story writing arguably more thrilling and suspenseful than many murder mysteries.
3. A Fantastic Woman
A man celebrates his girlfriend’s birthday, then takes her to his apartment, wakes up in the middle of the night feeling sick, falls down the stairs, his girlfriend drives him to the hospital, he dies there. His girlfriend freaks out and everything becomes chaotic. Although the beginning of the story sounds like a thriller this Chilean film which won the Oscar for the best foreign-language film in 2018 is a drama about a woman’s struggle against massive oppression.
4.Final Cut: Ladies & Gentlemen
From Hungarian director György Pálfi, this film only consists of shots from hundreds of other films and tv shows which were edited together to create a coherent timeless love story. It’s a fascinating experience to see how shots from completely unrelated movies from different countries, cultures, and times could create such an articular story that never feels disjointed or confusing. Anyone interested in film editing, filmmaking, or simply likes to watch a lot of films should definitely give this film a watch.
5.The Northerners
It’s the summer of 1960, in this nameless one street Dutch suburb where a horny butcher tries to have sex with his wife who rejects him and goes on a hunger strike, a horny wife tries to have sex with her husband who rejects her and goes in the woods to shoot somebody. A boy puts black makeup on his face and doubles his height which nobody questions about and a postman burns people’s important letters for no apparent reason. All of
these create a very weird dark comedy “the northerners”.
6. Chronic
Winner of the best screenplay and nominated for golden palm in the 2015 Cannes film festival, this slow but not boring film shows the life of David played wonderfully by Tim Roth who’s an in-home nurse who gets hired to take care of terminally ill patients. Extremely dedicated and passionate about his job, David forms real intimate connections with his patients and tries to come to terms with his guilt-ridden past by his genuine kindness and caring nature. As already mentioned, while the pacing of the film is a bit slower than average and it contains many scenes without any dialogue the film succeeds to create a melancholic atmosphere in which the plot flourishes and leaves a deep impression on the audience.
7. Still Life
Winner of four awards in the 2013 Venice film festival, this slow but not boring film shows the life of John, played wonderfully by Eddie Marsan who is a council worker charged with finding the next of kin of people who have died alone. Extremely dedicated and meticulous about his job, John, a lonely man himself forms an obsessive habit of doing everything he can to find the family of the dead and bringing them to the funeral. Having been released two years before the film Chronic, many who watched both the films claim that the writer of Chronic copied from this film pretty obviously .Although it is true that in terms of tonality, pace, visuals, and even runtime the films do share similarities, I myself found the two films dissimilar enough to be able to have watched them one after another and still find them both almost equally enjoyable.
8. Miss Violence
Winner of four awards in the 2013 Venice film festival. This Greek film begins in a small apartment where a family of 7, is celebrating the birthday of Angeliki who just turned 11. She blows the candles, takes pictures, dances with her grandpa, and then jumps to her death. Inspired by a true story, this film was able to create a bizarrely haunting atmosphere that kept me in constant apprehension. Mostly shot indoors, often framing characters in claustrophobia-inducing tightness, the stomach-churning feeling the film was able to incite out of me without resorting to showing any gruesome violence or visually explicit cruelty, was simply masterful.
9. The White Balloon
It is the eve of the Iranian new year and little Razia wants to buy one of those fat goldfishes she saw at the nearby store. After ceaselessly nagging her mother, with a little help from her brother, Razia secures the money to get the goldfish but loses the money on her way. Written by Abbas Kiarostami and directed by Jafar Panahi, this seemingly simple story about a slice of life of a child is deceptively profound in his social commentary and philosophical scrutiny of innocence.
Thank you for reading.
