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A film about child soldiers in Africa. I liked it. I can't praise it too much; it has its moments where it drags and becomes somewhat tedious. But it tackles a very rare topic for film (and in general) in a way that it should be – without trying to gloss over the harsh realities or moralize. However, if the premise doesn't pique your interest even a little, then you shouldn't watch it.
Where do we go? Where do we end up when we save the world?
It's time to come out of hibernation. Over the next few days, I'll try to write about several films at once. I can't say they're particularly great and deserve long, detailed reviews, but I do want to share my thoughts. Mountain of Virginity (Fúsi, 2014)
At first, I wanted to criticize our translators for the translation, but then I saw that they simply translated the English title of the film. The original title is just the name of the main character. The essence of the film is that the main character is 43 years old, he lives with his mother, plays with model soldiers, and has not yet experienced the warmth of a woman. In my opinion, the film wavers from side to side. On the one hand, they try so persistently to show how unhappy the main character is that it starts to cause rejection. At the very beginning, he buys a toy car, and it's immediately clear that he's doing it for himself, but no, the film includes a girl who pressures him and asks - is this for your son? Or maybe for your nephew? Although why she would pester a stranger with such questions is unclear. Maybe he's buying it for his great-nephew, why not clarify? The main character's colleagues behave like school bullies, and not even 11th graders, but rather 7th or 8th graders (although this is later played out, so it's okay). It also seemed strange that the main character, apparently, doesn't spend much time on the computer, but only plays with miniatures. As a result, he has skillful hands, and most women in the post-Soviet space would tear him away from everyone else, excuse the pun. At first, I attributed all this to the film as a negative and decided that it was bad. But then I noticed some well-executed aspects. Perhaps the most important of these is the main character's manner of speech. Short remarks, usually of a defensive and reactive nature: "uh-huh," "no," "okay," "it's nothing," and so on. This is really great, well done. I liked the woman with whom he manages to strike up an acquaintance – she's roughly at his level. Some of the storylines or scenes of social interaction are well done. The ending of the film is logical and fair. Overall, I rate the film as good, and although it is sad and melancholic, it doesn't cut as deep as Shapito-Show, where you immediately want to jump into a noose.
Where do we go? Where do we end up when we save the world?
The film has a rather low rating, especially on the international IMDb, and I believe this is completely undeserved. The film is an anthology of unrelated short stories with a very loose, overarching plot that could be removed without any loss of meaning. Why does the film have such a low rating from viewers? The humor in these short stories is, in theory, of a very low quality; there's even an expression for it: "boob and fart humor." And although there are definitely some breasts in the film, I don't remember any jokes based on farting, except for one, but even that is not solely about farting; it carries a more General meaning. Nevertheless, yes, the humor is mainly physiological and related to various unattractive aspects of human life. But in my opinion, this is not a problem. Usually, in films where this kind of humor is used, it seems like a desperate attempt to elicit at least some laughter from the viewer. The joke with the hypothetical fart is used not because the author thought it was necessary, but because he couldn't come up with anything better to make the viewer laugh. Here, the situation is different: as I already wrote, the film consists of unrelated short stories, and in each of them, a specific humorous idea is presented as the central plot element, and all other jokes stem from it. To avoid spoilers, but still give some idea, let me give an analogy: imagine if the entire film "American Pie" was based solely on the fact of having sex with a pie. What if all the jokes revolved around the situations that the protagonist would encounter on his way to this - how to best prepare for this act, how to carry it out, the act itself, and then the elimination of the consequences. That's roughly what the short stories are like. That is, yes, the humor here is crude. But it is deliberately crude; it does this with a clear understanding of its own style of crudeness. Therefore, I sincerely believe that the common people and snobs simply didn't get it, and the film is actually very good. As with most comedies, I recommend watching it with friends (of course, I believe that no one, especially Nebka, has any), and also while drinking light alcoholic beverages. Oops, I almost forgot. The film also features a lot of very famous actors. It was interesting to see them in frankly humiliating and absurd roles. It's like the icing on the cake of this style of crude humor. Dude, don't watch it.
Where do we go? Where do we end up when we save the world?
I recently watched "World Chess Champion" (2021, Russia).
It's about chess. Of course, it immediately brings to mind the relatively recent "The Queen's Gambit," and the latter is better – but still, I was surprised that "World Chess Champion" is quite good. Much better than you'd expect from modern Russian cinema. It's all very cultured, with no excessive use of slang or other nonsense, and the schizoid directing only showed up once throughout the film, which is a great achievement. The emotions are quite strong, and the romance of chess is well portrayed. And although I wouldn't say it's a masterpiece, you can easily spend an evening watching this film.
A film about how a new, unknown, and deadly disease sweeps the world. Sounds familiar, right? The movie remained obscure for 9 years, but in 2020, everyone suddenly remembered it, and you probably heard about it too. And, in general, before the post-COVID world, it probably wasn't particularly interesting to watch. But being in that world, it became very interesting to see how the predictions would align with reality. And a lot of things did – masks, lockdowns, QR codes, and other things that I've already forgotten, but I remember paying attention to many details. Some things were only partially predicted – for example, there are anti-vaxxers in the film, but their number is very limited. The same goes for the quarantine – in the film, it's a serious quarantine where people don't go anywhere, neither to work nor to the store, and the government distributes food. But there are far more successful predictions. Someone will probably decide that Hollywood simply directed both the movie and the real epidemic, but the answer is simpler – epidemics have been studied for a long time, as have the methods of fighting them. For example, in the game Vampyr, there are similar posters asking people to wear masks and stay home, and it's about the Spanish flu epidemic at the beginning of the 20th century. In addition to the successful predictions, the film is also notable for its soundtrack – it's good, catchy, and reminiscent of the atmosphere of the game Plague Inc., meaning it perfectly captures the mood. There's nothing else extraordinary about the film; it's worth watching solely for the things I've described.
Where do we go? Where do we end up when we save the world?
I can't say that I understood the main themes of the film, which make it a masterpiece – I don't experience fear of death (most likely because it's far from me) or reverence for it, or anything else; biblical references aren't my thing either, so the very things that probably make the film a masterpiece, I personally didn't appreciate. But I still liked the film for other reasons – I liked how they showed medieval people, how they differed drastically from us in one sense – they had different entertainment, different morals, different lifestyles, but at the same time, how they were just as human as we are – they suffered from melancholy or, on the contrary, enjoyed simple moments of peace and lived day by day. So, I wouldn't call it a super revelation, but it's a good film.
Where do we go? Where do we end up when we save the world?