Pasha's Film Reviews Etc.

8/10 Originally DWELLING IN THE FUCHUN MOUNTAINS is the 14th century Chinese painting by the famous artist Huang Gongwang. The movie is the modern version of the painting’s landscape brought to life, where the changing seasons are interwoven with human lives.  Focusing on the lives of three brothers we follow them through their troubles and tribulations. There are many plot points, but the main ones involve the two young sweethearts who decide to get married against their parents’ wishes and the the life of the younger brother, that spirals out of control when he starts borrowing money from shady people.  The best thing about DWELLING is its authenticity, the  characters seem to live their lives normally and unaware that the camera is following them around. The movie also transpires the feeling of abandonment, as progress invades the corners of the world it is never supposed to, inevitably changing people’s lives, some for the best some for the worst. ...

7/10 Bobby and Akkun are two schoolboys who stumble upon a remote amusement park. Not quite sure about entering they are lured in by a charismatic park manager... the entertainment inside looks a little silly even for the young kids like Bobby and Akkun... but as the boys delve deeper into the park its dark secrets begin to emerge and it’s not long until all hell breaks loose. There are moments when you walk out of the cinema and ask yourself : what have I just seen?  VIOLENCE VOYAGER is a horror movie that is entirely made of cardboard puppets. This is not an animation, the puppets are just being moved across the screen, but it creates an eerie feeling that all is not what it seems (the same feeling the movie characters experience when they enter the amusement park).  While the puppets’ expressions look silly and over the top and their voices are often grotesque and the dialogue is clumsy, what produces laughs from the audience is also scary as hell. T...

6/10 Guida and Euidice are two sisters who could not be any more different. Euridice is tall, Guida is short. Euridice is focused, determined and working hard to become a professional pianist, Guida can’t think about anything but boys. When a tragic incident separates them the girls are lost without each other but they never give up hope to meet again. A desperate search turns into a journey of a lifetime, when in fact the girls only live a few streets away from each other... will the sisters be able to reunite? And at what cost? Based on a novel INVISIBLE LIFE offers a very typical plot for Brazilian cinema. Sisters separated by fate is a tagline straight from GLOBO tv channel soap operas that are so popular in Brazil. With a running time of 2h20min the pace is rather slow and the story takes its time to get going. Where the film succeeds is the atmosphere of the 40s Rio, with its walkways, restaurants, and its diminishing Portuguese middle class that can easily slip in...

9/10 Haunted by her tragic past and fighting a bitter custody battle with her ex husband Lizzie is losing her grip on reality. At her son’s friend’s birthday party Lizzie sees a girl named Lola and somehow recognises in her the baby she lost many years ago. Convinced against all logic that Lola is her own daughter miraculously brought back to life, Lizzi starts following the girl around. As her obsession intensifies, how far can she go before a new tragedy befalls all involved? ANGEL OF MINE is one of those films that benefits from walking in blind and just taking it all in at face value. Based on the French drama film L’EMPRIENTE the English version is much further into thriller territory than the original, building up an almost unbearable tension.  These are tour de force performances for the stars Noomi Rapace (Lizzi) and Yvonne Strahovski (Claire, Lola’s mother) as the first spirals out of control and the second is consumed by suspicion and fear. Their dynamic ...

6/10 Frankie (Isabelle Huppert) is having a holiday. A somewhat famous and somewhat rich actor she invites her family for their last outing together as due to her cancer she is not going to make it to Christmas. This is a modern family indeed, which involves her gay ex-husband (Pascal Greggory), her current Scottish hubby Jim (Brandon Gleeson), her stepdaughter and her son (who may or may not have feeling for each other) and a couple from New York Irene (Marisa Tomei) and Gary (Greg Kinnear) who have been summoned here for a reason. For some it’s a good day, for some it’s heartbreaking, but for Frankie it may be just one of the few happy ones left... Told without pathos and preaching this is a quiet reflective film about one strong woman facing her mortality and accepting that no matter what, the world will carry on without her.  Isabelle Huppert gives a great performance as usual, but here there’s a feeling she brings in a little bit of her real self ...

9/10 Juang Meng is a 19 year old girl who still lives with her foster mother. Abandoned at birth because of her heart condition she more than anyone knows the hardships of those unwanted by their parents. While working her dead end job at the hospital she witnesses a father refusing life saving surgery for his baby daughter. From then on Juang will move heaven and earth to give that baby another chance in life, even if it means kidnapping the child. THE BABY could have been an anti-utopian thriller if it wasn’t based on fact. Instead it can be watched as a documentary - it is matter of factly unflinching, as it depicts the every day life of the less fortunate in Chinese society. The film takes a hard look at Chinese foster care and disability scheme, as the characters are thrown into an impossible situation where no one can win. The director Jie Liu has created something special here. Famous for his mainstream movie making he now delivers a realistic thriller with the conflict...

8/10 A chance encounter between a young boxer and a prostitute causes an all out gang war and they are both caught right in the middle of it.  Takashi Miike anyone? When one goes to see a Takashi Miike film one expects certain things. It has to be grotesquely violent, slightly tongue in the cheek and an over the top story that that would never work with anyone else at the helm.  FIRST LOVE delivers everything and more. In fact it is a surprisingly coherent, thought through and even touching film that works on many levels. It is drama, it is a comedy, it’s an action film and it’s a thriller, where all elements are a perfect fit. This is classic Miike with Japanese yakuza and Chinese triad going at each other over nothing. It may be a bizarre and violent affair, but the cut off limbs and heads seem a bit Monty Pythonish, which makes the gore slightly less disturbing.  There’s a lot of fun to be had here, this is a sort of film Tarantino would like (...

10/10 Alice is living a simple and happy life with her loving husband and a little son until her world turns upside down. Her husband disappears with all her money and as she is behind on mortgage repayments she is about to be evicted from her apartment. In order to save her home she needs to pay an exorbitant amount of money every two weeks. There’s only one way she can make that much money and that is to become a high class hooker. In the beginning of the movie session the director Josephine Mackerras expressed her concern that the movie may not live up to everyone’s expectations. “This is a very small movie!” she said. It seems pretty big to me. In fact this is probably the most focused and beautiful writing I have experienced in film in years. The script here is everything, simple but multilayered, with relatable slightly damaged characters we can identify with, with just enough tension to be thrilling and not going over the top, hitting all the right spots...

8/10 Welcome to TRUBCHEVSK - a small town not far from Moscow. Anna and Egor are neighbours and having an affair. It is only a matter of time until things are out in the open. Some hard choices have to be made... or maybe not so hard. In the end TRUBCHEVSK is a quiet town where nothing ever happens. Subtle, atmospheric and true, devoid of politics and criminal drama, which is a typical trend for modern Russian films, ONCE IN TRUBCHEVSK delivers a simple story but with a lot of heart. The setting here is everything. TRUBCHEVSK presents as poor and simple town with a surprisingly prosperous community. The real focus of the film is that community with many episodic characters who are likely to be non professional actors revealing real life stories.  Authenticity is what ONCE IN TRUBCHEVSK is all about. There’s a feeling that you are plunged into some kind of alternative universe, the same for a Russian viewer like myself who spent the majority of his life in ...

7/10 Cristi is a middle aged undercover police officer with mommy issues who is trying to find the location of some stolen money. So he goes to a remote island to learn a whistling language that will allow him to communicate with the criminals from a distance. There he rekindles a relationship with his old flame and his priorities change. As both the criminals and his colleagues are onto Cristi what choices will he make to come out clean of his predicament?  A clever game of cops and robbers ensues. Summing up this multi layered, not always coherent plot, is not an easy task. THE WHISTLERS takes a long time to get going but it’s many elements come together building up to something special. Heavy on movie references it is heavily inspired by Tarantino movies, although the style of the cinematography is rather dull. The script on paper must look great, but this is the case where a writer should let go of his work and let someone else direct. Cornelliu Porumboiu ...

9/10 Frank (Bryan Brown) is having a big birthday party so he invites his best friends Leo (Sam Neill) and Billy (Richard E Grant) with their spouses and families to his house in PALM BEACH. It doesn’t take long for the grudges, old and new, to emerge and the old secrets refuse to be buried. The commotion that rocks the three families threatens to ruin the holiday. What will it take to get things back on track?  Exploring the nature of a true family, that goes far beyond blood relations, PALM BEACH is a colourful portrait of a lifelong friendship with all its outcomes, good and bad, beautiful and ugly. While the dining table drama-comedy has become its own sub genre in France (Little White Lies, Namesake) and Italy (PERFECT STRANGERS) middle class families rarely take centre stage in Australian film.  PALM BEACH takes a very Australian approach, avoiding high concept drama, it is breezy summer fun that focuses on the characters’ onscreen chemistry. Sam Ne...

7/10 Department Q is a series of mystery novels by Dutch author Jussi Adler-Olsen about a group of detectives who investigate cold cases. In modern Copenhagen a sealed room is discovered in an old apartment building with four dead bodies positioned at the table. The murder had occurred so many years ago the bodies are mummified. There’s one empty place left at the table. Your enjoyment of the film is highly dependent on your love for the main characters. This is story number 4 and for those of us who have been on this journey for some years our detectives - sombre Carl and charismatic Assad have become our old friends. The narrative as usual switches between the past and the present. The flashbacks in Department Q films can be a bit boring and confusing, but not this time around. The story gallops forward at a high pace introducing many elements, some require serious suspension of disbelief, but the core message about women’s suppression of the past and the present is l...

7/10 Ingumundur lives alone on a desolate farm. He is trying to rebuild his house and is looking after his granddaughter from time to time. He is quiet on the surface, but underneath he is grieving for his recently deceased wife. When a disturbing detail about his wife’s past suddenly comes to the surface it threatens to destroy the fragile peace he has created, and affects everyone he loves. When the movie starts with good few minutes of a car driving down a misty road you know you are in for a long ride. The harsh landscape of the setting is almost a character in the film. It gives the movie almost a magnetic quality. But there’s a sense of imminent tragedy lurking underneath it all.  A WHITE WHITE DAY tells a seemingly simple story, but is secretive at times, letting the viewers decide for themselves what motivates the characters. And it is often what happens off screen  that has the real impact. The cinematography however goes a bit overboard...

6/10 Everybody knows the story. A single mom gives her son a present that didn’t turn out to be exactly what it seemed. His name is Chucky and he is your friend to the end. Only in this version the boy doesn’t want the doll, he wants his mom and the mom only gives it to her son to compensate for something else. Here comes a remake of a horror classic that takes a definite new turn. Preceded by a cheeky social media campaign the film looked a wicked new version of everyone’s favorite murderous doll. I promised myself to keep my expectations in check but I didn’t. All I wanted form CHILD’s PLAY remake to be something that will take my mind off the original and let me enjoy it on its own merit. I did manage to switch off… at least for a while. One thing you have to give to the new version – it is quite a different take on the story we know. Sacrificing the woodoo angle, this Chucky is AI gone rogue. With its limits to harm humans hacked and removed he is still a creatur...