21 June 2024.
By Neptune
Too many films out this week, so these will be short reviews – to recommend, or not…
INSIDE OUT 2 (VICE VERSA 2) ***1/2
Pixar is back with another super animation, actually a sequel, but a worthy one. There’s a console, like in a recording studio, that is controlled by the different emotions of our girl Riley, who is a brand-new teenager. The console manipulators are Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust, who were with Riley in the first “Inside Out”. But now, with the onslaught of puberty, there are whole slew of new emotions bubbling up amidst her feelings of uncertainty.
This is a very clever psychological look at how our individual characters are made up by a multitude of feelings working with, and sometimes against, each other.
Here is intelligent, fast-paced fun for the whole family.
THE BIKERIDERS **1/2
What a way to court a woman – sit on your motorcycle all night and day in front of her house until she relents with a sweet smile. But of course you have to be as striking and cool as Austin Butler, last of the “Elvis” movie.
Thus starts this film about motorcycle clubs and gangs in the late 1960s in America’s Midwest. It’s narrated by an excellent Jodie Comer (early Oscar thoughts?) who recounts her story of how she met Benny (Butler) and his gang. Director Jeff Nichols has adapted the film from the 1968 photobook by journalist Danny Lyon who accompanied these gangs for some years.
The first 20 minutes of the film are incredibly gripping and exciting, but unfortunately the story descends into increasingly lawless, unrelenting violence. There is too much brainless machismo and banal dialogue, but that’s probably what director Nichols is trying to portray about these gangs which feed mainly on ignorance and corrosive masculinity in their need for fellowship.
The always outstanding Tom Hardy is both tough and touching as the gang founder, while Butler shines, but has very little dialogue as the reckless Benny. Not quite Marlon Brando’s 1953 “The Wild One”.
JULIETTE AU PRINTEMPS *** (vo French)
Directed by Blondine Lenoir, here’s a sweet look at a slightly depressed daughter (Izia Higelin) coming home for some consolation from her family. But it seems they each have their own lives and hangups.
Her gentle father (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) loves her deeply but doesn’t quite know how to show it. Her mother (Noémie Lvovsky) is living her own life with a new lover, while the sister (a gorgeously buxom Sophie Guillemin) is busy raising her family as she juggles a passionate, amusing love affair. There’s much uninhibited nudity there, and even a tiny duckling that may break your heart…
You’ve got to be French to be so nonchalant in this quirky moment of love and tenderness in a bucolic atmosphere.
THE SUMMER WITH CARMEN *** (vo Greek)
No, Carmen is not some voluptuous woman. She is actually a mangy dog who seems to be going from one owner to another. On a queer beach outside Athens, two gay friends – a big, handsome one and his delicate buddy – are ruminating on their lives and relationships while they consider writing a scenario about their summer. Frail little Carmen is somehow a part of them, taken from a past lover and gifted to a carefree mother and an ailing father.
At times sensual, often amusing and mostly touching, this colourful film about gays, directed by Zacharias Mavroeidis, is not easy to categorise, but quite charming.
(At the Grütli Cinemas)
MARIA **1/2
This film, which came out at the Cannes film festival, about the actress Maria Schneider (played by a lovely Annamaria Vartolomei), seeks to show how her life was impacted by the controversial sex scene with Marlon Brando (a heavily made-up, uncomfortable-looking Matt Dillon) in the 1972 “Last Tango in Paris”. Under the direction of Bernardo Bertolucci, apparently the infamous “butter” scene was imposed on her, without her consent, so that there would be an authentic shock value to that segment of the film. She was 19 at the time. Of course, social and moral conditions have changed immensely from those years when that movie was considered a daring, innovative masterpiece by many top critics such as Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert. Today it is looked at more with contempt than awe.
This biopic maintains that Maria’s emotional problems, including drug and alcohol abuse, were a result of the trauma of that incident. Actually, there are also other reasons for her fragility of character – her father’s decades-long negligence and her mother’s abandonment of her when Maria wished to become close to her father. Directed by Jessica Palud, it’s a difficult balancing act as none of the main protagonists – Schneider, Brando or Bertolucci – are alive to speak for themselves.
HORS DU TEMPS **1/2 (vo French)
Once again, you have to be a diehard cinephile to fully appreciate this laid-back tale about a film director (played by the amusing, bumbling Vincent Macaigne) reliving his enchanted childhood one summer during the Covid confinement. With his brother and their mutual lady friends, they form a happy, lazy foursome in their vast family property.
The film director is the famous Olivier Assayas, of such works as “Sils Maria” or “Personal Shopper”, and this one is a sort of tender memoir or mood piece of his own life.
(At the Grütli Cinemas)
Superb **** Very Good *** Good ** Mediocre * Miserable – no stars
By Neptune
Neptune Ravar Ingwersen reviews film extensively for publications in Switzerland. She views 4 to 8 films a week and her aim is to sort the wheat from the chaff for readers.
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