29 August 2025
CAUGHT STEALING (PRIS AU PIEGE) **** a rousing, uber-realistic thriller
Something between a Tarantino film, a Guy Ritchie gangster comedy and the frenetic Oscar and Palme d’Or winning “Anora”, this recent Darren Aronofsky shocker is electrifying and very different from anything he’s done before in such films as “Black Swan”, “Noah” or “The Whale”. I’ll go out on a limb and proclaim this one excellent in its genre.
Aronofsky is known usually for surreal, difficult, psychological themes in his works. This latest is a rousing, uber-realistic thriller which he has mastered brilliantly. Viciously violent it is, but within the context of the story and not simply gratuitous. One hurts with all the blows the hero takes, and one wonders all along how he will get out of this spiral of catastrophes in which he’s been mistakenly thrown.
With the aid of the sweet-faced, always exciting Austin Butler (made famous by Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 “Elvis”) and a crazy cast of misfits, from his hip girlfriend (played by the delicate Zoe Kravitz), an English punk neighbor, punch-crazy Russian villains to even more dangerous Hasidic Jews (shades of the hilarious “Anora” Armenians), this is the wild tale of an innocent barman who inadvertently gets involved with murderous criminal gangs who think he might know where their drug money is stashed.
Set in the underbelly of the late 1990s gritty downtown New York City, the film takes hold of you and doesn’t let go until the cat is safe. Don’t ask….
The kitty is actually the beautifully featured, main thread of this whole brutal tragicomedy. I wonder if Aronofsky owns a cat…
FRIEDA’S FALL ***1/2 (vo Swiss German)
This is the true story of Frieda Keller, a Swiss woman who killed her own five-year-old son in an act of desperation. Set in 1904, this horrendous tragedy became a sensational courtroom battle beyond legal confines, telling a broader tale of women’s position in society at the turn of the century.
Directed by the Zurich-based Maria Brendle, it’s a deeply emotional look at the misery of a single woman who had to hide her illegitimate son in a home for orphans while she worked as a seamstress to be able to pay for his keep. When he was to be turned out of the home, she could no longer think straight. The themes of maternal despair and the societal judgment of those times are strongly handled within the sombre period setting in this moving portrait of inequality. This is a powerful, necessary testimony to injustice.
PRINCESSE MONONOKÉ *** (vo Japanese)
The Japanese take their animation very seriously, whether it be an action manga or sublime, detailed animation by such masters as Hayao Miyazaki (of such award-winners as “Spirited Away” and “The Boy and the Heron”), as in this grandiose tale of honor, magical animals, romantic attractions and the continued conflict between man and nature.
It is pure fantasy with constant clashes, done as an art form, with an impressive soundtrack of soaring music. The story concerns the many different adventures and battles of a handsome Prince who must go westward to heal his arm that has been infected by an evil creature. He becomes fascinated by a Princess Monokée who is the leader of a pack of wolves. I told you it was fantasy…. Not my cup of tea, but beautifully drawn in its magical genre.
THE ROSES **
I really don’t know how to review this film. It neither touched nor entertained me. Somewhat based on the wild 1989, Danny DeVito-directed “The War of the Roses” – about a very toxic divorce – it has been somehow anglicised with such esteemed British stars as Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman. It is neither funny, as was the original, nor tragic, as it’s supposed to be. Not quite sure what sort of a hybrid it is, it just feels contrived.
But then it’s directed by Jay Roach who did “Meet the Fockers” and the “Austin Powers” film series…
The husband is a super architect; the wife becomes a hugely successful celebrity chef. They are happily married (though I felt no chemistry between them), but their divergent careers come between them, and the troubles start.
See it if you’re interested…if only for the actors.
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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