Athena (2022 | French)
Brilliantly choreographed chaos.
An opening scene becomes great when it establishes its themes, ideologies and also sets up the audience well for what comes their way. Athena does it in a goosebump-inducing, breathtaking manner, dare I say, opening shot of the year!
What follows is an outrageous display of dynamic filmmaking that gets your adrenaline pumping. The plot is wafer-thin, but you can never take your eyes off the screen thanks to its masterful technical crew. Now my only issue with the film, if I have to nitpick, is its tail end that kills off the otherwise ambiguous vibe it had.
As rightfully put in the trailer, a tragedy by Romain Gavras.
The Last House on the Left (2009) :
Fun B grade low budget thriller. Plot is something similar to I spit on your grave.
Rape-revenge stuff.
Man With a Movie Camera (1929)
Man With a Movie Camera is exactly what its title denotes; it is a documentary that showcases 1920s Russia in its most unadulterated form.
Dziga Vertov with this film is equivalent to a child with a new toy. Every type of shot, every type of transition that was humanely possible and out of the box at the time is in this film. With no actors and no additional factors involved, Dziga Vertov manages to create a narrative out of this documentary purely with the juxtaposition of shots, a larger, brilliant example of the Kuleshov effect. The orchestral music(Micheal Nyman's) adds on to dramatize that further, a perfect example of how music affects a scene; from the terror of nightmares to the hustles of a morning city, how a shift in the score can change the way its accompanying visuals are perceived.
Man With a Movie Camera is a milestone in the history of cinema, more so at the art of visual storytelling.
Athena (Netflix | 2022)
A technical marvel, but not a competent film.
As a genre piece, I think it's really interesting -- well made and immersive. But as a kind of emotional movie that really pulled me in, I don't know if it did that. The film's formal indulgences distract from its dramatic potential.
A series of brilliantly staged long takes, Athena is a step forward in visual storytelling. However, the film at times is so overwhelmed by its gimmick and its need to push an almost non-existent narrative, that it sacrifices the connective tissue between the audience to keep upping the ante.
PS: The artifice of the aesthetic premise overwhelms any of the film's other intentions.
The Trouble With You (2018 | French)
The Trouble With You has a plot that's ridiculously stupid; so bad that even a solid Adèle Haenel and Audrey Tautou together can't save it. One of those films were you think it can't get any worse, but it effortlessly does. It has quirky setups and ideas involved, but the comedy rarely (almost never) manages to hit the mark, making it a long and tiresome watch.