Tag: 2021 Reviews

Review: A Balance

When we first enter Yujiro Harumoto’s A BALANCE (由宇子の天秤), we are already seeing a filtered version of reality. Not long after meeting a man playing a flute by the river do we realise that he is being interviewed for a documentary being made by Yuko (Kumi Takiuchi).

It sets us up from the beginning to be critical of the surface version of a so-called objective truth. Yuko’s film is about a relationship between a teacher and a student that ended in two suicides, and she is determined to fight any editorial censorship that the TV network imposes.

When Yuko discovers that her father, a cram school teacher, is involved with one of his students, she must reassess her own ethical standards. She choose to hide the truth, making her complicit in a series of lies that mirror the ones she is investigating.

Images © Eigakobo Harugumi

The Japanese title for this film is literally ‘Yuko’s Balance,’ and this is more indicative of the fine moral line the eponymous character is walking. Her quest for the truth, at least in terms of the one she is assembling in the edit room, clashes firmly with her practice. As a character piece, her attempts to shake Japan out of its “apathy” (as she terms it) and link past victims back to the world take her further away from a sense of community.

Harumoto’s film is certainly an ambitious one, attempting to cover a fair bit of ground: trial by media, sexual assault, and even abortion laws. The most successful of these is a subplot following the people who were doxed by social media and are not longer able to function on a day-to-day level. Yet even in the slightly long running time of 152 minutes, none of these feel adequately addressed. Perhaps it was just too hard to get that balance right in a single film.

Takiuchi, who gave a raw and captivating performance in It Feels So Good, once again commands the screen as Yuko. Constantly viewing the world through the lens of her cameras, when she finally lowers them she must confront some harsh realities – and the even scarier prospect of connecting people with the world.

The film ends with a bit of a double kick in the teeth for Yuko, where the balance finally collapses and the truth sinks in for everyone. It doesn’t quite land with the impact Harumoto may have intended, and arguably reveals the fragility of his large web. Nevertheless, it remains a solid character piece for a filmmaker and marks him as someone to continue watching.

2020 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Yujiro Harumoto | WRITER: Yujiro Harumoto | CAST: Kumi Takiuchi, Ken Mitsuishi, Masahiro Umeda, Yuumi Kawai, Yohta Kawase, Misa Wada, Mitsuko Oka, Yuya Matsuura, Ryo Ikeda, Tomoki Kimura | DISTRIBUTOR: Toei Company, Berlinale 2021 | RUNNING TIME: 152 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-5 March 2021 (GER)

March 9, 2021
Review: Tina

Tina Turner was 45 when she released ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It’ and the multi-platinum Private Dancer album. Five years later, she released ‘Simply (The Best).’ It’s worth noting that two of her biggest hits came decades into a career filled with professional and personal peaks and troughs that took her to Thunderdome and beyond.

Filmmakers Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin (LA 92) explore those highs and lows in the simply titled TINA. Starting with her early R&B performances in the 1960s, and continuing through an abusive relationship with Ike Turner, it culminates with Turner as a stadium-filling hit machine.

With apparently unprecedented access to Turner, now living in Zurich with her husband Erwin Bach, Lindsay and Martin take us through Turner’s life in a fairly straight chronological fashion. In some ways, this is a typical ‘talking heads’ piece intercut with archival footage. Yet when the story is as fascinating as this, just sticking to the facts is more than enough to carry the narrative.

TINA takes us through the early days, where the artist would perform a monumental four shows a night. While contemporary Tina is through talking about Ike, the filmmakers use a 1981 People magazine article and interview tapes to chronicle his abuse. We see Phil Specter introduce her to the wall of sound, elevating her voice on ‘River Deep Mountain High’ (1966) and launching her solo career. Of particular interest are some of the lesser known years, when Turner worked cabaret in the early 80s prior to her first ‘comeback.’

In addition to new and archival pieces with Turner, new pieces with the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Angela Bassett (who played Turner in 1993’s What’s Love Got to Do With It) and biographer Kurt Loder offer insight into various stages in her career. Katori Hall, who co-wrote the book for the jukebox musical Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, is also a frequent commentator, with the Broadway opening serving as an end cap for the film.

While dedicated Turner fans are unlikely to find anything new here, you’d still be hard pressed to find a more engaging document about her whole life and career. Describing that journey, Turner said in a 1985 interview, “I’m a girl from a cotton field that pulled myself above what was not taught to me.” As the film closes out with ‘The Best,’ it’s hard to disagree with one of the great survivors and entertainers of our time.

2021 | USA | DIRECTOR: Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin | WRITER: Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin | CAST: Tina Turner, Angela Bassett, Oprah Winfrey, Kurt Loder, Katori Hall | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal, HBO Max (US), Berlinale 2021 | RUNNING TIME: 118 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-5 March 2021 (GER), 27 March 2021 (USA)

March 9, 2021
Review: Summer Blur

Han Shuai’s debut feature just won Berlinale’s Generation Kplus Grand Prix and it’s easy to see how many would relate to it. From the opening moments, in which the young lead Guo (Huang Tian) awakens in semi-darkness, she establishes the massive ennui of this young woman on the verge of adulthood.

After witnessing the drowning death of a friend, the 13-year-old Guo struggles to deal with the aftermath, grief and guilt of this seminal moment. With an absentee mother, and the unwanted advances of another young boy, Guo navigates the various pitfalls associated with coming of age.

With the exception of the inciting event, Han Shuai’s script doesn’t overplay the emotion of this critical juncture. Through a series of lingering close-ups, Huang Tian impressively keeps it all just beneath the surface. In a scene in which she briefly breaks, she’s standing in a bikini literally being judged by a dude in a Slipknot t-shirt.

Later there’s a climactic emotional breaking point, where Guo literally slaps herself across the face while looking in the mirror. It’s a powerful moment to be sure — although when you step back and reflect on the context of the scene, one can’t help but wonder if there was enough connective glue to give it the full weight it deserves.

Set on the outskirts of Wuhan, there is inevitably an added weight to the location as well. If Han is demonstrating that there a numerous odds stacked against a young woman in China, then the location is arguably another point of inescapable prejudice.

Terrific young performances and Peter Pan’s delicate photography make this one of the more beautiful films in the festival’s stream, yet SUMMER BLUR (汉南夏日) never quite holds the attention for the duration of its brief running time.

2021 | China | DIRECTOR: Han Shuai | WRITER: Han Shuai | CAST: Gong Beibi, Huang Tian, Zhang Xinyuan, Yan Xingyue, Luo Feiyang, Wang Yizhu, Xie Lixun, Chen Yongzhong | DISTRIBUTOR: Rediance, Berlinale 2021 | RUNNING TIME: 88 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-5 March 2021 (GER)

March 8, 2021
Review: Limbo

The promise of a Category III film from Cheang Soi is something to get excited about. The director of the Monkey King series and SPL II delves into the restricted category of Hong Kong cinema to deliver what is arguably one of the most stylish pieces of violent detective fiction in the country’s prolific film history.

Based on the Chiense novel Wisdom Tooth by Lei Mi, it follows veteran cop Cham Lau (Gordan Lam Ka-tung) and rookie Will Ren (Mason Lee) chasing down a serial killer with a hand fetish. To aid them, they’ve enlisted the help of criminal Wong To (Liu Cya), who still feels indebted to Cham for a tragedy she caused his family years before.

Opening with an atmospheric scene set in a slum, it’s safe to say that this is a far cry from the polished action/detective films that the Hong Kong and Mainland box offices have been favouring of late. This is a gritty lived-in world, and Cheang wastes very little time in immersing the viewer in its darkest corners.

Image © 2021 Sun Entertainment Culture Limited

It helps that those corners are gorgeous to look at. Despite the promotional material originally suggesting a colour film, Soi presents LIMBO in a glorious high-contrast black and white. Even when standing knee-deep in a trash heap in the pouring rain, Cheang manages to find the angles that make it look good. There’s one sequence in a parking tower, as veteran photographer Cheng Siu Keung (Election, Drug War) follows its spiral upwards, as if tracing the notches running down a city’s spine.

The characters are a little murkier, with Cheang making his cast go to some emotionally inky places. Cham certainly doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty, straight up beating down perps and Wong To with equal impunity. Of course, it’s the latter who gets put through the wringer the most. Indeed, any woman who appears on screen is either a victim, relentlessly assaulted physically and mentally in several scenes that are uncomfortable to watch.

Yet all of this gets swept aside in a series of action scenes that are really the heart of the film. There’s one sequence in which Cham chases down a suspect, neatly transitioning from car chase to on foot in a seamlessly frenetic series of moments. There’s also a few hand-to-hand fighting moments, including a knife versus machete moment involving Liu Cya.

The action climax, in which our hero fights the killer in the rain, is a relentless showdown that should rightfully be praised as one of the greats. In fact, this goes for all of the action and set-pieces peppered throughout LIMBO. It’s just that the linking segments don’t always feel cohesive in this stylish yet scattered outing. Still, it’s a welcome throwback for Hong Kong cinema, pointing the way back to a time when they ruled the world in this kind of genre picture.

2021 | Hong Kong | DIRECTOR: Soi Cheang | WRITER: Au Kin Yee | CAST: Lam Ka Tung, Liu Cya, Mason Lee, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi | DISTRIBUTOR: Sun Entertainment Culture, Berlinale 2021 | RUNNING TIME: 118 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-5 March 2021 (GER)

March 8, 2021
Review: Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi is the kind of filmmaker who is practically made for festivals. From the 5-hour Happy Hour (2016) to the more compact Asako I & II (2018), his films often take a holistic view of intersecting human lives. With his latest film, which earned the Silver Bear at the 71st edition of Berlinale, he opens up the lives of three groups of people as if they were chapters in a book.

In the first chapter of this anthology — cheekily titled ‘Magic (or Something Less Assuring) — we’re introduced to model Meiko (Kotone Furukawa) and her friend Tsugumi (the singularly named Hyunri). Over the course of a long scene in a cab, Tsugumi (or just ‘Tsu’ or ‘Gumi’ depending on who you’re talking to) reveals that she’s met a man she’s had an instant connection with. Cut to Meiko visiting Kazuaki (Ayumu Nakajima) in his office, revealing that she was his ex-girlfriend and had cheated on him in the recent past.

Meiko believes that the titular wheel of fate has brought them together, that the magic ‘Kazu’ feels with Tsugumi is misplaced from them. An intense conversation between Meiko and Kazuaki will see your allegiances swing, as we sometimes side with Meiko and at others see her as an agent of chaos. In the most overt play on the title, she imagines several conversations in which she confesses everything to Tsugumi. A beat later and the moment is gone, and Meiko is left with reality.

© 2021 Neopa/Fictive

The notion of cruel fates is carried over into episode two, simply titled ‘Door Wide Open.’ Married mother Nao (Katsuki Mori) attempts to seduce Prof. Segawa (Kiyohiko Shibukawa), her former teacher and the recent recipient of a major literary award. As she reads erotic passages from his novel, he insists that his office door remains open. She insists on something else, and that’s when things go a little wrong.

Playing with the power dynamics of the #MeToo era, it doesn’t deal with a man trying to assert his power so much as the disproportional punishment a woman faces in this situation. Flashing forward five years, Hamaguchi continues exploring a minor thread of the double standards for what is considered to be ‘acceptable’ levels of sexual forwardness for women. It mirrors a conversation Tsugumi and Meiko have about sex on a first date in the the first chapter. “I don’t fit in well with other people’s standards,” concludes Nao.

The final, and arguably least successful part of the film, sees two women — Moka (Fusako Urabe) and Nana (Aoba Kawai) — meeting up after a high school reunion. After they return to one woman’s house, she confesses that she can’t remember the other woman’s name. They establish that they may not be who they think they are, but agree to continue to play along with the fiction.

The extraneous setup establishes the segment as being set in the not-too-distant future, where a computer virus has leaked all of our info and the world is offline. It seems ultimately irrelevant to the plot, except that these people now have to rely on memory rather than social media to engage with old friends. It ends on a bittersweet note of parting and renewal, which is ultimately where Hamaguchi leaves us as well.

Much like Kōta Yoshida’s Sexual Drive earlier this year, the anthology format links these stories thematically. Each can be taken separately or as part of an interconnected whole. Unlike that film, there’s no overt characters or plot thread tying it all together. Hamaguchi instead relies on the notion of fate and chance, sliding doors moments and missed opportunities. If his previous films were about lives lived in their totalities, then this one is about the ones that never got to be. Indeed, the film’s Japanese title translates to something like ‘imagine by chance.’

Much like Hamaguchi’s previous works, it is set around conversations and close-ups. Each segment is anchored to a handful of places — a car, an office, a home or a train station. The director also uses time jumps, from a few days to a few years, to conveying the lingering effects of these moments. Unlike Happy Hour, here he’s content to take the shortest path to the middle.

WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY (偶然と想像) has been likened to Hamaguchi’s collection of short stories following two weighty novels. Following this analogy, it’s then a matter of taking this as a series of vignettes that will have varying degrees of impact depending on how you arrive there. For existing fans of his work, there is much to enjoy here as a natural bridge between his longer narratives and the next stage of his already impressive career.

2021 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi | WRITER: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi | CAST: Kotone Furukawa, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Katsuki Mori, Fusako Urabe, Aoba Kawai, Ayumu Nakajima, Hyunri, Shouma Kai | DISTRIBUTOR: m-appeal, Berlinale 2021 | RUNNING TIME: 121 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-5 March 2021 (GER)

March 7, 2021
Review: Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

As you may have already guessed from the title, Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude’s film is not your average piece of cinema. Winner of the Golden Bear, the top prize at this year’s Berlinale, his COVID-influenced movie is bound to shock, surprise and, at least with any luck, skewer some sacred cows in the process.

Jude has divided his modern satire into three sections. In the first, titled ‘One Way Street,’ the audience is given an idea of what to expect: anything. Following an extended and explicit sex scene of a couple wearing masks — one that lasts a full five minutes and is bound to result in the first of many walk-out moments in an average festival screening — the video is uploaded to the web and the woman identified.

The primary plot then follows Emi (Katia Pascariu), the teacher featured in the video, having to face the embarrassment and criticism of her private life laid bare. Much of this first section revolves around Emi wandering up the titular one way street, making a series of calls to understand how and why the video is up and trying to get it taken down.

© Silviu Ghetie / Micro Film 2021

In this part, Jude and cinematographer Marius Panduru’s camera focuses on little things: shopfronts, casino machines, crumbling city streets. The ubiquitous facial masks and a supermarket argument are the only nods to 2020, but it could otherwise be any other time in contemporary post-socialist Romania. An elederly woman walks right up to the camera and says “Eat my cunt,” and I would love to think it was just an ad-libbed moment captured at the right time.

It’s also possibly an early signal from Jude that Emi’s sex act is but one of many things society hypocritically stigmatises. In the second chapter, labelled ‘A short dictionary of anecdotes, signs and wonders,’ Jude strings together an alphabetical list of terms with often contrary or cheeky archival footage.

Beginning with footage of Nazis during the Second World War, it features things like a blonde nudist being chased by a bull, imagery of dictator Ceaușescu and early animation. The close proximity of a funeral home and an emergency room get filed under ‘E’ for ‘Efficiency.’ It’s pointed out that ‘blow job’ is the most searched for word in the modern dictionary, followed by ’empathy.’ It feels like an excuse for Jude to use more explicit footage, except that it ends with a statistic that 55% of people surveyed believe rape is justified in some circumstances. Taken together, it’s as if Jude’s asking ‘So, you’re ok with this, just not sex on film?’

“If that’s making love, then I’m Romeo Fantastik. Or Milli Vanilli.”

The third chapter is where the film really shines. Titled ‘Praxis and Innuendos (Sitcom),’ Emi is effectively put on trial by her school’s PTA. While they all try and get a look at the video (while maintaining social distancing, of course), Emi starts by defending her own sex life before the conversation reveals the assembled group’s own prejudices, blind jingoism, and deeply rooted hypocrisy.

As Jude reminds us in his closing title cards, the film is “but a joke” even when it is cutting incredibly close to the bone. In fact, if you aren’t in on it by the time you reach the chaotic and super-heroic conclusion, one that puts both the opening sequence and every comic book movie ever to shame, then you probably got lost somewhere after the first act.

Many countries have worked through their massive societal changes through satire, but rarely have any done it as uniquely as this. So, if BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN makes it to a cinema near you, make a point of going to check it out. If for no other reason, just go to watch the rest of the patrons squirm.

2021 | Romania / Luxembourg / Croatia / Czech Republic | DIRECTOR: Radu Jude | WRITER: Radu Jude | CAST: Katia Pascariu, Claudia Ieremia, Olimpia Mălai, Nicodim Ungureanu, Alexandru Potocean, Andi Vasluianu | DISTRIBUTOR: microFilm, Berlinale 2021 | RUNNING TIME: 106 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-5 March 2021 (GER)

March 7, 2021
Review: Petite Maman

Following the intense ending of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, filmmaker Céline Sciamma’s highly anticipated follow-up returns to something smaller and quieter. As an exploration of youth and isolation, it harks back to her earlier work but comes with an even deeper sense of innocence and longing.

PETITE MAMAN (or ‘Little Mum’) begins shortly after the death of the 8-year-old Nelly’s (newcomer Joséphine Sanz) grandmother. While cleaning up the house she left behind, we start to see the cracks in the relationship between Nelly’s mother and father (Stéphane Varupenne).

When her mother suddenly disappears, Nelly finds herself wandering the woods. There she encounters Marion (Gabrielle Sanz), another girl her age with the same name as her mother. The two spend their days wandering the woods and contemplating existence, playing games and talking about the future.

“You always ask questions at bedtime.”

In Sciamma’s short film Pauline, released in 2010 between her debut Water Lilies and Tomboy, she explored the confession of a small girl growing up in the countryside. While PETITE MAMAN latest film doesn’t follow that short in terms of content or style, it follows a theme of crossing the threshold between childhood and adulthood and the acknowledgment of the passing of time.

It’s an once a fairy tale and a meditation on dealing with grief, trauma and finding out that one’s parents won’t always be there for you. If the first rule of children’s stories is to kill the parents, then Sciamma adapts that slightly to just usher them offstage for a bit. What follows is a beautifully constructed fable that never feels anything less than real.

What is most remarkable is that all the weight of film rests on the tiny shoulders of real life sisters Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz, both amazing in their roles. Sciamma and her young cast capture the casual acceptance of all things that kids have, and their vivid interior lives. In one scene, they play act an incredibly complex scenario in which one girl is “American but I have a Coca Cola plant in France — and there’s a recession.”

As with her previous films, Sciamma keeps her settings minimal and her framing tight. Yet there are moments of absolute beauty as well. One sequence follows the girls as they take a final voyage across a lake in a small boat together, while the electronic music of Para One (a.k.a. frequent Sciamma collaborator Jean-Baptiste de Laubier) swells to atmospheric heights.

Sciamma manages to achieve all of this in a tidy 72 minutes. Reflecting the diminutive co-stars, the filmmakers packs a big emotional journey into a small package. Not that we needed any confirmation, but Sciamma solidifies her reputation with another amazing achievement that speaks to the child in us all.

2021 | France | DIRECTOR: Céline Sciamma | WRITER: Céline Sciamma | CAST: Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne, Margot Abascal | DISTRIBUTOR: Jeonwonsa (KOR), Finecut (Global), Berlinale 2021 | RUNNING TIME: 72 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-5 March 2021 (GER)

March 4, 2021
Review: Introduction

Going all the way back to The Day the Pig Fell Into a Well, filmmaker Hong Sang-soo has been fascinated with the butterfly effects of human interaction. Through a career of over two dozen features, sometimes releasing as many as two to three titles a year, Hong has refined his snapshots to a series of recurring motifs, a deceptively carefree style, and a company of familiar actors.

With INTRODUCTION (Inteurodeoksyeon), Hong splits his narrative between his native South Korea and Berlin — which is incredibly apt given that it is debuting at the Berlinale this year. However, unlike Claire’s Camera, this does not make a European film festival its backdrop.

Following an establishing scene in a doctor’s (Kim Youngho) surgery, the basic setup sees fashion student Ju-won (Park Miso) arrive in Berlin to study, where she is hosted by an artist (Kim Minhee) who is friends with her mother (Seo Younghwa). Ju-won’s boyfriend Young-ho (Shin Seokho) barely waits a day before hopping on a plane to join her, much to the nonplussed confusion of Ju-won. The film then jumps to a few years later when Young-ho meets a famous actor (Gi Ju-bong) over drinks with his own mother (Cho Yun-hee).

© Jeonwonsa Film Co.Production

Despite a tidy 66 minute runtime, making it even short than last year’s The Woman Who Ran, Hong’s series of encounters are unsurprisingly complex. As you can probably tell from the brief distillation above, the overlapping connections between these characters make up much of the content. We are introduced to Ju-won and her artist friend while standing outside smoking, talking about seemingly innocuous subjects of trees and the canal.

Indeed, it’s smoking, drinking, and food that once again serve as anchor points for these interactions. When we properly meet the old actor, at least following his brief appearance at the doctor’s office, he’s at a table swapping soju and beer with Young-ho’s mother. When the topic of love is raised, and the trade-off for career and relationships, he becomes agitated. “One person embracing another,” he yells. “Where’s the wrong in that?” Played once again by long-standing Hong proxy in Gi Ju-bong, we can imagine that this is the closest Hong comes to speaking directly to us.

Like A Hotel By the River, or any number of his films really, Hong spends his denouement referencing a hotel next to a large body of water. Indeed, this is where the film culminates, with two of the men in the cold on a black and white beach. We aren’t far from where we started, at least not in terms of major events, but Hong takes us a long way in this abbreviated space.

At a time when South Korean cinema is having a ‘moment’ thanks to the high-profile Parasite win, critical staple Hong Sang-soo reminds of what he’s been reliably telling us for the last 25 years. Filled with a veritable who’s who of Korean stardom, this is the kind of film you show people to demonstrate what the rest of us have known all along. You might even say it’s an amazing introduction.

2021 | South Korea | DIRECTOR: Hong Sang-soo | WRITER: Hong Sang-soo | CAST: Shin Seokho, Park Miso, Kim Youngho, Ki Joobong, Seo Younghwa, Kim Minhee, Cho Yunhee, Ye Jiwon, Ha Seongguk | DISTRIBUTOR: Jeonwonsa (KOR), Finecut (Global), Berlinale 2021 | RUNNING TIME: 66 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-5 March 2021 (GER)

March 3, 2021
Review: Language Lessons

If history needs a creative record of what will one day be known as the COVID era, then the ‘screenlife’ film might be the leading contender. Made on the sly during the pandemic, director Natalie Morales and collaborator Mark Duplass have combined their indie powers to make something uniquely affecting.

While it would be criminal to reveal too much of the film’s loose plotting, it is essentially structured around a series of video and audio calls between Spanish teacher Cariña (Morales), who has been secretly hired by Will to give lessons to his husband Adam (Duplass).

What unfolds is the narratively simple yet emotionally complex story of two people coming to know each other through conversation. Over the last year, this has been the primary way people have communicated with each other. Although it’s an oft-repeated line that Coronavirus has stopped the world, life has plodded along with warts an all. We’ve seen the homes of our work colleagues for the first time, heard their children and pets in the background and often still can’t remember to switch mute on or off in a group chat.

“Is that the narrative you’ve created?”

While it’s not the first Zoom/phone based drama, and it certainly won’t be the last, this film might be the most heartfelt. Where the pre-Covid Searching (2018) used it for dramatic effect, and Nakata Hideo’s Remote de Korosareru (2020) transplanted horror tropes into the form, LANGUAGE LESSONS removes the barrier of physicality to let these characters reveal vulnerabilities to each other in a safe environment.

As a textbook two-hander, switching seamlessly back and forth between Spanish and English, the film relies on Morales and Duplass entirely. Having worked together previously on HBO’s Room 104, here they allow themselves to be seen at their most raw. There’s a wonderful scene following a dramatic pivot where the laptop camera allows us to watch Adam come to terms with events in real time. Later, Cariña accidentally reveals more about herself than she wanted and immediately puts her emotional guard back up.

Largely shot from the point of view of phone and computer cameras, Morales and cinematographer Jeremy Mackie manage to make this more than just a static series of screens. Whether intentionally or not, the picture occasionally buffers, characters choose to have their camera off and the two make the most of the portability of phone cameras. It also really helps that Mark Duplass and spouse Katie Aselton’s gorgeous Silver Lake home forms the backdrop for at least half of the screen-time.

This could have easily been unwatchable, especially if you’ve spent the day on conference calls, but this is a film that manages to catch you with your guard down. Filled with genuine surprises and emotional turns, this is one video call where you won’t want to have a sneaky browser open.

2021 | USA | DIRECTOR: Natalie Morales | WRITER: Mark Duplass, Natalie Morales| CAST: Mark Duplass, Natalie Morales | DISTRIBUTOR: Berlinale 2021, SXSW 2021 | RUNNING TIME: 91 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-5 March 2021 (GER), 16-20 March 2021 (US)

March 2, 2021
Review: Boss Level

The time loop genre is having a bit of a moment right now. Between Palm Springs, the Happy Death Day films and Netflix’s Russian Doll, simple comparisons with Groundhog Day may soon be a thing of the past. At the very least, BOSS LEVEL plans to blow them up.

King of carnage Joe Carnahan’s latest film dispenses with the exposition, as Roy Pulver (Frank Grillo), a retired special forces soldier, is introduced on Attempt 139 on his life. Stuck in an endless loop, he has never survived much past lunchtime as a serious of outrageous assassins keep tracking him down.

Hoping to find a a way out of his dilemma, he starts unpicking clues left behind by his ex-wife Jemma (Naomi Watts), a scientist working on a top secret project. All the signs point to Colonel Clive Ventor (Mel Gibson), the mastermind behind a mysterious operation known as the Osiris Loop. Roy must use his situation to beat the bad guy, save his love and the son that doesn’t know Roy is his father. All in repeating day’s work, right?

As one might guess from the title, Carnahan (and co-writers Chris and Eddie Borey) use the structure and aesthetics of arcade games to pull off this version of the time loop action film. Save for the opening credits, and a few visits to an arcade, it doesn’t really scream 8-bit. Yet it does mirror the feeling one gets in trying to repeatedly beat a game in order to reach the titular boss level. It’s a bit like Game of Death without the actual off-screen death.

Tongues are planted fully in cheek with an eclectic cast of harpoon-weilding assassins to career stooge Will Sasso. Leading man Grillo is at his grizzled best here, although his lack of energy may have more to do with the character than the material. The standout is Michelle Yeoh as an almost blink-and-you’ll-miss-her sword expert, but she and the audience relish every minute she’s on screen. Casting Gibson as the villain is a double-edged sword, especially given his character’s references to “fucking liberals” and the contention of going back in time to alter Hitler’s history. Someone failed to read the room on that one.

BOSS LEVEL is a solid action outing, but it’s shame that is game just becomes another side-scroller after the first few levels. The other similarity to Game of Death is that it doesn’t really have a solid conclusion. Still, any film featuring a helicopter hijack, a gatling gun, and a sword carrying killer is going to find its audience.

2021 | USA | DIRECTOR: Joe Carnahan | WRITERS: Chris Borey, Eddie Borey, Joe Carnahan | CAST: Frank Grillo, Mel Gibson, Naomi Watts, Annabelle Wallis, Ken Jeong, Will Sasso, Selina Lo, Meadow Williams, Michelle Yeoh | DISTRIBUTOR: Rialto Distribution (AUS), Hulu (US)| RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 25 February 2021 (AUS), 5 March 2021 (US)

February 24, 2021