STATE OF EMERGENCY (Výjimecný stav) – Directed by Jan Hrebejk
This is a Czech comedy that tells the story of Czech news radio correspondent,
Karel (Ondřej Vetchý) in the Middle East who hastily returns to Prague for a
personal errand, just as revolution breaks out. He’s left to continue his
updates of the war torn and bloody revolution within the confines of his kitchen,
as though he were still on assignment.
The Czech have a long
tradition of making light of dark geopolitical issues and histories. The films
of the Czech New Wave movement had a beautiful tradition of this. Ján Kadár’s
THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET uses buffoonery and oafness to tell a story about Fascist
Slovakia taking over Jewish shops for “Aryan controllers.” Juraj Herz’s THE
CREMATOR uses absurdism and dark comedy similarly. And my favorite, Jirí Menzel’s
CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS takes place amid the backdrop of the German occupation
of Czechoslovakia but focuses on the personal tragedy of one young man’s desperation
to just get laid.
The similarities between
those films and this new entry might be a bit of a stretch. But I found at
least a bit of spiritual commonalities while I was in the screening. This film
however, is content to focus is mocking gaze at the new era of media
sensationalism, fake news and our new obsession with giving equal weight to
completely unqualified opinions (see Joe Rogan.)
As a farcical comedy,
this film works perfectly. I found the plot to remind me, more than once at
some of Hollywood’s “sex comedies” of Wilder or Hawks even. Almost Shakespearean
in its nonsensical miscues and misunderstandings.
Ultimately, this just turns
out to be a thoroughly enjoyable romp. Great comedic performances all around
and the plot moves forward at a clip that keeps the audience fully engaged.
BLACK THETA – Directed
by Tim Connolly
Another slasher flick
that cold opens with its characters giving bad takes on trivial cinematic opinions.
This one involves the remakes of the FRIDAY THE 13th franchise. I don’t
mind this at all. It succeeds in engaging its target audience and this film
will spend the rest of its runtime showing an ability to keep this up.
This is obviously a film
shot on a restricted budget with a cast and crew of limited experience. And it
ends up serving as a great example of how a firm grasp on the vernacular of the
genre can make up for these otherwise limiting factors.
Every performance here
is full of intent. Choices were made and deliberately written into the
personalities of even the most inconsequential characters. This is what I like
to refer to as the economy of storytelling. The filmmaker respects the time of
his audience enough to not waste it with meaningless placeholders of eventual
knife fodder for the killers. I have tons of appreciation for this type of
attention and hope it translates into a future trajectory for this filmmaker.
It's fun and well composed
and this is obviously not by accident.
Follow us on
Twitter @CodaReviews
No comments:
Post a Comment