These are the premieres that hit the theaters this April 26:
By Salvador Llopart
Polanski is a survivor. He has been since long before, in 1978, he fled the United States after seducing a fourteen-year-old girl. He is a survivor since he was four years old, when his parents were murdered in Auschwitz and, after his death, he followed a childhood of boarding schools and escapes for the future director. He also survived, by chance – he was not at home – but he survived, when the Manson gang broke into his mansion on Cielo Drive, in Los Angeles, and killed his wife, Sharon Tate, and other guests that fateful night in 1969 (to despite Tarantino’s wish, shown in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, that things had been different)
Polanski is a survivor, yes. But I fear that his prestige as a filmmaker will not survive much longer – or will be seriously diminished – after the premiere of this grotesque comedy about a group of rich people gathered in a luxurious hotel, in the middle of the snowy mountains of Switzerland, to celebrate the arrival of the year 2000.
At that time, fear of the end of the world spread. It was said that it would arrive after twelve bells, at the turn of the millennium, due to the general breakdown of computer systems. That did not happen, but it marks the protagonists of this tawdry and strident caricature that is The Palace, the most distorted and rude caricature of rich people that one can imagine.
Polanski’s prestige is built on unforgettable titles such as The Devil’s Seed (1968) and Chinatown (1976), filmed after emigrating to Hollywood. Films of very different genres from each other, although both starring – like many of his other films, including Repulsion (1965) – by alienated and lonely characters. Capable, in their strangeness, in their lack of ties with society, of a crime or a smile. Or both at the same time. In that The Palace is no different. But it is in everything else.
It has no style or dramatic intelligence, and relies on veteran actors -John Cleese, Fanny Ardant, Joaquim de Almeida- who have no qualms about making fools of themselves. Mickey Rourke also appears, and perhaps because Rourke hit rock bottom a long time ago, he is the one who plays his impossible role with the greatest conviction. Polanski, at ninety years old, will not have many more opportunities to fool around.
Por Philipp Engel
Zendaya produces, and boy does she produce. In each of the very calculated shots in which it appears, and there are not a few, it simply blows up the screen. They all have a vocation as a gif, an animated image that, isolated from the rest, will endure in the internet night. As for the film, written by Justin Kuritzkes (Celine Song’s partner, that is, the one who is not Korean in Past Lives), it narrates the vicissitudes, over more than a decade, of a triangle, between sensual and competitive. , formed by those who were once close friends (Mike Feist and Josh O’Connor), and aspiring professional tennis players, and the great Zendaya, a sort of Serena Williams.
To the visual packaging of director of photography Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (a regular at the Sicilian and collaborator of Apichatpong Weerasethakul), is added the overwhelming electronic soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that perfectly captures the addiction to the adrenaline of the sport that moves the protagonists . Like Giorgio Moroder filling Sónar 2024, they turn the viewing into a party in which it is very difficult not to collapse.
It can be criticized that Rivals goes down as soon as Zendaya excuses herself from the screen, that O’Connor, whom we just saw in the masterful The Chimera, is infinitely more charismatic than Feist (West Side Story) or Guadagnino, with his homoerotic jokes and his stunning visual tricks (the subjective shot, the field filmed from below, the discussions filmed as a match), he is too concerned with reminding us that there is someone behind the camera.
But it could well be the best film from the director of Call Me by Your Name (2017) or Blinded by the Sun (2015), if only as a definitive explosion of the Zendaya phenomenon, including the fantasy of an unconfessed autobiography, at the mercy of the nod to Spider-Man and the possible resemblance between Feist and Tom Holland, his partner in that real world that is so competitive at the highest level. What I said: A party.
By Jordi Batlle Caminal
Irreverent, foul-mouthed, ribald, rude and absolutely delirious and blasphemous LGBTIQ musical comedy (the flying vagina, the sewer creatures, God incarnated in a gay Asian), a nuclear torpedo aimed at the center of hypocritical political correctness. It sows generous doses of fun without asking anyone’s permission or forgiveness: cinema that is free and fresh as air. The restaurant scene with Nathan Lane and Megan Mullally (prodigious) deserves to appear in all anthologies.
Por P. Engel
Mammal is the one that breastfeeds. But also, being human, she can rebel against her destiny. In her best film, and through an almost utopian couple, formed by María Rodriguez Soto and Enric Auquer, Torres examines what happens when a woman does not want to have children and her partner discovers that she does. The director of Family Tour provides a countdown full of hidden tension, which is manifested through dreams, or nightmares, presented in the form of attractive collages. Intelligent, sensual and suggestive.
By S. Llopart
Louise Mauroy-Panzani is so strong, she seduces the camera with such skill, that any award they could give her for Àma Gloria would be more than justified. Louise was six years old when she filmed this emotional film. But you see her be happy and cry and express feelings that, in addition to being trapped by her charm, make you question whether it is legal and psychologically healthy for that child to interpret what she is interpreting. We are facing a drama that is simple in approach and, at the same time, complex in emotions. It talks about the bonds that are established between a Parisian girl and her nanny, forced to return to Cape Verde.
By J. Batlle.
The desperate effort that The Specialist makes to be fun, funny, cool and effervescent is appreciated. Too bad he only achieves his goals in five or six scattered minutes. The rest of the two hours (tons of action, action and more action and zero grams of substance) is left for the parish that goes to the parties for the sake of going to the parties, who will not find out about the next releases of Isaki Lacuesta or Nuri Bilge Ceylan, but he is very clear that Barbie’s Ken already has a new movie.
Por P. Engel
There is always something of uncomfortable nostalgia in any rockumentary that begins with the farewell tour of someone who was a great star, like here Joan Baez, a luminous voice and singular beauty unjustly buried in the shadow of Bob Dylan. But I Am a Noise is made with style, leaving more room for archival material and contains some disturbing surprises that happen on the couch where Baez recounted, over the years, her traumatic past, which was recorded on numerous cassette tapes .
