These are the movie premieres that hit the screens starting this March 24
By Jordi Batlle Caminal
Early in the film, Chad Stahelski proves that he is a die-hard movie buff by paraphrasing a famous moment (the match that goes out and strikes at sunrise) from Lawrence of Arabia. It is obvious that he will have taken into account that most of his potential public ignores the work of David Lean, he lives in another world, but he does not care, nice detail.
He also invoked in previous installments the image of Buster Keaton, another illustrious unknown to the new hordes of spectators, and it was not a free whim: John Wick runs, falls, gets up, runs again and falls and gets up, and so on ad infinitum, like no one has done on film (not even Ethan Hunt, his closest relative) since the brilliant creator of Seven Times. Stahelski knows where he stands, no doubt about it.
The triumph of the saga lies precisely in bringing together in a compact and stylized whole all the traditions of high-speed cinema, from Keaton to John Woo passing through the peaks of samurai and martial arts epics.
And in getting the most out of the conjunction of the stutmen (Stahelski has been since 1993) and digital magic; that is to say, the most physical and the most artificial in perfect harmony, generating sequences of shocking beauty in the dynamics, in the choreography and in the composition of the shot and the framing.
In the visual section (the script is still nonsense), John Wick 4 takes what has already been fully achieved in the three previous titles to an unlimited paroxysm, to pure ecstasy: more than two and a half hours of frenetic non-stop action, with sequences as long and prodigious as the one that takes place in Osaka, the one that takes place in a Berlin nightclub (a memorable confrontation between Wick and a big guy with gold teeth) or the tremendous nocturnal grand finale (approximately one hour long) in the streets of Paris, with an unspeakable (and comic: Stahelski is aware that immoderation requires a humorous counterpoint for its proper functioning) fragment on the stairs leading to the Sacre Coeur.
The blind man played by Donnie Yen, more Zatoichi than Daredevil, is the most accomplished of the new additions to this colossal love poem for action movies.
Por Philipp Engel
Álvaro Gago pays, in his first feature, an explicit homage to the mythical Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, with a shot by María Vázquez, who is indeed winning an award (like the one she just received at the Málaga), peeling potatoes as the divine Delphine Seyrig did almost 40 years ago in a similar kitchen.
But if Chantal Akerman synchronized the rhythm of the film with the tedium in which her immortal heroine lived imprisoned, the director from Vigo is rather heir to the nervous camera of the Dardenne brothers, who have spent another three decades perfecting a social cinema device with humanist based on following its troubled, often female protagonists through landscapes of proletarian and industrial desolation.
Ramona, which is the name of Vázquez’s character, does not stop. Always from here to there, it is reminiscent, for example, of the Dardennian Marion Cotillard of Two Days, One Night, a working-class Joan of Arc, or even Laure Calamy of Full Time, Éric’s fast-paced work thriller Gravel. But Matria has, of course, nothing French-speaking.
From Vázquez to Gago, passing through the estuaries and the language, it is more Galician than Golpes Bajos, although it is rather dotted with reggaeton and Latin rhythms. The present rules. It is also an invitation to quit smoking: Ramona, which is the name of Vázquez’s character, smokes and coughs all the time. She x-rays her lungs, and they come out blacker than tar. It is her anxiety that holds her to the cigarette, the anxiety that kills us all.
A sign of the times, Ramona has plenty of problems: she loses her job at the cannery after a fit of indignation; she suffers from empty nest syndrome, and her current partner is a kind of yogi bear who only thinks about drinking, hiding chocolate in the kitchen and reaching out whenever possible.
Caught in the frenzy of precarious survival, Ramona is about to run out of breath, and we with her. The filmmaker is almost the only one who seems willing to throw a ray of light at her, so that her flame does not go out.
By Salvador Llopart
The young Freddie, in the hands of the brilliant newcomer Park Ji-min, seems not to question anything on her return to Seoul, until the truth explodes in her face: what am I, French or Korean?
We see her wander through her life as a displaced woman, transforming, metamorphosing, in contrast to, or in spite of, her origins. She’s as crowded as everyone around her, actually. Although in her her emptiness is more evident. Slow Cooker Movie: She asks for contemplation and patience, but offers a great reward.
By Salvador Llopart
Second installment of the García y García de Mota y Viyuela. The couple returns more Mortadelo and Filemón than ever. You don’t have to see the first one to understand anything; not even this second installment needs an elaborate plot.
With a run-down hotel, some stolen jewelery and some reckless children, it’s enough for a succession of gags that have their most obvious referent in the famous characters of Ibáñez and other generation mates (Bruguera). Innocent and brown humor that sometimes even makes you smile. Others, it blushes.
By Salvador Llopart
It could be a harsh, sordid, even tragic film. But it turns out sweet, transparent and honest: an adultery turned into a beautiful love story; the most beautiful romance one has seen in a long, long time.
Mouret, the director, tenaciously follows a couple -wonderful chemistry between them- in their illicit encounters and looks at their fragility with the danger of heartbreak in the background. But compassion in the face of human inconsistency, and a bit of humor, saves his eyes from cynicism.
Por Philipp Engel
The Planet of the Apes has already warned us that when you get on a spaceship, you never know at what point in Earth’s history you might get off. Astronaut Adam Driver, in another very physical role, has to crash 65 million years ago, just in time to witness the extinction of the dinosaurs, but with enough space to get up close and personal with them.
Reduced to just two characters, but plenty of special effects, the formula works as an exercise in vintage sci-fi that has the courage to try to make its way in a world dominated by sequels and rehash.
Por Philipp Engel
Carion claims heir to Tavernier, a great defender of that classic cinema with a popular vocation virulently rejected by the critics of the Nouvelle Vague.
And he once again demonstrates the value of craftsmanship in this commissioned film that, although it fits the feel good formula (dramedy with valuable life lessons), it also shows that there is a sensitive look behind the camera, capable of moving without falling fully into sentimentality, and to extract gold from the octogenarian Line Renaud and the comedian Dany Boon.
