These are the releases that hit movie screens this February 2:
By Jordi Batlle Caminal
This movie starts out like Dirty Harry and ends in the vicinity of Seven, only without a severed head. As in Don Siegel’s landmark film, we have a sniper willing to show off his aim with a bloodbath and multiple victims. We are in Baltimore, in the middle of New Year’s Eve, with hectic and joyful parties on the terraces of the skyscrapers, in the streets, and an explosion of fireworks that makes it difficult to differentiate the firecrackers from the shots. Immediately, the police force starts up amid the chaos and confusion. These first minutes of Misántropo leave us speechless by the forcefulness, the strength of the images, the accelerated but firm visual pulse with which they impact our retinas without resorting to sensationalism or the usual paraphernalia to generate adrenaline. There is a fluid and precise camera in those scenes; there is good cinema.
We will arrive at Seven when, as in David Fincher’s influential film, the psychopath shows his face and expounds like Kevin Spacey did with rhetorical speeches and unhealthy reasoning. But first we go through other canonical Fincher titles (a bit of Zodiac, a few drops of Mindhunter): the hunt for the murderer (original title of the film: To catch a killer) will be difficult, slow, it will go through offices, through continuous clashes between the increasingly nervous authorities and between the two protagonists, a perceptive and instinctive policewoman (Shailene Woodley, whom we will see again next week in Ferrari) and an FBI agent (the already veteran, perfect Ben Mendelsohn). Misanthrope is not a work particularly interested in action and violence, although there will be another moment of great impact (a second massacre in a public space), but rather in the character and psychological complexity of the characters, the details and nuances, the rather nihilistic look at the political background, the underlying social criticism.
We remember the Argentine Damián Szifron for the notable Time of the Brave and Tales of the Wild, an episodic film with a multi-star cast produced by the Almodóvar brothers. Misanthrope is his debut in American cinema and an achievement that we sincerely wish would continue.
Por Philipp Engel
Played by an impeccable Leonie Benesch, Carla Nowak is the new and dedicated mathematics and physical education teacher (mens sana…) at a random German high school. She is at the cutting edge of didactics: she knows how to motivate students by involving them in the learning process, and she maintains order, while remaining empathetic, attentive to her emotions. A firm but convoluted teacher with a high sense of professional ethics, she is shaken when one of her students is unjustly accused of the series of thefts that disturb the peace of the establishment.
This solid candidate for the Oscar for best international film shows that, not by giving in to the impulse to do the right thing, we are capable of calibrating the consequences of our actions, and it shines by demonstrating that, as with the Rubik’s cube that the teacher lends To one of his students, every movement, every turn, in every facet of his profession – facing the students, his colleagues, the parents, the management, the administrative staff… – affects all the others, giving rise to a harrowing Kafkaesque labyrinth that can only lead to Munch’s The Scream. Thus, to the sound of a dramatic cello, we will follow step by step this woman trapped in her own decisions (framed in a reduced screen format: 1.37:1), running through the corridors of the center, frozenly photographed by Judith Kaufmann, where everything takes place. the action, with hardly any glimpses of the outside world.
A claustrophobic thriller of tension in crescendo that does not stand out so much for its realism (there are outdated and not very credible protocols that outrage the teacher), nor for its supposed allegorical nature (although the stuffiness of the institutions, the harmful rumor mill and the irresponsibility from the press receive severe slaps), but for being a perfect metaphor for the multidimensional anguish that every teacher must overcome if he wants to prevail in the classroom.
By Salvador Llopart
It has the stark poetry of the Wild West, typical of a John Ford film, where the arid beauty of the landscape is completely alien to the human drama. In 18th century Denmark, a retired military man (Mads Mikkelsen), like a Danish John Wayne, leaves his past behind and is determined to colonize an abandoned land. A land with no law other than that of a brutal chieftain (Simon Bennebjerg). Mikkelsen, in his determined sobriety, is immense. As is his nemesis (Bennebjerg) and the woman between them (Amanda Collin). Legendary drama, with a Shakespearian feel. An experience.
Por P. Engel
In a world that seems increasingly sick and anesthetized, the waterline of sanity is increasingly blurred. True to his empathetic and immersive style, the director of Being and Having (2002) invites us this time aboard a “péniche” docked in Paris, a non-standard institution that functions as a mental health center with a thousand cultural activities. The idea is to make us reflect on what we call madness, introducing us to characters like the endearing and versatile Frédéric Prieur, who could simply fit into what we consider to be a musical genius.
By S. Llopart
It starts with a writer involved in an action adventure despite herself, like in The Jewel of the Nile although with an excess of corpses around her. Determined to blur the tropes of the genre -spy- on the side of the female protagonist, Argylle remains a proposal between reality and fantasy. The desire to surprise ends in stupid cartoon violence and questionable disruptive values. The distribution of her own names, including her partner’s protagonist, cannot avoid disaster
By J. Batlle
An example of effective genre cinema, with well-established references. With an exotic prologue like that of Braindead, it develops a classic plot of deadly bugs (spiders), deviates into the [REC] lane (the police order the quarantine in the panic building) and covers the entire story, firmly narrated and good rhythm, with a mantle of social cinema (the protagonists are part of a suburban immigrant community) similar to that of the British Attack the block. Enjoyable.
By S. Llopart
Korean apocalypse of piled rubble, where all the buildings in Seoul have been reduced to rubble; all but one. Dystopia governed by vertical ownership, with the inevitable landing dictator included. Neighbors fight, in short. Intense like a ladder meeting and excessive gesticulation among the pack. This end of the world of limited income has its moments, where the door – of housing – to hope is not closed.
