These are the movie premieres that hit the screens starting this August 25:
Por Philipp Engel
Mario Casas is like an elite athlete, a film athlete with a lot of gym behind him, always at the service of the big screen. Disciplined, methodical, persistent, sparing in his statements to the press. His debut as a director makes it clear that he has taken good note of the way of doing each and every one of the filmmakers with whom he has worked, and particularly David Victori, director of the remarkable No Matarás, whom he already surpasses only with the opening sequence at the nightclub. My Solitude Has Wings is thus a self-reflexive film in which, filming his brother Óscar, the protagonist, Mario could be filming himself. We are talking about an almost perfect hybrid, and I would say the most original, of the openly youthful cinema that made him famous, such as the blockbuster Three Meters Above Heaven, and the toughest, most adult and social thriller that he has been able to star in on film. second part of his career, especially from the excellent Grupo 7. A certain naive poetics remains from the first, synthesized in the title, which manifests itself in the impossible love story (between Óscar and the newcomer Candela González, his girlfriend in the real world, a discovery), but at the same time intriguing; in the theme of the talented young man who aspires to achieve his dreams, and in some symbols of not too subtle graffiti aesthetics, such as the wings themselves.
He takes the best of the thriller, a realistic look at the neighborhood –no less than La Mina, in San Adrián– that seems to come from his bowels, without an iota of sensationalism or bourgeois condescension. It should be noted that he co-wrote the film side by side with the Belgian actress Déborah François, who was precisely discovered by the Dardenne brothers, the prestigious standard-bearers of the most incorruptible social cinema, to star in El niño a few years ago.
There is also the greatness of looking at petty criminals, a trio specialized in moon landings in jewelry stores (special mention for Farid Bechara, another discovery). My Solitude Has Wings is, in short, a film that is as effective as it is surprising, which does not lose sight of the multi-screen TikTok audience to which its creator owes itself and which, in no case should it be penalized for it, because it is great.
By Jordi Batlle Caminal
Many sensible people, when they go to a restaurant of their choice, want that beef stew they tasted the first time to still be on the menu and to be just as delicious. On the other hand, there are moviegoers who, putting their good sense aside, hate when a great author cooks, film after film, the same stew or a similar stew. Of all contemporary filmmakers, it is clear that Hong Sang-soo is the foremost black beast of this tribe of killjoys. Yes: each Korean film is the same as the previous one, although they all have subtle commas and semicolons that differentiate them. The initial meeting between the film director who is the protagonist of Up High, who is accompanied by his daughter, with an old friend, in the middle of the street and in front of an establishment, is very similar to that of the writer and the bookseller at the beginning of The Novelist and his film, his previous film, also in black and white. family territory.
From this encounter, a series of scenes and situations that are very characteristic of Hong Sang-soo’s cinema unfold, always around a table well stocked with alcohol, filmed in fixed, extended shots and profusely discussed. Banal conversations that gradually become more important and establish a theme, which here would be the desire of the director (the protagonist) to retire, to throw in the towel, fed up with his job and with himself. But, as on other occasions, Sang-soo disconcerts the viewer with disconcerting ellipses that pose forceful twists (the protagonist goes from success to failure professionally and, personally, from a convinced vegetarian to a voracious carnivore) and propose parallel universes in a same reality, where a single shot, without any cut (the scene of the car), can link two different times of the story. This is Hong Sang-soo’s cinema: simple, natural and with clean lines, but capable of harboring unexpected dreamlike dimensions.
Por Ph. Obstacle
Five actresses, two of them established, two other debutants and one more playwright, meet in a bucolic mansion in summer, to rehearse a play set in the times of princes, maidens and toads. This is how an exquisite and deliciously joyful meta-cinematic game is established, which reaches levels of profound lightness reminiscent of great masters, such as Rohmer or Renoir. Arana plays the playwright while she makes her directorial debut, and all five are in a state of grace, like the film itself.
By J. Batlle Caminal
These cute chelonians like animation better than the real image, among other things because, paradoxically, they seem more real. And here the drawings are excellent, far from the commonplace digital canon of always (the dark scenes seem to come out of an old New York underground comic). The conjunctural message of social integration is indigestible, but the witty humor, action and constant energy, which lead to a cross between Godzilla and Attack on Titan, make for some very worthy entertainment.
By Salvador Llopart
There are looks that are worth a thousand words. There are faces that, by themselves, tell a story. Céleste Brunnquell, like Sophie, -the Fifi of the title- has the ability to communicate adolescent angst from silence. A girl from the French provinces in the middle of a disordered family -more than unstructured- lives the shock of first love. Well, and it’s summer too. The story is simple, almost vulgar. Brunnquell, however, elevates it to an inner earthquake without hardly speaking. With the strength of whom she discovers the sea.
By J. Batlle Caminal
Poverty, war, hunger, death… These are themes that are not usually associated with animated films, but Takahata has already shown that the genre can poeticize human suffering in his masterful Grave of the Fireflies. Using the most artisanal, delicate and creative stop motion, Ughetto tells the story of a family (his own) through the years and many calamities, moving with its plastic beauty and extreme sensitivity in registering the characters and in the small details.
By S. Llopart
Beyond the melodrama, which there is -at times with a dangerous drift towards kitschness-, Harold’s Journey leaves you with a pleasant trace of confidence in the kindness of strangers. actor Jim Broadbent gives it his all as the man who walks up to his seriously ill friend. There are eight hundred kilometers of walking in which many things happen. Penelope Wilton, as his wife, provides the emotional and shrewd counterpoint. Just for the two of them is this film worth it. In the end, everything has an explanation, and the lack of definition of the drama becomes an imposture.
