JFL

Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey are animation illuminators in every sense of those words. Not only does their film breathe life into the medieval art of manuscript illumination, which it also elementally connects with the world of Celtic myths, but it also enlightens viewers with its truly breathtaking creative side and enchanting story. Though Brendan and the Secret of Kells does not deny taking inspiration from Miyazaki elements, it ranks among a surprisingly small group of feature-length animated films that are based on the ethos of old legends and revitalise old artistic styles, such as Marcell Jankovics’s Son of the White Mare (1981), Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) and Richard Williams’s unfinished project The Thief and the Cobbler. Moore’s beautiful project is captivating due to not only its unprecedented ornamentality and harmonisation of traditional drawing with 2D computer animation, but also its carefully constructed screenplay, which, following the example of Miyazaki's films, always gives priority to emotions and does not underestimate child viewers.

What is interesting about Déjà Vu is primarily how its screenplay provides the ideal framework for director Tony Scott’s stylistic development. After the extravagant Domino, in which the unreliable narrator gave space to spectacular formal flamboyance, Scott’s upcoming project gives the impression of being a sort of calming. However, by combining various cameras, materials, shooting speeds and post-production processes, the director found an ideal application for playing with the impression of the moment in Déjà Vu’s narrative, which in the essential middle part works with the possibility of looking into time running in the past while changing points of view. In its peak scenes, the film brings a wildly fragmented view of two different time planes running concurrently, but thanks to the visual stylisation, the viewer never gets lost even for a moment. Domino and Déjà Vu together represent the two highlights of Scott’s late-period filmography, where in the respective screenplays he had the ideal framework for his formal experiments – in one case, unbridled wildness in the interest of increasing the expressiveness and delirium of the narrative and, in the other case, the paradoxical use of those elements for maximum clarity and a credible display of the fantastical aspects of intersecting time planes.

In full John Waters mode, Michael Bay presents a perversely excessive vision of the sick nature of the American dream. Based on actual events, the screenplay could have been created as a moralising drama or a bit of Coen-esque absurdity, but thanks to Bay and his excessive visual style, it takes on a frantically boisterous form, which also adds a deranged meta level to the whole project. No one else would add to a story from the 1990s the necessary mid-’90s impropriety in maximally attractive modern attire.

Antonio Gaudi is a seemingly simple documentary, but that restraint is the film’s main strength, as well as an expression of respect for and understanding of Gaudí's work. Teshigahara does not need to explain or defend his film or furnish it with historical data and facts. He lets the buildings speak for themselves. The director’s essential contribution lies in the filming of the shots, which again exhibits a much greater aesthetic feel than may be apparent at first glance. Teshigahara takes a unique approach to every building and every element; sometimes static shots predominate, whereas at other times sharp camera movements and absolutely floating approaches are used. Each shot emphasises the jaggedness, organicity, variety and structure of Gaudí’s buildings, or rather their individual elements, which are revealed based on what the camera is focused on. Only a master can best capture masterpieces.

This qualitatively inconsistent West German contribution to the category of violent urban crime movies, in which Italy excelled at the time, is able to stand out among the masses of its genre competitors due to its roots. Journeyman director Rolf Olsen otherwise primarily made popular comedies and run-of-the-mill exploitation flicks about nightclubs and prostitution. He took an identical approach to making a violent crime film as he did to comedies of the time, not in the sense of levity, but of excess. There is nothing wrong with that per se and the truth remains that this is the reason that Blutiger Freitag has several memorable scenes, especially in the reconstructed, unabridged 102-minute version from the Subkultur Entertainment label. However, the effort to offer something shocking to the international audience causes those scenes to stick out like a sore thumb and they thus unfortunately do not fit into the overall concept of the film. Particularly the rape scene, with its terrifying expressivity, foreshadows Olsen’s later projects from the mondo Shocking Asia series. It is also worth noting the screenplay’s effort to touch on the social and political issues of the time and the relationship of events in the film to the actions of the Red Army Faction. As in the case of explicit scenes, however, this rather contributes to the film’s lack of balance, as it involves only randomly used motifs that the film’s creators do not in any way consistently develop. Though it’s a solid piece of work, Blutiger Freitag therefore remains a genre curiosity that can’t match the brilliance or multi-layered nature of, for example, Roland Klick’s Supermarkt released two years later.

Klute is a breathtaking and uniquely original film – that is, if the viewer gives it a chance and, ideally, approaches it without any expectations or foreknowledge. That may not be easy, given the film’s misleading title. John Klute is not the main character, but rather only a key catalyst of events. On the other hand, the title helps to point out that the film is connected with the noir genre and, in the spirit of other movies of the time, such as The Long Goodbye and Night Moves, does not fulfil the criteria of that genre in its classic form, but rather subversively deconstructs it and transforms it into something extraordinary. Despite the original screenplay (which in the traditional spirit was about a small-town cop who gets mixed up with criminals in New York), the film focuses not on the detective, but rather on the femme fatale, who is not dealt with as an object, but rather as a complex and complicated character. Pakula acknowledges that Klute thus violates the Hitchcockian rule of genre films by focusing on psychology instead of attractions (Klute inadvertently sets forth the difference between the true sophistication of the character and the bluffing superficial psychologisation of characters in modern sophisticated genre movies and blockbusters). Bree Daniels, played by Jane Fonda, thus becomes the central character and through genre elements the film is immersed in the issues of sex as a power play and seduction as acting based on control over others and over the situation, but it mainly becomes a portrait of this woman. The actress, for whom, after the phenomenal They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, this was the second role illustrating her personal growth into a mature, emancipated woman, contributed significantly to the final form of the film. At her request, she not only spent time with real call girls, took a large part of the costumes from her own wardrobe and even lived on the set of the protagonist’s apartment for several days before shooting began, but she also took an improvisational approach to a number of scenes in order to fully get into them. So, why isn’t the film called Daniels? Because for the confident yet self-doubting woman, the detective is a mirror of the contrast of both her outward image and her inner self, her control and helplessness, or simply her ambiguity, which she herself tries to cope with. Despite its title, Klute is not only a milestone in American cinema from the perspective of female protagonists, but a departure from traditional genre formulas and rules, which is represented by the emancipatory, ground-breaking nature of the film’s female character and the verbalisation of her perspective. Alan J. Pakula always highlighted Jane Fonda’s merits as well as contribution that other members of the creative team made to the final form of the film. Klute is thus a representation of the ideal of a film as a collective work, where the director does not bend the will of other members of the crew to his vision, but is rather guided by the inspiration and talent of others. Cinematographer Gordon Willis made an incredible contribution to the film with his incredibly sophisticated fragmented compositions, dramaturgically motivated camera approaches and expressively gloomy lighting, and composer Michael Small created disturbing, paranoid music mixed with the commotion of the scenes. In addition to the contrapuntal editing and the costumes with a feel for the authenticity of New York and presentation of the characters, Donald Sutherland, with his restrained performance, helped to shape the titular protagonist into the role he was supposed to have in this story. Narratively and stylistically, Klute goes beyond the boundaries of noir alternately into the realms of thriller and romance, offering an absorbing, chilling and unique viewing experience (the scene involving shopping for fruit is breathtaking due to its intimacy and fragility in showing love, while again displaying the astonishing interplay of all of the above-mentioned creative forces).

Like Paul Thomas Anderson, David Fincher is moving toward an increasingly subdued and austere form of perfection in his directing. After the first part of their respective filmographies, which was characterised by ostentatious formal bombast culminating, in Fincher’s case, in Panic Room with abundant playing with flying camerawork in flawless reality-defying approaches, greater efficiency and modesty are increasingly becoming hallmarks of their later films. That doesn’t mean that Fincher and Anderson have become some sort of ascetics, but only that their mastery is reflected in the fact that they do not in any way attract attention to themselves. We could almost mention the return of studio style, where the form also served to maximally draw viewers into the story and did not have to draw attention to itself, except this time it’s not a matter of following certain conventional rules, but expressing flawless familiarisation with the craft and maximally well-though-out composition of every shot so that it serves the work as a whole. Gone Girl is Fincher’s riveting masterclass on outwitting viewers, where at the same time we are astonished not only by the narrative (typically about characters who deceive those around them and inventively work with their own image), but also by how seemingly easily and subtly the film guides us and keeps us chained to the screen and holding our breath throughout its runtime.

With a truly heavy heart, I have to say that despite its tremendous promise, the third feature-length SpongeBob movie is a big disappointment. As in the case of its immediate predecessor, the main problem with Sponge on the Run consists in the fact that the producers evidently did not trust the core screenwriters of the series. The hiring of Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, who have the massive hits Kung Fu Panda and Trolls under their belts, reeks of an attempt to place a safe bet, but it actually trips up the film. Aibel and Berger have the preceding Sponge Out of Water on their conscience, and this time it is even more obvious that this duo may be able to make a popular animated feature that does not offend anyone and makes a lot of money, but they definitely do not understand the essence and qualities of SpongeBob (or rather they don’t have those qualities themselves). Though the series about the yellow sponge abounds with brilliantly expressive animation, Dadaist absurdity and meta humour, that does not distinguish it in principle from other series from the end of the 1990s shown on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. Rather, its uniqueness consisted in the characterisation of SpongeBob and the series’ overall style deriving from that characterisation, into which Stephen Hillenburg projected his famous good-heartedness, which radiated from every episode. Aibel and Berger, on the other hand, are just calculating cynics who have built their success on strictly filling in tried and true templates and on stupid literalism. Under their leadership, therefore, SpongeBob and his friends have to talk about kindness and empathy in forced sentimental scenes instead of just being themselves. In their script, SpongeBob lost his classic attributes, particularly exaggeration and exuberance, as well his natural sincerity and resourcefulness. The film is basically saved and elevated by its top-quality visual element, which is breathtaking in its innovative grasp of artistic and animation stylisation of 3D characters and objects. Furthermore, it preserves the expressiveness of cartoon animation and has fascinating plasticity and textures. However, the tremendous hard work of the animators has nothing to properly lean on. The hopelessness of the screenplay becomes evident especially in the cameo roles, which again lack exaggeration and are stretched beyond the limits of their wow effect, thus becoming the hollow and unimaginative opposite of what worked in the very first SpongeBob film. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie not only does not age, but thanks to the involvement of Hillenburg and leading talents from the series, it remains an impressive and, at the same time, moving and infinitely entertaining example of what a real SpongeBob feature should look like, unlike this mediocre movie in which SpongeBob is merely present.

Under Michael Bay’s direction, Transformers has gradually crystallised into a supremely atypical contribution to the current line of franchise blockbusters. All of the other films based on comic books or toys take heed to offer adult fans a spectacle that, though childish at its core, is supposed to give the impression of being grown-up and serious in its overall execution (from the screenplays and casting to the style of promotion). Conversely, Bay serves up the exact opposite – ultra-unserious, openly irreverent and ridiculously overblown spectacles packed with affectation and kitsch. Even though this is indeed largely due to his bombastic, egomaniacal and macho nature, this is not some sort of desecration of the original franchise’s original form, but rather a faithful return to its roots and a reminder of what those who were weaned on the original series no longer want to admit. While the comic-book producers are rewriting history with new reboots that erase all of the inadequate aspects of the earlier incarnations, Bay’s Transformers seems to make a point of accentuating all of the haphazardness, degeneracy and problematic aspects of the 1980s that the nerds have already blissfully erased from their memory. But that’s actually how Transformers used to be. Only the question remains of whether Bay’s grasp of the franchise, which accentuates all of those residual ills, represents continuity with conscious subversiveness or whether Bay simply and fundamentally personifies them by coincidence. ____ There has been much discussion about how unfortunate acting icons and prominent character actors, like Sir Anthony Hopkins in this case, are forced to demean themselves (in return for a generous payday) in Transformers movies by cartoonishly making faces and delivering absurd monologues. That fits beautifully into the image of Bay as a desecrator of all values, but again, we can also see this as part of the franchise’s heritage. Eric Idle, Leonard Nimoy and Orson Welles took turns at the microphone for the first animated feature, while giant robots danced to Weird Al Yankovic’s “Dare to Be Stupid” and the movie’s most epic moment was underscored by Stan Bush’s cheesy rocker “The Touch”. ___ Bay can be seen as both a mainstream John Waters and a Hollywood version of Czech trashmaker Zdeněk Troška – a perverted admirer of conventional vulgarity and consumerist gluttony, but also a self-proclaimed promoter of traditional values. As in Troška’s case, in Bay’s works the authorities and scientists take the form of hysterically incompetent jacks-in-the-box, while the arrogant earthy heroes seemingly save everything, but are also portrayed as equally ridiculous, aggressive and sociopathic characters who treat each other with disdain. We associate Bay’s films with rampant ridiculousness, but are executed with an almost obsessive degree of craftsmanship. It’s thus all the more surprising that the coarseness and vulgarity of the preceding films is not present this time, at least not in such an obvious form. This surely has something to do with the fact that, for the first time, the screenwriting has caught up with, or even surpassed, Bay himself. From one instalment to the next, the series goes more against the grain and becomes gaudier and more absurd. Previously, it was enough for Bay to employ his own whims – whether shots of the Transformer’s testicles, the appendage reaching around the car and hitting a soldier in the face, or the malevolent objectification of Megan Fox in the first film, which successfully degrades the only positively depicted and active character in the whole series simply by how she’s captured on camera and how the other characters react to her. This time, however, the screenplay finally cast off the shackles and comes up with a phantasmagorical alternate history of the Transformers that is so wonderfully boorish that not even Bay can vulgarise it any further. Thanks to the screenplay, the film breaks away from the run-of-the-mill globetrotting nature of blockbusters, where photogenic exotic locations are supposed to bring the desired wow factor to the action. Instead of moving through space, it goes against the flow of time and, what’s more, does so without the shackles of reality and causality. Whereas Avengers: Endgame used this technique to express sentimental reverence, Transformers sets out like Monty Python to disparage (Stanley Tucci as the overwrought Merlin is extremely reminiscent of John Cleese’s acting performances). Paradoxically – judging by the reactions – viewers are willing to celebrate Tarantino’s playing around with historical figures and periods and to have fun with alternate histories like Iron Sky and even Wonder Woman, but for some reason they unreasonably demand realism and seriousness from Bay and his movies about giant robots financed by a toy company. ___ Under Bay’s direction, the ultimate perverse power of the blockbuster emerges in a work that devours itself to the point of being execrable. Except that Bay’s fifth Transformers is no mushy turd, but rather a turd with flawless structure, density and shape. Yes, it’s overblown, bombastic, megalomaniacal and silly, but thanks to that and the extent of those essential qualities, it is also perfect and beautiful. As it explosively blasts through the boundaries of corporate product, the fifth Transformers is the most unrestrained and, at its core, the most original blockbuster of the new millennium. Though there is some truth in the notion that Michael Bay has only been making variations of the same model throughout his career, we see in the level of craftsmanship of the scenes here that he is still stratifying his experiences while outdoing himself with new challenges. Much has been said and written about Bay’s editing and camera compositions, but little is made of the fact that, despite the tremendous amount of CGI, he creates the bulk of the action on set, thanks to which his action scenes have such an amazing physical dimension and tremendous wow effect. ___ Michael Bay is actually the anti-Nolan. While the creator of Inception and Tenet offers viewers intellectual blockbusters in which the spectacle is both sensual and cerebral, Bay delivers an overwhelming, bombastic overload of polished and ambitiously executed stupidity, shallowness, kitsch and pathos. The fifth Transformers completely bypasses the viewers’ rationality and values and aims straight for the depths of the unconscious to absolutely satisfy their needs with maximum degeneracy and gluttony. Bay serves us pure blockbuster bacchanalia.

Lake Michigan Monster proves that a pastiche can be both eclectic and original, as well as infectiously entertaining. Hyperactive filmmaker Ryland Brickson Cole Tews combines the visual style of Guy Madin (whom he thanks in the closing credits) with the inventive originality of Karl Zeman, the disarming naïveté of classic monster flicks and the phantasmagorical playfulness and Dadaist exuberance of SpongeBob. We could go on and on with allusions and inspirational references, but the key point remains that this enthusiast project put together by a group of friends, who take turns in front of and behind the camera, enchantingly combines the fantastical with the commonplace and the imaginative with cheapness, not only in terms of the behind-the-scenes creative work, but also in the narrative style and the story itself. The story is absurdly simple, but in this case the path from the beginning to the end peculiarly does not follow a straight line. Like a crazy doodle, it takes absurd turns that don’t necessarily push the narrative forward in any way (on the contrary, it sometimes brings the narrative to a halt or even takes it backwards), because the playful imaginativeness here takes priority over ordinary logic. For some, this magnificent “nautical nonsense” will be an annoying display of affectation and zero-budget shoddiness, but for others, it is a longed-for nutty amusement that blends bizarreness with naïveté and terror in a sort of intoxicatingly short-circuited anti-logic. In fact, the most adequate comparison with which to describe Lake Michigan Monster is as a cross between SpongeBob and Forbidden Zone – it never occurred to me that these seemingly completely opposite poles of phantasmagoria could be so naturally combined, but it just goes to show that there really are no limits to imagination.