Reviews

Summary

The director Charlotte Wells offers us a morose autobiographical story where point of view, subtlety and dead times combine against her intention to convey the protagonist's nostalgia for a lost father and paradise and the inevitability of not having understood him on time. A film where the tensions between child and adult perspectives, between naivety and understanding, between experience and loss are only latent.

Review

A woman recalls vacationing with her father at a Turkish spa when she was 11 years old.

Aftersun is an unfortunate conjunction of four topics widely covered by fiction: the autobiographical, the point of view, the subtlety and dead times.

When a creator or creator faces a story with autobiographical elements, there is always the risk of falling into narcissism, when the memories invoked and especially the way of exposing them, are only interesting for the one who writes or films them and the nostalgia they generate is not produce resonance with the reader/spectator. Not everyone is Annie Ernaux, Elena Ferrante or Woody Allen or Steven Spielberg or even Joanna Hogg, to go to a more related style. And Charlotte Wells clearly isn't.

With respect to the point of view, the director and screenwriter of this debut film narrates from the perpective of an adult who rescues her memories as a child, but maintaining a nostalgic and cut-out look as a child and perhaps filling in some gaps related to the reality of a loving father, very young but hiding a malaise and whom he had not seen for a long time; a discomfort that does not take long to emerge on the surface of a placid coexistence. These tensions between child and adult perspectives, between naivety and understanding, between experience and loss can always be interesting. But this is not the case. Perhaps the strobe lights of the adult Sophie dancing represent that fragmented rescue of the past where tensions do not consolidate. Aftersun. A succession of vignettes about a more or less placid everyday life is not enough (such as applying sunscreen or post-sunscreen, the Aftersun of the title).

And it is the point of view and the self-imposed clipping that are also linked to subtlety and idle times. There are innumerable examples of subtle stories with dead times, but at the same time powerful. But this is not the case. The succession of placid vignettes of that stay in the hotel in the 90s, seasoned with the inevitable home videos, try to rescue a lost paradise with weak ominous shadows that immerse the viewer in a slow and at times frankly soporific story.

Frankie Corio naturally composes a charming girl Sophie and Paul Mescal (the handsome beach attendant in The Dark Daughter) at 26 perhaps looks too young for the young father who nevertheless composes sensitively.

Summary

A very Austrian thriller that goes from black humor to moments of enormous violence and others that border on terror, with a charismatic protagonist who reactivates her dark facets. An interesting look at the genesis of certain adult criminal behaviors resulting from impunity.

Review

Brünhilde Blum (the very German Anna Maria Mühe) is the owner of a funeral home in a tourist town in the Austrian Tyrol. After the death of her policeman's husband in an alleged accident, the widow begins a relentless search for those she considers guilty.

Several common topics in Central European police officers reappear in this thriller: trafficking in women, pornography, powerful businessmen linked to tourist interests, police corruption, lodges.

But the strength of the series is its protagonist: Blum does not follow the "correct" path to clarify the death of her husband, but one that reactivates dark facets that were already part of her, with an attitude that is also related to someone accustomed to dealing with with corpses. Brünhilde is an investigative force and an amateur and for this reason she progresses somewhat stumbling (and with few concessions from the script), but always with enormous audacity, in a very Austrian story that goes from black humor to moments of enormous violence and others. Bordering on terror. And all with the beautiful winter setting of the Austrian Alps.

On the other hand, and last but not least, the series is an interesting example of the genesis of certain adult criminal behaviors resulting from impunity.

Summary

Unclassifiable and cinematographic Danish series that combines the fantastic with neo-noir, thriller and drama.

The best of the series may not be its story but the enigmatic nature of its young protagonist and, above all, the incredible and hypnotic atmospheres that it creates, with a staging that bets on moroseness and hieraticism.

Review

It is very difficult to make a plot synopsis and a typification of this unclassifiable and cinematographic series of the Danish Nicolas Winding Refn ("nfr").

We could start by saying that it is the story of Miu, a girl without a family, bought by a madame from a brothel so that she uses certain supposed powers that she has in her favor. From there, Miu will go through other scenarios, linking up with characters and communities of the criminal underworld of Copenhagen, with human trafficking and drug trafficking included, in a course at times Tarantinesque. It is also the story of a pact of gratitude that Miu will seek to honor and a story about mothers, daughters and affiliations.

On the other hand, along with an immigrant universe that includes Balkan and Chinese characters, the native Danes are represented by a very particular aristocratic family.

Miu (an impenetrable Angela Bundalovic) is a scrawny heroine, with an enigmatic identity that is difficult to determine. When I say identity, I mean the broad meaning of the term (origin, essence); the uncertainty about it creates mystery around the main character and is one of the strengths of the series.

As for the genre, the fantastic and dreamlike is combined with the neo-noir thriller and drama.

But the main thing about this miniseries is not so much its story as the incredible climates it achieves, with a staging that bets on moroseness and hieraticism: full of extremely slow circular panning and panoramas of scenes illuminated in red or neon blue, fixed shots , sequence shots and electronic music by Cliff Martínez, Peter Peter, Peter Kyed and Julian Winding that is reminiscent of Tangerine Dream; images and cartoons that refer to the Italian giallo, to David Lynch and a little to V for Vendetta.

Summary:

Vivarium is a fascinating story of science fiction and horror that simmers. His horror is Kafkaesque, methodical and muted. Its clear allegorical components do not constitute an objective or its "message", but an input saved from a certain obviousness by its dramatic crescendo (the great performance of Imogen Poots stands out), which works by accumulation and by the irruptions of the sinister and by its wonderful staging.

Review:

A young couple (she a teacher, he a gardener) go to a real estate agency looking for their first home. The employee in charge leads them to a housing estate to show them one. From there, both will live a nightmare.

This captivating film has two preludes short of one, which function as ominous epigraphs.

Nursery is a science fiction and horror story (in Danish-Belgian-Irish co-production) that simmers. His horror is Kafkaesque, methodical and muted. And I can't tell you anything about what its important science fiction component is.

The three fundamental pivots of a film of these genres coexist in harmony: the symbolic-allegorical, the dramatic and the formal. The first (which addresses the petty-bourgeois conjugal and family dream, with its ideal of order, alienation, the artificial, maternity and paternity and its Freudian connotations, among others) is rescued from a certain obviousness by the second, an implacable crescendo dramatic that works by trickle and accumulation (I don't understand the critics who object to the length of the film) and where the sinister looms.

It is not, then, the main intention of director Lorcan Finnegan to convey a "message", but instead inverts the equation by putting his themes at the service of his formal approach, with a wonderful staging: clinical, elegant, neat and therefore desperately Kafkaesque, accompanied by a magnificent soundtrack. That sober "geometric" elegance, with something artificial, and its calm tone reminds us of the films of Peter Strickland (In Fabric), Jonathan Glazer (Under the Skin), David Robert Mitchell (It Follows) and, above all, Jessica Hausner (Little Joe). But his deliberate parsimony does not prevent the story from having an absolutely memorable climax.

The leading couple in charge of Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg gives humanity and dramatic thickness to their characters; their relative roles and importance throughout the film are coolly gauged by the script; no one is "wasted." Imogen Poots, in a great performance, once again proves to be the ideal actress to unite the cool, sensible and somewhat irreverent girl with the eventually primal, wild and tragic.

Summary

Thriller that presents a script with a certain ingenuity and some weaknesses that transforms the story into a gruesome soap opera that, however, fails to generate interest in its protagonist and most of her characters.

Review

An old man named Albert (Niels Arestrup) hires Adrien, a ghostwriter (undaunted Nicolas Duvauchelle) to write a novel based on his memoirs. Shortly after beginning the story for him, he communicates terrible revelations.

The Black Butterflies is a French miniseries with some successes overshadowed by its flaws. It is a story that plays with point of view and credibility, initially focused on the main writer. When playing with the point of view, the facts (and their appearance) perceived by Adrien and by the viewer are questioned and modified. The limits between fiction and reality are also put into play for the reader when there are memories involved, because how much truth is there in a novel that could be autobiographical or autofiction? All interesting aspects and already treated in many movies and series.

On the one hand, there is Albert's account of his youth and his relationship with his partner Solange in the 1970s, but perceived through Adrien's gaze: a past in vivid tones close to the stereotype and to the video clip In various ways, the script knows how not to repeat itself with these constant flashbacks and opportunely change (or enrich) the axes of the story, even giving rise to a very interesting turn related, precisely, to the gaze. But at the same time, the story is transformed into a true and black soap opera as that past establishes ties with the present, in a story that boasts quite gruesome scenes. At times the dispersion resents the story until the ends more or less unite again.

But the big problem with the series is that dispersion and, more than anything, the painting of most of its characters except one (I won't say which one): it is very difficult to empathize with them, especially with the protagonist (a rather dark and unpleasant character ) and understand some of their decisions and actions, guided more by the needs of the script, even putting the credibility of the whole story at stake.

Summary

A drift of genres and tones that fail to develop and enhance each other, an ambitious gallery of themes, strange characters who are deliberately presented and act in a way that distances the viewer and a successful staging characterize this very American, strange Noah Baumbach movie.

A kind of Woody Allen movie (Adam Driver's character could star in one of his movies) with a lot of production, threadbare and failed, without its grace, and ironically described by its title: white noise.

Review

A blended family (father, university professor, specialist in Hitler, mother, and several children) lives a relatively (and apparently) calm daily life until an external threat turns their lives upside down.

How difficult to analyze this movie. Above all, because I could hardly perceive the virtues and characteristics that critics assign to it.

First of all, I think the director Noah Baumbach wanted to shoot this film as he came up with it. All its effects are deliberate. They say Don DeLillo's 80s novel of the same name (which I didn't read) is unfilmable. And one concludes that there must be some truth to it when looking at this adaptation.

The film is divided into three distinct parts: in the first there is a presentation of the characters and their daily life, in the second, an external threat that abruptly alters that daily life, and in the third, a return to a "normality" disturbed by certain circumstances. That remained hidden in the first and make a crisis.

We could distinguish a combination or alternation of tones and genres: (a supposed) black comedy, satire, catastrophic and apocalyptic cinema, thriller, family and conjugal drama, horror (in this genre the film gives us one of its best and most powerful scenes). But none of these facets is fully developed, nor do they reinforce each other; rather the opposite.

There are also a variety of topics: the ecological disaster just around the corner, the fear of death, the pharmacological panacea, the futility and vanity of universities and their professors, religion, marital problems.

The characters behave out of step with respect to the circumstances they are experiencing, reflecting and discussing them out loud (especially the two professors played by Adam Driver and Don Cheadle) as if they were teaching and philosophizing; Driver's character is Woody Allen-esque, but sadly this is not a Woody Allen movie. A feeling of estrangement distances the viewer from the characters and their experiences. Let's say that a white noise signal contains all the sound frequencies and all of them show the same power, with a flat result. The same phenomenon occurs with white light, hence the name. This may refer to how the characters in the story perceive and calibrate the circumstances they experience. But also to the result of the film...

Perhaps the interesting character and at some decisive point in the story is that of the wife and mother (a very good performance by Greta Gerwig), whose tangential role at the same time functions as the guiding thread of the story; her "modesty" and her circumstance are the table to cling to in order to navigate the film.

Finally, a special mention for the very good soundtrack by Danny Elfman, with a style far from the usual in his music. Elfman told Variety that Baumbach asked him: "I want to have an '80s electronic influence, but not overtly specific. Imagine if we combined something between Giorgio Moroder and Tangerine Dream with Aaron Copland".

Summary

A British thriller that does not stop accumulating improbable situations and behaviors and a certain moral pretentiousness. The brevity of the miniseries invites you to follow it to the end, to see its resolution and if it was all a big joke and it is heading towards black comedy and ends up justifying its inconsistencies in some way. But it doesn't: it gets more and more serious and continues in the same vein until the end.

Review

An English vicar is dragged into a violent act and unusual decisions, the result of moral dilemmas while in the US a man sentenced to death for the murder of his wife solves crimes from prison.

As they read it. The script will be in charge of linking both narrative lines.

If there is something that a good scriptwriter must deal with, it is credible: the story must be accepted and believed by the viewer, show some internal coherence, beyond the genre of the series or movie (a science fiction or fantasy can also and must be plausible). The excellent opening scene in a subway (full of tension) promised something interesting. But From Within is a miniseries that from the first chapter does not stop accumulating inconsistencies. Characters consistently make the worst possible decisions for themselves (and others), get entangled in pseudo-dilemmas, and commit the most outrageous acts.

If it were a black comedy (for a moment it threatens to be one and some humor appears here and there) one could consent to the degree of improbability of what one sees. But no: it is a dramatic thriller with moral dilemmas and false dilemmas triggered by a brief series of "oversights" very little credible. Neither are the privileges of the prisoner incarnated by Stanley Tucci (who during half the series solves cases of crimes in an unlikely way and in the other philosopher with a certain pretentiousness).

Still, if one manages to get around and put up with the shortcomings of believability and script strains, there are some tense dialogues and enjoyable moments of suspense and tension and good performances from David Tennant as Priest Harry, from the named Tucci as Prisoner Grieff, Dolly Wells (the unforgettable nun from the Dracula series, by the same author and creator, Steven Moffat) as Janice, Harry's son's math teacher) and Lydia West (Years And Years), who does what she can with Beth , a troubled journalist who will serve as an articulating link.

The brevity of the series invites you to follow it to the end, to see its resolution and if it was all a big joke and ends up justifying its inconsistencies in some way. But it does not: it continues with the same tonic until the end.

Summary

Bruno Dumont, based on satire, achieves a remarkable and disconcerting mixture of tones and registers to recount the crisis of a diva of French television journalism. The proposal also works thanks to the empathy produced by Léa Seydoux who eats up the screen with her beauty and a formidable performance.

Review:

France de Meurs (sic) is a star journalist for French TV, who lives for her job. But a road accident unleashes an existential crisis in her.

France is a true diva. She is beautiful and charismatic, she is also daring: a celebrity who treats President Macron as equals, she moderates television political debates and acts as a war correspondent while bullets whistle past her.

On first reading, France (the film) may seem like a satire of current show journalism and its supposedly engaged divas and divas, where it shows with very effective humor the value of staging journalistic reports based on the narcissism of the journalist. It is also a foray into France's foreign policy agenda, where the roles of both France, the journalist, and the country overlap.

But suddenly, the satirical register of the story changes from the crisis that breaks out in France. It becomes rare with drama (with touches of nouvelle vague), melodrama and even tragedy and the grotesque without warning, to alternate again with a not-so-pure satirical register in a film that has been definitively redefined. The viewer then feels that something strange is beginning to happen with the narration (and the protagonist), is disconcerted and... realizes that he is watching a Bruno Dumont film, which causes confusion due to the mixture and alternation of tones, a trembling unpredictable to which one can joyfully abandon oneself. And all enhanced by a superb soundtrack by Christophe.

But such a narrative proposal cannot work if there is an unyielding empathy with its protagonist, even with her miseries. And the credit goes to Léa Seydoux, a beautiful and authentic diva playing a... diva, a celebrity for whom everything she did no longer makes sense. The actress is almost permanently on camera and eats up the screen displaying a formidable range of resources with which she composes an increasingly fragmented character. And here I allow myself a digression: I don't know if you noticed how similar she is to Diana Rigg when she played Emma Peel in The Avengers...

Summary

An adorable Christmas story, never sappy or sentimental, where the Dickensian meets the ineffably Italian. A medium-length film in which Alice Rohrwacher admirably combines humor, irony, tenderness, musicals, pictorials, and comics to once again deal with power, religion, and micropolitics.

Review

The story takes place in a Catholic religious boarding school for girls during Christmas Eve and Christmas. We are in Italy, during World War II.

Based on a letter that the Italian writer Elsa Morante wrote to a friend, Le pupille is a wonderful Christmas story. The director Alice Rohrwacher, in less than 40 minutes, offers us a sensitive, humorous and deep story about that boarding school, with a relentless mother superior (Alba Rohrwacher, most just) and the preparations for her living nativity scene so that the convent raises funds in that such a difficult time.

One of the offerings that one of the aristocrats of the place will make (a devastated and funny Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) will generate an unexpected conflict in the convent. It is in this conflict where Rohrwacher ends up introducing his usual and acute (never obvious or pamphleteering) treatment of power, religion and micropolitics. The economy of resources and the originality with which the filmmaker expresses the conflicts and accumulated tension is remarkable, and she does it purely on film, combining the pictorial, humor, irony, musicals, and comics. As light as intense.

The film is adorable (like its childish cast), but never sappy, combining the Dickensian, the ineffably Italian and that fair tone suitable for all audiences but not childish, in line with the best and most classic exponents of the Disney universe.

Summary:

German dramatic comedy centered on the point of view of its protagonist, with its superimposition of reality and fantasy, in a story that to its creative flashes and a dry and ironic German humor adds a growing melancholy and a certain weirdness.

Review

In this German dramatic comedy, Helene is a rather lost, irresponsible, job-unstable young woman who lies to maintain and strengthen some ties and with a great imagination that at times overlaps fantasy and reality. This translates into the original narrative and temporal structure of the series, where the viewer must be attentive to distinguish one from the other.

In this way, Helene relates to her young father, with a successful influencer friend whom she loves and deeply envy (the scenes of both are among the funniest in the series, with her darts against that youtuber world), a new love interest , his mother and stepfather. Her relationship with her parents and her stepfather is enriched by a series of dryly humorous flashbacks where an imperturbable child Helene is determined to intervene in the face of a marriage in crisis.

As the series progresses with its brief chapters, its dry and ironic German humor and its creative flashes, a growing melancholy and a rarefied narrative takes shape, which nevertheless retains all its coherence and where on several occasions it resorts to classical music. Very effectively.

Mala Emde gives her Helene all the charm necessary to accompany her in her controversial behaviors and decisions, supported by a cast that gives her characters the right tone.

Season 1

Summary

Interesting Austro-German series that belongs to the "border police" subgenre, initiated (and recorded) by El puente (Broen/Bron) and continued by many others (among which Sorjonen could be included). One of the great virtues of Pagan Peak is that its development and its characters are never crystallized in a formula: it is interesting to follow the personal and professional transformation of the leading police couple (an inspector from Bavaria and an inspector from nearby Salzburg) and the evolution of the serial killer and his methods, always with the spectacular setting of the winter landscape of the Bavarian Alps, another central character in the series.

Review

A German detective and an Austrian detective investigate a murder that occurred in the Alps, exactly on the border between Bavaria and Austria.

Pagan Peak (Der Pass, in German) falls within the subgenre of "border police", where a crime or series of crimes occurs in the border area between two countries, forcing the joint intervention of their police forces. This subgenre was started by the Broen/Bron series, which took place on the border between Sweden and Denmark and continued, for example, in the quite successful Floodland, developed between Flemish Belgium and the Netherlands.

In this case, the German detective is Ellie Stocker (Julia Jentsch), a powerful and luminous police chief inspector from Traunstein, a town in Bavaria, and the Austrian inspector, Gedeon Winter (Nicholas Ofczarek), from Salzburg. This, on the other hand, is a dark, skeptical and corrupt character.

Sooner rather than later we will know the identity of the fearsome serial killer (Franz Hartwig). The plot fluently combines certain topics: the alpine legend of Krampus (a sort of evil slope for Santa Claus), relations between the press and the police, cybernetic espionage, right-wing politicians, illegal immigration.

The fact that the legend of Krampus and his masks appear does not make the series an exponent of folk-horror, fortunately, as it does in other series; It is an element that adds to the messianism of the murderer.

One of the great virtues of the series is that its development and its characters never crystallize into a formula: it is interesting to follow the personal and professional transformation of the leading police couple and the evolution of the murderer and his methods. Also the treatment of the temporal lines has its touches of originality.

The Austro-German series displays a foolproof sobriety, with an excellent soundtrack and the extraordinary winter landscape of the Bavarian Alps as another of its great protagonists.

Summary

A season one step below the fourth, with less domestic and international politics and more emphasis on family dynamics (which is also a matter of State), with the relationship between Prince Charles and Lady Diana taking center stage and a growing rivalry between the Prince of Wales and his mother (where the personal and the political are mixed) and what this means from today for an heir who had to wait another 30 years to access the throne.

Review

The fifth season of The Crown covers part of the 90s and has had to renew the staff of its cast, with the blow that this entails in some cases.

Undoubtedly, the recent death of Elizabeth II gives renewed interest to the series, which reveals that the internships between the queen and the heir Charles were already long-standing and that the wait for the Prince of Wales to access the throne should be prolonged no less. Than 30 more years. The mixture between the personal and the political in that conflict is developed in a very successful way.

The season is more focused on family dynamics, with the rivalry between Carlos and his mother (with an heir apparently interested in renewing the monarchy) and with several chapters dedicated to the crisis and dissolution of the prince's marriage to Lady Diana Spencer. There is less politics and less international politics - perhaps as a reflection of the declining importance of the United Kingdom on the world stage - and a more visible presence of the press and its operations around the royal family. One chapter (perhaps the most flowery) takes an unexpected leap back in time recounting a historical event with unexpected consequences in the present of the action.

As for the cast, the great Olivia Colman must give up the position to an Imelda Staunton who makes up an almost seventy-year-old queen firmly clinging to the throne and her privileges and those of the royal family and to continue managing the married and emotional life of her sons and daughters. As a matter of State, although sometimes she resembles a kind granny; on more than one occasion she affirms that the crown is a "lifetime commitment". Dominic West assumes a Prince Charles with concerns and ambitions and on a permanent waiting list; this time Princess Margaret falls on an exquisite Lesley Manville (who stars in one of the best chapters), Jonathan Pryce is a Prince Philip who is active in making some political decisions (the dynamics of the royal couple are always interesting and revealing) and Olivia Williams assumes the role of Camila Parker Bowles, the eternal lover of the crown prince. It is worth noting the very good composition that Elizabeth Debicki makes of a seductive, resolute and melancholic Lady Di, whose role as a relegated wife in the series The Night Manager was surely taken into account for her election. This part of the reign of Elizabeth II corresponds to the term of the Conservative John Major (Jonny Lee Miller) as Prime Minister.

In short, a season perhaps one step below Season 4, although with its usual acting excellence, tight dialogues, the expected private and official interviews where the queen exercises her power and the well-known production display. Put to choose between the chapters of this season, I prefer the Manville (Annus Horribilis), the titled Gunpowder and the last one.

Summary

The series from the creators of Dark is a sci-fi nautical drama with a dark, Victorian setting. There is something claustrophobic and Kafkaesque in its development that is blurred from time to time by the patchwork of information (instead of increasing by repetition). Its characters are flat and their previous stories, interactions and their outcome fail to interest and are drowned (ahem) by that plot that drips information and by the repetition of situations that instead of acting dramatically by accumulation, only manage to accumulate annoyance in the spectator, exhausting his patience to elucidate the intrigue and making him feel that perhaps they are playing with his good faith.

Review

Several migrant passengers of different nationalities and the crew of a large transatlantic ship en route to New York begin to suffer from strange situations that defy logic when they cross the high seas with another ship reported missing.

I had to muster an unspeakable amount of patience to get 1899 finished. I know that tedium is not a critical analysis parameter, but in this case I can't help but point it out. Flat characters whose previous stories (all escape from a dark and traumatic past, although several travel first class...) and their outcome are not interesting, drowned (ahem) by a plot that drips information and repeats situations that instead of acting by accumulation they only manage to accumulate annoyance. Characters who speak different languages (English, German, Danish, Spanish, French, Chinese, Japanese...) and who sometimes don't understand each other and sometimes understand each other.

The series from the creators of Dark Baran bo Odar (director) and Jantje Friesees (screenwriter) is a sci-fi nautical ensemble drama with a dark, Victorian setting. There is something claustrophobic and Kafkaesque in its development that every so often blurs (instead of increasing) due to an intrigue that hides a lot of information. There is a wandering of increasingly disoriented characters whose fate does not matter to us and who communicate with a waterproof solemnity and with an irritating and almost permanent soundtrack as a background. Some will say that this is functional to the thesis of the series and coherent with its underlying intrigue... As expected, each chapter ending poses a certain twist, with "cool" and anachronistic music included.

Finally, the philosophical statements about human nature, subjectivity, reality and revelations about what really happens do not contribute anything that has not been seen before in other famous movies and series, past and current.

1899 (which aims to show us a "system", as Dark did, although more limited and failed) would have gained a lot as a film, instead of presenting it as a very long and endless miniseries, where it is appropriate to highlight some maritime sequences and the beauty and originality of some images and effects and the presence of Emily Beecham, the great protagonist of the incredible and yes disturbing Little Joe.

Let's hope that 2023 doesn't bring us a 1900... or whatever.

Summary

Lourdes is a remarkable psychological and social x-ray of the world around the famous religious complex in the Pyrenees, with that clinical precision so typical of Austrian cinema and with a delicate balance in which hints of irony always give way to respect and piety. The film achieves moments of an absolutely human, moving religiosity, such as I have rarely seen in a film.

Review:

Jessica Hausner's film follows Christine, a motor disabled person, during her journey through the famous tourist-religious complex around the Lourdes Grotto in the French Pyrenees.

Multiple dimensions and themes run through this film. On the one hand, there is a look at the disease, the relationship between the healthy and the sick and how she considers the Catholic religion to the sick and the concept of healing, put into the mouths of their own priests.

On the other hand, Lourdes paints a picture of that touristic-religious universe viewed with that clinical precision so typical of Austrian cinema, with a delicate balance in which hints of irony always give way to respect and piety. It is difficult at first to place oneself in that world of patients, companions, relatives, nuns, priests and volunteers of the Order of Malta (where each one fulfills a precise, transitory or permanent function), where a sociogram is drawn where solidarity intersects , misgivings, hope, desire, jealousy, envy, frustration and, of course, faith, in a setting that is enriched with real shots of masses and mass movements in which the film leans into the documentary . They all follow a kind of procession (with something of a way of the cross) scheduled and methodical, waiting for the miracle of healing to take place.

Why do the sick go to Lourdes? Christine answers that question early in the film, and not exactly from a pious place. Sylvie Testud remarkably puts the body to her character and her evolution, accompanied by Maria (Lea Seydoux, in a rather small role), the companion who embodies health.

As we had already seen in the also notable Little Joe, Hausner beautifully frames her scenes preferably in fixed and geometric planes. Supported by a wonderful use of Bach's music, Lourdes achieves moments of an absolutely human, moving religiosity, such as I have rarely seen in a film.

Summary

In the current context of the resurgence of neo-fascism and with a World Cup about to be held in a misogynistic and homophobic Islamic theocracy, it is opportune to see the 2018 film in which the Dardenne brothers bravely tackled Muslim youth fundamentalism, establishing a successful cross between the psychology of the solitary leading character, the context in which he moves and certain precepts of Islam, without this being relativized or blurred.

The women act as disturbers, opponents and challengers of Islam's religious and macho misogyny embodied in the impenetrable, resolute, fanatical and tenacious teenager Ahmed, a young out-of-place radical for whom violence ends up being as natural as it is inevitable.

Review

The film follows Ahmed, a Muslim teenager from a Belgian village, who does not hesitate to resort to violence based on his interpretation of the imam's teachings on him and the Koran.

This time the Dardenne brothers face a thorny issue, and they do it frankly and without fear. I say without fear because they do not fear that by addressing the issue of Islamic fundamentalism they will be branded as Islamophobes.

The film rightly establishes a cross between the psychology of the character, the context in which he moves and certain precepts of Islam, but without this being relativized or blurred by the former. They are three dimensions that enhance each other.

There is an inevitable clash (and some irony) between the secularism of the Belgian public school and the objections of some Muslim parents who oppose for religious reasons the proposals of Ahmed's teacher of Arab origin.

An important aspect that went unnoticed by the critics is the centrality in the history of women as threats, opponents and challengers of Islam's religious and sexist misogyny, as representatives of evil that must be avoided, combated and even eliminated. It is the female figures (the mother, the sister, his teacher Inés and another that I will not reveal) who assume the destabilizing role of an Ahmed who combines his fear of female contact with a religious precept that demonizes him, while the Imam Youssuf assumes the role of the absent father, guarantor of the rules, whose teachings the young man combines with those of a religious leader who follows the web.

Another interesting aspect is that The Young Ahmed does not follow the process of religious radicalization of the adolescent, but rather the character is already approached with such a degree of fanaticism that it only remains for him to take him to the field of a violence that is as natural as it is inevitable for him. On the other hand, he is illustrative of how the system faces and seeks to redirect these situations, emphasizing respect and containment.

The Dardenne resort to their usual dry tone, with handheld camera moments that reinforce a realism supported by the presence of actors unknown to the general public. Idir Ben Addi assumes the difficult and at times unpleasant role of an impenetrable, determined, fanatical and tenacious adolescent, with an opacity that sustains an unpredictability that adds elements of a thriller to the psychological and social drama, in a story that is even more disturbing to present to us. To an unincorporated fundamentalist who acts completely on his own.

Summary

Director Michael Grandage develops the story with sobriety, fluency and delicacy, but at the same time, without concessions and without the false modesty typical of a certain oily quality English cinema, supported by an outstanding leading sextet. A film that is also very relevant a few days before the World Cup is held in a country like Qatar, which in the middle of 2022 criminally represses homosexuality, like the England of the 50s where most of the story takes place.

Review

In the 90s, Marion welcomes Patrick in her Brighton home to take care of him after he suffered a stroke, without much support from Marion's husband, Tom. Why does she make that decision? The film proposes a trip to the past of the three to elucidate the question.

And that past takes place in Brighton in the 1950s, where Marion, a young teacher, begins an affair with Tom, a policeman, and the young couple bonds with Patrick, the curator of the fine arts museum in the seaside resort, a young gay who must live his homosexuality clandestinely, at a time when it was penalized with jail in England.

Interestingly, some have criticized the "predictability" of the triangle made up of the three characters, when the merit of the film does not lie in the suspense in this regard, but in showing how the three process their links and how the time and context condition their reactions. And their behaviors. And in confirming, at the same time, that there are reactions and behaviors that are beyond the times and that perhaps seek to transcend them.

Director Michael Grandage develops the story with sobriety, fluency and delicacy, but at the same time, without concessions or false modesty, as shown by some of the film's erotic scenes. On the other hand, the handling of the timelines is very successful, with revelations that shed new light on the story and the characters. We are not looking at qualité English cinema, but rather a story that moves, with characters who speak justly and who say a lot with their gestures, their looks and their silences.

The leading sextet is made up of Emma Corrin (Lady Di in The Crown 4) as Marion, Harry Styles as Tom and David Dawson as Patrick and Gina McKee, Linus Roache and Rupert Everett (all a nod to that quality English cinema brand Ivory/ Forster) in its mature versions, the performance of the first four being outstanding.

A film that is also very relevant a few days before the World Cup is held in a country like Qatar, which in the middle of 2022 criminally represses homosexuality, as in England in the 50s.

Summary:

A dispute over some very special land in Wyoming between two ranching families, a lesbian Indian sheriff, a murder, and bizarre occurrences in a series that aptly blends neo-western, drama, thriller, and earth-bound fantasy.

Review:

The two families in conflict are made up on the one hand by Royal Abbott (Josh Brolin), his wife Cecilia (Lili Taylor), his two sons and the daughter of one of them; the wife of one of the children is missing. On the other, the flamboyant Wayne Tillerson (Will Patton) and his three sons, including Billy (Noah Reid). They are joined by the enigmatic backpacker Autumn (Imogen Poots) who camps on the Royal grounds and the indigenous and lesbian Sheriff Joy (Tamara Podemski), tasked with investigating a disappearance and eventual murder that adds to the territorial conflict between the families.

The series passes with a certain delay, although it exhibits interesting breaks, either due to the appearance of successful action sequences, scenes where estrangement prevails, or moments close to the video clip. The staging provides moments of strange beauty, some epiphanic and others (few) that suffer from a certain solemnity and also night scenes in quite dark shots. Special mention deserves the extraordinary soundtrack, which ranges from bluegrass by Alison Krauss to Berlioz.

The characters are quite well outlined; at times they have their stellar moments or surprise and at times they fade. Royal stands out, with Josh Brolin becoming more and more like Jeff Bridges, his religious wife (an armed Lili Taylor), the disturbing and changeable Autumn by Imogen Poots, the surprising Billy by Noah Reid and the best character of all, the Indian sheriff in charge of a Tamara Podemski, who steals the series every time she appears investigating that white and Christian community.

The story and some characters thus reveal their mysteries, in a plot where the fantastic appears linked to the land and with family pacts where the interesting thing is that the villains and the culprits do not necessarily correspond to the same group of people.

Summary

The film is another example of Assayas's sophisticated ability to combine cinema of ideas and sentiment, intellectual debate and human density, society and individuals, work and private life with people who think, work, bond, feel and love, in a sort of of modern luxury vaudeville and with a great cast.

Review

When I finished seeing this film and read that it was written and directed by Olivier Assayas, I said to myself, of course! Since the family resemblance with the subsequent Irma Vep series and other films (and the echoes of Woody Allen and Rohmer) was undeniable.

The story is structured around two couples: Alain, the editor of a prestigious publishing house (Guillaume Canet), his wife Selena, an actress who has gained notoriety starring in a police series (Juliette Binoche), Léonard (Vincent Macaigne), a mid-level writer success characterized by his self-referentiality (from which the English title of the film, Non-Fiction, derives) and his partner Valérie, assistant and adviser to a left-wing politician (Nora Hamzawi). Of two couples and the lovers of some of its members in a succession of professional and social meetings, couple talks and some media incursions.

In the meetings, the characters talk a lot (as in any good French film) and reflect and debate on the state of things in the publishing industry and its consumption: the struggles between the paper book, the electronic book and the audiobooks, since that the publisher proposes a total transition from its paper catalog to the electronic one (theme that also appears in the comedy Amor y Anarquía), the current role of the writer, the relationship between the characters and the personal life of an author. The role of blogs and Twitter, the circulation and nature of news, algorithms also appear. Post-truth and the principle of authority. Nor are politics and the role of politicians left out. These exchanges are juicy (for some they will not be new), although I would only criticize that some characters, due to their role, should not express ignorance about some of the terms and concepts enunciated and they do so out of a certain didacticism towards the viewer.

But the main characters are far from being mere excuses or instruments for this valuable exchange of ideas. When they end up alone with their partners or their lovers, after each one of those meetings and all that social and work-related intellectual pomp slips away and vanishes, all their simple or complex humanity is exposed (the double lives, Double vies in the plural of the original title in French), in those simple and intimate talks, where silences and looks become relevant, moments that increasingly connect us with the characters and love them more and more, from the hands of these great actors and actresses, where the endearing and neurotic Léonard stands out from that great actor who is Vincent Macaigne (The Things We Say, The Things We Do) and the amazing naturalness of Valérie de Nora Hamzawi's Valérie, actor and actress who will not reappear in the series Irma Vep for nothing from the same director.

Summary:

Distressing and devastating chronicle about a brilliant student who decides to terminate her pregnancy in France in the early 1960s, when it was illegal. Winner of the Venice Golden Lion in 2021, it is based on the autobiographical novel by Annie Ernaux, the last winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and features a magnetic performance by Anamaria Vartolomei. Filmed with a certain timelessness that emphasizes its absolute validity in the face of an anti-rights right that never stops advancing.

Review:

Anne, a brilliant student who is taking the entry course for the Arts degree in Angoulême, undertakes the difficult path of accessing an abortion in France in the early 1960s.

Upon hearing the news of her pregnancy, young Anne's first reaction is surprise, followed by the immediate certainty that this is not the time, that this cannot stand in the way of her college career and she must act accordingly.

Based on the 2000 autobiographical novel by Annie Ernaux, the last winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the film deals with the ordeal of this young woman at a time when in France (and in the world) abortion was punishable by imprisonment (for those who practiced it and for the pregnant woman) and also constituted an unspeakable taboo, of strong social condemnation, added to the fact of being a single woman. The story paints with sobriety and mastery all that sociohistorical moment.

Anne undertakes the search with a determination as unshakable as it is lonely, in the face of all the obstacles and the lack of collaboration of the people with whom she decides to share her secret and in the face of time that advances inexorably week after week, with a pregnancy that takes on signs of incurable illness. It is devastating how the protagonist must move in a framework of secrecy that brings the story closer to the thriller at times.

Anne undertakes everything in her power to achieve her goal. The director (and co-writer) Audrey Diwan follows the arc of a protagonist who adds to the growing emotional tension her physical injury, with an explicit statement that she rightly chooses not to spare the viewer. The almost square screen frame emphasizes the overwhelm and anguish of the protagonist and the viewer, of a situation with no way out, of closing doors. Another success of the film is a deliberate timelessness, which emphasizes its absolute validity. And not to mention a title that alludes to something as important as it is unmentionable.

Anamaria Vartolomei immediately captures the viewer's empathy, capable of conveying all the conflicting feelings with her gaze and gestures: will, clarity of vision, pride, lack of prejudice, loneliness, anguish and despair, in a film that won the Golden Lion at the 2021 Venice Film Festival and is absolutely necessary in the face of the onslaught of anti-rights neo-fascism.

Summary

The director frames almost the entire story from the subjectivity of the protagonist, dominated by traumas that she cannot overcome. An ordeal of almost three hours filtered in large part by a dreamlike tone and constant stylizations, formal decisions that perhaps make the character suffer more than the viewer and where, curiously, the main couples of the diva are addressed, but not named. It is clear that this is a fictionalized biography and not a realistic biopic.

Ana de Armas (almost all the time in front of cameras) looks very similar to MM and puts her body to all the harassment and constant suffering of her creature and to the rare truces and moments of happiness, totally dedicated to the marking of the director and screenwriter , for better and for worse.

Review:

The film based on the homonymous biographical novel by Joyce Carol Oates offers a unique journey through the life of Marilyn Monroe, from her childhood to her tragic death.

Undoubtedly, Blonde is not the typical realistic biopic with claims to exhaust the life of a star in its almost three hours, let alone one of the magnitude of MM. It is a fictionalized biography and I don't know how faithful it would be to Oates's novel, in content and tone.

An axis of analysis could be that the film by Andrew Dominik (also a screenwriter) is framed almost exclusively from the point of view of its protagonist, understood as a woman dominated by traumas that she cannot overcome and that are revealed in her bonds and in his career, led by a mother-monster (notably Julianne Nicholson, recently seen in Mare of Easttown), the obsession with the absent father and the ghost of madness. Other elements that appear are motherhood, dissociation and conflicts between the "MM character" (the bombshell and sexual object) and the woman (Norma Jean), the consequent and growing disagreement with the bias of a filmography designed for the "character ", her concerns and efforts to modify her training and profile as an actress, the underestimation of her culture, problematic consumption and the role of actresses as cogs in the gear, as property of an industry that cannot stop and crushes them.

During almost the entire length of the film, all these questions give the protagonist no respite: they are about three hours of an ordeal worthy of a film by Lars Von Trier, a filmmaker characterized by beating his heroines.

But to relate this ordeal, with its variables and determinants, and refer it and submit it to the subjective plane of the protagonist, there is a continuous evasion from realism towards the oneiric and stylization. When I finished Blonde, the comparison with Spencer came to mind, another film about a real character, Lady Diana Spencer, totally subjected to her subjectivity. But while in this case Larraín's film addresses only 3 days of Lady Di's life with her in-laws and is much shorter (and successful), Dominik maintains his focus for almost three hours (and for much of a lifetime) which is excessive for such a long film and leaves out some issues that cannot be addressed in this way (for example, more consistent notes on his films and no development on his relationship with his co-stars).

Dominik does not hesitate to resort to symbolism and images reminiscent of Gaspar Noé, some of which would delight the anti-rights right. Always with an almost square screen format that sometimes narrows and a photograph that oscillates between black and white and color.

With these almost omnipresent formal decisions and the way they are resolved, they end up creating a certain distance where perhaps the result is that in many cases the character suffers more than the viewer...

Except for a curious early link, the story develops her relationship with the athlete, the playwright and the president who were her most famous couples, but without naming them. Perhaps the segment corresponding to this last link is the hardest, most surprising and interesting of the film.

Ana de Armas (almost all the time in front of cameras) looks very similar to MM and puts her body to all the harassment and constant suffering of her creature and to the rare truces and moments of happiness, totally dedicated to the marking of the director and screenwriter , for better and for worse.

Summary:

This portrait of an adolescent Dahmer constitutes an interesting background to the Ryan Murphy series, with some similar events and points in common in their treatment. A subtitled version is available on YouTube.

Review:

Marc Myers' film is based on the homonymous graphic novel by John "Derf" Backderf, a former high school classmate of future serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (and an important character in the film), and portrays the young man's life in the last year of "high school". School" in Milwaukee.

I watched this 2017 movie right after the end of Ryan Murphy's magnificent series. So it was a totally influenced experience, one could say "contaminated", where comparisons between the two are inevitable.

Some of the elements developed by the series appear in this interesting film. Dahmer is a repressed homosexual geek who is already pursuing his taxidermic passion and is bullied at school. But the film shows how, somehow, he reconverts his relationship with his oppressors (who still are, including the author of the novel) to be accepted by that group and the school community in general. His conflictive family environment and his relationship with his parents are also very well described (the role of his mother is played by an unrecognizable Anne Heche). The story (which unfolds linearly) develops very well the crescendo of the disturbances of its young protagonist and wisely ends the narrative at the precise point, in a story that holds several moments of ominous tension.

I have no doubt that Murphy and Evan Peters watched this movie (and read the graphic novel), from which they probably took (albeit more subtly), for example, a certain body attitude of the protagonist (by a remarkable Ross Lynch) and some events.

Summary

The film tries to deploy, in a quite unconnected way, the family and educational framework in which the youth of the wealthy class criminals who perpetrated the macho crime known as Circeo Massacre, of enormous event in Italy.

It is a pity that the director Stefano Mordini escamotee almost completely the political dimension of the crime, since he does not mention the fascist sympathies of the criminals, at a time when neo -fascism rises victorious precisely in Italy for the first time since the 2nd World War and advances with its instigations and hate crimes in many parts of the world, including Argentina.

Review.

This film describes the crime known as "Circeo Massacre", which occurred from 1975, as well as some students of the Catholic School for Men Leone Magno, among whom were their young perpetrators.

The film begins with the trunk of a car from which a female voice asks for help. Then it continues in a series of flashbacks where director Stefano Mordini tries to describe the cultivation broth from which the criminals came. There are a series of unconnected vignettes about classes at school, some of their rites and the families of some of the students (the voice of one of them acts as the rapporteur in off), some of which seem to conduct narratively to anywhere . From all these scenes a macho, misogyn and homophobic class matrix is released. Finally, we are shown the criminal act itself (which should not reveal so as not to subtract dramatic impact) from which those who would be their executors and who their victims in the anterior part of the film were emerging. Anyway, I consider that a dramatic progression is missing or, in any case, surprising the violence deployed with a certain conjunction of coldness and cruelty that it vaguely remembers (and saving the distances) to Saló from Pasolini. Perhaps physical violence has something that always implies an abrupt jump on its precedents.

Crime is an act of all these dimensions of hatred: a ruthless act of gender violence with its strong macho and misogynistic elements and also classist here that marked a before and after in Italian legislation. Unfortunately, and unlike Edoardo Albinati's novel on which it is based, Mordini almost totally hides the political dimension of crime, since it does not mention the fascist sympathies of criminals, at a time when neo -fascism rises victorious precisely in Italy for the first time since World War 2nd and advances with their instigations and hate crimes in many parts of the world, including Argentina.

Summary

A shocking series that, however, does not resort to truculence and focuses on the characters, with a formidable Evan Peters as the serial killer obsessed and marked by abandonment and isolation, fully aware of his uncontrollable compulsions and who strikes fear as perhaps not seen since Kevin Spacey in Seven. The finished psychological painting of him results in a humanization that does not lead to empathy, but rather gives more thickness to his monstrous dimension. On the other hand, the series is not afraid to tackle from the beginning the political and social dimension of the case, even to the point of underlining, with a negligent police officer who deliberately and systematically dismissed or minimized complaints about a white man whose victims were African-Americans, brown-haired and Asian homosexuals. , ensuring their impunity for years.

Review:

The series follows the biography and crimes committed by serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

The series co-produced and co-written by Ryan Murphy is an accumulation of successes, both in the narrative and technical aspects as well as in the psychological description of Dahmer and his positioning in front of the murderer and his circumstances.

Far from the deliberately overflowing and overloaded style of his other productions such as American Horror Story or Ratched, Murphy understands that such a tremendous story can only be taken seriously and soberly, as he had already done in the remarkable The Assassination of Gianni Versace.

Facing a murderer with necrophilic and anthropophagic elements (he was nicknamed the Milwaukee Cannibal), the first success of the series consists of avoiding the truculence by resorting to successful ellipses and off-screen shots and focusing on the psychological and bonding aspects of the protagonist. This does not prevent (and perhaps reinforces) that Dahmer's encounters with his victims transmit at times an unbearable tension, as he had not seen in stories of this type for a long time. The series manages to shock and horrify, sometimes painting absolutely macabre scenes.

Dahmer describes in detail and builds with the patience of a goldsmith a biography where the protagonist's relationship with his family is a fundamental element, even in his adult life: his mother, his father (a great performance by Richard Jenkins), his grandmother and his stepmother are masterfully painted. Elements of everyday life, some "normal" and others not so much, reading comics, situations and signs that in other people would not bring consequences and neglected warnings will have in this case disturbing resonances and consequences like germs of a murderer under construction.

The positioning of the series regarding the vulnerability of his victims is fundamental, making clear the decisive political dimension of the framework of impunity with which he acted. It is clear that Dahmer (and this is not a spoiler) was able to continue murdering in Milwaukee for years thanks to negligent police who deliberately and systematically dismissed complaints about a white man whose victims were black, brown and Asian homosexuals, complaints coming from those same communities, a corporate police that made little or no effort to investigate. The choice of these victims ensured the murderer, then, impunity for a long time. This dynamic is not only clear from the story, but it is expressed several times with words by some characters so that there are no doubts. Because of all this, certain objections made to the series by relatives of the victims caught my attention. It was even questioned that Netflix put the lgtbq label on the series...

Nor is it off the radar of the authors that the story of a murderer does not end with his imprisonment, following the tribulations of the bereaved, the fascination of American society with serial killers and reflecting on the value of the memory of the victims.

In a formidable performance, Evan Peters personifies Dahmer from his adolescence to his arrest and imprisonment, an individual obsessed and marked by abandonment and solitary confinement and fully aware of his irrepressible compulsions. His composition is quite successful at times lethargic, surprised and resigned of a condemned individual with no way out but who premeditatedly exploited the vulnerability of his victims. The finished psychological painting of him results in a humanization that does not lead to empathy, but rather gives more thickness to his monstrous dimension, far from the sensationalism of a fictional Hannibal Lecter, for example. Peters produces a chilling fear as a viewer has not lived since the memorable Kevin Spacey of Seven; he is a predatory assassin with some points of contact with that of The Serpent, but without the glamor of him.

Ian Brennan and Ryan Murphy's script is excellent, as he seamlessly organizes and integrates everything, as the dimensions of history. The staging is sober, with an excellent recreation of the period (but without gloating), perfectly integrated into the cadence of the murderer, with a timeline that comes and goes in time and reproduces some situations by changing the point of view. There are long, breathing scenes that honor and provide the right setting and timing for their remarkable dialogue. It is no coincidence that some chapters with an almost dreamlike atmosphere at times are directed by Jennifer Lynch, David's daughter, where the locations, certain sectors of the houses, the lighting and the off-screen with the sound off also become disturbing. And palpable protagonists.

Perhaps it could be reproached that certain conclusions drawn by the viewer sooner rather than later are later underlined by the dialogues of some characters, so that there are no doubts about the intentions and positions of the characters and the filmmakers.

Summary

The novelty of this cold and intelligent Norwegian series based on a real case is that each chapter focuses on one of the sectors involved in the case and as the investigation progresses.

Review

This Norwegian mini-series based on a true case recounts the investigation of the disappearance of the wife of a Norwegian billionaire, in what appears to be a kidnapping.

The novelty of this series lies in the fact that each chapter focuses on one of the groups involved in the case and as the investigation progresses, for example: the first focuses on the police and prosecutors, the next on the journalists who investigate the case, and so on. The change of point of view then does not imply flashbacks that return to certain events, in general, nor the absence of the other protagonists, who circumstantially pass into the background. I must add that there would be some important stratum missing as the protagonist of some chapter...

The tone of the series is cold but its notes on how these groups are related and how prejudices and personal stories work in their working hypotheses are very interesting (particularly in the case of the press) as well as on the role of cryptocurrencies in kidnapping for ransom.

Needless to say, the ending is disappointing, and for more than one reason (which I can't reveal).

Summary

Family Secrets is a sophisticated ensemble story that exceeds dramatic comedy, combining it with other genres and exhibiting a very ingenious narrative structure, with twists and turns in time combined with changes in point of view that permanently redefine certain situations and the motivations of its characters.

Review

A wedding is constantly interrupted by the hesitations of the future spouses and the interference of their relatives.

For some time now, the series show a certain concern to get out of the chronologically linear stories. Family Secrets is a choral story with skilfully alternate roles that successfully combines their comings and goings in time with a change in point of view, with a return to the same situations but from the perspective of a different character. This adds information about what is happening and the motivations of the characters and modifies its meaning (for the viewer and for the characters), also playing with ambiguity and misunderstanding.

In essence, the series unravels the intricate relationship between the bride and groom and their respective families (the Wilskas and the Jaworowicz). To do this, he also resorts to another constant in modern series: the combination of genres. Family Secrets exceeds the dramatic comedy, since in addition to displaying that dry Polish humor it can (and knows how to) get very serious and quite dark, venturing into noir, going through the comedy of intrigues and the romantic comedy.

As usually happens with these series, and for all these reasons, it takes a while to get into its dynamic (something that also happens with The White Lotus, for example); but sooner or later empathy begins with its great gallery of characters with their respective registers (each one will have their favorites; in my case, Dorota, by Edyta Olszówka), without prejudice to our perception of them changing with time. The running of the chapters in some cases. This goes hand in hand with a great cast, including Eliza Rycembel (Corpus Christi) as the bride and Bartosz Gelner as the groom.

The series sharply focuses on marriage, fidelity, generational conflicts and, tangentially, class conflicts and is quite harsh with the medical and academic world.