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Reviews
La niña santa (2004)
Dissapointing
I'm always on the look out for interesting foreign movies and Palme d'Or nominee lists are usually a good resource.
I'd recently watched and enjoyed "An Elephant Sitting Still" ( a slow and brooding yet captivating 4 hour Chinese movie ) so I'm no stranger to films that don't fit a mainstream audience but La Nina Santa left me feeling like I'd wasted 1h 45m of my life. Inane teen chatter and very few plot points that could have been covered in 30 minutes. It teases conflict and scandal yet none of this, which would have made it far more interesting, actually materializes.
Like a dream the scenes lack an overall cohesion. I'm sure the impressionistic style was intentional and supposed to sit well with in-the-know critics (and it obviously must have done in order to be nominated) but it felt like randomly flicking through random telenovelas set in schools, churches or hotels. The ending just ends, and that's it.
Medena zemja (2019)
Brilliant
What an amazing documentary. Perfectly done, no talking heads, no seemingly forced situations, no melodramatic score, no force-fed social or moral commentary; just a well executed simple story of life.
Many reviewers are reading much more into it by saying it mirrors economic greed and industrialisation etc. but it doesn't need this kind of literature essay to add credibility. What you see is what you get and that alone is enough to make any viewer feel fully engrossed, empathetic and eager to see what plays out.
I found it particularly amazing how the camera was present to capture some key events, the neighbour's arrival, births, deaths, an almost drowning, the negotiation that leads to a key plot point and yet it felt like the camera was completely invisible, no eye contact is ever made with the camera, not even by the numerous children in many scenes so that 4th wall is never broken.
The same story written as a non-documentary movie would likely have been dull and full of clichés but knowing every second of this movie was real makes it magical.
United Nation Three Decades of Drum & Bass (2020)
Not what I expected or hoped for.
When this popped up on my Netflix recommended list I couldn't wait to give it a watch. "3 Decades of Drum and Bass" had me thinking this would be THE definitive history of a music genre that most people would have expected to have faded out a long time ago but is still going strong. What we got instead was a bit of a Terry Turbo love in and self promotion device.
While some of the stories were nostalgic the narrative did not flesh out much of anything about the actual music: its evolution from acid house and rave, breakbeats, pirate radio, hardcore, the split with happy hardcore, reggae / ragga samples, sub bass, further shifts into jump up and intelligent sub genres, modern innovators etc. Many of the clubbing stories felt like 'you had to be there' to really appreciate and not be bored by them after the nth one.
And I guess if you were there, raving at the events depicted I'm sure you would love this film but if you were not and watched this to learn about the genre you would I you will not have gained much knowledge other than the impression that Terry Turbo was the one and only, Don King of the club and rave scene. So many huge legends in the scene spoke on the film yet it didn't depict their talent and why they were legends. A good documentary should enlighten and engage strangers to the subject not only cater to all the old heads who were there at the time.