Reviews

... and evil corporations and justice a-la-carte.

I thought TD was over with season 3. And indeed NP didn't write season 4. But apparently someone else picked up the franchise and so here we are.

While I didn't particularly like neither s2 nor s3, s4 is a disaster. Ofc I don't need to explain to whoever reads this - someone passionate about police drama I assume - that s1 represented the new benchmark of excellence for the genre. And that's why I'm not casting a vote: putting a mean rating for productions so different wouldn't make sense.

A disaster. And I'm not even talking about ghosts everywhere - though for such a genre and franchise it's sort of a contradiction to indulge in so much "magic".

The problem? From a procedural POV the absence of a good writer is clearly visible because the quantity of impossible stuff going on is over the top already by episode 2.

The rest - character design, setting features, side plots, dialogues, action, CGI - goes from mediocre to bad. I don't even feel like spoiling anything to explain my opinion because it doesn't deserve my time. If you like good police dramas and know the genre, avoid it.

Sorry for whoever was involved but with such a screenplay you can do an exceptional work and you'd still look like trash.

Oh... almost forgot... I'm actually wrong: the music dept is very good. Lots of modern pop-underground pieces that really fit with the themes.

A classic of Christmas period: those movies about a group vacation with bad acting, some nudity, few raunchy laughs and brain damage. Here instead luckily we had something very well produced, with good acting, scenographies and cinematography, but the overall result doesn't reach the threshold of something truly enjoyable.

Watched the italian dubbed version and the text delivery is on average not convincing. Too heavy and unnatural, exaggerates systematically what is supposed to be comic into grotesque.

There is potential for brilliancy here and there in the script, and chances for great laughs. In each storyline actually. But every single one of them doesn't realize its potential. Doesn't have a proper memorable conclusion. Prefers indulging in the grotesque and the dumb instead of looking for what could be funny or unique. And still even the grotesque isn't grotesque enough to become a classic.

Then someone thought it was too long and must have cut 1 hour. Or they didn't even shoot some scenes to save money. The result is a forgettable and weak 1:40:00 movie.

You'll remember "Four rooms": well, forget it. Despite almost 30 years older, it still feels much fresher, daring and funny.

Waste of talent and of a potential good subject.

Luckily with the success Makoto Shinkai hasn't lost his talent. Honestly I thought he did, but I'm delighted I was wrong. And ofc it's not a matter of "talent" but more of keeping up with an industry that doesn't - and probably can't - care about authors and quality.

Despite his previous movie "Tenki no Ko" didn't convince me - I already wrote an extensive review about that - we are well back on track with "Suzume no Tojimari". And IMHO this is his best full length movie to date (my fav being "Byosoku Go-Senchimetoru" which is only 1 hour long).

I rate it 10 but it's more like a 9 being still a bit too classic for my tastes. We have all the leitmotifs of MS but we also have a rather unoriginal structure - despite the usual "weird" plot we have grown accustomed to with japanese animation masters: a hero(ine); a mission; sidekicks; obstacles. And magic. All mostly irrelevant because it's the rest that matters: the surrounding poetry, the lush living drawings, the silly scenes, the real-life emotions, the overwhelming drama are the true core experience.

Need to mention the (usual) awesome music dept?

Great for youngsters who doesn't have already lost their capacity of enjoying irrational, imaginative, touching nonsense... And for adults that love indulging in some cute silliness every now and then.

MS is becoming more and more an artist as relevant as Miyazaki - though completely different. Ty MS for making our lives so much richer!

Lots of productions don't try to please the audience. Yet they try to do something. Here I don't know what Scorsese is trying to do except possibly indulging in his stale world view.

I'm not pleased. I've just been vaguely appeased only in the last 30 minutes.

I don't think anyone remotely similar to the characters here depicted ever existed. I can pretend they did and yet the result proves totally pointless.

Don't get me wrong: I'm sure that minorities have been unforgivably exploited and violated through history. I just doubt that it happened in this way - despite this story being based on "history".

Greed, violence, weakness, irrationality: even though they might be (the) crucial gears of history, I don't think it's possible to live solely by such arid motives like these characters do here: I can't suspend the disbelief over what we are offered.

So Scorsese takes 2:15 hours - which is more than you would bear the average movie - to create perfectly dislikable baddies and gives us 1 hour to enjoy the necessary retribution. Despite the production quality I don't think this is a great way to spend 2 evenings of your life.

I've just watched this film for the 2nd time with the original audio. 8 years ago at the cinema I watched the italian version and I rated it 9/10. Which was far from bad given my average ratings - as you can check - but now I feel that someway I wasn't able to capture all the precious things that can be found in this masterpiece.

Actually I have to consider it one of my favourite movies. Masterfully shot and written: puzzling, thought provoking, elegant, funny and moving.

It's undeniably mostly an intellectual pleasure - though always tightly linked to the senses that cinema can tickle - and it can turn off the average viewer . For most people, it could even mean it is a bad movie or - as Stravinsky supposedly said - just proves that intellectuals have no taste. I think that's bs, but I wouldn't care anyways.

If you like poetry and are not afraid to dedicate some time thinking about youth (and old age), being human, memories, beauty, life and death, this is a great movie. Ofc everything other than writing and direction is equally as good as it gets.

Towards the end there are a couple of scenes I don't understand and I'd really like to have Sorrentino explain them... or maybe not: it might spoil the rest... Let's just thank P. S. for existing.

NWR's trademark colors, lights, elegant scenes and camerawork. Immersive sound. Extremely slow (barely bearable at 1,5x). Some very interesting/original - though irremediably sick as per most of his previous productions - characters.

Again: it's a complex & cryptic allegory of something I don't feel like dedicating efforts to decypher. Probably Miu is something like "innocence" or "beauty" as she is both delicate and powerful and surrounded by "evil" and blahblah.

The fact that it's packed with tributes and derivative "entertaining" sections or that there's no ending only adds up to my lack of satisfaction. Maybe if you're younger or more passionate about the meaning of art or the author's thoughts you can appreciate it more: at the end of the day the world seems filled with fans of Lynch.

Maybe Refn is indeed among the top 10-20 best movie creators nowadays, but I can't really appreciate him that much... though I always watch everything he does... I would surely like Refn more if he used his talent to work on content a little less autoreferential, whether story driven or deeply philosophical I wouldn't care.

Mesmerizing opening with an aerial night view of Milano and the trademark giallo soundtrack which reminded me of Morricone: it must be in my top 50... maybe even higher.

Not an absolutely perfectly designed noir/police drama: I felt like I missed something that wasn't completely clear despite my efforts.

Also some scenes and parts of the screenplay were a little weak partly due to the attempt of creating authentic main characters - which is a rarity in today's marketing designed productions - partly for reasons I can't pinpoint but involve both the writer/director and the actors.

Yet it's been more than a year since I've watched something as compelling in the genre (which I'm a great fan of - as you can see from my list of over 1000 watched productions - and about which I'm starting to become hardly satisfiable).

Great music, maybe a little too dark and dramatic compared to the script, but that's nitpicking.

Photography as well tries to mimic the '70s style of giallos with its simple camera work and original lights/colors - though maybe indulging a bit too much with Milano postcards.

So if you love well designed and executed crime stories, you have to add it to your list.

The only unforgivable negative is the audio: 2/10. Better use subtitles in a language you know, because not even a mother tongue can get more than 95% of what is said in the original italian version. The most understandable italian is spoken by one asian character...

It's an 8, which means a 10 in the world of IMDB.

6.8... the difference between this rating and 10 (or 9 which is a more balanced vote, but I don't care) is the difference between the most refined AND/OR underground viewers' tastes and actually refined tastes.

Amanda is unbelievably funny, well written, well acted, original: elegant yet powerful; simple yet rich.

So rich that I had to watch it in 3 sessions to digest everything - but it may well be more something about me rather than about the movie. Still I felt so satisfied that I didn't want it to end.

I wouldn't know where to start with the details and I fell lazy and not particularly inspired (just like after a great banquet) so I'll leave the reader with more questions than answers. All I feel compelled to add is that this movie is an incredible, wholesome trip through incommunicability, the difficulties of social interactions and everyone's silly thoughts & mental dysfunctions.

First feature of the writer-director Carolina Cavalli who hopefully will keep producing such great quality.

Some hope in the desert that is the italian film industry: can't wait to see what's next!

"Siccità" is a drama about a 3 years complete drought that hits Rome.

While the disgraceful italian filmography of the last 20 years (with very few exceptions) might in itself represent the inexorable decadence of a country and of its intellectual vitality, it's much more rewarding and thought provoking to witness such aridity with the aid of a good production.

Virzì, who was always capable of interpreting the gaze of youth and naivety, in this last decade focused on different subjects without - IMHO - being able to produce anything on par with its best older movies.

With "Siccità" instead he seems finally ready to write-direct (co-write) an incredibly complex and mature story with dozens of actors, drama and comedy, young and old people, social commentary and poetry in scene.

A little slow (I have watched it at 1,5x and didn't even notice) and while not a masterpiece for the genre - indeed it lacks that surrealist touch which seems so dear to nowadays top creators and audiences dealing with dystopia - it totally deserves an 8.

Very good photography, nice scenographies and an honourable attention to the music choices.

Yet the slowness, the lenght, the uneventfullness, the verbosity, the systematically cryptic script (even harder to decipher than the happenings themselves) where an aulic vintage (shakespearean) style gets untastefully mixed up with words and hidiomatic forms that could be used by a millenial, the weirdly ridicoulous theatrical delivery style of actors... all this, completely sinks the production to the level of unwatchability (indeed I gave up after 1 hour).

When people don't even care about the author's idea/project/intentions it's his fault... it's inactual (in a backward sense: something that might have received praise 50 years ago from a SNOB audience) trash.

Up to the first 2-3 episodes it's a mostly well designed series. I'm not sure who's the one that deserves my applause (the original novel writer? The screenplayer? The director?) but the choice of time sequence/unfolding of the story is excellent in terms of viewer engagement. It gives you enough to be interested while clearly promising that the best has yet to come.

Unfortunately plot holes, bad acting and a mediocre script (what characters say or what they decide to do) are on occasions very annoying and add up to a feeling of cheapness. So much that by the 5th episode I decided to give up (I guess I will miss a great ending... but I'd rather save me 3,5 hours). Too many silly things to bear.

First, the directing style (which I felt was original in the first episodes) becomes a boring constant: a slow tale of what has happened in the past with voiceovers all over the place and close to nothing happening in the present. Then, actors on average totally unconvincing as soon as they need to show some range - though I guess that the screenplay gave them a lot of trash dialogues/situations to work on.

Finally, characters straight out of a comic: I'm not sure if the book was more careful in avoiding the sensation of being targeted to people looking for "extremes" (violence, sex, etc) instead of "smart" crime-police drama lovers, or if this is the tv-series' fault. Anyways, as the misteries start unveiling, you'll likely start to question if it's sensible to keep watching.

Overall and compared to other international productions not a good crime-police drama. But probably not a total disaster: fine for newbies to the genre or those looking more for the shock factor than for a witty plot and/or a nice story.

"Il miracolo" will remind you of Sorrentino's marvellous series "The young pope" for its themes, while neither for the craftmanship nor for the poetry. Unfortunately the inspired idea of exploring the misterious ways in which a miracle might manifest itself, gets lost in a lot of "technical weaknesses" which is far from ideal.

The screenplay, the acting, and the overall believability of most storylines are filled with problems. And I'm not talking about the non-realism of the main miracolous happenings: those OFC need to be accepted beforehand and are managed more than fine. The hurdles actually lie in what the characters say, what they do, how they think. In particular, from a "procedural" POV, how the prime minister family, his entourage or the police behave.

5-10 clever scenes (in 8, 45mins episodes) don't prevent a general feeling of a very b-movieish production. Which in some way prejudicially impede the viewer from entering a deeper perspective (surely meant to be by the authors) where events represent a puzzle through which the divine reveals itself. When you can't suspend the disbelief, it's close to impossible to abandon yourself into such a state.

Finally, in a certain sense, the best storylines result those that are less explored and it's a little slow too (couldn't avoid watching it at 1,5x).

Nice music (the opening has one of the most beautiful pop songs ever written: "Il mondo" by Jimmy Fontana) and ok photography. Not a great show, but a solid 6 for a mistery-drama (which means you'll probably like it, if you like the genre).

Up until the series' closure, I didn't know whether the disclaimer at the start of each episode wanted us not to take things too seriously or if some of the appaling things we were shown did indeed take place (I still feel too lazy to look for historically accurate answers).

Apparently nothing of what constitutes the main storylines truly happened except for the general setting and sociological POV of those involved. This said the series is an ambitious attempt to an historical set drama-thriller with lots of comedy elements. Indeed most of the episodes contain extremely funny sections, which surprisingly meld effortlessly with the rest despite the contrast with the heavy theme of secret-dangerous war operations during the anti-comunist paranoid era of 50-60.

Unfortunately due to 2-3 major plot holes and the main characters' inconsistent behaviour, by the 5th episode most of the plot falls apart in an unbelievable sequence of events. Still there's a lot of fun to be had all around and the storyline is gripping enough to justify a full view.

As a drama it's a 5: when you can't suspend the disbelief anymore, it just gets sappy. As a thriller it's a 3: the last episode especially enters parody territory. But as a comedy it's an 8. So I'll go with a 6. Really a pity, because I don't think they needed to take all the tortuous (and ultimately pointless) storyline paths they actually took. Baffling.

Technically impeccable, both from a writing, cinematography, acting, scenography and music perspective. Possibly there's a minor problem with the sound editing/mixing: but it may well be the authors' intention to have voices blend with the environment.

Still with its gritty and heavily realistic style, it doesn't succeed in provoking any emotional reaction. A fine tale, but possibly more like a meta-attempt to analyze traditional storytelling, the origins of stories and the likes, than something meaningful that the authors wanted to convey through such a tale (as far as I'm able to understand).

Undecided between a 7 and an 8, I'll go with a 7 since I found it a little slow. Everyone did a great job (especially the 2 young writers/directors and the protagonist): it's possibly just a problem with the source material IMHO (the tale especially in the second part just gets puzzling and unsatisfying) which wasn't that worth the effort.

A young woman's rebellion against her own family and against 'ndrangheta: this puzzling land called Calabria's own mafia.

A must see for the crime-drama genre lovers: depicting a secluded village run by the nowadays arguabily most powerful criminal organization WW. Unglamorous, gritty, showing the sickness (and the weakness?) of this primitive world founded on ignorance, family, violence, silence and male chauvinism.

Up there with the best on this subject (e.g. The less original/visionary but possibly more solid plotwise "Anime nere") it's obvious the craftsmanship and the care of the production (it's the directors' full length debut).

Great cinematography, music and at least a dozen of powerful, hypnotic and even horror sequences and scenes. In particular the female protagonist has a unique and extremely expressive black-eyed gaze of defiance (which I guess she could have used a little less often).

Indeed unfortunately paired with this visual poetry I found some problems with a lot of dialogues: too slow and static or weirdly delivered. Hard to tell if it's the director's or the actors' fault. Still the result is that the level of tension falls and with it the suspension of disbelief necessary for the drama to work.

Finally: no words can adeguately make justice of the marvellous final scene; I guess that watching it at the cinema (which I couldn't do) must be a blast. Would be a 7 otherwise.

Recently I've watched a lot of productions focused on kids/teen girls. I'm not sure there has a been a statistical increase in this sort of theme, but it feels like that. I don't mind at all, I find it refreshing, funny and fascinating.

A TV-series in particular grabbed my attention: the american "P3n1s". Very well done, overall funny and on occasions hilarious. With "Asobi Asobase" we have something similiar where to the weirdness, cuteness and sillyness we add a lot of insanity and "innocent" evilness. Moreover, the anime form allows for even more extreme situations/characterizations.

I'm definetely not the guy that finds a lot of stuff amusing, and I don't even remember to have been LMAOing to tears in recent years. Yet AA achieved that a couple of times. Adult entertainment though, doubt that your 16yo kid would enjoy that (they maybe even feel threathened by the depth of the reverse psychology in action).

Very well written, a special mention goes to the voice acting geniuses working with the artists. Unfortunately a couple of episodes didn't stay on par with the rest (might be partially the fault of a man in his 40s' low sensibility and acumen) otherwise it would have been a perfect 10.

The ending song is a MASTERPIECE of a new genre: "cute deranged death metal". It perfectly embodies these girls' teeny crazyness (not sure but I guess it's the anime's voice actors that sing it)! Look for the full 4mins version online.

Just in the first 15 minutes we already get such an appaling sequence of dumb screenplay, logical inconsistencies, procedural nonsense and bad directing that it becomes a chore to get to the end.

Even as a whodunit detective thriller it isn't good: the clues lead nowhere as the resolution doesn't involve any relevant character.

Indeed I didn't gave up by half an hour just because I was expecting a lot of sexy stuff involving the young students of the school where the crimes take place. Needless to say that it was very underwhelming as well.

The only redeeming quality is the soundtrack by Morricone (in fact the opening scene with the girls riding bicycles is the nicest thing to be seen here).

The main topic of painters' forgery with the character of Elmyr de Hory is indeed fascinating, still it hardly keeps together a very thin production which just finds in the last 20 minutes something truly exciting to show (and I'm not talking about the naked Oja Kodar).

The truly interesting aspect of the film is the philosophical argument over what is forgery/fake and in which disciplines we do actually have experts (in art ofc we don't - Welles easily concludes). And while it's nice to arouse people's curiosity about such issues, unfortunately movies (and "art" in general) aren't the best media for either a presentation of the topic or such a discussion.

Overall I found this 1,5h not really enthralling (even at 1,5x speed): a couple of funny stories and nice scenes, but not enough for someone's time IMHO.

Here lots of reviewers argue that you can't judge a tv-series without having watched all the episodes... Well: first and foremost: IMDB allows me to, so why shouldn't I? Second it sounds like: "you can't judge that dish you don't like, if you haven't eaten it all" and I doubt these reviewers would agree on this version of the issue.

It's well known that commercial productions attempt to capture viewers' appreciation by balancing carefully what they include in each episode, so that every episode contains exactly what the viewer needs to best enjoy the production. You don't put all the lenghty, uneventful, prosaic, descriptive parts in one place, because the viewers would not like it. And especially the very first episodes should include the best you have to offer. So it's an educated guess that if the first 2 episodes are bad, you'll find the whole series as bad or even worse.

Now, I stopped watching "The mandalorian" quite early through the first season since I thought it was written by a kid and (on average) directed by his slightly older brother. Here we get something that feels quite similiar. Yet I'm so fond of the main SW story arc that I won't likely be able to avoid watching it all (though I succeeded in totally skipping the - surely abominable - "The last jedi" and "The rise of skywalker").

Still as a first impression the things are depressing. I won't annoy you with an analisys like "I wouldn't have done so and so" or "how is it that X did that or that Y happened?". IMHO the script and direction are almost trash and you're welcome to test this opinion. Anyways I wouldn't say it's a disaster: indeed the plot still needs to unfold and the immersion in the SW universe is good: the production, from settings, to CGI, to music is well made.

We'll see how it goes forward: I'd be more than happy to discover that the rest of the season is a masterpiece and to edit this review.

EDIT 1: 3rd episode in. As expected it doesn't improve. On the contrary it gets close to a 3 now.

EDIT 2: the 4th episode is a slight improvement (while still being a 4). 5th episode gets into parody territory, now we're close to a 2. I'll watch the (supposedly) last episode just because they baited with a cliffhanger.

I would have so much wanted to like this.

Amenabar's "Tesis" is to date my favourite horror and one of those movies that made me love cinema more than 20 years ago when I started watching it by chance when it was broadcasted late one night. "Agorà" is an historic drama done so well that it shines like a diamond compared to all those forced movies that attempt to push progressive agendas - which in a sense "Agorà" is as well. His "The Others" while not being a fav of mine, was undoubtedly a huge commercial success. "Mar adentro" - while I don't remember it well due to his "heavy" topics, was great too. Indeed except for the most recent "Regression" - a screenplayer/directorial failure IMO - Amenebar has been one of the best "commercial" film authors of the last 30 years.

No doubt I love him, and in "La Fortuna"'s project there are a lot of things to love too: based on a successful comic, an archaeological adventure story with historical roots about a misterious sunked ship full of treasures that becomes a political thriller and a legal drama. But what about the result?

Unfortunately despite some ideas/scenes and while having a very good pace in episodes 2 and 3, on average "La Fortuna" is a little slow, badly written, badly directed (and this pains me a little) and underwhelming. I could envision a great modern minimalist Indiana Jones (or at least a Spielberg's "TinTin" which, while not a huge success was a great production) under the surface of these mediocre script and production and it's so sad facing the truth. All we get is the disappointing reality of a layman average legal drama with a moving soundtrack - which made me finally get why this production hasn't been sold all around the world as soon as it was released more than 6 months ago. Well maybe it's just other reasons, and it will possibly work for the hispanohablantes audience and others targets (maybe teens?), still it's not something I'd recommend.

Indeed the writing is at times appalingly bad or apparently targeted to a not very bright audience and the TVish direction feels simplistic and cheap, especially in the "in costume" sections which are too few and too short. All in all, I really hope Amenabar gets his magic touch back soon.

Very well produced and directed. Great music department with forgotten gems of the '80s from Italy. Unfortunately it's just a nice package without any solid content from a storyline, setting or characterization perspective. Started watching it without much hope, soon sped up at 1,5x, and still got bored by ep3.

When I wondered what was supposed to be the target audience I couldn't find one. The original but ultimately unsuccessful mix of surreal coming of age story, gritty historical setting and comic-like crime comedy delivers too much stuff that isn't going to cater to any audience.

The actual target is likely the population of 15-30yo but will they care about the distant and uneventful historical setting or will they just be bored? If we think instead to the italian 50yo who lived through those years - the intended target by the producers I guess - lots of elements fall flat or result anachronistically out of place. Should anyone care about the lovable homages and careful reconstruction of pop culture elements of the time when we are in the meantime presented such a stereotyped Italy filled with anachronistic sensitivity towards men-women parity and openess of sexual behaviours? Or what about the unbelievable depiction of how 'Ndrangheta acts: where are the soldiers and the bodyguards of a poweful criminal organization? Why aren't they involved in the daily activities? Why dozens of people - kids included - seem allowed to listen to mob meetings?

And even forgiving some plot holes the 2 main actors - Alice and her grandmother - result weak. The first has no subtlety and looks constantly as if she's seen a ghost (the script here didn't help). The granny instead isn't menacing in the least, while supposedly being a ruthless mob boss.

Reminded me of other recent quirky series - "Briarpatch", "Happy", "Barry" or "Killing Eve" - for their love of the grotesque and the surreal. Productions that - equally and without exception - feel like lacking "something" in the writing dept to be considered great (even the best ones like "Barry" or "Killing Eve"). In the comparison with such productions "Bang Bang Baby" ends up as a good or very good series. Still a good production alone isn't worth more than a 5/10 IMHO and - exactly like for "Briarpatch" and "Happy", the plot crumbles very soon. 1 point more if you're an italian 50yo.

I'm really sorry for all the girls involved whose stories are undoubtedly important and beautiful while tragic. Unfortunately I won't learn about most of them because this movie is a piece of manipulative propaganda. Especially if the messages pushed are so widely accepted by the audience this is targeted to, I don't see why indulging in such unbearable tear-jerking music, tasteless poetic words and heavily symbolic, marketing inspired techniques.

Someone recently coined the usage of the slightly uncorrect - but rather effective - term "pornographic", to refer to mechanically induced feelings: which is exactly what this film does unashamedly. It tells you what to feel, when to feel it, what to think and what you have to do. Let's not even delve into the fact that education of women alone can't solve anything in the world by itself without being willing to tear down other bricks in the wall (a thing which I'm sure Intel Corp. Would be much more cautious about).

A failure as a documentary and possibly a failure even as an attempt to promote a cause because I doubt that people would like to watch this long lesson on how s****y the world is without some artistic trade-off. Indeed I tried to watch it 3 or 4 times in a period of at least 3 years and every time it made the same impression. So I give up.

Only valuable in a history class when we'll all be dead to see what the best progressive marketing was like in 2013.

A fascinating and indiscreet look into a summer for 3 teen girls synchronizing with the world, discovering their sexual drives and staying afloat while doing silly things. "A la Rohmer" someone might think: I partly agree but this first feature by Sciamma, proves to be much more modern, interesting and unwilling to indulge in exhausting blabla.

Yet a direction with some flaws - mainly in terms of pace and scene delivery - and a script with a lot of weak points - among which some weird behaviour by the characters and a general lack of realism (e.g. A. Haenel's character is too "old", experienced and pretty to be spending her time with P. Acquart's character). While the stylish choice of having adolescents apparently living without parents and doing the hell they like (surprisingly without the involvement of alcohol or drugs) might not be a problem, lots of other things don't really add up (and they don't seem all meant to show a fantasy world seen from the unexperienced eyes of our protagonists).

Hard to pinpoint exactly what is wrong with the execution of the storyline, but something is defintely off. Pity, because lots of scenes are quite suggestive despite their apparent simplicity. Wisely the writer/director decided that the lenght of 80mins was fine: going further might have turned the already mostly uneventful plot into a chore.

Great acting by all the young actors, with an especially good job by all the 3 main actresses.

Very good music by de Laubier at his first major work in cinema.

... even though it's not my house.

The more I watch productions from regions whose culture hasn't been deeply influenced - until recently - by western culture, the more I'm undecided on my capacity to judge them. Had this movie been produced in Germany or the Uk I would have given it a 4-5 for its restrained gaze, farcical tone and not particularly original themes. But I'll give it a cosmopolitan benefit of the doubt.

The film shows how willing people are to settle for less than ideal socio-economic bargains, just for inexperience or social pressures, actually ruining their lifes. And how outsiders are dissed, blamed and ultimately discriminated (though the movie doesn't show that much) for their choices.

Unfortunately the film feels a little too surreal to my eyes: things seem forcibly represented as cute and fine and often even comical where I'd expect struggling, drama and wounds. And while I guess that may well be my bias towards realism, the result is that overall the production fell a little flat.

The conclusion too left me cold: a more direct collision against hypocrisy and conformism would have made everything more meaningful. Instead we are left believing that outsiders aren't going to get crushed by the rest of society and will do just fine.

A cute little fell-good movie whose social critique doesn't really hit... unless OFC the purpose wasn't hitting in the first place but a more gentle reproach.

I've just watched the writer/director A. Alamat Kusijanovic's first feature film "Murina", reviewed it and discovered that the young protagonist acted also in this 2017 short - likely not yet 15yo.

It can be found online for free and I gave it a try. To my surprise this 20mins drama was a little masterpiece. Both the acting (all very young actors), photography and the writing are exceptional, giving a glimpse of the challenges of a friendship between girls that are becoming women. You can't ask much more to a short: a very good job.