Change Your Image
matijakluk
Reviews
Slucajni zivot (1969)
One of the best films from the entire '60s
A small masterpiece, almost unknown because it was Petrlic's first and only film he ever did before he went on teaching and writing about Cinema in Zagreb as a professor. I've watched this film the other night and went completely crazy about it. It's Chabrol, Godard, Bresson, Cassavetes, Lester, Pannebaker - in a quiet, subtle, almost childish situations and resolutions within it, but yet clever, true to life, warm. It's "off-beat" completely - which is strange considering the year of the film (no one in former Yugoslavia did a similar film to this date). It's like a Jarmusch film, but 15 years before Stranger Than Paradise. Two friends are wandering in Zagreb, chasing girls, go to shows, working together, laughing, fighting. Nothing happens really story-wised, but every second something happens between the people in the scene - with the jazz, or piano, or city traffic, or complete silence in the background. Some sort of inner magic just goes from one scene into the other and the ending is hilariously unexpected, human and innocent. Very touching film about young urban people with a loving dose of the old Zagreb's spirit - back in the days that seems much simpler, but it really was completely the same as today or as anywhere else for that matter.
U tisini (2006)
Uplifting and fresh
Rukavina's AT A STILL POINT is one of those films made with nothing but love. It's honest, it's young, it's free and one of the better shorts I've seen by first-time director. Friends talk about their lost friend at a dinner table in such a fashion that you can sense almost a childish game between twenty-something actors playing it fresh to the bone. Masculine guy with funny tears and a hammer-arm stands still like a robot and can not believe his best friends can't show any respect for a friend killed in a car-accident (demonstrated with little toys right there on the dinner table). Rukavina's heart for the people and film-making is not afraid to be adolescent and I think that's the greatest virtue accomplished here. It gave a story a friendly touch and even though it feels personal (loosing a good friend)- it's not lamenting over anything. On the contrary, friend is gone, life goes on, you carry your friend forever in your head- good and bad things- and you don't mope. You feel hope because there's another story waiting for you and you're never alone. This place we live in is everything but that easy. If you can not joke about a dead friend- you're not free. If you can't let it go- you're weak. It's cold out there. It's great to be alive and we need films like this to remind us of that feeling. Uplifting and fresh.
Apart from That (2006)
honest cinema
You can sense the freedom and celebration of people right from the start of this one. For the first 20 minutes or so you're in the crowd, not knowing where to look exactly. It's little uncomfortable looking at all this faces interact in the way you probably interact. You can feel your dumb face expressions and than, after a while, you're becoming proud of your dumb self. Nowadays, the image everyone has about themselves is pure fantasy and they try their best to look good. Sounds like people are constantly auditioning, even when they're walking down the street. For that matter it's really hard to see naked face in the cinema today. Authors are vain and public is even more. So here it is, Apart From That, the film that gives it to you raw, beautiful and real. There's a scene at the beginning (while you still don't know who's who and who you're about to observe through the rest of the film) where we see an old woman in hospital bed, right there on the dying sheet. Her face is a life of its own. Normally, the scene would be about her. Than bunch of kids come in with their guidance and they're supposed to sing and dance to make an old dying woman feel better. Everybody is doing what they're told, under a mask, except this one boy. He doesn't feel like singing. He's being punished by his teacher to wait outside because he's hurting the old woman's feelings by not dancing for her. "You think, just because she's old and sick, she can't see what's going on?" And than camera stays on him while everybody is having a "good time" in the hospital room. Switching the position of who is hurt in just a few seconds of the film's time is something I admire very much because there stands no judgments on part of anyone. Everyone is innocent and everyone is guilty. All you have to do is LOOK and you'll see nobody's in control of their behavior even when they think they are. Who's doing right and who's doing wrong? It backfires from second to second. Later in the film that same kid will be more mature than his super-dad. Peggy, other character in the film, is too old to waste time on "auditioning" and she throws herself in the arms of strangers and close-ones right to the bone, with no shame in her wild behavior, but only when she's prepared to be that open. Catch her by surprise and she's vulnerable as a 10-year-old. She is bored and she doesn't quit life. She really doesn't have anybody by her side and yet she tries more than anybody else (besides the little boy) to live to the fullest, with no apology. Everybody else is apologizing most of the time, but don't even care (let alone think) about the people who they were apologizing to when they're spending their time apart from them. Ulla has apology. The only time she lets her mind go in uncontrolled fashion, speaking what's really on her mind, is when she's acting in the fake intervention hosted by her co-workers for her co-worker. In that acting she's more honest than ever. But, after the acting is finished she apologizes for maybe going too far. It's interesting seeing how that device of agreed acting is getting across to other characters in that scene, because you know how hurt would they be if it was unprepared with not knowing the origin of that bluntness. Later in the film, little boy and his super dad will catch the highest level of their relationship through the acting. Little boy plays his father's co- worker who was fired from the job by him. It's like a safe territory for testing honesty. After those experiences they feel a little bit stronger. (something similar, but not that worked out, can be seen in "In The Mood For Love" by Kar-Wai) I can go on and on about what went through my mind about these characters, and myself for that matter, and all the time I wasn't feeling betrayed by the possibility of filmmaker's manipulation. They put it on the surface, made it strong and open. Style is vulnerable as their characters. But all the way you can feel the good arm is leading you through the experience of watching the people. Honest, fresh and a must-see.