Jul 1, 2019

Cinematic Favorites of June

"Repetition is a form of change."
(from Sergio Caballero's Je te tiens)


Features:


Honorable mentions: a 'low key' dystopian sci-fi which also happens to be the No. 1 contender for High Life (or even Danny Boyle's Sunshine) companion piece, Aniara (Pella Kågerman & Hugo Lilja, 2018), and Una vez la noche (Antonia Rossi & Roberto Contador, 2018) - a brooding, aesthetically pleasing, yet somewhat stilted 'motion comic' which reflects on the human condition and takes the viewer on a meandering journey across the 'memoryscapes' based on real people's experiences.


Shorts (* marks the films from the Directors' Fortnight selection which played on Festival Scope from May 31 to June 16):

1. Je te tiens (Sergio Caballero, 2019)* - a gloomy, whimsical, formally engaging mystery/drama whose strong, mini-diorama visuals are perfectly matched with the evocative music, creating dense atmosphere;
2. Grand Bouquet (Nao Yoshigai, 2019)* - an 'animesque', flower-vomiting (eco-parable?) fantasy somewhat reminiscent of Hitoshi Matsumoto's Symbol (2009);
3. Movements (Dahee Jeong, 2019)* - a feel-good, beautifully animated meditation on relativity of time;
4. Olla (Ariane Labed, 2019)* - an assured, Greek Weird Wave-like debut whose main selling points are the great production design and Romanna Lobach's uninhibited performance (watch for the dance scene!);
5. Šafarikova 19 (Lana Pavkov, 2018) - a lavish absurdist drama focused on the decline of a noble family, with a great central performance from Jasna Đuričić;
6. Invincible City (David Finkelstein, 2012) - '... a beautiful place to get lost in...', read my full review HERE;
7. Piece of Meat (Jerrold Chong & Junxiang Huang, 2019)* - a solid cut-out animation laced with some edgy social commentary (and opening with a coitus between a lamb chop and a champagne bottle).

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