Dir - Dejan Zečević
Overall: GOOD
An enticing war film that acts in part as a retelling of John Carpenter's The Thing, Serbian filmmaker Dejan Zečević's The Enemy, (Neprijatelj), pulls off having a very deliberate, perpetually ambiguous mood. Set at the onset of the Balkan War ending, Zečević's story immediately introduces a possible supernatural component and one that clearly stands as a metaphor for the horrors that human beings can inflict on each other due to distrust, despair, and the overall consuming trauma of war. In a typical genre setting, the film would blatantly lay its horror cards on the table. Here though, zero such tropes are utilized and the audience is made to feel comfortable, (or uncomfortable, depending on the viewer), that no such direct answers are to be given. Considering that the film is clearly not about such things, it stands as a welcome meditation on its harrowing themes. The performances are strong and the very bleak, diluted color pallet does in fact give it a dreary look that is fitting for the material. It is low on surprises and overall excitement, yet locks in a tone that is both haunting and contemplative.
Dir - Francis Ford Coppola
Overall: WOOF
To date, Francis Ford Coppola's final film is the absolutely puzzling vanity project Twixt, a movie inspired by one of the director's dreams and one that seems to have sprung up from another planet. Off-putting from the onset, it only becomes more confused with pretentious dream sequences, vampires, Edgar Allan Poe because why not, and catastrophically bad performances and production values. The digital photography has mediocre student film written all over it which is bizarre enough. Yet it becomes downright laughable when the visual effects take center stage, looking like a mockbuster version of Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's groundbreaking work in Sin City. Speaking of laughable, the dialog is so unnatural it is persistently comical and in the lead, Val Kilmer seems to be the only one occasionally hip to this fact. In one intentionally hilarious montage, his troubled author struggles with the first sentence of his new book and Kilmer bounces between a Marlon Brando and a gay black basketball player impression for reasons only known to himself. Elsewhere, the humor is outrageously accidental, with one of the most ridiculous Ouija board scenes and a Goth kid hang out that a seventy-year-old Coppola must have though was hip enough to include. It is a fascinating trainwreck and one made all the more so by being helmed by one of cinema's most (otherwise) outstanding filmmakers.
Dir - Sean Durkin
Overall: GOOD
Overall: GOOD
As a stark and very cold essay on post-traumatic stress disorder, Sean Durkin's full-length debut Martha Marcy May Marlene is horrific in its unapologetic bleakness. A fleshed-out version of his 2010 short Mary Last Scene and also serving as the first screen appearance from Elizabeth Olsen, writer/director Durkin takes a deliberately low-key approach in examining what happens to a person after leaving a cult, namely the type of paranoia and emotional damage inflicted on both the ex-member and their loved ones. The details of said cult's exploits are wisely kept sparse, never making them the focus and at the same time having them become more ambiguous and in effect, more disturbing. It is somewhat stylistically ambitious by bouncing between the current setting and flashbacks, inter-cutting scenes as they appear parallel to each other. As the primary focus, Olsen is outstanding in a hugely complex role, garnishing sympathy and pity even as her actions spiral out of control and become less and less condonable. While the film may be too uncomfortable in the disregard for any hope it may provide, it is highly commendable for presenting itself in such a challenging way.
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