dierregi Reviews (1,212)

Eye of the Needle (1981)

Thrilling and chilling

[7/10 · 18 April 2024]

A great spy story with minimal plot. The "Needle" is a German master spy comfortably nested in British society who gets accidentally discovered by his landlady in 1940, forcing him to disclose his game temporarily.

In the meantime David and Lucy get married and are ecstatically happy but unfortunately victims of a car crash. Fast forward 4 years later, on the eve of D-Day, when the Needle is doing some spying to find out whether the Allied invasion will take place at Calais or Normandy.

Having discovered the truth, the Needle must deliver precious photos to Hitler himself, but find himself stranded on Stormy Island, where David and Lucy live with their son. Their marriage is under a lot of strain and David mistreats Lucy, who feels lonely and hasn't had sex in years. This last detail for once is not irrelevant, because it leads to a believable, immediate, burning passion for the mysterious stranger.

A deadly game develops in which the participants look hurt, doubtful, and exhausted, not perennially strong and steely determined as in modern movies.

Love and Death (1975)

Early, but only mildly funny

[5/10 · 18 April 2024]

Allen's early movies are supposed to be the "funny ones", but to me they're mostly a series of sketches loosely held together by a flimsy plot.

In this case, the plot is more solid than other early comedies, being the parody of Russian literature and most of the times it works. The first half of the movie is quite funny, with lots of memorable lines.

Boris, the Allen character, is a coward forced to fight against Napoleon's invasion of Russia, while he would prefer to spend his time with the beloved Sonja (Keaton) who's in love with his brother Ivan.

Once Boris manages to marry Sonja, the two have a turbulent marriage and then decide to kill Napoleon. This part of the plot goes downhill with lots of Allen's monologues and plenty of sexual innuendoes (with death, the stuff of most of Allen's jokes, but still...)

The ending is mildly funny, and luckily the movie is quite short. For me not a classic, but still watchable once.

Gods and Monsters (1998)

Loneliness is democratic

[5/10 · 18 April 2024]

This simple plot follows the last, fictionalised, days of movie director Whale, spent in his comfortable albeit stuffy abode in the company of housekeeper Hanna and gardener Clay.

Whale directed some successful movies such as "Frankenstein" in the 30s but was forgotten by the end of the 50s. He was also gay, but for me his sexual orientation is irrelevant, since the theme of the movie is old age and the feeling of being irrelevant, which may hit everybody regardless of sex.

McKellen was good in his role and I liked the movie very much the first time I saw it. The second time I thought that Whale asking the reporter to strip during the interview would be considered sexual harassment. Can you imagine an heterosexual director asking a female reporter to strip to get answers?

But because of double - even triple - standards, Whale is shown as a slightly lecherous eccentric, meaning no harm.

However, Whale's relationship with the straight Clay works relatively well and Fraser gives the performance of a lifetime, even if the film didn't age well.

Bad Influence (1990)

Stylish thriller

[7/10 · 16 April 2024]

Although released in 1990, "Bad Influence" has a distinctive 80s feeling, with rampant yuppies, expensive gadgets and two leading men from the era, the softie Michael (Spader) and the hard Alex (Lowe).

Between the end of the 80s and the mid 90s, Spader was in a string of movies playing more or less the same character of lovable, bespectacled, posh loser, before turning into the evil, bald Red Reddington of The Blacklist fame

Here Spader is still lovable, albeit wimpish. His Michael is a corporate yuppie who lives in a posh apartment, reluctantly engaged to what looks like a boring rich girl. Enters Alex (AKA Tony, Franco, etc...) and Michael discovers that life can be more exciting than trading bonds.

After a series of drunk evenings spent with Alex in the company of a seductive brunette, robbing night stores and assaulting colleagues, Michael's life turn into a nightmare when Alex shows his true colors and kills the brunette in Michal's apartment.

The story is well told and quite suspenseful, Lowe makes for a believable psycho despite - or thanks to - his good looks and Michael proves to be more than a tame pretty face.

Gorky Park (1983)

Decent thriller

[6/10 · 15 April 2024]

A few years before the crumbling of the Soviet empire, inspector Renko ( Hurt) is charged with solving a triple murder. Renko is straight as an arrow and a honest man and he suspects KBG involvement from the start, given the fact that the three bodies found in Gorky Park miss their faces.

This gory detail provides an interesting development with the reconstruction of the victims' faces from the bone structure. In the meantime, Renko discovers that one of the victims was an American which confirms his suspicions about the KBG.

A girlfriend of one of the victims, the brother of the dead American and a shady American businessman are all involved in the intricate plot, based on a literary source. My favorite scene is at the end when Renko gives freedom to some furry creatures. Both symbolic and humane.

Toni Erdmann (2016)

Painfully slow and silly

[1/10 · 14 April 2024]

The plot is interesting only on paper since it should explore a father/daughter relationship. Peter, a divorced music teacher tries to reconnect with hotshot daughter Ines, who works for a financial corporation in Bucharest. Unfortunately, Peter is an uncouth, non-lovable weirdo. Following his beloved dog's death, Peter invites himself to Bucharest and teaches Ines how to live by playing practical jokes and pestering her business associates with childish pranks, like wearing false teeth.

The false teeth gag goes on and on and it's not funny. It's allegedly based on the director's father who used to do it, so the audience must live through her memories because they are important to her, while irrelevant to me.

What's worse, Peter behaves like an intellectually challenged person and seems unable to string together a sensible sentence, while continuing his silly antics. Not that Ines fares much better though a series of cringeworthy situations that could have been edited out without any consequences. The movie drags on and on. I watched it hoping it would improve but it got worse with every useless scene stretched endlessly.

Forget about "comedy". While drama is international, humor is more difficult to "translate" and doesn't necessarily work the same way worldwide. I read that this is typical "German humor" and it must be, because it did not work for me.

Although much-hyped I have no clue what the hype was about. Maybe it's due to the current trend of worshipping any "female-written and directed" movie. Anything with a woman at the helm must be praised, regardless of mediocrity. I never heard of director Maren Ade and based on this, I am not interested in any other overlong and unfunny production of hers.

Ripley: VIII - Narcissus (2024) Season 1, Episode 8

Italians are stupid

[3/10 · 13 April 2024]

The main point of this episode seems to be showing how pathetic and easily deceived Italians are. The biggest culprit being obviously Inspector Ravini. Not only he doesn't bother to get a photo of an allegedly missing person (Ripley), but he goes to Ripley's house, doesn't recognise him thanks to a ridiculous wig and moustaches and - worst of all - tells Ripley all details about an ongoing investigation.

Those are abysmally low investigative standards. Since when the police is at liberty to discuss a case with a person of interest? Not only that but Italian newspapers and magazines publish articles about Ripley and Greenleaf without a single photo of either... again, how believable is that? A big feature appears on a weekly magazine without a portrait of the missing guy when Marge could have provided tons? Yes, Italian are stupid and duped by smart Americans.

Being Italian myself I should be insulted, but I just found this last episode dragging on and being kind of OTT stupid. Even if Highsmith novel was good, sometimes a plot works only on paper but not so much when confronted with real details.

Ticket to Paradise (2022)

Light entertainment

[4/10 · 12 April 2024]

A frothy comedy about David and Georgia, a bitter couple of divorcees who want to prevent their daughter Lily from marrying Gede, a Balinese guy she knew for a month. Romance dictates that Lily has the right to "follow her heart" even if reason suggests that she will end up exactly as David tells Gede - bored after a few years, looking for something else in her life and leaving Gede on the island, taking away the child (or children) they had in the meantime.

The fact that the happy couple will reside in Bali doesn't guarantee eternal happiness, but temporary contentment. However, the main plot of the movie is David and Georgia's bickering, never very funny but entertaining as far as Clooney and Roberts are two megastars who know how to entertain their public.

On a side note, Ms. Roberts' wardrobe was awful. She wore tight black leggings to a tropical island, guaranteed to make you sweat like hell and a series of dreadful, shapeless, overalls. She looked like a garage mechanic ready to fix a car. Why not give her some fitted T-shirts and shorts or a breezy dress?

Ripley: VII - Macabre Entertainment (2024) Season 1, Episode 7

I love Lucio

[4/10 · 12 April 2024]

Lucio the cat is my favorite character, mysterious yet consistent. Ripley is described as "elusive" but he seems to be merely stumbling around during his Italian travelogue, always leaving an address so as to be easily found by Marge and the police. How "elusive" is that?

Being Italian I found Naples, Rome, and Palermo to look exactly the same, cobbled shady side streets, crumbling buildings, rotting staircases. Only Venice looks like Venice at last. The photography is gorgeous at times, I agree about that

However, I have doubts about the investigation. Inspector Ravini is supposed to look for a missing Tom Ripley and he doesn't even bother to check what this mystery man should look like. No article in the newspapers asking "Have you seen this man"? Also, his "interrogation" with Marge was way too hostile, just to suit the purpose of the narrative.

Maybe the point was to prove how stupid and misogynist Italians are, which I should resent but I don't, because the Italian cast is saved by the magnificent Lucio.

The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

Living in a fantasy

[4/10 · 9 April 2024]

During the Great Depression Cecilia lives with a modest income in a New Jersey dump, with a lazy, violent husband. Her sole solace is going to the movies, where she can forget her troubles and live in a fantasy for a couple of hours.

One particularly dreary day, the fantasy comes true, when Tom Baxter, a secondary character in a Hollywood comedy, "sees" her through the screen and comes alive to spend time with her.

It's an interesting idea that could have been developed in several ways. Allen decided to go for a "realistic" approach, having the actor who plays Tom Baxter go to New Jersey to convince his character to go back to the movie, to avoid legal troubles in case Tom should misbehave.

This mix of sweet fantasy and stark realism doesn't work well for me, just as Cecilia's final decision, given her dreadful situation and her attempts to escape reality. They showed her jumping into a fictional world of plenty, so that should have worked for her. Also, I never liked Mia Farrow as an actress and here she gives the usual "sweet victim" performance, therefore I never felt for her, except annoyance at her acceptance of being treated as a doormat.

At the end we see the "Check to check" dance sequence in "Top Hat" and I'd prefer any time to watch that movie rather than this one. Why not go for fantasy 100% rather than halfway and then back?

Ripley (2024)

Still life

[3/10 · 8 April 2024]

The first of Highsmith's novels about psycho Tom Ripley, re-interpreted in a series of sterile, icy vignettes filmed in gorgeous black and white.

Probably to save money on the settings, only corners of the locations mentioned are shown (NY, Atrani, Naples, can't see a thing in San Remo, etc...) Since I'm Italian, I found the Italian locations particularly disappointing. The series was shot in cold weather and seeing Dickie and Marge alone on the beach and then bathing in the sea was weird. I never saw an Italian beach (or village) so deserted, not even in winter. It looked like only three people lived in Atrani and Naples was not much better (never seen the city so clean and orderly).

As mentioned by others, Andrew Scott is too old to play Ripley, described as a 25 yo in the novel, nor has he the charisma of a psycho, but mostly looks sneery and frozen-faced. Johnny Flynn seems too young to be moving into Tom's circle, and Dakota Fanning doesn't seem to have much of a range, except playing sulky. Freddy, the elephant in the room - let's say it mercifully - is "miscast", a far cry from the malignant but hearty presence of Hoffman. However, it's an excellent example of nepotism.

Each episode seems crystallized in minimum, emotionless dialogue, from the dreary NY opening to the cold meeting of Tom and Dickie. One wonders why Dickie would invite Tom to stay with him when their relationship boils down to concise, almost surgical sentences about nothing. The "investigative" sessions are a joke, even given low investigative standards. The episode of the boat is conveniently forgotten; no appeal such as "Have you seen this man?" is made in newspapers about the allegedly "missing" Ripley and the Italian authorities never contact the American Embassy to get info about the people involved.

All episodes are like Dickie paintings, limp and lifeless, mediocre attempts to produce feelings only the original could evoke, be it film noir, Hitchcock, or even the more recent "Talented Mr. Ripley" or the "American Friend" by Wim Wenders.

Griselda (2024)

Female criminals are less criminal than males

[4/10 · 8 April 2024]

From the moment Griselda's face appeared on screen I thought there was something off with her appearance. "Botox? Blotched plastic surgery? Fake nose?" Then I read she was played by Sofia Vergara, who's not a big star in Europe and I hardly know her, since I just saw an episode of her sitcom and didn't like her at all, because of her nasal voice.

The fake nose was a big distraction, and dialogues in Spanish, luckily with subtitles, were a bit too much, but still, the mood of the time was caught nicely, with awful haircuts, polyester bell bottoms in bright colors and platform shoes.

What I appreciated less was the presentation of Griselda as a sort of "victim", who killed a couple of husbands because she had "good reasons", and ended up as a drug "lady" because men mistreated her, and in any case, she had to provide for her three sons. The hypocrisy of "doing it for the children" is never challenged, as it was for instance in "Breaking Bad" when Walt is told clearly that he didn't deal drugs for his family, but because he enjoyed the power.

Therefore, being a mother justifies any heinous crime. Also, kind of corny that her main antagonist was yet another Latin American woman.

I did not find Griselda justifiable in the least, but greedy, ignorant, and arrogant (calling her fourth son Michael Corleone is a real touch of low intellect), nor appreciated her mannerisms (that cigarette thing was just annoying). I found the male characters of Diego and Rivi way more interesting, nuanced, and even slightly tragic (especially the doomed Dario), as far as ruthless killers can be "interesting".

Griselda: Adios, Miami (2024) Season 1, Episode 6

Why, oh why?

[1/10 · 7 April 2024]

Regardless of the not-so-subtle underlying message of this series (Griselda was a mother taking care of her sons, so it's OK for her to deal drugs), in this final episode, Griselda behaves in such a way that gives new meaning to the word "senseless".

Visiting her pal Marta Ochoa to snort an enormous amount of cocaine together, as good mothers do, Griselda fuels Marta's dreams of a "madrina" sisterhood, only to be rudely interrupted by Marta's demise.

Given that Griselda was visiting, the smart thing to do would have been to leave ASAP to let Rafa find Marta, whose overdose was imputable only to her own recklessness.

Instead, Griselda has the bright idea of stealing Rafa's supply while wasting tons of time and moving Marta's body (why, oh why?) only to be rudely interrupted.

Griselda was a "madrina" and not a mastermind, but why act in such a dangerously stupid way? I don't know if things went that way IRL, but the way the events are presented doesn't make much sense, inclusive of Rivi getting caught for a fake robbery.

There's Still Tomorrow (2023)

Interesting with a touch of anachronism

[7/10 · 5 April 2024]

Fitting nicely into the contemporary crave for female narrative about female characters, the film tells the story of Delia, a colourless housewife stuck in a bad marriage with brutal Ivano, in post-WWII Rome.

Delia and her family (three kids and Ivano's father) live in large, albeit probably unsanitary apartment in a low-income part of Rome. Paola Cortellesi who's the director and also plays main character Delia, chose to film in black & white, but there end the neo-realistic vibes.

The tone of the movie is light, even if it touches heavy topics, such as violence, greed and disrespect towards women. Cortellesi leads you down an easily discernible red herring path, towards an ending that it is not so much a wrap up of the story, but more of a slightly patriotic wishful thinking.

The choice of the soundtrack is debatable, being it extremely anachronistic and slightly irritating with its trying very hard to appeal to the younger audience.

However, an interesting moving with a decent plot.

The Apartment (1960)

Cynicism with a thin layer of romance

[6/10 · 31 March 2024]

Billy Wilder was a cynical man, getting more cynical with the years as one can see in his filmography. Nothing wrong with that, except that cynicism and romance don't mix.

Lemmon plays C. C. Baxter, just a number in a vast corporation, looking for fast advancement by lending his apartment to married executives to "meet" their mistresses and occasional lovers.

Baxter doesn't realize the sleaziness of his situation until he falls for Fran, the lift operator who - unbeknown to him - is also the lover of big boss Sheldrake.

When Baxter finds Fran in his apartment, comatose because of a sleeping pills overdose after a fight with Sheldrake, he has a chance of getting to know her better and falling even more in love.

More than the romance, the strongest part of the movie is the presentation of the vulgar, hypocritical approach to life of the executives and their exploitation of the weakest. Even Fran gets her best dialogue describing her relationship with Sheldrake in disillusioned terms.

However, the final part of the movie develops as a romantic comedy, and even if it makes you feel good for Fran and Baxter it is slightly unlikely things would have turned that way.

Supersex: The Cock Comes Last (2024) Season 1, Episode 7

Dumb, dumber and their cousin

[1/10 · 29 March 2024]

This series provided many awkward moments, but none so spectacular as in this last episode, starting with the absurd structure with unnecessary jumps between 1994 and 2004, with some flashbacks for good measure. Most of the focus is on the unpleasant Tommy character, resurrected from his disappearance in 1994 and living in a dump in 2004 when he forces Rocco at gunpoint to follow him around Paris. Why? Don't know, since Tommy eventually drops Rocco in a fancy hotel and runs to the city hill to threaten Lucia at her wedding with Jean-Claude. It doesn't make any sense but there it goes.

In 1994 Rocco "falls in love" with porn actress Rosa, but then they separate only to be together again in 2004 or something... In 2004, after the useless city hall threat, Rocco and Tommy are reunited to vandalize Lucia's restaurant. Bear in mind that Lucia is supposed to be the great love of their lives but they enjoy enormously destroying her restaurant. Such is the meaning of love in their world. In a small role, the pathetic cousin Gabi enjoys every moment of his sleazy life, trying to push Rocco back into filming porn, not that he ever abandoned it for real. The previous episodes were not good, but this is probably the worst.

Supersex: Resurrection of the Bodies (2024) Season 1, Episode 6

Even porn stars love their mothers

[2/10 · 29 March 2024]

Rocco's weird mum is dying, and as the loving son that he is, he goes back to Ortona and takes care of her. Rocco's dad and brothers are only slightly objecting to his presence, and while mum's dying Rocco phones Tommy to tell him to come and say goodbye. The Tommy character is possibly the worst of this dismal series. It's absolutely impossible to understand what his motivations are and why he's so schizophrenic. He says he "loves" Lucia, a woman he pimped out, and then he explodes in burst of violence and drinks himself to stupor.

Anyway, after having told Rocco from Paris that he will not visit his dying mother, with another jump in time and space Tommy is shown having bought a bar in Ortona and redecorating it. How fast did that happen? Tommy makes it as far as the hospital's door but doesn't go in to see dying mum. After the funeral weird things happen, one of them being Lucia entering the cemetery with son Claudio to embrace Rocco, only to be sent to Tommy, who's hiding away among some graves. Then an elderly woman appears to "pleasure" Rocco (???)

Finally Lucia and Rocco have a conversation that probably should have been deeply meaningful but it actually boils down to Lucia telling Rocco that he's too violent to his co-stars during their sex scenes. Allegedly Siffredi was infamous for the violence of his scenes, but this does not seem to affect the presentation of his character as a tormented soul.

Supersex: The Island (2024) Season 1, Episode 5

Sexual boredom in Greece

[2/10 · 29 March 2024]

Mr. Supersex meets a "model" at a sleazy photoshooting and the two fall immediately in lust. Or at least that seems to be what happens, because in this series events take place in a disconnected way, both geographically and temporally. Somehow Rocco is back from the US (or not?) and meets a woman so important in his life that he doesn't even bother to know her surname but only her name, Tina. The two have wild sexual encounters (is there any other type in this series?) and then Rocco tells his gay friend that he's obsessed by Tina, so the two of them "escape" to a Greek island, to a derelict house in the middle of the most desolate nowhere one can imagine on a Greek island.

There they have more wild sex and weird conversations without a shred of sequential logic. Possibly the worst dialogues so far. Tina goes from submissive to wildly hysterical and finally she drops the bomb... she's pregnant! OMG! What will Rocco do? He goes to the local village and stares at a local girl, but Tina follows him and they go back to the house. Tina is a stereotypically jealous, unstable woman that would turn any man into a misogynist and not surprisingly she's not pregnant after all.

Having lifted a heavy weight from Rocco's shoulders Tina stay on the island (why?) while Rocco departs alone revealing that they spent 10 months in that forsaken place doing nothing but cavorting and fighting. Was this supposed to be a love story in the author's mind? Because to me it looked like two ill-assorted, selfish people consumed with lust and burning their candle at both ends.

Cape Fear (1991)

Very strong Hitchcock vibes

[6/10 · 28 March 2024]

The best thing about this movie is the deliberate homage to Hitchcock both in the score and the filming techniques. The unusual shots coupled with the unsettling music are effective to convey anxiety. In fact, even too effective, because the plot moves along restlessly without a moment of relief and it gets to be slightly too much.

De Niro as the psycho Max Cady goes way over the top, bordering on the grotesque. Nick Nolte as the hunted Sam Bowden does a decent job of showing his tension mounting (smoking like a chimney) and his morals getting increasingly loose. Peck and Mitchum from the original (which I didn't see) do a good job. Shame about the female roles.

I never liked Lange much and here she seems slightly hysterics, smiling randomly and generally acting weird. Lewis does her trademark "provocative nymphet" role, being quite annoying with her "innocent flirting". Not surprisingly her roles dried up when she passed the nymphet age. For me she does not have a range apart from seductive young tease.

Illeana Douglas manages better than the other two as the unfortunate victim, first of a crush on Sam and then more concretely at the hands of Cody.

Supersex (2024– )

Highly romanticised sleazy life

[3/10 · 11 March 2024]

It's kind of weird to think that the Italian John Holmes gets a seven-episode show about his life and profession, in which said life is highly romanticized, making him take a stand like a superhero whose superpower is - obviously -sex.

One would think that pretty much everybody is gifted with that kind of cheap superpower, but of course, not everybody ends up making a living cavorting in public.

The show starts with a very young Rocco being under the spell of older "brother" Tommy, a small-time crook who ends up in Paris and thanks to his connections in the underworld will launch Rocco's "career".

It's highly debatable if such a career is worth celebrating, but for sure the script goes out of its way to show Rocco as an almost shy guy, ready to protect the weak (his younger brothers) and looking for "love" first with Lucia, Tommy's wife, then with a naive girl and finally with a slightly deranged "model" with whom he spends 10 months in Greece.

Despite the earnest attempts to clean up Rocco's act, the truth is that his world is extraordinarily sleazy...for instance, Tommy pimps Lucia in Pigalle while professing his love among hysterics, Rocco's forays in the red light district and the American hard-core porn are anything but naive. Rocco is described as "handsome" but even the actor portraying him cannot disguise a sneery brutality in his handling of women.

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

Weird in an intriguing way

[7/10 · 11 March 2024]

Trying the comedic approach to Nazi Germany has never been easy but the result is quite successful here, thanks to Davis, the child playing the titular Jojo Rabbit, a kid so enamoured with Nazism that Adolf himself is his best - imaginary - friend.

Unfortunately fo him, Jojo doesn't have the sadistic streak necessary to be a valuable member of the party and he's relegated to secondary tasks when his education takes a turn for the worse, to the secret relief of his mother Rosie.

Rosie is against the Nazi party and she's even harbouring a Jewish girl in the attic. All this filmed in bright colours and with an astonishing start showing a parallel between the fans of the Beatles and Hitler's supporters. It's a crazy idea but it works just like Bowie's German version of Heroes closing the movie.

The weakest part is Waititi playing Adolf way OTT, otherwise an enjoyable movie, as far as WWII can be enjoyable. Certainly way better than the dreadful "Life is beautiful".

Saturn in Opposition (2007)

Kind of lame

[2/10 · 11 March 2024]

A bunch of improbable friends and lovers meet for dinner at the house of a loving gay couple (is there any other type in movies?) seen through the eyes of the optimist Lorenzo.

Things are not as good as they seem as the other married couple (heterosexual, therefore faulty) is hitting a rough spot, one of the friends is a drug addict and so on with little stories that evaporate when tragedy strikes.

All this filmed in the most unimaginative way and it what seems to be a lack of cohesive script and vision. Lots of corny dialogue and corny situations, some heartache, another dinner and no resolution whatsoever.

Total waste of time but politically correct.

Expats (2023–2024)

Motherhood saves women - very progressive

[2/10 · 1 March 2024]

In a nutshell, this all-female project tells the audience that a woman is nothing without children.

Expat n. 1, Margaret in her late fifties (but don't tell Kidman she looks older than 50...) "lost" - literally - one child out of three and she told her ex-friend Hilary that only her type of suffering is "real", therefore a childless woman would never suffer.

Expat n. 2 Hilary, in her forties, tries to have a baby and then to adopt with alcoholic hubby David but then decides to try motherhood vicariously, by being extremely understanding about David fathering a child with his part-time lover Mercy (yes, very likely)

Expat n. 3 Mercy is a morose, arrogant, aimless twenty-something woman who ends up pregnant with David's child, even if she's lesbian (or whatever), and therefore she's redeemed by motherhood from having "lost" Margaret's child, recklessly entrusted to her.

It's ironic how Margaret is a bad mother to her other two children and both Hilary and Mercy have terrible relationships with their moms... and yet motherhood is the key to everything.

This thin plot - be a mother! - could have been told in a couple of episodes, or none at all and it's directed by Lulu Wang and based on a novel I didn't read and will avoid, by Janice Y. K. Lee, an Asian-American writer.

PS Some criticized the characters for not being involved with life in Hong Kong and for lack of remarkable HK characters, but as an expat myself I can tell you that wherever I happened to land, I hardly got involved with local goings on. One of the perks of being an expat is feeling disconnected from the daily humdrum, regardless of your income.

Expats: Home (2024) Season 1, Episode 6

A superfluous exercise

[1/10 · 1 March 2024]

As I expected, the "closure" did not close anything. The insufferable, aimless, expressionless Mercy continues her pregnancy, probably thinking she can cope on her own with a baby and no money in her squalid apartment. Besides being morose, she's also arrogant and kind of stupid.

If I cared about this show, I would almost feel sorry for the actress who had to play such an awful character.

The Margaret character dumps her family at the gate, because she emotionally blackmailed the weak-willed Essie into moving with them to the US, so that Essie can take care of boring daily stuff while Margaret will wander around in Hong Kong looking for the missing Gus. It's like Margaret's two other kids are second rate.

Also as I expected Hilary ends up as a strong, SINGLE woman. Period.

Don't even get me started with the extreme close-up of the giant heads talking to each other randomly. I totally hated that idea and the dialogues was banal at best, trite and over-sentimental at worst.

Even the cinematography was abysmal. This episode was filmed like a student doing the final exams for some second rate cinema school. A few different styles crammed in for no logical reason: edgy, extreme close-up, banal street shooting, intimate, none of which was effective or conveyed anything extra to this flimsy plot that could have been told in two episodes max. Or better, none at all.

The Zone of Interest (2023)

Nightmarish

[10/10 · 26 February 2024]

Opening to black and unsettling sounds followed by the chirping of birds and an idyllic scene by a river, this movie could be way more shocking if you know nothing about the plot.

I did, therefore I was already chilled to the bones by the "happy Höss family" - mom, dad and their five kids - enjoying a summer picnic by the river before heading back to their "paradise".

Said paradise was a large house and garden just outside the Auschwitz walls. Not my idea of paradise, but Mrs. Höss was so happy there, she refused to move when hubby Rudolf was transferred.

The events shown in the movie are mostly non-events, just the boring daily life of a very average family:

• the kids squabbling, only their squabbling has sadistic undertones and they collect gold teeth
• the wife chatting with other wives, only their chatter is about what they stole from the prisoners
• the husbands busy trying to optimise production, only the production is of dead bodies to be disposed of as efficiently as possible

The mundane existence of the Höss is disturbed only slightly by the chilling background noise of shooting, and assorted sinister moans and screams, not to mention flying ashes, burning fires and what must have been a foul smell.

The cinematography is absolutely perfect showing with detachment the surreal existence of a dull bureaucrat who just happened to be the boss of Auschwitz. The red of a flower that expands onscreen is even more terrifying than a scene of brutal violence. Violence is almost insignificant nowadays because in movies we see too much of it, but the subtle, clever, sophisticated way violence is "implied" is way more difficult to achieve.

The chilling perfection of photography is coupled with a terrifying soundtrack made of unsettling background noise and the final scene is a perfect example of "show don't tell", for audience with enough brain to understand.

A final word of praise: besides showing "normalcy" on the "good" side of Auschwitz the movie shows that the Nazis were nothing more than thieves, stealing the land, the food, the possessions and ultimately the lives of the unfortunate that prevented their access to their much needed "Lebensraum"... and so much for their high "ideals".