Film Shapes

Screening at the German Film Festival 2024, Scorched Earth is a belated part two of a proposed trilogy from writer/director, Thomas Arslan. It sees career crim, Trojan (Mišel Matičević) back in Berlin after a decade or so away. Apparently, a botched robbery in 2010s In the Shadows forced him to exile himself for a time, but now pickings are getting slimmer, so back to the capital he goes.   An opening sequence of watchful professionalism explains the character of Trojan - he's careful and succinct, unflappable even. This is displayed when the broker for his latest burglary tries to do him like a kipper and make off with the stolen watches. Of course, Trojan's having none of this, and quickly gets on top of the situation. Unfortunately, this leaves him with some hot gear and no real way to maximise his profits, hence the Berlin return. On arrival, he looks up old contacts in an attempt to find work. An offer to steal a Caspar David Friedrich painting is made by Rebecca, middle-...

This is an oddly constructed reincarnation AI romance film (you probably won't hear that every day). Based loosely on the Henry James novella, The Beast in the Jungle , director Bertrand Bonello sets our present in 2044 where Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) must decide between getting a better job or keeping her emotions. You see, Artificial Intelligence has saved humanity from an unnamed disaster and is now running things, perfectly but dispassionately. The offer to 'clean her DNA' would remove her 'affects', or memories, thus enabling her to undertake work tasks logically, free of emotional influence. Through this process we see two earlier incarnations of Gabrielle - in 1910 Paris, and 2014 Los Angeles. In a none too subtle hint early on, Gabrielle mentions to someone that she doesn't want to become a Buddhist - maybe she had no choice, as it appears her DNA is 'remembering' things and carrying her experiences through time. Seydoux shimmers in each time perio...

George Miller's follow-up to Mad Max: Fury Road takes us back to the formation of Furiosa, played first by Alyla Browne, then later by Anya Taylor-Joy. Young Furiosa is kidnapped by a gang of motorcycle marauders who are looking the land of abundance, an oasis in the dry wasteland of post-apocalyptic Australia. Noticing that she's in good health, it occurs to them that she might know of this place, so they take her back to their leader, a nutter called Dementus (Chris Hemsworth, fake nose and all). Furisosa's mother (Charlee Fraser) has other ideas and sets out after her. Anyone who has seen Fury Road knows that Furiosa ends up separated from her family and home, so the intrigue is really in how this happened.  The film is segmented into five chapters, not exactly a five act structure, more like a lengthy preamble, where Furiosa sets herself up as a Steampunk Yojimbo , playing one side against the other for her own ends, followed by a rampaging sequence of battles. The ce...

One for the Road is an Apfel Schnapps tale with a Kornbrand edge to it. Mark (Frederick Lau) is a Berlin construction manager and a high-functioning alcoholic. One night, he's rumbled by the cops as he's re-parking his car, pissed out of his head. Forced to undertake an alcohol awareness course, he initially bridles at the suggestion of having a 'problem' but soon begins to see what most others see - a bloke afflicted. Helena (Nora Tschirner) is also on the course, with similar problems but more resignation as to her plight. The two of them make a pact to try to support each other as they attempt to dry out. And, of course, things don't go so smoothly. An earlier bet with his mate, Nadim (Burak Yigit), ends in a chance meeting with a group of guys dressed as beer bottles on a buck's night (see below). This veers quite close to preachiness in its, admittedly sensible, take on alcohol consumption but the performances do a lot to compensate. Lau is fantastic - the...

This is Alex Garland's fourth film as director. He first wrote some novels, including The Beach , then moved onto writing films (often for Danny Boyle, though strangely, not  The Beach ), and then moved onto directing his own scripts. His debut as a writer/director was the excellent Ex Machina . Sadly, this looks more and more like a false dawn. His follow-up, Annihilation , had some promise but lacked something, maybe humour, maybe humility, maybe just an experienced head. His next film, Men , again began with an interesting premise, but rapidly disappeared up its own arse.  So, now to Civil War . First off, it's an improvement on his previous effort. It's set in the near future where the unnamed U.S. President (Nick Offerman) is scrabbling to save his bacon from the approaching Western Forces of California and Texas. It would appear that the 'United States' are much less united in this alternate reality. But here's Garland's proposal - this might actually ...

Not a Word is a slow burner that never actually catches fire. Nina is a maestra with a big performance on the horizon. Lars is her teenage son, as stroppy as they come. Has something happened to make him this as way? Will we ever find out? Well, it's a good 40 minutes or so until the subject is broached, and that's the nub of the film. Thematically, it's all about the unsaid, the lack of discussion and the effects this kind of verbal inertia can have on relationships - in this case, mother and son. Fair topic, but I found this reeked of missed opportunities. The performance of Maren Eggert as Nina is solid enough, though not Hüller level, nor even Kruger. It's the character of Lars, though, that wound me up. Jona Levin Nicolai plays him without an ounce of empathy, sure he's a surly teen but there's zero connection with the audience here. Nina is supposed to be equally guilty of fractures in their pairing, yet I was 100% on her side in this. I'm not sure th...