mikrokritik

100 word reviews, comments, and thoughts on films, art, and things

[mikrokritik]

#91 Sex Education

I binged this in a day. Maybe that's why I felt a bit nauseated by the end of it. Because while Asa Butterfield's Otis is just too cute for words, Sex Education had a few storylines that fell regrettably short of their ambitious outset. I really don't want to see a bullied black kid be assaulted, spat at, and then kissed by his white bully, no matter how closeted the guy is. And would my spiritual mom Gillian Anderson really call her sex-aversed teenage son abnormal without introducing even the possibility of asexuality? Sex Education sure was a lot, but it could've been more.

--- laura

[mikrokritik]

#90 Handsome Devil

I never realized how many gay coming-of-age stories are about finding kinship through romance. Yes, there is that moment of recognition, the feeling of not being the only one in the world who is different, framed as the quintessential experience of growing up gay. But it always seems to be a prelude to the characters falling in love. Is it possible for two gay boys to recognize each other and not end up dating? According to Handsome Devil, it is. Because what you need to come out and own your identity isn't a date, it's a community, no matter your age.

--- laura

[mikrokritik]

#89 American Crime Story: The Assassination Of Gianni Versace

The Assassination of Gianni Versace spends much of its nine episodes marvelling at the assassin, leaving little room for the assassinated. That's a fair choice, but there's something icky about the camera ogling Darren Criss' physique for much of the show that, on a script level, dives deep into the muddy waters of internalized homophobia and the violence that ensues. We get it, Andrew Cunanan was hot and a pathological liar. In the end, The Assassination of Gianni Versace suffers from a miscalculation: The killer's life, while intriguingly told, is just that much less interesting than his victim's. In the end the show sells both of them short.

--- laura

[mikrokritik]

#88 Colette

So viel zum Thema Biopics: Gebt mit Keira Knightley als bisexuelle Autorin in androgynen Jahrhunderwende-Kostümen und ich bin dabei. Mit erfrischend wenig Pathos stellt Colette den abgelutschten Mythos des Genies bloß. Das „Genie“ ist, was Colettes Ehemann Willy sich nimmt, als er ihr Werk als seines ausgibt, und die Welt, in der er lebt, ist nur zu bereit, ihm diesen Titel ungefragt zuzusprechen. Colette aber ist die Frau, die schafft, und schließlich (und das ist enorm befriedigend anzusehen) über Willy hinauswächst. Da wird ein weiterer oller Mythos auf den Kopf gestellt: Hinter jedem erfolgreichen Mann der Geschichte steht eine brillante Frau.

--- laura

[mikrokritik]

87. Der Junge muss an die frische Luft

Ich stehe eigentlich nicht auf Biografien im Kino. Das Leben gehorcht selten dramaturgischen Regeln und wenn man dennoch versucht, es in eine Narrative zu pressen, wird schnell geschummelt. In diesem Fall aber macht man sich die Mühe gar nicht erst. Umso besser: Der Junge muss an die frische Luft mäandert sich durch die Jugendjahre von Hape Kerkeling und findet seinen roten Faden in wiederkehrenden Motiven, sensiblen Beobachtungen und der entlarvenden Perspektive des Kindes. Der phänomenale Julius Weckauf, der der gar nicht platten Beobachtung der mütterlichen Depression aus Kinderaugen eine unerwartete emotionale Tiefe verleiht, tut sein Übriges dazu: Der Junge muss an die frische Luft ist eine Geschichte über bedingungslose Liebe, ich gern bedingungslos zurückliebe.

--- laura

[mikrokritik]

#86 The Light Between Oceans

It really does take a pair like Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender to infuse this film's bleak premise with anything like joy or tenderness. By the script alone there are no winners to this story, except perhaps generations worth of therapists profiting from the traumas inflicted. This is not to say The Light Between Oceans isn't beautiful. Adam Arkapaw's cinematography effortlessly captures the spaces between the protagonists, coming and going like tides. But it's the leads' showstopping performances that are the real centerpiece, their ugly honesty keeping the melodrama at bay even (and especially) when the script's construction makes it impossible to comfortably root for anyone.

--- laura

[mikrokritik]

#85 The Danish Girl

Whether a cis male actor and director can portray a trans* woman's experience in a realistic way remains to be debated, especially given the creative liberties taken in the supposedly “true story” of The Danish Girl. What I can say, however, is that Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hooper and the excellent supporting cast of The Danish Girl do a phenomenal job of making Elbe's fate sympathetic. The narrative focusing on her beauty and culminating in her tragic death holds the potential to be revelatory for a cis-gender audience. As for trans* people, this is not for them. All good intentions aside, that is The Danish Girl's one unforgivable failing.

--- laura

[mikrokritik]

#84 Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

I don't know when Teenagers With Terminal Illnesses developed into a selling point, but I'm almost certain John Green had something to do with it. There's a certain kind of disability kitsch reserved for children facing an untimely death. Everyone involved in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is aware of that, and they do their utmost to steer clear of those traps. The result does what Juno did for teen pregnancy drama: while it delivers on the same tropes, it does so with a self-awareness that digs below the surface and comes up with more mature gravity than you'd expect from a quirky teen comedy.

--- laura

[mikrokritik]

#83 Moonlight

Moonlight unfolds a triptych of toxic masculinity, stunted expectations, tenderness that has to fight its way out. Even for an audience that's literate in the narrative cues of LGBT* cinema this is new: the cinematography is as shy as the protagonist's glances, it vividly evokes the experience of growing up in a world in which the male gaze on a male body is strictly forbidden. Nonetheless James Laxton, in all his unobtrusiveness, frames and lights the characters with poetic beauty. That, maybe, is the most touching aspect of Moonlight: how it approaches its characters gently, rather than with dissecting curiosity.

--- laura

[mikrokritik]

#82 Logan

When every step hurts even the simplest tasks become superhuman. In Logan we approach an aging Wolverine from an angle that reveals him as vulnerable, irritable – and utterly human. This is not the grim-dark final Wolverine you might expect. Instead Logan provides a stark contrast to the usual sleek MCU aesthetic by allowing its characters to actually feel the pain a century of cinematic lore has mounted on their backs. But in perhaps its smartest move Logan doesn't just capitalize on the bitterness but instead on the gentle moments contrasting it: humanity running deep, against all odds, even in superheroes.

--- laura

[mikrokritik]

#81 89th Academy Awards

While this year's results reflect American diversity marginally better than last year's, the show itself sure doesn't. Save for few exceptions the odd stab at Trump seems enough for Hollywood's fat and happy to position themselves comfortably on the right side of history. On a similar note most of Jimmy Kimmel's attempts at calling out the Hollywood circle jerk end in unfortunate jokes about the futility of obscurer films and categories. The disastrous best film mix-up encompasses the whole affair: Oscars lackluster to the point of carelessness, a night of wasted political potential ending with the mild clap of stolen thunder.

--- laura

[mikrokritik]

#80 Moana

Oh to be a princess with an animal sidekick and a theme song, and a boat, and a mission. Moana gets it all and boy, does she deserve it. I could try to be critical, but what's the point? It's such pure, unadulterated joy to see a female character in a movie aimed at young girls who succeeds, who on top of that is not born capable, but is allowed to grow and learn, who has a cast of gently guiding characters supporting her, but finds her final lesson in herself. This girl is a Hercules in her own right.

--- laura

[mikrokritik]

#79 Dayveon

Dayveon tells the story of a young Black man who, ill-equipped for dealing with his brother's death, falls in with a local gang. To run this film in the Berlin Film Festival's Generations section on its final all-audiences day means screening it to a solid wall of prejudice, the audience mostly white, mostly German, mostly born into privilege. Dayveon presents its world with images that look familiar in their otherness. And yet the filmmakers manage to peel back layers and layers of predictable motives to reveal a tenderness beneath contradicting the clicheed preconceptions one may have had looking in from the outside.

--- laura

[mikrokritik]

#78 Call Me By Your Name

This is not your average game of seduction. Call Me By Your Name is a film infused with life, warmth and tenderness. The leads' electrifying back and forth is built on mutual recognition and consent, eliminating any danger of power play inherent in their age difference. In evoking a nostalgia that's not born from regret but from one perfect moment of happiness, Call Me By Your Name creates a powerful juxtaposition to the traditional depiction of gay romance as debilitating, abysmal or even sinful. The result is an intensely erotic drama, softened around the edges, that will break your heart and soothe you all at the same time.

--- laura

[mikrokritik]

#77  Ceux qui font les révolutions à moitié n'ont fait que se creuser un tombeau   (Those Who Make Revolutions Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves)

If you're revolting against decrepit structures you better start breaking the established boundaries of your chosen medium. In that respect the filmmakers behind Those Who Make Revolutions Halfway showcase higher consistency in form than in writing. Those Who Make Revolutions Halfway is a cacophonic multidisciplinary anarchist cinematic opera fuelled by theory and sparked alive by four electrifying leads lending their impressive physical presence to a set of revolutionaries just barely surpassing the clichee. Ultimately their self-flagellation in the name of revolution, their collective paranoia, their violence in reaction to provoked hostility is the long-familiar tale of a revolution fought out of privileged boredom as opposed to actual suffering.

--- laura

[mikrokritik]

#76 Werewolf

Ashley McKenzie's feature debut about a couple recovering from Heroin addiction in a Methadone program locks its characters in open spaces. The cinematography's frames are so tight around them, they keep falling out. Centering on details, hands, reflections, the back of someone's head instead of their face, creates an effect that's closer to the intense shift between hyperfocus and numbness coming with addiction than expectable blurred or psychedelic imagery could ever be. Nessa and Blaise don't just fight their addictions, they fight the parameters under which we, the audience, relate to them. While Blaise struggles to stay in frame, Nessa pushes out.

--- laura

[mikrokritik]

#75 Tiger Girl

Tiger Girl has left me with an imaginary pair of combat boots and the just barely checked urge to start trouble on the subway. The mechanisms behind its anarchist energy are simple: its complimentary leading girls are put through an effective mix of familiar situations, female fury born from victimization, and recognizably superheroic but genderflipped scenes of violent lash-out, creating a profoundly satisfying “What if?” scenario. There's plenty of room for the audience to huddle together on the moral high-ground – if you want it. Truth is, the low-down provides a type of feminist wish-fulfillment I didn't quite know I needed.

--- laura