Yay so the local cinemas have re-opened again, after eight months of lockdown. And since I have supported them and was faithfully paying my membership card even though there were no cinemas open at all, now they surprised me with offer to bring a friend along for cinema - this is as thanks for supporting them all this time - we also get a free drinks in the cinema. So I have returned to cinema with a vengeance and have seen several movies in a row, with a greatest pleasure.
- "Promising Young Woman"
- "Tina" (I have written about these two already)
- "The Dissident" is a political documentary directed by Bryan Fogel (whom I need to research some more because apparently he is already an "Oscar" winner) about murder that was probably planned as a secret operation but it bursted as the main news on the international stage and was followed by every living person on the planet. It turned into a real-life thriller and it was too gruesome and scandalous to be ignored - I remember being very involved in discussions around the time and the new discoveries were unfolding day after day. It is not necessary to repeat the whole chronology here because it is already well known story but what always interested me the most was not the manner of the murder itself but how the world reacted to it, how majority of politicians quickly distanced themselves from Saudi prince except one particular exception and that was the orange man whom I don't even want to mention - the way he was shrugging his shoulders and waving this little hands because financial gains were the priority was just disgusting and at the end all the accusations came to nothing - there was some circus court and alleged punishments but it felt as smoke & mirrors for the media. There was an interesting look into the way things are connected - tape with video recording of Jeff Bezos and his mistress becoming public right after he cut the contact with Saudi prince, his subsequent divorce, etc - it was a very gripping documentary and it did felt like a real life "The Bourne Trilogy" though I left the cinema with a head buzzing from everything. Even though this director is an "Oscar" winner (first ever for Netflix) "the film struggled to find a distributor for eight months and was not able to run on a large streaming platform like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. It is widely believed this was due to those platforms' fear of offending the Saudi Arabian government and possibly losing subscribers." (from Wikipedia)
- "Judas and the Black Messiah" was something else completely. This was an all-black drama about FBI pursuing "Black Panther Party" and under the direction of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen) arresting, intimidating and executing everybody who didn't toe the line. It is the subject I don't know much about so it was very interesting for me to sink my teeth into the story that was not usually part of the mainstream cinema - understandably - everything was brimming with dazzling talents, from the main roles of Daniel Kaluuya (as a real-life revolutionary) and Lakeith Stanfield (his real-life traitor) to smaller but equally impressive parts by everybody else. It was extremely gripping movie and for me the very first time to see so many Afro-American actors not being part of something funny or romantic or science fiction but actually seriously dramatic story - not entertainment but quite heroic. hell, I wanted to be a Black Panther! And I hated the traitor Lakeith Stanfield from the bottom of my heart - as an actor he did excellent job but it takes guts to play a role that will be so universally vilified from now on. Both he and Kaluuya were "Oscar" nominated as supporting actors (Kaluuya won) which makes you wonder so is they are both supporting roles, who in a Hell is the main character in the movie? It kind of comes as a cold shower afterwards, because I was thrilled that movie won an "Oscar" but this comes as a backhand compliment.
"The Mauritanian" was very heavy - in fact, it was so heavy that it surprised my unprepared friend who probably expected cinema as an entertainment. I noticed this tendency to go for serious subjects and was even drawn to posters with latest movies about Alzheimer (Anthony Perkins) and Dementia (Colin Firth) so obviously I am not the one for something lighthearted - now when the cinemas are finally opened, I want to sink my teeth into a real deal. And apparently I got what I asked for, as this was a extremely heavy drama about political prisoner (Tahar Rahim) kept forever in infamous Guantanamo Bay where he was tortured in order to sign everything that was wanted from him. Jodie Foster is a sharp, tight-lipped defence attorney who is not so much interested in him as much as making sure everything is done by the law and Benedict Cumberbatch is a prosecutor building a case against him. It is extremely gripping and uncomfortable watching, particularly because these are all real life characters who actually still live so to know this is not a fiction gives a completely different feeling and a depth to the story. Everything is done to a perfection and acting its superb, though this was not something that you would like to watch twice.
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