Naked (1993, Mike Leigh)

O my orphaned blog. November went by surprisingly fast and I am thankful for that. Of course I saw films, many, but I would have liked to see even more. But time and energy are limited.
So where to start my backlog? I think, today I want to write about Naked. I saw this already some time ago and I am re-viewing it now.
Everybody says that this is an eminent film. But it's also extremely hard to watch. There is bleak all around and misery. The intellectuals say it is a fascinating portrait of British post-Thatcher society. Anything can reflect that society. even a film like Lake Eden can be made a political movie.
How does Naked work as a movie? How do I feel about it out of the context of the beginning of the 90s in the last century?
First of all, the acting is quite superb. Johnny is a thoroughly unsympathetic character, verbose and abusive, a rapist - and a character who would have become a loser even without Thatcher.
To me this is a period movie; maybe it had a certain impact when it was published, but what  does it have to say now, after 22 years. Most of al we learn, that some people then were bastards without future. So what?
4/10

Misery, Misery, Misery

The yuppie of the set

More misery

The yuppie is a bit like British Psycho

Let's have a look at a self-contented bastard

Still more misery

Evenmore misery

Limping misery

天空の城ラピュタ (1986, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Hayao Miyazaki)

Another film by the grand old man of Japanese anime. However, I see that my inner Japanese is not really fully developed. Although I am basically curious, I am now a bit tired of this genre.
Another nice film about saving the world, restoring a once golden age, Paradise Lost, Refound and Lost Again.
I don't want to make fun of it, but I just had too much Miyazaki - or maybe the program committee of Film4 made a poor selection and chose too many films with similar plots. What again was the difference between this and Nausica?
8/10 -- and now I need a break from Miyazaki

Sheeta and Pazu, the orphaned heroes of this film

The grandmother of the pirates - who will trust this woman?

Laputa - uprooted and floatingaway

Vyšší princip (1960, Jiří Krejčík)

This movie from Czechoslovakia was banned in West Germany. They said then that it was hostile to Germans. I bet today a word with -phobe might have been used. Surprise! Czechs make a film about the occupation of their country. Who would expect a Germanophile result?
A quality of the film is, however, that it is not only black and white, but shows a variety of different reactions in the population. Many are just angry, but don't join the resistance actively. There are opportunists who adapt to the circumstances. In a way it portrays daily life of Czechs during the occupation.
On the other side there are the German forces. They are not, as in many other movies, a homogeneous mass, but there are discernible individualities, e.g. the head of the Gestapo.
The main emotional appeal of this movie is, of course, to show how the lives and ambitions of three young people are crushed and wasted for some stupid joke.
Propaganda, certainly, but with shades and gradings. Art? The director definitely could  do more than he is showing to us here.
4/10

Die Welle (2008, Dennis Gansel)

Habe ich diesen Film schon einmal gesehen oder bloß schon soviel gehört, dass ich glaube ihn gesehen zu haben? Ich weiß es nicht mehr. Jedenfalls jetzt habe ich ihn gesehen und dabei oft dieses Déjà-Vu-Vernehmen gehabt.
Ja, wir wissen es mittlerweile: wir alle haben das Potenzial zu Anbetern einer Autorität zu werden in uns. Sich einzureihen und der Gemeinschaft zu folgen, ist so leicht. Mit ruhig festem Schritt und links zweii drei. Wie das geht, wird plausibel in diesem Film vorgeführt: einfache Botschaften, das Gefühl zu einer Elite zu gehören, Riten und Routinen zu haben - und vor allem einen leicht identifizierbaren und à la longue auszurottenden Feind.
Projektwoche. Thema ist Autokratie. Während einer Diskussion wird behauptet, es könne in Deutschland nicht mehr zu einer Diktatur kommen, man sei ja aufgeklärt. Der Lehrer - hervorragend dämonisch von Jürgen Vogel dargestellt - kommt nun auf den Gedanken, diese Behauptung nachzuprüfen. Er führt allmählich Disziplin und Ordnung ein. Dabei kommt ihm zugute, dass er Autorität ausstrahlt. Einmal auf der schiefen Ebene legen die Schüler allmählich ihren kritischen Verstand: Eigenverantwortung und Selbständigkeit wird der Gruppendynamik geopfert. Es sieht auch so aus, als ob der Lehrer es genießen würde, von seinen Schülern geliebt, ja angehimmelt zu werden.
Wie bei diesen Experimenten üblich, droht das Konzept aus den Fugen zu geraten. Der Lehrer kann am Ende wie der Zauberlehrling nicht mehr die Kräfte bändigen, die er hervorgerufen hat. Vor allem aber nimmt er einem Außenseiter, der in diesem Experiment plötzlich seinen Lebensinhalt fand.
8/10

Big Game (2014, Jalmari Helander)

I haven't written so much here recently, This could mean that I am just plain lazy or that I am living in the real world, neglecting the virtual one and also neglecting these notes for my later reference.
What to say of a movie that has the doubtful reputation to be the most expensive film from Finland.  In times of financial crisis it would have been better if they had used the money more meaningful.
This was shown at the Copenhagen Film Festival. I really need to stop thinking that only because something is shown at a festival makes it worthwhile. This one was junk.
Who will watch such stuff? Who is the target audience? Grown-ups? Hardly! Maybe this is something for big boys and other people before adulthood and maturity.
The most powerful man in the world? Right, the President of the United States of America. The least powerful man in the world? A boy from the rural Finland who needs to go through a rite de passage to become a man. Bad odds. Add a handful of terrorists that want to shoot down and kill said President and construct a situation in which only the skills of a Noble Savage can save the president. That doesn't sound interesting and it isn't. There are different action circles, chasing and shooting and what else is supposed to be an integrated part of a thriller. Will the murderers win? Any qualified guesses?
2/10 - feeling generous

The villain could be a George W lookalike - interesting1