Having seen Kleber Mendonça Filho's Bacurau I went in expecting a genre film. The opening scene is built on such drawn out tension that I was convinced it was exactly what I was in for. I kept waiting for "The Secret Agent" title to pay off, but gradually I began to realize that this is not that movie. The film's atmosphere was too grounded with there being a clear dedication to realism. I had already realized that the intention of…

We start with two boys watching their father take off for work, but instead of normally just seeing him off, they choose to talk back and speak their mind about him always being away. What ensues is a change from the norm as the father takes the boys with him as he treks from their village all the way to Lagos where he seeks to get backpay from his work.

The boys get a rare chance to see a different…

Pondered a decent bit why I actively disliked the film while watching it and I eventually realized that since the film begins with a scene which spells out the doom of the narrative, it inherently frames everything in the film as bleak because there's no way for things to go other than down. Every sign of hope, every happy moment, every dream becomes inherently sad because you know it's gonna turn out bad.

I read the Wikipedia page of the…

Intensely uncomfortable which was the main reason I liked quite a bit of the movie, but the film pushes its concept so far into misery that when the final scene ends with a tragicomic beat I was just done with the movie.

I think the film makes interesting choices with Bear by switching between scenes where the wish brings misery to him and scenes where he's an unrepentant piece of shit who is always prioritizing his own desires and feelings…

I kept waiting for something drastic. I thought the film was building towards something explosive. I thought the father might walk out and never come back. I thought he might die and that's why the need to recollect, the need to see in between the lines, to see what wasn't explicitly expressed. I thought we'd get an answer, but we don't. We know he's gone, but why or how is never explained. The two go back home from the vacation…

Perfect example of how it's not usually the idea which is boring, it's the execution where the film lives or dies. Ballerina doesn't really do anything new in the revenge genre, though I'm not entirely sure what exactly would be refreshing in this land where there's nothing new under the sun, but the film nevertheless succeeds because of strong direction, a phenomenal lead performance and a great style.

The film is basically aesthetic bliss paced to perfection, with a lot…