After last week’s Dear Comrades, this week’s best film is also tough watch and is also available on Curzon Home Cinema.
The wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s feel like they are forgotten conflicts. Serbia committed genocide on European soil similar to that perpetrated by the Nazis 50 years earlier, though not on the same scale and Quo vadis, Aida? depicts some of the atrocities in graphic detail.
In 1995, the Serbian army, commanded by the evil General Ratko Mladic invade the Bosnian town of Srebenica. Locals, fearing for their lives. try to take refuge in a United Nations camp. There, interpreter Aida (Jasna Djuricic) tries desperately to get her family to safety whilst fulfilling her duties to the overstretched and out of their depth officers.
This feels like a tremendously authentic movie. Djurcic is fantastically compelling as she becomes more and more frantic in her efforts to prevent her husband and two sons joining the 8,000 other local civilians mercilessly slaughtered by Mladic’s thugs. Director Jasmila Zbanic’s roaming camera follows Aida round the compound, building the tension as her stress levels increase.
As well a condemnation of Serbia, the ineffectiveness of the UN is also laid bare as they fail to back up any of the ultimatums they give to Serbian president Radovan Karadžić.
This all adds up to a brilliant movie for the most part. However, I think it was a mistake to set the last 15 minutes in the present day as Aida returns to her home town. It lacks the power of the earlier part of the film, and the message of hope in the final shot feels forced.
Rating: 9 out of 10
I seem to be praising leading female performances in all my reviews this year. That stops though when moving onto Netflix with Double Dad. In this alleged comedy, a young Brazilian girl sets out to find her father. It is completely devoid of laughs and has no relatable characters. The worst thing, though, is the performance of Maisa Silva, who gurns her way through the film in a most annoying way.
Rating: 3 out of 10
In Sightless, a young woman (Madelaine Patsch) is blinded when she is attacked by an unknown assailant. As she is recovering her attacker seems to be tormenting her again but she cant make the authorities believe her. Leaning heavily on M Night Shyamalan’s Split this is bonkers stuff that is never boring but also never builds up sufficient tension to really care about the protagonists.
Rating: 5 out of 10
The pick of the Netflix crop is The White Tiger. Adarsh Gourav stars as Balram, a young man living in poverty in an Indian village. He seizes an opportunity to try to better himself when he secures a job as a driver to the wealthy Ashok (Rajkumar Rao) and his wife Pinky (Priyanka Chopra-Jonas).
This is a visually impressive film. Director Ramin Bahrani captures both the desperation of life in rural India, the teeming streets of Delhi and the closeted luxury of the rich with equal vividness. It also delivers a powerful message about the inequalities in Indian society and the insights into the caste system are eye opening.
However, after a tightly told first half it becomes a little too sprawling and unfocused later on. The ending does not feel very believable bearing in mind the gritty realistic opening.
Rating: 7 out of 10
The planned cinema release for Archive has been scuppered by the pandemic, and it us now available to watch at home on the usual rental sites.
In 2038, George Almore (Theo James) is working alone in a remote research facility. Still grieving the death of his wife, he seems to be trying to bring her back to life in the robots he is building.
Cinema history is littered with mad scientists and George resembles a slightly less crazed, though just as cruel, Dr Frankenstein. The pace may be too deliberate for some but I liked that, and was genuinely affected by the treatment of the prototype robots.
Gavin Rothery wrote, directed and collaborated on the excellent icy production design. He is certainly someone to watch in the future.
But, how George went from making those clunky models to an extraordinarily lifelike final version seems unbelievable, and the ending that upturns the whole film feels like it was tacked on without too much thought.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10