gabryant

Where to start? The movie was directed by Victor Danell under the pseudonym "Crazy Pictures". Yes, he should hide his name, and yes, you would be Crazy to watch this Picture. The movie stars Christoffer Nordenrot - and yes this movie is rotten. The movie also stars Jesper Barkselius - and yes, this movie does bark.

Somewhere in there was an idea for a disaster / apocalypse movie. Unfortunately, that idea got buried under massive exposition about things and people that who cares about them? For a significant portion of the movie, it wanders here and wanders there following several members of a family and their family dysfunction.

What does that have to do with this movie? Well, I guess for no other reason than to revisit that stuff in flashback at a certain point in the movie and suddenly make everything meaningful. Okay really, that's not the reason. They may have needed cheaply filmed filler because otherwise, they probably didn't have enough of a budget for a two-hour disaster movie. Or a plot for that matter either

There's a little bit of political conspiracy thriller thrown in to make it "topical." But blink and you will miss it.

A WORD to people considering contributing to a movie through Kickstarter - just one - DON'T. And to the poor people who funded this movie through Kickstarter (you know who you are, you're names are in the end credits) - you got taken for a ride. Hope that you didn't donate too much, because YOUR MONEY WAS WASTED.

There. See, the rest of you, I saved you from two hours wasted time. Or at least only watch the second half - there's bunches of interesting crashes and fight scenes. If you're in to those sorts of things and don't require your movies to have a coherent plot. (I'm probably talking to the superhero movie fans here.)

AND A NOTE TO SWEDEN: Stick to what you are good at - like making Ingmar Bergman films...

To give away any plot to this film would be to do a grave disservice to you, the viewer. The viewer must let this film unfold as you watch it, let it build, piece by piece until all is revealed. So how to review this film?

Maybe I can talk about the films director, Céline Sciamma. Sciamma has quickly climbed to the top of French Cinema as one of the most gifted directors working today. With five films now to her credit, she has made her mark as a director of sensitive, naturalistic films about women, both young and adult. Petit Maman is no exception, but for the first time turning her direction to young children.

We can talk about the naturalistic performances she gets out of her actors, particularly the two young girls who appear in and anchor the film - it's their story, and it involves more people just than those two.

After the first film I saw by Sciamma, "Portrait de la jeune fille en feu" Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (2019), I knew she was a major directing talent who would make her mark as one of THE major women directors of the 21st century, telling the stories about women that most studios and directors aren't interested in.

I guess that's all that I want to say about this film without spoiling it for you. It's a quick view, just 73 minutes. But it's 73 minutes well worth your time. It will stay with you afterwards. And once you have seen this film, check out her the other films of Céline Sciamma. You won't regret it.

Another in the string of disaster movies from Norway. I can live with the cinéma vérité style of filmmaking, so often used to give even disaster movies some amount of veritas.

But after that, this movie falls apart the same way that the other Norwegian films did - by focusing too much on the emotional experiences of the characters. Aren't any of the characters - or at least the writers of these film - smart enough to make / write better decisions?

It's a overused trope when the camera keeps going to the child with the big sad eyes. I also wonder why a character is able to keep their head and rationally plan something early in the movie, only to fall apart and become a hysterical emotional wreck in the last third of the movie?

Let's not forget the standard trope of early in the movie of introducing Officer Dead Meat / Ensign Red Shirt. I figured that one out the first time I saw the character. It also boggles the mind when for one character to get rescued for another gets killed. "OH!, they saved that character!!" Yeah, but they killed off one of the rescuers in the process. The math doesn't work for me. At least in movie life. DUH.