Davor_Blazevic_1959

Animated feature film "Living Large" (Zivot k sezrání), a 2024 Czech-Slovak-French co-production in combined stop motion, puppets and 2D computer animation techniques, is directed by Kristina Dufková upon screenplay based on the French novel "La vie, en gros" by Mikaël Ollivier.

On the verge of his teenage years, Ben Pipetka finds himself suddenly troubled with his overweight. His divorced parents are lost at it, the school nurse warns about negatives ahead and bullies make fun of him.

However, unlike heroes of many other films thematizing the problem, Ben is not just a helpless victim submissive to bullying, but strongly opposes his tormentors, whether verbally or physically. Even for the price of being disgraced he courageously and proudly stands for himself. Sources of his self-confidence are in his many talents, which sets him apart from others, especially from bullies incapable of anything else than showing, or just pretending, how tough they are.

In his private life with a divorced mother he shows sufficient independence by often reasoning better than adults and is able to suppress his love of food and growing talent for cooking in order to start a diet. Ben is sharp minded and witty in school, while interacting with his mates and dealing with his budding love feelings for Klára. He's an able lyricist and a singer for the local garage band, lead by a drummer and Ben's best friend Erik, who, maybe (un)intentionally, resembles young Brian May from British rock band Queen.

When faced with unrequited romantic feelings, Ben temporarily loses his self-confidence. Fortunately, with a little help from a fairly unexpected source, he restores his composure and... his life resumes where paused.

Coming-of-age films, with a wide spectrum of additional problems treated, were particularly popular in the 1980s, with the best of them coming from the pen of the inimitable John Hughes, but they are an eternal and inexhaustible topic of interest not only to those who are currently growing up, but also to those (maybe numerous) who never really managed to do it right or at least not quite.

Storytelling is distinguished by artistry in a great tradition of Czech & Slovakian puppet films, further endeared through the choice of music, whether original or covered, like the eponymous theme by Bill Conti from John G. Avildsen's "Rocky" (1976), which accompanies Ben's run-up the stairs.

Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" (1971), which still stands as a pinnacle when it comes to the on-screen bullying and ultraviolence, is referenced through styling of Klára's brothers, Olda and Polda.

So, all goodies put together, no wonder that "Living Large" has captured hearts and minds of the audience at Animafest Zagreb (Croatia) (after the Annecy International Animated Film Festival (France), the second oldest, and among the three most important animation festivals globally) in festival's 2025 edition and won "Mr. M" Audience Award for Best Long Animated Film from the Grand Feature Film Competition. No small feat knowing that among the contenders was the 2025 Oscar winner Flow (2024) by Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis, a visually stunning film with an environmental narrative devoid of people and dialogue.

Much like John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962) ranks among my favourite classic westerns, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966), directed by Italian director Sergio Leone, ranks among my favourite Italian Spaghetti westerns, as well as among any other epigonic westerns, also jokingly, often contemptuously, definitely gastronomically called Paella, Sauerkraut, Borscht, Ramen... westerns. It easily takes the best movie top spot.

First of all, it came at the suitable time in my life, still the tender age of 9, but in a, then, safe environment on the outskirts of Sarajevo, where in the year of local distribution of the film (1968) I lived. I was already allowed to attend cinema shows with my peers only; i.e., without the company of grown ups. In addition to Disney's animated and live-action features, as well as true-life adventure documentaries, rerun of the all black-and-white, older Charlie Chaplin's and Laurel & Hardy's (Stanlio & Olio) comedies as well as Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan's African escapades, westerns were the favourite film genre of my early childhood (and remained among my favourites even to my advanced adulthood, nowadays senior citizenship). It's probably easy to understand why. Western, mostly taking place in the wide open, often insufficiently explored, ergo exciting areas, is the simplest paradigm of constant opposition between good and bad/evil (virtues and vices), here exemplified already in the title, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", where the Ugly is added not only for the sake of nuancing between the other two; i.e., adding "colour" in otherwise only a "black-and-white" confrontation. This simplification is further explicated and enforced by numerous, often humorous instances of "two kinds of" (people, spurs...) in the film story itself.

From the initial controversial, often lukewarm, sometimes even negative reception, as years and decades passed by film has been more often and then almost exclusively praised, ultimately glorified as a real masterpiece. And rightly so! If not for other reasons than for impressively orchestrated the main three characters ensemble, accompanied with able support cast adding a collection of colourful supporting characters, then for Leone's signature filming style, mixing the extreme face close-ups and the sweeping long shots, coordinating camera and character movements to match the music, often imitating the natural sounds, precomposed by Leone's regular collaborator, master film composer, Ennio Morricone, demystifying the nostalgia for the Old West, as well as the American Civil (and, for that matter, any other) War, by emphasizing violence and cruelty, greed and stupidity... just to mention a few, already described elsewhere numerous times before.

Film begins in the waste land of the Wild West, where, each one in his own story, we first meet the fugitive Mexican bandit Tuco (Eli Wallach), whose episode, in which he survives clash with the three bounty hunters upon his trail, ends with a stop shot of him entitled "the ugly". The ruthless mercenary "Angel Eyes" (Lee Van Cleef), who, when paid, always follows his job through, is also characterized by the title in the last frame of his opening story, a stop shot of him reads "the bad". Finally, the bounty hunter (not quite the Man With No Name, but to be more precise) "Blondie" (Clint Eastwood) enters the scene, who first rescues Tuco from another group of three bounty hunters, and then hands him over to the local authorities in exchange for a reward. But it's only a ruse, because Blondie will save Tuco just before the execution of the death sentence by hanging. The two outlaws share the prize and decide to do it all again. After another successful con, Blondie abandons Tuco and leaves him in the desert. While Tuco calls him names and threatens to kill him, Blondie ponders: "Such ingratitude, after all the times I've saved your life." A stop frame of him then reads "the good". Tuco swears revenge, so he captures Blondie at the first opportunity and banishes him to the desert. There, they both run into a dying officer of the soon to be defeated Southern Confederacy, who reveals to them the secret of $200,000.00 in golden coins hidden in a cemetery. The cruel Angel Eyes is also searching for this treasure...

In the further course of the story, the alliances between the three title characters shift, as and when it suits them. All three heroes turn out to be anti-heroes, who kill solely for personal gain.

Finally, rewatching "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" is as pleasing as-if not more than-any earlier watching, because it's one of those precious movies where you enjoy knowing what's next and remembering clever, often humorous, even sarcastic dialogues and replicas, but also always discover something new, that had escaped your attention before, so it easily deserves its top rating 10+.

( S-p-o-i-l-e-r-s warning: Do not read further if you want to avoid the s-p-o-i-l-e-r-s ! ) In an amusing twist my high-school colleague Drazen explains that the Good one is "good" because in the course of the film he kills 11 men, while the Bad one is "bad" (as in weak, inferior, rather than as in evil) because he kills only 3 men and loses the direct (though critically rigged) confrontation and his life in a triple showdown. At the same time, the in-between Ugly (nasty, rather than unsightly) one "scores" the number of killings between the other two; i.e., 6 fatal victims of his shooting!

Although not his best, Croatian director's Rajko Grlic's 12th feature-length film, announced as his final one (?), "It All Ends Here" ("Svemu dodje kraj") (2024), provides an exciting and believable story, thoroughly immersed in contemporary Croatian reality. Well-connected powerful people and their henchmen, corrupt politicians, sleazy lawyers who live on the scraps of other people's destroyed lives, unscrupulously playing with their leftovers, including their final act, death, these are all characters introduced to us daily via media. Real-life characters continue their lives here, in the movie, under their new fictional names. Written in collaboration between Grlic and the novelist Ante Tomic, "It All Ends Here" is an adaptation of Miroslav Krleza's (who is considered the greatest Croatian writer of the 20th century) novel "On the Edge of Reason," having its plot transferred from the year of 1938, when it was published, to the present day.

Despite not sticking up fully to established and strict genre rules (the film wavers between a political thriller and a crime story, between a love drama and a satire), but rather resorting to somewhat more down-to-earth exchange in love and/or adulterous relationships and clichéd, therefore popular didacticism elsewhere in the story, film will undoubtedly find a positive recognition among viewers sufficiently traumatized by the exact or similar everyday life in Croatia and beyond. Therefore, although with slightly reduced artistic pretensions, but this time with a clearly increased, genre-channeled appetite of a commentator on social happenings, the film functions quite sufficiently as an exhaust valve for the accumulated frustrations of (not only) the domestic audiences, especially with (for this author quite) an unexpected but by no means unwelcome (...omitting the spoiler making noun...) ending. The regional representative cast responded convincingly to challenges placed in the screenplay.