Jona-9

This German movie has just been released here in Montreal, with lots of advertisement, long after it won the prize for Best Director at last year's Montreal Film Festival. Thus, the anticipation was quite high. And the result, I feel, does not quite deliver.

The film evolves around Tarek, a young taxi driver who decides to take part in a scientific experiment after seeing an ad in a newspaper. His main incentive is money (4000 Deutch Marks), as it is for most of the men who join him, but he also sees this as an opportunity to get back in the journalism business, striking a deal to write a full article about the whole "experience". He will soon find out, however, that this will not be a walk in the park. Looking to study the effect of power on men, the scientists have Tarek and half the other "guinea pigs" thrown in jail as the other half is asked to play "guards". What first starts as a pleasant game soon erupts in chaos as the latter group begins to take its role very seriously...

Loosely based on actual events that occurred in 1971, this movie starts as a very interesting study of human behavior. How a man can react if deprived of his freedom, his most basic rights, his intimacy? And, on the other side, how a man will react if suddenly awarded total control over other men? These are scaring questions, and the results are frightening. While Tarek, intensely played by Moritz Bleibtreu (Run, Lola Run), tries to provoke his pseudo-captors to use violence in order to boost the report he intends to publish, some of the guards soon find real pleasure in inducting psychological and, inevitably, physical pain. The whole atmosphere being so well rendered, due primarily to very realistic sets and overall impressive acting, I found myself wishing more than once never to be part of such an experiment. Especially when all hell breaks loose and blood begins to spill...

I could never, however, totally immersed myself in that film because, mainly, it is not made very plausible. The scientists (some would say "masochists") do not seem very serious nor professional to me. And even though they are supposed to be in charge, they are rapidly overtaken by a flagrant lack of preparation (the guards even gain access to a room with no camera in it, thus being able to inflict whatever treatment without nobody knowing). And what about the goals of the experiment? Never clearly stated, they make the whole thing look a little cheesy, and almost presumptuous, as if the scientists were doing it only for the sake of doing it...

And if the character of Tarek is very believable and has understandable motives to which we can at least relate, if not accept, some of the other characters are poorly sketched and their relevance in the plot is highly questionable. It is the case of Tarek's one-night stand (whom he met the night before the experience started), who unexpectedly becomes a very boring subplot, or this major who shares Tarek's cell and who has issues that are never really revealed.

In the end, the premise is great, but the development lacks in consistency and plausibility. The film remains very intense and quite violent, especially at the end, which will probably leave you breathless. All in all, I would not call this entertainment, but more of an "experiment", although an uneven one. 7/10

Savage Messiah is a true story. The story of a Canadian social worker, once beaten by her husband, who discovers the women and children of a small commune are being abused by their leader. This leader, it turns out, calls himself Moses and has made the nine women living with him his concubines, mistreating them in the most violent ways.

This story made quite a lot of noise when it came out during the late eighties, both in Ontario and Quebec, especially because of the cruelty of the acts involved and the outrageous control "Moses" (Roch Thériault) had on "his" people.

While attempting to depict, sometimes with success, how it was like to live on the Church River commune, the movie mostly follows, in a very straightforward way, the social worker who discovers the truth and tries to make everything stop. Thus, it very soon starts to resemble these true stories often seen on tv on Friday night. Of course, the budget here is a little bigger, and the actors quite a bit more talented, but apart from that it just feels like a big made-for-tv movie, very easy to follow, with its few strong emotional moments along the way, but no real character development. And although the advertising prompted the viewer to "be the judge", the movie clearly adopts a subjective point of view. In the end, it's an interesting story, although violent, but a movie that, sadly or not, will not make history.

Well, it starts as a basic low-budget sci-fi film, with an opening sequence poorly imitating Star Wars, and with a "trailer-park" town as the initial background. The story is about this nobody, Alex, who plays a video game outside the convenient store and, because he's so good at it, is summoned by an alien to go save the universe. Now, you might think it's bad, but you might be wrong...

In fact, this is more a comedy than a sci-fi movie. The strength of this film relies on the ability it has to just make fun of itself and of other films of the genre. For example, the alien who takes Alex in the skies doesn't do it for the sake of the universe, but almost only for money! And when Alex discovers he's in the middle of a war, he decides to go back home! so much for a hero... And adding to that very superficial characters and screenplay, a lackluster soundtrack and the cheesiest special effects around, you might think you're in for a bad trip... but again, you might be wrong.

Of course, if you take this movie seriously, you will probably get bored to death, but if you see it as a comedy, as a film made by people who definitely saw too big for the money they had, you might just be in for some good honest laughs. And maybe some thrills too. Just as long as you don't expect too much out of it, it might just surprise you...