pulpscifiardent

I saw this film at a local film festival, and I have to say, it's awful. The acting is flat, the editing is janky, the lighting is sub-par, most of the dialog is poorly ADRed.

Yet, for some reason, I totally loved this film. It's bizarre, quirky without being pretentious, baffling but in a way that doesn't frustrate you. It's charming, it has this unique feel to it that just makes you want like it. It like something you'd see in a motel room at 1am on a public access television station. It's like if Wes Anderson directed a 1988 student SciFi film at his family's summer cabin in Maine, screened it once at student film festival, then threw it in his uncle's storage locker only to be found by a public access TV producer in Toledo Kansas. It feel like something you weren't meant to watch, and in that way it makes you feel special for watching it.

We live in an era where "cult movies" aren't really that much of a thing anymore, but I feel like this is going to be a cult movie if only because I'd totally be willing to join that cult. I'm totally going to buy a hard copy of this film (if one ever becomes available) and show it to all my friends, most of who will probably say "why the hell are you showing this to us?" and I'll go, "BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME!!!"

Crocodile Gennadiy is a character driven documentary, and boy did they pick one hell of a character. The titular Crocodile Gennadiy is clearly a man who enjoys being on camera and knows how to carry himself in front of one. The subject matter of this film is not for the faint of heart, and contains some dark imagery, but it's a darkness that Gennadiy helps you navigate through. You see this hell he lives in and how he copes with it, you really begin to admire him, despite the fact that his actions frequently walk the line between humanitarianism and vigilantism. And on top of this all the film team did an amazing job capturing this man and his environment, the cinematography is top notch essentially creating a "beautiful hell" in the same vein as other great documentaries like Detropia and The Act of Killing.

But that last point is the one thing holding me back from a perfect rating. It's a bit TOO much in the style of other great docs to come out recently. It's a lovely style no doubt, but it'd be nice to some work try and slip away from it a bit into either new territory or old territory that has been abandoned.

Many films that try to do what Jauja did fall flat due to one simple flaw. Tedium. Many drone on and on till even the most patient film goer ends up bored and any deeper meaning of the film is lost to them.

Jauja is a slow paced, quiet, and visual film, but it never feels wearing. There's a sense of pace, a slow pace, but a pace and a rhythm that never makes it difficult to watch.

It is made up largely of long, beautiful shots, usually devoid of any music and containing only minimalist dialog. The whole affair has a sort of dreamlike feel. This movie is far less about characters and story and meaning than it is about tone and mood and aesthetics. If it's an aesthetic you enjoy than the film will engross you.

All that said I wasn't truly blown away by it. Nothing really ever shocked or grabbed or awed me. It was beautiful, it was enjoyable, but not really inspiriting on any higher level. It is in the end like a very nice dream, pleasant while you're in it, worth remembering after, but not really anything that carries with you long after waking.