Karlovy Vary 2018: «Is Putin charismatic? On the basis of a cursory appraisal we would surely say ‘No’ but we would just as surely be dead wrong – and quite possibly also dead.»
Karlovy Vary 2018: Tim Robbins used the opportunity of receiving the President’s Award for his ‘contribution to world cinema’ to issue a rousing metaphorical call to arms for artists everywhere.
Midnight Sun 2018: They say ‘out of darkness cometh light,’ but can times of adversity such as ours really breed great films? Let alone change the world? Well, if it can happen anywhere, it will be here, at Sodankylä’s famous Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF).
«Critics often confused Ophüls’ decadent sets, pretty belle époque settings and the technical wizardry of his mobile camera with empty style, superficiality, even snobbishness.»
«What has shaped our perception of 22 July, of what happened, what it was like, and what these incidents of terrorism have meant for us and our country?»
TIFF 2018: «For all its flaws, Golden Dawn GIrls nonetheless represents a remarkable achievement, a work of courage and skill. It’s great virtue, I believe, is in humanising the spectacle of fascism.»
TIFF 2018: «There is no more essential part of life, yet we prefer to see it and think about it as little as possible. In this respect, the film poses an important question: Is our flight from death also a kind of flight from life?»
We walk through the epilepsy test sequence shot by shot, the film’s most impressive segment, a controlled cacophony of images and sound, presented with contemplative intensity.
Our in-depth exploration of Thelma is continued by looking at Joachim Trier’s many elegant visual solutions, echoes and mirrorings, and completing the discussion on motifs and overall coherence started in Part I.
Zeitgeist is replaced by timelessness, chamber music by a symphony. The systematically unpredictable Thelma is Joachim Trier and his team’s most sonorous, lyrical and adventurous film.
Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 is a powerful art experience, but also a thoughtful meditation on being human, authenticity and reflections.
Montages had a brief chat with film composer extraordinaire Danny Elfman as he was honoured during the 2017 edition of Hollywood In Vienna at the end of September.