Lima

It has an attractive execution, interesting visuals, the camera is constantly moving in nice locations and coming up with unusual shots, it looks very cinematic and it's brilliantly shot for a debut. It's just that when you think about the premise and the twist even a little bit, it stands on very shaky clay legs. The exposition before the major twist is too long and after an hour or so many viewers will get tired of watching a bunch of constantly celebrating and exuberant extroverts. That said, Zoe Kravitz has an interesting directorial style and may be on the verge of great things in years to come. And I'd like to see Channing Tatum in this unconventional role more in the future.

I really like Paul Schrader's scripts in his strong 70s and 80s. But it's also a well-known fact that the more interesting his themes and ideas were and are, the worse he is as a director; it was always better to have someone more skilled take on his screenwriting brainchild (yes, Mr. Scorsese, I'm pointing at you). Here again, the premise is quite interesting, but delivered by Schrader in such a tired way that you just don't enjoy it. In fact, the story doesn't really work towards the end either, and thanks to cheap plot crutches and a point that lacks any punch, you don't recognise the Taxi Driver screenwriter here at all. And if that's not enough misery for you, the old man tries to convince you that video games are mainly played by rapists and junkies. Boo.

It's clear to me why this film was pulled from cinemas for several years because it didn't conform to the ideological norms of the time. Karel Höger is here as a bankrupt creature who drinks a lot, smokes like a factory, and as an ideologically defective person is not in the party, which is why he is subjected to bullying. The personal-party tug-of-wars didn't engage me at first, much less the frequent comradeship, as did the hanging around a certain miner, spiced with a little hint of his wife's infidelity. Fortunately, at around the 50-minute mark there is a turning point, a major flashback that illuminates why things have been happening as they have been, and the acting of Höger, a master of his field, and his beautiful sonorous voice give it all a certain emotional charge. He could play the alcoholic convincingly, and when you add to that a nice cinematography and an emotionally tense, touching ending, just as Václav Krška was able to do, satisfaction prevails in the end. But more in the "seen it and probably once is enough" category, the Socialist odour in the first half was too strong for me.