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November 2016

  1. Arrival

    2016 film

    Watched 12 November 2016

    Beautiful, unconventional, relentlessly tense. Arrival nails the uneasy, humbling atomsphere of facing the unknown.

    Favorite detail: how the exact shape of the alien “pods” is kept ambiguous through clever camera angles, only to be progressively revealed throughout the film as different views are shown. Quite fitting.

    The Blade Runner sequel seems to be in very good hands.

  2. I Saw the Devil

    2010 film

    Watched 31 October 2016

    An overall enjoyable film, thanks to good performances and some amazing visuals. The taxi scene sticks out as an amazing feat, and a cool nod to Children of Men’s oner.

    My problem is with the script. Being about revenge, it does a poor job of selling the main character’s taste for it. Not much attention is given to how the main character is transformed into a psychopath — the film seems only interested in exploring the gory end result of that transformation. There is no “descent into madness”; the main character seems to take an express elevator straight to the bottom floor.

    While other revenge flicks like Oldboy or The Man From Nowhere offer revenge as catharsis, this film seems content in presenting it as a fetish.