aguardiet Reviews

The Staircase (2004–2018)

Great analysis of the American justice system

[10/10 · 20 October 2020]

This is a tour de force spanning over 600 minutes, but not one single minute feels boring or unnecessary. It may appear like a true crime series but it is not. It is an analysis of the American justice system with all its flaws, more specifically how the justice system in small towns in the South fail miserably due to deeply embedded corruption, and how the media and the population is not sophisticated enough to be able to analyse facts objectively, instead being led by their narrow-minded prejudices. Some of the reviews I have seen posted here are just additional evidence to that.

Things I learnt: 1. If you are accused of something, you might have to be prepared to pay 800k for a good legal defense. 2. Good defense teams in the USA are incredibly good 3. However, even the best legal team will not prevail in a corrupt justice system that simply fabricates evidence to convict people.

But the main great lesson you learn from the film is: Unlike in fiction, real life is messy and does not have a catharthic ending. You expect the bad to be punished, the good to come out dancing, but life does not end up not with a bang but a whimper. However, during the journey you are surrounded by people who love you and you love back, and this love is better than great endings.

Murder by Death (1976)

Unfunny

[3/10 · 17 August 2020]

Profoundly unfunny, made worse by the fact that most reviews on Imdb seem to be trying to convince the unsuspecting potential viewer that it is a hilarious experience. I didn't laugh not even once. I half-smiled a couple of times, but it was hardly noticeable on my facial expression. It boggles the mind how so many people purport to have found it funny. I guess I may not be the right audience for this. But this raises the question: what type of person finds this funny. The only redeeming factor in this film is the appearence of Truman Capote playing a character inspired on himself, with a paradoxically awful acting performance but endearing.

The Skin I Live In (2011)

A tour de force, as Almodóvar plunges into new philosophical depths

[9/10 · 12 September 2011]

In his latest film Almodóvar takes a qualitative jump into new philosophical depths. His usual reflections on the nature of relationships and the consequence of one's actions take on a well- defined shape and advance forward with self-assurance.

The order in which the events of the story are told is a cunning device that allows the director to make us reflect on how superficially - indeed, skin-deep - we perceive reality and how quick we are to judge first impressions and jump to conclusions. What we first perceive one way, those initial scenes that slightly baffle us but which we nevertheless do not hesitate to judge in a specific way, take on a completely new meaning when the story pauses to take us back into the past in order to tell us about an important series of events that happened at the time which bear a direct relation to present events. The new light that is shed on the present changes completely our perception of the story as we had first witnessed it, which is a humbling experience. We are then taken back again to the present and continue watching the rest of the film, but with this completely new understanding of the real underlying motivations for the characters' actions. It is at this point that through a slight thriller-style twist in the plot the story takes on a Shakespearean dimension as it delivers its powerful humanist lesson that vengeance begets vengeance.

Food for thought, in fact enough food to last you days and feed other people, as you are left on the one hand wondering at the concept of skin: what we actually desire when we desire someone, whether all desire is skin-deep, whether the skin does not allow us to see the person behind. And on the other hand you are left with the reflection on how the road of vengeance leads only to self-destruction. When a film leaves you pondering so deeply, I can only conclude it is a great film.