Tag: 2019

Offside (2019)

  By

★½
“As dull as a 0-0 draw.”

Football is known as “The beautiful game,” but you wouldn’t know it based on this documentary, which seems perversely intended to remove anything like that from its topic. It focuses on Olimpia Szczecin, a women’s soccer team in Poland, as they prepare for the coming season. There’s your first problem. Team sports like this are inherently about conflict: there are winners and losers, but these are not determined on the practice field, and that’s where the film spends the bulk of its time. It’s simply not very interesting, unless you have a thing for watching women amble around a park, kicking balls at each other, jumping over low hurdles or being yelled at by their coach (Baginska).

There’s simply no narrative here which can attract interest. There are any number of threads which could have been used, if the film had bothered to explore or even explain them. For example, you’re never told – I had to Google this – that these players are actually amateurs rather than pros, so there’s the potential issue of striking a balance between their day jobs and their passion. Though we never see much “passion”. The only time the film reaches any genuine enthusiasm is when we see a coaching session for young girls, about the only ones in the entire documentary, who appear to be enjoying themselves. The coach also speaks about the importance of dealing with her players’ personal problems and keeping them off the pitch. Yet we never see this happening in any meaningful way.

A football season is inherently dramatic, fortunes ebbing and flowing over the course of meaningful competitive games. Yet this peters out before the campaign begins, robbing us of that tension. The entire season is instead described in a short series of terse captions. What little footage of actual play we see, is disjointed and impossible to get excited about. For example, they reach the final of an indoor tournament, where we’re told they are wearing white shirts, while their opponents are in blue. Except, the entire film is, for no good reason, shot in black-and-white and consequently, you can’t tell which side is which.

Outside of Baginska yelling at people, there’s no sense of any of the players having personalities or lives off the pitch. Why do they play? What are their goals? [Pun not intended] The film seems supremely disinterested in… Well, anything, to be quite honest. Rather than turning up with a story to tell, or even looking to find one, it feels as if they simply showed up for eight weeks in the off-season, due to an error in scheduling, but shrugged and made their film anyway. The irony is that, certainly in the UK, the women’s game has never been bigger, thanks largely to the English team winning the 2022 European Championships. If you told me this film was made by some American dude, to prove the validity of his belief that soccer is the dullest sport on Earth, I would believe you.

Dir: Miguel Gaudêncio
Star: Natalia Baginska, Roksana Ratajczyk, Kinga Szymanska, Weronika Szymaszek

Infierno Grande

  By

★★
“Moral: never try and take a pregnant woman’s gun.”

This begins, literally, with a bang. We first meet the heavily pregnant Maria (Docampo), carrying a rifle and preparing to leave her house. A man rises from the floor, and after a struggle for the gun, it goes off, and he drops back down. She hits the road in their pick-up truck, fearful of what she had done, and intending to head back to Naicó, the town where she was born. However, it’s not long before the people she meets on the road, seek to dissuade her from going there. It seems like everyone has a weird story about why her destination  is not a good idea, from mysterious lights that abduct you, to a cult of blond people with possible Nazi connections.

Meanwhile, in flashback, we also see that what happened was she had been escaping from her abusive husband, Lionel (Ajaka) whose treatment of her had become too much. Despite her fears, it turns out she had not killed him, just grazed his head with the bullet. He’s now coming after her, and is not happy about her leaving with their unborn child. It’s all a very slight story-line, and feels more like an Argentinian take on that quintessentially American genre, the road movie. In particular, it’s not so much about the destination, as the journey, the people you encounter along the way, and the way in which you interact with them.

For example, Maria and Lionel both meet the same man at different points. She ends up buying him a meal in a roadside restaurant, despite being strapped for cash, and in turn, he marks the location of Naicó on her map (its absence being another element of weirdness about the place). He, on the other hand, points a gun in his face and harshly interrogates him, as soon as he realizes that his victim had met Maria. It’s an obvious contrast – though like so much about the film, I’m not very sure what point Romero is attempting to make. Even at 75 minutes long, it all feels quite impenetrable, not least due to the lack of resolution. Oh, the Maria/Lionel situation is resolved. It’s just everything else that’s left open to your own interpretation.

The movie includes narration, apparently in hindsight, by her then unborn son, though again: I’m uncertain what is the point of lines like “This story somehow resembles a hunting.” Well, yes? There’s no doubt Maria is certainly attached to her weapon, even if most people she meets, stop seeing her as a threat after they recognize her condition. The film is at its (rather underwhelming) best when she is interacting with others. Her family seems well-known and her late father, who died with her mother in murky circumstances, was the former mayor of Naicó; the resulting dialogue has a relaxed and conversational approach that’s easy to listen to. But once the end credits rolled, I was left largely unsure about the purpose of the whole endeavour.

Dir: Alberto Romero
Star: Guadalupe Docampo, Alberto Ajaka, Héctor Bordoni. Mario Alarcón
a.k.a. Hell and Back

Once Upon a River

  By

★★½
“Initially hits the bull, ends up firing blanks.”

Margo Crane (DelaCerna) has been brought up by her native American father, since her mother walked out on them several years ago. Under his guidance, they have become self-sufficient, and Margo has become a crack shot. However, her creepy uncle ends up having sex with the teenager, an incident for which she gets blamed, ruining her life. She resolves to apply her shooting skills on him, only for the resulting incident to become a tragedy. Margo strikes out on her own up the Stark river, in search of her absent mother. Doing so, she meets a variety of people, then has to try and reconnect with a woman who now has her own life, one not necessarily helped by the unexpected arrival of a teenager.

The set-up here is remarkably engrossing, creating an interesting selection of characters that achieve depth in only a few minutes. Well, except for Creepy Uncle, who is almost entirely obvious, from the moment he invites Margo on a “hunting trip”, and certainly well before he offers to teach her how to “skin deer”. The period up to the unfortunate turn of events could well have been expanded to an entire movie, rather than compacted into a terse 25 minutes. That’s all the more so, because once Margo hits the river, the film loses much in the way of narrative thrust. Certainly, her talents with a firearm become all but irrelevant, and the film instead gets bogged down in its own drama.

It instead goes further down the character-driven path, such as the old geezer whom Margo helps, or the young man she encounters who is rather more in touch with (read: gives a damn about) his Native American heritage. Though it’s hard to tell with Margo, due to her subdued nature: it’s not often that she says more than a sentence, and seems particularly adept (out of necessity?) at keeping her emotions in check. Which makes for an increasingly frustrating viewing experience, the equivalent of deciding whether to buy a house, without being allowed to enter it. Then there’s an abortion subplot, awkwardly shoehorned in, without any particular effect on Margo’s character arc.

It’s all especially annoying, since Margo is initially set up as being a decisive character. The encounter with her uncle could have been depicted in a way that turned her into a victim. Instead, it’s more the repercussions thereafter which are the problem, and cause her to resort to violent action. After finding her mother (Pulsipher), in particular, she never seems to find a purpose to replace her maternal quest. She’s like a dog that has finally caught the car it was chasing. “Now what?” is the resulting question, and the movie doesn’t provide enough of an answer. It ends up falling awkwardly between a number of stools, being not-quite a coming of age film, nor a social drama, and there’s no sense of resolution. If your reaction when the end credits roll is greater than “Huh”, you were more affected than I was.

Dir: Haroula Rose
Star: Kenadi DelaCerna, John Ashton, Tatanka Means, Lindsay Pulsipher

Fly Like a Girl

  By

★★★
“American girls only need apply…”

This documentary is about the field of women in aviation, combining archive footage with interviews, covering the range from those who aspire to fly (giving their Lego aircraft lady pilots!) to those who have been into space, fought combat missions in the Middle East or dodged death in aerobatic displays. There’s not any particular structure to proceedings, choosing instead to bounce around between its topics and subjects. This helps keep things fresh, yet at the cost of any narrative beyond, I guess, “Women can do anything men can”? Which, to be fair, deserves saying in the aviation field particularly: how much strength is needed to handle a joystick?

As you’d expect, the interviewees are a bit of a mixed bag. Historically, perhaps the most interesting is Bernice ‘Bee’ Haydu, who was a WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) in World War II, and aged almost a hundred at the time she was interviewed; sadly, she died not long after. I think what made her and the others interesting, were being the ones who had actually done something. While wanting to be an astronaut, say, is fine, it can’t compete with Nicole Stott giving an eye-witness account of what it’s actually like to be on the Space Shuttle as it takes off. Or Vernice Armor, the first African American female combat pilot and her tale of flying an attack helicopter, running down to its final missile and being the last hope for a pinned-down squad of troops. That kind of thing could easily become a Major Hollywood Movie.

I think my favourite of all the people interviewed was Patty Wagstaff, a three-time winner of the US National Aerobatic Championships, who seemed remarkably down to earth (pun intended) about her exploits. Seeing her fly upside down, to cut a ribbon with her propeller just a few feet off the ground, was genuinely impressive. On the other hand, Sen. Tammy Duckworth came over as a career politician, with career politician speak that was easy to tune out. Maybe she has stories of her time in the military that are the equal of Armor’s. You wouldn’t really know it from the bland content she contributes to this.

My main complaint, however, was the absolutely American focus. It felt as if no-one outside the United States had ever left the ground. No mention of Sophie Blanchard, the first aeronautess. No mention of British pilot Amy Johnson. No mention even of the Soviet Union’s Night Witches. They’re only the most successful group of female combat fliers in aviation history. But they’re not American, so for the purposes of this film, they don’t exist. The only meaningful reference to anywhere else, is when there’s a passing mention of Bessie Coleman having to go to France to get her pilot’s license. On that basis, it feels like a missed opportunity, only scratching the surface of its topic and wearing a large, nationalistic set of blinkers.

Dir: Katie McEntire Wiatt
Star: Nicole Stott, Tammy Duckworth, Patty Wagstaff, Vernice Armor

Joan of Arc (2019)

  By

★★★½
“Joan the Younger”

I liked this considerably better than its predecessor. Part of that was, perhaps, knowing what to expect going in: a minimalist retelling, with occasional musical numbers. Except, this proved rather more than minimalist (though still very restrained), and there was hardly any singing at all. Curse you, Dumont, for confounding my expectations. It begins, much as Jeanette ended: with a lot of standing around in sand-dunes, chatting. However, the cast this time cannot be counted on the fingers of one hand, and there aren’t any staggeringly bad performances to take you out of the movie. You still don’t get any great battles. Instead, these are basically represented by team dressage, two groups of horses and riders, swirling around near each other.

But, you know what? It works, far better than you might expect. Similarly, the capture of Joan (Prudhomme) is simply portrayed by her galloping off on her horse, then cutting to her horse trotting on without a rider. Again, it gets the point over, with an elegant simplicity, befitting the understated nature here. Most of this second part is concerned with her trial for heresy, and the church’s efforts to manipulate proceedings so they could let the secular authorities do their dirty work. Yet Joan’s refusal to co-operate proves increasingly problematic to this “show trial” end. There’s a great scene where she’s being lectured by one of the prosecuting clerics, and her silence triggers increasing frustration in her interrogator.

The way Prudhomme is a far younger actress than typical also merits discussion. She was only 10 when she made this, barely half the age of Joan at her death. This certainly enhances the elements of childlike innocence throughout, and it’s hard not to feel for the little girl. Yet her spiritual backbone is made of steel, and leaves her accusers in a no-win situation. I liked the little inserts where “common people” such as her guards would discuss the topic of the trial, which again brings some much-needed humanity to proceedings. The star of the second half though, is the amazing setting of Amiens Cathedral where the trial takes place. It looks stunning, and Dumont wisely decides not to pack it with people, a decision which allows its grandeur to shine.

There’s definitely a better sense of the sacred and divine here, or at least it is generated with a higher degree of effectiveness. That seems to have been the overall focus of these two movies, albeit successful only intermittently. I did appreciate the effort to try and do something different with the concept, even if – to put it mildly! – I would not have made all of the same artistic decisions. The results unquestionably fall into the “something different” category. After being distinctly underwhelmed by the first half of the story, I felt this was a significant improvement, though it’s not a spiritual journey I think I will take again, any time soon.

Dir: Bruno Dumont
Star: Lise Leplat Prudhomme, Jean-François Causeret, Daniel Dienne, Fabien Fenet
a.k.a. Jeanne

Rendez-vous

  By

★★★★
“There’s so many crazy people out there…”

I did not originally expect to be reviewing this here. I watched it because of the technical elements, which I’ll get to in a bit. However, by the end, it does qualify – though you certainly wouldn’t think so from how things begin. It gets underway with Lili (Puig) waiting for a date arranged over the Internet with Eduardo (Alcantara). He shows up late, very apologetic after having been mugged, and having had his phone taken, but is utterly charming, and the chemistry with Lili is immediate. They end up back at his place for dinner. But as he’s cooking on the kitchen, the tone of the evening changes, when she hears his supposedly stolen phone going off in his jacket…

That’s the beginning of a shift in content from warm romance into something considerably darker, and in which the dynamic changes several times before the final credits roll. As the above indicates, it initially seems that Eduardo is the problem. However, it’s considerably more complex, with Lili also having her own secrets. Quite how it’ll play out remains in doubt until the final scene, with the best-laid plans going astray along the route. I will say this though: if I ever engage in a kidnapping scheme, I won’t be answering the door to visitors. This does deliver some black comedy, when a drunk pal of Eduardo swings by, and wildly misinterprets the situation unfolding in front of his booze-filled eyes.

I mentioned the technical side. The hook here is the movie unfolds in a single, 100+ minute shot. Even more startling is what director Arrayales said: “We couldn’t afford another chance to shoot the movie again, so the movie is the only take we did. We really prepared hard, for three weeks with the actors, and a week with the DP just to plan the whole movie. That was about it: four or five weeks of rehearsals and one chance to make it.” Hard not to be impressed. While certainly not the first to use a single shot, most either fake it or, at least, get to use multiple takes. It’s a tribute to the makers that, after initially being the focus, you largely forget about the gimmick, with the story and characters taking over.

A good portion of the proceedings are more mental than physical. Eduardo pushes Lili for what he believes to be the truth, while she is resolute in stating he has got the situation very, very wrong. However, it eventually becomes more direct in its action, with a hunt unfolding around the two levels of Eduardo’s house (complete with make-up and effects artists sneaking around to apply their art out of shot!). You may well figure out the final direction before it happens, yet I’d be impressed if you accurately predict the specifics of the resolution. Though it’s not especially important if you do. Between the technical execution and the other elements, there’s more than sufficient elsewhere to justify the experience. 

Dir: Pablo Olmos Arrayales
Star: Helena Puig, Antonio Alcantara

A Resistance

  By

★★★
“Not your usual women-in-prison film…”

This takes place in 1919-20, when Korea was under occupation by the Japanese [there seems to be quite a lot of this about; I’ve seen a bunch of Chinese movies set when that country was occupied by Japan as well]. Even demonstrating against the Japanese, or in favour of Korean independence, was sternly forbidden, with those taking part likely to be arrested and thrown in prison for months. If they were lucky, that is: an opening caption tells us 7,500 were killed in the protests or died in jail subsequently. Even for those merely arrested, this was not a “nice” prison, to put it mildly, with horrendously over-crowded conditions (24 to a cell!), freezing temperatures and meagre rations.

Once such prisoner was Yu Gwan Sun (Go), 16 years old at the time of her imprisonment: her sentence was three years, due to contempt of court being added on to the normal charge. However, she would not be cowed by the punishment, and refused to bow to the will of her captors – for example, refusing to speak to them in Japanese, even though she could. Such disrespect, and her “defiant face”, inevitably brought Yu into conflict with the authorities, including the warden, and Korean collaborator Jung Chun-young, who acts as a translator. They try to break her will, but her refusal to accept even her status as a prisoner, never mind their authority, remains defiant.

The historical Yu does seem to have been an unrepentant, patriotic bad-ass, sometimes referred to as Korea’s Joan of Arc, and with at least half a dozen films based on her life story. While in prison, she wrote: “Even if my fingernails are torn out, my nose and ears are ripped apart, and my legs and arms are crushed, this physical pain does not compare to the pain of losing my nation… My only remorse is not being able to do more than dedicating my life to my country.” Joe films almost the whole movie in stark black-and-white, save for occasional coloured flashbacks, and music is also used sparingly. This certainly gives a realism to proceedings, though I did feel the portrayal here was a bit too good to be true – putting the “Saint” in “Saint Joan”, if you wish.

It may also be a little restrained, with the tortures inflicted on her coming across as little more than an inconvenience. Perhaps the little things here are most effective, such as the prisoners sharing body warmth, to try and protect a new-born baby. It builds to Yu’s carefully crafted act of defiance, leading a cheer for Korean independence which flows through the prison and to the outside world, triggering further anti-Japanese protests. Even after her fellow inmates are released, she is kept in jail: the final lines of dialogue are an exchange that sums up her obstinate refusal to give up. Asked “Why must you do this?,” Yu almost shrugs: “Then who will?” [She died at age 17, still in jail, a few days before her scheduled release date.] This shines a light onto an area of history I knew nothing about, though I’m hard pushed to say it illuminated much more than the heroine.

Dir: Joe Min-ho
Star: Go Ah-sung, Ryu Kyung-soo, Kim Sae-byuk, Kim Ye-eun

Stressed to Death

  By

★½
“Definitely a stress test.”

The concept here is intriguing. It’s just the execution – and the script in particular – which is bad. A robbery at a convenience store ends in the death of David, the husband to Victoria Garrett (Aldrich). She blames the paramedic on the scene, former soldier Maggie Hart (Holden), for the loss of her spouse, though the incident hits Maggie equally hard. She quits her job, raising daughter Jane (Blackwell) with her husband, commercial real-estate agent, Jason (Gerhardt). But Victoria hasn’t moved on – in probably the film’s most memorably loopy elements, she feeds her husband’s ashes to a pot-plant she calls David, to which she chats. She’s also clearly a believer in that saying about revenge being served cold.

For she waits a whole ten years after the incident, before putting into motion a plan for revenge, hiring a pair of thugs to kill Maggie’s family in front of her. Fortunately for her target, they’re two blithering incompetents – or maybe the script just makes it seem like they were acquired through the ‘Help Wanted’ section of Facebook Marketplace. Adding spice to the situation, she has hired Jason as her subordinate, and Jane turns out to have a crush on Victoria’s son. Complicating matters further is Maggie’s PTSD, which is naturally the movie-friendly version, only kicking in when required by the plot. It can also apparently be cured by violent trauma: specifically, someone hiring a pair of thugs to kill your family in front of you. What are the odds?

Even by the low standards of Lifetime movies, this is bad. It’s not just the script that is sloppy, the production includes a bike helmet suddenly appearing on Jane’s head, and a knife that teleports from the floor into Maggie’s hands. But let’s not kid ourselves: it’s mostly the script. I lost count of the points at which I sighed heavily. Probably peak sigh was achieved at the sequence where Maggie and Jane have been captured. The thug doesn’t just leave them alone, he falls asleep in the next room, allowing them to escape. Guess that whole thugging thing really takes it out of you. Worse, after the mother and daughter get away, they show no urgency at all, wandering around while chatting casually about Jane’s crush. Oh, look: they get caught. Again.

This all builds to a ridiculous excuse for a climax in a motel room, which ends with the police describing what happened to the chief thug. The only things that saves this from total disaster are performances generally better than the story deserves. Holden, in particular, does a decent job with her character, and actually, the chief thug is surprisingly sympathetic, when telling Maggie about his abused childhood. Or something. I expected better from Brian Skiba, an Arizona native who co-wrote this, and whose films Chokehold and .357: Six Bullets for Revenge have previously been reviewed here. While they weren’t great, they look like Oscar-winners beside Stressed to Death. I think I’m the one coming down with a case of PTSD after sitting through this.

Dir: Jared Cohn
Star: Gina Holden, Taylor Blackwell, Sarah Aldrich, Jason Gerhardt

Grisaia Phantom Trigger – The Animation

  By

★★★
“Time changes everything… or does it?”

DISCLAIMER: I have no knowledge on the backstory of this series. Grisaia Phantom Trigger – The Animation is the latest story in the Grisaia universe, that originally began as a series of “visual novels” (which as I understand, have more in common with a computer game), was then turned into a manga and the 13-episode anime series The Fruits of Grisaia which got two sequels, The Labyrinth of Grisaia (a TV movie) and The Eden of Grisaia (10 episodes), before we reached where we are here. GPT-TA is the new stand-alone film of that series, which came out last year and was also shown in cinemas. As none of the above mentioned series or films have been dubbed and released in Germany, my home country, I never saw anything before this movie. I belong to those anime fans who prefer to see their stuff in a language they can understand.

But that actually doesn’t matter at all, for this film serves as a very good introduction to the uninformed like myself. It therefore can be watched by those who have never seen an episode of this series before. As a matter of fact, the film consists of two longer episodes, combined into a movie, that thus tells us two separate stories. The first part serves as an introduction, which I felt was a bit dialogue-heavy. The second half was around 15 minutes longer than the first and provided more of the action stuff that fans love. But the way it was done was very nice.

So, what’s it all about? There was a US-Japanese anti-terrorism organisation called CIRS: after having become public knowledge, a new agency for covert operations was created, called SORD (Social Ops, Research and Development). This organisation has established many schools within the country, where homeless poor orphans from unfortunate backgrounds are being trained and schooled to protect the country (meaning: to kill people).

In this particular school, where the orphans consist solely of young girls, the teenagers are taken care of by a young man Haruto, who with his long hair almost looks like a woman himself. He could have his own interesting backstory – he doesn’t shoot, but has others do it for him – something I suspect happened in one of the prequel shows. Than there’s sharp-shooter Touka; the Russian Ninja Murasaki; hot-shot action-girl Rena, who’s totally devoted to her ‘Master’ Haruto; Chris, the “mother” of the team, a handsome woman; and the female (and underdressed!) director. There are a couple more characters, but they hardly have much more than a cameo.

The teen girls are nice, and love to banter and bicker with each other in the way normal pupils would in school. But when they are on a mission they make, as we say in Germany, “nails with heads” – meaning they definitely don’t take prisoners. Seeing these otherwise lovely girls, delivering head-shots here and there quite bewildering to me, It was also a bit much for the new teacher, Miss Arisaka, who is kidnapped in the first episode, though still decided she would continue her new job at this unusual school.

The second part then gets into the real action. It’s a more complex story about a comatose former agent who gets kidnapped from a ship. When the girls find him, he’s dead, his heart having been ripped out. The team finds out that the heart, that was originally supposed to go to a leader of the secret service, has been stolen by Russians who have been duped by the seller, who sold the same heart twice. After they recover the heart, they get tricked immediately again by a false courier. As young hot-shot Rena pursues the courier, and then the woman the heart has been given to, she finds out much to her surprise that the woman is her childhood friend Maki, with whom she spent time on the streets, trying to survive.

It’s that second act that makes me like this movie especially. Sure, the idea of hero and villain having a history together, is nowadays an old, almost beaten-to-death cliche. But unlike a recent Bond movie, where the connection is only unimaginatively drawn, and never given any emotional meaning, this small anime film does so much more (and better) with the idea. In that childhood, they called themselves “Sics” and “Bucks” – Rena found Maki behind a coffee shop – and lived on the streets, fighting for food, which they shared. A gangster decided that Rena should become a killer and Maki a prostitute, but as things went on also Maki became a killer, the right-hand woman for  heartsick Russian mob boss, Alexej Nicolaijewich. She is as devoted to her master as Rena is to hers, leading to a very intense fight, first with guns then with bare hands.

Though just 88 minutes long, this is very well done. The few short scenes of the childrens’ childhood give their fight more meaning then the talked about (but never really felt) conflict between for example 007 and 006 in GoldenEye. The fight itself is well-choreographed, looks believable (I’m very well aware I’m talking about an anime!), has exactly the right length and comes across as deliciously hard. And while the whole story about the stolen heart is solved in the end, I liked that this movie doesn’t end the way one would expect. The otherwise trigger-happy Rena doesn’t kill Maki, and also learns about her responsibility to follow orders from Haruto. So there’s a learning curve here.

As Nicolaiewich has died peacefully, Maki has no interest in following the Russian gangsters: her obligation was to Nicolaiewich not the organisation. Following Rena’s request, Haruto is taking her under his wing to become a new member of the team. I liked this ending as something different to what a Hollywood actioner would typically serve us. Also, twisting cliches is something I find very rewarding storywise. It’s quite astonishing that big blockbusters in Hollywood can’t be written and directed with the same care as much smaller budgeted Japanese anime. The storytelling in Hollywood’s entertainment industry has really declined sharply, in my opinion. This movie shows you don’t need a big budget to add some more personal touches to your main characters.

The animation itself is well done – good but probably not great, as there are a couple of static images, probably to save money. Also remarkable: this anime was able to tell its story without the typical ecchi or anime humour, so no panty- or booby-shots. The main focus is on the drama and interaction of the different characters, though I couldn’t complain about the action. It was a good mix of both elements. Also, I can say the German dubbing was very well-done. The German voice actresses sound much more grown-up than those in the Japanese dub (I listened for a minute into it) where the girls sounded all very kawai, very cute… The dialogue itself sounded very believable in the German version, especially the bantering and the saucy/funny comments of the girls.

The only minor complaint in my book is that I felt this is a great beginning for a series I would like to continue. Unfortunately, it is (at least for the time being) the end point of the story as far as any German releases are concerned. Well, who knows… maybe the DVD label will now also release the sequel Grisaia Phantom Trigger – The Animation: Stargazer and the sequel series Grisaia: Phantom Trigger that was announced recently?

Dir: Motoki Tanaka

Resilience and the Lost Gems

  By

★★
“Lost and found”

I certainly admire the aim here; there’s aren’t enough action-heroine films which are aimed at a family audience, especially with a young protagonist. We’ve had The Golden Compass, Enola Holmes and Abigail, but they are pretty rare. This is a considerably lower-budget entry than those, though make no mistake, it still certainly qualifies here. Its 11-year-old heroine, Resilience O’Neil (Finn) – known for obvious reasons as Rizzie – has no apparent fear, whizzing around the Utah desert on her mini-bike, until a flash flood separates her from her parents and younger brother. She then has to survive on her own, fending off wolves, haboobs and a pair of predatory creeps, while making her way back to civilization to get help for her family.

What’s weird is, the titular gems are all but irrelevant. In the opening twenty minutes, there’s a lot of talk about them, and their loss 150 or so years ago. But apres le deluge, they are almost entirely forgotten, and what we have instead is a straightforward wilderness survival story. To be honest, this is a considerable improvement over the thoroughly unconvincing historical re-enactments in the beginning, complete with sepia tinting and fake film scratches. The flood is staged surprisingly well, to the point I was convinced everyone concerned was sure to be dead. Finn seems to do a lot of her own stunts too, and not just on the bike. There’s a sequence of her clambering down a rockface which had me looking up the number for Child Protective Services. Decent dronework and the pleasant Utah scenery also stopped me from turning this off entirely.

For much, much worse are both the script and the performances. There’s hardly a line here which doesn’t seem forced and/or unnatural, and as noted above, the lost treasure thread is set up at painful length, before being abandoned for an hour. Then there’s the stuffed chicken carried around by one of the villains, who in addition are so incompetent as to pose no credible threat at all. I will give Kiara a pass; it’s her debut, and few actresses her age would be able adequately to put over the emotions necessary here, after the apparent loss of her family. [Natalie Portman in Leon remains the gold standard]

However, none of the adults are any better, either engaging in wild over-acting or resorting to a dull monotone when delivering their dialogue. It doesn’t help that there are issues with some of the audio, which varies wildly in quality, and is occasionally indecipherable. As a result, you’ll find yourself gritting your teeth just about every time anyone opens their mouth. This is probably the first time I’ve felt that a movie would have been better off, filmed as a throwback to the silent era – just pit Rizzie against the natural world, without chit-chat. I admit it would have been considerably more challenging as a project. Yet even if unsuccessful, I think I’d have preferred that approach.

Dir: Brian Finn
Star: Kiara Finn, Don Shanks, Adam Johnson, Gisi Hong
a.k.a. Resilience and the Last Spike