OXYGEN (France/USA 2021) **1/2 Directed by Alexandr Aja
French horror helmer alexander Aja has made quite a name for himself in horror movies with his brand of exquisite colourful bloody horror.His most famous works include THE HILLS HAVE EYES and HAUTE TENSION.In his new horror outing, OXYGEN, a Netflix original film, he is given a bigger budget with a sci-fi premise.
A woman wakes up in a cryogenics pod.She has apparently not remembered anything of her past especially not how she got there.She breaks out of his mucky suit and tries to escape what she thinks has been forcible confinement or even a kidnapping.The thing is that the oxygen level is low - and hence the title of the movie.At one point in the movie, the lab computer MILO announces: Oxygen is at a level of 29%, Probability of Survival is zero.The suspense is set high.The woman, later disclosed to be Elizabeth Hansen (Mélanie Laurent) has to figure out a way to escape before the oxygen levels reaches zero.
Director Aja is limited in having to make a large portion of the film about one woman in a confined space.He brings the audience out into the open with a few beautifully shot flashback scenes when Elizabeth reminisces the past, trying to recall her life with her husband.Aja’s limitations can be observed in the middle fo the film when it starts to lag, because of lack of material.
The special effects are nothing too fancy but sufficiently convincing for the audience to believe the setting of the film.Cyrogenics is the production and behaviour of materials at extremely low temperatures, which has nothing to do with the film though Elizabeth is supposedly woken up in a cryogenics laboratory.
To Aja’s credit, he has included a number of appropriately scary images - a few of these psychologically horrific.The first is the image of a white mouse in a maze that appears to be going on forever.If the mouse makes it around one corner, it will encounter and another and another and another - the camera pulling back to reveal an initiate number of possibilities in the maze.The sight of a sharp needle especially one attached from a syringe is a sight that will make anyone cringe.Aja has Elizabeth wrestle the arm of a machine programmed to inject with a needle into her eye.White rats dying and a grey blob mucky substance include other scary images that Aja uses.
Netflix has asked reviewers not to reveal the discoveries Mélanie Laurent’s character makes about herself, aside from her name nor the location of the action beside that it taking place in a cryogenic unit - two solid twists in the plot. Director Aja’s hefty aims of a sci-fi horror sinks under its lofty goals. The shift from a claustrophobic entrapment thriller to a sci-fi thriller, the unsatisfying film also suffers from a tacked on happy ending.
OXYGEN is a Netflix original and as all Netflix films can be viewed in different languages.As OXYEGN is filmed originally in French, it is best viewed in French with English subtitles, if need be.OXYGEN is available ob Netflix May the 12th.
As technologies advance faster than our ability to understand their consequences, virtual immortality awaits us through developments in artificial intelligence. The doc ARTIFICIAL IMMORTALITY examines what separates humans from machines when androids assume our identities. Director Ann Shin explores the broader and more personal implications of a post-biological world by collaborating with programmers and robotics engineers. By uploading her memories to create a digital clone, she gives her future descendants the option to have a simulated conversation with her, rather than rely on photo albums and family memories alone. As her aging father (there is a fact-time talk between her family and her father) faces a faltering memory, the desire to preserve her own past takes on a new urgency. The film makes an important note that A.I. can never replicate the human brain.As the film concludes, the audience gets to see the director’s avatar, in which the avatar talks to Shin’s children.The doc might appear too technical for some audiences in terms of following its logic or understanding but it exposes the limitless boundaries of mankind.
AUDIBLE (USA 2021) *** Directed by Matt Ogens
Matt Ogens’s 38-minute doc short tackles the series epic of coming-of-age of the deaf, set in the Maryland School of the Deaf.It begins with the subject, with headphones on, screaming in silence before it is revealed that he is deaf.Ogens then takes his audience to the football field where Amaree (the subject) takes his anger out the field.Athlete Amaree McKenstry and his close friends face the pressures of senior year and grappling with the realities of venturing off into the hearing world.They battle to protect an unprecedented winning streak, while coming to terms with the tragic loss of a close friend. Though deaf, these kids still face the identical up to adversities of the world, showing they does not need to shout to be heard.Three main issues are deal in the story. One is the death of the friend, Teddy who was transferred to an all hearing school. Another is the relation between Amaree and his father who left the family when he was 25.There, he was bullied.Unable to deal with a string of issues, he ended up hanging himself. After being saved by Jesus Christ after dealing heroin on the streets, fatherland son are finally reunited.Theother and main issue is dealing with the world after graduation from the school of the deaf. Though over-serious, a little humour would do the film some good, Ogens gets his message across.Opens up for streaming on Netflix on July the 1st.
DARK BLOSSOM (Denmark 2020) ** Directed by Frigge Fri
DARK BLOSSOM is a doc that follows the lives of three Danish Goth teens that come together because no one else want anything to do with them.The three love things that are different, radically different such as tattoos, macabre make-up and fashion, piercings, nose rings and heavy punk music.The doc shows what happens when one of them falls in love (with an older man) and friendship is threatened.The trouble wth this doc is that these three teens act spoilt and careless and it is unlikely that many will be sympathetic towards them,Director Fri does not make any effort in making them likeable either, letting them do what they want most of the time.Fri does bring the audience to take a look at the Goth culture but does not go into any depth of its origins, popularity or future.Instead of the subculture being fascinating and standing out, it ends up as a boring collage of images.It wold be surprising if many wouldreally care about these three annoying rebellious losers and their sub-culture.An example is the time wasting scene (does Fri really think this scene is amusing?) in a diner when they argue about the pop being served not being original Pepsi.
HELL OR CLEAN WATER (Canada 2021) ***1/2
Directed by Cody Westman
The doc trails the work of Shawn Bath, a born fisherman who finally after diving for sea urchins for a living, decided that he should give back to the environment what humans have taken from it. Indeed, the images of trash in the ocean is unfathomably disturbing. And the garbage endangers sea life as well, as crabbed orcas get tangled and die from discarded fishing nets and while lobsters and crabs eat plastic that eventually move up the food chain to be eaten by human beings.Director Westman shows the hardship that Bath undergoes in his basically thankless endeavour. The film shows cleanups down around Newfoundland and Labrador, where fishing is the main industry and livelihood for many. The landscape and scenery are a sight for sore eyes.HELL OR CLEAN WATER is an extremely moving doc and it would be no surprise that many would after watching the doc be happy to do their part with a hefty donation to do their part in cleaning up the waters.
A MARRIAGE (Czech Republic/USA 2021) *** Directed by Katerina Hagar and Asad Faroqi
A MARRIAGE has the feel of the TV reality show 90-DAY FIANCE except for the fact that the romance between Zdennka of the Czech Republic and Tabish of Sri Lanka is a true one.
Zdenka, a single woman in Czech Republic, started playing online games with strangers before meeting Tabish, a computer scientist a world away in Pakistan.Their friendship turned to romance, and after flying to Sri Lanka to meet in real life, the committed couple married. Tabish filled out Czech immigration applications and Zdenka eagerly awaited her husband's arrival.But five years later, the two remain apart, forced to live their married life on Skype.Time and again, the Czech government rejects Tabish's entry requests.The reason is never made clear except the hint given that the government is protecting its citizens from bogus marriages. But the couple persist despite obstacles and the waiting finally pays off.The directors try their best to film their doc as the events happen, but one can tell that many of the segments are re-enactments.What is revealed in the doc is how sincere the couple is.This is a once in a million couple.
MOLECULES (Italy 2020) *** Directed by Andrea Segre
The world has heard the sad news about Venice.Venice is sinking.Due to global warming leading to the increasing high tides, many of Venice’s buildings are flooded often.Since the pandemic of Covid-19 after March of 2020, tourism was at a standstill and the city of Venice, a hot tourist spot has emptied out.MOLECULES, an Italian doc, set in Venice shows images of the suffering city for audiences first hand.It is not a pretty sight.The film is called MOLECULES because the director’s father was interested in Physics and reserved a career as a molecular physicist.Using old Super 8 family films and an unanswered letter he wrote to his father decades earlier, director Segre's captivating investigation into his father's silences and absences beautifully dissolve into the emptiness of Venice itself. Through this arrested landscape stripped down to its natural frailties and lack of solidity, Segre unearths the roots of his father's and his own unease. A captivating yet sad story of Venice and its citizens.Definitely worth a look - especially for those who have visited (myself have been there twice - really awesome city) or plan to visit Venice in the future.
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BOY IN THE WORLD (Sweden 2021) *** Directed by Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri
The title of the doc would likely attract the attention of many an audience.A boy is searched from countries like Hungary, Poland, Finland and Russia before the chosen one was selected by famed Italian drier Luchino Visconti, an openly gay filmmaker who has made other films with gorgeous leading men like casting Helmut Berger in THE DAMNED.From Sweden Björn Andresen in 1971, and 15 years of age at the time, during the world premiere of DEATH IN VENICE, Italian director Luchino Visconti, was proclaimed his Tadzio as the world's most beautiful boy, a title which would say with the by for the rest of his life. In Visconti’s casting director’s words, the boy is extremely beautiful and photogenic.The curious doc, narrated largely by the adult Andresen,examines the shadow that today, 50 years later, as it weighs Björn Andresen's life.Visconti was a very powerful figure who protected the boy as his filming crew comprised almost all homosexuals.For cineastes who hail Visconti’s DEATH IN VENICE and for those who admired the Thomas Mann novel, this doc would be of particular interest.
RAISE THE BAR (Iceland 2021) ***1/2
Directed by Gudjon Ragnarsson
RAISE THE BAR is centred ona young (around 8 to 9 years of age) girls basketball team trained by an over-enthusiastic coach, Brynjar who ends up stirring up trouble with the country’s Basketball Association. The film’s first half goes about showing the talented and hard-working girls in training under Brynjar with his unconventional methods.Being young girls, their parents object to some of the coach's practices such as his fondness of swearing.Brynjar argues that he is training the girls to survive in the real world and his coaching also involves building the character of the girls to be empowered young women.In order to raise the bar on the training, Brynjar gets the girls to play against older and stronger girls but runs into trouble when the federation disallows the girls to play against a boys team.Emotions run wild and Brnjar coaches the girls to rebel.The doc turns controversial here and what seems to be a harmless doc about girls training for basketball turns into one of rights and principles.Director Ragnarsson cleverly pulls off the stunt.
WELCOME TO SPAIN (BIENVENDIDOS A ESPANA) (Spain 2020) *** Directed by Juan Antonio Moreno Amador
Seville's last brothel, repurposed into a refugee reception centre, is the main setting in director Amador’s look at the refugee crisis from the refugees' points of view.The problem of the refugee does not end when reaching the host country, though getting to it by boat or whatever desperate means can also be quite treacherous.Director Amador spent two years of getting to know the people, families and their traumas and shares their impressions of what life is like in this completely new European culture.The subjects range from different countries such as Venezuela, Yemen, Libya and Morocco.The subjects themselves range from a big family to a solitary gay teen who is all alone in the uninviting world.The doc traces the difficulty of finding the first work after waiting along time for a work and residency permit.When work is found, many of the jobs pay little with long hours.When things begin to look brighter, the pandemic sets in and this is where the doc concludes.major dishes out how tough life is yet showing survival is possible but not for want of trying.
Emmanuelle Devos (my favourite French actress) plays a nose in the latest French comedy LES PARFUMS.She admits the fact to her chauffeur in the film when asked what she does for a living.“Je suit un nez” comes her reply.As odd as it might seem in English, the term nose is a common term in French.Ir essentially means ‘perfumer’ in English.
LES PARFUMS is a charming comedy about two people who are as different as they have similarities.The two are the nose, Anne Walberg and her reluctant driver, Guillaume (Gregory Montel).
Anne Walberg is a fallen diva. Devos plays her perfectly to the ’t’.She seems quite curt and aloof at first.With her bourgeois streak, one might find her haughty.But it is something else entirely. A kind of withdrawnness, a difficulty to communicate. Devos brings the audience brilliantly into her character, making her sympathetic despite her misbehaviour.
Guillaume, on the other hand. is going through a rough patch in his personal life. He is breaking up with his wife and must sort out the issue of his daughter’s custody.He wants to have the daughter half the time, but his lodgings do not permit it.He needs to earn money to get a bigger place before the judge allows him custody. Socially, it is quite the opposite from Anne. He feels comfortable in any kind of situation, no matter who he is talking to.Even a little too comfortable. Which is bound to arouse his client’s curiosity.From Anne Walberg’s perspective, it almost makes Guillaume her bodyguard. He does save her bag from being snatched only to be scolded for the deed.“What if the snatcher carried a knife?”She admonishes.She has a good nose but he has flair.She gets to use it, and sometimes to hide behind it. Guillaume lacks all the qualities required to be a professional chauffeur, but he is good at reading people. He lacks patience, deference.
The two characters play off each other beautifully.
Near the end of the film, she is visited by Professor Ballester in hospital.Apparently, she had accidentally taken too heavy a dose of sleeping pills.The chauffeur helped bring her to the hospital as well as contacting the professor.It is here that the audience is introduced to the term ‘anosia’ a term I have never heard of before.Anosia, Ballester explains., is the partial or complete loss of smell.I looked it up on Wikipedia and the condition and word definition exists.How little we (or I) know.There is some truth in this fictional tale of LES PARFUMS.
There is a segment in the film where Anne is hired to smell out a cave in order to replicate it - odour-wise for the tourist industry of the region.This concept is not so far-fetched as can be observed in Werner Herzog’s documentary CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS where the identical idea was introduced.
The film’s premise may seem superfluous.But like the story’s two eccentric subjects, the film shares their charm.Misfortune may turn to benefit and a simple film premise may similarly turn into an endearing and charming piece of entertainment.
SLALOM (France 2020) *** Directed by Charlene Favier
Slalom is an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding discipline, involving skiing between poles or gates. These are spaced more closely than those in giant slalom, super giant slalom and downhill, necessitating quicker and shorter turns. Internationally, the sport is contested at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships, and at the Olympic Winter Games.
Under the guidance of a strict ex-champion known only as Fred (Jérémie Renier) in the film a promising 15 year old girl Lyz (Noée Abita) trains as a professional skiing star.The question is whether she will be able to endure the physical and emotional pressures.
The effect of pressures of training for a particular sport on an individual has always been interesting fodder for film scripts.Just last year saw Nadia, an Olympic swimmer break down under enormous training and expectation pressures in Pascal Plante’s Quebec entry NADIA BUTTERFLY.
SLALOM was the 2020 Cannes selection which allowed me to review the film then.SLALOM bears similarities with NADIA BUTTERFLY.But slalom skiing is a different sport from the butterfly stroke.Both films attempt for authenticity.NADIA, BUTTERFLY excess in this respect as the script is a closer and more scrutinizing study of human endurance while SLALOM focuses more on the protagonist Lyz, coming-of-age. There is a scene of the 15 year old having her period in the shower.The issue is also addressed by her coach, Feed who tells her the effects on her muscle during that time of month.
Needless to say, the skiing segments are exhilarating to watch.This point lifts the film above other sports films, as it is more difficult to shoot and to illustrate slaloms.
The story of SLALOM follows an all too familiar path, with a lot of incidents predictable as the story unfolds.The Lyz has an accidental first glance at her icao Fred totally nice taking a shower, one can tell that she will be involved sexually with him.As a pre-teen, one knows too that she will be pressuring Fred to continue the affair.Unfortunately, this fact undermines the severity of the coach’s sexual abuse.Fred’s abuse is revealed in stages.He notices her period.He measures her body fat with no-one else in the room.Lyz’s rebellious nature towards her mother is also expected and leads to the same old story where the mother has found a new boyfriend and she is left jealous and abandoned, here during the Christmas holidays.
The sexual abuse is left hanging with the guilty left uncharged.The director has based her story on true events so one wonders if and how bad she herself have encountered in terms of sexual abuse.
SLALOM is an ok watch, not too demanding but unfortunately too commercial for many critics' liking.But it is a good sign to see more French films released in Ontario in what is a bilingual country.
Capsule Reviews:
AMOUR APOCALYPSE (Peak Everything) (Canada 2025) **Directed by Anne Emond
Director Anne Emond tackles male trauma with her forty-year-old protagonist suffering from insecurity...
