Karakter (1997)

My plan for this entry was to pick a subject out of three variants. The first should have been "Der Himmel über Berlin" (aka "Wings of Desire") from over 40 years ago, which was on my list for a time that's expressed in two digits as well. I have to admit a gap in my cinema experience: Wim Wenders, whom I "successfully" avoided until now, because each movie I've run into (the last being the "Perfect Days" made in Japan) seemed likely to hit some touchy spots. But given the amount of self-inflicted late stress, I was curious how far I could push it, only that I didn't manage to watch it yet, and I had a deadline fixed for this entry. The second option was "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You", quite underrated, but that was too tense. Still, I can't miss the opportunity to recommend it as an example of something quite above average in camerawork for an indie budget, achieved only through the framing, angles, some touches on the colours, and a bit of support from the editing side. Therefore, with some luck (debatable..), I got to the third option, rewatched after almost 30 years, so yet another old movie, "Karakter".

What we have here is a Dutch movie, an adaptation of a novel from the '30s, with the action set in the same period's Rotterdam, following a triangle of three characters, the father, the mother and a son, from the birth of the latter to the demise of the parents. A.B. Dreverhaven, a bailiff, known to be more icier than the cold rains near the North Sea, employs a taciturn housemaid, Joba, and one night gets her pregnant against her will. When this situation is confirmed, the woman decides to leave and manage it on her own. After the birth of the boy, the father starts sending a series of telegraphic letters with the same content: a marriage proposal + a sum to help her, which the mother returns every month, choosing her name for the child: Katadreuffe. From there on, the action is centred more on the son-father conflict, the novel actually having "a novel of son and father" as its subtitle. The mother, with a presence that's more absent, has a role in the story, which I prefer to leave to be unravelled. In the foreground, we have the duel between Katadreuffe and Dreverhaven, which becomes more acute as the child grows, who, despite the precarious social conditions, manages to pursue a career, dealing with obstacles placed in his path by his own father. There's more to tell, but let's stick to the spoiler-free area.

It's interesting how the perception changes after more than two decades between the first and second times watching this. I knew it was a good movie, but it's not as flawless as I remembered. It's quite Hollywoodish as a technique and falls a bit on the theatrical side. The father's role is exceptionally well played by Jan Decleir, a Belgian actor whom I don't remember seeing in other work. However, we also have some overacting here and there, though that's subjective, as always. The camerawork alternates between scenes that could probably be taught in a master class, at least for how the chiaroscuro is integrated, but again, it gets a bit too far I think, with some noir tendencies that don't really fit. You can feel the score's impact from the intro, but afterwards, it's kept in balance. With all the minuses, it's probably one of the best assembled pieces of Western European cinema I've watched.

I had a "debatable.." in the intro for the reason that I don't think the third option was much luckier than the first would have been. "Karakter" is a movie that touches on plenty of aspects of life, from the obvious above, which relates to the parent-child relationship, to a secondary plane of romance that I didn't remember, which somehow fits as a complex replica of the mute one between the parents. But probably the finest nuance, interwoven with the rest of the story's threads, is a different part. "Le travail rend libre" is a phrase originating in a title of a German novel from the XIXth century, reused in French by Auguste Forel, a Swiss entomologist and psychiatrist, in a work about ants from the '20s, where I don't know how many connections are drawn with the functioning of the human brain, but if not there there were in some other works. The German sentence is one that was afterwards denaturated by placing it at the entrance of Auschwitz, Dachau, and other concentration camps, but I think it's basic sense is the one from the Forel version = the feeling of freedom is something provided by what occupies your time, something that in "Karakter" slowly grows, to the point when the young Katadreuffe doesn't observe much around him much besides his own carreer. That's clearly not the main theme of the movie, but it's the illusion that sustains overcoming the obstacles. Unfortunately, an illusion remains an illusion, with imminent danger upon waking. At least if you're not aware of it ;)

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (slightly subjective)

Project Hail Mary (2026)

It's been already slightly more than a week since I've watched "Project Hail Mary", and my memory is not that helpful lately, so I said it might worth an entry while I still can write something. After all, finding something that's good in the SciFi classic niche is less likely these days than a"close encounter of the -bear- kind".

The movie is an adaptation of a novel by Andy Weir, which got on the list of Hugo awards nominations several years ago. The story is centered around a molecular biology professor, who wakes up somewhere in the deep dark space with a retrograde amnesia, as the sole survivor of a starship's crew. In brief, after some flashbacks, we find out that we're on a mission to save the Sun, which is in danger of being.. consumed, or more accurately said, our teacher should find out how can some culprit microorganism be stopped on doing that. Also in brief, the Earth is not the only planet with such issue, and our solitary astronaut makes first contact with some other solitary astronaut, from some other species, brought by the same reason in the deep dark space . Further than this, we're reaching spoilers ground, so let's leave the story for the movie teathre.

Visually the movie looks really good, but I can't say it's a masterpiece. The audio is ok. Ryan Gosling plays a part that seemed much more fitting than the one in "Blade Runner". But, by far, what keeps the bar high in the movie from beginning 'til the end is the script, with a solid support from the editing. I didn't read the book, but Drew Goddard ("The Cabin in the Woods", "World War Z", "Bad Times at the El Royale") managed to pull out a narrative that takes you smoothly from fun to action surrounded by a bit of drama. Taken separately, probably these would still be at an ok level, but the mixture resulted from the way these are put together, and especially the interleaving of the flashbacks with the current timeline, is the part that probably backs up most of the emotional build-up, and some particular resulting impact. That + the chemistry between the tow main characters, which is also an output of the script.

I must admit that I had limited expectations from this, the trailers pointing more towards a classic linear development and several scenes featuring the alien also add a slightly childish tone. Add to that the fact that "The Martian" (same author and same screenwriter) didn't leave me with the best opinion about it, considering that was directed by Ridley Scott. I still remember that the proportion of eye-rolling there was on par with the praise of being a very credible SciFi (on this my opinion is that "The Expanse" keeps the top position). However, here, this part, however it might be, doesn't feel the need to be analysed. Once more, it's the proof that a carefully executed script, with plenty of witty insertions to balance a subject that's dramatic after all, result in some effect for which I can't find the proper words right now. It was fresh :)

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Hamnet (2025)

With the risk of seeming ignorant, I've never had to much interest into Shakespeare, and in particular for the tragedies written in the XVI'th century English. Add to that a very poor opinion about "Nomadland", of an epic boredom IMHO, directed by the same Chloé Zhao as "Hamnet". Therefore, in brief, this seemed like the perfect recipe for a snoring episode at the cinema. Yet again, it seems lower expectations yields high results...

As I was to find out after watching it, the movie is an adaptation of a novel, which I think it explains the consistency it has. It's not something general yet, but for the latest years I noticed a significant drop in the number of original scripts that cross beyond a superficial threshold, even though I'm not near close to watching as many movies as I did like 4-5 years ago, and I'm considerably more selective (maybe that might be the issue...). Moving back, the novel, or in this case the movie, because I didn't read the book, speculates a variant of the Shakespeare's family life, spanning from the marriage of the writer until after the death of one of his children, his only son, Hamnet. The story assumes the well-known play connects to the boy's name and to the impact of the loss, integrating into this assumption the metaphors of "to be or not to be" and others. The idea of the respective association seemed forced to me initially, and as a light spoiler, in a very fine auto-irony, which passes unnoticed over an intense dramatic background, a scene towards the end of the movie suggests the same disbelief. The ghosts from Elsinore and the poisoned intrigues from the Shakespearian Denmark seem to a grieving mother too far from a tragic, but still common family misfortune, given the life expectancy during the time of the plague. At a quick search, the majority of the critics specialised in the literature of W.S. also disagrees with something further than a simple name coincidence, adding to this the unclear circumstances of the child's death, which got lost in time. And still...

Without revealing more, the movie is conducted slowly in a minimalist note, starting with a short lived romance for some initial intensity, brought quickly within a more realistic zone of family problems, and carried through a by-the-book slow burn towards the end. The end which gets you back to the hyperbole of associating Hamnet with Hamlet towards a metaphore that's somehow more credible, maybe also because is supported by exactly who criticised the initial one (paranthesis: the movie deserves watching at least for Jessie Buckley, which delivers an exceptional performance). Maybe it becomes credible again also because you have a construction that's gradually inserting metaphors from a hawk's death that you can relate to some other loss, to a red dress in a greyish environment, which you can relate to whatever you want in the context, from the simple pain to the color brought by a theatre play to folks caught within the daily tedious and worrysome living. But probably credible more than this, because the metaphore is not anymore connected to Hamnet exclusively, but more with what anybody can get from the finale and probably by the desire of the subconscious to give a positive sense to a drama - either by re-connecting two parents when they get that the loss is affecting both of them, either by providing some justification to compromises that sometimes make the life to move forward.

Or another variant :) - the movie may be that dull that makes your brain to create its own story to prevent falling asleep ;) even so, it worked. Or maybe it caught me in the right mood for this, albeit getting over the top in some parts. So, probably a quite subjective...

Rating: 4.5 out of 5