We start with a romantic drama this week, Bergman Island† What makes me good?
‘First of all you get it Bergman Island I feel like going to Fårö, the Swedish island in the Baltic Sea where the film is set. It’s the kind of island that is barren and a bit grim in the winter, but it’s a good place to be in the spring and summer. Transferring that nice atmosphere is also a quality of a film. Moreover, Fårö has a special film history: the well-known stage and film director Ingmar Bergman lived and died there and shot a number of films, including Personaone of his most famous films.
†Bergman Island (★★★★☆) is a pleasantly elusive film in which a number of worlds come together. On the one hand, this is the film world of the French director Mia Hansen-Løve, who is known for her intimate dramas that you could call romantic – although the romance is not over the top, they are layered works. In this film, we follow two married directors who go to that island to work on their scripts. He, Tony, is the well-known director and she, Chris, the lesser known.
‘In addition, we are dealing here with the film-in-film genre; not only do we watch the film about the two directors, we also see parts of Chris’s own film, which also takes place on that island. It is a bit more melancholic and is about a lost love that flares up. Although the films differ from each other, the undertone is the same: both relationships do not run smoothly. And then there is the weight of Ingmar Bergman’s enormous oeuvre, which influenced the films of many European filmmakers, including Hansen-Løve. I think it’s great that she manages to create a close-knit film experience from all those streams.’
Beautiful. On to the latest sequel to a classic: Jurassic World: Dominion†
‘It shows again how viable that Jurassicfranchise. The films succeed extremely well in attracting new generations. Good to mention: we are now at the end of the second trilogy. Also, don’t forget that Steven Spielberg, director of the original 1993 film, is still involved as a producer in the background. It will help that the dinosaur master watches over the quality.
‘Okay, about the success of the dinosaurs: as long as they look good on the canvas, you’ve come a long way. That is also the case for Jurassic World: Dominion† The chase scenes in it have already been compared to those of James Bond and Jason Bourne. Ideal food for the large hall.
‘I think there is something wrong with those trilogies. If you put all six films in a row, then the first part of the trilogy is always the most sparkling. After that, the level drops a bit and you notice that the films are less and less dependent on the plot and mainly rely on fairground spectacle. Kevin Toma put it very funny in his review (★★★☆☆). He talked about a dino ex machina instead of a deus ex machina: whenever you get stuck with your script, you just come up with an even bigger dino and you can continue for a while.’
And this is also worth a look:
There is hardly any work, so many residents leave the Mexican mountain village of San Mateo and head north to earn money. Three of them return during the same weekend, for different reasons: the lesbian María comes to bury her mother, the musician Esteban visits his family after three years of absence and Toña picks up her daughter, who she had left with her mother. ‘The way in which director Ángeles Cruz interweaves the three stories in her feature debut Nudo Mixteco is smart and refined’, writes Pauline Kleijer in her review (★★★★☆). ‘She shows the beauty of the region where she comes from and the hidden ugliness – both equally breathtaking.’