The summer has been full of cinema surprises for myself and many others: I only saw Iron Man after so many friends recommended it, that I just could no longer ignore it. And it turned out to be smart and funny, a well spent couple of hours, though I felt it wasn’t a film that fully reached its potential.
Then there was the one some optimists had waited for two years: The Happening. I was expecting to be absolutely stunned, to walk out of the theatre emotionally exhausted and with a new view of life. Instead, I experienced one of the most cruciating disappointments in a while. The writing was horrible. There was no way around it.
I found Hancock a positive surprise after it had been ripped apart by critics worldwide: analytically thinking, it had problems in character development, structure and introducing believeable twists. But I had a good time, related to the character and themes, and was also deeply moved. So for me, despite its flaws on the surface, the film worked.
Sex and the City was exactly what you thought it would be. The film provoked some good discussions afterwards, especially about how far should one’s loyalty and support for a friend go, and whether the girls’ attitude towards John was a bit too harsh. Other than that, enjoyable - but easily forgettable. However, you rarely get to be one of the few representing your own gender in a screening for hundreds of people.
Contrary to Hancock, There Will Be Blood did not work for me. The main character had his moments, but most of the time I didn’t know, why I was being shown, what was up on the screen. It all felt remarkably true and mildly threatening, but I had difficulty relating to any of it.
Then there was Once, with the lazy beginnings and endings of an inexperienced writer from one scene to another, but so what? The music was touching, everything felt either true or so innocently aspiring to be true, that you went along and enjoyed even the bits, where someone accidentally glanced at the camera. It didn’t stay with me after the screening though, the story and the characters and the themes I mean - but the music did.
The Dark Knight, a worldwide phenomenon, undigestible after a single viewing. Don’t get me wrong when I say this film didn’t satisfy me on an emotional level: I loved it, but by the end of it was so puzzled by the pace of the thing, that I wanted to let all that anxiety out already. I yearned for a chance to release it. But the film never gave me that, not at least with the first viewing. Most likely it wasn’t intending to, and I’m just overly addicted to uplifting endings.
The last two films I have seen were both extraordinary in their own ways: animations, but so different from each other. Kung Fu Panda had the most amazing acting ever by animated animal characters, they were so believeable that I couldn’t believe it. Somehow this slightly formulaic pic got a hold of my heart. It’s so simple when a movie works. You feel it.
The other animation was of course Wall·E, which premieres in Finland properly in September. The creative minds at Pixar are clearly in love with love stories, this being no exception. They also have courage, and it’s nice to see them tackle a new genre in sci-fi (well, almost new). What I said about animals just a couple of sentences before, can be said here about robots. It might be the love themes, but compared to stories from other animation studios, Pixar’s have always lacked a certain rough edge in my opinion: they are so sweet I can barely take it. But so far I have been able to. Wall·E definetely deserves a reviewing. And if I’m not entirely wrong, many more during the next decades.
Audience reaction is the whole point of making films. Critics may say a film is a classic or crap based on whatever they want, but what has become clearer and clearer to me lately is, that an impressively original structure or believeable performance means nothing compared to a whole, that blows you away - even if an analytical approach would reveal the film to be cliched, incoherent, poorly executed or only unintentionally great.
So partly, the responsibility of a satisfactory cinema experience is on the viewer. To not take the baggage of analytical approach to the cinema. I genuinely think it shouldn’t even wait outside the cinema. It should be left home. Or even better, just work, if related to films.
In the screening of Kung Fu Panda, the audience was swept away in the story immediately, like me. We laughed, some cheered, we all fell into dead silence, I cried, then we laughed of relief - all this because we recognized something in the film and related to it. Analytically thinking, I still think it is a great film. The themes are nothing new, but they don’t need to be - most of us are still struggling with them, right? It was a well executed, fresh approach to an archetypal story, that did everything you expected from it and more.
The best films change the way I walk out of the theatre. With confidence, understanding, courage, patience, good mood and optimism. They make me feel better about living.
What makes a film great to you?