Land: Argentinië, Frankrijk
Jaar: 2023
Regie: Martín Benchimol
Lengte: 78 min.
Score Pim: 3 (schaal 1 t/m 5)

Wat vindt Pim
Volgt.

Inhoud van de film
Justina and her daughter Alexia are trying to maintain the huge house that the former housekeeper has inherited from her boss. But the two Indigenous women do not have the means to pay for the upkeep of the decaying property. The money they get from selling the house’s contents online and its cattle is just a drop in the ocean. Moreover, the former owner’s family visits regularly and insists on continuing to treat Justina and Alexia like servants. Alexia refuses to accept this role any longer; she intends to return to the city to work as a car mechanic and start conquering the world as a racing driver. The films mixture of documentary-style footage and dramatised scenes tinged with horror turns the house into an enchanted castle that refuses to let go of its inhabitants. The patchy mobile phone reception becomes a metaphor for the pair’s marginalisation as they struggle with their circumstances. The insurmountable class barriers that exist in Argentina serve to hold Justina captive in her social class, even after she herself becomes a house and land owner. A dark fairy tale.

Land: Frankrijk
Jaar: 2024
Regie: Christine Angot
Lengte: 82 min.
Score Pim: 4 (schaal 1 t/m 5)

Wat vindt Pim
Volgt.

Inhoud van de film
Aleksei is a young Belarusian on the run from a past he must bury. Entering into a kind of Faustian pact, he becomes a member of the French Foreign Legion in exchange for the promise of French citizenship. Far away in the Niger Delta, Jomo is a revolutionary activist engaged in an armed struggle to defend his community. Aleksei is a soldier, Jomo a guerrilla fighter. As a result of one more senseless war, their destinies will intertwine. What is “otherness” and how do you absorb it into who you are as you go through life, cross borders and find yourself inhabiting an ever-changing physical and mental space? Giacomo Abbruzzese exhibits a remarkable sense of out-of-the-box thinking and inventiveness as he explores such questions in a visually striking work that is ripe with poetry and tension. Bodies fall into trances that are both revelatory and altruistic because they represent an opportunity to commune with others. Accompanying this magical reverie is a powerful score from electronic musician Vitalic that helps turn the night club into a place of transcendence. The disco becomes the ultimate destination for those who keep their sights firmly set on the sacred horizon of utopia.
 

Land: Australië
Jaar: 2022
Regie: Rolf de Heer
Lengte: 96 min.
Score Pim: 5 (schaal 1 t/m 5)

Wat vindt Pim
Volgt

Inhoud van de film
In the middle of the desert, BlackWoman is abandoned on a trailer, in a cage. Her captors have left her to die. But she is not ready to pass. She escapes, and walks through pestilence and persecution, from desert to mountain to city, to find ... more captivity. Those responsible are reluctant to relinquish their privileges, and BlackWoman, escaping once more, must find solace in her beginnings. As in his last film Charlie’s Country, the tragic hero of Rolf de Heer’s new work clearly asks: “What is left of our humanity?” This time the hero is a woman, portrayed with an unforgettable mix of bravery and weariness by Mwajemi Hussein. The Dutch-Australian filmmaker’s searing moral fable subverts our expectations by playing with a variety of genres, but confirms his indisputable understanding of the burden endured by ethnic minorities in a white man’s world. Their tragedy is amplified by the apocalyptic situation in which humankind finds itself, and their isolation further underlined by the film’s striking and meticulously composed dystopian landscapes. Poised between poetry and despair, BlackWoman’s thought-provoking story gradually gives shape to the most moving of exploits: the will to resist. 

Land: Verenigd Koninkrijk, USA
Jaar: 2023
Regie: John Trengove
Lengte: 95 min.
Score Pim: 3 (schaal 1 t/m 5)

Wat vindt Pim
Volgt
 
Inhoud van de film
Ralphie is young and healthy and his girlfriend is pregnant. Yet things do not feel quite right. His job as an Uber driver is neither gratifying nor financially secure. His relationship with his body may also be built on shaky foundations. When he is inducted into a libertarian masculinity cult, the tensions that have been growing inside him surface. Ralphie begins to lose his grip on reality. In his previous film, The Wound, South African filmmaker John Trengove explored how a male rite of passage unleashed repressed feelings with the same potential for danger as opening a pressure cooker. A similar force is at work inside the protagonist of Manodrome, in whom Trengove observes a disturbing phenomenon from an original angle. Ralphie is not the stereotype that springs to mind when thinking of groups formed around fervent misogyny such as the infamous “incels”, and his character helps us to deepen our understanding of what male fragility can entail. In spite of the dark implications of its premise, this film is not devoid of humour. However, the skilful way in which the tension builds and powerful performances from Jesse Eisenberg and Adrien Brody leave the viewer truly shaken