TheStonePan Reviews

The Fox (2022)

Not exactly pulling heartstrings but decent

[7/10 · 29 January 2023]

As for the tech, the whole film is made in a format which looks like 1:1 with round corners and frayed sides. The pictures are crisp and the blacks are totally black. Audio was not that superb, it sounded like a wild mixture of mono and surround sound, somewhat artificial to me. Aesthetically it's the total opposite to the series "Babylon Berlin" which too plays around the time when Franz was little, but his parent's home has none of the glamour and the lightness and doesn't even have electricity yet.

The actors do a great job, especially Simon Morzé, who takes the introversion of his character to a level that it would be labelled as "social anxiety" nowadays: He totally keeps to himself, sits aside when others gather and is totally unable to express or explain himself when he would need to. This makes him the target not of teasing but of outright hostility. He more or less floats along with the story while the fox actively drives it, in one instance by approaching the protagonist and in another when it chases the chicken of the French woman Franz gets friends with.

As for the story, that's where the film lacks consistency. In the first (estimated) half hour nothing notable happens until a rich(er) farmer comes to take young Franz with him. Then there's a time lapse and Franz joins the army. Another year later, he's in the camp where he meets the fox, and so on. It kind of drags on and goes into a rush when the next time lapse is coming up. Humour is totally absent although I couldn't help but grin in the scene where the sick kid and the father have a chat because the whole scene was subtitled. Seems like the film makers deemed the Austrian in that part too heavy even for Austrians. I freely admit that I had to peek into the subtitles for »Selchkammer« (pantry) myself, too.

Who is this film for? I'm not sure to be honest. Someone called this a war movie, but I wouldn't recommend it to those who like "Saving Private Ryan". Sure, the whole story wouldn't have happened if it weren't for WWII, but that's merely a story framework and a loud background as Franz is at no point near the front. I'd rather call it a second-row war movie. If I needed to compare it with something, I'd choose "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" or "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas".

However, the final scenes compensate for the drag in a way.

Afro Algorithms (2022)

Nope

[2/10 · 26 September 2022]

While I'm sympathetic to the basic idea that an AI detects an unfavorable bias in its programming and sets out to correct it (leaving aside the question what would be a reliable benchmark for "non-biased"), it suffers from its weak presentation. Or my disgust of the notion of an AI governing me blurs my vision.

The animations are so distractingly choppy that I found the film somewhat hard to follow (it should have spent a couple of hours more in the render mill) but that is no problem because it is so straightforward. Granted, creating an arc of suspense within ten minutes of runtime is an achievement few have made and a plot twist would never fit here but this story just slips through. There are no contradictions, no hooks for the mind to latch on and play with, just an optimistic cherry-pick from the current zeitgeist in a non-disagreeable way. And creativity. From a sophisticated calculator.

I don't know whom I could recommend this film to. It just doesn't stick.

Carrier (II) (2021)

Requires some openness

[9/10 · 7 August 2022]

A short film about an encounter in space, no more and no less. It's a well executed one; Sylvie Nightingale does a great job at showing what's going on in the character's head, from the boredom over the confusion when the on-board computer fails to the appreciation when she realizes what kind of moment this was.

FREYA (2020)

What a dystopia

[9/10 · 7 July 2022]

This movie could have been a "Black Mirror" episode, it surely has the style and works like one: Heaven at the beginning; digital assistants, electronic body implants, everything at your fingertips (or command) - and one fatal mistake later you experience all the downsides of these shiny digital augments. The assistant's health tips turn into a health dictatorship and all the escape routes are carefully blocked by the government who instantly calls you to give you a warning as soon as you try one. All delivered by a tremendous cast on stylish sets and top-notch camera work and lighting.

I'm just wondering if Jade got her job back after her manager suggested she might be fired to have ample time for her new task.

Transmission (III) (2021)

Pretty meh

[5/10 · 5 July 2022]

Generally, I like the basic concept of this movie. Unfortunately, it has more rough edges than are good on it.

First of all, it feels rushed. It contains some by-the-book tropes which work fine if they're given time to develop but, in this instance, left the impression that there were boxes to be checked. Like the scene in which Ryan accidentally breaks John's model rocket. It looks simplistic and as if it could be fixed within ten minutes tops but John goes totally bananas and yells things which he - of course - totally regrets later. That scene does nothing for the plot apart from enabling John to record a melodramatic message for the transmission. I didn't buy the outburst nor the being sorry by the way, Jackson Allen missed on this one, sorry.

The other edges that bothered me were the gaping plot holes. It's not unusual that no one believes the alien story but when John even had a recording of his contact with Ryan after he went missing, why wouldn't his mother give him the benefit of the doubt and listen in to it? Why does John despair over his smashed walkie-talkie after the stranger had equipped him with a radio station which has a mic attached to it?

A lot of criticism, so was there any good to it? Yes: camera, lighting, sound, the UFO design. And the basic idea like I mentioned in the beginning.

H.appiness (2020)

Could be a "Black Mirror" episode

[8/10 · 28 July 2021]

This movie starts with a man who runs an app on his devices which helps him with everyday decisions based on a data heap containing similar decisions and their effect on his overall well-being. The app even treads in a relationship with who later becomes his wife. All the perfection becomes stale however when the man realizes he relied so much on the app that he couldn't even speak his mind when he wanted to anymore.

For me, what this is all about is foreshadowed early on when he asks her to move in and shortly after it is revealed that this is a suggestion from the app. The camera panning from the cuddling couple to the tablet with that message on its screen is quite classic and alarmed me right away.

The production is decent and the actors do a good job. I think Rose's character is a bit shallow, but this isn't about her and it's a twenty minute film after all. It would make a good Black Mirror episode as we have a technology tackling an old human problem and more or less quickly becoming the problem itself. Plus, it has a happy end.