film festivals | The Last Movie Guy

A Cop Movie (2021)

Posted on November 23, 2021 by Hugo Pagan Soto

There are two ways to shoot a scene and one of them is wrong.
David Fincher

Director Alonso Ruizpalacios could have approached his documentary A Cop Movie in multiple ways. The result brings us closer to the idea of the man from Seven (1995), there was only one correct way to approach this issue. The only thing that makes more headlines than corruption in Mexico is drug trafficking. We can argue that the two things are so closely linked that it is impossible to define where one begins and the other ends. Corruption was the yeast that fermented this idea of Ruizpalacios that in the end ended up focusing on a single institution within the entire political fabric.

The Humans (2021) TIFF 2021

Posted on November 9, 2021 by Hugo Pagan Soto

Humans can’t handle too much reality.
Thomas Stearns Elliot

First, we hear some noises, we cannot distinguish anything. Then some voices become more and more recognizable, and humans appear. An air of mystery covers that introduction, and we are disoriented for a few minutes. Stephen Karam’s The Humans (2021) takes very little to achieve much. Minimalist in his staging and in the resources that accompany the narrative. From there he tackles with great rigor an analysis of characters that set the stage for an intense drama.

Val (2021)

Posted on October 30, 2021 by Hugo Pagan Soto

We digest actors through the lens. We read them from the narrative that their characters dictate, and we think we understand them when they throw away their avatars to grant and interview. But the reality is that there is always a filter or an ulterior motive that prevents us from seeing beyond what they choose to show. Val (2021) demolishes paradigms and shows us an unadorned Val Kilmer, seeking to find his own voice by putting his life in perspective and building a retrospective of his career. Almost 40 years of career and more than 100 titles accompany the former Iceman, Doc Holliday, Simon Templar, Batman and even Jim Morrison himself.

Three Minutes: A Lengthening (2021) TIFF 2021

Posted on October 29, 2021 by Hugo Pagan Soto

Time is an illusion.
Albert Einstein.

It was one day in 1938. David Kurtz began shooting everyday scenes with his camera in the town of Nasielsk in Poland. Just a memory to keep from a long-awaited vacation and a trivial reminiscence of his hometown is what Kurtz imagined. Impossible to envision that those minutes of film would be immortalized by that thing that Einstein defined as an illusion. It was time that was responsible for those celluloid rolls becoming the only testament of the Nasielsk inhabitants after the Holocaust. Three Minutes: A Lengthening (2021) by Bianca Stigter combines the narration with a masterful editing to deliver a film of 1 hour and 9 minutes using only David Kurtz’s original recording as a visual resource, from which only three minutes could be rescued.

Sundown (2021) TIFF 2021

Posted on October 28, 2021 by Hugo Pagan Soto

As if the familiar paths laid out in the summer skies could lead to both prisons and innocent dreams.
(The Outsider, Albert Camus)

With the Acapulco sun caressing his face, Neil (Tim Roth) seems to achieve nirvana. He has taken a decision and his world is about to change drastically. Sundown (2021) by Michel Franco worries us, from the subtlety an air of suspense is born that gradually lacerates us. The Mexican always finds a way to disturb us and suddenly take away our peace. His cinema explores the human soul and at the same time rigorously looks at the environment in which these beings interact.