Évolution (Lucile Hadzihalilovic, 2015)

Évolution
Director: Lucile Hadzihalilovic; France, 2015
Reviewed by Kiomars Vejdani

Director Lucile Hadzihalilovic explores the sexual awakening of a young boy in the setting of a hospital in an isolated island, and his relationship with a young attractive girl (her nurse /carer). Film's approach is an analytical one with plenty of symbolism such as deep water for subconscious and final return to the shore of civilisation representing conscious level of mind. But director makes the picture even more complicated by taking the boy's relationship back to its origin in the system of evolution, thus adding Darwinism to Freudian psychology.

Room (Lenny Abrahamson, 2015)

ROOM
Director: Lenny Abrahamson; Canada-Ireland, 2015
Reviewed by Kiomars Vejdani

The film is from the point of view of a boy of five who has lived from birth in the confinement of a shed with no direct contact with the world outside. We share his restricted world and his confused perception of reality due to limited feedback he receives from his environment. For him a fly is real because it exists in his room but cats, dogs, and trees are illusion because they exist only on TV screen. The fact that he still has a good understanding of the world is because of her mother. She shares her son's confined environment and has made it the main task of her life to teach her son everything about world outside so that his perception of it remains normal. As the story progresses we come to realize the horrifying circumstances which has led to their present situation. The crucial question we face is how the boy is going to react to his own perception of reality after he reaches the world out side. The film answers this question in a most satisfying way. Lenny Abrahamson has built a powerful drama based on an unusual and emotive subject treated with great sensitivity and gentleness.

Beasts of No Nation (Cary Fukunaga, 2015)

BEASTS OF NO NATIONS
Director: Cary Fukunaga; USA, 2015
Reviewed by Kiomars Vejdani

The film is from the point of view of a small boy in an unnamed war-torn African country. Director Cary Fukunaga has created an infernal atmosphere where chaos and cruelty rules and human life has lost its value. In this nightmarish setting he takes us through the emotional odyssey of its protagonist. We watch the boy's transformation from an innocent and carefree childhood (in the extremely funny scene of "imagination TV") to horror of watching his father and brother being killed, desperation and misery of being left alone and unprotected, to joining the rebel group and becoming a killing machine shooting anyone considered enemy without getting upset or giving it any thought. In the end when he is taken out of war zone and put in a boy's camp we see him reverting to normal boyhood playing with the others on the beach. But how much of his childhood innocence has been lost we can not tell for sure, as such an experience is bound to leave some deep scars on his soul. The film is a powerful drama of loss of human values.

The Here After (Magnus von Horn, 2015)

THE HERE AFTER 
Director: Magnus von Horn; Sweden | Poland | France, 2015
Reviewed by Kiomars Vejdani

Film relates the tragedy of a young boy who because of a major crime (killing his girlfriend) has been marked for life. Even though he has been punished by law for serving his term of sentence, community is not prepared to forget and forgive his crime. Director Magnus von Horn builds his drama with assured pace. The film's tension escalates in proportion to the intensity of community's hostility and the boy's frustration. It ends at the highest point of his despair. A morally vague but tue ending, for what he has done can not be forgiven not even by himself.

Bang Gang (Eva Husson, 2015)

BANG GANG (A MODERN LOVE STORY) 
Director: Eva Husson; France, 2015
Reviewed by Kiomars Vejdani

Director Eva Husson uses detailed character study of a group of teenagers to explore sexual behaviour of younger generation of present day, their carefree attitude toward sex even to the extreme of promiscuity such as orgies. But at the end film uses a traumatic scandalous incident to take a morally conservative stand toward sex and a belief in a long term stable relationship, a last minute change of mind which affects the film's thematic consistency.

11 Minutes (Jerzy Skolimowski, 2015)

11 MINUTES
Jerzy Skolimowski; Poland/Ireland, 2015
Reviewed by Kiomars Vejdani

A series of events run alongside each other: A young attractive woman is having an audition by a film director in his flat; A jealous and suspicious husband is trying to find the whereabouts of his wife; A pregnant woman is taken to hospital by ambulance; A young man is trying to commit suicide; A motor cyclist driving very fast worried about his affair with a married woman being exposed; And a street vendor selling hot dogs to three nuns. As the stories of these characters move parallel to each other the tension of each situation begins to rise, and as the tempo of parallel action increases we begin to suspect some connection between them. Their stories seem to be converging towards a collision point, and as they get closer to this point the tension of the drama increases until at the moment of collision it ends in a catastrophic tragedy. Only in retrospect we realize we were watching 11 minutes in the lives of these people (hence the title of the film). The aim of Skolimowski's tense drama is ultimately to show the role of fate in our lives.

High-Rise (Ben Wheatley, 2015)

HIGH-RISE
Ben Wheatley; UK, 2015
Reviewed by Kiomars Vejdani

Ben Wheatley's new film has the chaotic world of Fields of England. Although film at its starting point is a satire on Thatcher's era and its values, it stretches far beyond that point into the territory of Apocalypse in the making. An unbalanced world with its standards crumbling symbolised by a tall "high rise" building which despite (or perhaps because of) its elaborately sophisticated architecture, its structure seems off balance and expected to collapse any minute. The metaphor of social distance and class difference has been made only too obvious with lower class in floors below leading a miserable life while upper class on top floor have all the amenities and luxuries at their disposal. Disintegration of social system leads to retrograde movement of civilisation, eventually reaching to a primitive level of existence when people start to eat their own dogs.

Ben Weatley is a master of showing horrors of dehumanisation while in his treatment replacing horror with humour. 

Chevalier (Athina Rachel Tsangari, 2015)

CHEVALIER 
Athina Rachel Tsangari; Greece, 2015
Reviewed by Kiomars Vejdani

A group of six men on a boat on holiday get engaged in a series of games to decide who is the overall best among them. Director Athina Rachel Tsangari uses this setting to explore mental state of her characters and their development in detail. At the beginning of the film they are mature and logical men. But as the games progress they gradually become more immature. They lose their rational way of thinking, their controlled behaviour and altogether civilised side of their nature, with basic and primitive emotions and instincts coming to the surface They regress from state of adulthood to act like a child. Their immaturity, selfishness and low level of frustration tolerance becomes more apparent. Only after the game is over they return to normal state making us think about the futility of the whole exercise. It is a brilliant character study with a lot of humour. The joke of “blood brothers” is something to remember.