siderite

This miniseries is a situational drama with some comedy in it. It's supposed to make you feel good, therefore the sloppy ending, but if you just ignore the last scene, it feels very true. The actors do a wonderful job and the plot is complex and full of little character treats and reveals. It feels like guilty pleasure watching it, like girl gossip, but it's the sensation of seeing something intimate that makes it so.

That being said, once you get over the great artistic achievement, you might or might not like the people in the film. The main character in particular is quite annoying and ungrateful. She goes through a personal mental crisis, so it's me me me me, while the people around her are too scared to be honest. She is constantly testing others for failings towards her, so they don't dare. The titular film club, a little weekly get together to watch one film while being fully immersed in the theme, is the only thing keeping her afloat, but also keeping her stuck in the same hole.

Suranne Jones as the mother made the show enjoyable, though. Her character, played perfectly, kept the film from being "yet another story about nutters" and actually evoked the most empathy from me, even towards others. If she wouldn't have been there, the whole thing could have crumbled completely.

I don't know what to say. It was a great story, with very careful personal touches that made it feel grounded and intimate, but in the end it kind of felt pointless, too. Wonderful as a character study, I guess.

Hard to imagine that Eastern Europe was making sci-fi in 1963. And not slop, but well thought loose adaptions of books that are now considered classics. This film is one of those European science fiction stories where ideas, knowledge and exploration are more important than emotion and action. In just 80 minutes the story goes through an interstellar ship launch, social and psychological issues during the long voyage, a strange "dark star" that affects people as well as finding a derelict spacecraft that turns out to be human, from the violent and uncouth 20th century, grief, psychosis and discovering life on another planet.

If done today, this would have cost millions of dollars and probably have been a pilot for a streaming series. But even then, the American market realized the film's value and decided to butcher it. After heavy edits that actually removed material, an English dub that changed the title and all of the names of the international crew to American names, they changed the ending to something non-sensical. Warning from the past, I tell you!

Thing is, in a sense, nothing happens in this film. In another, everything happens! In the end you're not excited, but your mind is racing with how things went and why and what does it mean. Instead of providing easy answers, the movie gives you deeper questions.

That doesn't mean it's perfect in any way. The cutting of scenes is indeed ingenious, but also feels alien. The social cohesion of the group, the ideas on how the future would look, the deeper reasons for which people choose to act are far removed from the modern mindset. But in that sense, it's so worth watching the thing, as it provides you with a really fresh perspective.

I don't know if I liked this or not. I absolutely loved parts, felt touched by others and hated some of it. This is an adaption of a British book about rabbits, but being the 60s, even if meant for children, it features political and religious themes, violence, death, intrigue and is influenced by Campbell's and Jung's ideas of the hero's journey. I found it fascinating that this film exists. Imagine now trying to sell something like that to studios. The world was a terrifying and wonderful place 50 years ago. It is more and more important to be exposed to the different eras of the human cinematic culture, lest we start believing that the way it is now is what has to be and that everything else cannot be imagined.

Anyway, I think that you can't fully understand the film without having read the book - which I haven't - so this is my biggest peeve with it. But the rest was quite amazing: a fully built world of rabbits with their own language, culture, society, enforcement and religion. Then there was the weird animation, every frame manually drawn, the weird British narration/acting which was quite unusual.

You leave the film with the impression you've seen something fresh and magical, but also that you probably missed something. I looked it up, it's not a Biblical allegory, nor a ripoff of the Odyssey, it's just a story told by a former military man to his daughters while driving, inspired by some of the things he's seen in the war.

Bottom line: perhaps not the most entertaining or well crafted film in the world, but something that has to be experienced.