CutUncut2021

Classic Anderson visual symmetries, hallmark cinematography and color palette, staccato delivery, choppy editing and abrupt sliding pan shots that construe a series of vignettes strung together with a flimsy but tedious narrative that shepherds a cabal of stars to nowhere: artistic fun but ultimately pointless, even as an exercise in style. Anderson's loss of interest midway through produced this rhymeless "Parodies Lost" (no offence meant to Milton).

Riveting and visionary, anyone familiar with Baloji's outstanding music-videos will welcome this feature film centred on Kinshasa's over- and underculture. There are undercurrents of Renais, Buñuel and Greenaway, while remaining fairly realistic of life in and beyond the country's capital for anyone not a tourist staying in a hotel with a/c, running water, and a steady power supply (cable TV and wi-fi). Worth watching a second time to better absorb Baloji's visual dynamics and the unfolding drama. Hard work for westerners, very.

Stand aside Denzel, this guy Haysbert has screen presence and natural gravitas without all the jingo of your world stardom. Great casting, with Pfeiffer barely recognisable, though the ur-blonde hairdo overkill becomes an irritating distraction from her otherwise earnest performance. Another reviewer lamented that some scenes slide into maudlin, true: best avoid soppy aphorisms, and the husband figure was so poorly written as to be risible (pity the actor), the law enforcers needlessly two-dimensional. Yet the kid's mutism and wide-eyed stare were spot on. A gap in the screenplay means we never get to know who abused her, which was the very thing driving Paul's odyssey. Meanwhile, even post-9/11 the cult idolatry of public figures of whatever political stripe is the bread-and-butter of the ongoing American idiocracy: the Kennedy clan's legend is one of many but perhaps the most enduring. Lincoln, JFK, Reagan, Wojtyla in the West are outnumbered by the colonial executions of hundreds of leaders of the "undeveloped" world whose deaths remain a mere footnote of white textbooks.