Set in Nizhny Tagil, Russia, Summer journeys nostalgically through the warm middle-Ural summer with eight-year-old Vadim and his half-sister Christina. They enjoy evening festivities with their older teenage friends by the fire, go on mellow skateboard rides, and have a quiet daytime nap in the garden house. Caressed by the sun and the warmth of his relatives, hidden in the quiet tranquillity of the garden and far away from the cruelty of the outside world, Vadim enjoys his childhood days. Acting as a serene lullaby that mimics the movements of a gentle breeze, Summer provides warmth, joy and solace, offering hope and strength for the future.
Aki and Naoko are childhood friends who are drifting apart as adults. Immersed in her family life, Naoko now has a husband and daughter; Aki, on the other hand, remains single and is on leave from work due to a personal crisis. The plot might sound familiar but it has never been told like this. The director Kusano Natsuka stages the interactions through an actors’ table-read and, as the lines are repeated, the scenes gradually develop into on-location conversations. Moreover, she repositions the dramatic peak of the story to the beginning: Aki has murdered Naoko’s daughter.
Structurally inventive, Kusano's daring cinema implements ‘distantiation’ effects to get to the heart of friendship issues at times when life has settled. While the repetitions convey the suffocation of role patterns in both friendship and family, a line left out or added in unsettles and reminds us life can take unexpected turns.
毕业旅行被父母否决,大学生布伦南(杰西•艾森伯格 Jesse Eisenberg 饰)感到非常沮丧,好友给了他一带大麻以示安慰。布伦南决定利用假期打工赚点零花,因为夏天之后他将要奔赴纽约求学。四处碰壁之后,布伦南终于在一家名为冒险乐园的游乐场,找到了赠品游戏服务生的工作。起初他对此毫无兴趣,但是持刀抢劫大熊猫事件发生后,他却发现了游戏之外的意义——女孩艾(克里斯汀•斯蒂沃特 Kristen Stewart 饰),后者独特的忧郁气质深深吸引了这个处男。某次酒醉后,艾对布伦南坦白了自己的身世:原来她的生母因绝症离世,父亲续弦的继母令她非常反感。布伦南耐心安慰着她,两人的恋情逐渐升温。就在此时,布伦南却在无意中发现了艾的秘密,这让他的爱情几乎陷入了绝境……
Every winter, a magical snowman puts on a show for a little girl, but over time, life pulls them apart. Will she remember to take the time for what she loved?
Erstwhile Special Forces operative Doc Alexander is asked to broker a truce with the Mexican drug cartel in secrecy. When Oklahoma Governor Richard Jeffs celebrates the execution of a high-ranking cartel member on TV, his Chief of Staff and Doc inform him about the peace he just ended. But it’s too late, as Cuco, the cartel’s hatchet man, has set his vengeful sights on Doc’s daughter Dixie.
They don’t make ’em like Little Dixie anymore: honed to the bone, all gestures and actions, only a few words. Too many genre films these days try to create meaning by piling ideas and intentions on their narrative frames. John Swab, as always, works the other way around. Meaning and depth come from taking away whatever is superfluous – by reducing the plot to its bare essence and the characters to their core trades and tricks.
Ultimately, Little Dixie feels like the pulp fiction version of a Giacometti sculpture, all fearful symmetries and mirror images. A gem of crime cinema at its purest and most philosophical, proudly featuring noir’s new darling, Frank Grillo.
源自:
https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2023/films/little-dixie