Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes
Director -Kevin Kopacka
Writers - Kevin Kopacka & Lili Villányi
Stars - Anna Platen, Jeff Wilbusch, Frederik von Lüttichau
2021, Germany
And here’s the giallo one. Expert recreations of the subgenre are the norm now, and Kopacka’s film is no slouch. The title font is a dead giveaway that this will be a pastiche of retro-styles; both story and cinematic nature will be period pieces. There is great set design and plenty of atmosphere as a couple come to the castle she’s inherited and weirdness ensues. He’s a dick, barely capable of speaking without negativity or condescension; she’s a bit of a selfish ice maiden. And then there’s a sharp turn into a shock-scene and meta. A ghost story? A disturbed tale of a couple? The difference to old giallo to recent neo-giallo is that the latter is more playful where the former can often feels like cut-and-paste held together by great aesthetic: ‘Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes’ goes all kind of places, fakes out this way, piles on layers and gothic restlessness, and probably demands more than one watch to work out. It's almost like a melding of 'Knife + Heart' and the work of Cattet and Foranzi. There’s plenty to delve into here.
Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It
Zhanym, ty ne poverish
Director - Yernar Nurgaliyev
Writers - Zhandos Aibassov, Yernar Nurgaliyev & Daniyar Soltanbayev
Stars - Daniar Alshinov, Yerkebulan Daiyrov & Asel Kaliyeva
Kazakhstan, 2020
To get away from his harridan, pregnant wife, Dastan hastily takes a fishing trip with his two friends at the same time bumbling gangsters who have upset a one-eyed super-killer are out putting the pressure on a victim. And that’s not quite everything. It’s a very blokey-bro affair, with the main dynamics being the squabbling and bonding of the male groups, but the fun is in the piling on of elements and spiralling out of control. The humour is broad but mostly hits (there is always a loss of nuance from verbal gags with subtitles, of course) but there is plenty of energy, slapstick, absurdity and gore to keep this funny and entertaining, and the guilelessness of the main characters negates any real mean-spiritedness. It's crowd-pleasing aspirations are worn clearly on its sleeve and it certainly does that.
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