Dear friend,
A few days ago I went to the cinema in Bangkok with my good friend Rattawich. The film was so terrible that I ranted about it for 2 hours.
So I thought, maybe I share a bit of film criticism from time to time.
I watch a lot of films anyway...
Camp Miasma, 2026
That was the film we watched. A big disappointment. It sells itself as a horror slasher, because it’s Halloween season here. But in the end it is a film about finding yourself and your own sexuality and all that…
They wanted too much in this film. Retrospective, old school film style, slasher, the identity conflict of the women, a love story. And on top of that references to all kinds of classic horror movies.
There is no red thread. Nothing holds it together. You sit in the cinema and ask yourself: What the hell am I watching here? But not in a good way.
The script is bad. The dialogues are bad. The editing is bad. The music is bad.
It feels like the final project of a politically correct graduating class of psychology and film students. But shot with a good camera. The worst film I have seen in years. But I learned a lot from it. Basically everything you can do wrong.
Resident Evil, 2026
Then I watched the new Resident Evil, also in the cinema with my friend Rattawich. I really expected to walk out scared. But in the end it was a zombie film with a lot of video game humor. The jumpscares are really well done though.
But it wasn’t really creepy. It was very exaggerated, almost like fantasy. And yeah. Pretty funny. I think you just have to see it as an entertainment product, not as a real horror film.
Irma Vep, 1996
Then the French film Irma Vep. The actress Maggie Cheung is invited to Paris to play a role in the cult vampire film Irma Vep. She plays the vampire. Very beautiful shots. Especially Maggie Cheung of course.
It gives you a good look behind the scenes of the French film industry of that time.
But I found the film a bit irritating, because it doesn’t really have a red thread either. Suddenly you are inside a documentary about the film industry in Paris at that time, and that makes you fall out of the illusion of the actual movie. Also the storytelling it didn’t work for me. But it’s a good document of its time.
Brüno, 2009
Then Brüno by Sacha Baron Cohen, who also made Ali G and Borat. Brüno is the gay character who wants to become famous in America. Totally exaggerated film. But in a good way!
Almost all scenes were shot in situations where the other people didn’t know it was a parody. The reactions of the people are all real. And it is again a crazy example of how America thinks and how narrow-minded many people are.
Wild film. I like it!
What I learned
Don’t try to put everything into one film. Otherwise you lose the frame and the red thread. In the end you are telling a story.
If you just pour your mental vomit over the audience, nobody gets anything out of it.
Less is more. Focus on the film and on what it is actually about.
Many wishes,
Marius