[Review] Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

"Can you find the wolves in this picture?" - Ernest BurkhartWith an incredibly delicate subject matter to handle, tackling Killers of the Flower Moon is no easy feat. This is true particularly for Martin Scorsese, a white American man telling a chapter of the great suffering endured by the Osage nation, a series of murder that’s product of the systemic greed and corruption of power by white Americans. Throughout the film, it’s well-expressed that he’s aware of his limitation, as this idea is woven attentively in the fabric of the narrative. The film keens...

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Rizky Muzakki Thursday, October 26, 2023  No comment

[Review] The Humans (2021)

"And now, maybe loving someone long-term is more about deciding whether to go through life unhappy alone, or unhappy with someone else?" - Aimee (Amy Schumer)A movie set in a single room is nothing new, yet for this play-based depiction of annual family outbursts, it's never quite the same. Unlike any other which mostly turns into a neverending shouting match, The Humans' means of storytelling is never wide and exposed. Instead, it's compact, brief, brimming with mysterious intentions that many times even ascend into horror impulses. Sporadically, it chooses to go to some lengths...

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Rizky Muzakki Wednesday, January 05, 2022  1 comment

[Review] Autumn Sonata (1978)

“Are the daughter's miseries the mother's triumphs?” - Eva In cinema filled with dysfunctional family dramas, Ingmar Bergman’s works often loom conspicuously. From Scenes from A Marriage to Cries and Whispers, his grip on this heavy subject has long been both celebrated and cerebrated. Autumn Sonata, the first and last collaboration between the two incomparable Bergmans: Ingmar and Ingrid Bergman, is one of those hefty formidable dramas. Through the estranged relationship between a daughter, Eva (Liv Ullmann), and her concert pianist mother Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman), Ingmar Bergman gazes at their stirring spectacle of disquieting, perpetuated emotional injuries. Here, there...

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Rizky Muzakki Thursday, September 24, 2020  No comment

[Review] The Hours (2002)

“What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? It's what you can bear. There it is. No one's going to forgive me. It was death. I chose life.” - Laura BrownBased on Michael Cunningham’s novel of the same name, which is also loosely based on the life of Virginia Woolf during the writing process of Mrs. Dalloway; The Hours to the maudlin misery guts—and by that I mean myself—are like Inception is to Nolan fanboys. It’s a glaring drama that deals with its ambition keenly, hear this: a story that takes...

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Rizky Muzakki Saturday, September 12, 2020  No comment

[Review] Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

"When you asked if I had known love. I could tell the answer was yes. And that it was now." - Marianne In today's cinema, where every project comes with such a ponderous methodical approach with one goal to impress, effortless invisibility has become a rare gem. Portrait of a Lady on Fire is that rarity. Director/screenwriter Céline Sciamma's technical prowess is incredibly refined, her timing is fluid and her delivery is graceful. She reminds us that what we're peeping through are simply pieces of someone's life, that we're fortunate enough to witness, or better yet,...

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Rizky Muzakki Friday, January 24, 2020  1 comment

[Review] Little Women (2019)

"Please fight to the end, be LOUD! Don't just quietly go away!" - Jo March  Watching Little Women had me pondering question after question. What makes a great film, great? Then, that question expanded: what makes a great film, important? I still haven't got the chance to find answers and one thing came up: how is one deemed important anyway? The scale, the scope, the stakes? I found myself fascinated by one thing, then one fascination came right after another, and so on. Director-screenwriter Greta Gerwig, in this Louisa May Alcott's latest film adaptation,...

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Rizky Muzakki Tuesday, January 21, 2020  1 comment

[Review] Green Book (2018)

"You never win with violence, Tony. You only win when you maintain your dignity." - Dr. Don Shirley Green Book plays like most movies that tackle racism from the past, an undeniably sugary, feel-good drama that everyone can’t help but adore. That’s true for many reasons. Bearing many resemblances from Driving Miss Daisy, its concept is pretty much paint-by-number: a portrayal of two polar opposites dealing with unfortunate ‘events’ that come along the way. This time, the roles are reversed with our two leads, Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen, taking us to a road...

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Rizky Muzakki Saturday, September 28, 2019  1 comment

[Review] Ad Astra (2019)

"The enemy out here, is not a person or a thing, it's the endless void." - Thomas Pruitt Visually ambitious and thematically grounded, As Astra goes as far as the stars yet its echoes are still reflective even from billions of miles away—well, technically we're going to Neptune, but you get the idea. An odyssey that speaks in its most poetic tongue, Ad Astra is also an introspective reverie that makes great use of its vast of nothingness to unearth a brimming sense of catharsis. Gray's direction wanders in a measured rhythm, that...

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Rizky Muzakki Sunday, September 22, 2019  No comment

[Review] The Favourite (2018)

His most accessible feature may well be, Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite brings in a cheeky, confrontational tug of war drenched in unrestrained seduction and tempestuous spite that’s as driven as our exquisite leading charmers. So familiar yet so uniquely newfangled, The Favourite reconstructs, borrows from the greatest yet has plenty of its own to offer, stating its historical frame with self-assured, composed elan and a flare of cynicism. As a caricature of period pieces, this Lanthimos’s latest cinematic offering puts us in an eternal triangle that blurs the line between power and loyalty,...

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Rizky Muzakki Thursday, August 29, 2019  No comment

[Review] A Star is Born (2018)

Four, five, or six. That’s how many times they’ve made this story happen. Five, if you count 1932’s ‘What Price Hollywood?’ in. Six, with its Bollywood iteration ‘Aashiqui 2’ included. But like twelve notes between any octave, how we hear them depends on how they see these notes. And here, Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga digs, deeper to that recurring deep. ‪The first hour is a sugar rush of infectious romantic undertones, and to quote Jackson himself “stuff of angels”. Cooper invests so much in their first encounter, as captivating as Gaga’s sultry rendition...

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Rizky Muzakki Thursday, August 29, 2019  1 comment