I did not watch an Asian movie today. I really didn’t, I swear!
The Guard
Ireland, United Kingdom 2010, John Michael McDonagh, 96?
Gerry Boyle is a Garda sergeant in Connemara, a small town on the Irish west coast. He’s everything but a model officer but he does his work and life is quiet until one day, the drug trade with the FBI in tow pay a visit to his town.
Did you watch In Bruges? Liked it? Watch this then, you will be absolutely in love. I first thought this was the same director, not just his brother. Amateur philosopher gangsters, racist village cops and a lot of witty dialogue all with great music and beautifully shot. Just like In Bruges, we see a delightfully funny Brendan Gleeson become the unexpected hero and the single best line to describe him comes from the black FBI agent: “I just can’t tell if you’re motherfuckin’ dumb or motherfuckin’ smart”.
Dernier étage gauche gauche (Top Floor Left Wing)
France, Luxembourg 2010, Angelo Cianci, 93?
September 11th (not 2001): Francois leaves his suburban home to evict people from their homes, like every day. This time however he is taken hostage by a small time drug dealer and his father and the mayor, seeing an opportunity for publicity, sets the whole machinery of police and press in motion. This brings a lot of unprecedented attention to the typical banlieue neighbourhood and while the situation shifts and the mood gets more and more tense the dealer decides that the best way to get ouf this mess is to incite an uprising in the neighbourhood and disappear in the ensuing chaos.
This was an awesome mixture of unexpected amounts of witty fun, biting criticism and a lot plot twists and turns. What starts out as a seemingly predictable hostage movie with the young dealer as a testosterone-controlled primate you’d like to just shoot in the head, very quickly shifts into a great dissection of personal and general issues and motives with a cathartic end, that does not really offer a solution, but shows in a very charming way, that the truth is always infinitely more complex than you can see on the surface.