This week’s report, as love himself, it’s an explosive, violent and romantic one. The fantastic documentary “Fire of Love” a re-view of The Lobster of Yorgos Lanthimos, and a new queer but weirdly, not bad new comedy from the director of Shiva Baby called “Bottoms”.
🎥Fire of Love (2022) 🌋💞
Katia and Maurice Krafft were a couple of volcano researchers who dedicated their lives to researching and recording volcanoes around the world.
Despite sharing this adventure with an almost hypnotic passion, Katia and Maurice had different interests. Katia sought out the details and took care of the documentation, while Maurice was immersed in the pure experience and the capture of events. This elicited in me, as a viewer, a tremendous sense of admiration and gratitude, presenting details that I possibly would never have understood about the powerful and unstable world of volcanic eruptions.
However, beyond the fascinating images and data about volcanoes, this fantastic documentary presents in 80 minutes a motivating and inspiring story of love, passion, companionship, and a touch of madness. It invites us to look at nature and, why not, human relationships with a very positive perspective.
⭐ 9 /10 Disney+
🎥Bottoms (2023) 🏫👊🩸
A few years back, I deeply appreciated the splendid Shiva Baby, a comedy directed by Emma Seligman and featuring Rachel Sennott. In this latest collaboration, they present “Bottoms”, a college comedy with a queer focus, without resorting to a crude quest for identity justice.
PJ and Josie are two friends looking to escape the mundanity of college life. Aiming to lose their virginity before graduation, they establish a women’s self-defense club, akin to a female “Fight Club”, as a safeguard against societal dangers. However, their true intention is to meet and attract more women to broaden their prospects of finding a partner.
As with any good college comedy, things gradually become complex, and circumstances spiral out of control. This leads them to appreciate friendship, self-acceptance, and the primacy of truth. Despite numerous clichéd scenarios, the plot consists of blood, violence, some ludicrous social critiques, and plenty of hilarious and absurd situations.
⭐ 8 /10 Prime Video
🎥The Lobster (2015) 🦞💀💔
In the wake of Yorgos Lanthimos’s great success with “Poor Things”, I decided to revisit one of his films to which I had not paid much attention, “The Lobster” from 2015. This is a dark comedy set in a dystopian future where being single is illegal. As a result, David, after his wife leaves him, is taken to a hotel where he has 45 days to find a partner or be transformed into an animal of his choosing.
In this hotel, David, played by Colin Farrell, desperately searches for a new “love of his life” among countless rules and activities. This immerses us in an inevitable questioning of how far from reality this raw and disturbing satire can be.
Lanthimos presents this work with touches of comedy that, for me, end up in a cold and daring criticism. Even though I feel that the pace of events could be better, it is characteristic of Lanthimos that he always leaves something to analyze and reflect upon afterward.
⭐ 8 /10 MAX
