Killers of the Flower Moon

The Osage nation has found oil in their territory and became rich. But where there is money, there are people who want to get their hands on it, and they will be going over dead bodies. Martin Scorsese delivers a dense drama about human envy, anger and cruelty that is not entirely audience-friendly and forces you to spend three and a half hours in the company of repulsive people. Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro give brilliant performances here, but the slow pace and a narrative that doesn't rush anywhere demand more attention and patience from the audience than usual. Scorsese is uncompromising, so be ready to do your fair share of time with his newest film. And he's certainly not going to make it easy. (17/10/2023)

The American interpretation of the banality of evil, where “banality” is synonymous with the everyday and the ordinary, but it is not readily apparent. Scorsese needs these three and a half hours so that he can depict, with maximum disturbing effect, the paradoxes and absurdities in the actions of people who, with the support of institutionalised racism and under the banner of their own truths and idealised values, were able to live side by side with those whom they killed. Two aspects stand in opposition to each other. On one side, there is the mythology of a nation that is being corroded by adapting to an imported lifestyle, or rather to a foreign mythos of prosperity. The tragedy of the Osage consists in the fact that they tried to adapt to a foreign mythos, but from the perspective of the white outsiders, that mythos was (and still remains) meant only for themselves and not for anyone else. On the other side, we have a stubborn self-centredness underpinned by an imagined right to prosperity in a land of unlimited opportunities, which in practice means that it can be seized by any means at the expense of others. The narrative consistently makes us aware that evil does not consist in some sort of moral gymnastics that the individual uses to justify his or her opposition to good. On the contrary, the essence of evil consists in absolute rational ignorance with respect to anything foreign, including morality. Essential support for this is provided by the instilled roles, models and ideals that one has to fulfil, because the effort to fulfil them helps one not to see anything else. Fortunately, however, there is a third side, represented not by the local authorities, but by those of the state, which in Scorsese's typically idealistic vision are completely immune to the corruption and temptations of the world around them, because they are built specifically for the purpose of fighting evil. Thanks not only to the presence of DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon is a reprise of The Wolf of Wall Street, in which Scorsese portrayed the perversity of egocentrism and opportunism so spectacularly that his film became a materialisation of the dreams of numerous assholes and a representation of what they should aspire to. This time, in the acting itself (from DiCaprio's clumsiness to DeNiro’s adaptation of Donald Trump’s facial expressions) and in the purposefully slow pacing, he deliberately takes care to ensure that his view of America’s values cannot in any way be misappropriated in the furtherance of those values, though the effort is ultimately futile, because nothing external will break the convinced racists and mammonists. (19/11/2023)

Here, more than with other films, you realize that even great filmmakers should have a producer's oversight, someone to tell them that such monstrous running time is untenable. Martin Scorsese's seminal works always flirted with three hours, but they had incredible pacing and were watchable in one breath. Here, I was hooked only with the arrival of the investigators and the final catharsis, which was powerful, so it took like two horus for things to get going, and I write this as someone who likes slow films and their gradual introduction to the plot. Nasty things happen, but I felt almost no tension and the bland monotone music didn't help. And someone should tell Leonardo DiCaprio that constantly crabbing his mouth into an inverted U is not a sign of good acting. So aside from the traditionally reliable Robert De Niro, I was only impressed with Lily Gladstone. Her quiet strength, soulful expression and engaging minimalist acting was something to behold. I wouldn't hesitate to call her the heart of the whole film, the one element of goodness in the human filth around her. I'm glad to see that similar artistically ambitious films are still being made in these bastardised, tik-tok times, but I'm afraid Marty won't be expanding his Oscar collection this time around. (20/01/2024)

At the level of a perspective on a community condemned to destruction, this is dense, yearning, as biting as we have come to expect from this director, and at times captivating. In the equally striking plane of a family saga from old bad times, however, it is weaker in all respects. The dynamic of the main trio is almost clearly defined from the beginning, there is little hidden between the lines, and when the last detail stops being concealed from the viewer, there is nothing left. From that moment on, it no longer makes sense to trust specific relationships and, by extension, the motivations for crucial actions in the final act. So I understand all the less why this movie lasts for two and a half hours, when all the motives and reveals could fit into two and without losing any meaning or depth. Which brings me to how much Martin Scorsese loves extravagance and formal indulgence. Where there should be a herd, there are several hundred cows, where there should be a crowd scene, there are people from horizon to horizon, and so on (especially in the beginning), over and over again. Even Leonardo DiCaprio is overused this time and the opportunities for his broken expressions, though otherwise perfectly functional, are overloaded because the viewer is almost stuffed with all emotional extremes in front of their eyes. I understand the intoxication with the possibilities of cinematography, but unlike the much smarter The Irishman, when it comes to these sorts of contemplative and cautiously venomous American memorials, I won't ride this merry-go-round a second time. (15/12/2023)

Fargo 1920. It's not riveting, but it's undeniably excellent. It feels like a miniseries accidentally put on in one piece, two and a half hours of taking its time with everything in style, and in the final hour, after a change of style, it's conversely stilted. One of those films that should have either been considerably shorter (and left out entire lines) or, conversely, considerably longer (and fully committed to each). (21/10/2023)