22nd of May (2010)
Sam wakes up, gets ready and goes to do his daily job. And then the unexpected happens. A bomb explodes in the center of the shopping mall where he works. He drags himself towards the entrance to save the victims. One by one he pulls them out, until something terrible takes place. In complete hysteria he runs off till he falls down from exhaustion. A woman's voice makes him raise his head. She's one of the victims he saved. She wants to know why the suicide bomber did it. This encounter projects him back in history and even in a surreal world. Thereafter he runs into everyone he saved and feels that their defeat shows many parallels with his own. Even his confrontation with the wrongdoer isn't that straightforward as he thought it would be and confronts him with the fact that guilt and innocence can be pretty much alike.
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The Worst Film Ever
How sad is this?
This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.
I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
If you have seen the "Ex Drummer" (the directors previous movie) and go into this movie with certain expectations, you will be disappointed. While the other one was punk rock at it's finest, this is more to the tune of classical music. I'm talking about the pace here. Even the storytelling seems "ancient" (if you want to call it that) and very slow moving overall.But is that necessarily a bad thing? I don't think so. While I did expect something else I was intrigued by this movie. Not enough to really like it (it could have done with a faster pace), but it is Art House that is as silent as it is loud. You will understand when you watch it (if you watch it that is). The movie has great cinematography and a great lead actor. And it has a feeling to it, that you can't really describe. But it's also not commercially accessible
It's not that I wouldn't appreciate slow-paced movies. As a huge fan of Asian esp. Japanese films I am used to watch people standing around for half an hour doing nothing (e.g. the wonderful 3 1/2 hours "Eureka" by Shinji Aoyama). But as "22nd of may" opened showing the boring start in a boring every-day life of a bored protagonist - a guard preparing for his work in a shopping-mall - I already feared for the rest of the movies runtime. Then the bomb exploded and I thought "OK. That explains why before we had to watch a boring guy doing boring things in every boring detail. Because there's nothing stronger to kick your ass than an exploding bomb." The guy then immediately came to rescue, panicked and scrammed which got my full compassion! But after that the victims started talking to him. And they talked. And talked. And talked. Well, what I can say. They talked me out of the cinema after 30 minutes. Mind me, the basic idea is great and deserves 8 stars for sounding philosophical, intriguing, and passionate so your mind may go Boom. 22nd of May unfortunately let only my patience go Boom and scattered my 8 stars to smithereens, leaving 3 for the good intention. Making boring things interesting is obviously not given to every director.
This film doesn't have a plot to speak of, it has very little dialogue, it switches from reality to dreamlike sequences of subconscious or imagined events. Most of the time I was wondering what exactly I was watching, how I should interpret the images and what the film maker was trying to tell me.The 'story' is about a security guard at a shopping center, who survives a bomb explosion and unravels the stories of the other witnesses and victims. The film starts off quite impressively: we see the guard leaving home for work, doing his job and panicking after the explosion. But after that the film slows down, becomes confusing and fails in engaging the viewer. I couldn't help thinking: where does all this nonsense lead us to? There are a few positive points. The locations are superb (we see mostly ugly and timeless cityscapes) and the cinematography is beautiful. And you could argue that this is an intriguing movie which invites the audience not to take everything immediately for granted. In this respect, some people might enjoy it. But I suspect this is a small group.
Koen Mortier, director of the great "ex-drummer" is back with a very different film. '22 mei' starts with a long traveling shot showing Sam, a security guard in shopping center, and his daily routine. It seems to be just another day like all the others, when suddenly an huge explosion changes the mall into hell. Sam at first tries to help, but confronted with the devastating consequences he runs away.It is at this point that 22 mei steps away from conventional narration and turns into a mental trip inside Sam's head. Soon he finds himself confronted with the victims of the terrible attack. Some blame him, some ask him why, but all of them have had their lives cut short.Forgoing easy symbolism or classical logic 22 mei takes you on a intensly cinematographical trip, a trip that in the ends seems to tell you to enjoy life; because you never now when it might end.