Milana Vujkov
Tomatometer-approved critic
Writer, artist, psychologist. Film historian. Independent scholar, researching psychology of film and spectatorship, psychology of art and creativity, female gaze in cinema, alchemical storytelling and art. Runs two blogs, Poets, Mavericks & Prophets and Lola On Film. Hosts Lola & The Poets podcast.
Serbia
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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The Whale (2022) |
All the weight of the story (metaphorically and literally) is carried by its tragic protagonist — the ailing Charlie, whom Brendan Fraser portrays with such depth, nuance, and wit. Nothing in the film's text matches this commitment, and that's a problem. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Mar 21, 2023
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Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) |
It holds within it a great idea, when one disentangles it from the hairball that is the EEAAO narrative. But [...] in all its originality, it telegraphs its message, instead of allowing this intricately constructed ingenious world to be the message. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Mar 19, 2023
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The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) |
Captures the fragile state of being a human in one grand swoop of wit and weltschmerz — the film’s contours elegantly morose, its humour dark and bitter-sweet, its inhabitants erratic and gloriously eloquent, its landscape a mystery onto itself. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Mar 18, 2023
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Triangle of Sadness (2022) |
There is a point where all good intentions in a storyline turn to dust, and that is when the said narrative stops respecting its characters, however vile they are. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Mar 11, 2023
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All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022) |
Despite Poitras being a powerful storyteller in her own right, this doc lives and breaths Goldin’s indefatigable spirit. [...] The space Goldin gave to her own subjects, Poitras gives to Goldin. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Feb 28, 2023
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Lynch/Oz (2022) |
[Director Alexandre O.] Philippe is turning out to be a virtuoso in translating cinematic sorcery into cultural code, firmly positioned on those ever-so-potent crossroads of zeitgeist and cinema. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Feb 25, 2023
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The Pale Blue Eye (2022) |
If it kept its early promise of a macabre deep dive into Poe’s literary universe, via an intricate murder mystery, this would have been an outstanding thriller.
- Lola On Film
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| Posted Jan 21, 2023
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Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) |
[A] slightly unhinged piece of classic storytelling — and while it is visually luscious and bursting with (narrative) calories, it did not seem to make up its mind, to its very end, which genre, and indeed audience age-group, it actually belongs to. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jan 14, 2023
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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) |
A collage of small, clever, lovingly shaped skits struggling to join the narrative stream of a single story. Albeit with some of the best cameos in the business. Inevitably, it ends up riding the coattails of its stellar predecessor. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jan 13, 2023
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Moonage Daydream (2022) |
Riveting, ravishing, richly sourced, and far too long [...] stream of consciousness story on an era-defining genius. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Nov 20, 2022
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Corsage (2022) |
[It has] such a disorientating manner as to never allow the viewer a glimpse into its shift in cognitive gears; ingenious in framing history as an elliptical loop of vanishing hormonal cycles of a seemingly celebrated, essentially dissed renegade queen. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Nov 09, 2022
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The Princess (2022) |
An exquisite backstage look on how a (media) myth is created. (...) It’s hard to outfox the mass media machine. But this clever and heartfelt doc might just have managed. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 16, 2022
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Fire of Love (2022) |
A fascinating watch, not only due to its unrivalled archival footage which the doomed lovers (...) accumulated in their many years of cutting edge vulcanology – but because this is a film about the enduring unknowability of the origins of a passion. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jun 29, 2022
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Dune (2021) |
Feels more like an obscure, scattered conversation overheard on a long train ride, peaking early with Rampling’s natural mystique, and then hitting a downward spiral – all dense plot and mild tedium, a bounty of sensual imagery wasted on zero substance. - Lola On Film
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| Posted May 17, 2022
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Nightmare Alley (2021) |
Gorgeous to look at - a goth Norman Rockwell - yet hermetically sealed to any insight that would turn our gaze inward, away from its mesmerising scenery - its characters suffering the same suffocating fate in its dense nocturnal world. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Mar 05, 2022
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Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) |
Compensating in visual simplicity and narrative earnestness what it lacks in storytelling flair (...) bringing into focus the burning question of the ways credible popular movements could be corrupted from within. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Feb 08, 2022
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Adrienne (2021) |
The aspect of Adrienne that is pure cinema - the footage, small triumphs, haunted encounters (...) is truly chilling and stellar in its rawness and fortitude. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jan 03, 2022
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The Power of the Dog (2021) |
Requires time to absorb and digest, and in that very quality it exhibits its excellence and extraordinary depth. (...) Long-awaited return to cinema of one of its greats. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Dec 23, 2021
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Spencer (2021) |
Poetic, mysterious and subversively cathartic (...) unequivocally makes clear to all watching why Diana mattered so much, to so many. It has something to do with love. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Dec 12, 2021
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House of Gucci (2021) |
Lady Gaga as Patrizia truly did give it her all (...) the only one on screen that actually fits the form, knowing how to spin deep emotion from what might seem like a lark. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Dec 10, 2021
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Sisters with Transistors (2020) |
Brimming with Promethean insight on the relationship between human and machine - yet is also subdued in form, aiming for precision rather than panache. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Dec 03, 2021
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The Starling (2021) |
Written as if it were a collection of random ideas for characters, and directed at pace of a wellness seminar. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Nov 01, 2021
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French Exit (2020) |
Melancholic, world-weary, darkly funny, and strangely lovely, it gifts so much more than it promises, just like its heroine. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Oct 23, 2021
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Britney Vs Spears (2021) |
Unfortunately, it does not get any closer to the human being that lives behind that perfect smile than an upset, well-meaning article in a fanzine would. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Oct 20, 2021
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The Last Duel (2021) |
Marguerite's was story well worth to be told on its own. It would had held up without the [meta] gimmickry. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Oct 19, 2021
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The Guilty (2021) |
Sombre, stoic, flawed but ultimately harrowing chamber piece dealing with, in essence, the moral dilemma of our times (...) how much do we assume about others ? - Lola On Film
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| Posted Oct 18, 2021
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No Time to Die (2021) |
Sophisticated entertainment, as well as poignant reflexion on bioweapons, fallible heroes, and love. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Oct 16, 2021
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Paper Spiders (2021) |
A well-crafted, moving, bittersweet portrait of a deteriorating psyche, and the way any human suffering can be transcended with an open heart. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Aug 21, 2021
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Friend of the World (2020) |
Would have preferred [it] less half its words (...) yet I did like its daring, lo-fi ethos, trippy, nasty twists, and its claustrophobic wayward wit. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Aug 17, 2021
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Promising Young Woman (2020) |
Wrapped in vivacious rom-com feels, this is an ancient tale of womanhood desecrated (...) a female gaze extraordinaire, on men who abuse trust, and women who enable them. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Aug 04, 2021
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Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) |
Spader's truth-fetishist Graham was a harbinger of things to come, as the first of Gen X hit their teens (...) [acquiring] the possibility to interact with the simulacrum. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Aug 01, 2021
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Billie (2019) |
The brilliance of this duality, the two tales documenting Holiday, of the artist and of the biographer, the telling of the singularity that was Billie through [a] mirror. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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The Woman in the Window (2021) |
Somewhere half way in, the entire enterprise loses its way, turning a substantial, juicy plot into a procedural psycho-thriller. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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The Capote Tapes (2020) |
Truman Capote lived many lives, and inhabited manifold identities (...) yet this doc, somehow, managed to tailor it all to size. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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The Witch of Kings Cross (2020) |
By loosely framing Rosaleen's life story as feminist hermetic theatre, the director offers this truly unique cultural figure some posthumous justice. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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Tesla (2020) |
Michael Almereyda's sweetly bonkers mixtape of a film tribute is pure connoisseur delight. And, frankly, eerily accurate. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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Mank (2020) |
A rare tribute to the importance of writing in film, and one of the most honest and subdued depictions of Hollywood that Hollywood ever delivered. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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Rebecca (2020) |
[Deconstructing] marriage, and the British class system, through rendering a classic, yet deeply subversive tale of passion, bondage, illness and jealousy entirely soulless. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) |
Seems rushed and too close to the heart of the filmmaker to be more grounded in living history than in personal sentiment, but it has Mark Rylance to hold that balance. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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On the Record (2020) |
The fiercely talented Dixon, in her expressive and precise way, describes the experience of leaving the job she excelled in and loved as holding her breath for 16 years. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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System Crasher (2019) |
A punk rock salute to the painful roots of the antisocial impulse. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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Lucy in the Sky (2019) |
I enjoyed its inconsistent but witty digressions. Sometimes, the right type of prose elevates the turmoil of shoddy romance, too prosaic to encounter through poetic means. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) |
Unfolds as a liquid painting, shades of honey, earth, and time, with a soundtrack burning off all that is unnecessary. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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Radioactive (2019) |
Satrapi, who is a visual and narrative virtuoso, landed herself a story that was to be served to a broader audience, and tried her best to craft it as her own. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado (2020) |
Bubbly Netflix doc reveals an exuberant, strange, bitter-sweet bit of astro pop history, celebrating a dazzling figure, one Walter Mercado, caped wizard. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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Spaceship Earth (2020) |
Equally amusingly eco-trendy and genuinely gob-smacking saga about the ingenious two-year experiment. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019) |
A moving actor's portrait of an artist's real anguish, hidden and gift-wrapped within a Gap ad that is Bernadette's scenery and style. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn (2019) |
Who would have thought, [Roy] Cohen's life, as existential tragedy. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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On Body and Soul (2017) |
A holy text of cinema. And if you have never crossed paths with it, this is your moment at the crossroads. Ildikó Enyedi's macrocosmic masterpiece. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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Bad Education (2019) |
It's truly a small miracle to watch the way these two antisocial misfits con their way into people's trust, as Jackman and Janney make them all too human. - Lola On Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2021
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