One day a similar movie will be made about Elon Musk. Of course, the hero is not a computer genius, but a genius of enterprise. After such an adjustment, you can already believe the story unfolded before the viewer and the character of the hero. Continuous immersive action, great game of everyone, decent camera work and good special effects without fanaticism.
Zillion. The club of your dreams: the history of the legendary nightclub in Belgium in the 90s
The story of Zillion. The Dream Club tells the story of a nightclub that existed from 1997 to 2002. The club has now resumed its work. This is a unique film work, which intertwines real events and fiction, interesting characters and stunning Belgian dance music, which creates a unique atmosphere.
Judging by the records on the Internet, the Zillion club was a real phenomenon of its time, and its founders, owner Frank Verstraten and the king of porn Dennis Black Magic, became the main characters of this story. However, what events from the life of the club were real and what were fictional - I do not know.
Zillion is not just a film about the club, it is a real work of art! It is saturated with dynamics, dark humor and conveys the atmosphere of Belgium of the 90s. The film can be compared to Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, only in this case we are talking about a nightclub in the 90s and Belgium.
“Zillion” definitely deserves the attention and recognition of moviegoers. Despite the presence of fiction, the film conveys the atmosphere of that time and leaves vivid memories of the iconic era. If you love music from the 90s, watch Zillion. I'm sure you won't regret it!
For a relatively long time, this film corned eyes on streaming. But the hunger for movies during the depression, as well as the high rating, still forced to click on it. So began the acquaintance with, now with one of my favorite movies. It was the first film that made me write an article in an unfamiliar direction.
I am afraid that after six years of working in nightclubs and restaurants without writing articles, I have lost the skill of writing long structured sheets, so I will limit myself to a small review of my chosen criteria and description of the general impression.
Let's start with the characters. The central ones are pretty cool. You sympathize with them, you worry and you understand. The central character, Frank, seems to have been taken off me. Let never reached such heights, but there were times of strong ups, when the courage at once dealt with their problems, and hard falls, when on the wave of obsession with a girl everything went downhill and you are alone with yourself and problems, along the way losing faith in such a concept as friendship. BlackMagic is a terrific type that slightly overshadows the film's rather depressive mood. It may be a little clichéd, but played just great. Single mother with complexes of hyperprotection, also quite understandable and common type. I immediately associate myself with my own. With the girl of the main character, it's more like "I don't believe." And it's not even about the game, it's about the script. Everything was fine and logical until she admitted that she loved Frank. There was a very serious dissonance, as if the writer himself did not know who she was: a calculating bitch or vice versa, a loving person who for all the benefits, sympathizes with the main character, and he, in attempts to prove his love, completely forgot for what it all started. All in all, the last third of the film, apart from the moment she walks away from him from prison, is very controversial. Logically, she never loved him, but she tried very hard, and here on the spot, a turn of 180, and in the end another one of the same. Misunderstood... I can't blame this on an unpredictable female soul. Secondary characters - decoration, cardboard on cardboard. And in this, frankly chamber history, there is no need for another.
Visual. It's hard to say anything concrete. Operator work is like a template. There are no distinguishing chips, but there is not much to criticize. The most accurate would be to say "not a masterpiece, but very well." Of the disadvantages of the production, I did not understand where the club is, what about the neighbors there who complain. I don’t know where the main character lives. Whether in the same place or in a hangar... Maybe I didn’t look very carefully, but usually these things are put off. Club atmosphere as it is. Nothing to add or subtract. In general, we will write off the shoals on cameramanship, because the basis is still not visual, but characters.
The atmosphere. That's okay. The acid club is replaced by sluggish gateways and cold soulless dwelling of the protagonist, the 'cyberpunk we deserve', but without cyber implants. As a seasoning, the top added noir.
General impressions. The closest associations arise with the sensational domestic film "Text". There are many parallels in everything. And visual (but "Zillion" strongly wins in editing and camera work), and history, and viscous atmosphere. In general, it is a very life story, showing that success and wealth do not make a person happy, especially when all this is achieved in trying to prove something to someone. The film earned a solid eight from me primarily because of the story and play of the central characters. I was a little disappointed by the smeared ending.
For three months from the release in December, Zillion was a Yeti film: some people talk about it, but most people didn’t see it, because there is no PR campaign and it is not shown on the network. And now came the long-awaited moment when a European film with a Hollywood budget got on streaming services and is now available for viewing on the expanses of the Russian Federation.
If you missed Zillion during a movie rental, which lasted only a couple of weeks (and in your home country, Belgium, stretched for several months and did not cease to fill the halls), then this is your chance to get acquainted with one of the most ambitious and grandiose film projects of Benelux.
When reading the synopsis at the St. Petersburg cinema “Rodina” (almost the only one where “Zillion” was shown all over the city), I had a skepticism towards the phrases “This story ... could only happen in zero” and “Genius IT”: from such a description you expect fashion trends, nostalgia for zero, where everything was simpler and psychotropic substances are greener, but the film with confidence dispelled my partial bias and fell in love with itself.
Club Zillion, founded by computer genius geek Frank Verstraten, in the film looks good modern, despite the fact that it is based on the original source of 20 years ago – there is an unambiguous success of staging light, color palette and special effects. A huge role in creating an atmosphere, of course, is played by the soundtrack, collected from the hits of Dutch, Belgian and German trance and Eurodens DJs: the tracks are competently selected for certain scenes and perfectly convey the emotions of the characters and atmosphere. If you believe the words of the lucky ones who captured “Zillion” with their own eyes, these same tracks played in the original club, so that the historical material was studied qualitatively.
Timekeeping at 2 cents of an hour is so full of events and plot twists that there is no place for unnecessary tinsel: one situation spills into another and leads to irreversible consequences that already flow into something new and incredible. Breathe after a stormy narration and action allow calm and verbose scenes of interaction between the characters, which allows you to penetrate them, and when you watch them again, you generally notice in these small “smoking breaks” the smallest scenario details that give what is happening more depth.
You believe and sympathize with the key characters, the main caste perfectly copes with their roles. Definitely a bow to Frank Verstraten’s unwavering mother and Dennis Black Magic, as for me, the most powerful and memorable images. Problems can only indicate that Vanessa, the girlfriend of Frank Verstraten - against the background of the other characters, she seems flat and stereotypically misunderstood princess; perhaps this is due to the lack of time, which is allotted to the formation of their relationship with Frank. What can be said about everyone is that as the story nears completion, neither character will be the same, in a good or bad way.
After watching, there was also a research interest in the original Zillion club - on the Internet a bunch of Belgian fans who share both photos and videos, however, the vast majority of materials and articles in the Dutch language, but curious minds who after watching will begin to share interest and love for the source, this should not stop.
In general, this film is a bright candy with a mysterious and alluring content. The club lives its own life and seems to play the role of a separate, independent character, inside it people behave completely differently than in dull yellow everyday life. Of course, the plot is a lot of embellished and renamed, and generally Frank and Dennis met not as shown in the film, and the closure of “Zillion” was less dramatic. . .
And yet you believe in the characters, believe in them, watching as the situation turns upside down and the position of forces changes, and it is worth hearing in the film a familiar track, straight from that, which seems to be a different era, time, how a smile involuntarily appears on your face and begins to shake your foot or head in the rhythm of the melody.
I do not regret that I watched the film with subtitles, and in the voiceover - in the dubbing, the club is called either 'Zillion', then 'Zillion', cut some small, and in one case, closer to the end - even critical sound moments (if I tell you what an occasion, there will be a spoiler, but this is definitely 'minus' in the voiceover karma), so if possible, I advise everyone to also get acquainted with the original to feel the difference in sound and presentation.
The script is based on the interweaving of fates and many criminal stories around the Zillion nightclub. The plot is based on real events, but quite freely interprets them and ambiguously places accents, even if you superficially study open sources or analyze what is happening on the screen from the point of view of logic and behavioral psychology of the characters. To be honest, for me the film is more artistic value, similar to my favorite Swedish trilogy Snabba cash.
Great directing work on the contrast of day and night life easily pays off all the logical shortcomings of the script. With special attention, scenes were recreated directly in the club, for it even the facade of the building was specially restored - the drive and style of the bygone era, of course, fall in love with themselves during the viewing. In fact, it is the visual series with incredible attention to detail – the main advantage of the picture, which does not let the viewer’s attention go much more reliable than a secondary corruption story could do.
The plot, let’s say, does not prevent you from enjoying watching, but, again, its reliability raises questions. The main character and his relationship with his mother, in principle, are not the most interesting topics, because instead of a success story, we see rather a history of uncontrollable complexes combined with a frankly painful image of the mother ... and, most sadly, I could not find actual confirmation of this interpretation of the character. It seems, at the moment, the main character is happy in marriage, has children and runs a completely legal business, which would hardly be possible for the character we see in the epilogue.
Charlotte Timmers is beautiful, however, it should be noted that she plays rather a collective image - the real character probably did not allow to use his personality in the film. Black Magic, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the one behind the script, it’s pretty damn cool, but in reality it’s a little bit different – it’s a pedophile and a recidivist rapist, which the film, for the sake of fairness, mentions, but with such an accent, as if we’re talking about an innocent prank. In general, I highly recommend that you familiarize yourself with the picture - this is an interesting project both aesthetically and in the context of expanding your horizons, but you should treat it with some distrust, for which I lowered a couple of points in the assessment.
8 out of 10
P.S. Probably visited the premiere (only on the day of release) session in the Central House of Journalists, in connection with which I want to thank Domjour for organizing the show, albeit with subtitles instead of dubbing - in this case it turned out even better. The cinema itself was a very pleasant discovery for me, since the nondescript building hides a modern, comfortable hall, which I would never have known about without canceling all sessions in large chains.