Yara (2021): An Unfocused True Crime Narrative
The trouble with Yara (2021) is that in its attempt to tell the whole story, it struggles to tell a consistently engaging story.

A godforsaken village in Germany shortly after the Thirty Years’ War: The young scrivener Max loves Agathe, daughter of the head forester Kuno. But to marry her, the inexperienced marksman Max must participate in an archaic tradition and score in a shooting trial – an unfulfillable challenge for him. The dubious war veteran Kaspar knows about this. He convinces the scrivener to meet him at Wolf’s Glen at midnight to forge “free bullets” that never miss their target. Max, who does not see any other way out of his unfortunate situation, sells his soul to the devil. Not knowing about the catch behind this deal: while six of the cursed bullets will hit the desired target, the seventh lies in the devil’s hands.
The trouble with Yara (2021) is that in its attempt to tell the whole story, it struggles to tell a consistently engaging story.
It’s dark, uncomfortable, and there are things that don’t make sense.
The Last Duel is about rape. Although the film delves into rape culture in medieval Europe, there are many striking similarities to modern rape culture.
Treated like a granter of wishes for those earning out of retelling the same tragedy, Marilyn looks like she's caged in different stages of trauma for us to stare at, instead of someone we’ve finally allowed to rest in peace.
Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion is a fan-favorite, as are some of the more science fiction angled movies like 28 Days Later or World War Z. I recently watched the 1995 Wolfgang Peterson-directed movie, Outbreak for the first time, which is currently available on Netflix.
Miles Morales learns to be his own hero as he takes on the well loved mantle of Spider-Man in a multiverse of Spider-People.