3.2 --
WHITE SHADOW, Noaz
Deshe
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Like diamonds in the rough, there are many facets to Africa:
hundreds of languages, cultures and subcultures. First
time director Noaz Deshe parachutes the viewer into a
Tanzania in the throes of dysfunctionality. We view "things
fall apart" through the eyes of Alias, a young African
albino who witnesses the butchering of his father: albino
limbs fetch large sums of money. Fearing for her son's
safety, Alias's mother sends him to a safe house. The
next day he is sent out to scavenge in a toxic garbage
dump, the items which he hands over to his uncle, who
is indebted to local thugs. They murder the uncle and
then raze the safe-house and slaughter the albino children.
The police arrive but are overwhelmed by the villagers,
who, in mob fashion, take the law into their own hands:
carnage ensues.
This journey into the heart of darkness is not a politically
correct film and will anger many. In the impoverished
villages that ring the capital, the only light comes from
flickering oil lamps. As the jumpy, hand held camera,
like a small animal fearing for its life, darts through
the streets, we learn that the lit up faces and the spirit
world share the same space, and that we're not just being
led through a foreign culture but a dystopia for which
there is no cure so long as the villagers remain hostage
to magic, superstition and the power of the witch doctor.
Alias escapes the massacre but his future -- proxy for
Africa's future -- is uncertain. The ever-agile camera,
performing flips and somersaults, superbly mirrors Alias's
alienated condition: his skin colour that arouses suspicion,
and the fear that defines his way of being-in-the-world
as he is hunted for his valuable body parts. The somewhat
disjointed narration is subsumed by the film's atmospherics
and volatile colour schemes and textures, washes and dissolves.
At times an impressionistic work, White
Shadow, despite its dark subject and accusation, offers
up a strange beauty unlike anything you've ever seen.
Berlin born Noaz Deshe deserves the highest marks for
his bravery, vision and humanity.
0.3
-- JAUJA,
Lisandro Alonso
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
It's only at the 90 minute mark, when the story jumps
to the present, that we realize we have been watching
either an endless dream sequence or an allegory. When
the loose ends are finally tied up into a noose that we're
only too happy to slip on, the only thing we're sure about
is that we've been subjected to a narcoleptically paced,
statically shot film for whom conventional narration is
anathema. Of note is the perfectly square screen, suggesting
portraiture (stasis) over action. But the portraits, less
plot disarray and live-streaming tedium, don't add up
to much. Set in colonial Argentina, a Danish captain's
14-year-old daughter goes missing (she has run away with
her Spanish lover), and he sets out to find her. We learn
of an indigenous chief who has been seen dressed up as
a woman, but how this fits into the plot is anyone's guess.
Scenes that require seconds - the captain getting dressed
in the morning, or staring into a pool of water - are
endlessly dragged out as if to allow the audience sufficient
time to discover the significance that is their obvious
due. Be as it may that the director, Lisando Alonso, has
a cult following, Jauja,
in equal parts contrived and banal, tells more of the
'sophisticated' film aficionados who raise to eminence
works that should be bound and gagged before being condemned
to oblivion. This coma-inducing, alt-cinematic experience
was wonderfully helped by wooden acting performances and
an intelligence-challenged script.
2.0--
LI’L QUINQUIN, Bruno Dumont
[reviewed by Nancy Snipper] Quinquin is a curious 13-year-old with
a hair lip and he wears a hearing aid. But he is a tough
boy and even has a girlfriend. Together, with his band
of friends, he sets off firecrackers to stir people up.
The little coastal northern French town in which they
live is pretty boring, save for the fact that people’s
bodies start appearing inside the guts and rear ends of
cows. The chief inspector with his constant eye and body
twitching and his partner are hilariously funny, especially
the inspector who is a French Jacques Clouseau comic equal.
Peter Sellers was obviously an influence for the actor
Bernard Provost who played the role of this crazy detective.
The faces of the characters in this film form a gallery
of homeliness and small-town peasant weariness. The suicide
of a young black boy seems unrelated to the story other
than the typical prejudice and small mindedness running
rampant in town. This movie was a showcase for Provost’s
brilliant comedic talent.
2.5
-- FORCE
MAJEURE, Ruben Östlund
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
During a skiing vacation, Tomas, his wife Ebba and their
two young children are dining outside at the edge of a steep
ski slope when they are overwhelmed by a relatively small
but terrifying avalanche. Just before the moment of impact,
Tomas grabs his iPod and flees, leaving his wife to save
herself and the kids. They all survive. Force
Majeure explores the effects of Tomas's reflex pusillanimity
on his relationship with his wife and children. But the
film also asks if "the truth told with bad intent is worse
than any lie you can invent?" Is Tomas's dereliction a private
matter? Not once but twice, while entertaining dinner guests,
Ebba outs her husband's cowardice. She desperately wants
her husband, who is in denial, to own up to his desertion;
in her mind, the ends justify the means. The film features
fine performances from the leads, a mostly spot-on script
with all sorts of delightful little twists and turns, and
a small but interesting cast of characters. The ebb and
flow of this at times riveting drama is enhanced by timely
segues to the ominous Alps and their foreboding remoteness:
from below, the camera looks on high at a procession of
cable cars disappearing in a cloud of snow. Set against
both the majesty and awesome forces of nature, man's smallness
is shown to great effect -- a large fact that he disregards
at his own peril. Whether intentional or not, embedded in
this film, like a body perfectly preserved in ice, is a
timely and much needed anti-trekking, anti-extreme skiing-snowboarding
message. In the fourth and final act, this mostly compelling
film unfortunately trips over its own sanctimony and didacticism:
the final scenes are contrived to show that none of us can
predict how we'll react in sudden crisis.
2.5
-- BANDE
DE FILLES (GIRLHOOD), Céline
Sciamma
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
French director Céline Sciamma deftly explores the suspended,
in between girl-world of waning innocence and adulthood.
The usual themes of getting accepted by a group, wanting
to leave home and get a guy are played out in the impoverished
outskirts of Paris, but it's the insightful rendering of
the girl-girl relationships both in and out of the family
that sustain our interest. In a multi-layered performance,
Marieme, played by Karidja Touré, meets up with and is eventually
accepted by a gang of girls for whom the male generated
codes of the hood rub them the wrong way. So they resort
to bullying and extortion to treat themselves to a hotel
room where for one night only they can be "diamonds in the
sky" and invent their own rules and forget about the grim
future that awaits them. The foursome is black, but Girlhood
is less about race and more about the implications of class
and poverty. Sixteen year old Marieme wants to do better
than her mother who is a single cleaning lady trying to
raise four children. But she doesn't have the grades to
get into high school. Living in a tough hood forces her
to grow a thick skin. But when she is accused of being a
slut for sleeping with her boyfriend, she has to move away;
to support herself she agrees to middle drugs. Her choices,
and they are limited, take their toll on her self-esteem
and relationship with her family. Girlhood is an
engaging albeit bumpy film that excels in its sensitive
depiction of the confused mind of Marieme who is trying
to find a way out, but is weighted down by the stereotypes
of hood life and the men who rule it.
2.7
-- THE
WORLD OF KANAKO, Tetsuya
Nakashima
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
A dreamy December 24th, a snow flake filled sky belies the
reality that is Japan. For the remainder of this mind-bludgeoning,
concussive film, the scenes erupt as if out of an action
comic book. Kanako's
first star is the jumpy, jarring, full-metal-jacket syntax.
To better grasp the rhythm and narrative thrust of the film,
imagine a camera loaded up on amphetamines, ecstasy, the
best neurotoxins money can buy and addicted to splattered
blood - and then off, in braces, to the races. Ex detective
Akikazu is asked by his ex-wife to look for their missing
daughter, Kanako, but helmer Nakashima's not so secret mission
is to expose the nihilism that has the new Japan in its
vice tight grip. In his grunts and savage outbursts, Akikazu,
a ticking time bomb of a wreck, concentrates in his character
everything that is debased and brutal in the species; he
is a runaway beast of a human being that should be locked
up in a cage and shipped out of the solar system. Using
flashbacks to explain the present, we discover that his
sweet and seductive daughter is as twisted as the father
-- a diabolical chip off the old block -- and that he is
no more sociopathic than everyone else he meets up with.
From the school teacher, the country's highest magistrates,
to the police commissioner and his minions, everyone is
morally bankrupt, and of course blood splattered - meaning
hurting. In iConnected Japan, the human breath is served
on ice and the heart shut down by a nihilism that is as
deep as it is viral. The post viewing challenge is to rid
the mind of its horrific imagery and turn the page, which
speaks to a well made, perversely affecting film that stays
the course from beginning to its non-redemptive end.
2.2
--
EL ARDOR, Pablo Fendrik
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper] Laugh out loud at this melodramatic Argentine-styled spaghetti
western that is supposed to be a serious film. Kai (Gael
Garcia Bernal) is an Indian who lives in the jungle and
has special powers over a panther that stalks bad guys and
eats them, including some bad guys -- a group of hunters
who wants to take over the farm of a dad and daughter, and
they’ll kill to do it. There’s suspense and some original
scenes that replace stick-em-up face-offs with spear throwing
acumen thanks to Kai. There is nothing wrong with this entertaining
film other than the fact that the serious intensity of the
close-up shots are so silly, that one can only conclude
that the director’s true talent is one that accidentally
and ironically turns terror into comic relief. This is a
Fantasia Festival type film.
3.7
-- THE TALE
OF PRINCESS KAGUYA ,
Isao Takahata
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper] Another Studio Ghibli masterful animation about a free-spirited,
cheery girl born from a magical bamboo stalk who is parented
by two loving peasants. She loves nature and the beauty
of life’s creatures. But one day, her father decides it
would be best for her if they move to the city where she
can learn the fine art of becoming a princess. The animation
is classic Ghibli magic, the characters are loveable and
the humour is universal, as is the message about mortality,
true happiness and nature’s power over all. No ordinary
princess, she comes from the moon and that is where she
is obliged to return. The film is a celebration of earth’s
gifts and the fleeting time we have here.
3.0
-- GENTE
DE BIEN, Franco Lolli
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Gente
de Bien is much more than a film that explores Columbia's
class system and its self-perpetuating exclusionary protocols.
After packing up his things, 10-year-old Eric and his mother
catch a Bogotá bus to meet the father, Gabriel, with
whom Eric will now live. We never see the mother again.
Gabriel lives in a miserable rooming house with a shared
kitchen. Eric hates it there. Gabriel's sister is very well
off as is his present employer, Maria Isabel, for whom he
works as a handyman. These good people shower Gabriel, and
now his likable son Eric, with sympathy, compassion and
extra money. Maria and her family offer to take in Eric
during the Christmas holidays, who very quickly learns to
adapt to the good life: a room of his own, expensive playthings,
exquisite meals, horseback riding. As an unintended consequence
of their largesse, these well intended gente de bien
(good people) cause Erik to resent his father, whom he refuses
to call father. Splicing together innocuous scenes from
daily life -- Gabriel working in the yard while Eric is
splashing about in the pool with the rich kids - director
Lolli masterfully develops a sense of impending doom, that
father and son are on an irreversible collision course.
But the unexpected intervenes: Eric is peripheralized by
the other kids and decides to leave his Shangri-la and return
to his father, whose situation remains the same. The faces
of Gabriel and Eric illuminate the screen. Eric, who never
smiles at home with his father, radiates happiness in his
upgraded setting as only a child can, living in and for
the moment. Gabriel is keenly aware that Eric misses his
mother and is unhappy, and in a brilliant gesture of understated
acting, he uses the tone of his voice to help his son adjust
to the harsh realities of his new life: he never yells or
scolds him but delivers his words like a calmative. As if
by accident, the camera keeps catching Gabriel in his private
moments, allowing us to glue onto his cloudy bright eyes
and brooding expression as he watches in silence his boy
being seduced by the good life that he can't afford. Dependent
on the generosity of others while bearing witness to the
flight of Eric's love and respect, we come to understand
how it is that people from all walks of life learn to know
their place. But Gente de Bien is not only about
class; it is also a Fathers and Sons film that
gracefully, intelligently explores the forces that conspire
to fray the ties that bind. That we see and learn nothing
of Bogotá or Columbia speaks to Lolli's much larger
agenda which he carries off in spades.
2.1
-- INDEBITO,
Andreas Segre
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper] Rebetico is the iconic language and music of the angry,
the disenfranchised that came into the world through the
Izmir exodus of Greeks coming from Turkey. A hundred years
of traditional songs backed by the Oriental roots referred
to by plaintif sounds of bouzouki and its kin. Themes of
suffering yet pride mix into a melancholic revelation of
woes that resonates in the taverns and outdoor nooks and
mountains all over Greece. The filmmaker puts in the spotlight
Vinico Capossela where he plays with other angst-ridden
and sorrowful rebetiko rousers in the streets and indoor
places. They replay the music of the past that is thematically
relevant today, given Greece’s ongoing struggles. I liked
the huge puppet that a woman sings with. She even drinks
coffee with it. The film was a pastiche of singers invoking
great rebetiko songs whose composers were named in writing
when the songs were performed in the film. It was a boring
film though that belonged in a class of students studying
the history of this great musical form. The problem is the
beat is always the same, and it becomes monotonous.
3.0
-- VENTOS
DE AGOSTO (AUGUST WINDS), Gabriel
Mascaro
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
A fixed camera is on a flat boat gliding slow and easy beneath
a cupola of leaf and vine that opens up into a serene expanse
of water encircled by a tropical paradise. The dreamy opening
completely mesmerizes the viewer, but bikini clad Shirley,
who is splashing Coca-Cola over her young body and listening
to loud punk music, wishes she were elsewhere. She was sent
to northern Brazil to look after her enfeebled grandmother.
Not much happens in this languidly paced film. Her boyfriend
Jeison fishes and helps Shirley haul coconuts to the market,
but like everyone else in the film he rarely smiles and
is constantly criticized by his overbearing father. A light
skinned meteorologist arrives to monitor the wind and weather
changes that are wreaking havoc on the coastline. One day
Jeison finds a body washed up on shore, perhaps with a bullet
hole in the neck. He has to deal with the corpse the police
aren't particularly interested in, and life goes on in a
film where time is the unacknowledged event maker. The grandmother
has been worn down by time, Shirley and Jeison are trapped
in theirs, and time has them all worried about the effects
of the weather. Jeison's father orders him to construct
a rampart against the waves that are crashing into his yard:
seen from afar, the meter high breaker is like a toy gun
against an invading army. Under the skilled and sensitive
helmership of Gabriel Mascaro, Ventos
de Agosto unfolds like a tone poem, an homage to a way
of life that only the camera seems to appreciate: nimble
bodies scampering up coconut trees into the blue, the sweet
thud of the cutlass swishing through a branch, young Shirley
attending to her grandmother's wild mass of kinky grey hair,
Jeison diving into the water's deep to separate oysters
from their mother rock. He's convinced the rocks have lungs,
and so are we.
1.9
-- ALLELUIA,
Fabrice Du Welz
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
There are enough gaps in the plot to send in an army division.
Michel and Gloria -- she works at the morgue -- meet on-line;
he seduces her, borrows money and disappears. She tracks
him down and discovers he's the female counterpart of a
nymphomaniac who profits from his victims, but she is so
taken with him she agrees to help him with his con, pretending
to be the sister while he seduces rich women. But things
go awfully wrong. When she catches her lover copulating,
she is overcome by insane jealously and butchers the woman
to death in a scene that produces enough blood to bring
a smile to even your most jaded Red Cross donor. All of
the subsequent episodes are variations on the same theme
of hack saw, sharp glass and the ax. This off-off the page
cult film begins and ends with its top-notch production
values. With a nod to cinematographer Manuel Dacosse (Amer),
the innovative, mood altering lighting, the fractured, slash-and-burn
close ups, the seamless transition from the normal to the
sadistic, the emotional volatility of the two leads superbly
rendered by Lola Dueñas and Laurent Lucas argue that style
not only trumps story but style is substance. Alleluia,
loosely based on a real life story, is a creepy, high suspense
drama powered by a surreal script and co-dependency run
amok. But it only works if you're friendly to the genre,
which I'm not. The enthusiastic applause at the end of the
screening spoke loud and clear to my minority view.
2.2
-- XENIA,
Panos.H. Koutras
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
It's a shameful pity that the wretched treatment of Albanians
and Arabs is an ongoing problem in Greece. These people
are without papers and jobs. The xenophobia in the country
where democracy was born is disgustingly accepted, and this
film chooses to show aspects of this in a weird way through
two Albanian brothers, Odysseus and Dany. They get into
skirmishes with thugs and homophobics (one of the brothers
is gay), and are on the run. The story combines the younger
brother's delusional fantasy with his pet rabbit that we
find out is really a stuffed one with all kinds of strange
events. Dant who is openly gay is a loose canon who convinces
his older sibling who has a superb singing voice to do two
things. One involves searching for their father who abandoned
them (they both end up nearly killing a couple and themselves
in doing it), and the second thing is about talent. The
older brother is forced to audition in Thessaloniki by the
younger brother. Dany wants him to win a Greek competition
but only by singing the Paddy Pravo hit song, taught to
them by their mother who died two weeks before the two brothers
set out to search for their father. This film becomes a
delusional nightmare after the first hour. It is utterly
silly, though the performance by the two leads who are non-professional
actors was excellent. Greece's economic and racial woes
were lost in this film that seemed to want to step onto
the Broadway stage rather than reveal raw realities the
country is presently experiencing.
1.5
-- STEADINESS,
Lisa Weber
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
Johann and Gertrude, a couple in their golden years, take
their two grandkids, Lisa and Lukas on their car trip with
them from Austria to the North Cape in Norway. It's supposed
to be a tourist region. Lisa, the director, happens to be
filming this adventure that is devoid of any excitement
for the travelers, as such, proves to be amusing for us,
because of its mundanity. It reveals more hotels, car parks,
bickering and uneventful scenes than one could imagine.
And to think this is how they marked their 47th anniversary.
We laugh though because the tiny disagreements they have
are entirely typical and all too familiar -- no matter the
stage and state of your marriage.
2.5
-- NIGHTCRAWLER,
Dan Gilroy
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Lou Bloom is an engaging, oddball thief who stumbles upon
a horrible car accident, and the swarm of freelancers looking
to shoot and sell their dripping blood and gore videos to
the networks competing for viewership. Fascinated by what
he has just witnessed, he decides to get his own equipment
and in no time he becomes one of the best, and begins blackmailing
Nina (Rene Russo) his news desk editor, into providing sexual
favours and top dollar for his work. Lou is a strange mixture
of nerd, sociopath, sleaze and Dale Carnegie. In night scenes
glossed in refrigerated yellow light that reveal the inflamed
intestine L.A. has become, Lou, and his dim witted employee
Rick, will do anything, including repositioning the mangled
bodies of crashes or extreme violence, to get footage. Eye
balls aglaze, face perfectly set to capture the laminated
night light, Lou, nailed by Jake Gyllenhaal, combines what
is cold and calculating in Anton Chigurh (No
Country for Old Men) and Hannibal Lector. But what could
have been a fascinating character study morphs into an all
too predictable tale of depravity that implicates the nightcrawlers
no less than the network executives for whom ratings are
the only dirty game in town. Cinema verité this is
not. In fact it is sometimes so outrageously improbable
that it generates considerable humour. However, as a visual
experience, the nocturnal action scenes are riveting and
the jackhammer soundtrack pounds into submission any humane
consideration of what is unfolding, which, I propose, is
the unstated aim of entertainment at its unsophisticated
best.
1.3
-- LE GRAND
HOMME, Sarah Lednor
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
Hamilton and Markov are two inseparable soldiers who scout
out unknown territory in Afghanistan, but when Markov gets
shot, he is forced to return to Paris where reconnects to
his young son. Hamilton soon is sent back to Paris which
is great, as the two men can renew their friendship without
carrying arms or watching each other’s back. However, life
is not easy for either of them, and when Markov gets killed
in an accident, no one finds out until days later. Hamilton
is not into being a guardian for the boy who constantly
runs away from the orphanage. Still, life has a way of reuniting
souls, and in the end, it seems the three of them are destined
to be together. Disconnected scenes and flatness set the
dull tone of the film. Jérémie Renier as Hamilton gave a
fine performance in this otherwise lacklustre movie.
4.0--
DIFRET, Zeresebay Berhane Mehari
[reviewed by Nancy Snipper] Hirut, a 14-year-old girl is on her way back
home from school when she is abducted by a group of sword
toting horsemen in Ethiopia's countryside. The leader of
the group wants to claim her as his wife, and as the custom
among the village men goes, he rapes and beats her. Hirut
manages to escape but not without turning the man's rifle
on him. She kills him, and thus begins the nightmarish journey
she faces. Coming to her rescue is Addis Ababa lawyer, Meaza
Ashenafi, who founded the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association,
which she also directed. It defends the rights of Ethiopian
women who are brutalized on a daily basis. Incredible obstacles
caused by the police prevent her from giving Hirut the medical
and legal assistance she needs. Meaza eventually sues the
Justice Ministry, and in retaliation, the Justice Minister
orders the closing down of the women's rights office where
she works. Nothing is going well, until that Minister is
fired and three months later, the Ministry agrees to hear
the case in a court of law. Hirut speaks defending her actions
to save her life from the man. Judgment is swift; Hirut
is freed. Based on true events, the film, which is produced
by Angelina Jolie, embodies the meaning of its title: 'defiance.'
Meanza was nominated for the Nobel peace prize in 2003.
This movie is a must-see. I hope it wins best film in the
Competition category.
2.5
-- DIFRET,
Director
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Difret
means courage in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia.
Why bother with seduction when abduction can procure you
a wife. A villager has his eyes set on Hirut, a beautiful
buxom 14-year-old. On her way home from school, she is abducted
by six horsemen and then raped. During an escape attempt,
in self-defense, she kills her abductor with his rifle,
and according to village tradition is immediately sentenced
to death. Meaza, a human rights lawyer, volunteers to defend
her. In especially Islamic countries, but also India and
Africa, women's rights movements are still in their infancy
and many films, at considerable risk to their makers, have
dared to expose the culture that conditions men, who are
not necessarily evil, to believe that women are born to
serve and bear children. This film has in its crosshairs
the impassioned opposition between Ethiopia's past and present.
Notwithstanding the critical importance of the subject,
and the inspirational effect Difret will have on
women who will not "give up the fight," the storyline was
formulaic and too many of the scenes were more fit for a
soap opera consumption than serious viewing. The film's
predictability was somewhat offset by sweeping views of
the gorgeous Ethiopian highlands, which included authentic
scenes of village life as well as a fascinating glimpse
of how the males hold court under the banyan tree. If only
for its insights into the Ethiopian ethos and the discombobulating
incommensurability between traditional village life and
Addis Ababa, Difret offers just enough substance to justify
its production and attendance.
3.4
-- LE CHALLAT
DE TUNIS, Kaouther Ben
Hania
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
In 2003, in Tunisia a brave woman goes on a search to find
out who the real "Challat" is -- the sicko motorcyclist
who slashes women's behinds as they are walking while he's
riding his bike. A woman-hating guy name Jael claims responsibility,
but we find out he really is not the guy. Nonetheless, he's
toted as the hero of the neighbourhood by most men -- even
the religious leader. In fact, these slashers pervade and
are often praised for what they do in the Middle East. This
is a film within a film that is both funny and horrifying
as we find out through the director's lens that so many
men agree with this violent act. We witness animal cruelty,
a video game based on the slasher, and hear the story from
two women who were attacked this way. It views as a biopic,
but it is not. What a sad state of affairs when we see that
a lot of men claim to be the real slasher, and before she
can locate the real one, many men are proud to try out for
the part for her film.
2.8
-- HERMOSA
JUVENTUD (BEAUTIFUL YOUTH), Jaime
Rosales
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Enjoy it now, Hermosa
Juventud (Beautiful Youth), because in economically
depressed Spain it's not going to last long. Natalie and
Carlos are an exceptionally attractive young couple madly
in love, but both are unemployed and living at home. Early
in the film, for 600 Euros, they agree to participate in
a porno shoot. Then Natalie gets pregnant. This being Catholic
Spain they agree to have the child even though Carlos knows
he has nothing to offer. What distinguishes this film from
the many others on the same subject is its scope. We know
that young love will be severely tested; but what we don't
realize are how deep and vast are the consequences of the
economic crisis on both the moral fabric of Spain and family
life. Normally, parents come to the aid of even their grown
children, but what if the parents are absent or unemployed?
What is the cure for a father's battered self-esteem if
he can't support his family, if there is only more of the
bleak same on the horizon? One look at their soft faces
and you know that Carlos and Natalie are good people: but
the former engages in revenge thuggery and the latter turns
to shoplifting to make ends meet. Natalie, who barely survives
the trials and tribulations of motherhood, decides to leave
her family and go to Hamburg to better her life, but she
doesn't speak the language and can't find regular work.
So what choices are left for a young, attractive woman who
is separated from her family? This low budget film benefited
from a 100% diegetic sound track, the timely and creative
interjection of text messages and emails to bridge time
and distance gaps, and excellent acting performances from
the two leads, Ingrid García Jonsson and Carlos Rodríguez,
and Inma Nieto as Natalie's mother.
2.3 -- GUROV
AND ANNA, Rafael Ouelet
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
A silly love story of a married professor who becomes infatuated
with a young French student he teaches. He is obsessed as
well with a short story called "The Lady with the Dog" by
Chekhov. Does life imitate art? The girl he loves has a
dog, but she isn't married (she is in the story), and though
he is not a banker, as the character is in the short story,
his passion is similar to the character Chekhov created.
Not a winner for me by any means.
1.9
-- THE OWNERS,
Adilkhan Yerzhanov
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Trickle-down economics is definitely not working in oil-rich
Kazakhstan. The
Owners begins in the bleak and ends up in the deepest
rung of the bleak multiplied by the exponential of your
choice. In this dirty dog eat dog environment, teenaged
Yerbol, along with his older brother and younger epileptic
sister, are physically intimidated into signing over their
only possession: their one room hovel of a house inherited
from their mother. Despite having the correct papers, they
are up against a totally corrupt, bought off legal system.
After his brother is thrown in jail because he refused to
sign over the house, and getting beat up himself over a
trumped up car debt, Yerbol goes to the court house to complain,
and finds himself in the basement of a building whose dumpy
corridor resembles a prison: "your case will be heard in
two months," utters a slit of a mouth. After witnessing
the death of both his brother and sister, Yerbol loses it
and takes the law into his own hand, but his abusers, also
despairing and dispirited and desperate to be relieved of
their self-loathing, make no effort to avoid their fate.
The film, with very mixed results, borrows heavily from
absurdist/comedic ploys: when the worst is about to hit
the rock's bottom, the violators turn on a cheap radio and
start dancing to 1950s rock'n'roll. Despite director Yerzhanov's
familiarity with Kafka and Becket, there isn't much to recommend
a film that often feels like a static theatre production.
Noteworthy is the effective tableau lighting that borrows
from George La Tour, whose diffuse lighting seems to emanate
not from an external source but the innocent victims of
Kazakhstan's heartless and brutal interpretation of capitalism.
The gorgeous, deep green mountain landscape provides some
relief in a film that makes its point with a poison-tipped
sledgehammer.
3.0
-- THE KINDERGARTEN
TEACHER, Nadav Lapid
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
Nira, an Israeli kindergarten teacher discovers through
Miri, the nanny of one of the boys she teachers, that the
sweet boy is a poet. Yoav is only five, but his mind is
wise and his gift to create poems, remarkable. Nira is herself
a poet and begins to form a deep connection to Yoav that
becomes obsessive. She eventually kidnaps him, after she
is granted permission to mind him several days a week while
Yoav's father works. Nira loves Yoav's verses but not the
fact that he will never amount to his true calling -- unless
she takes care of him always. She must set him on his career
path and always be with him. Nira is disturbed - or is she
really? This film builds the tension and fascination between
the two characters with great subtlety and sensitivity.
What should one do with a prodigy poet livng in a world
where Internet and visuals are the only tools left affect
people's emotions?
-2.0
-- CAVALO
DINHERIO, Pedro Costa
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
Disconnected scenes conjuring up the fate of Ventura, an
oppressed sick man who remembers incidents and his friends
stuck in oppressive Portuguese purgatory during the revolution
man -- all voices whisper to him in this dark sanatorium
in which he is imprisoned -- a maze of walls and metal elevators
of barren ugliness. The film is static slow motion misery;
the only action in this pretentious piece of incomprehensible
silliness and badly lit cinematography is the trembling
left hand of Ventura who obviously has Parkinsons. The Lucarno
Film Festival is obviously suffering from some kind of neurological
affliction as well; it granted Mr. Dinjeiro the 2014 Best
Director Award for the film, which sent many people into
a deep sleep. Mind you, the snoring added an element of
reality while creating a cool sound track to this sleeper
of a film.
2.8
-- CHARLIE'S
COUNTRY, Rolf de Heer
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Charlie's
Country is anything but 'his' country, just as subtlety
is not this film's most conspicuous virtue, which nonetheless
does not diminish its impact and import. The director, Rolf
de Heer (10 Canoes), makes no bones about his agenda:
the plight of Australia's Aboriginals, and, by extension,
Aboriginals everywhere. The film stars David Gulpilil, who
now in his 60s brings a mesmerizing, sun-blistered face
to the screen along with a gleaming, bone-thin body that
allows him exceptional nimbleness for his age, or when he
falls ill in the bush, that same, now emaciated, body is
made to look like it has been warmed over by death. The
sum of the many subplots in the film -- most of them related
to negotiating the poverty and restrictions that living
on a government sponsored reserve entail -- reduce to one
harsh reality: Charlie and his fellows don't belong anywhere.
So one day he decides to return to the bush, which he, but
not the director, romanticizes. Like in the now famous Walkabout
(1971), this one ends badly: he can't survive, falls ill,
and is found just in time and whisked away to Darwin's best
hospital where, under the care of the white man, he recovers
quickly. Recoursing the ATM machines with dole money that's
uploaded onto his debit card, he hooks up with some of the
local squatters, abos like himself, and begins drinking
heavily. After a violent confrontation with the police,
he ends up in prison: the only place where he does rather
well -- so why not keep him there the system seems to argue.
"The police came to my home and tried to throw me out,"
he explains to an impassive judge. The film skillfully contextualizes
(exculpates) the abos' unhealthy fondness for alcohol, meaning
unless you've been there, in the throes of despair, where
getting from one moment to the next is the only thing that
matters, no one has a right to point a finger at anyone
for whom grog or ganga is the difference between life and
clinical depression. One of the unsung stars in the film
is the cinematography of Ian Jones. Without ever being intrusive
or voyeuristic, the camera, like a friendly breeze, stirs
up the musty, miserable details of aboriginal life and recasts
them in a more comprehensive framework of cause and effect.
The land, in theory, belongs to them but is subject to Australian
law, and therein lies the rub which rubs them, their culture
and traditions, mostly the wrong way. Unhappy with the white
man's junk food, they hunt down a buffalo, only to have
it and their only vehicle confiscated because the guns weren't
properly registered. De Heer refuses to romanticize the
Aboriginal, and if much of what we see and hear isn't pretty,
Charlie and his fellows manage to retain their dignity through
it all even though the rules of the game are fixed against
them. This film was definitely not helped by the syrupy,
sentimental piano soundtrack that was somewhat offset by
the surprise ending that has Charlie agreeing to teach dance
to the younger generation. The scene features a madly inspired
transcendental music-dance dénouement that tells us more
about the nature of hope than the people it sustains.
2.4
-- CHARLIE'S
COUNTRY, Rolf de Heer
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
A vast territory of land in remote Northern Australia introduces
us to Charlie, who like his other Aboriginal community pals
have been dispossessed of their home. In fact, their country
is their home, but they have none to claim their own. The
white police have ensured that their guns and rifles, even
their hand-made spears used for hunting are taken away.
Charlie retreats to the bush to try to survive, but eventually
ends up in the hospital and then jail. He comments over
and over again about white man bringing in their junk food,
guns, cigarettes, cars and stealing everything from them.
The film takes a harsh look at what has happened to Australia's
first landowners. Unfortunately, it goes on and on, and
belabours the point without any dramatic tension.
3.4--
RÉSISTANCE NATURELLE, Jonathon
Nossiter
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
This documentary dares to divulge the unsung heroes of Italy's
wine growers who produce wine 100% naturally -- no chemicals
used, even sulfates. Stefan Bellottis knows an incredible
amount about nature's ways of yielding bounty, and most
of the magic happens underground to the unseen eye. He is
a radical who disdains the complete intrusion and monopoly
of AOC -- Europe's stamp of approval for marketing wine.
Stefano is joined by other vintners of the earth whose lush
grapes grow in Tuscany and Chianti. These men and women
who reveal how fruitful the land is in Emilia-Romagna and
Marche -- two famous wine-producing regions -- but because
they have been shunned or have left the AOC, their estates
become metaphors for freedom and pure health. Thematic archival
segments from Italian films are shown of historical and
entertainment value -- sporting scenes of oppression, back-to-the-land
living and peasant freedom fighters. Why do the powers of
control punish those that want what is good for our bodies
to flourish -- to live with the wind blowing at our backs,
and the sun shining in our faces and in the leaves of unhampered
grapes vines devoid of chemical tampering?
3.8
-- BOYCHOIR
, François Girard
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
A tapestry of beauty and heartbreak. On the verge of teenage
years, Stet seethes with anger and loneliness. He’s
lost his mother in a car accident and has a father somewhere
who has been out of his life since his mother got pregnant.
But being rich, dad does send money. Seth has a gift; his
voice is heavenly, and so his principal at school (Debra
Winger) arranges for him to audition of the choirmaster
of America’s most prestigious boy’s choir. But
when the maestro Carvelle (Dustin Hoffman) shows up, Seth
runs out of the room. However, he does end up being accepted
into the school (it’s amazing what a cheque can do
as a donation to a school when it’s given by a parent
– Seth’s dad, in this case). Rivalry between
the lead singer and Seth topple his chances of staying in
the school; plus his temper is taking centre stage to his
talent. The music is stunning; the is a rare plot treat
with many twists of real-life conflicts both inter-personal
and professional relationships. This substantially adds
meat to the music that otherwise could have overtaken the
entire film. Cathy Bates was great in the role of the school’s
director. Newcomer, Garrett Wareing has an angelic singing
voice, but his acting could do with a little more coaching
– not from a choirmaster, but from an acting teacher.
0.4
-- VIOLET,
Bas Devos
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Two teens are loitering in a mall when one of them is knifed.
Jesse, frozen in panic, does nothing to help his friend
Jonas who bleeds to death. Ostensibly, this Belgium film
is about Jesse and the victim’s grieving family coping
with guilt and loss, but little happens in this pretentious,
relentlessly static film. The director plays with light
like a child indiscriminately filling his face with candy.
From the opening scene, viewer patience is tested (violated)
as Devos persistently confuses being different for its own
sake with profundity. Unrelated to the plot, scenes dissolve
into brilliant washes of colour or fractured prisms of lights.
There are long, drawn out close-ups that follow a moping
Jesse on his bike or walking along a street before cutting
to another inane take. A typical interior shot finds the
camera inexplicably paused on a dining room table, the corner
of which is sharply lit. One doesn’t know whether
to wow or ow. In another scene, the lense finds Jesse’s
father’s left hand dangling out the car window holding
a cigarette: everything else, the side mirror, the road,
the trees are blurred. Pan to an ear-wrecking two minute
sequence of Edvard’s Munch’s The
Scream transmogrified into music that makes Nine Inch
Nails sound like a lullaby. Throughout the film the characters,
the streets, the architecture are shot out of focus –
to no apparent effect, unless the director, beforehand,
decided he wanted to make the point that when art house
films flop, they flop big time, or, if you have nothing
to say, even the most sophisticated of editing and photo
apps count for nothing. What saved this film from a negative
integer rating was its relative brevity: only 80 minutes
instead of the usual 100.
2.5
-- THE TRIBE,
Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Before the film begins, the viewer is advised there will
be no dialogue; all the characters are deaf mutes who speak
exclusively in sign language.
The
first scene of Sergey waiting at a bus stop includes a nearby
wrecked car that looks like it has been abandoned for months
-- a symbolic introduction to a Ukraine that is on the ropes,
where the underclass has no voice. But even without a voice,
it doesn't take long for these deaf mute boarding schoolers
to make their presence felt and feared; they resemble a
pack of wolves more than a tribe as they adhere to a ruthless,
military-like pecking order. The worst of them bullies the
dorm's weaker members, and pimps two of the young women
at a head-light lit, totally surreal wintry truck stop in
what are perhaps the film's most memorable scenes as the
sex workers are whisked in and out of the back of a delivery
truck like livestock being shuttled to and fro the market
place. Outside the dorm, on their thieving and mugging missions,
the thugs descend on their victims like a voracious swarm
before leaving them for near dead. For the first half of
the film, the action effectively argues that the tribe's
dystopic behaviour is simply a natural response to either
a bankrupt, corrupt Ukraine or one that has been undone
at the seams by a rapacious Russia. But the film loses both
focus and credibility as Sergey morphs into a possessive,
degenerate sociopath. The storyline aptly unfolds in sunless
late fall and winter. The threadbare sets are consistently
dreary and almost every public space is tattooed with graffiti
- the language of the disenfranchised. Since sign language
is guesswork for most viewers, it's an open question on
whether or not some of the talky scenes, which featured
furious finger-work and heavy breathing, would have benefited
from subtitles. Foreign language films, when shown abroad,
aren't any less authentic on that account. The film includes
a horrific, in your face back-room abortion scene that should
give pause to even the most extreme pro-lifer. First time
director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy shows a disciplined eye
in respect to mood and visuals but what could have been
a good film is undermined by an excess of gratuitous violence
and raw sex. That said, this uneven result definitely recommends
his next film.
4.0-- UYGHURS
PRISONERS OF THE ABSURD, Patricio
Henríquez
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
The Uyghurs are Muslims who live in Turkestan where northern
China has persecuted, pursued and tortured many dissidents.
Five men decide to escape and leave for Pakistan and Afghanistan,
but their nightmare really begins in these places. 9/11
happens, and they are caught as patsies in a series of diabolical
fiascos. China has put out word that these men are terrorists.
The general favours the US and imprisons them, and then
the prison in Afghanistan is bombed by the Americans. By
now, the American government has put out word that anyone
who turns in terrorists will receive over 5000$ (per head).
These men along with 17 other Uyghurs who survive the bombing
eventually end up spending ten years in Guantanamo's cruelest
confinements, including the notorious cement filled Camp
6. Despite Obama's effort to dissolve Cuba's holding hellish
prison for would-be terrorists, and the Supreme Court's
ruling to release these men, evil political forces prevail,
and decisions are overturned. Two American lawyers fight
for them over a decade, but the poor men lose hope of ever
regaining freedom. Absurdly, one of the problems is, though
they are finally deemed innocent, they are held in Guantanamo
as no country will take them in -- even after Obama finally
gets his way. Bermuda finally does take them in after much
behind-the-scenes politicking. Typically, joining the paranoia
was Canada, Germany and England who refused to accept them
into their borders. Rushan Abbas, an Uyghur living in the
US, serves as the translator for these men many months after
their arrival in Guantanamo. Like these imprisoned men,
she too believed in the USA's justice system, but realism
dashes all their naivety. In 2002, she resigns, realizing
she can't overcome the 'injustice' system. But three years
later, she returns to help the American lawyers spread the
news that they will be released if they put in a formal
complaint against being wrongly held there. This documentary
is incredible, and is brilliantly told through the men themselves
and the other heroes who fight for freedom. The geopolitical
power kings are dangerous fools, and the fact is, countless
unfortunate simple people are caught in the absurdity of
lies, made-up legalese semantics, deceptions and falsehoods
that Americans and Chinese invent to their advantage --
merciless hounds that act on ignorance rather than truth
and knowledge.
0.0--
A STREET IN PALERMO, Emma
Dante
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
A ridiculous film of two women who refuse to move their
cars they are driving on a street so the other can get by.
One is old, the other a lesbian with her partner in the
passenger seat. Everyone gets involved yelling and screaming,
and it would seem no one is happy on this street. The ending
with everyone running down the street which goes on interminably
is so boring, I was rather hoping the two cars would crash
into oblivion.
Ratings
for 2013 Festival
du Nouveau Cinéma.
Ratings
for 2012 Festival
du Nouveau Cinéma.
![Canadian Tire Repair Scam [2211 boul Roland-Therrien, Longueuil] = documents-proofs](../2010_v9_n5/./images/mapleleaf.jpg)
