3.0
-- LIKE
FATHER, LIKE SON (TEL PÈRE, TEL FILS), Hirokazu
Kore-Eda
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
At birth two baby boys are switched and the families must
work out whether they wish to keep the six-year-old boy
each has come to know as their son. One of the fathers is
rich and cold and he decides it's best to go with his true
biological son, and so the other family agrees; they are
poor and rough around the collar but warm and attentive.
The switch doesn't bode well for the boys, and in the end
each returns with love in their hearts to the parents they
know as their mama and papa. This film is well done but
it fails to move in ways it should. It illustrates however
the cold heart of the young successful Japanese business
man who is consumed with work rather than family love. It
shows true wealth resides in the heart whose love must be
given to one's family.
3.0
-- LIKE
FATHER, LIKE SON (TEL PÈRE, TEL FILS), Hirokazu
Kore-Eda
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Six year after the fact, two sets of Japanese parents discover
that their children were switched at birth by a troubled
nurse. They now have to consider the emotionally tasking
prospect of exchanging children in whom they have invested
their love and hopes, while recognizing that children unconditionally
love and trust their parents. Without ever lapsing into
preachiness or sentimentality, this graceful, tender and
heartrending film asks the question of blood. How thick
is blood? Is blood a fact or a feeling? Whose love comes
first: a child's or parents'? For the children, nurture
is everything, just as the parents are convinced that in
the long run it's best to let nature take its course, that
over time the children will adapt to their new parents.
As the families get to know each other, their respective
class differences come to the fore: the Nonomiya family
is professional and very straight laced; the Saikis run
an electrical store and are informal in their relations
with their children. Nonomiya is concerned that his flesh
and blood child has been poorly raised and he even proposes
to pay off the poorer family. The film benefits from a sympathetic
script, wonderful exchanges between the parents and children,
and wholly believable characters, all of whom are trying
to do the right thing, which is quite impossible given the
novel circumstance. One of the small satisfactions in this
film of many is the manner in which the mothers deal with
the exchange versus the fathers' approach. "Like Father,
Like Son" is a fully absorbing, humane drama that illuminates
the nature of love and bonding between parent and child.
2.5
-- OUR
SUNHI, Hong Sangsoo
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Sunhi,
a graduate film student in Seoul, has just emerged from
a year of self-imposed exile. She's high-strung, confused,
self-absorbed and extremely attractive. Three men are
seriously wooing her: Choi, a professor from whom she
needs a letter of recommendation; Munsu, her heart broken
ex; and Jaehak, another filmmaker who is divorced. In
a series of highly entertaining meetings that are enlivened
with the help of the local Korean brew, each is convinced
they will win Sunhi's favour by telling her what she wants
to hear. The dialogue sparkles, the cat and mouse games
delight, and declarations of love abound in this engaging
variation of "A Lover's Discourse" (Roland Barthes). When
it comes to romance and courtship, there are no rules,
and in the able hands of Hong's buoyant script the clichés
never change nor do they age. At once cute, quirky and
often funny, this whimsical film, by not taking itself
too seriously, offers up another worthwhile take on the
inexhaustible subject of this crazy little thing called
love.
2.5
-- STRAY
DOGS, Ming Liang Tsai
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
During
the past 25 years, the working poor as a social class
has come into its own. "Stray Dogs" explores the phenomenon
of the working homeless in Taipei. It's an experimental
art house film that features meticulously composed, austere
sets and a camera that refuses to move: some of the shots
are five minutes long. This tightly knit, well-crafted
film works because it stays true to its despairing dynamic.
A separated and now homeless couple, both employed, share
in the care of their children. Since they both work, they
can feed and clothe themselves and their young son and
daughter, but have to perform their ablutions in public
toilets or outside. The father lives in a one room, sinkless
hovel; the mother in an abandoned building. Their constant
companion is the cold and heavy rain whose cumulative
effects take their toll on especially the father's self-esteem.
It would be but a small step for him to decide to murder
his children and then himself and finally put an end to
everyone's misery. In one unforgettable scene, the father
smothers and then cannibalizes his daughter's pet cabbage.
At the end of the film, the camera is trained on the faces
of the parents who are staring at a picture of a landscape
comprised of smashed rocks and boulders. Not even in fantasy
is there hope. Stray dogs, stray humans, it's one and
the same in a film that takes direct aim at capitalism
and its growing list of horrors.
3.8
-- CHENNAI
EXPRESS, Rohit Shetty
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
In charge with putting his grandfather's ashes in southern
India's ocean, far from his home town, Rahul has other
plans in mind. In fact, he'll board the train ensuring
his grandmother see that he is carrying out the task,
but his real intention is to travel to another city where
he and his two friends are set to sign a business deal
to open a club. Upon boarding the train, a beautiful young
woman named Meena is stretching out her hand to him while
running to jump on the train. Rahul helps her. That same
scene immediately plays out but with five different men
running -- one after the other -- to catch the train (and
Meena); Rahul also successively offers his hand to them.
But they are Meena's father's goons. Meena has run away
in order to avoid marrying a big huge man her father has
selected for her to wed in order to expand his power over
the lands he already rules. These goons have been sent
to bring her back home, and they do. Rahul is a great
coward -- at least at the beginning of this story which
not only captures a train journey, but one setting him
on his own inner journey to 'manhood' and his potential
for greatness. The rest of the movie tracks the ways Rahul
and Meena escape their clutches. With every ingeniously
clever and very funny episode, these two escapees manage
to find shelter, but Meena is falling hard for Rahul;
still, he's not interested in any romantic liaison until
he realizes how much she means to him. She's the one who
always retrieves the urn holding the ashes whenever the
two of them are being pursued or making their getaway
from some village or forest. Only when Rahul realizes
how much she means to him, does he take her back to her
father to face and fight the unwanted suitor, after which
he hopes to win the approval of her father to marry his
daughter. Rahul is a poor seller of sweets, and he proves
that despite the gap in class, his courage and might surpass
his opponent. The music, singing and vocal sound effects
simultaneously timed to the actors' facial expressions
and actions are highly entertaining. A great Bollywood
film that has topped box office records in India.
2.7
-- (SWIRL)
GIRIMUNHO, Clarissa Campolina & Helvécio Marins
Jr.
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
One is neither old nor young but alive, remarks the octogenarian
Bastú, who is both illiterate and wise. A docudrama without
any drama, "Girimunho" unfolds in a small town
in the province of Minas Gerais (Brazil) that seems a
throwback to an earlier era. Nothing much happens. Bastú's
husband has just died, but she continues to talk to him.
She gets together with her old friend Maria: they chat,
they laugh, they revisit the past - as they do in real
life. And like the camera, we can't tear our eyes away
from their wonderfully old and weathered faces? Bastú
lives with her granddaughter Branca who cares very much
for her. Branca will soon be leaving to further her studies
but has arranged for a friend to make sure her grandmother
takes her medicine. Bastú enjoys relaxing in the hammock,
slow cooking, walking along the river. This gracious and
languidly paced lyrical film is an homage to a way of
life that is rapidly disappearing. As we are introduced
to the enviable relationships between family members and
friends, the play of light on the river, the earthy streets,
the simple homes, the young enjoying an evening of music,
the film asks what is important in life. Bastú's thereness
for what is there is not so much a meditation but a mood
that moves us to examine our own lives.
2.5
-- (SOLDIER
JANE) SOLDATE JEANNETTE, Daniel Hoesl
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Austrian director Daniel Hoesl disjointedly tracks the
story of middle-aged Fanni, a wealthy bourgeois who has
fallen on hard times but who is living in total denial
-- until her home is seized. She then bizarrely burns
up her huge trust fund monies after which she loses her
way in the forest. Shortly thereafter, she's living and
working on a farm where she discovers that she wasn't
so happy with money and isn't at all unhappy without it.
There, she meets the young and attractive Christine who
engages in emotionless sex with her boss. Fanni, a free
spirit for whom the rules of the game are meant to be
broken, helps Christine escape. End of story, which is
only half the story because the film's over-the-top aesthetics
are what sustains our interest. From beginning to end,
every scene has been exquisitely composed and framed such
that the simple and mundane are made to reveal their inherent
beauty. No less a pleasure for the eye is the affecting
and wonderfully complementary sound track, whose knife-edged
and very apropos lyrics help to fill in the large plot
gaps. Despite Hoesl's lack of rigour and discipline, his
film is strangely satisfying as it follows its own internal
logic and impulses. The viewer readily accepts scenes
which apparently have nothing to do with the storyline.
There's a bloody butchering and evisceration of a cow
that is sure to leave a rancid tartar taste in the mouth
of even the most avid meat eater. The purpose of the scene
is almost beside the point since it so authoritatively
speaks to Hoesl's talent and keen eye as well as the distinctness
of Austrian cinema. Hoesl's best work is ahead of him.
How far ahead remains to be scene.
1.9
-- CLOSED
CURTAIN, Panahi & Partovi
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Since
truth has no friends in high office, Iranian cinema has
had to resort to all manner of subterfuge and obscurantism
to keep the message alive for ordinary citizens for whom
freedom is as illusory as a hookah high on hope. Co-directors
Panahi and Partovi take up that critically acclaimed tradition
while failing to live up to its high standards. A Muslim
man, a writer, smuggling a dog in a duffle bag, hides
away in a friend's villa. Islam has issued a fatwa on
dogs. Is the dog real or proxy for innocence and freedom?
Even though the villa is locked, a young woman and her
brother enter. Are they real or projections of the writer's
confusion and paranoia? He accuses her of reporting his
writing to the authorities. The brother leaves and is
arrested by the police and then the writer disappears
and someone else takes his place: his spirit lives on
in another? The film -- all darkness at noon -- suffers
from lack of conventional narrative flow. Nothing is at
it seems and sinister forces lurk everywhere. Objects
assume improbable importance: the grandiose villa gate
may in fact be a prison, and what are we to make of the
hermetically sealed curtains? We don't identify with the
characters because they aren't flesh and blood but merely
ideas or devices enlisted to expose -- with a nod to Becket
and Koestler -- life in Iran under Khomeini. "Closed Curtain"
is an either/or proposition: you will either relate to
it on its own terms (it won Berlin's Silver Bear for best
script), or suffer through an interminably long and boring
106 minutes. Apparently lacking the sophistication to
appreciate art-house film, I quickly fell into the latter
camp and couldn't wait to decamp.
2.7 --
BAD HAIR (PELO MALO), Mariana
Rondón
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
While he never makes an appearance, Hugo Chavez is the
event maker in Mariana Rondón's persistently bleak story
of a single mother, Marta, trying to raise her two children
in (presumably) Caracas. She's constantly bickering with
her 9-year-old son Junior, who is obsessed with straightening
out his kinky hair. From billboards and television, he
equates success with straight hair, and dreams of becoming
a pop singer. But Marta, who never smiles in the film,
knows that the dream is a lie. In order to get back her
job as a security guard, she gives herself away to her
employer. For hard cash, she is tempted to give away Junior
to his paternal grandmother. When Marta becomes convinced
that Junior's constant fiddling with his hair is a sign
of homosexuality, she whisks him off to the doctor. The
huge fuss and contest over Junior's hair is proxy for
the deep divisions, prejudices and poverty that afflict
Venezuela. Rondón effectively writes into her sharply
clipped and edgy script the snarling traffic, the ear-scarring
noise, the endless repetition of miserable look-alike
high rises, and the long and winding unemployment lines.
If Marta has her way, Junior will cut his hair. The film
is a post-mortem on the Chavez revolution just as Caracas
now competes with Lima as the anus of South America.
2.2 --
DIE WELT, Alex Pitstra
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
A
film with a documentary feel to it, "Die Welt"
explores the politics of the uneasy relationship between
Tunisia and Europe. Abdallah, who works at a video store,
is unhappy with his salary and life. His father, an ex-playboy,
invites two attractive European women to their home for
some local cuisine and culture. But of course a lot more
is on the menu. In reverse order, European women flock
to Tunisia for sand, sun and sex. The Tunisians are only
too happy to oblige, willing that the pleasures of the
flesh open doors to the European equivalent of the American
dream. But for most, it's either a life of continuing
despair at home or a risky boat trip over troubled waters
and an uncertain reception in Lampedusa. Lately, there
have been a spate of films on the same subject and this
one adds nothing cinematically or dramatically to what
we already know. Far too early in the film, this prelude
to the Arab Spring (Jasmine Revolution) springs a leak
from which it never recovers, on top of which the ending
begs, borrows and steals heavily from another films on
the same subject.
3.2 --
ALI BLUE EYES, Claudio Giovannesi
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Since 9/11, much has been written about the great clash
of civilizations that pitbulls Islam against the West.
That the clash may in fact be an inner conflict that has
been outed onto the world is the question Claudio Giovannisi's
extraordinary film asks. He begins with an empirical observation:
that most immigrants, given the chance, will do almost
anything to blend in, to be accepted by the host nation.
Sixteen-year-old,
Italian-born Nader, whom the camera follows for a week
in the life of, has gone to great lengths to shed the
Arab in him: he even wears blue contact lenses. He and
his best friend from childhood Stefano, whom he calls
bro,' do everything together, including sharing the proceeds
from their petty criminal life. Nader, whose father pumps
gas, is chronically insolvent. Nader's Italian allegiance
is tested when he announces to his family that he has
an Italian girlfriend with whom he is sleeping. His mother
tells him that such relations are not permitted by Islam
and that he must either drop his girlfriend or leave home.
The affronted and principled Nader instead declares he
wants nothing to do with his family until they accept
his girlfriend, and stomps out of the house. A few days
later, he's sleeping on the street along with the homeless.
However, the authority of Islam runs deep, especially
as it concerns doctrinal attitudes towards women and the
segregation of the sexes. When his girlfriend arrives
by scooter wearing a mini skirt, Nader doesn't like the
idea of her flashing leg. When he learns that his best
friend Stefano has taken a romantic interest in his sister,
the volatile Nader blows a fuse. Now packing a loaded
gun, he will discover where his loyalties lie (with Islam
or Italy), and that the middle ground or moderate Arab
may be nothing more than a grand fiction slouching on
the near horizon.
Without
a trace of didacticism, "Ali
Blue Eyes" fulfills the function of art through
the telling of a simple story that implicates the much
larger and complex issues of immigration policy, and the
divided loyalties that family and friendship invariably
stir up. The director selected his actors from real life,
allowed them to use their real names, and gave them considerable
latitude with the script, resulting in a cinema verité
that sheds both a sober and luminous light on the non-negotiables
of the immigrant experience from the point of view of
the Arab in a foreign land. Since it's highly unlikely
that this thought-provoking, at times spellbinding, low-budget
tour de force will break out of the film festival circuit,
catch it while you can. Final showing Wednesday, Oct.
16th, 5.20 pm, Cineplex Odeon (Quartier Latin).
3.8
-- RAMÓN
AYALA, Marcos López
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
A legend in his own time, Ayala turned his poetry spilling
over in rich images into songs that vividly describe his
beloved Argentina -- particularly Misiones Province. His
songs of love, the forest, the rivers and red earth reverberate
across the country in the older generation so much so,
that wherever he goes, he mingles with the daily scene
to sing one of his famous creations. He is recognized,
but not by the young generation. A master at guitar to
which he added several bass strings (it's now a 10-string
guitar) and a great painter, this gifted artist is a man
of nature as he nurtures his people with his songs. He
was the first to create a special rhythm and to create
a song about the Manu (workers in the field who struggle
for their paltry pay). One very heavy man who can barely
walk is so dedicated to his songs, he sits in his little
studio and takes vinyls either thrown away or gifted to
him and digitalizes them. He cuts all the art work by
hand and then pack up the CDs in his bag and travels everywhere
to sell them. These long-playing CDs carry all the songs
of Ayala and many more from other great Argentine artists.
The film also introduces great musicians who have brought
to life the inspiring work of Ayala. Sadly, many of these
incredible artists remain in obscurity, so this documentary
is most illuminating and highly entertaining. The music
is glorious. I would have liked to have learned more about
Ayala's childhood; this film focused on his present life.
He is old -- still a consummate musician who despite his
fame remains rooted to the land and the people who work
it.
3.9
-- THE BIG GUNDOWN, Sergio Sollima
[reviewed by Nancy Snipper] What a classic Western! Lee Van Cleef
is a bounty hunter who is trying to catch a knife throwing
kill master who has been accused of raping and killing
a young teenage girl. There are many clever cat and mouse
tactics used by both. The song, "Run Man Run" performed
by Cristy is a knock-out. The gags and surly characters
in the film play with plot-pleasing entertainment by comic-book
characters, but in the end, hero and supposed villain
become friends. There are clever twists with unique strategies
that go into trapping the real culprit of the dastardly
crime. The best I've seen in the Western genre. It was
made in Italy in 1966. The language is Italian.
2.0
-- IN THE
NAME OF THE SON (AU NOM DU FILS), Vincent Lannoo
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Vincent
Lannoo's "In the Name of the Son" suffers from lack of direction
and vision: it doesn't know if it wants to be a satire/lampoon,
drama, fantasy or revenge film. The subject is the epidemic
of pedophilia in the Catholic church - not exactly the stuff
of guffaws and chuckles. The sometimes illuminating, provocative
script, as well as the astonishing performance of Astril
Whettnall, get lost in Lannoo's self-indulgence and tired
focus -- which is a shame. Portraying the wife of a husband
who commits suicide, the mother of a 13-year-old pedophiled
son who takes his own life, an informed and sympathetic
radio talk-show host, and finally a revenge killer against
pedophile priests and the establishment that shields them,
Whettnall delivers a complex performance that should make
her a leading candidate for a Jutra (Quebec Film Industry
Award). Any film that doesn't take itself seriously runs
the risk of viewers not taking it seriously. Despite the
forbidden nature of the predilection and inevitable trivialization
satire engenders, pedophilia is a legitimate subject for
satire. The film didn't work because the mixing of genres
didn't work; the sum of the sometimes interesting parts
failed to achieve any sense of wholeness or purpose.
2.5
-- A TOUCH
OF SIN, Jia Zhang-ke
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
As
director Zhang-ke would have it, in modern China the gap
between the haves and have-nots and exploited and exploiter
has reached a point of incommensurability, and the second
best way to address the rot, the systemic iniquity, is with
a movie camera and a competent cutting room team. In separate
stories that despair and misfortune combine into a meaningful
whole, Zhang-ke tracks the lives of young men and women
who are being pushed around and abused by their employers.
As each in turn is denied his basic rights and humanity,
he or she discovers there remains but one of two dignified
responses: suicide or remove the oppressor. "A Touch of
Sin" is a feel good revenge film that shines an incriminating
light on the dark side of China where the privileged have
convinced themselves that maintaining their privilege is
the only game in town. Despite the film's perhaps unconscious
debt to "Pulp Fiction," it is to the director's credit that
the characters do not slip into caricature, and events that
culminate in graphic executions remain thoroughly grounded
in the depressing reality that is China's uncritical embrace
of unbridled capitalism.
3.0
-- THE GOLDEN
CAGE (LA JAULA D'ORO), Diego Quemada-Diez
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
In
the mind's eye, huge snow flakes are falling to a feathery
landing in the land of plenty. For Guatemala's legions of
impoverished, the American dream is still an easy sell.
The camera follows 16-year-old Sara as she makes her way
along a filthy, narrow barrio alley to a public privy. There
she cuts off most of her hair, flattens her young breasts
with tape, slips into a loose T-shirt and jeans, puts on
a baseball cap and emerges looking like a guy. She hooks
up with Juan and Samuel, who along with hundreds of others,
are scrabbling for scraps in the nearby mountain-sized garbage
dump. They are fed up and have decided that the city of
angels (L.A.) is where they want to be. Thus begins a journey
fraught with perils and betrayals and chance encounters
with the good, the bad and the ugly of humanity. From crowded
freight train they've hopped, they slowly make their way
through lush, pristine jungle and eye-dazzling panoramic
landscape. Early in this deadly enterprise, Samuel drops
out and is replaced by Chauk, a native Indian who doesn't
speak Spanish. No less than the hardships of the journey,
the film deftly explores Juan's uneasy relationship with
Chauk and their competitive relationship with Sara. Written
and directed by Quemada-Diez, the laconic script is spot-on
natural and the cinematography perfectly matched to the
hopes and despairs of the intrepid trio. The characters
are as fully developed as their 16 years allow, in a film
that speaks to the human condition when conditions are inhumane,
and reminds us at the end of the day, when the last border
has been crossed, the long and winding road behind is littered
with casualties, and that in the promised land snow flakes
melt when they touch ground. "La Jaula d'Oro,"
winner of the Golden Eye for best film at the Zurich International
Film Festival, does the El Norte genre proud.
3.0
-- BLUEBIRD,
Lance Edmands
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
In a thoughtfully paced and wonderfully cast film that takes
place in the north country (Maine), small town life unfolds
in a manner typical of small towns everywhere: the quiet
and calm often belie tensions which may or may not ripple
the surface. To help her husband, a heavy equipment operator
at the local pulp and paper mill, make ends meet, Leslie
drives a school bus. One winter morning her life is changed
forever when she discovers at the back of the bus a small
boy, Owen, frozen in a coma from which he doesn't recover.
She didn't notice him before shutting down her bus for the
night. The boy's mother, who was 17 when she had him and
likes to get high, was supposed to meet him at his stop,
but she forgot. Gathering around the fate of the boy like
projections of himself in would-be afterlife, self-recrimination
and accusation play out in a manner which implicate not
only the guilty paties but the extended families and the
town at large: cracks appear, resentments surface, betrayals
are hinted at. Under the very capable first time directorship
of Lance Edmands, the viewer finds himself wholly caught
up in a drama that is without ostensible dramatic highlights.
To great effect, the protagonists are unable to explicitly
share their emotional turbulence which heightens the film's
dramatic tension. Like life itself, there are no quick and
easy solutions, and like the fate of the pulp and paper
mill, whose equally voracious and spellbinding operations
are exposed in a series of unforgettable shots, the fate
of the boy and his designated protectors remains a work
in progress, and the bluebird of happiness as fugitive as
ever.
2.5
-- L'ESCALE
(STOPOVER), Kaveh Bakhtiari
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
It doesn't take long to figure out that the title, which
means "stopover" in English, is drenched in irony.
With camera in hand, Kevah Bakhtiari follows the claustrophobic
lives of seven Iranian exiles who have been stuck in Athens
for years trying to get their hands on fake or withheld
passports, looking for reliable middle men (human traffickers)
to get them into northern Europe. Most of the film takes
place in a small flat where they eat and work out together,
and sleep four to a room on thin mattresses laid out on
the floor. Oblivious of the intruding camera, the exiles
openly discuss their hopes and fears and misgivings: whether
or not to take a chance at the airport where getting caught
means jail. While always respectful of the dignity of his
subjects, the director and his invasive camera reveal each's
flaws as well as his essential humanity. Whatever it is
that they are or hope to become, they are not simply names
on a waiting list, or worse, not on anyone's official list.
For every happy ending there is a tragic one: the director's
cousin Mohsen returns to Iran and is murdered during a robbery;
one of the exiles doesn't survive a hunger strike. It's
both a crap shoot and nothing less than an act of will and
courage that seven adult men can keep the peace year in
and year out, waiting for something to happen, watching
themselves getting older. At a 100 minutes the film was
20 minutes too long, but a poignant reminder on how lucky
we are to be free.
3.0
-- SALVO,
Fabbio Grassadonia & Antonia Piazza
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
A nervy, hand-held camera follows Salvo, a Mafia gang member,
down a narrow Palermo street. There is a gunfight and a
pursuit, but when Salvo discovers his dead rival's sister
Rita is blind, he can't pull the trigger, and instead whisks
her away to an abandoned warehouse outside of town. It is
there, each of them discovers within the power to repent
and forgive. In a film where hardly any words are spoken,
the interior worlds of both Salvo and Rita are exquisitely
rendered through light in all its shadings and the palpitating
human breath. Their first moments together are riveting
; in the presence of Rita's innocence, Salvo discovers his
own. Against the odds, an otherworldly bond develops as
the directors trade in the conventional Mafia props for
metaphysical ones. We gladly suspend belief as Rita regains
her sight as a consequence of Salvo coming to see the evil
of his ways as a gang member. In perhaps the only small
misstep step in the film, Rita, upon seeing that Salvo is
prepared to sacrifice his life for her, abruptly (implicitly)
forgives her capturer for murdering her brother. Is Rita
a projection of Salvo's conscience, an alter ego? Or is
she flesh and blood? This haunting debut from Grassadonia
& Piazza is as original as it is uncompromising in its view
of crime and punishment and redemption and fully deserving
of the Grand Prize Award it picked up at this year's Cannes
Film Festival.
2.3
-- MISS
VIOLENCE, Alexandros Avranas
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Subtlety was not this film's most conspicuous virtue. For
the normally happy occasion of a birthday, 11-year-old Angeliki
jumps off the balcony to her death. The rest of the movie,
in a creepily mannered manner, attempts to unpack the somewhat
dubious cause and effect. We quickly learn that the surviving
family members -- consisting of the parents, their surviving
two daughters, one of whom who has two children but doesn't
know their fathers -- are almost laughably dysfunctional.
But this film is no laughing matter. The father is a dictator/control
freak ad
extremis such that rather early in the
film the viewer naturally concludes that the daughter did
away with herself to escape physical and psychological abuse,
until new revelations implicate the forbidden world of sadism
on a scale which beggars credibility. Not only is the father
prepared to sell his virgin granddaughter to his pedophile
friend, he has no qualms about participating in the gang-bang
of his surviving 2nd oldest daughter -- hardly the stuff
of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Since money
is involved in both transactions, we're supposed to conclude
that there is a plausible link between Greece's economic
crisis and outright depravity. This facile Cartesian formulation
didn't work for me: I lost my job, therefore I'm an incestuous
pedophiliac. The only thing that is tragic in this Greek
film is the director's wholesale misunderstanding and trivialization
of the cause and effects of incest and pedophilia. But of
course the Greeks come from a long line of philosophers
and Freud, it seems, is still waiting to be translated into
Greek.
In
"Bird's Food," which played at last year's FNC,
the protagonist masturbates and then ingests it, presumably
addressing a critical protein shortfall, presumably consequent
to Greece's economic woes. This year, in "Miss Violence,"
a grandfather pimps his virgin grandaughter to a pedophile
and then arranges and participates in the gang-bang of his
daughter, presumably consequent to the on-going economic
crisis. Perhaps it's time for Greece to seriously reconsider
resuscitating the drachma.
3.5 --
DIEGO STAR, Jan
Verheyen
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
Traoré, an Ivory Coast sailor, is the assistant engineer
of a crew that mans the Deigo Star cargo ship. A mechanical
breadown necessitates the ship be towed to a shipyard in
Lévis, Quebec. The men haven't been paid, and no one wants
to spill the beans on why the ship broke down because they
fear their pay will be withheld. Only Traoré tells the Quebec
investigator that truth -- that he had warned the captain
many times the pistons were so rusty the ship would break
down. During the stay, Traoré is billeted in a small house
run by Fanny, a single mother. He is really good with her
little baby boy. But when Traoré gets fired by the captain
-- he is the whistle blower -- he doesn't get paid, and
he does not tell Fanny who actually works in a cafeteria
where the crew eats. She forces her tenant to leave somce
no more money is coming form the ship company to pay for
billeting him. Poor Traoré is locked out of her house, and
he is left freezing in the night air. He wants to return
to 'his' ship, but he is arrested. This is a sad story about
injustice and how some people make decisions for monetary
reasons only while others follow moral principles. The personal
versus the political enter into a wicked scenario for everyone.
This ensuing rupture produces disastrous results. Isaka
Sowadago as Traoré was stunning.
2.4
-- DIEGO
STAR, Frédérick Pelletier
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
The interminably bleak Canadian winter in the port city
of Lévis, Quebec is the setting for an uneven, somewhat
formulaic drama about a man who pays a terrible price for
telling the truth. The Diego Star, a freighter suffering
from long-term systemic engine neglect, finally breaks down
in Canada. While waiting for parts, the sailors are billeted
with the local residents. The 2nd engineer, the very polite
and dignified Abidjan-born Traoré, finds himself sharing
a small flat with Fanny and her baby, a single mother who
needs the extra rent money. Over time, an unacknowledged
bond develops, but when she learns Traoré has lost his job
on the ship, she throws him out. She doesn't realize that
the sleazy ship captain threatened to withhold two months
of wages if the sailors didn't go along with his cover up:
only Traoré dares to tell the truth, and is subsequently
betrayed by both his shipmates and the investigating authorities.
Out on the streets and in the cold, Traoré's situation quickly
worsens; he becomes homeless, goes on a near rampage and
eventually ends up in jail in Montreal. This well intended
film suffered from too many static scenes that didn't advance
the storyline and some of the emotional outbursts didn't
quite ring true. That said, the harsh winter landscape was
effectively matched to the plight of both Traoré and Fanny,
the former a victim of his code of honour, and Fanny, a
working class, single mother, left out in the cold.
2.6
-- GARD
DU NORD, Claire Simon
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
In Paris's legendary Gare du Nord, Mathilde, in her 50s
and looking her age, meets Ismael, a young Ph.D. student,
who is conducting interviews of passengers for his thesis.
Meeting at the Gare everyday, they quickly, desperately
discover they can help each other, and in-fits-and-starts,
a thinly explained romance develops; their story must compete
with the many other stories that are happening in the Gare:
relationship breakdowns, harassment of a young boutique
manager, a working mother separated from her young children.
As a first effect of being introduced to an endless parade
of misfits, psychotics, hustlers, runaways and delinquents,
a sense of pending chaos develops; no one seems to belong
anywhere anymore. The Gare, shot from a variety of angles
that shows off its sinew and muscle, is in fact hollow at
its core. With the viewer supplying the metaphysical syntax,
a train has jumped the track and crashed and the family
unit has completely broken down. Unsuspected by the passengers
who come and go, a mysterious social malaise has them all
in its vice-tight grip: a beleaguered father is looking
for his missing daughter, a young security woman, only 20,
hasn't seen her family in ten years, 2nd generation black
and Arab kids hang out, unable to find work, purpose. Their
paths crisscross but the meetings are random, like the randomness
of life itself - devoid of meaning and direction. France
is on the ropes and Gare du Nord has become a magnet for
the helpless and hurting, the hunted and haunted. This decidedly
unsettling, quasi documentary film is occasionally helped
(with a reverential nod to Funkadelic and "Maggot Brain"),
by the time-warped guitar work of Marc Ribot. When the Gare
closes its doors in the wee hours of the morning, the graveyard
shift takes over, and, like ghosts in the wind, the remains
of the day are swept away while the click-clack of the last
train disappears into the anonymous night.
1.1
-- GARD
DU NORD, Claire Simon
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
A chaotic film that has an older woman falling for a young
student when they both meet at the Gare du Nord in Paris.
He is working on his Ph.D. on this place with the intent
of showing it is a global village. We see him interviewing
people who own shops, passengers coming out of the train,
and loiterers. Mathilde, the woman dies in the end, and
some guy has lost his daughter and he finds her. There are
too many stupid supernatural scenes that make this whole
movie a bunch of nonsense. If you've ever been on an interminable
train ride, and you just wish you had reached your destination
a lot sooner, this is how I felt. (2013).
2.3
-- TRIPTYQUE,
Robert Lepage & Pedro Pires
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
A story that follows three people all connected because
of serious brain problems. Marie is sister to Michelle.
The former has a brain tumour and is a great singer. Her
tumour is making her lose parts of her speech and childhood
memories. Michelle suffers from schizophrenia. She is an
avid reader and brilliant librarian. Tomas drinks; his hand
has tremors; it is not steady, and this is tragic, as he
is a brain surgeon. He eventually operates on Marie, and
falls in love with her. In the end they all seem to find
their own happiness. Michelle writes poetry. Marie finds
a way to remember her father's voice by having dubbed over
the old family films once shot when she was a child. The
technician is able to recuperate his voice through her,
using his equipment. Tomas marries Marie. The film is highly
artistic and a metaphor for Michelangelo's painting of the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In fact, the entire famous
scene of God touching Man shows that the curves and shapes
form the different regions of the brain. A compelling film
but rather odd.
3.1
-- HELI,
Amat Escalante
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
A brutal Mexican film that shows the complete disintegration
of a family caught in a drug robbery. Twelve-year-old Estella
is in love with 17-year-old Beto. He is cruelly treated
during his military training, and one day steals packages
of cocaine from his unit. which, with Estella, he hides
inside the tenaco (rooftop water tank); her brother Heli
finds them. He locks her in her room and then throws the
coca into a hole filled with murky water and a cow. This
place is a stroll away from their house. Things become very
violent when all three are kidnapped by men disguised as
police. They want those packages, so Heli leads them to
the hole, but they are gone. Beto is tortured for stealing
and then carted away to be hung over a bridge rail. Heli's
little sister disappears, but when she returns she is pregnant
-- having been raped by the monster thugs. Heli survives
the beatings. This horrific story tragically and realistically
shows Mexico's underbelly which sadly has become mainstream
life for so many in this lawless land. There should have
been a warning of extreme violence at the opening of the
movie.
3.1
-- GERONTOPHILIA,
Bruce La Bruce
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
Lake is a beautiful looking twenty-something-year old who
has a girlfriend who loves feminist revolutionaries. She
keeps a list of her heroines, and although Lake is a guy,
he ends up getting on her list. Why? He falls in love with
Melvin, a black 80-year-old gay patient he takes care of
in an old folks home. Desiree concludes that Lake has gone
against nature and because of this, since he is a revolutionary,
Lake and his ex-girlfriend arrange the old Melvin's escape
at night. They roll him out in a wheel chair and Lake takes
over. He wants to fulfill Melvin's wishes: to see the Pacific
Ocean. But they never make it. Destiny has a way of ending
things. This is a touching film and it is funny. It is compelling
yet unsettling. The film belongs in Montreal's internationally
acclaimed gay festival, "Image + Nation."
2.8
-- ILO ILO,
Anthony Chen
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
It's as if every frame of the film has been ever so slightly
drained of colour, and Singapore is under the influence
of a mysterious form of anemia. Like weather systems, these
two elements merge to form the very understated but apropos
backdrop for a small story that tells of the large concerns
of Singapore's burgeoning middle-class who are either one
bad decision or one bad break from losing what little they
have when economic uncertainty is in the long term forecast.
Tech and her bumbling, investment unsavvy husband Hwee work
long hours to make ends meet. They are a stable couple but
not emotionally present for their 10-year-old son Jiale,
a rambunctious kid without a cause, who oscillates between
withdrawal and tantrum throwing. Tech, who is late in her
pregnancy, convinces her husband to hire a nanny, Terry,
who comes from Ilo Ilo, an island in the Philippines. Jiale
immediately takes advantage of her servile position and
abuses her kindness, but over time, she supplies the deficit
of Jiale's emotional needs, just as the latter becomes a
surrogate child to Terry who, in order to better her life,
has left a young daughter behind in Ilo Ilo. After a series
of financial disasters which force the couple to seriously
consider selling their one and only sure asset - their apartment
- they reluctantly inform Terry that they can no longer
afford her services, and that she must return home. In a
heartbreaking scene that steers clear of the maudlin, the
uncomprehending Jiale, clutching a snippet of Terry's hair,
watches his nanny disappears forever into the terminal building
of Singapore's international airport - and life goes on.
There are millions of similar stories taking place everywhere
in the world, and this, without distinction and pretention,
is one of them, well told, well acted, and well received
wherever it has played.
2.2
-- THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS
(L'ETRANGE COULEUR DES LARMES
DE TON CORPS), Hélène
Cattet & Bruno Forzani
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
The unsettling crunch of leather, a kaleidoscope of violent
images, the cool blade of a knife against a taut nipple,
an eyeball fills the screen: the senses have already been
put on alert, the frontal assault has begun and stays the
course for the entire, often tiring (both over and underwhelming)
second film from Cattet and Forzani. The directors, for
whom conventional story telling has been downgraded to an
afterthought, welded to the irresistably chic and post-modern
primacy of the image, exuberantly combine what is suspect
and aleatoric in "El Topo," "Eraserhead" and the "Saw" series,
resulting in a plot line that is thinner than rice paper
on a hot tin roof. A man's wife has gone missing? Or did
she leave him (for another man, another woman)? To escape
abuse? And how does Laura fit into the bloodied picture?
Throughout, sharp objects are plunged into the crowns of
defenseless craniums, huge quantities of blood are regurgitated
in ear-bending decibels, flesh is ripped open and turned
inside out, the human breath hot and panting. Perhaps the
endlessly disjointed sequence of images is meant to cryptically
depict a recurring nightmare: the protagonist's guilt in
either his treatment of his beloved or her demise. This
experimental film will appeal to jaded viewers for whom
the bizarre and outer limits are the only games in town.
Ratings
for 2012 Festival
du Nouveau Cinéma.
(1) Best feature film in the Focus section
GERONTOPHILIA, Bruce LaBruce
(Québec/Canada
(2) Special Jury Prize (Focus Québec/Canada)
/
DIEGO STAR, Frédérick
Pelletier (Québec/Canada)
(3) Best Actor or Actress Award (Focus Québec/Canada)
/
Isaka Sawadogo dans DIEGO
STAR de Frédérick Pelletier (Québec/Canada)
(4) People’s Choice Award - Presented
by TFO
Temps Ø - WHY DON’T
YOU PLAY IN HELL? (JIGOKU DE NAZE WARUI), Sion Sono (Japon)
![Canadian Tire Repair Scam [2211 boul Roland-Therrien, Longueuil] = documents-proofs](../2010_v9_n5/images/mapleleaf.jpg)
