The Art Of Film Memory

The Soloist

2010-03-13T14:19:00.000-08:00

The Soloist is a 2009 drama film directed by Joe Wright, and starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. The screenplay by Susannah Grant is based on the book, The Soloist by Steve Lopez. The film is based on a true story of Nathaniel Ayers, a musician who develops schizophrenia and becomes homeless.

Foxx portrays Ayers, who is considered a cello prodigy, and Downey portrays Lopez, a Los Angeles Times columnist who discovers Ayers and writes about him in the newspaper. The film was released in theatres on 24 April 2009[1] and on DVD and Blu-Ray August 5.

The Soloist is based on the true story of Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx), a musical prodigy who develops schizophrenia during his second year at Juilliard School. Ayers becomes homeless and plays a two-stringed violin in the streets of downtown Los Angeles. One day Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.), an LA Times Columnist, meets Nathanial and decides to write a newspaper column for the Los Angeles Times about Nathaniel Ayers and his homelessness. An old woman takes sympathy and sends Steve a cello for Nathaniel to play. In attempting to help Ayers, Lopez is forced to grapple personally with the complex issues and frustrations surrounding the thousands of mentally ill who are homeless on the streets of L.A.

Bad Lieutenant

2010-03-13T14:17:00.000-08:00

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call: New Orleans is a 2009 American crime drama film directed by Werner Herzog and starring Nicolas Cage. The film was released on November 20, 2009.

It draws superficially from Abel Ferrara's 1992 film, Bad Lieutenant, which featured a crooked cop (Harvey Keitel), who is a drug addict and takes sexual favors as bribes. The film's director insists that it is not a sequel or a remake.

Terrence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage), is a New Orleans Police sergeant. While rescuing a prisoner during Hurricane Katrina, he injures his back. After receiving a medal and a promotion to lieutenant for his heroism, he becomes addicted to prescription pain medication and begins using cocaine, heroin, crack, and marijuana. The film follows McDonagh as he investigates the murder of a family of Senagalese immigrants while dealing with his drug addictions and gambling and other personal problems. Although he frequently breaks the law he is eventually promoted again.

The film was first announced in May 2008 with Werner Herzog to direct and Nicolas Cage to star. The script was penned by TV writer William Finkelstein.[9] One major change from the original film was moving the setting from New York City to New Orleans.[10] Herzog insists that the film is not a remake, saying, "It only has a corrupt policeman as the central character and that's about it."[6] At the 2009 Academy Awards, Herzog stated that he has never seen Ferrara's film, saying "I haven't seen it, so I can't compare it. It has nothing to do with it."[11] Herzog did not like the idea of a remake and desired to change the title of the film, but was unsuccessful. Herzog stated, "I battled against the title from the first moment on", but added, "I can live with it, I have no problem with it at all. The title is probably a mistake, but so be it."[12]

Actress Eva Mendes, who starred with Cage in the 2007 comic book-based film Ghost Rider, joined the cast the following June.[8] Filming began on July 7, 2008 in Louisiana[13] and also around South Mississippi, shooting some scenes at the Hollywood Casino in Bay St. Louis.

Agora

2010-03-13T11:11:00.000-08:00

Agora is a 2009 Spanish historical drama film directed by Alejandro Amenábar, written by Amenábar and Mateo Gil, and starring Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz and Max Minghella. It tells the story of Hypatia, a female philosopher in Roman Egypt, who is portrayed by Weisz. With dramatic license, the biopic includes a romantic angle: her slave falls in love with her. The film was co-financed by Spanish company Sogecable. It was screened Out of Competition at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival in May, was released in Spain on 9 October, and was released country by country throughout late 2009 and early 2010.

Partir

2009-11-15T10:44:00.000-08:00

Suzanne a la quarantaine. Femme de médecin et mère de famille, elle habite dans le sud de la France, mais l'oisiveté bourgeoise de cette vie lui pèse. Elle décide de reprendre son travail de kinésithérapeute qu'elle avait abandonné pour élever ses enfants et convainc son mari de l'aider à installer un cabinet. A l'occasion des travaux, elle fait la rencontre d'Ivan, un ouvrier en charge du chantier qui a toujours vécu de petits boulots et qui a fait de la prison. Leur attraction mutuelle est immédiate et violente et Suzanne décide de tout quitter pour vivre cette passion dévorante.

Six mois auparavant, une éternité, Suzanne menait une vie prévisible, feutrée, bourgeoise. Deux enfants presque adultes, et un mari très enfantin, un médecin macho, style « ma » femme, « mes » gamins, « ma » maison, « mon » métier, « ma » virilité... Pour des travaux dans la villa, un ouvrier était venu, un Espagnol au nom russe, Ivan. Suzanne l'avait involontairement blessé, conduit en Espagne voir sa fille, puis revu sans raison. Avant, précisément, que la déraison ne l'emporte. Elle lui avait cédé comme si elle se délivrait. Et tout rejeté d'un bloc : les conventions, l'hypocrisie, ses enfants. Et ce mari, d'abord sanglotant, puis ...

L’amour et ses déclinaisons fondent la filmographie de Catherine Corsini. Parfois traité avec humour (La Nouvelle Eve), ou avec romance (Les Ambitieux), l’amour, dans Partir, fait souffrir. La réalisatrice choisit l’épure pour raconter ce (mélo)drame, chroniqué comme un fait divers à coups de cadres larges et fixes, mais activés par le mistral et la tramontane du Languedoc-Roussillon. Le film se voudrait charnel, mais le bannissement volontaire de toute psychologie finit par éteindre tout sentiment et exclure le spectateur de cette histoire d’amour…

… qui finira mal. Un coup de feu retenti en introduction et le film débute en flash-back. Il relate de sa naissance à sa fin tragique, la passion amoureuse de Suzanne (Kristin Scott Thomas) et Ivan (Sergi Lopez), deux étrangers pour qui partir c’est rester ensemble. Comme dans Noces rouges de Claude Chabrol, l’abus de pouvoir et le chantage sont les atouts du mari cocu (Yvan Attal), dont les plans machiavéliques font obstacles au bonheur épicurien des amants.

On le sait, on le sent : Partir est un film sur l’émancipation et c’est aussi un film de femmes (Catherine Corsini s’est accompagnée d’Agnès Godard à la photographie). Ce féminisme est incarné à l’écran par le personnage de Suzanne, quadragénaire entière, déterminée, honnête, et joyeuse (comme l’illustre cette séquence où une guêpe rentre dans son chemisier). Où est la faille ? Nulle part. Suzanne est si complète… qu’elle en est lisse. Pourtant elle est l’élément moteur du film puisqu’elle est présente dans toutes les scènes. C’est son itinéraire qui construit Partir, dans le sens où la narration décrit le processus logique de son émancipation. Ni plus, ni moins : le rythme est lent puisque embarrassé de détails pas forcément essentiels. Ainsi, c’est l’action et la représentation des émotions (et non leur incarnation) qui importent, au détriment de la saveur intérieure des prises de conscience des personnages. Catherine Corsini ne craint pas les scènes faites d’un seul plan privé d’action, auquel le spectateur devra dégager sans mal son sens premier et unique. Exemple : Suzanne et Samuel sont dans le lit conjugal, elle lit, tandis que lui pianote sur son portable. Conclusion : on ne fait pas l’amour chez les Vidal. Alors qu’il cherchait l’ardeur de la passion, le film souffre d’une froideur d’exécution.

Toutefois, reconnaissons à Partir ses petites perles. À l’écriture, ce sera au cours d’une situation périlleuse dans une station essence. En termes de mise en scène, ce sera lors de la scène fondamentale du premier baiser. Le parti pris est original, et cette fois l’intention atteint son but : ce cadre large laisse toute liberté à l’action, et comme l’amour donne des ailes, l’instant est simplement beau. Mais l’intérêt principal de Partir réside dans ce qu’inconsciemment il donne à voir et comprendre des rapports amoureux et du travail. Au-delà de l’histoire d’amour entre la bourgeoise et le prolo et de ses conséquences matérielles, le travail sonne le glas de l’amour physique. Dès lors que Suzanne et Ivan payent leur amour à la sueur de leur front en récoltant des melons, plus aucune scène charnelle ne vient rendre compte de leurs ébats. Impossible de faire l’amour en travaillant, et si le début de leur histoire se caractérisait par une alchimie sexuelle, le travail plane comme une menace. Sans fêlures, sans brèches, et si purs dans leur passion, l’amour ne saurait être mis en péril par la condition matérielle des amants ; c’est ainsi que tranche le film… le triomphe est bien mièvre.

Disgrace

2009-08-22T07:59:00.000-07:00

David Lurie (John Malkovich), twice-divorced and dissatisfied with his job as an English professor in post-apartheid South Africa, finds his life falling apart. When he seduces one of his students, Melanie (Antoinette Engel) and does nothing to protect himself from the consequences, he is dismissed from his teaching position, and goes to live with his lesbian daughter Lucy (Jessica Haines), who shares a farm in the Eastern Cape with trusted black worker Petrus (Eric Ebouaney). For a time, his daughter's influence and natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. In the aftermath of a vicious attack by three black youths, he is forced to come to terms with the changes in society - as well as his disgrace.

Review by Louise Keller:

Desire and its consequences are at the heart of this complex drama that has the power to shred us emotionally. Based on the Booker prize winning novel by J.M. Coetzee, this is the kind of film that knocks you for a loop. It surprises at every turn, takes you where you least expect to be taken and twists a knife into your heart just after you think you have endured the worst of it. Directed and adapted by the husband and wife team who brought us the quirky and accessible La Spagnola in 2001, Steve Jacobs and Anna-Maria Monticelli have a profound grasp of the subject matter, resulting in a mature, thought provoking work that resonates. Subconsciously, the film throbs with truth as we find ourselves sinking deeper and deeper in a quagmire of redemption, acceptance and reconciliation reflecting the South African divide.

When we first meet John Malkovich's lust-driven University professor David Lurie, we quickly understand his philosophy that there are more important things in life than being prudent. He teaches romantic poetry and listens to classical music, while lust fuels his leisure time. Disgrace is the result of his liaison with his student Melanie (Antoinette Engel). But that is just the beginning of the journey. We take a sharp right hand turn as David drives through the distinctively barren South African terrain to the remote farm where his lesbian daughter Lucy (Jessica Haines) lives. The harsh reality of daily life begins, where desire is examined from a converse point of view. Rape and the confrontation of an unfathomable cultural mindset start life spinning as fast as the hubcaps of the pickup trucks on the desolate, dusty roads.

Malkovich is one of those actors who cannot help but carry loads of gravitas. Here, as always, he is brilliantly credible as a severely flawed man forced to learn the reality of the poetry he teaches. ('One who goes to teach learns the keenest of lessons; one who goes to learn, learns nothing'). Haines gives a staggering performance as Jessica, the strong woman who makes tough decisions as her comfort zone crumbles as she loses everything, while Eriq Ebouaney is striking as Jessica's neighbour Petrus, whose life philosophies must be accepted. There are two especially devastating moments in this film and they arrive unexpectedly. The first is the scene in which Malkovich is crying: we see him as from the back of a car carrying unusual cargo. The second is at the animal shelter, where David helps Bev (Fiona Press) in the heartbreaking task of dealing with unclaimed dogs. Special mention to Antony Partos' exceptional score which accentuates and tugs at our emotions and Steve Arnold's splendid cinematography which captures the starkness of the landscape. Disgrace is a powerful work and one that is not easily forgotten. Sadly, the resonance of life in South Africa feels only too real and familiar.

Review by Andrew L. Urban:
In 1999, Disgrace won the second Booker Prize for Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee. That is both an accolade to admire and a mountain to climb if you're going to adapt the novel into a film; such a different medium. Astonishingly enough, Anna Maria Monticelli and husband Steve Jacobs have pulled it off. There may be quibbles about some aspects and some scenes, but the film works as a piece of cinema, whether connected to the book or not. And as I haven't read the much lauded book, I can only respond to the film.

The saturated self awareness that John Malkovich brings to his roles is perfectly suited to the character of David Lurie, a man whose love of literature, especially the romantic poets, contrasts with his unromantic personal style. When he seduces young Melanie (Antoinette Engel) it is only superficially romantic. (Here is one of my quibbles: I'd like to have seen the precise nature of this seduction; how Melanie succumbed is so crucial to our view of David's actions and thus his character.)

But that's just the start, in a work that jolts us to attention with the vicious attack against David and his daughter Lucy (Jessica Haines) at her remote flower farm, where David has gone after his forced resignation from university. It is here that we are confronted with the demons of post apartheid South Africa that J. M. Coetzee writes about with evident heartache. It's a complex story with uneasy and uncomfortable truths; and it is Lucy - in a wonderful performance by Jessica Haines - who delivers the symbolic and also tangibly real progeny of this traumatised state.

Malkovich and Haines aside, Disgrace features remarkable performances from both Eric Ebouaney as Petrus, the man who shares farming land with Lucy, and whose history sows the seeds that grow the plants of the new South Africa; and Fiona Press as the Animal Welfare League vet who provides a haven for abandoned dogs - and David. She, too, is a symbol, a representative of people of good heart who try to make a difference, often in vain.

Africa plays its soulful, bitter sweet self as the continent where nature's wild beauty is a helpless witness to atrocious actions by mankind, and provides some soul-searching images thanks to Steve Arnold's splendid cinematography. The score is another valuable contribution by the multi awarded Australian composer Antony Partos, and for all its sombre notes, the film is a rich, textured and emotionally engaging experience that challenges our ethical and moral views about South Africa - as I suspect does the novel.

Public Enemies

2009-08-15T10:34:00.000-07:00

Every great director has at least one truly bad film in him, and Public Enemies is Michael Mann’s. It is not just a failure, but one of those movies in which the gap between its quality and its maker’s talent is so immense as to be nearly inexplicable. To be fair, it is possible that my expectations for Public Enemies, which chronicles the 1933 FBI manhunt for legendary Midwest bank robber John Dillinger, were unfairly high. But from the man who made Manhunter, Thief, Last of the Mohicans, Collateral, and the masterpiece Heat, a film this empty, dull, lifeless, and—most shocking of all—crudely made cannot be anything other than a major disappointment. This may not be fair, but it is a fact. We expect bad films from the likes of Brett Ratner. We expect great ones from Michael Mann. Such is the price of genius, and in Public Enemies, Mann pays it.

In all fairness, however, it must be admitted that Public Enemies is not just Mann’s failure. It is also another in a long line of equally inexplicable failures to successfully translate the myth of John Dillinger and his eventual demise to the screen. I use the term inexplicable because if the Dillinger legend is anything, it is unquestionably a great story. It has love, violence, friendship, irony, and death. It has a charismatic antihero and, in the person of straitlaced FBI agent Melvin Purvis, who led the manhunt, the stoic nemesis who eventually takes him down. It is a quintessentially American story featuring two classic American archetypes—the free-spirited outlaw and the upstanding sheriff—locked in a duel to the death in a world not unlike that of the Western but much more recognizably ours. In other words, it is a story that seems tailor-made for the movies. And yet, Hollywood has proven consistently incapable of doing it justice.

This is not for lack of trying. Almost from the moment he died in a hail of police bullets outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago, Dillinger has been an object of Hollywood’s affections. Over half a dozen films have been made about him, with John Milius’s Dillinger (1973), produced by legendary B-movie mogul Roger Corman and starring the much-underrated Warren Oates, probably being the best of them, but none have even approached the heights of the great gangster films like The Godfather (1972) or Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Most of them have been, at best, forgettable. It seems that something about Dillinger and his tale eludes the powers of cinema, and the best retellings of it have been in books like John Toland’s fascinating if sometimes inaccurate The Dillinger Days (1963).

The reason for this is probably Dillinger himself. Profoundly evil and, by all accounts, profoundly attractive, he is too complicated, schizophrenic, and disturbing a character for any mainstream film to accurately capture. A violent, charming sociopath, Dillinger was a rapist at thirteen, a convict before he reached twenty, and by the time he was finally cornered and killed by the FBI, a murderer many times over who counted several police officers among his victims. If anything distinguished him from his fellow thugs, it was his unnerving self-awareness, coupled with what seemed to be an instinctive understanding of the role that mass media was coming to play in American life. Decades before Charles Manson and O.J. Simpson, Dillinger was the first American criminal who succeeded in turning himself into a cultural icon. Accordingly, he cultivated a Clark Gable-style mustache, went out of his way to charm the press, never missed a chance for a photo opportunity— especially if it made the authorities look foolish—and became a specialist in such baroque gestures as vaulting gracefully over bank counters and refusing to steal money from poor farmers. He understood, probably because he shared it, that particularly American sympathy for outlaws, especially when their efforts are directed at the vast unknowable systems that seem to govern so much of modern American life. And like most sociopaths, he had a keen sense of what people find attractive, and quickly learned how to exploit it to his advantage.

The real skeleton key to the Dillinger legend, however, is probably the fact that while his chosen profession was somewhat unorthodox, he was very, very good at it. Americans have never much sympathized with Balzac’s observation that behind every great fortune lies a crime. They love a success story, no matter how tawdry the details (witness the recent sickening genuflection before the memory of the odious Michael Jackson), and Dillinger was unquestionably a success, robbing banks with seeming impunity, eluding the best efforts of law enforcement for months, and escaping from jails advertised as impregnable. For a brief moment, he was rich, good-looking, and famous, which is usually all Americans need to at least grudgingly admire someone. In this sense, he anticipated modern American icons like Simpson and Jackson, whose transgressions, however horrendous, are endlessly forgiven in the name of their celebrity.

The Dillinger of Public Enemies is both much more likable and far less interesting than the original. Played by perennial teen heartthrob Johnny Depp, he is both dull and a pretty nice guy, of which Dillinger was most certainly neither. Depp channels none of the sociopathic joie de vivre which so endeared the outlaw to a bruised and cynical American public. Instead, he remakes the outlaw as a sort of emasculated Byronic hero. Sensitive, sentimental, damaged, and driven, this Dillinger rarely speaks above a monotone, and seems more like a shuffling, drug-addled rock star than a gangster. All of the outlaw’s most legendary moments—jumping over the bank counters, letting the farmer keep his money, joking with the press, having his picture taken with his arm on the shoulder of his prosecutor—are portrayed in the film, but Depp’s performance is so woefully blank and uninflected that they pass by with barely any impact. While Mann has often used understated, affectless performances to his advantage (witness Robert DeNiro’s tour de force of underacting in Heat), in this case it serves only to empty Dillinger of what made him interesting in the first place.

Christian Bale’s vacant portrayal of Dillinger’s pursuer Melvin Purvis is equally woeful. Purvis has generally been portrayed by historians as either a stalwart lawman or a bumbling incompetent, and Mann tries to provide us with a little of both, resulting in a character who is both totally incoherent and just as uninteresting as his quarry. As with Mann’s portrayal of Dillinger, the reality was far more compelling and far more disturbing: Purvis was a puritanistic southerner who got the credit for killing Dillinger, though historians now believe there is a strong chance he never fired a shot (Mann’s version of events implies that this was in fact the case, though the climactic scene is so bizarrely edited that it is almost impossible to tell who is firing at who). Some thirty years later, the ex-lawman committed suicide, supposedly using the same gun with which he may or may not have shot Dillinger. The conflicting forces that must have been at work in the psyche of such a man ought to make for great drama, perhaps even great tragedy, but Mann more or less ignores them, and by the end of the movie one is simply left wondering what Purvis is doing in the film in the first place.

The only truly persuasive performance in the film belongs to French actress Marion Cotillard, who plays the ostensible love of Dillinger’s life, Billie Frechette. Cotillard depicts her as an innocent in love, which is probably inaccurate (before she hooked up with Dillinger, Frechette had already married and left another convicted criminal), but nonetheless touching, and at certain points she displays a ferocious carnality sadly lacking in the portrayal of Dillinger himself. She alone seems to be alive in the way legend demands. Billy Crudup, who plays J. Edgar Hoover, is also effective, though his character rarely rises above the shallow caricature which has become the standard Hollywood portrayal of the late FBI director. Nonetheless, there is an eccentric ruthlessness to Crudup’s Hoover that locks him immediately into the mind of the viewer, which cannot be said for the ciphers portrayed by Depp and Bale.

The acting, however, is the least of the film’s problems. Most troubling of all, especially for those familiar with Mann’s earlier work, is the cinematography, which must be one of the most wrongheaded stylistic decisions in cinema history. Put simply, Public Enemies is the ugliest big budget movie ever made. Mann shot the film on high definition video, and while films like the last two Star Wars prequels and Superman Returns have managed to get a reasonably film-like look out of digital cameras, Mann seems to have opted for a more primitive version of the technology, perhaps in imitation of the execrable Lars Von Trier’s equally execrable Dogma movement. The result simply bears out Roman Polanski’s opinion that Dogma films look like the cameraman is masturbating while stricken with Parkinson’s disease. The images have no depth, movement tends to blur in confusing and disorientating ways, even the night scenes feel overlit, and there are endless shaky-cam shots, every one of which ought to have been filmed on a dolly track. The final effect is to induce nausea in the viewer, and total incomprehension as to why Mann would lavish such expense on costumes, production design, and period detail only to photograph them as if he were making a 1970s no-budget BBC drama.

This becomes even more baffling when one considers Mann’s previous work. A notorious perfectionist with a fetish for architectural compositions and modernist styles, the crowning glory of most of its films is their visual beauty, which together with his use of ambient music draws the viewer into that vicarious fugue state which always constitutes cinema at its best. The opening shot of Heat, for example, features an LA commuter train slowly approaching the camera as it pulls into an enormous modernist train station, the train’s gleaming exterior echoing the architecture surrounding it, so they both appear to become part of the same metallic topography. Throughout the shot, a single ominous note plays on the soundtrack. The viewer has no idea where the film is set or what is happening at this point, but by the time Robert DeNiro steps off the train Mann has us in his pocket. We are all asking ourselves: Who is this man? Why are we watching him? What is about to happen? This is pure filmmaking, holding the viewer spellbound with nothing more than cinema’s own wordless, hieroglyphic language.

The worst sin of Public Enemies, however, is that it not only fails as cinema but, in making itself unwatchably ugly, actually seems to be at war with it. Whatever his motivations might be—and I suspect Hollywood’s fetish for digital technology is one of them—Mann appears to have been stricken with a violent hatred of his own medium. This may eventually lead to something of value, but if Mann continues in this vein, there is a strong chance that we will have to evaluate his career as that of wayward master whose ultimate contribution was, sadly, to the degradation of cinema itself.

Departures

2009-08-15T01:25:00.000-07:00

Departures (おくりびと, Okuribito?) is a 2008 Japanese film by Yōjirō Takita. It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2009 Oscars and has earned $61,010,217 in Japan as of April 12, 2009.[1]

When "Departures" was announced as the foreign-language Oscar winner in February, it was the first time a film from Japan had won the award in more than 50 years.

Overtaking what were widely considered to be the neck-and-neck front-runners, "Waltz With Bashir" from Israel and "The Class" from France, no one was more surprised to hear "Departures" called than the film's director, Yojiro Takita.
A handful of Oscar prognosticators and insiders had been turning to the film in the final buildup to the event, simply because "Departures" is such an audience-friendly picture. Opening Friday in Los Angeles, "Departures" plays as a gen- tle comedy of manners in its early sections before it slowly transitions into a heart-tugging story of forgiveness and redemption.

When a self-admittedly so-so cello-player (Masahiro Motoki) finds himself unemployed after his orchestra in Tokyo goes out of business, he returns to his small rural hometown. Mistakenly answering an ad for what he thinks is a travel agency, he reluctantly takes a job as an "encoffiner," someone who performs a ceremonial preparation to corpses before burial to ready them for their journey into the afterlife.

At first he hides his new job from his wife and old friends in town. Taken under the wing of his new boss (Tsutomu Yamazaki, familiar to American audiences from the one-time art-house hit "Tampopo"), he comes to appreciate the deeper meaning of his new line of work. Lessons are learned, old wounds healed, etc.

"Departures" has won more than 80 awards from around the globe and has taken in more than $60 million at the Japanese box office.

"There was no way I could have imagined the film would take off like this," Takita said recently through a translator in Los Angeles. "When you have death as a theme, people don't generally tend to get excited about it. So I had no way of knowing how the audience would receive it. We've been fortunate."

The project originated with its star, Motoki, who became taken with a book on the practice of encoffining and thought it would make a good movie. After reading an early draft of the script by Kundo Koyama, Takita, a veteran director with dozens of films to his credit, signed on.

"I knew of the existence of encoffiners, but I had never actually seen it with my own eyes," Takita said. "It's important to emphasize this was not a practice that was very common in Japan at all. It's safe to say that most Japanese people were unfamiliar with the existence of encoffiners before the film came out; it was more of a niche service offered in rural areas."

Yôjirô Takita's Departures was the surprise winner of Best Foreign Film at the 2008 Academy Awards, beating out the urban realism of Lauren Cantet's inner city school drama The Class and Ari Folman's Waltz With Bashir, a personal documentary that recounts a soldier's experience in the Israeli-Lebanon conflict. Departures takes on equally earnest subject matter; the film's title makes reference to the cleansing ritual that prepares dead bodies for burial in Japanese society.

Given its topic, Departures is surprisingly light-hearted: a feel-good film with uplifting music by Joe Hisaish, a composer best known for providing the score to Hayao Miyazaki's animated adventures. For a movie that tackles the subject of death head on, the film has many moments of unmistakable physical comedy.
At the time of the awards ceremony, American audiences had not had a chance to view Departures. In hindsight, the selection makes good sense. The Japanese film is competently made, pleasing to audiences, and in no way controversial. If this sounds critical, it is -- the Academy's choices are usually on the safe side. In 2008, Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, a difficult but also tremendously powerful film about illegal abortion in Romania, received the prestigious Palme d'Or at Cannes but did not even merit an Oscar nomination.

Departures tells the story of Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki), a cellist who loses his job with a symphony in Tokyo and decides to return to his small mountain village with his wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) to start over again. Answering an ambiguously worded want ad, Daigo finds himself in the employ of a quirky funeral professional (Tsutomu Yamazaki) who prepares deceased bodies for burial and entry into the next life.

A Lighthearted Approach To Difficult Subject Matter

At first, Daigo is revolted by the work. Many jokes are made at his expense as the squeamish young man learns to become comfortable in the presence of the dead. In Japan, this profession -- one step closer to death than even the undertaker -- is considered especially unclean; Daigo risks becoming a social outcast upon embracing his new employment. Even his wife shuns him.
The film, however, serves to remind the audience that death is very much a part of life. Not only is Daigo's choice of work not to be perceived as dirty, it is unmistakably noble. This point is hammered home. Daigo learns the intrinsic value of his profession from the impassioned gratitude of various mourners. The film documents not only the marked change of perception that Daigo undergoes, but also that of his reluctant wife. By the film's end, Daigo is required to perform numerous departures, the camera following the elaborate cleansing procedure step by painstaking step.

In addition, Daigo frequently plays his childhood cello outdoors in the wilderness of his new environs. The sweeping music and bucolic landscape serve to heap on the emotion to Takita's already heavy-handed manipulation, culminating in the death of Daigo's long lost father. Daigo's new skills serve him well, and the ritual he had previously performed in the service of others brings him much necessary release -- and a neat close to a much too neatly made film.

Departures (2009)
Starring: Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kimiko Yo, Ryoko Hirosue, Masahiro Motoki
Directed by: Yojiro Takita
Produced by: Yasuhiro Mase, Toshiaki Nakazawa
Running Time: 2 hrs. 11 min.

Three Monkeys

2009-06-21T01:34:00.000-07:00

A family is dislocated when small failings become extravagant lies. The film opens as a wealthy businessman, Servet, running a campaign for the upcoming election, is driving in his car alone and sleepy, struggling to keep his eyes open. Seconds later he hits and kills a pedestrian in the middle of the road. Servet panics when another car with a couple inside approaches. He sneaks away. Eyüp, a man living in a slum at Yedikule neighborhood in İstanbul, with his wife and only son, is the driver of Servet. He wakes up in the middle of the night with his cell phone ringing. It's his boss, telling Eyüp to meet him immediately. Shivering in shock, Servet explains the current events to his driver. His excuse is if the fatal accident comes out in press it would terminate his political career, so he proposes Eyüp to take over the penalty and stay in prison for a brief period of time in exchange for a lump sum payment upon his release, whilst still paying his salary to his family so they can get by. Eyüp accepts the deal.

An unspecified time passes, summer arrives, and Eyüp's son İsmail fails to enter college again. His mother, Hacer, who works in the catering division of a factory, starts worrying about her son after unpleasant events, and tries to convince him to get a job. İsmail suggests driving children between home and school but of course they don't have any financial source for this kind of an enterprise. İsmail asks his mother to request an advance payment from Servet without consulting Eyüp. Hacer meets with Servet, in his office after the election (which he lost), and requests the money. After Hacer leaves the office and starts waiting for a bus at the stop Servet persuades Hacer to accept a lift from him back to her home.

More unspecified time passes, and İsmail intends to visit his father. Things take a poor turn when he finds his mother having an affair with Servet. İsmail stands passive. More time passes, and Eyüp has been released from prison. He senses things are "a little peculiar" inside his home. Hacer is in love with Servet and insists to maintain their affair. Servet disagrees. That night, Hacer and Eyüp are invited to the police station and informed that Servet has been murdered. Police officers interrogate the two and Eyüp finds out that Hacer was cheating on him. He denies knowing nothing about it. İsmail confesses that he murdered Servet. Eyüp calms down when he pays a visit to a mosque. Afterwards, Eyüp goes on to speak with a very poor man who works and sleeps inside a tea house in the neighborhood. Eyüp makes the same proposition to the poor man, Bayram, that Servet made to him: to claim the crime committed by his son. Bayram agrees. The last scene shows Eyüp at his home's balcony, staring at the Marmara Sea, and along with thunder it starts to rain.

Three Monkeys, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 109 mins, 15

Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan has turned his innovative talents to that old cinematic favourite, the crime thriller

Reviewed by Jonathan Romney

When is a thriller, strictly speaking, a thriller? There's a fascinating cinema tradition in which directors associated with art films will take a stab at crime material.

This lets them tackle the extremes of human experience without the taboos imposed by mainstream fiction; it can also let highbrow auteurs prove that they, too, can keep viewers on the edge of seats (as opposed to nodding off in them). The results have often been fascinating, if not always classifiable as thrillers. Luchino Visconti took on James M Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, in his 1943 film Ossessione: the result – unmistakably – worked as a genre thriller, but it was also a lot more, an acute psychological study and a founding text for Italian neo-realist cinema. But Almodovar doing Ruth Rendell in Live Flesh? Not remotely a thriller: the director is far more interested in making an Almodovar film.

Such distinctions are ultimately subjective, so I'll leave you to decide whether Three Monkeys, by Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, is a thriller or an art film disguised as one. Either way, it offers an intriguing new angle on typical noir material, as well as a new perspective on Ceylan's style. This brilliant director made his international mark with the 2002 feature Uzak (Distant), about a disillusioned Istanbul photographer; his follow-up, Climates (2006), was a painfully intimate drama about a couple splitting up, all the more uncomfortable because the leads were played by Ceylan and his wife, Ebru Ceylan.

Three Monkeys retains the emotional concentration of Climates and the plasticity of time that Ceylan developed in Uzak. But this study of tensions between three family members and an outsider also tells a bracingly tawdry crime story, albeit in extremely pared-down fashion.

The film begins with a middle-aged man driving at night, then running away from the scene of a hit-and-run. He is Servet, a politician standing in a Turkish election; he doesn't want his crime to endanger his chances, he tells his driver Eyup (Yavuz Bingol), and offers him a large sum of money to take the rap. Eyup accepts the deal in order to provide for his wife and son, then disappears into prison – and disappears temporarily from the film, for while we expect this to be Eyup's story (especially since Bingol is a well-known singer in Turkey), he's off-screen for the best part of an hour.

Ceylan then leaves us to puzzle over what is happening in Eyup's absence. We learn that his teenage son Ismail (Rifat Sungar) is getting into bad company, but we don't know exactly what trouble he's getting into, any more than does his mother Hacer (Hatice Aslan). Early on, there's a long take of Servet carping on the phone about his thrashing in the polls: it is only after a while that Ceylan reveals that Hacer has been sitting opposite him, having to listen to all this. Given the churlishness of this unappealing bald pudgy man (played by one of the film's co-writers, Ercan Kesal), it comes as a surprise to learn, but only after some time, that Hacer has fallen for him.

Three Monkeys is a sombre slow-burner, but with a thread of black comedy running throughout: the ringtone on Hacer's mobile phone starts off as a running gag, before you realise how much it foreshadows the bleak denouement. The intrigue coalesces into a murder story with a last-minute twist – a very sobering and ambivalent twist, at that. You may leave the film uncertain about what exactly has happened – or about which of the four characters are the three monkeys of the title, with its allusion to seeing, hearing, speaking no evil. But Ceylan withholds the answers: he'd rather you came out of the cinema and debated it, maybe over a strong Turkish coffee.

The film displays Ceylan's trademark visual finesse: the close-ups linger on the characters' faces as their emotions shift, not always readably, while he applies his panoramic distortions not only to the cityscapes but also to the enclosure of the family flat. After using high-definition video for the fine-grained naturalism of Climates, Ceylan here puts it to very different use, shooting in colour but bleeding the image to metallic shades of grey. Decide for yourself whether Three Monkeys classifies as a genre thriller – but in terms of intelligence and cinematic invention, this tantalising film carries a thrill entirely its own.

Three Monkeys an Exemplary, Deadening Exercise in Malaise
By Nicolas Rapold

You can imagine frame grabs from Nuri Bilge Ceylan's art noir Three Monkeys popping up in a Bordwellian film-studies textbook (or blog post). Observe the jack-in-the-box close-up (against deep-background action) for a politician hiding after a hit-and-run; notice how his fall guy's family apartment is shot from unsettling heights and at angles slightly askew to the walls; soak up the digitally manipulated jaundiced palette, like watching an entire movie through the shades that eye doctors give out. The Turkish director's shifting story of guilt—the politico's flunky comes back from serving time and confronts his wife and son over infidelities—does not lack for carefully engineered technique, which is as stringently orchestrated as in past acclaimed films Distant and Climates. But Ceylan is essentially talking past his characters, whose thoughts are treated as secondary to DP Gökhan Tiryaki capturing their faces with the right hope-curdling hue. The heavy mood of indolence and rage, calibrated with ellipses in action, is stifling—everyone seems to move in a queasy haze. The climactic landscape shot—storms brewing over a harbor streaked with tankers and a distant man in silhouette—is suggestive of broader, communal malaise, yet confirms the film as an exemplary but deadening exercise.

When Self-Interest Clashes With Unruly Desire

At least since 2003, when his third feature, “Distant,” won two prizes in Cannes, the Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan has been a star of the international art-film circuit. “Distant” and its successor, “Climates” (a Cannes selection in 2006), are distinguished by careful framing, minimal camera movement and a mood that combines deep ennui with erotic longing. Though the films occasionally glance at modern global and Turkish social realities, they have a studiously abstract, timeless quality, a style that seems intended to soothe gloomy late-born cinephiles with intimations of Antonioni.

The mood of “Distant” is pretty well summed up in the title, and while “Climates” begins in warm sunshine, it feels most at home in the wintry landscape of its final scenes. Mr. Ceylan’s latest movie, “Three Monkeys,” which earned him an award for directing at Cannes last year, is in some ways a departure. The long takes and exquisite compositions are still there, but this time Mr. Ceylan trains his cool, detached sensibility on a ripe and pulpy melodrama that might have originated in a James M. Cain novel. The emotional weather is unusually hot and sticky, and the themes of class antagonism and sexual cruelty are overt, even if the literal depictions of sex and violence remain oblique and understated.

The basic story is as tight and simple as a slipknot. Servet (Ercan Kesal), a politician in the midst of a re-election campaign, is involved in a hit-and-run accident on a dark country road. He persuades his driver, Eyup (Yavuz Bingol), to take the fall for him, which will involve serving a relatively short prison sentence in exchange for an unspecified but large sum of money. Eyup, who lives with his wife and teenage son in a small apartment with a mind-blowingly cinematic view of the Bosporus, furrows his brow, shrugs his shoulders and accepts the offer.

Complications, as the saying goes, ensue. In Eyup’s absence, his son, Ismail (Ahmet Rifat Sungar), who can’t seem to pass his university entrance exam, drifts from adolescent idleness toward something potentially more dangerous. Hacer (Hatice Aslan), the boy’s mother, motivated at least partly by anxiety about her son, seeks out Servet’s help and ends up having an affair with him. What follows, while not exactly predictable, fits squarely within the logic of classic film noir, where cold-eyed self-interest quickly becomes entangled with unruly desires and the primal imperatives of honor and obligation.

All of it unfolds in hushed tones underneath a livid green sky, almost as if the clouds had been bruised by the emotional brutality the characters inflict on one another. Mr. Ceylan, a photographer as well as a filmmaker, at times falls prey to the pathetic fallacy, letting rain and lightning and mocking bursts of sunshine do too much of the dramatic work. And at the end he proves so besotted by his own prodigious ability to produce cinema with a capital C that he keeps the film going even after the story is effectively over. Good pulp depends, above all, on a ruthless sense of economy, and “Three Monkeys” is just a bit too profligate, too fancy, to be entirely convincing.

Which is not to say that it isn’t interesting. Somber as Mr. Ceylan’s films are, each is leavened by a bit of deadpan, minimalist comedy: an errant hazelnut skittering across a wooden floor in “Climates”; a maudlin pop song used as a cellphone ringtone here. And what Mr. Ceylan does with his actors is close to uncanny. Their dialogue is almost entirely literal and pedestrian, in keeping with their resolute ordinariness, but their equally ordinary faces become masks of mysterious, almost sublime feeling.

This is especially true of Ms. Aslan, whose face, with its wide, downturned mouth and dark-rimmed eyes, would be at home in Noh theater or silent film. Without her charisma, the movie would feel much more like an arch formal exercise. But Mr. Bingol, brooding stoically behind a dark mustache and heavy brows, and Mr. Sungar, pouting and gaunt, also impart their share of poetry. Only Mr. Kesal, playing a man in dubious possession of a soul, is a creature of pure prose.

The title of “Three Monkeys,” which Mr. Ceylan attributes to Confucius, raises a bit of a mathematical puzzle, since there are, after all, four main characters. Which three are the monkeys? Who is the odd man out — or, as the case may be, the lone human being in the primate menagerie? Does Servet make monkeys out of the other three, a working-class family at the mercy of a rich and powerful man? Is Ismail the innocent young victim of a morally obtuse older generation? Is Eyup a decent guy undone by monkeyshines perpetrated by his boss, his wife and his son? Or is it the men who are beasts, menacing Hacer and driving her to the brink of madness? Her husband and her lover both threaten to kill her, her son slaps her face, and she can’t seem to escape any of them.

The film’s shifting, elusive point of view is evidence of Mr. Ceylan’s skill. But he keeps himself, and the audience, safely outside the cage, while the four hapless beings inside suffer and struggle, beyond the reach of our compassion, as if some coldhearted creator had made them for no purpose beyond his own amusement.

Séraphine

2009-06-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

The winner of 7 French Academy Awards, including best film, best original screenplay, and best actress, Martin Provost’s Séraphine stars Yolande Moreau as painter Séraphine Louis, aka Séraphine de Senlis, a plain, poor, uncultured, devoutly Catholic, and emotionally unbalanced housekeeper who became known as a major artistic talent in the early 20th century.

Written by Provost and Marc Abdelnour, Séraphine focuses on the artist’s relationship with avant-garde art dealer Wilhelm Uhde (played by Ulrich Tukur), who one day discovered that his cleaning lady in the town of Senlis was a masterful painter.

A sleeper hit in France, Séraphine has been met with raves on this side of the Atlantic as well. The LA Weekly’s Scott Foundas called it "the best movie made about a painter since Maurice Pialat’s exquisite Van Gogh in 1991 — and one of the only ones that truly grasps how close artistic genius dwells to the realm of madness," while in New York Magazine David Edelstein enthused that Séraphine is "sublime … one of the most evocative films about an artist I’ve ever seen."

Martin Provost’ Seraphine tells the story of Seraphine de Senilis, a lower class middle aged woman whose love of painting enabled her to persevere through the hardships of poverty and self-doubt, ultimately becoming one of the most respected avant-garde artists in France.

The film introduces Seraphine as a soft spoken hotel housekeeper who meticulously completes her task for meager wages. She is looked down upon by her employers because of her shaggy appearance and lack of lady-like grace. Seemingly uninterested in the politics of the world around her, Seraphine Collects her small wages and purchases small containers of paint. Not being able to afford every color that she needs, she creates paint using the resources available to her (using cow’s blood and candle wax for red). Eventually a new tenant named Wilhelm Uhde arrives at the hotel. Uhde is a German art collector who seems to have become disillusioned with the art world. Upon seeing one of Seraphine’s painting; he is newly impassioned and is eager to display Seraphine’s art to the world. At first Seraphine is hesitant but eventually allows Uhde to display her art to a selection of dealers and traders. The film then follows Seraphine through her brief moments of success and critical approval to her tragic downfall, maintaining the themes of perseverance and dedication in spite of social shortcomings.

Unlike many biopics which usually tell a simple narrative story of a historical figure, Seraphine tells not only the story of Seraphine but also analyzes the circumstances which lead to her anti-social behavior and secretive love of art. Class separation is a major motif that runs throughout the film, as numerous times we see Seraphine being condescended to our taunted by those around her. Provost is possibly suggesting that if it were not for her isolated and impoverished lifestyle, she would not have been able to produce the work that she did. The idea of using hardship for inspiration is also present in the character of Wilhelm Uhde as he is the only one who recognizes the potential that Seraphine has. He discovers her at a time in which he had lost interest in the world or art, he sympathizes with the emotions that could have inspired such work, and sees the vision that Seraphine was trying to create. When Uhde becomes more successful as an art dealer, he abandons Seraphine leaving her alone and penniless, no longer being able to relate to the desolate and weary mindset that he once shared with her. Although subtle and slow with

Provost analyzes not only the life of a troubled artist, but also gives his take on the dangers of success and human beings innate need for connection and emotional release.

Yolande Moreau delivers and excellent and brave performance as the troubled artist, balancing the emotions of humor, intense concentration and despair. While viewing her portrayal of the character the viewer is always toying with the idea that Seraphine mentally ill, but the brilliance of her art prevents us from jumping to that conclusion. Even by the film’s tragic conclusion there is still a question of whether or not Seraphine is in fact mentally ill, or is it simply that the people around her were not able to appreciate a person of her eccentricity and brilliance.

Seraphine is a simple slow, and contemplative film, tells the story of a seemingly forgotten contributor to the world of art that was misunderstood and underappreciated in her life time. Provost gives a great critic on the human condition, while showing how perseverance and dedication will lead to success no matter how brief or fickle.

Pranzo Di Ferragosto

2009-05-24T11:39:00.000-07:00

A middle-aged man on his uppers, lives with and looks after his elderly mother, as unpaid bills pile up around him. As the traditional Italian holiday weekend of the 15 August approaches, the hapless hero is potentially offered, at least a partial, solution to his pecuniary problems. His landlord, one of his friends and even his doctor each persuade him to let them dump their elderly relatives on him, so that he can accommodate them and wait on them over the holiday period. Notwithstanding his reluctance to take on such nannying duties, the lure of relief from his financial straits is too much and so an assortment of ill-matched, elderly ladies descends on the tiny flat.

Written and directed by one of Italy's most celebrated screenwriters, Gianni di Gregorio (most recently contributing to the acclaimed Gomorrah), here making his feature debut, Mid-August Lunch is a miniature gem, by turns comic, embarrassing, engaging and emotionally affecting. This is a small but beautifully rendered drama of manners that captures the nuances of people's behaviour and shows a mis-fit group of individuals, coping (or not) with each others' idiosyncrasies. A completely unique film, Mid-August Lunch is a charming and convincing first feature from di Gregorio.

Small but utterly charming, Gianni di Gregorio's low-budget feature about an ageing Roman who suddenly finds himself looking after four ancient ladies over the mid-August dog days has enough heart to make up for its paper-thin story, and conceals a serious social message behind its delicate comic treatment of the burdens of old age, and the elderly as a burden. This won its 59-year-old director the Luigi De Laurentiis prize for Best First Film at Venice, where it caused a small commercial flurry.

Producedby Gomorrah director Matteo Garrone, this opened in Italy September 5 on limited release where it struck a chord with general audiences, notching up the weekend's highest screen average after Kung Fu Panda. There's something local about theemotionsit touches in a country that is increasingly unable to look after its old people within the family, but is haunted by the prospect of placing grandma in a home.

This is not, however, an exclusively Italian issue, boding well for its ability to cross over as a small arthouse hit thanks mainly to the memorable, semi-improvised performances by four non-professional actresses who make up the supporting cast. Sales have been good.

Gianni (played by the director himself) is an immediately recognisable Roman character; outside the house, he's a relaxed habitue of old-style Trastevere wine bars; inside, he's very much under the thumb of his tyrannical elderly mother (Valeria De Franciscis), a high-born lady fallen on hard times.

Aware that he is deep in debt and in arrears with his payments to the building co-op, its administrator offers to cook the books in Gianni's favour if he minds his own elderly mother over the mid-August 'Ferragosto' holiday (when even the few able-bodied Italians still left in the city head en masse for the beach). But the wily administrator turns up with an ancient aunt into the bargain; and when Gianni's angina starts playing up, the doctor friend who examines him makes things worse by throwing his own mother into the mix, so he can work a late shift at the hospital.

So a gaggle of old ladies (the average age of the four actresses is 88) is left in a small apartment with a reluctant but long-suffering and well-bred host. The women bicker, throw sulks and make friends, while Gianni attempts to monitor their pill intake and pacify them with food.

The film is dominated by the rich, worn hues of Rome in full summer. And the soundtrack - a faintly Balkan folk-jazz soundtrack of shrill trumpets and accordions - hits the right bittersweet notes.

Genova

2009-05-23T13:53:00.000-07:00

Michael Winterbottom’s latest feature, Genova, is the newest addition to an oeuvre which, at this stage of his career, seems to encompass a film from almost every genre. Although more off-kilter than that other famous genre-hopping auteur Stanley Kubrick, Winterbottom is equally adept at crossing the various cinematic divides. If Code 46 was his sci-fi, 9 Songs his, er. . . romance, and A Cock and Bull Story his comedy, then – equally tenuously – Genova could well be his supernatural chiller.

Genova opens with Marianne (the ubiquitous Hope Davis) a young married mother driving a car with her two daughters passengers in the front and back. She is playing happily with her youngest but is paying scant regard to the road. Unsurprisingly, this soon results in an accident which leaves the two daughters traumatised but unhurt and Marianne thoroughly dead. Father Joe, played with typical British stoicism by Colin Firth, subsequently accepts a position at a university in Genova from his friend Barbara (Catherine Keener) and whisks daughters Mary and Kelly away from the overbearing sympathy of family and friends for a new start in an exotic location.

Genova is right from the get-go a Michael Winterbottom film. His trademark tonalities and natural, kinetic camerawork are in abundance throughout; every shot looks like it could have been made on a home video camera or could be taken from the eyes of a person walking down the street right behind the main characters. Through this approach, he creates strong emotional ties and an intimate sense of family – building genuine empathy with his audience that only serves to heighten the impact of the more heartfelt grief scenes and the supernatural elements.

The film packs a real emotional punch as a snapshot of a family dealing with a trauma and trying to move on with their lives. The focus is not on shouty scenes, set-tos and long emotional walks along rainy windswept coastlines with a bottle of whiskey in hand. The film instead acknowledges the scale of personal loss, recognising that something like the death of a family member is simply too big for the cinema screen. It chooses to focus on the impact of loss on the minutiae of the family itself. Genova depicts a young family that has become lost. Each member is lost in their own way, Joe within himself and his work, Kelly within hedonism and discovering her sexuality and Mary, rather chillingly, lost in trauma, guilt and the city.

Examining aspects such as trauma and guilt, Genova is a film that, on many levels, functions as a ghost story. The youngest daughter, Mary, is the prime focus of this aspect of the film. She is the most damaged (at least outwardly) and because she is the youngest. Like countless ghost, horror and supernatural films before it, Genova uses the age-old device of a child to create tension and discomfort. The child is the figure of innocence that can be turned on its head for evil purposes (Children of the Corn, The Omen etc) but also a figure that we naturally want to protect. Genova uses this typical horror trope, creating a connection with Mary and then using our desire for her wellbeing against us. Seeing her screaming for her mother in her sleep and crying uncontrollably is unsettling and upsetting, and while the appearance of Marianne’s ghost is seemingly a comfort to Mary, we know that it can only be a bad thing – either as a signifier of her mental trauma or as some intimidating otherworldly presence. Mary seems as deeply traumatised by the death of a family member as Julie Christie was way back in Don’t Look Now, both of them travelling to foreign places to escape the trauma of bereavement but neither of them being capable of escaping their own feelings of culpability.

Indeed Genova shares other similarities with Don’t Look Now in its recreation of the city as a self. Genova is a simulacra in a sense; it exists as another reality - a place that functions as a means of escape and also the means of totally losing oneself. It acts as a metaphor for grief in Winterbottom’s film, a deeply unsettling place with narrow streets that all look alike, full of falling plates of glass, strange men and incomprehensible dialects. Genova is monstrous in its benign indifference, like death itself, and the family must learn to live in and with it.

A palpable feeling of unease seems to come in and out of the film, which unfortunately lends it an uneven and unbalanced identity. On the one hand, we have a tremendously uncomfortable scene where Joe is searching for Mary in an ever increasing state of panic after a trip to the beach gone wrong; on the other, we see him teaching his students or watching Kelly perform a heart-warming piano recital. While juxtaposing these different elements paints an expressionistic portrait of a family, it doesn’t really help with the overall feel of the film, which seems at times to be at odds with itself. It doesn’t seem to be able to decide if it's a study in grief, a portrayal of redemption and self-discovery, or a deeply unsettling mood piece.

The film undoubtedly functions effectively within all three modes, but the supernatural elements are its strongest suit. It comes up trumps with Marcel Zyskind’s cinematography, which is almost Blair Witch-like as it follows the disparate family members in their bewildering stumbles throughout Genova, the city of their grief. Kelly’s P.O.V. as she flies across the city on the back of the scooter without a helmet is beautifully captured, evoking the transience of life and of the city itself, making us wonder if she will fall off and if she even cares at all.

Genova is by no means an easy watch but it's certainly an intriguing one, in which supernatural undertones underpin thoughtful emotional content that really hits home at times. The performances are uniformly excellent: especially from Willa Holland, who is so jaw-droppingly attractive that she easily steals the show from a criminally underused Catherine Keener. Winterbottom purists won’t be disappointed by this showing but others might want to look towards something that isn’t suffering from such an identity crisis.

El Niño Pez

2009-05-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

¿Cuál es el proceso que lleva a la creación de una leyenda? Alrededor de este pregunta la directora argentina Lucía Puenzo escribió con tan sólo 23 años su primera novela. El viernes, nueve años más tarde, El niño pez, la adaptación al cine de su propio libro, inauguró la sección Panorama Special (fuera de concurso) de la Berlinale. Tras el éxito de XXY, que ganó el Gran Premio del Jurado en Cannes en 2007, el segundo largometraje de la directora argentina ha causado reacciones enfrentadas en su proyección.

La del niño pez es una leyenda que la joven Ailín, empleada paraguaya de una familia aristocrática de Buenos Aires, se inventa para superar un trauma de su adolescencia. Pero también es un hilo que une en una atormentada historia de amor a la empleada y a Lala, la hija de la familia argentina de su misma edad.

A partir de estas premisas, la película se va transformando a lo largo de una hora y media desde el relato de un amor homosexual a un road movie entre Buenos Aires y Asunción para terminar en un thriller con tiroteos y fuga desde la cárcel. Toca temas tan distintos como una relación lesbiana que se consume a escondidas, el incesto, la corrupción policial, los conflictos generacionales y hasta el entrenamiento de perros.

Energía en el escenario
El público de la sección Panorama suele estar compuesto por cinéfilos que no se cortan en salir de la sala a los diez minutos de película si algún detalle no les convence o en atacar con preguntas cínicas a directores y actores en el debate posterior.

En el caso de El niño pez, la reacción fue doble. Varias personas dejaron la sala, aunque al final hubo un aplauso prolongado. La crueldad de las preguntas fue anulada por el carisma de Puenzo, energía pura en el escenario: contesta en modo preciso, completo y divertido.

"Para adaptar la película tuve que liberarme de todo lo literario", explica Puenzo después del debate. "Y para lograrlo fue necesario sacrificar el punto de vista", que originariamente era el del perro Serafín. "En este proceso el género se impuso y la película se hizo más densa y más oscura".

Según Puenzo, el montaje fue la fase decisiva de su obra, ya que fue en este momento cuando encontró el "estallido" que andaba buscando. En la película revertió el orden cronológico de la versión literaria: "El filme arranca con la huida, momento en el que la protagonista Lala toma conciencia de sus acciones", y así empuja "a que el espectador reconstruya con ella los acontecimientos que la han llevado al viaje".

Un Conte De Noel

2009-05-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

Arnaud Desplechin makes movies that play like epic novels built out into live-sized pop-up books. Virtually Cubist in their multi-faceted narrative complexity, they cast such a spell that they’re almost interactive. When you watch a Desplechin film, you can smell perfume and feel bass shaking a room, and you feel the burden of each character’s long-simmering loves and resentments as if they were your own. Beyond surround sound, it’s surround space, surround time, surround life.

A Christmas Tale (Un Conte de Noel), Desplechin’s latest, is a darkly comic dysfunctional family fairy tale, more Meet Me In Saint Louis than The Royal Tenenbaums, with a healthy dose of A Midsummer Night’s Dream thrown in. With its whimsies and excesses playing out under the oddly liberating spectre of expected death, the whole thing is infused with a fin de siecle sensibility. While ailing matriarch is Junon Vuillard (Catherine Deneuve) infuriatingly matter-of-fact regarding what may be her own last holiday (she explains the seriousness of her condition to her husband in their warmly-lit budoir, backed by the strains of cafe jazz), her grown-up kids reflexively take the reminder of the ticking clock as an opportunity for boozy, reckless revelry, as an excuse to fight and to stop fighting repressed desires. Weird, warm, gleefully funny and unavoidably heartrending, this grand tale of a family reunited by mortality is, in it’s most impressive trick, not a bit morose. To borrow a line from Desplechin himself, speaking after a screening at the New York Film Festival, the Vuillards “don’t have time for melancholy”; to borrow a line from his script, “suffering is a painted backdrop” for the business of getting through the day.

Via a prologue heavy with flashback shadow puppets giving way to direct camera address, we learn that Junon and husband Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon) lost a child to cancer forty years earlier when a bone marrow donor couldn’t be found; at the beginning of the story’s present day, Junon learns she’ll die without the same procedure. And so her adult children and their own lovers and kids are asked to get their marrow tested and then come home to Roubaix. There’s humorless oldest sister Elizabeth (Anne Consigny), a genius playwright; pretty boy Ivan (Melvil Poupaud), who arrives with wife Sylvia and two young sons in tow; and Henri (Mathieu Amalric), the irresistibly charismatic bad seed middle child who Elizabeth “banished” five years earlier under mysterious circumstances. Also on hand for this holiday steeped in wine and old fights: Cousin Simon (Laurent Capelluto), whose life-long crush on Sylvia will require dealing with; Paul (Emile Berling), Elizabeth’s troubled teenage son who may or may not have some sort of psychic sensitivity; and Faunia (Emmanuelle Devos), Henri’s new, “bombshell” Jewish girlfriend, who swallows the rowdy familial scene with a sly smile and bespectacled outsider eyes.

There are layers of in-joke here for the initiated, both snarky and rather sweet. Junon admits that her least favorite houseguest is Sylvia, the motherly but secretly restless wife of Junon’s youngest son Ivan; Sylvia is played by Chiara Mastroianni, Deneuve’s real-life daughter. In Desplechin’s last film, Kings and Queen, Devos played the ex-wife of Amalric’s Ismael Vuillard. Although Desplechin insists that Ismael is no relation to these Vuillards, A Christmas Tale reunites Devos and Amalric as an oil and water romantic unit, as if giving their doomed lovers from Kings the last chance that narrative logic wouldn’t previously let them have. Devos is a sideline character in Christmas, but an important one: her unfathomably calm tolerance of Henri’s uncontrollable impulse for destruction is an emblem of Desplechin’s unique humanism. One doesn’t come to care for a creature of chaos like Henri in spite of their warts and flaws, but because of them.

(It’s worth noting that Amalric is so compelling here that it’s hard to find words that can do the experience of watching him justice, but to even say that is to state something painfully obvious –– I’m not sure there’s any more fun to found in international cinema right at this moment than an Amalric performance in a Desplechin film.)

Desplechin’s pleasure-desperate heroes (often embodied by Amalric) make bad, impulsive decisions, and watching them can touch off a kind of gleeful voyeurism, as if to exclaim, “How can they get away with that?!?” We react this way, probably, because we’re so used to people in movies letting their id take over only to run up against near-instantaneous punishment; we think it’s normal to see adults treated like children when they behave like adults. But in real life, we torture ourselves more often (and more intensely, and more effectively) than we suffer recrimination at the hands of the people we anger or disappoint, and the cycle of self-pity/self-realization/self-flagellation is a long one.

In other words, we get away with it until we don’t, and here Desplechin is cheifly concerned with the giddy high of being In It, with consequences left for sorting out on a longer timeline than the film has in mind. And why not? The Vuillards are a family united by an impending mortality, united in irrationality, passion, casually crippling depression, self-medication. They’re a family where the most sedate member, the fixer, visits his adolescent nephew in a mental ward with booze and smokes in tow. They’re sequestered together in the enchanted space of a slightly crumbly, possibly haunted manse, where no one will ask them to pay for their mistakes until after the holiday. With death on the horizon, Desplechin’s imagined family are liberated to push their lives to the limit, most thrillingly in Amalric’s winking, balls-out bravado. Desplechin pledges solidarity with his chracters by rendering their story via ample, borderline whimsical formal gambles and dizzying montage. A Christmas Tale feels thoroughly like a magic hour scramble. How does he get away with it? Form follows content.

State of Play

2009-05-23T13:28:00.000-07:00

State of Play is a 2009 American political thriller. It is a film adaptation of the critically acclaimed 6-part British television serial State of Play, which first aired on BBC One in 2003. It is directed by Kevin Macdonald and written by Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy, Peter Morgan, and Billy Ray.

The film tells of a journalist's probe into the suspicious death of a Congressman's mistress. Russell Crowe plays the journalist and Ben Affleck plays the Congressman. Support comes from Helen Mirren, Jason Bateman, Robin Wright Penn, Rachel McAdams, and Jeff Daniels. The plot of the six-hour serial has been condensed to fit two hours, and the location changed to Washington, D.C. Macdonald said State of Play is informed by the films of the 1970s, and explores the topical subjects of journalistic independence and the relationship between politicians and the press. It was released in North America on April 17, 2009.

Now that Hollywood has discovered that the key to putting fannies in seats is to make movies based on comic books -- and lots of 'em -- releasing an intelligent adult thriller about the death of newspapers sure seems like a stupid move. Instead of a guy in a latex leotard clinging to the side of a building, we have a chubby, middle-aged newspaper journalist (in this case, Russell Crowe) clinging to his job, not for the money or even for the glory but for the sake of the principles involved. All he wants to do is to get the truth out there, accurately; he's even happy to share a byline with a cub reporter (in this case, Rachel McAdams), as long as the story gets told the right way. Who on earth is going to pay to see that? Especially with no 3-D glasses involved.

Even just three or four years ago, the existence of a reasonably smart adult film like "State of Play" -- which is based on a BBC television series and which was directed by Kevin Macdonald ("Touching the Void," "The Last King of Scotland") -- wouldn't seem so unusual. Today it stands out starkly in a landscape of aggressively ironic comedies, ambitious but lackluster animated pictures and the aforementioned comic-book movies, particularly when beautifully made, unapologetically grown-up thrillers like Tom Tykwer's "The International" fail to find an audience. And as disappointed as I was with Tony Gilroy's too-tricky romantic caper "Duplicity," it did make me nostalgic for pictures aimed at an adult audience that at least make some attempt at style and wit. Maybe "State of Play" (on which Gilroy worked as a writer) is, as those movies turned out to be, just tilting at windmills, another desperately hopeful picture made for a moviegoing audience that no longer exists.

Even if that's the case -- especially if that's the case -- we need more mainstream movies like it. In "State of Play," Russell Crowe's Cal McAffrey is an investigative reporter for the Washington Globe (clearly a stand-in for the Washington Post) who's drawn into a case that affects one of his closest friends, upstanding congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), who's leading the charge against a multibillion-dollar contractor accused of committing atrocities against Iraqi civilians. When a woman who, it becomes clear, is Collins' mistress dies in a subway accident, Cal begins to follow certain threads that don't lead where they should. One of Cal's young colleagues, Della Frye (McAdams), is also chasing down bits of the story, but she's not, in his eyes (or in the movie's), a "real" reporter: Della works for the paper's "online side," as it's rather cavalierly called, and although she's smart and scrappy, she has no qualms about slapping a semi-informed blog post on the paper's site. Cal, seasoned, beaten-down and, like most of his ilk, knowing that his days as a professional journalist are probably numbered, has little respect for her. But his boss (played by Helen Mirren) lays the situation out clearly: "She's hungry, she's cheap, and she churns out copy every hour."

Once Cal starts working more closely with Della, he sees she's smarter and more dedicated than he's given her credit for: It turns out he expects more of her than the paper does, and she rises to the challenge. Because the central idea embedded in "State of Play" isn't "online bad, print good": It's that the craft of journalism has to find a way to survive into the next generation, which wouldn't be such a dire problem if the architecture that supports journalism as we know it weren't crumbling around us by the minute. While "State of Play" is, in some ways, an elegy for the printed newspaper, it's really more of a rallying cry for newspapers to rethink and retool everything, fast. The new house has to be built and ready before the old one crashes to the ground.

It's something of a marvel that Macdonald manages to get those ideas across cinematically in "State of Play" without making them seem forced and heavy-handed. "State of Play" does get a little creaky in its last third -- at that point it needs to be more streamlined, more concise. (Although when Jason Bateman shows up as a player in this sordid little Capitol Hill drama, he injects a fat dose of humor and life into the proceedings, which keeps them from flagging too much.) But Macdonald, the screenwriters (the script was written by Matthew Michael Carnahan, Gilroy and Billy Ray, adapted from Paul Abbott's script for the television series) and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto manage to weave their ideas through a sturdy-enough plot, so we never feel we're being preached to. Macdonald knows how to give filmmaking precision the illusion of being casual. In an early sequence Crowe shows up at a crime scene, and as he's quizzing one of the cops (he's brought an extra cup of coffee to smooth his way into the guy's good graces), Macdonald lowers the sound of the dialogue and brings up the ancillary noise, that of traffic and helicopters: The suggestion is that no matter how important you may think your job is (or how important it actually is), life goes on around you -- it's not about to stop.

Crowe is an extremely gifted actor who not only has hit the age at which leading-man glamour is harder to hang onto; he's also working at a time when leading-man glamour isn't as big a draw as it used to be. In "State of Play," he's a little thicker around the middle, and a bit more lumbering, than usual. His Cal is shaggy and sleep-deprived -- he has the look of a guy who keeps forgetting to shower. Crowe's lack of vanity is perhaps its own kind of vanity; you might call it bad grooming used as an actor's tool. But the effect works. Cal wears his seriousness and fortitude like a shield, even though he knows his profession is facing defeat. He shows some ragged tenderness, too, particularly in his scenes with Stephen's wife -- he's been friends with the couple for years -- played by Robin Wright Penn.

But Cal's contentious interplay with Della is the movie's backbone, and McAdams meets the challenge admirably. She makes Della both likable and frustrating. She's got all the raw materials a good journalist needs; the problem is that no one has taken the time to clue her in to the delicate ins and outs of the profession. Or to the fact that, sometimes, getting the story right just takes time and legwork. McAdams is capable of showing both chipper cluelessness and burgeoning insightfulness. When she and Cal start working together seriously on their story, he assigns her to what she perceives as a lesser task and grumbles, thinking he's patronizing her. Actually, he is -- but the greater idea, which she's sharp enough to pick up on, is that the seemingly tiny parts of a story often expand to be crucial ones.

When Cal and Della finally have their story ready -- and they don't run with it until they're certain it is ready, which is yet another suggestion that "State of Play" takes place in a movie dream world instead of the real, contemporary one -- he suggests that they put it up right away, that night, online. Della responds with a line that struck me as almost laughably corny when I heard it, although the reality is that it stuck me like a pin: "When people read this story, they should have newsprint on their hands."

Yes, they should, although they probably won't: Even though Cal and Della run their story in the print edition, the truth is that most of the people who read it, even in this movie dream world, will probably do so online. The movie's closing credits show a newspaper being lovingly produced, and the sequence is visual poetry: We see the plates being made, and the paper running off the presses sheet by sheet. That's already a quaint image of days gone by, and the movie knows it. "State of Play" is a work motivated by fear, not nostalgia. It's less concerned with the idea of saving newspapers as we know them than it is with the notion that serious investigative journalism has to survive, in pixels if not in print. The trick is to save it before the presses stop running for good.

Transylvania

2009-03-30T11:49:00.000-07:00

With a title like Transylvania and the presence of dark princess Asia Argento, you could have expected gothic vampires and a lot of blood getting sucked, but Gypsy Director Tony Gatlif prefers to take us on a harsh road trip.

Music, as a symbol of life, is the real theme of Transylvania, which follows Zingana (Asia Argento), a disturbed and pregnant girl who travels to Transylvania to find the father of her child, a musician, and whom, after being abandoned, wanders like a homeless until she meets another lost soul who takes her under his protection

Asia Argento (Scarlet Diva, Marie-Antoinette, XXX) is incandescent here, as she often is, and she carries this film on her shoulders, exhibiting madness, strength and fragility at the same time. There isn't much happening, the filmmaker mostly focusing on the emotional journey of his characters. While the setting is pretty basic, the film is however pretty intense, taking your guts with its roughness.

Music is omnipresent, officiating as a thread that leads the characters to their destiny. The folkloric songs symbolize hope and happiness and should only been used as positive energy, a stated by a group of musicians toward the end. Obviously the association of music and gypsies isn't far from the universe of Emir Kusturia (Life is a Miracle), and one can regret that the film, which is also in the continuity of Gatlif's Exiles, lacks originality. But if you're into these kinds of tough emotional and psychological foreign fares, Transylvania is certainly for you, and it was one of my favorite films at AFI Festival where I saw it.

Still Life

2009-03-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

Jia Zhangke (simplified Chinese: 贾樟柯; traditional Chinese: 賈樟柯; pinyin: Jiǎ Zhāngkē) (born 1970 in Fenyang, China) is a Chinese film director. He is generally regarded as a leading figure of the "Sixth Generation" movement of Chinese cinema, a group that also includes such figures as Wang Xiaoshuai and Zhang Yuan.[1]

Jia's early films, a loose trilogy based in his home province of Shanxi, were made underground and outside of China's state-run film bureaucracy. Beginning in 2004, Jia's status in his own country was raised when he was allowed to direct his fourth feature film, The World with state approval.

Jia's films treat themes of alienated youth, contemporary Chinese history and globalization, as well as his signature usage of the long-take, colorful digital video and his minimalist/realist style. The World, in particular, with its portrayal of gaudy theme park filled with recreations of foreign landmarks is often noted for its critique of globalization of China.[21][22]

Jia's work speaks to a vision of "authentic" Chinese life, and his consistent return to the themes of alienation and disorientation fly in the face of the work of older filmmakers who present more idealized understandings of Chinese society.

Critics have noted that whereas "Fifth Generation" filmmakers such as Zhang Yimou churn out export-friendly and lushly-colored wuxia dramas, Jia, as a "Sixth Generation" filmmaker, rejects the idealization of these narratives in favor of a more nuanced style. His films, from Xiao Wu and Unknown Pleasures to Platform and The World, eschew the son et lumière that characterizes so many contemporary Chinese exports. But the films' recurrent and reflexive use of "pop" motifs ensure that they are more self-aware than the similarly documentarian Chinese films of Jia's Sixth Generation peers.

Still Life (Chinese: 三峡好人; pinyin: Sānxiá hǎorén; literally "Good people of the Three Gorges") is a 2006 Chinese film directed by Jia Zhangke. Shot in the old village of Fengjie, a small town on the Yangtze River which is slowly being destroyed by the building of the Three Gorges Dam, Still Life tells the story of two people in search of their spouses. Still Life is a co-production between the Shanghai Film Studio and Hong Kong-based Xstream Pictures.[1]

The film premiered at the 2006 Venice Film Festival and was a surprise winner of the Golden Lion Award for Best Film.[2] The film would premiere at a handful of other film festivals, and would receive a limited commercial release in the United States on January 18, 2008 in New York City.

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Sometimes film festival juries actually get it right. Jia Zhangke has been making films for ten years, but, until now, a major festival prize (from the “big three” of Cannes, Venice, and Berlin) has eluded him. Finally, though, the Golden Lion bestowed in Venice on his newest feature Still Life acknowledges what students of international cinema already knew: Jia is one of the leading filmmakers of our time. His works advance the art of cinema in ways that are dazzlingly innovative, while also being precisely attuned to the radical new demands of 21st century society. Each of Jia’s films articulates an abstract structure of time and space, and a more sensual structure of feeling, through which we can see and feel our way to coming to grips with a new, changing world.

Prizes have little intrinsic values: the sales agents, distributors, critics, and the worldwide festival system together create an economy of cinema as marketable international luxury commodities, whose circulation and valorization are ratified and sustained by festival awards. I would rather set “prize-ability” against what Jia has accomplished with Still Life. This new film signifies an implicit refusal to participate in that particular economy, one that his most recent films, culminating in the international success The World (2004), have seemed more and more willing to integrate themselves into. The spectacle, the flash, the internationalized film language of The World (Jia’s first “official” film) made it as internationally distributable as a serious product of the Chinese independent film world could be, but at the cost of shifting the balance away from independence and toward easy consumption.

Still Life doesn’t play to the audience: it’s more tough, complex, dense, allusive, and mysterious, than any feature Jia has made to date. Like most of his feature films, Still Life presents characters on some sort of quest. Both main characters Sanming (Han Sanming, who played the same character in 2000’s Platform and The World) and Shen Hong (Zhao Tao) are searching for absent spouses. Coal miner Sanming’s wife left him 16 years ago, and he’s only just now travelled from his native Shanxi province to find her at her former home, the town of Fengjie, located on the Yangtze River in Sichuan province, just upstream from the giant Three Gorges Dam project. When Sanming discovers that the address his wife left him has now been flooded by the rising reservoir project—as has much of Fengjie—he decides to stay and wait for her, and gets a job with a demolition crew hammering the city to bits in advance of its imminent flooding.

Shen Hong is looking for her husband, who disappeared only two years ago to work in a factory in the Fengjie area. She seems to want her husband back, and finds an old colleague of his, Dongming (Jia regular Wang Hongwei), to help. When she eventually finds her husband, she tells him that she has a lover and that she wants a divorce. Sanming, on the other hand, does want his wife to return, and especially wants to see his daughter whom he has never met. We eventually find that he purchased his wife, who was abducted, probably by marriage brokers, and forcibly sent to live with him in Shanxi. Though he doesn’t find his daughter, in the end he meets his wife, and the possibility is raised that she might return to him in the future if he can raise enough money to pay her family’s debts.

Laying out a plot description this way is a bit misleading. Though there seems to be the outline of a well-behaved narrative—actually, two narratives, in which characters try to solve problems, proceeding chronologically towards a late climax and resolution—storytelling seems beside the point as you watch it. Narrative expectations are constantly thwarted: information is presented piecemeal, out of order, or elided completely; the climaxes are downbeat, purified of affect, and seemingly empty sections of time acquire the most weight.

Jia’s camera has two key preoccupations: physical bodies and landscapes. The bodies are male, copiously presented, and frequently half nude. This is something completely new in Jia’s work. His camera slowly, repeatedly, pans over groups of ruddy skinned workers as they rest, eat, play, or hammer away at the infrastructure of Fengjie that they are slowly pounding into rubble. These tableaux of bare-chested men are not movie-beautiful: they are natural, tough, work-honed bodies, with a tangible sense of weight, of taking up space, containing a wiry potential for endless physical labour. One might even detect something like an eroticized gaze in the film’s obsessive, close, lingering pans.

Landscapes are treated in a remarkably similar way: long, slow, 180-degree pans that turn vast fields of rubble, waste, and half-decayed, soon-to-be-demolished buildings into epic tableaux. In style, these images seem partially derived from traditional Chinese scroll painting, but have nothing to do with them in content. It is precisely the spectacular ugliness of the physical devastation of the urban environment around the Three Gorges that captures the camera’s gaze: an anti-still life that monumentalizes destruction, giving it an awful, sublime grandeur normally reserved for scenes of natural beauty.

It is precisely in the intersection of these two obsessive imageries that the film generates its own particular beauty: namely that of bodies walking through wastelands. Both main characters pick their way, without comment, through this post-disaster landscape, two individual lives persisting within an absolutely inhospitable environment. One of the things the film celebrates is this miracle of human persistence: how the necessary—survival—trumps the impossible.

Miracles are on offer, too, in a wry, understated mode. Jia offers visions of flight and some strange magic. An impossibly shaped building takes off like a rocket before the men with the hammers can get to it. A flying object streaks before Sanming’s and Shen Hong’s eyes: Is it some embodiment of their need to move through impossible barriers, their ability to imagine how to change their worlds? They never meet, but an angel ties them together: a young singing boy who smokes and strolls in and out of their worlds, singing at the top of his voice. In the end, another symbolic linkage: a high-wire artist appears, in the distance, suspended between two buildings that are destined no doubt to topple over some time soon.

Still Life incorporates a complex symbolic system that suggests possible meanings without fixing them definitively. Most prominently displayed are the set of four ambiguous symbols of consumption and enjoyment that the film underlines with titles onscreen: cigarettes, wine, tea, and candy. They stand in as replacements for the standard four household items (fuel, rice, cooking oil, and salt) that represent the daily necessities of life in a set Chinese expression. Jia’s update replaces survival with pleasures, even addictions. Those looking to find support for an ambivalent interior critique of the concomitant pleasures and dangers of turning cinema itself into a series of tantalizingly consumable items could do worse than start here.

That high-wire act is another symbol, one of a series of spectacular linking images that includes the new suspension bridge over the Yangtze lit spectacularly by order of an official for his assembled VIPs. The Three Gorges Dam itself appears at the end of Shen Hong’s story, both linking and separating the two sections of the river: the massive upstream reservoir with its disappearing strata of devastation and the downstream section leading to Shanghai. This ambivalent signifier of construction/destruction serves as an ironic backdrop to Shen’s announcement that she herself is leaving her husband. The physical landscape seems just as much in need of sustaining connections as the characters we see wandering through it.

The image of the Dam raises a whole set of political issues contained within the film, a social critique that works much more powerfully on an abstract level than as a direct commentary on the long-lived debated over the Three Gorges project. That the film was approved by the Film Bureau for exhibition in China is quite an achievement for Jia and his co-producers the Shanghai Film Studio. The film implies that the Fengjie Relocation Office is a gathering place for local thugs, who, organized by goon contractor Mark (a charismatic Chow Yun-fat worshipper with a gangster’s swagger), and at the behest of local demolition officials, beat up poorly compensated residents of local apartments who are not moving out quickly enough. This nexus of official corruption, massive property theft, and gangster muscle is well known throughout China, but displaying it even glancingly onscreen, in a film going into Chinese movie theatres in December, is rather unexpected. It’s also notable that censors allowed the scene at the Dam to pass (I don’t think marriage breakups are the sort of activity party officials imagined threir monumental structure serving as a cinematic backdrop for). Chinese press reaction to the Venice win was predictable, universally lionizing Jia as the latest exponent of national pride and then deftly subsuming him into the pantheon of contemporary cultural heroes.

On the screen, Still Life offers an unusual kind of beauty, both astringent and monumental. This beauty is mediated through images that are distinctly video in origin (HD, but video all the same). It’s there in the crispness of line, in the almost brutal sense of contrast between hot whites and dim blacks. We are far from the lush HD images of The World, the degraded medium definition video of Unknown Pleasures (2002), the classical 35mm palette of Platform, or the 16mm indie grunge of Xiao Wu (1997). There are trade-offs, obviously, in a filmmaker’s choice of medium today. What Still Life gains is precisely the shock of truth. Its “video-ness” suggests an immediate, direct transcription of reality that challenges the viewer in what can only be described as an ontological way. Look at what reality is; look deeply into the way things actually exist, the film seems to be demanding. At the same time, it denies the processed, aestheticized pleasure of much of today’s mainstream art cinema.

Jia shot Still Life in some of the same locations and at the same time as the documentary Dong and the relationship between the two is provocative. Dong records the painter Liu Xiaodong as he prepares two large-scale works, one of half-naked male workers in Fengjie lounging with the river as a backdrop, the second of female entertainment workers in Bangkok lounging en deshabille amidst fruits and furniture. In Dong, we are supposed to be seeing documentary truth, as the artist Liu paints real people in a real place. But Sanming is in Dong, as are some of the other characters from the movie. Yet he is not really a worker in Fengjie, he only plays one in Still Life. So what is he doing in Dong? Similarly, shots are shared between the two films: the creepy disinfectant team in their moon suits, the bare-chested men hammering in syncopated rhythms at the city ruins, the collapsing wall of one wrecked building.

As Jia maps it, cinema does not divide neatly into fiction and documentary. Dong creates a subjective world, as much inside the mind of the artist Liu as outside in objective space. Still Life digs deep to reveal an underlying reality, mobilizing sophisticated formal strategies to create images of truth. These same strategies demand—or, rather, construct, during the process of watching—viewers who are ready to watch, absorb, and feel this vision. It is a vision of a man-made hell, of the monumental and limitless destruction left behind by a society rushing to tear up its foundations and gut its history. And it is a vision of embodied resistance—an individual, physical resilience that can spark an impossible, miraculous, but tangible hope in a world that seems to offer none.

The Visitor

2009-03-23T16:10:00.000-07:00

The Visitor is a 2008 American drama film written and directed by Thomas McCarthy. The screenplay focuses on a lonely man in late middle age whose life changes when he is forced to face issues relating to identity, immigration, and cross-cultural communication in post-9/11 New York City.

Walter Vale is a widowed Connecticut College economics professor who lives a fairly solitary existence. He fills his hours by taking piano lessons with Karen in an effort to emulate his late wife, a classical concert pianist, and works on a new book, although his efforts at both are not producing encouraging results. When he is asked to present a paper at an academic conference at New York University, he hesitates to comply, given he is only the nominal co-author and never even read it. Charles, his department head, persists, and Walter is forced to attend.

When he arrives at the apartment he maintains in Manhattan, he is startled to discover a young unmarried couple living there, having rented it from a swindler who claimed it was his. They are Tarek, a Syrian djembe player, and Zainab, a Senegalese designer of ethnic jewelry, and both are illegal immigrants. Although they have no place to go, they hastily pack and leave, but Walter follows them and persuades them to return. Over the next few days, a friendship slowly develops. Tarek teaches Walter to play the drum, and the two men join a group of others at an impromptu drum circle in Central Park.

En route home, Tarek is mistakenly charged with subway turnstile jumping, arrested for failing to pay his fare, and taken to a detention center for illegal immigrants in Queens. In order to prevent Tarek's deportation from the United States, Walter hires an immigration lawyer. Feeling uncomfortable about remaining in the apartment with Walter, Zainab moves out to live with relatives in The Bronx.

Tarek's mother Mouna unexpectedly arrives from her home in Michigan when she is unable to contact her son. Also in the States illegally, she accepts Walter's offer to stay in the apartment, and the two develop a friendship. Walter confesses his life is unfullfilling; he dislikes the single course he has taught for twenty years, and the book he allegedly is writing is nowhere near completion. She reveals her journalist husband died following a lengthy politically-motivated imprisonment in Syria, and she is concerned about her son's future prospects if he is deported. The two begin to share a simple domestic existence, with Mouna preparing meals and Walter treating her to The Phantom of the Opera when she mentions her love for the original cast recording Tarek sent her as a gift.

Without warning, Tarek is summarily deported to Syria, and Mouna decides to follow him. Alone once again, Walter plays his drum on a subway platform, as Tarek once told him he himself would like to do some time.

I just love it when a well-admired character actor gets a shot at a big-time starring role. OK, so maybe the lead role in a low-key character study like McCarthy's The Visitor is not exactly "big time" (as far as Hollywood goes, anyway) -- but if you're familiar with the name and the works of Mr. Richard Jenkins, then you'll be thrilled with what the veteran actor has to offer here. (You might not know the name, but you should definitely remember Richard Jenkins from movies like Flirting with Disaster, The Kingdom, The Witches of Eastwick, and a bunch of Coen and Farrelly brothers films.)

Here Jenkins plays economics professor Walter Vale, a man who is also A) a widower, B) kinda bored / boring, and C) sort of just floating through life without much in the way or happiness or misery. That all changes when the prof is required to hit New York City for a week-long economics conference. (Sounds pretty dry so far, eh?) But when Professor Vale unlocks the door to his seldom-used NYC apartment -- he gets one big surprise.

Turns out that a young couple -- a Syrian guy and a Senegalese woman -- have been living in the apartment, completely unaware that they've been duped by someone called "Ivan." After a few tense moments, the young lovers apologize to Vale, pack up their stuff, and head out into the streets. But while Walter is a slightly morose and somewhat gruff man -- he's also clearly a decent man with a good heart. Rather than have the kids on the street, he invites them back to the apartment.

Thus begins a mellow, laid-back, and entirely satisfying little "people" movie, one that finds the beauty in the small gestures of genorisity: McCarthy finds a lot of beauty in the strangest friendships, and as The Visitor moves into more political areas (Tarek gets tossed into jail for no good reason), the director is careful to let the characters take precedence over the "issues." Obviously the film has a lot to say about the Arab experience in America today, but The Visitor is much more interested in its interpersonal relationships than it is in climbing a soapbox and preaching to the choir. (Icing on the cake: In addition to Jenkins' fantastic performance, newcomer Haaz Sleiman (as Tarek) is really quite excellent.)

The result is a movie with a message, sure, but it works even better as a touching look at a lonely man who finds some warmth, friendship and affection in the most unexpected of places: His own forgotten apartment.

Blindness

2009-03-23T15:50:00.000-07:00

Blindness is a 2008 dramatic thriller film that is an adaptation of the 1995 novel of the same name by José Saramago about a society suffering an epidemic of blindness. The film is written by Don McKellar and directed by Fernando Meirelles with Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo as the main characters. The novel's author originally refused to sell the rights for a film adaptation. The producers were able to acquire it with the condition that the film would be set in an unrecognizable city. Blindness premiered as the opening film at the Cannes Film Festival on May 14, 2008, and the film was released in the United States on October 3, 2008.

Blindness is the story of an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness - known only as the "White Sickness" - afflicting nearly everyone in an unnamed city, and the social breakdown that swiftly follows. The film follows the misfortunes of a handful of characters who are among the first to be stricken and centers on an ophthalmologist (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife (Julianne Moore), several of the doctor’s patients, and assorted others, thrown together by chance. This group bands together in a family-like unit to survive by their wits and by the unexplained good fortune that the doctor’s wife has escaped the blindness. The sudden onset and unexplained origin and nature of the blindness cause widespread panic, and the social order rapidly unravels as the government attempts to contain the apparent contagion and keep order via increasingly repressive and inept measures.

The first part of the film follows the experiences of the central characters in the filthy, overcrowded asylum where they and other blind people have been quarantined. Hygiene, living conditions, and morale degrade horrifically in a very short period, mirroring the society outside.

Anxiety over the availability of food, caused by delivery irregularities, act to undermine solidarity; and lack of organization prevents the internees from fairly distributing food or chores. Soldiers assigned to guard the asylum and look after the well-being of the internees become increasingly antipathetic as one soldier after another becomes infected. The military refuse to allow in basic medicines, so that a simple infection becomes deadly. Fearing a break out, soldiers shoot down a crowd of internees waiting upon food delivery.

Conditions degenerate further, as an armed clique gains control over food deliveries, subjugating their fellow internees and exposing them to rape and deprivation. Faced with starvation, internees do battle and burn down the asylum, only to find that the army has abandoned the asylum, after which the protagonists join the throngs of nearly helpless blind people outside who wander the devastated city and fight one another to survive.

The story then follows the doctor and his wife and their impromptu “family” as they attempt to survive outside, cared for largely by the doctor’s wife, who still sees (though she hides this fact at first). The breakdown of society is near total. Law and order, social services, government, schools, etc., no longer function. Families have been separated and cannot find each other. People squat in abandoned buildings and scrounge for food; violence, disease, and despair threaten to overwhelm human coping. The doctor and his wife and their new “family” eventually make a permanent home and are establishing a new order to their lives when one of the men in their group suddenly recovers from his blindness, giving the others hope that the blindness may suddenly lift as quickly and inexplicably as it came.

Cannes 2008 diary: 'Blindness'

Dave Calhoun sees the good and the bad in Fernando Meirelles' 'Blindness', the opening film at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival
Opening the 61st Cannes Film Festival tonight is the world premiere of ‘Blindness’, a slick and murky adaptation of Portuguese writer José Saramago’s allegorical novel about a city which is devastated by a plague of blindness: one by one the citizens of an anonymous metropolis lose their sight and so the government sees fit to quarantine a frightened group of victims in a disused mental hospital.

It’s a contained, theatrical set-up that allows for the interior intensity of a ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ coupled with a ‘Lord of the Flies’ approach to exploring the values and behaviour of a community in crisis.

The film’s ensemble cast features Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Gael García Bernal and Danny Glover and is the fourth feature from Fernando Meirelles, the director of ‘City of God’ and ‘The Constant Gardener’. As you’d expect from Meirelles, ‘Blindness’ is smartly and often impressively directed: he handles intimate and claustrophobic group dynamics with the same dexterity as spooky, empty urban exteriors.

But it’s the script that’s lacking: as a parable for a society – both its working and its failings – ‘Blindness’ works only in fits and starts and relies too much on events and too little on ideas. Ultimately, it’s a film that falls prey to its narrative speed and complexity; as a viewer, one is rarely able to focus on a moment, a scene or a thought and to investigate it for its meaning. There’s no room for meditation, which is a bit of a disaster for a film whose story hinges on the need for society to sit back, take a breath and ‘see’ what it’s doing to itself.

The film with which ‘Blindess’ will suffer most in comparison – if only for its timely proximity in the world of film releases and critical discussion – is Julian Schnabel’s ‘The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly’. Both faced a similar challenge: how to translate to the big screen a sudden physical affliction initially described with all the interior tools of a novel. We know what Schnabel has achieved. The central failing of ‘Blindness’, which on the surface is similarly inventive in its telling and especially its camerawork, is that Meirelles never fully captures the horror of losing ones sight.

Not that Meirelles doesn’t try valiantly to translate the experience to the visual. His characters, first a Japanese man (Yusuke Iseya), then a car thief (Don McKellar, also the film’s writer), then an ophthalmologist (Mark Ruffalo) all experience a bright white light, which we too see, and this same over-exposure isolates characters from their environment in our eyes.

The problem is that no sooner do we begin to share the difficulty of adapting to this new, blind state, than we meet another character and then another and then another… The build-up is to an impending group drama rather than to individual tragedy. Our main focus is Ruffalo’s character and his wife, played by Julianne Moore (who doesn’t lose her sight and ends up being the only sighted person in the asylum), but even their new relationship – him blind, her increasingly a nurse to an extended, suffering family – isn’t given enough time to settle and develop.

There are other, specific issues. There’s a key plot movement that hinges on us believing that one of the ‘patients’, played by Gael García Bernal, is able to inflict a sort of autocracy over the others. This never feels much more than a theoretical contrast with ideas of democracy; put simply, we don’t believe it. Also, early in the film, the selfish tics of those soon to be blinded feel a little obvious. Finally, throughout the film Meirelles puts too much emphasis on emotionally hackneyed scenarios: for example, a scene that indulges in an extended stand-off between Ruffalo and armed guards from the outside.

The idea that the blind can see more deeply than the sighted has been a regular staple of literature all the way back to the Greek tales of the prophet Tiresias. But anyone who has seen Peter Bogdanovich’s soppy ‘Mask’, a tale of a beautiful (blind) young girl at summer camp who falls in love with a boy with a hideously deformed face will know that cinema has a tendency to attribute ridiculous levels of wisdom and purity to the blind.

Make no mistake: Meirelles’ ‘Blindness’ is more sophisticated than that – here, as in Saramago’s novel, the ‘blindness’ of the seeing is more societal than personal – but it’s still not sophisticated enough and finally adds little to the debate. It’s Danny Glover’s permanently blind character to whom Meirelles gives that most all-seeing of roles: the wise and perceptive voiceover (which, I assume, is quoting the novel directly). And, again, it’s Danny Glover, a blind old man, whom we linger on at the end when this long struggle comes to some sort of conclusion.

It seems a little ironic, too, that in the final chapter of the film Meirelles should rely so heavily on the spectacle of empty streets as his blind characters wander the deserted city. We, too, are forced here to see rather than to think.

Gran Torino

2009-03-15T13:55:00.000-07:00

Gran Torino is a 2008 American drama film directed by, produced by, and starring Clint Eastwood. The film marks Eastwood's return to a lead acting role after four years – his last leading role being Million Dollar Baby. The film features a predominantly Hmong cast, as well as Eastwood's younger son, Scott Eastwood. Eastwood's older son, Kyle Eastwood, provided the score. The film opened to theaters in a limited release in North America on December 12, 2008, and later to a wide release on January 9, 2009.

Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood), a retired Polish American Ford automobile assembly line worker and a Korean War veteran, lives with his dog Daisy in a changing Highland Park, Michigan neighborhood which is dominated by immigrants. At his wife's funeral, Walt bristles at the shallow eulogy of young Father Janovich (Christopher Carley). He looks on with disgust at his two sons, Mitch (Brian Haley) and Steve (Brian Howe), and their families, who show little regard for the memory of Walt's wife. Walt views his relations as rude, spoiled, and self-absorbed, always avoiding him unless it is in their own interest.

Walt's teenage Hmong neighbors, a shy Thao (Bee Vang) and his feisty sister Sue Vang Lor (Ahney Her), live with their widowed mother and grandmother. A Hmong gang, led by Thao's older cousin Spider (Doua Moua), tries to persuade Thao to join them. Thao's initiation is to steal Walt's prized car, a 1972 Gran Torino Sport. Walt interrupts the robbery, forcing Thao to flee. After a few days, Spider's gang visits Thao and attempt to assault him. Although his family tries to fend off the gang, the conflict ends when Walt, who fought in the United States Army's 1st Cavalry Division, threatens the gang members with his M1 Garand rifle and orders them to get off his lawn. They leave the neighborhood, telling Walt to watch his back. The Vang Lors thank a grumpy and impatient Walt, who insists he only wanted the "gooks" off his property. When the neighborhood hears what Walt did, they leave him gifts on his porch.

Parlez-moi de la pluie

2009-03-15T13:45:00.000-07:00

Un film écrit et réalisé par le couple Agnès Jaoui / Jean-Pierre Bacri constitue toujours un événement. Parlez-moi de la pluie ne déroge pas à la règle. Comme à leur habitude, ils tiennent le haut de l'affiche avec brio, accompagnés ici d'un étonnant Jamel Debbouze, mais aussi de Pascale Arbillot ou bien encore Florence Loiret Caille, dans un film chorale où différents personnages se réunissent au fin fond du Sud de la France.

Jaoui prête donc ses traits à Agathe Villanova, politicienne féministe, venue rejoindre sa soeur dans la maison de son enfance, afin d'y ranger un certain nombre d'affaires suite au décès de leur mère. Karim, le fils de leur femme de ménage, Mimouna, décide de réaliser, avec son ami Michel Ronsard (Bacri), un documentaire sur la personnalité d'Agathe, et ce, dans le cadre d'une collection sur les femmes qui ont réussi. Chacun va alors se révéler à l'autre, au fur et à mesure des jours qui passent, lors d'un mois d'août plutôt grisâtre voire pluvieux...

Le titre du film fait référence à une chanson d'amour signée Georges Brassens, L'Orage, dont les paroles auront marqué de nombreux esprits ( « Parlez-moi de la pluie et non pas du beau temps, le beau temps me dégoûte et m'fait grincer les dents... »).

A l'image du poète, Parlez-moi de la pluie est donc une oeuvre touchante mais aussi particulièrement drôle. Le sujet du film tourne autour d'un thème ô combien universel et toujours d'actualité, celui de l'injustice, ou de « l'humiliation ordinaire » comme le dit si bien le personnage de Karim. On y retrouve alors le style « Jacri », tant technique qu'artistique. Les longs plans séquence mettent en valeur l'ensemble des comédiens, bien loin des montages américains de plus en plus éprouvants, et servis par des dialogues à la limite de la perfection. Après Indigènes, réalisé par Rachid Bouchareb en 2006, Jamel Debbouze trouve ici un nouveau rôle « adulte », qui montre véritablement l'étendue de tout son talent, dans un registre beaucoup plus sérieux qu'à l'accoutumée.

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-02-15T12:15:00.000-08:00

Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British drama film directed by Danny Boyle, co-directed by Loveleen Tandan,[3] and written by Simon Beaufoy. It is an adaptation of the Boeke Prize-winning and Commonwealth Writers' Prize-nominated novel Q and A (2005) by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup.

Set and filmed in India, Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of a young man from the slums of Mumbai who appears on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (Kaun Banega Crorepati, mentioned in the Hindi version) and exceeds people's expectations, arousing the suspicions of the game show host and of law enforcement officials.

After screenings at the Telluride Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival, Slumdog Millionaire initially had a limited North American release on 12 November 2008 by Fox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, to critical acclaim and awards success, and later had a nationwide release in the United States on 23 January 2009[4] and in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2009. It premiered in Mumbai on 22 January 2009.[5]

Slumdog Millionaire won five Critics' Choice Awards, four Golden Globes and seven BAFTA Awards, including Best Film, and has been nominated for ten Academy Awards. The film is also the subject of controversy concerning its portrayal of India and Hinduism as well as the welfare of its child actors.

Danny Boyle's well-earned reputation as one of Britain's most versatile directors will be further cemented by his latest feature, a distinct change of tack from his recent films such as Sunshine and 28 Days Later. Based on Vikas Swarup's best selling novel, Q&A, and adapted for the screen by Full Monty scriptwriter Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire is a vibrant, modern love story set and shot in India. Jamal Malik, an 18-year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's Who Wants to be a Millionaire. But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating: how could a 'slumdog' know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life – tales of the Juhu slum where and his brother Salim grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each picaresque episode holds the key to the answer of one of the game show's questions.

Intrigued by Jamal's story, the jaded Police Inspector begins to wonder what a young man with no apparent desire for riches is doing on the show. The revelation of Jamal's story, and the role of television in it, are fascinating and funny, and are well served by Boyle's confident direction, which brings an energetic, contemporary feel. The kinetic, visceral flashbacks to Jamal's life on the streets are stunningly composed and beautifully atmospheric, and exquisitely photographed by Anthony Dod Mantle. The cast brings together the acting talents of Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor and international cinema's highly regarded Irrfan Khan (The Warrior, A Mighty Heart) and marks the first big screen roles for British actor Dev Patel (Skins) and newcomer Freida Pinto. Neatly balancing humour and drama, and making inventive use of its eclectic, multi-cultural soundtrack, this European Premiere of Slumdog Millionaire promises to bring the festival to an upbeat, cheering close.

Doubt

2009-02-15T12:14:00.000-08:00

Written and directed by John Patrick Shanley, Doubt, adapted for the screen, stars Oscar winners Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep, and is supported by Oscar nominee, Amy Adams. Set in the early 1960’s at a Catholic elementary school in the Bronx, Father Flynn (Hoffman), a charismatic priest, is attempting to modernize the school’s Catholic customs – strictly enforced by the rigid Sister Aloysius (Streep). Struggling to fit in as the school’s first black student, Donald Miller, takes a particular liking to Father Flynn – a liking that is certainly reciprocated. Suspicious, and confident in her certainty regarding the true whereabouts of their relationship, Sister Aloysius embarks on a relentless mission to eliminate Fr. Flynn, and restore order in her community.

Unlike most films, Doubt lacks the conventional series of climatic turning points that peak a story. Fr. Flynn never gets caught in a graphic rape scene with Donald, leaving everyone heartbroken ad nauseas – However, the eerie, suspenseful tone of the score, and subtle shots of sneaky exchanges between the priest and boy alluding to inappropriate behavior keeps the film extremely engaging, and the viewers on the edge of their seats. The audience never actually witnesses a crime committed or a verbal confession from Fr. Flynn. This not only forces the audience to read between the lines, but keeps them from forming judgments about the characters until the film has ended.

Streep’s story line carries the film, and ultimately serves as the film’s final payoff. A woman dedicated to maintaining order and honoring tradition, is forced to challenge her religious vows in order to restore peace in her community. Could a woman so confident in her faith, admit to experiencing doubt? The film shows that regardless of how committed someone can be to a particular way of life - in order to truly stick to the books, you might have to bend the rules.

Doubt is entirely character driven, giving Hoffman and Streep yet another opportunity for critically acclaimed performances. Their scenes are fiercely committed, screaming Oscar nominations from start to finish. Doubt requires an audience to be in a very specific mood - which may stifle is appeal to a broad audience. But if you’re in the mood for some of the best acting of the year - spend the ten bucks.

Camino

2009-02-15T11:23:00.000-08:00

Camino. España. 2008. 143 minutos. Dirección: Javier Fesser. Con: Nerea Camacho, Carmen Elías, Mariano Venancio, Manuela Vellés.

Es tan peculiar el tercer largometraje de Javier Fesser, que no sólo otorga a sus anteriores El milagro de P. Tinto (1998) y La gran aventura de Mortadelo y Filemón (2003) valores retrospectivos. Además, su evidente irregularidad suma en vez de restar, al ser fruto de una ambición técnica y artística inusual en el panorama del cine español.

Porque Camino es más que la invectiva notoria contra una secta capaz de transformar los sufrimientos de una enferma terminal en sostén ideológico de sus delirios. Es más que el emotivo retrato de las ilusiones rotas de una adolescente y los juegos de poder en el seno de una familia. Es más que la película de terror enigmático que se atisba en algunos momentos (no por casualidad registrados en el seno de la ficción por una cámara); terror que deriva de la imposibilidad de concretar cauces expresivos para tanto dolor, tantos errores y tanto desamparo existencial.

Camino constituye sobre todo, y en este aspecto adquieren importancia primordial los efectos digitales y las escenas imaginarias que muchos han denostado, la evidencia de que entre tantos girasoles ciegos, cobardemente sumisos al registro físico y átono de imágenes, uno se ha atrevido a alzar la mirada para sonsacarle a lo real lecturas más significativas. Lástima que Fesser prefiera tener como modelo a Jean Pierre Jeunet antes que a David Fincher. Aunque, quién sabe si eso no podría cambiar.

SAN SEBASTIÁN.- Aunque Javier Fesser no considera haber cambiado su esencia cinematográfica, ha sorprendido el giro al melodrama de su película 'Camino', ambientada en el entorno del Opus Dei y que el Festival de Cine de San Sebastián ha proyectado en su Sección Oficial junto a la canadiense 'Maman est chez le coiffeur'.

Tras salir airoso de comedias como 'El milagro de P. Tinto' o 'La gran aventura de Mortadelo y Filemón', Javier Fesser aduce a la pasión que arrastra la historia de 'Camino' para adoptar un nuevo lenguaje en su cine, "que es el que requería" este cuento de amor y de muerte inspirado sólo en parte en la historia real de Alexia González-Barros, según ha explicado el director.

La hija menor de una familia integrante del Opus Dei falleció en 1985 a los 14 años de edad tras una dolorosa enfermedad y actualmente está en proceso de canonización.

Ella sirve de punto de partida para retratar a una niña de 11 años a la que se intenta inculcar el placer de la redención a través del dolor, en esta cinta que llega a las salas españolas el próximo 17 de octubre y que se ha hecho "desde el respeto y sin ambigüedades", ha defendido Fesser ante los medios.

En los sueños de Camino, rodados con la ambición visual de sus anteriores trabajos, se conectan elementos contradictorios; la presión que ejercen sobre ella los dogmas impuestos por su familia y los sentimientos incontrolables que nacen en su interior, al enamorarse de Jesús, aunque, para desgracia de su madre, no del hijo de Dios sino de un niño de su misma edad.
Así Fesser plantea a una especie de 'Alicia' que huye de su desgarrador destino a través de un espejo onírico y catártico, tutelada por una mujer cuya devoción parece mantener bajo control al más visceral de los sentimientos, el maternal.

El personaje de la madre, interpretado por Carmen Elías es el más definido del relato y a su vez el que aporta la universalidad buscada por Fesser, gracias al trabajo común con la actriz, que tuvo que trabajar "con el guión como enemigo, ya que sobre el papel, es fácil sentir rechazo por esa madre".

Valkyrie

2009-02-07T12:44:00.000-08:00

In the film Valkyrie, Tom Cruise plays Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, the man who, on 20 July 1944, placed a bomb next to Hitler in his east Prussian headquarters, the Wolf's Lair. The bomb failed to kill Hitler, merely blowing his trousers to ribbons. That night, when the coup was seen to have failed, Stauffenberg was shot in the courtyard of the army headquarters in Berlin on the orders of General Fromm, his superior, who was in on the plot and hoped - in vain - to save himself. Sandbags were piled in the courtyard and the lights of staff cars illuminated the victims. Von Haeften, his aide, threw himself in front of Stauffenberg. He and two others were also shot that night and their bodies quickly buried. Stauffenberg died with the words "Long live our sacred Germany" on his lips, or perhaps - some heard - "Long live our secret Germany". In German, there is even less difference between the words "sacred" and "secret" than there is in English.

The producers of Valkyrie have muffled his last words; the story behind secret Germany does not figure in their script, but they were clearly aware of its significance. Within a few weeks, 80 plotters had been executed in Plötzensee prison by slow strangulation, hung from meathooks; in all, at least 3,000 were killed and many children, including Stauffenberg's, were taken from their families and placed in orphanages. Many of those executed were from Germany's most distinguished families, people who, like Stauffenberg, were appalled by the direction Germany had taken, both in relation to the Jews and to the disastrous war in the east.

The film is true to most of the facts of the plot, but fails to convey any sense of the catastrophic moral and political vortex into which Germans were being drawn. Nor does it give much sense of the immense charisma of Stauffenberg, to whom generals and politicians deferred and who had for some time been tipped as a future chief of staff. A revealing private memoir I was given, which describes a visit shortly before the bomb plot by Stauffenberg to one of the other resister's houses, suggests that the female staff were sent into paroxysms of adoration by the wounded hero. And the film gives no indication at all of Stauffenberg's background and philosophy: he fitted perfectly into the German tradition of Dichter und Helden, poets and heroes. For a start, he looked the part, tall with classical features; he was often compared to a medieval statue of a knight in the cathedral at Bamberg, his home town, and his wedding in this cathedral in 1933 to Nina von Lerchenfeld was a huge social event. Even Hitler believed that Stauffenberg was the embodiment of a German hero.

So when the generals failed in their plots against Hitler - there were as many as 15 of them - someone was needed to head the disparate but substantial resistance, which extended from the army into the Foreign Office, the secret services and to important clerics and trade unionists. Stauffenberg was persuaded by his uncle, Nikolaus Graf von Üxküll, long disenchanted with the Nazis, that he should lead the movement. It seemed that he was the man who unmistakably wore the mantle of a near-mystic German past, a warrior Germany, a noble Germany, a poetic Germany, a Germany of myth and longing.

There is nothing in the script or in Cruise's performance that explores these particularly German preoccupations. At times Cruise looks and sounds like the troublesome cop who has been given a tricky assignment, with 24 hours to get the bad guy before he has to hand in his badge: the assassination attempt is treated as a thriller. It lacks the intelligent understanding that Florian von Donnersmarck brought to The Lives of Others (2006), as people from different backgrounds, and with wildly different ideas of what Germany should become, tried to work together.

Stauffenberg's stroke of genius was to subvert the emergency plan for defending Berlin against insurrection, Valkyrie, into a plan for a putsch after Hitler had been killed. As Hitler became more paranoid, it seemed that Stauffenberg was the only one who had both the access and the resolve to kill him. He was fully aware that the chances of success were slim, but he felt that he needed to demonstrate to the world that there was a better Germany - what he thought of as secret Germany - and perhaps that he was the agent of history.

When I was writing my book The Song Before it is Sung, about a conspirator in the bomb plot, I was puzzled for some time that the British refused to trust the various overtures from the resistance in Germany. Stauffenberg was a close friend and confidant of Adam von Trott, the Rhodes scholar who was also deeply involved in the resistance and executed a few weeks after the July plot. I also pondered the question of why Trott's friend at Oxford, Isaiah Berlin, a magnanimous and generous man, came to distrust him, and I wondered why, 30 years later, he wrote in a letter to Shiela Grant Duff, who knew them both well, saying that Trott was no hero and "not on our side". What he saw, I think, is that in ideas of a mythic German past, and in the belief in a historical destiny, lay the genesis of Nazism.

The idea of a noble Germany, uncorrupted by racial inferiors and alien philosophies, a Germany that would be led by a world figure, was not invented by Hitler. Long before he came along, the simple word Führer - leader - had been turned into something messianic, and I think Berlin knew where the blame lay. During their walks and discussions in Oxford, Berlin often said to Trott that when he was at a loss, he turned to Hegel. Hegel believed, essentially, that history had a forward motion to a point where all contradictions would be resolved.

It is ironic that Stauffenberg's son should have been contemptuous of the notion of Tom Cruise playing his father, on the grounds that he is a cultist, because Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg and his two brothers, Berthold and Alexander, were themselves members of a cult that formed around a mythical secret Germany; their master was the poet Stefan George. George is a sinister figure, but in an American newspaper article of the 1920s he was rated one of the most important men in the world. Hardly remembered and little read today, he was a poet who rivalled Hölderlin and Schiller in his fame.

The Stauffenberg family had held the title of "Schenk", which meant "cup-bearer", since the 13th century, an honour bestowed on them by the Hohenstaufens, the legendary monarchical family of Swabia who also ruled Sicily in the middle ages. At the time of Stauffenberg's birth in 1907, his family was to be found at the Altes Schloss in Stuttgart, in the service of the Württemberg monarchy. The Stauffenbergs were a family steeped in tradition, highly cultured, highly regarded.

It was hardly surprising that Stefan George welcomed these good-looking and aristocratic brothers into his circle. This may in part have been because of the homoerotic element in his movement, but it was also because the Stauffenbergs represented everything George felt had been lost in Germany - the medieval greatness of the Hohenstaufen Friedrich II and the warrior qualities of the Teutonic Knights. Poetry was to lead the way back to greatness, and George was Germany's poet; he and his disciples propagated the notion of a unique German-ness, Deutschtum, which was traced back to Friedrich II.

Members of the George circle were subject to some bizarre rules. Only Claus von Stauffenberg kept his own name, presumably because of its flattering historical resonances. His brother Berthold was told not to marry the woman he loved, and he obeyed, at least until George was dead. But even after the war, the surviving brother, Alexander, eulogised George as the spokesman of something uniquely German. Göring revered him too, and after the Nazi takeover of 1933 wanted to instate him as the head of an academy of poetry. George replied that he had for a long time been the leader of German poetry, and didn't need an academy. His circle had many Jewish members, but his views became broadly antisemitic as the Nazis became more important. None the less, he fled to Switzerland and died before it was completely clear where he stood on national socialism. The Stauffenberg brothers were made George's heirs, and after his death tended his grave in Switzerland and continued to organise candlelit readings of his poetry.

As the war progressed, Stauffenberg enjoyed a rapid rise in the army. He was at first enthusiastic about military successes on the eastern front, but had for some time been deeply alarmed by Hitler: Kristallnacht had disgusted him, particularly as his brother was married to someone of Jewish descent. He quickly became aware that the SS, the SD and the Gestapo were creating a lasting legacy of hatred that would one day be avenged. He began to seek out like-minded officers and spoke at times quite openly about his fears for Germany and the army. Sometimes he recited George's poem "The Antichrist" to support his argument. As the advance east was halted, it became more urgent to end the war with at least something of Germany intact. Stauffenberg had particular cause for alarm: he was in charge of logistics for the 10th Panzers and knew that for every thousand casualties, only 300 replacements could be found - disaster was inevitable. At the same time he found himself increasingly appalled by the indiscriminate killing of Jews, Slavs and Russian prisoners, and by the SS battalions' unbridled lust for murder, which was having a corrupting effect on the army too. He often ignored or changed orders: he managed to thwart an order that all Russian prisoners should be tattooed on their buttocks.

After Stalingrad, his outspokenness caused some of his superiors to decide that he should be sent to north Africa, which was relatively free of the SS. There he was severely wounded, losing part of his right arm, one eye and two fingers on his left hand. Through determination he made a dramatic recovery and found himself second in command of the home army in Berlin, under General Fromm, and was also appointed to the general staff, which gave him access to Hitler. After his first visit to the Berghof, he described the atmosphere there as "stale, paralysing, rotten and degenerate". A few months later, he primed the bomb with the three fingers of his left hand and placed it beside Hitler.

The question the film does not raise is what kind of Germany Stauffenberg envisaged had the coup succeeded, which in all probability it would have, had Hitler been killed. Stefan George's poem "Secret Germany" was the inspiration for Stauffenberg's oath of mutual intent for the conspirators, which was typed by his brother Berthold's secretary:

We want a new order which makes all Germans responsible for the state and guarantees them law and justice; but we despise the lie that all are equal and we submit to rank ordained by nature. We want a people with roots in their native land, close to the powers of nature, finding happiness and contentment in the given environment, and overcoming, in freedom and pride, the base instincts of envy and jealousy. We want leaders who ... are in harmony with the divine powers and set an example to others by their noble spirit, discipline and sacrifice.

When Stauffenberg's body was burned, a ring was lost with it. Engraved on it were the words FINIS INITIUM, which is drawn from another of George's poems with the final line "I am the end and the beginning".

Justin Cartwright, The Guardian,

El Otro

2009-02-07T12:39:00.000-08:00

The Other) (2007) is an Argentine, French, and German drama film, written and directed by Ariel Rotter, his second feature.

The film was executive produced by Aqua Films' Verónica Cura, and produced by Enrique Piñeyro and Christian Baute.

El otro was funded by the Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales (Argentina), the Vision Sudest Fund (Switzerland), the World Cinema Fund (Berlin International Film Festival), and the Hubert Bals Fund (Netherlands).

The picture features Julio Chávez as Juan Desouza, who was awarded the Silver Bear as Best Actor at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival.

The film tells of Juan Desouza (Julio Chávez), a lawyer in his late 40s, who's happily married and his wife is expecting a child.

Casi dos años después de recibir dos premios en Berlín, el del Jurado y el de interpretación masculina para Julio Chávez, llega a las salas españolas la cinta argentino-alemana "El otro", segundo largometraje de Ariel Rotter ("Sólo por hoy"), que desde entonces ha ido acumulando reconocimientos en diversos otros certámenes y en los Cóndor. "Mi película es simple y oscura, pero tengo muchas expectativas de que el público la disfrute", ha dicho el cineasta argentino.

En "El otro", el prestigioso actor argentino Julio Chávez ("El custodio") es Juan Desouza, un abogado de mediana edad que está a punto de tener un hijo y paralelamente asiste a la decadencia física de su padre. En clara crisis vital, durante un viaje de trabajo, la muerte súbita de su compañero de asiento en el autobús agudiza su angustia frente al final de la vida. Por ello, decide adoptar la personalidad del fallecido. "El personaje busca entender el ciclo de la vida", ha explicado Rotter. El realizador de "Sólo por hoy" ha reconocido que siempre pensó en Chávez como protagonista, y que sin su concurso la película hubiera sido casi imposible.

Por su parte, Chávez considera que la actitud de su personaje de adoptar otras personalidades "es sin ningún tipo de maldad, es un juego ingenuo, como una travesura infantil que surge después de que Juan descubra que, inevitablemente, tiene que morir". En su opinión, este film -que se estrena este viernes por fín en España- tiene mucho que ver con sus previas cintas "Extraño" y "El custodio", y considera el todo una "trilogía del silencio", en la que sus personajes respectivos apenan usan la palabra.

Rotter, quien empleó cuatro años desde que empezó a escribir "El otro" hasta su finalización, dijo a DW que "las expectativas en el plano íntimo de la película van más allá del juicio del público. En el plano privado tienen que ver con cuánto de uno está representado en la película. En el plano social de la película, uno tiene la expectativa de saber qué le sucede al otro al verla, cuánto puede resonar adentro de cada espectador lo que uno tenía para decir. Me estimulan las sensaciones que recorren al espectador y ver si esas sensaciones de algún modo tienen que ver con las que tuve yo al hacerla".

"No es -añadía- necesariamente autobiográfica. Es cine que trata sobre algo que crees conocer. En lo que yo hago, me interesa filmar o escribir cosas que conozco o creo conocer y no sobre cualquier cosa. El cine argentino tiene mucha diversidad. Se hacen 50 películas por año. Lo que existe es una tendencia al cine de autor, también cine documental y de alto contenido político. Se conciben las escenas de las películas de un modo valiente y fuertemente ligado con la tradición europea. Argentina como sabes, está construido, por inmigrantes europeos, de ahí viene el lazo y el gusto por lo europeo. Hay una cultura cinematográfica más poderosa si se compara con otros países de Sudamérica".

On a one-day business trip to the country-side, Desouza embarks on an unintended journey. When he reaches his destination Desouza discovers that the man traveling next to him is not sleeping but dead.

Secretly, he assumes the dead man's identity and invents a profession for himself. He finds a place to stay in the village where the man used to live and contemplates not returning.

Juan Desouza undertakes an adventure into nature, into the rediscovery of his tastes and his basic instincts. He tries to grasp the idea that the life dealt out for him, and which he chose to live, is not the only one possible.

He eventually goes back home, stronger from the spiritual experience.

Revolutionary Road

2009-01-25T13:22:00.000-08:00

Revolutionary Road, the first novel of author Richard Yates, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1962 along with Catch-22 and The Moviegoer. When it was published by Atlantic-Little, Brown in 1961, it received critical acclaim, and the New York Times reviewed it as "beautifully crafted... a remarkable and deeply troubling book."[1]

In 2005 the novel was chosen by Time as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present.

Set in 1955, the novel focuses on the hopes and aspirations of Frank and April Wheeler, self-assured Connecticut suburbanites who see themselves as very different from their neighbors in the Revolutionary Hill Estates. In the opening scene, April stars in an embarrassingly bad amateur dramatic production of The Petrified Forest:

She was working alone, and visibly weakening with every line. Before the end of the first act the audience could tell as well as the Players that she’d lost her grip, and soon they were all embarrassed for her. She had begun to alternate between false theatrical gestures and a white-knuckled immobility; she was carrying her shoulders high and square, and despite her heavy make-up you could see the warmth of humiliation rising in her face and neck.

Seeking to break out of their suburban rut, April convinces Frank they should move to Paris, where she will work and support him while he realizes his vague ambition to be something other than an office worker. Unfortunately, Frank (from whose point of view most of the novel is told) is a weak reed, doing the minimum to get by at work without developing any alternative self, in contrast with April's taking concrete steps to accomplish their move. When April conceives their third child, their plan to leave America crumbles, not least because Frank is flattered by praise from his supervisors at work and beginning to identify with his mundane job. April realizes that she doesn't know herself any more and that she doesn't love Frank; she tries to abort their child herself, but botches the attempt and dies in her effort to fight the forces keeping her in her suburban housewife lifestyle. Frank grieves, but soon becomes absorbed by the work he had once despised, and "dies" an inward death.

In the October 1999 issue of the Boston Review, Yates was quoted on his central theme: "If my work has a theme, I suspect it is a simple one: that most human beings are inescapably alone, and therein lies their tragedy." The Wheelers are thwarted at every turn. Confronted with the painful truth of their ordinary existence and conflicts in their crumbling marriage, their frustrations and yearnings for something better represent the tattered remnants of the American Dream.

"Revolutionary Road," Richard Yates' 1961 novel about dashed dreams in suburbia, is by no means a pleasant book, and no one who's read it would expect it to make a cheerful movie. The book details the agonies of a young married couple with children, circa the mid-1950s, who suddenly realize that the path they've found themselves on -- defined by the day-to-day grind of making a living, and by the dull, predictable rhythms of life in their cloistered suburban community -- is killing off the intellectual promise they once saw in themselves and in each other. They hatch a plan to cut loose from the drudgery that their friends and neighbors have, seemingly happily, consigned themselves to. They believe their discontent makes them special; they can't see that it only makes them average.

You can understand why that story would be catnip for the English director Sam Mendes, who was lauded as a genius when he poked satirically at the dark underbelly of American suburbia ("American Beauty") but who didn't get nearly as much love when he turned his hand to self-serious adaptations of graphic novels ("Road to Perdition") and heavy-handed readings of contemporary wartime memoirs ("Jarhead"). And so Mendes returns to the subject he seems to have the most contempt for: the American suburbs and the people who live there, either by choice or by circumstance. Plus, he hasn't yet exhausted the visual metaphor of the rose-shaped blood splotch, and "Revolutionary Road" represents an opportunity to put that to use once again -- don't for a minute think he misses it.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Frank Wheeler, the young husband and father who used to believe he was cut out for some great intellectual pursuit but who now finds himself working for the same business-machine company that employed his father. Kate Winslet is his wife, April, who's in charge of looking after the couple's two children and the family's modest but comfortable Connecticut home. Frank and April have reached their late 20s and know something's wrong with their lives. April makes an attempt to fill that undefined emptiness by getting involved in the local community theater (its first production flops); day after day, Frank goes into the city to work, where he whiles away the hours pushing papers around his desk and babbling into his Dictaphone. He engages in a mild dalliance with a flirty secretary (played by Zoe Kazan), but it doesn't mean anything, and he doesn't want it to. His life with April and the kids means something to him, even in the midst of the amorphous dissatisfaction swirling around him.

Something about the life they're leading -- a life that largely revolves around work and children during the day, and drinking and socializing with their best friends, Shep and Milly Campbell (David Harbour and Kathryn Hahn) at night -- is driving Frank and April apart. She acknowledges it before he does and desperately tries to fix it, only to find that such repair is impossible. She and Frank are stuck in a rut of resentful wheel-spinning, left to despise themselves and each other for everything they can never be.

This is a movie about two people in pain; the last thing they need is for Mendes to turn his cool camera on them. But that's all Mendes knows how to do. He's a clinical director, and whatever feeling he puts into a movie is measured out in careful quarter-teaspoon increments. Some people would call that restraint, but I always get the feeling that Mendes, whose background is in the theater, believes deep in his heart that movies are the lesser art form. Instead of reveling in the glories that are specific to movies -- the ability to reach many people at once, and to foster an intense intimacy by collapsing the distance between performers and the audience -- he always seems disappointed that the movies can't be theater. Mendes' movies always look good, to a degree: He's made it a point to work with the most esteemed cinematographers, including Roger Deakins (the DP on "Revolutionary Road") and the late Conrad Hall. Yet there's something oddly un-cinematic about his pictures: All of Mendes' movies -- including this one, with its thriving manicured lawns and claustrophobically cheery postwar interiors, look beautiful but lifeless. The characters are prisoners of those surroundings, of their meticulousness. They suffer -- oh, how they suffer! -- but they do so eloquently, aided and abetted by the best art direction money can buy.

"Revolutionary Road" is difficult to watch, partly because it's stately and dull and partly because its actors are trying so hard to make the material work, even when their dialogue is either histrionic or just numbingly bland (and in this screenplay, adapted by Justin Haythe, there's almost nothing in between). This is a movie where the quiet, placid surface of suburban life hides many dark corners; the people stuck living these lives tend to either shriek at one another or sit silently, stoned on their own resentment. We've seen this sort of thing in movies and in literature over and over again, done well and done badly. But Mendes presents this simmering, dangerous discontent with a decorousness that gussies up, and softens, its potential rawness; the movie is like an open wound that's lucky enough to have its own stylist.

DiCaprio and Winslet try hard to keep the blood coursing through the picture, and sometimes they get it going pretty effectively: It doesn't hurt that they're simply lovely to look at. These two are complete grown-ups now (as they weren't yet in "Titanic"), and their faces have more to show us. Winslet, in particular, is subtly touching: The almost perpetual anxiety that shadows her character's face is all the more moving because it can't fully obscure her capacity for joy.

DiCaprio is still something of a man-boy, but he uses that quality well here: His Frank is a guy who's just gotten used to the idea of being an adult, only to realize that middle age is creeping up on him. But then there's that dialogue again. At one point, a distraught Frank frets that a doctor "said a lot of things I didn't understand, about capillaries, and . . . Jesus!" He breaks off, as if he were easing his way out of an audition for "Dr. Kildare."

"Revolutionary Road" also gives us Kathy Bates as a prattling, unbearable real-estate broker (she manages to bring a touch of humanity even to this thankless role); and Michael Shannon, desperately overplaying, as her son, John, who's been freshly sprung from a mental institution and who drops in on the Wheelers to play truth-teller, pointing out very loudly just how empty and meaningless their lives are. (Thanks, Bub.)

John is, of course, a character straight out of Yates' book, but his unbearable candor is jacked up even further by Mendes. He can't escape the Mendes touch: A movie's themes, and the most delicate feelings behind them, need to be rendered loud and clear. It's as if Mendes doesn't trust that our hearing, figuratively speaking, is as good as his is.

I concede that "Revolutionary Road" may be the best of Sam Mendes' movies, in that he at least goes through the motions of pretending to care about the characters he puts on-screen. And Yates' novel is hardly a warm one to begin with: At its best, it glimmers with well-observed details and graceful prose. At its worst, it's laced with an unsavory bitterness. Yates always keeps a little distance from his characters, as if he doesn't know how, or doesn't want, to get too close to them.

But I think Yates tries to have compassion for his characters: He blinks hard at them, as if this might help him comprehend their flaws and desires. Does that kind of trying count? I don't know, but I did get more feeling -- or at least a sense that feelings had been struggled with -- from Yates' book than I did from Mendes' movie. To struggle with feelings, you've got to put down your artist's palette now and then. Mendes clutches his with a death grip.

My Blueberry Nights

2009-01-25T13:07:00.000-08:00

My Blueberry Nights is a 2007 film directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Norah Jones and Jude Law. It also features Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, David Strathairn and Cat Power. The director describes it as "a story of a woman who takes the long route instead of the short one to meet up with the man she loves." It is Wong's first feature film in English.

My Blueberry Nights was the opening film for the 2007 Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2007.

Jeremy (Jude Law) runs a cafe in New York City. Elizabeth (Norah Jones) finds out from him that her boyfriend has dined in the cafe with another woman. Elizabeth is angry and leaves him; she gives her keys to Jeremy, in case her ex-boyfriend comes to collect them. Elizabeth returns to the cafe several times, and she and Jeremy become close.

Elizabeth (going by the name of Lizzie) travels by bus to Memphis, Tennessee. She takes two jobs, in a cafe and in a bar, to save money to buy a car. She sends postcards to Jeremy without revealing where she lives or works. Jeremy tries to find out by calling all the restaurants in the area, but fails.

One night at the bar she encounters local policeman Arnie (David Strathairn) grieving about the fact that his wife Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz) has left him. He confides in her that he has tried to quit drinking many times. After drunkenly threatening Sue Lynne with his gun, he crashes his car into a post and dies. Lizzie comforts Sue Lynne, and the next day Sue Lynne leaves town, giving Lizzie a large tip to put towards her car.

Elizabeth (now going by the name Beth) gets another waitress job, this time in a casino. It is here we are introduced to Leslie (Natalie Portman), a poker player. Beth lends Leslie her savings for gambling after Leslie promises to either win the game, or give Beth her car. Leslie ends up giving Beth her car, saying she lost the game. Beth agrees to give Leslie a ride to Las Vegas, where her father lives, so he can lend her the money to start gambling again. She gets a call, answered by Beth, from the hospital to inform her that her father is dying. Leslie does not believe it, she thinks it is a trick to make her visit him. They go to the hospital anyway, and at Leslie's request Beth goes inside alone to check. Beth finds out Leslie's father had died the night before. Leslie wants to keep the car because it was really her father's, and confesses that she has lied about losing the game. She pays Elizabeth the money she had originally promised, and Beth buys a car.

Elizabeth returns to New York to find her ex-boyfriend's apartment for rent. She crosses the street to the cafe, and discovers Jeremy has been waiting for her, and has a space reserved for her at the counter. They talk, and it is discovered that they actually have feelings for each other.

The soundtrack disc, released on Blue Note, features tracks by Norah Jones, Cat Power, Ry Cooder (who composed the film's score), two-time Oscar-winning composer Gustavo Santaolalla, Otis Redding, Cassandra Wilson and Amos Lee.

May 17, 2007 | CANNES, France -- You have to suspend all varieties of disbelief and float along with "My Blueberry Nights," which opened the 60th Festival de Cannes with a splashy red-carpet premiere on Wednesday night. That's rather like the attitude required by this festival, both so inconvenient and so delightful, and by the storybook landscape of the Côte d'Azur. Reactions to the opening film have been muted here so far, more polite than enthusiastic. Costar Jude Law was the principal focus of paparazzi attention, climbing the steps of the Palais des Festivals in Ray-Bans and a classic tuxedo; with all the gentlemanly grace you'd expect, he tried to deflect the focus toward a winsome, awkward, clearly overwhelmed Norah Jones, the film's unlikely lead. (I'm underqualified as a fashion critic, but did she choose the slightly dorky gown, with the high waist and poofy sleeves, on purpose?)

"My Blueberry Nights" may not quite be what fans of either Jones or Wong Kar-wai -- directing his first film in English -- are expecting. It's a late-night, lovelorn mood piece in a minor key, not complicated or convoluted, finally more confection than substance. I'm not the first person to observe that it bears a startling, if presumably accidental, resemblance to Alan Rudolph's 1984 indie hit "Choose Me." Still, the longer this slice of fanciful blueberry-pie Americana sits with me, the better I like it.

This wistful, unobtrusive film has almost no connection to realism or plausibility. (The director's recent Chinese films, like "2046" and "In the Mood for Love," certainly aren't interested in those things either, and one could debate the naturalism of his early work as well.) It was shot by Wong and cinematographer Darius Khondji in a series of iconic American locations: Manhattan, Memphis, Tenn., the Nevada desert, Venice Beach, Calif. Except for a handful of exteriors, most of it could have been made on a soundstage; you learn no more about what Memphis looks like in 2007 from this movie than you do from listening to Elvis sing "Mystery Train."

Even by Wong's standards, the film has a dreamy midnight aesthetic, along with a supersaturated color palette that throbs with purple, gold, indigo and every other Crayola shade you can imagine. I'm not sure what burnt sienna and raw sienna actually are, but I guarantee you they're in here. The shadows in this movie have shadows; the grains of film shed and subdivide into dark snowflakes of black and crimson and green.

What's the point of all this gorgeousness? That may pose a difficult question for some viewers. I guess it's just meant to put you in the mood for love, as it were. Or at least in the mood to watch a couple of beautiful and lovelorn loners, Elizabeth (Jones) and Jeremy (Law), moon around in an empty New York diner, eating blueberry pie and pining for their lost whoevers. We're not merely supposed to buy Law as a diner proprietor but also supposed to imagine that these two people have been unceremoniously dumped by their true loves, and that Elizabeth wanders off on a no-destination road trip after Jeremy has kissed her. (Pop quiz for female readers: Jude Law has just smooched the pie-à-la-mode stains off your upper lip. Is your very first reaction to buy a bus ticket for parts unknown?)

All that stuff bothered me at first, along with the fact that Jones can't really act. When she's required to display emotion about the former boyfriend, it's more like watching somebody miss the bus or lose her cellphone than undergo a very early midlife crisis. Still, the camera loves her, as they say. (If there's one thing Wong Kar-wai knows how to do better than any other filmmaker, it's shoot beautiful women so they look their best.) She has a little of the young Julia Roberts, or a less extreme Angelina Jolie, about her. As the film progresses Wong seems to make more modest demands of her; on her road trip from one service-sector job to the next, Elizabeth is a likable wallflower, an observer of other people's lives rather than the subject of her own.

Similarly, the chemistry between Law and Jones is nearly null at first -- when Jeremy nuzzles in to give Elizabeth that sleepy smackeroo, I half-wondered if he was really after the dribbles of ice cream -- but Wong and Khondji eventually create it out of images. There's no nudity in "My Blueberry Nights," and if anything it's aggressively chaste. Except for a few cuss words it could probably be rated G. But the curves and swells and furrowed brows and twitching lashes of Law and Jones, captured in one lingering close-up after another, become their own kind of erotic landscape.

But because this is a movie about unfulfilled longing and delayed gratification, Elizabeth can't just hang around Wong's painterly New York night, watching the subway clatter overhead and inhaling pieces of blueberry pie with a really cute guy who happens to be single too. Jeremy's diner doesn't look like anyplace in the real New York, but I eventually quit worrying about that once I realized that no part of the movie happens in the real world. Wong's America is the mythic, heartbroken America of Edward Hopper paintings and rhythm and blues records and Jim Thompson novels, and you can pretty much baste yourself in that flavor or move on.

In some ways, the nonromance between Elizabeth and Jeremy is the least substantial of the three roughly parallel segments of "My Blueberry Nights." Once Elizabeth ends up in Memphis, where she becomes a waitress and bartender named Lizzie, who observes the not-so-gradual disintegration of a drunken cop (David Strathairn), the film's prettiness and artifice finally yield some grit. Sitting in the moonlit shadows of Lizzie's dive bar, Strathairn demonstrates why he's among the finest of American character actors. With his bowed head, a few tired gestures and an almost masklike expression, he shows us a decent man drawing very near the end of a road paved with bad women (the worst of them played by Rachel Weisz) and bad liquor.

In the film's Nevada section, Lizzie becomes Beth, a waitress at a backwater casino -- I'm pretty sure it's the Hotel Nevada, in Ely -- who befriends a vivacious, tough-talkin' Texas card shark named Leslie (broadly and enjoyably played by Natalie Portman, in a bad blond do and a succession of almost-trashy outfits). Wong and co-writer Lawrence Block (the well-known mystery novelist) flirt with cliché here, or maybe they embrace it whole-hog. After Leslie's big showdown at the poker table (her weedy nemesis is Tim Roth, in an almost unrecognizable cameo), she and Beth hit the road in Leslie's Jag for some lightweight "Thelma and Louise"-style adventures.

Neither that detour nor the film as a whole quite manages the emotional payoff it aims for, but by the end of this slight, charming, vaguely silly picture I was enchanted anyway. Art-house devotees of Wong's work may have a tough time accepting the setting or the star (or the lightweight, sentimental tone) of "My Blueberry Nights." And who knows whether Jones' fans want to see her in a nearly plotless movie where she can't make up her mind to snog with Jude Law. Still, this movie will seduce viewers one at a time with slow, lonely smooches and forkfuls of blueberry pie, even if it probably won't be remembered as a major career event for its director and stars.

All in all, it wasn't an uproariously successful opening for Cannes, but anybody left in a bad mood by "My Blueberry Nights" -- not to mention the blue skies, blue sea and pink wine out in the French night -- is just a sourpuss. Beginning Thursday, new films will roll onto the Riviera beaches like waves; among the most promising weekend premieres are Hou Hsiao-hsien's "Flight of the Red Balloon" (inspired by the famous 1950s French short film), Michael Moore's already-controversial "Sicko" and the Coen brothers' violent western, "No Country for Old Men." More soon.

Then She Found Me

2009-01-25T13:00:00.000-08:00

Nearing 40, April Epner (Hunt), a schoolteacher in New York who was adopted at birth, wants to have a baby of her own - a desire made that much stronger by the fact that she never knew her biological mother. A snag in her plans presents itself when her sweet but immature husband Ben (Matthew Broderick) announces one night that their marriage was a mistake, leaving April devastated and bewildered. With her life in disarray, one more surprising bolt is thrown April's way in the form of Bernice (Bette Midler), an eccentric local talk show host, who declares herself to be April's birth mother. Despite the influence of her newfound mother and a relationship with Frank (Colin Firth), the father of one of her students, April's once simple life begins to spiral out of control.

Based on the eponymous first novel by writer Elinor Lipman, the film tells the funny and moving story of one woman's very unlikely path towards personal fulfillment.

Wondering why you haven't seen much of Helen Hunt lately? For the past 10 years, the Academy Award-winning actress has been fighting to get her directorial debut, Then She Found Me, off the ground. Co-adapted by Hunt from a 1990 novel by Elinor Lipman, and featuring her as a woman eager to have a child just as her own birth mother (Bette Midler) enters her life for the first time, Then She Found Me premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on Friday. By Saturday it was the subject of the biggest acquisition news out of the festival: ThinkFilm and a Canadian distributor picked it up in a reported $2.5 million-to-$3 million deal.

Over the weekend, EW.com talked to Hunt about what took her so long to get Then She Found Me done, the movies that inspired her as a filmmaker, and why she kind of wishes she were a kangaroo.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Congratulations on your distribution deal. Was there crazy deal making going on behind the scenes?
HELEN HUNT: For me, most of the night was about the premiere, 1,500 people standing up at the end. Oh my God, that was one of the big moments of my career, mostly because the audience seemed to be responding to these weird thoughts I have and things I care about. So that was the biggest part of it, and then I went to bed not knowing [if we had distribution], and I woke up to congratulations.

Why did it take you 10 years to make this movie?
Writing it took forever, because [the Lipman novel] was one of the pieces of material that was better than most things, but not yet really ready to go. It's easy when the [source] novel is lousy, but there were characters in [this] novel that I ''loved'', but I had to execute and replace them. And the character has no wish for a baby in the novel, so it took me a long time to get there, to figure out what the movie was about. That took an embarrassingly long period of time, and then it took forever to finance it. And there were a couple of years that I acted in a lot of films. But this movie just walked along next to me and kept my attention.

Did you always know you'd star in it?
No. That was the toughest decision I made for the entire time. I just thought it was every actor's rookie mistake, to put themselves in their movie, but I hadn't seen myself play this part. And I also needed someone who would work 24 hours a day, who would change their clothes in the street, would go to Bette Midler's apartment when she snapped her fingers to rehearse. I had no money, so I was like a desperate woman, and the one thing I could control was the lead actress — I could make her do whatever I said.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You've got a 3 1/2-year-old kid. And your character, April, wants a baby. How closely does April's life line up with your life?
HELEN HUNT: I would say the core elemental things are the same, in my character and Colin Firth's character. In the movie, his character wants to sleep on his kid's floor, and work outside of his kid's school. I don't do those things, but I fantasize about them. I would be more relaxed if I could stare at [my daughter] all day. [Laughs] I used to say I wanted to be a kangaroo: I could put her in my pouch and then go work and whatever.

So we also haven't seen as much of you on screen because you wanted to spend time with your daughter?
It's been about finding my life at home so compelling that it takes a great story for me to say, ''I'm not going to be around this kid every day. I'm just not bored of being with her.'' So if I read a movie that's pretty good, that in my 20s I would've said, ''Yeah, I'll jump on a plane and go to Utah for three months,'' it's just not the same now. One quality I envy in other actresses is their ability to just put their kids on a plane and move and be fine.

So now that this movie is finished, since it sounds so personal for you, does it mark the end of a certain part of your life?
Maybe. When I thought about what to write next, I said to myself that I've put everything I think into this movie. I don't care about anything else. It's all in here.

Were there movies you looked to for inspiration?
Kramer vs. Kramer. That's a perfect movie. I don't think this is a perfect movie, but there's something about the purity of how it was shot, the lack of pretension. I guess if [my movie] has a style it would be a lack of pretension, and you hope it just registers on someone's radar. I love About A Boy. That's a comedy where you find the mother in her own vomit after trying to kill herself, and this is a comedy where some dark things happen. Those are my favorite kind of movies.

Do you have an acting job lined up?
There's one thing that still needs to be financed, but I don't have a next big thing.

La Classe

2009-01-25T12:59:00.000-08:00

Easy Virtue

2009-01-11T10:23:00.000-08:00

Easy Virtue is a social comedy based on Noël Coward's play of the same name. The play was previously made into the silent movie Easy Virtue (1928) by Alfred Hitchcock. This version is directed by Stephan Elliott, written by Elliott and Sheridan Jobbins, and stars Jessica Biel, Ben Barnes, Colin Firth, and Kristin Scott Thomas.

The film has been selected to screen at the Toronto Film Festival. It's also scheduled for the Rio Film Festival, MEIFF, | Rome Film Festival and London Film Festival[1] prior to its November 7th release by Pathé in the UK. Jessica will also be making her musical debut singing two tracks which will be featured on the upcoming soundtrack to the film set to be released on the 3 November 2008

A glamorous American widow, Larita, marries a young Englishman, John, in the South of France. On the spur of the moment, they go to England to meet his parents; his mother, Veronica takes a strong dislike to their new daughter-in-law, while his father, Jim, finds something of a kindred spirit in Larita. A battle of wits ensues.

Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 1899 – 26 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his witty remarks and flamboyant lifestyle.

After beginning his career as a child actor, Coward began writing plays in his 20s. His plays Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Present Laughter and Blithe Spirit have entered the regular theatre repertoire. The Times said of him, "None of the great figures of the English theatre has been more versatile than he," and ranked his plays in "the classical tradition of Congreve, Sheridan, Wilde and Shaw".

In addition to over 50 published plays and many albums of original songs, Coward wrote musicals, comic revues, poetry, several volumes of short stories, the novel Pomp and Circumstance and three volumes of autobiography. Books of his song lyrics, diaries and letters have also been published. He also continued a substantial stage, cabaret and film career spanning six decades, starring in many of his own works as well as in the works of other writers.

A highbrow festival like Toronto doesn't offer many opportunities to laugh, and I was grateful for this one. Easy Virtue, an adaptation of an early Noël Coward play, is a droll and witty delight, a superb showcase for its cast, and a return to fine form for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert director Stephan Elliott, who last turned in the unsettling but incomprehensible Eye of the Beholder nearly 10 years ago. Where most TIFF films seemed to glower at me from the screen, this one winked and smiled.

Noël Coward may seem a strange choice for Elliott, whose films have favored the bizarre and the obscure. I don't know what attracted the filmmaker to this project, but I'm glad that something did. The material may seem almost purely verbal, all clever turns of phrase and sardonic interjections (what Americans think of as "Britishness"), but Elliott is constantly concerned with how the movie looks and sounds. Fittingly, he manages to give it a curious, otherworldly feel. This is most pronounced in the opening sequence, which marries choppy black-and-white footage, odd angles, and a jazzy soundtrack to introduce us to the characters and transport us to a universe that is ever so slightly off-kilter. It's a welcome recognition that these hyper-literate, impeccably constructed old comedies – Coward, Wilde, etc. – don't take place in a world quite like ours.

The characters we meet in the haunting opening are Larita Huntington (Jessica Biel), America's first female racecar driver, and John Whittaker (Ben Barnes), heir to the fortune of an aristocratic British family. John meets Larita on his world travels (apparently par for the course for young male British aristocrats) and up and marries her, to the horror of his ultra-traditional mother Veronica (Kristin Scott Thomas). The rest of the film is dedicated to the battle that ensues when John brings Larita to his family's obscenely opulent castle to live, at least for a while, with mom and his two unmarried sisters (Kimberley Nixon and Katherine Parkinson). Veronica is having none of John and Larita's plan to ditch the estate and move to London, and intends to scuttle it by any means necessary. Also there, albeit barely, is John's bored father (Colin Firth), who spends most of his time taking sarcastic swipes at his uptight wife.

Easy Virtue makes no bones about what it wants us to think about the players in this increasingly fever-pitched comedy of manners. Larita is the hero of the story, thrown to the wolves; John's father is a sympathetic but ineffectual kindred spirit; John himself is well-intentioned but trapped by his heritage and his manipulative mother; Veronica is a coldhearted harridan blinded by her dedication to status and image (though the film makes a few half-hearted attempts to humanize her). While this approach may sacrifice some depth and ambiguity, it actually makes the comedy more delicious: we know whom to root for, and don't have to feel bad about it.

The comedy runs the gamut from quintessentially British dry humor ("I don't feel like smiling," pouts one of John's sisters; "You're English dear, fake it," replies Veronica) to high-spirited slapstick. The film's not staid, as you might expect from the setting; in fact, it's often downright goofy, as exemplified by the character of the unflappable butler (Kris Marshall) and the cruel fate of the family dog. It's gratifyingly loose, and unpredictable moment-to-moment. And it's very funny.

The cast proved to be a wonder, despite being filled with actors I've never much liked. Kristin Scott Thomas effortlessly molds into a role that couldn't be more different than the one she played in her other TIFF entry, I've Loved You So Long. Colin Firth unveils the razor-sharp comic timing that he's apparently been hiding from us for two decades. Jessica Biel gives easily the best performance of her career as the stubborn, complex Larita. And I don't know what Andrew Adamson did to Ben Barnes to make him so boring and charmless in Prince Caspian, but on the strength of Easy Virtue, I'm guessing it was surgical.

The film's most remarkable feature, though, may be how visually interesting Stephan Elliott manages to keep it. He never returns to the borderline creepy vision of the first couple minutes, but he never settles into a typically undistinctive period piece rhythm either. He likes bright colors, sharp angles, mirrors and reflections; he keeps you guessing. Festivalgoers may be tempted to call Easy Virtue a "guilty pleasure," but there's nothing to feel guilty about. It's as accomplished as it is lightweight.

Flame and Citroen

2009-01-10T11:13:00.000-08:00

That WWII still has many untold stories to tell can be gleaned from films as diverse as the recent Austrian Oscar-winner Die Fälscher (The Counterfeiters), about an enormous German counterfeiting operation set up concentration camp labour; the French biographical drama Un secret (A Secret), about a man's illusions about his parents' idyllic past, and the Dutch Oscar-shortlisted Zwartboek (Black Book), about the infinite shades of gray in the Dutch resistance movement. A new film from Denmark, Ole Christian Madsen's Flammen & Citronen (Flame & Citron), can now be added to the list. The film concentrates on a WWII resistance movement that became increasingly more questionable as some of its members became more ruthless. Flammen & Citronen stars local chameleon Thure Lindhardt and Casino Royale bad guy Mads Mikkelsen as the titular resistance fighters and premiered in Denmark on Friday.

Flammen & Citronen (the names are references to the characters' orange hair and Citroën connections respectively) is an enormous international co-production involving 23 parties in all, with besides Danish partners also German, Czech Republic and Norway. At over €6.5 million, the film's budget is one of Scandinavia's largest budgets ever.

The film is directed by Ole Christian Madsen, whose previous film was the intimate marital drama Prag (Prague), which also starred Mads Mikkelsen. Perhaps tellingly, his new film was co-written by the special effects supervisor-turned-screenwriter Lars Andersen, a collaboration that echoes another collaboration on a European epic that told a war story, Hungary's Szabadság, szerelem (Children of Glory). That film, a splash hit in its home country and a modest hit abroad, was directed by romantic comedy director Krisztina Goda but the spectacular action sequences were directed by UK stunt coordinator and 2nd unit director Vic Armstrong.

Though set in Copenhagen -- where the real "Flame" and "Citron" liquidated Danish and German informers for the resistance -- the film was mainly shot in Germany and the Czech Republic. Besides Lindhardt and Mikkelsen, the film also stars Stine Stengade, the real-life companion of the director who also starred opposite Mikkelsen in Prag, and a battery of German actors as the occupying Nazis, wit the most noteworthy name being Christian Berkel, who also starred in the aforementioned Zwartboek and Der Untergang (Downfall), which told the story of the last days of Hitler through the eyes of his secretary.

There is another connection to the Oliver Hirschbiegel-directed Der Untergang: both films only become possible recently after people who lived through the events finally went on record about what had exactly happened. Though Der Untergang was generally well-received, director Ole Christian Madsen has apparently set himself up for something more revisionist. At least, if the frequent use of the word "terrorism" in the press materials is anything to go by.

Gomorra

2009-01-06T11:14:00.000-08:00

Gomorrah (Gomorra in Italian) is a 2008 hyperlink crime film directed by Matteo Garrone, based on the book by Roberto Saviano. It deals with crime and the Camorra in Naples and Caserta.

The film weaves together five different stories: Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato) is a discreet middleman, responsible for paying the families of prisoners, who finds his loyalties tested as the clan leadership is threatened; Toto (Salvatore Abruzzese) is a 13-year-old boy who falls in with a criminal gang after he hides a gun from the police; Roberto (Carmine Paternoster) is a graduate who becomes slowly disillusioned with his charismatic boss Franco (Toni Servillo) as a result of his new job in toxic waste management; Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo) is a haute couture tailor who puts his life in danger when he accepts a job training Chinese competitors; and Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone) are two cocky wannabe gangsters who find a stash of weapons and decide to make a name for themselves.

Normally, comparing a film to a television program's intended as a slight, a knock against a film that didn't have the sweep and scope you'd expect to witness on the big screen, but when I compare director Matteo Garrone's Gomorra to The Wire, I hope you'll recognize I mean it as a compliment. Set in the provinces around Naples, where the crime organization known as the Camorra is not parallel to the everyday workings of society but instead is the everyday workings of society, Gomorra's a sweeping, stirring film that has the shoot-and-loot tension of the best crime cinema but also has the scope and serious intent of great drama.

Based on the novel by Roberto Saviano, Gomorra follows five separate stories through the slums and streets in the provinces near Naples. Don Ciro is the local clan bagman, dispensing payouts to families affiliated with the clan. He's a civilized criminal, and the uncivilized times are beginning to wear on him. Marco and Ciro are young, dumb and eager to be independent criminals, heads full of dreams of glory and quotes from Scarface. Roberto finds a patronage position assisting Franco in toxic waste disposal, a lucrative business for the Camorra, especially as it involves poisoning the province's wide-open spaces and passing the savings on to their customers. Totò is 13, and eager to take part in the community and opportunities offered by low-level drug dealing work. Pasquale works as a tailor, helping Camorra-linked businesses make couture knockoffs, and he's offered an opportunity that may leave him set for life or marked for death.

Director Garrone (The Embalmer, First Love) manages to put the camera to work in a way that feels both observational and artful; some of the film's silences and spaces evoke the classic films of Antonioni, while some more surreal moments bring to mind the playful perversity of Fellini. (A scene where Marco and Ciro wander through a wetlands marsh clad in just their underwear trying out a stolen cache of high-powered firearms is beautiful, goofy and terrifying all at once, for example.) And while Gomorrah offers shootings and suspense, it also offers a grim view of modern European life, demonstrating the logical-yet-illogical extension of free-market capitalism from mergers and policy to murders and poisoning. Franco asks Roberto "Do you know how many workers I've helped by saving their companies money?" The Camorra isn't the alternative to the way things are; the Camorra is the way things are.

Garrone works with a cast that includes professionals and new faces, and has the urban rubble of modern Italy as his backdrop. Much of the film revolves around a housing development that's almost another character in the film -- huge and sprawling, vital and ruined. But there are real human moments from the characters as well, like when Pasquale sincerely instructs an apprentice knockoffs tailor that the work must be done "with love and feeling," or Don Ciro's confusion at the way the world is changing around him and the old ways are pushed aside by greed and violence.

Favors and intimidation; threats and excuses; this, in Gomorra, is how the world works, and you'd be a fool to argue with it. Gomorra has plenty of virtues to help recommend its broad-canvas portrait of vice; it's vulgar and vital, human and horrifying, and you sincerely care about what happens to these people and you recognize that you're getting a glimpse into a very specific part of the world while also witnessing a series of stories that could be playing out almost anywhere in the modern world. It's hard to imagine Gomorra attracting an audience on American art-house screens -- where "Foreign Cinema" mostly means fun and frivolity among the well-to-do for an older, well-to-do audience -- but moviegoers who aren't afraid of the rough, real raw stuff in modern moviemaking should seek out Gomorra's bleak beauty and cruel clarity by any means necessary.

La Question Humaine

2009-01-06T03:25:00.000-08:00

Troisième volet de la trilogie de Nicolas Klotz sur le monde actuel, La Question humaine contraste fortement avec les deux précédents. Alors que Paria se passait dans le monde des SDF, que La Blessure donnait la parole aux sans-papiers tout juste arrivés en France, La Question humaine prend place chez les riches, dans les arcanes d'une multinationale pétrochimique. Ambitieuse tant sur le plan esthétique qu'intellectuel, cette adaptation du roman du même nom de François Emmanuel propose une réflexion sur la nature du capitalisme contemporain ; et tient ses promesses, de bout en bout.

En premier lieu, parce que personne jusqu'à présent n'a restitué avec tant de justesse, de puissance et de talent l'essence paradoxale, séduisante et terriblement angoissante du milieu des golden boys. Tout tiendrait presque dans ce magnifique plan du début, qui montre une poignée de jeunes hommes, tous vêtus de noir, de dos, en train de plaisanter face à leurs pissotières respectives : élégance, jeunesse, uniformité absolue.

Une fois soulagés, ils montent dans un ascenseur, y retrouvent une de leurs collègues. Les vannes fusent, la fille n'est pas en reste. Ils sont beaux, branchés, débordants d'énergie, fous d'eux-mêmes et de leur image. A l'occasion, ils couchent ensemble, éventuellement sur leur lieu de travail. La nuit, ils laissent exploser leur énergie en dansant dans des raves, se défoncent à l'alcool, ou à autre chose...

Nicolas Klotz esthétise ses plans à l'extrême, mais cela ne nuit en rien au regard, sans fard, qu'il porte sur ses sujets. Au contraire. La géométrie au cordeau et la lumière raffinée mettent d'autant mieux en valeur ce qu'ils donnent à voir d'eux-mêmes : une certaine idée de la perfection.

Au-delà de la fascination exercée par ces corps, ce qui intéresse les auteurs (Nicolas Klotz et sa compagne et scénariste Elisabeth Perceval) a lieu en dessous. Le film suit le cheminement de Simon (Mathieu Amalric), psychologue d'entreprise, dont les certitudes vont sérieusement s'effriter lorsqu'une étrange mission le confronte à l'histoire de la Shoah.

PHRASÉOLOGIE DÉSHUMANISANTE

A la demande de l'un des directeurs de l'entreprise, Karl Rove (Jean-Pierre Kalfon, très inquiétant), Simon se lance secrètement dans une enquête sur l'état de santé mentale d'un autre dirigeant, Mathias Jüst (Michael Lonsdale), soupçonné d'avoir sombré dans une dépression. Décidé à ne pas se mouiller dans cette affaire qu'il ne juge guère reluisante, le jeune cadre se retrouve malgré lui happé dans des sables mouvants. Témoin de révélations troublantes sur le passé de Karl Rove, né dans un Lebensborn (ces centres où devaient procréer, sous le IIIe Reich, des sujets de pure race aryenne pour constituer l'élite du futur), destinataire de lettres anonymes enfermant des notes techniques sur le processus de gazage des juifs dans les camions des Einsatzgruppen (escadrons SS qui suivaient l'armée allemande pour mettre en oeuvre la "solution finale" hors des camps), Simon est pris de vertige.

A mesure qu'il perce à jour la nature perverse du pouvoir de son entreprise, une effarante proximité lui saute aux yeux, entre la langue administrative nazie et celle qu'il emploie dans son travail. "Sélection", "unités", "rendement"... Pour gazer des juifs, ou virer un alcoolique, la même phraséologie déshumanisante permet de traiter l'humain comme une simple unité de production, valide ou non.

BANDE-SON RADICALE-CHIC

L'enquête n'apporte pas de réponse, ne désigne pas de coupable ni de rapport de cause à effet. Elle ouvre plutôt un gouffre. A mesure qu'elle progresse et que Simon se dérègle mentalement (violence, folie passagère...), la couleur dominante du film tend de plus en plus vers le noir, la narration éclate de toutes parts.

Il y a l'éclatement de la vie de Simon, entre trois femmes, son travail officiel, son enquête officieuse et ses nuits électriques. Il y a aussi celui de Mathieu Amalric, à la fois acteur intégré à une fiction, acteur théâtral qui s'adresse directement à un spectateur imaginaire, et voix off. Et encore la déstructuration des plages sonores : alors que les acteurs parlent parfois sans qu'on entende leur voix, un magnifique et interminable chant de flamenco est filmé en temps réel.

Mise en scène complexe, bande-son radicale-chic (Schubert, New Order, Syd Matters...), casting élégantissime, La Question humaine est un film sophistiqué. C'est aussi un beau film, un film aimable, parce que son auteur aime ses personnages, qu'il les regarde pour ce qu'ils sont et pour ce qu'ils promettent. Tendu par une foi dans l'art et dans l'homme, comme forces de résistance à la machine, c'est un grand film politique.

Heartbeat Detector

"Music is a virus," company HR guy Simon is informed by his girlfriend early on in Nicolas Kotz's Heartbeat Detector, based on the novel by Francois Emmanuel. In case we missed the point, one of Simon's superiors later reminds him, "music doesn't tolerate hierarchy." Their warnings are entirely astute: music -- in a number of incarnations from techno to fado to violin quartets -- is the catalyst of Simon's slow disintegration.

Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) plays the reserved but effective company man whose story could be described as an impressionistic version of Tom Wilkinson's breakdown in Michael Clayton: burdened with one morally questionable task too many, his place in the corporate hierarchy begins to crumble and cave. Trained as a psychologist and experienced as the hatchet man who skillfully picked criteria for a large-scale "restructuring," Simon is asked by the sinister Karl Rose (Jean-Pierre Kalfon) to investigate the CEO, Mathias Jüst (Michael Londsdale), who has been acting peculiar.
Prone to crying fits and paralyzing sorrow, Jüst is likely to become a liability for the company, and cunning Simon knows just how to get close to the the grumbling, directorial boss of it all: Jüst used to play in a company string quartet, and Simon proposes to reconstitute the outfit. Simon balances his day job with weekend seminars that devolve into drunken escapades, and between the house music and the decades-old quartet recordings, Simon stumbles upon truths about the company's history that shake him profoundly.

Shot mainly in drab green and brown office spaces and the bars Simon haunts after hours, Heartbeat Detector leads down a rabbit hole of revelations that finally appear to equate multinational companies with fascism. Obsessed with anonymous letters that detail the engineering of a truck custom-build for the Holocaust, Simon becomes a stand-in for Nazis who hid behind their orders while they carried out genocide. The analogy is strained to say the least -- not even lefty documentaries like The Corporation go quite as far -- and finally distracts from what began as a clear-eyed portrait of a complex, contradictory character.

Changeling

2009-01-04T09:14:00.000-08:00

Changeling is a 2008 American period thriller directed by Clint Eastwood and written by J. Michael Straczynski. The film begins in 1928 Los Angeles and tells the true story of a woman who recognizes that the boy returned after her son's disappearance is an impostor. After confronting the city authorities, she is vilified as an unfit mother and branded delusional. The events were related to the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders, a kidnapping and murder case that was uncovered in 1928. Changeling explores themes such as disempowerment of women and corruption in political hierarchies. The film was made by Imagine Entertainment and Malpaso Productions for Universal Pictures. Ron Howard was to direct, but scheduling conflicts led to his replacement by Eastwood. Howard and Imagine partner Brian Grazer produced, alongside Malpaso's Robert Lorenz and Eastwood.

Straczynski was told of the case by a contact at Los Angeles City Hall. He spent a year researching it through archived city records before writing the script, most of which was taken from the historical record. The shooting script was not changed from Straczynski's first draft and was his first produced film screenplay. Principal photography began on October 15, 2007 and was completed in November 2007. Filming took place in Los Angeles and throughout Southern California. Visual effects were used to supplement shots with skylines, backdrops and digital extras. Eastwood's noted economical directing style extended to Changeling's shoot; actors and members of the crew remarked upon the calmness of the set and the short working days.

Angelina Jolie was cast in the lead partly because Eastwood felt her face fit the period setting. Several actors had campaigned for the part. Jeffrey Donovan, John Malkovich, Jason Butler Harner, Amy Ryan, Michael Kelly, Colm Feore and Peter Gerety are also featured. Most of the characters were based on their real life counterparts, while some were composites. Changeling premiered at the 61st Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2008, where it was met with critical acclaim. It had its North American premiere on October 4, 2008 at the 46th New York Film Festival, and was released wide in North American theaters on October 31, 2008 after a limited release that began on October 24, 2008. It was released in the United Kingdom on November 26, 2008, and will open in Australia on February 5, 2009. Changeling's wide release was met with a more mixed response than at Cannes. The acting and story were largely praised, with criticism focusing on its conventional presentation and lack of nuance.

Romanze Criminale

2009-01-04T00:03:00.000-08:00

En la Roma de los años 70, tres jóvenes delincuentes, El Libanés, Freddo y Dandy, se asocian con una banda criminal para raptar y asesinar a un poderoso empresario. Así nace la "Banda Magliana", una organización cuyo objetivo es controlar a políticos y millonarios de la ciudad, al mismo tiempo que se lucran con el negocio de la heroína. Cuando las fuerzas de seguridad se enteran de su existencia, no le dan mucha importancia, pero el comisario Scialoja es consciente del peligro real de la banda.

Basada en la novela de Giancarlo De Cataldo, "Romanzo criminale" repasa una de las épocas más convulsas de la historia italiana, a través de una de las muchas organizaciones terroristas que actuaban en los 70, "Banda Magliana". Su director, el también actor Michele Placido (La desconocida), va de la acción a la emotividad, utilizando el primer plano para presentarnos la complejidad psicológica de los protagonistas. La película compitió en la Berlinale 2006, siendo ese año una de las triunfadoras de los David de Donatello con siete galardones.

Kim Rossi Stuart (Líbero) da vida a Freddo, mientras que Claudio Santamaria (Melissa P.) y el ganador de un David de Donatello, Pierfrancesco Favino (El último beso), son sus compinches en la gran pantalla. Otro de los importantes es Stefano Accorsi (No basta una vida), encargado de poner rostro al comisario Scialoja, y Anna Mouglalis (Gracias por el chocolate) que interpreta a una atractiva mujer que cruzará los destinos de Scialoja y Dandy, uno de los miembros más activos de la banda.

MICHELE PLACIDO FIRMA SU MEJOR PELÍCULA CON UN POTENTE Y LÚCIDO RETRATO CORAL DEL MEDIANO CRIMEN ORGANIZADO EN LA CONVULSA ROMA DE LOS AÑOS 70

Con tres interminables años de retraso toma tierra en la cartelera nacional el que es uno de los filmes más potentes (al menos hasta este 2008 prodigioso de "Gomorra" y "Il divo") facturado en la vecina Italia en el último lustro. Planteado como un verdadero quién es quién del cine transalpino, la última propuesta de Michele Placido presume de uno de los mejores repartos habidos y por haber en la historia reciente del cine italiano. Y como cine de personajes que es semejante apuesta no puede sino saldarse con un balance positivo. Kim Rossi Stuart, el superlativo Elio Germano, Riccardo Scamarcio, Stegfano Accorsi o Jasmine Trinca son la flor y nata del cine italiano sub-40, y aquí encuentran un vehículo impagable para exhibir la excelente salud de las nuevas hornadas de intérpretes italianos.

Un recital polifónico que da vida y oxígeno a un contundente fresco de ecos históricos de la mediana delincuencia en la Roma de los años 70 siguiendo los pasos de las grandes sagas criminales y corales del cine norteamericano. Placido, que adapta con precisión quirúrgica la excelente novela homónima de Giancarlo De Cataldo procediendo con entre trazos perfectamente firmes a dibujar el auge y caída a los infiernos de un hatajo de maleantes, de parásitos sociales de las malas calles perfilados con vívida intensidad en toda su dimensión psicológica. "Romanzo criminale" es una película ambiciosa que se esmera, y mucho, en la reconstrucción ambiental de un país sacudido por violentas convulsiones político-sociales, tomando así el testigo de otras películas italianas que explotan ese filón contextual como "La mejor juventud" o "Mi hermano es hijo único".

Dura, extraordinariamente seca y sin concesión alguna a sentimentalismos de saldo, la propuesta de Placido llega casi tan lejos como su director se propone. Los personajes no son juzgados y sus cuestionables acciones desfilan ante nuestros ojos desde la objetividad de la equidistancia. Pesan francamente las dos horas y media largas de metraje (de hecho existe una versión alternativa y extendida de 180 minutos), pero a pesar de puntuales altibajos, lastre de la excesiva dilatación del metraje, "Romanzo criminale" encierra una ración bien pertrechada de buen cine, vendible además entre las masas y entre el público amante del cine pequeño y minoritario.

Roberto Piorno

III Cine Fest Brazil Barcelona

2008-12-10T01:56:00.000-08:00

III Cine Fest Brasil Barcelona

El Circuito Inffinito de Festivales siente una vez más el enorme placer de retornar a esta magnífica ciudad para producir una nueva edición del Cine Fest Brasil.

Hace tres años que venimos presentando al pueblo catalán lo mejor de la más reciente producción audiovisual brasilera, exhibiendo un rico panel de la diversidad del cine producido en Brasil.

Este año preparamos una selección muy especial que cuenta con películas que formaron las mayores taquillas de las salas de exhibición en Brasil, entre ellas: Tropa de Elite, dirigido por José Padilha y vencedor del Oso de Oro en el Festival de Berlín de este año, Mi nombre no es Johnny, el gran vencedor del 13° Cine Fest Brasil-Miami, Estómago, reciente ganador de la Espiga de Oro a la mejor película en el Festival Internacional de Cine de Valladolid entre muchas otras.

Además de la muestra competitiva de largometrajes, el III Cine Fest Brasil-Barcelona también promoverá la muestra DOCTV IB, una serie de documentales producidos en los más diversos países de la cultura Iberoamericana, cuyo objetivo es el estímulo a la implantación de políticas de fomento a la producción y teledifusión de los documentales y la difusión de la producción cultural de los pueblos iberoamericanos en el mercado mundial.

Tenemos absoluta seguridad de que todos disfrutarán, una vez más, de este festival. Nuestro objetivo es promover y divulgar nuestro país y nuestra cultura en España, especialmente aquí, en Barcelona, cuna de innumerables manifestaciones artísticas que se mostraron universalmente categóricas con el paso de los años, y una valiosa puerta de entrada para el producto audiovisual brasilero en Europa, estrechando el intercambio cultural y económico entre los dos países y creando oportunidades de negocios y apertura de mercado de coproducción entre los sectores audiovisuales brasilero y español.

Incurables

Sinopsis
Un hombre, una mujer, una habitación de hotel barato, un juego sin reglas, una única noche. Uno no sabe quien es el otro y, de la misma forma, cada uno puede ser quien quiera.

Ficha técnica
Dirección: Gustavo Acioli
Productor: Lara Pozzobon y Pedro Rocha
Guión: Gustavo Acioli y Marcelo Pedreira
Fotografía: Lula Carvalho
Dirección de arte: André Weller
Montaje: Luiz Guimarães de Castro
Edición de sonido: Damião Lopes
Banda sonora: Leo Guimarães
Elenco: Dira Paes y Fernando Eiras

Friday 19:30

A lonely man, a beautiful woman, a cheap hotel room, a game with no rules, one night only. One does not know who the other is and, for this very reason, each can be who they want.

Getting on in years and disillusioned, a man pays a prostitute just to listen to him. He claims it is his last night as he will shoot himself the next morning. The woman teases him saying she’ll listen to anything for the amount of money he offered her, but in fact, just like him, she is hungry for love and warmth. They spend the night together talking, arguing and making love. They express their fantasies and feelings, sharing moments of euphoria and sadness.

Director Aciolo chose an original play (‘A Dama da Lapa’ by Marcelo Pedreira, not yet staged) as the base of ‘Incurable Ones’ which is his debut as a film director. This existential, claustrophobic and intense drama with tortuous dialogues and sexual impact dominates the scene and keeps the viewer intrigued from beginning to the end.

Gustavo Acioli is a filmmaker, singer and songwriter. After a successful career with the short fiction films in 35mm Guide dog (1999), A regular night (2001), Nothing to say (2003) and Thru philosophy (2004) he directed his feature film The Incurable Ones in 2005, which earned Fernando Eiras a Candango de Ouro award for best actor at the Brasília Film Festival.

Gustavo Acioli (1972) is a filmmaker, singer and songwriter. After a successful career with the short fiction films in 35mm Guide dog (1999), A regular night (2001), Nothing to say (2003) and Thru philosophy (2004) he directed his feature film The Incurable Ones in 2005, which earned Fernando Eiras a Candango de Ouro award for best actor at the Brasília Film Festival.

Bye Bye Brazil

Salomé (Betty Faria), Lorde Cigano (José Wiker) y Andorinha son tres artistas ambulantes que cruzan el país junto con La Caravana Rolidei, haciendo espectáculos para el sector más humilde de la población brasilera y que aún no tienen acceso a la televisión. Se les junta el acordeonista Cico (Fabio Junior) y su esposa, Dasdô (Zaira Zambelli), con los cuales la Caravana cruza Amazonas hasta llegar a Brasilia.

Dirección
Guión: Cacá Diegues y Leopoldo Serran
Producción: Luiz Carlos Barreto y Lucy Barreto
Música: Chico Buarque, Roberto Menescal y Dominguinhos
Fotografia: Lauro Escorel
Organización de producción: Marcos Altberg y Nair Tavares
Dirección de Arte: Anísio Medeiros
Edición: Mair Tavares
Elenco: José Wilker, Betty Faria, Fábio Junior, Zaira Zambelli, Jofre Soares, José Maria Lima, Emmanuel Cavalcante, Rinaldo Gines, Marieta Severo, José Carlos Lacerda, Marcus Vinícius, Príncipe Nabor

Carlos Diegues's ''Bye Bye Brasil'' is a psychological inventory of a country on the verge of extraordinary economic and industrial development, a travelogue through a nation that doesn't yet exist.

A tiny troupe of tacky performers, who call themselves the Caravana Rolidei, mush their way by ancient truck from the arid, povertystricken Brazilian northeast to the seacoast at Belem, across the jungles on the trans-Amazonian highway to Brasilia and points in between. They are a magician-mind reader, a sultry rhumba dancer who hustles on the side, a naive young man who plays the accordion, his very pregnant wife, and a mute black man who drives the truck and picks up small change hand-wrestling in roadside cafes.

Ci,co, the accordion player, falls desperately in love with Salome, the rhumba dancer, who is the mistress of Lord Gypsy, the troupe's leader and star. Lord Gypsy accepts Salome's easy ways and himself has an untroubled affair with Ci,co's wife, Dasdo, after her baby is born. In the course of their tour, Salome and Dasdo become friends with no sense of rivalry.

Mr. Diegues appears to believe that nothing is quite as foolish or dangerous as passions out of control, perhaps in politics as well as in personal relationships. This is an odd, unusually temperate notion to come from a film maker who is one of the fathers of Brazil's ''Cinema Novo,'' that group of young film makers who turned away from conventional film forms in the 1960's to start a cinema more responsive to the country's political and social needs.

''Bye Bye Brasil'' is a most reflective film, nicely acted by its small cast and beautifully though not artily photographed in some remarkable locations. It is civilized.

The filmmakers of Brazil's famous Cinema Novo movement, which arose in the late 1950s and early 1960s, examined the great themes of underdevelopment--such as poverty, hunger, underemployment, and the concentration of land in the hands of a few--in the archetypal setting of the drought-stricken Northeastern backlands. A few years after the demise of Cinema Novo, Carlos Diegues, the writer-director of Bye Bye Brazil (produced in 1979), resurrected those themes and the hinterlands setting in order to portray his country as it transitioned rapidly from underdevelopment towards development, from the ox cart to the jet airplane.

In the movie Bye Bye Brazil (1980), the filmmaker Cacá Diegues scripted a scene in which an Indian leader in the Amazon, while drinking a Coca Cola and listening to the national news on the radio, talks about the president of Brazil as the leader of a foreign nation, a nation to which he did not belong. That image, that construction of distance and separation between oneself and the nation to which that person belongs, raises questions regarding what it means to be part of a nation.

Saturday 19:30

Mi Nombre No Es Johnny

Sinopsis
Él tenía todo. Menos limites. João Guilherme Estrella era un típico joven de clase media, que vivió intensamente su juventud. Inteligente y simpático, era adorado por los padres y popular entre los amigos. Con espíritu aventurero y bohemio, sumergió en todas las locuras permitidas. Y también en las prohibidas. A inicio de los 90, se volvió el rey del tráfico de drogas de la zona sur de Río de Janeiro. Investigado por la policía, fue preso y su nombre llegó a las primeras páginas de los periódicos. En lugar de fiestas, comenzó a frecuentar el banco de los reos. Su historia se revela en sueños y dramas comunes a toda la juventud.

Ficha Técnica:
Dirección: Mauro Lima
Producción: Mariza Leão
Guión: Mariza Leão y Mauro Lima, basado en el libro de Guilherme Fiúza
Fotografía: Uli Burtin
Dirección de arte: Cláudio Amaral Peixoto
Música: Fábio Mondego
Montaje: Marcelo Moraes
Elenco: Selton Mello, Cléo Pires, Júlia Lemmertz, Rafaela Mandelli, Eva Todor, André di Biasi, Giulio Lopes, Cássia Kiss, Ângelo Paes Leme, Orã Figueiredo, Hossen Minussi, Luís Miranda, Gillray Coutinho, Kiko Mascarenhas, Flávio Bauraqui, Aramis Trindade, Neco Vila Lobos, Charly Braun, Felipe Martins, Roney Villela, Wendell Bendelack, Ivan de Almeida, Flávio Pardal y Rodrigo Amarante

Sunday 19:30

Los Desafinados

Sinopsis
Él tenía todo. Menos limites. João Guilherme Estrella era un típico joven de clase media, que vivió intensamente su juventud. Inteligente y simpático, era adorado por los padres y popular entre los amigos. Con espíritu aventurero y bohemio, sumergió en todas las locuras permitidas. Y también en las prohibidas. A inicio de los 90, se volvió el rey del tráfico de drogas de la zona sur de Río de Janeiro. Investigado por la policía, fue preso y su nombre llegó a las primeras páginas de los periódicos. En lugar de fiestas, comenzó a frecuentar el banco de los reos. Su historia se revela en sueños y dramas comunes a toda la juventud.

Ficha Técnica:
Dirección: Mauro Lima
Producción: Mariza Leão
Guión: Mariza Leão y Mauro Lima, basado en el libro de Guilherme Fiúza
Fotografía: Uli Burtin
Dirección de arte: Cláudio Amaral Peixoto
Música: Fábio Mondego
Montaje: Marcelo Moraes
Elenco: Selton Mello, Cléo Pires, Júlia Lemmertz, Rafaela Mandelli, Eva Todor, André di Biasi, Giulio Lopes, Cássia Kiss, Ângelo Paes Leme, Orã Figueiredo, Hossen Minussi, Luís Miranda, Gillray Coutinho, Kiko Mascarenhas, Flávio Bauraqui, Aramis Trindade, Neco Vila Lobos, Charly Braun, Felipe Martins, Roney Villela, Wendell Bendelack, Ivan de Almeida, Flávio Pardal y Rodrigo Amarante

Monday 19:30

Mutum

Sinopsis
Mutum quiere decir mudo. Mutun es una ave negra que solo canta por la noche. Y Mutum es también el nombre de un sitio inhóspito en el desierto de Minas Gerais, donde viven Thiago y su familia. Thiago tiene diez años y es un chico distinto de los demás. A través de su mirada que vemos el mundo nebuloso de los adultos, con sus traiciones, violencias y silencios. Al lado de Felipe, su hermano y único amigo, Thiago tendrá que enfrentarse con este mundo, descubriéndolo al mismo tiempo en que tendrá que aprender a dejarlo.

Ficha técnica
Dirección: Sandra Kogut
Producción: Flávio R. Tambellini
Guión: Anna Luiza Martins Costa y Sandra Kogut
Fotografía: Mauro Pinheiro Jr.
Dirección artística: Marcos Pedroso
Montaje: Sérgio Mekler
Edición de sonido: Waldir Xavier, Eduardo Pop y Thomas Robert
Producción: Flavio R. Tambellini, Laurent Lavolé e Isabelle Pragier

Elenco: Thiago da Silva Mariz, Wallison Felipe Lela Barroso, João Miguel, Izadora Cristiani Fernandes Silveira, Rômulo Romeu Garcia Braga, Paula Regina Sampaio da Silva, Maria das Graças Leal de Macedo y Eduardo da Luz Moreira

Tuesday 22:00

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Forasters

2008-12-10T01:43:00.000-08:00

El cineasta català Ventura Pons ha presentat "Forasters", la seva tercera pel·lícula, basada en el text teatral de Sergi Belbel. Pons ha dit que no vol perdre el temps parlant de la polèmica que hi va haver dies enrere a Rojals, una població valenciana on l'alcalde va censurar l'obra original de Belbel que preparava una escola municipal de teatre.

Forasters" situa una mateixa família en dos períodes diferents. Un, al segle XX i l'altre, al XXI. I en cada etapa viu un fet traumàtic. Primer, la pèrdua d'un dels seus membres i com els afecta. I l'altra, l'arribada d'uns nous veïns, forasters, que trastoquen l'harmonia familiar per la por al desconegut. El text atrapa, segons Ventura Pons, perquè transmet emoció.

Destaquen les interpretacions de Joan Pera, en el seu primer paper dramàtic al cinema i molt ben caracteritzat pel maquillatge, i el d'Anna Lizaran, que ja va representar el seu personatge en l'obra teatral de Sergi Belbel.

L'Heure d'été

2008-11-22T07:22:00.000-08:00

L'Heure d'été (Summer Hours) is the second in a series of films produced by Musee d'Orsay, after Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge. In the film two brothers and a sister witness the disappearance of their childhood memories when they must relinquish the family belongings to ensure their deceased mother’s succession.

The film was known under the working titles Souvenirs du Valois and Printemps Passé

Principal photography began in Paris on June 4th and was completed Friday July 27, 2007.

The film received its United States premiere at the 46th New York Film Festival on October 1st, 2008 in New York.

This small, impeccably civilised drama of familial inheritance recalls the late great works of master miniaturist Claude Sautet.

A beloved matriarch dies, leaving her three adult children to argue over the valuable collection of paintings and furniture she has bequeathed to them. The oldest brother (Charles Berling) clings to the old house and the two Corots that will have to be sold, while his far-flung siblings (Juliette Binoche, Jérémie Renier) have stronger attachments to their careers in America and Asia respectively.

The problems of an haut-bourgeois family might seem trivial in world terms, but Olivier Assayas's script asks deeper questions about ownership and the public purpose of art. Berling, as the melancholy nostalgist standing, Canute-like, before the waves of change, is especially good.

Summer Hours (aka L'Heure d'été) a quiet, carefully observed movie by writer-director Olivier Assayas, a former Cahiers du cinéma critic. He's returned to the subtle French film of bourgeois life once vilified by the Cahiers critics who became movie-makers as the Nouvelle Vague. The great Edith Scob plays Hélène, a gracious, egocentric septuagenarian who has worshipped her uncle, a moderately distinguished figurative artist, and turned his fading country house into a shrine. Along the way, she has looked down on her late husband, a heating engineer, and consistently undermined the confidence of her three children, Frédéric (Charles Berling), a professor of economics in Paris, Jérémie (Jérémie Renier), a business executive working in China, and Adrienne (Juliette Binoche), a designer living in New York.

The movie carefully calibrates the family's emotional reactions to Hélène in her lifetime and then to her death, burial and the handling of her estate. Should they turn her house into a museum celebrating their great uncle? Or should they sell it off, along with a few exquisite pieces of Modernist furniture, a pair of Corots and some lesser works? The story is satisfactorily resolved, with an unexpected end in which Hélène's grandchildren make an ironic use of her former home. All her possessions in the film were lent by the Musée d'Orsay.

Olivier Assayas's new film is not a radical departure from his previous work, but the differences are nonetheless striking. It has a mature look and feel, made by an artist completely at ease with the medium. Without striving for effect, Assayas is happy to let the material speak for itself. And what a magnificent achievement it is. L'Heure d'été deals with ideas of tradition and family heritage, using a house and a garden as a metaphor for cultural memory.

Incisively written, superbly acted by some of France's finest performers and boasting a delicately understated approach to the subject matter, Assayas's new film moves effortlessly through its narrative with all the grace of Renoir at the height of his powers.

Hélène (Edith Scob) lives in a rambling mansion full of art: Corot landscapes, Redon panels, a variety of rare and valuable objects, and her own uncle's paintings. On her seventy-fifth birthday, her three grown children arrive to celebrate the happy milestone. Frédéric (Charles Berling) is an economist. The younger son, Jérémie (Jérémie Renier, also in this year's Le Silence de Lorna), has relocated to Shanghai with his family, where he manufactures running shoes. And finally, there is the dark and brooding Adrienne (Juliette Binoche), a successful designer who now lives in New York.

Assayas assembles this group and then delicately begins to explore them as individuals. Events force Hélène's children to make a series of decisions that have everything to do with their shared sense of the past. What to do with all of these memories and objects that define them and in a sense create their identity? Can this all be discarded? What at first appears to be a simple decision that they make together turns into something much thornier. As unexpected emotions surface among the siblings, they discover that they have changed, and now aspire to different things. How these tensions are resolved is the subject of this intimate drama. L'Heure d'été is a work of great lyrical power, and Assayas shows an extraordinary control of place and character, bringing the two into a beautiful harmony.

Trans-siberian

2008-11-14T01:25:00.000-08:00

If you have to ask yourself what it means when they say “Dramatic Competition” at the Sundance Film Festival, you may want to check out Brad Anderson’s Transsiberian, which has quite a bit to offer to audiences looking to get a little Americans in bad situations abroad tension in their lives.

The last time we saw Brad Anderson, he was directing Christian Bale in one of his more incomparable roles in The Machinist. With Transsiberian, Anderson gives us the tale of married couple Roy (Woody Harrelson) and Jessie (Emily Mortimer) who are traveling from a church-led mission in China to Moscow along the Transsiberian railway. Along the way, they meet up with young freeloaders Carlos (Eduardo Noriega, The Devil’s Backbone) and Abby (Kate Mara, Shooter) who are traveling to Amsterdam. All seems to be going fine, but when Roy accidentally missed the train at one stop and is separated from his wife, all hell seems to break loose. Jessie soon finds out that Carlos and Abby aren’t your average tourists, but may be a pair of drug runners. Add to this the fact that a Russian Narcotics Agent (Ben Kingsley) is hot on their trail, and Jessie is forced to take action and try to survive as she and Roy are pulled deeper and deeper into a web of deception, violence and drug trading.

The real moral of the story here is that if you are an American tourist traveling through Russia, don’t trust anyone. The film delivers the very tense and often frightening reality of Roy and Jessie’s situation very well. It build throughout the entire film, leaving the audience engaged in how deeply the trouble will run. The cinematography is what really sells it, at least for me. Brad Anderson and cinematographer Xavi Giménez create a very grim, dirty vision of Siberia, drawing us into a country that was once alive, but is now dead and buried beneath six feet of corruption.

The performances were solid as well, with none more impressive than that of Emily Mortimer. As Jessie, she is forced to deal with some very intense situations and ends up trapped between the truth and finding a way to survive. It is an interesting character study, as we never know what we would do if we ended up trapped and in trouble in a place like old Russia. Woody Harrelson also delivers a good performance, shining through in the end as the goofy, but sometimes annoying Roy. His is in many ways a walking cliche, that born-again righteously oblivious midwestern American guy — and in this instance, that is ok. Eduardo Noriega is also creepily reminiscent of someone like Oliver Martinez in Unfaithful — creepy, smooth talking foreign dude who is just looking for a hole in which to stick it.

The films only downfall is that it begins to slow down about a third of the way through. In some ways it feels akin to Babel, but with a bit more intrigue and action toward the end. Well, to be completely honest, it is a lot more interesting than Babel, which bored me to death. To say the least, Transsiberian is worth a look for anyone who enjoys deep drama, an engaging story and a relatable situation — if you have ever tried to traffic drugs through the middle of Russia, that is.

The Children of Huang Shi

2008-11-08T10:10:00.000-08:00

Director Roger Spottiswoode is not averse to taking risks as a filmmaker from Shake Hands with the XDevil to the 1930s-set true story of The Children of Huang Shi. Inspired by true events, The Children Of Huang Shi tells how a young Englishman, George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) came to lead sixty orphaned boys on an extraordinary journey of almost a thousand perilous miles across the snow-bound Liu Pan Shan mountains to safety on the edge of the Mongolian desert. And of how, in doing so, he came to understand the true meaning of courage. During his journey, Hogg learns to rely on the support of Chen (Chow Yun Fat), the leader of a Chinese partisan group who becomes his closest friend. He soon finds himself falling in love with Lee (Radha Mitchell), a recklessly brave Australian adventurer whom war has turned into an unsentimental nurse on horseback. Along the way Hogg befriends Madame Wang (Michelle Yeoh), an aristocratic survivor who has also been displaced by war, who helps the young Englishman, his friends and their sixty war orphans make their way across awesome (and rarely filmed) mountain and desert regions to a place of safety near the western end of the Great Wall of China.

Paul Fischer: You don't pick easy subjects for your films what is it about this material that attracted you?

Roger Spottiswoode: Well, if you're going to spend a year of your life on a subject, to me it's much more interesting to find really good subjects and different subjects. And I like films to be different, not the same each time. There may be common themes, but I'd like to find different areas. And I did a film in Rwanda, and a film in China, in the same three-year period. But they're both fascinating people. And actually, they are slightly united in themes, about what can one - personal responsibility and courage. But this guy - you know, Hogg was, I thought, a remarkable guy. And he died at the age of 30. He went to China just to find out about it, and ended up learning Mandarin, and becoming completely involved, and becoming Chinese, in a way.

Paul Fischer: The Rwandan story had a degree of contemporary relevance, because that particular history was still very prevalent, I suppose, in the consciousness of the public. This story, of course, is relatively unknown to much of the world. Is that a challenge for you, to contemporize this piece, and even though it's a historical piece, to make it relevant?

Roger Spottiswoode: Well, in a way, yeah. I guess it is a bit of a challenge. And it's set in a world that nobody really knows anything about. China, at that time, nobody knows very much. They don't really know much about China now. So that did make it more of a challenge. But it's a story of what one person can pull off, with determination and courage. And those things are always relevant. It's one person doing the impossible, or doing the very, very difficult.

Paul Fischer: And it's about a character who undergoes his own personal transformation. I mean, we don't see him as an initially sympathetic character.

Roger Spottiswoode: No, he isn't. He's busy trying to do something entirely different, and doesn't really give a shit about any of this, and then starts to wake up. Goes through a wake-up experience, and starts to change. And those are always - it's interesting to be reminded that people can change. It can do that. Not many of us do, but you can. He sure did. And he died at the age of 29 or 30. So, very, very young.

Paul Fischer: During the metamorphosis of this script, how much historical license did you take? Or is it pretty much as accurate as you'd be able to find it, based on the facts?

Roger Spottiswoode: Well, most of the events sort of happened. But there was much more, because it took longer. Whenever you cover a year of somebody's life, or a couple of years - you know, we just had to shorten it. We had to leave out an awful lot. I mean, even for Shake Hands With the Devil, we were looking at a period of time that was 200 days, and we had to lose an enormous amount of things - somebody's life in 200 days. So this story took longer. But many things happened, again. Hogg died later, but he didn't die the moment he arrived. He started building, again, and did. But they were all the same scenes that we'd already seen when he started. So for a film, it isn't very interesting to say, "Well, he does it all again."

Paul Fischer: Was it difficult for you to figure out what to cut?

Roger Spottiswoode: Yes, it's always hard. You want to put it all in. And then slowly - you've got a script that's 160 pages. And then you know that really, you have to be done at - you know, it's a two-hour film, and not a five-hour film. And that it's very hard to in movies, you can't really do the same thing again and again. Repetition doesn't do so well.

Paul Fischer: Obviously you shot, on location, in China. What were the particular problems that you faced shooting on location?

Roger Spottiswoode: Well, the Gobe Desert and those mountains are extremely difficult. The desert's particularly hard, because it's not - you know, you can sink into it. And we did. Our very first day of shooting, the road had been taken up since we were last there. And still in the dark, we were sent off on a short run that went across the actual desert. And within a quarter of a mile, 50 vehicles had sunk into the desert sand. And the crew just got out - a crew of three or 400 people. We all started collecting pebbles, and we built a little road to get us back together. It was quite astonishing. I think a Western crew, a European crew, would have probably been waiting to be dug out of there by cranes and things. And a Chinese crew just got on with it. And it was a real reminder that this is how China was built. Vast numbers of people just got on with it, and without complaint.

Paul Fischer: So this earthquake must have come as a huge shock to you.

Roger Spottiswoode: Yes, it did. To us and them. But we're seeing some of the same things. A large number of people, some of them soldiers, and then volunteers, are there helping, and at an enormous level.

Paul Fischer: What about casting choices of this. I mean, Jonathan, who is an odd choice to play Henry the Eighth - what did you see in him that made you be convinced that this would be a right fit?

Roger Spottiswoode: Well, I liked him from Bend it Like Beckham, and from Match Point, two very different performances. And then when I met him, I thought he had a kind of youthful - not naiveté, but innocence and energy, and sort of a real sense that he could do things. And he had the right kind of approach to life that I thought was good for Hogg. And I thought from the two films that he really can act. And I'd seen him in a couple of other things, I think. So I thought he's very good. But his essential nature is right for this. And I think I was right about that. He does have this kind of exuberance. And - you know, he paces around the set. He likes to work all the time, you know? He's got all this energy. And he's exactly the same age, and he knows England, and he knows that kind of character.

Paul Fischer: What about Radha, who I think gives one of her best performances?

Roger Spottiswoode: Yeah, she is good. Well, she, too - I mean, I know she's from Australia, and I thought she had a little bit of a rural life, and could sit on a horse well, and is kind of a person who likes to get on with things, and does things. I had met this woman - I had met not the actual person, but a self-taught nurse-doctor who'd been in that war, and had a very direct strength to her. And I thought Radha had that. And they're very interesting characters, and I thought she could pull it off. I thought she did pull it off.

Paul Fischer: There are some extraordinary scenes with these children, particularly during the march, during the big walk. What were the challenges of working with these kids? And how hard was it to wrangle them?

Roger Spottiswoode: Well, we brought them teachers and trainers, and all of that. We had about 30 or 35 at the time. We found most of them - a few came from the Beijing Opera Schools, and they're very, very trained. Like, the guy who's the gardener. They're really trained performers. But the majority of them, the seven to 14-year-olds, are from the schools for undocumented workers. So they come from very tough lives, and they're sort of strong kids. Many of them have very sad faces, as you've probably seen. But they have a real sense of who they are. And I didn't want this just to be a crowd of kids that were kind of faceless Chinese, and they're just a crowd, and we didn't get to know them. Because although they don't all speak, you start to sort of see them as individuals, I think. And so we found, amongst these kids, these undocumented workers, we found very striking little personalities. And we put them together. And they came to the entire shoot. We didn't just sort of do six weeks with the kids. We had them for 15 weeks. And they were there pretty much every day. And - I mean, they would work with us every day. They were part of our crew, and it was really nice, because they're noise and brash and crazy. Then you ask them to be quiet, and they really are quiet. But they're very lively and disciplined at the same time.

Paul Fischer: Was this one of the toughest shoots you've undertaken?

Roger Spottiswoode: Yes, very much so. I wanted to do it with a Chinese crew, because I thought it would be more Chinese if it wasn't just a bunch of Westerners using a backdrop. But it is challenging to work entirely outside your language.

Paul Fischer: And this is an Australian-Chinese co-production, is that correct?

Roger Spottiswoode: Yes.

Paul Fischer: And so you got funding from both governments?

Roger Spottiswoode: We got funding from a Chinese distributor, with the blessing of the Chinese government. And we got a lot of funding from Australia. Some of it was government, and some of it was pre-sales, and things. An enormous amount of help from Australia. They were terrific. And, I mean, we had some Australians working on the film. But largely, hugely, the crew was Chinese. But the Australians were immensely helpful. We spent a lot of money there. We did the post there, and the post-post. They were great.

Paul Fischer: Would you want to shoot another film in Australia?

Roger Spottiswoode: Oh, in a second. I did. In fact, I'd love to shoot a real film in Australia. I shot a short film, which got itself - you're from Australia?

Paul Fischer: I am Australian, yeah.

Roger Spottiswoode: Yeah. I was in Melbourne, and they have the [INAUD] Short Film Festival. So - and I came across, when I was editing, there was a Spanish restaurant I used to go to. It was owned by a family, and the two sons played music and did flamenco several times a week. And they were really, really terrific. So my last day in Australia, I got a little crew together and we made a film. We shot a film. It opened the St Kilda Short Festival this year. I'd love to go back. Yeah, I really would. It's such an interesting place. I'd love to go and do a proper film there.

Paul Fischer: Do you know what you're doing next?

Roger Spottiswoode: I think I'm doing a William Golding novel called The Spire, set in the 14th century.

Paul Fischer: Oh, so another very easy film.

Roger Spottiswoode: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I keep hoping for a drawing room comedy, you know?

Paul Fischer: I was going to say. You should be - like, a two-hander, like a Noel Coward -

Roger Spottiswoode: Set in Paris, with a very, very long shoot. Yeah. Work vigorously hard from 11 in the morning 'til seven in the afternoon. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm looking for. If you have a script in your hip pocket, send it over immediately. I'll do it first, in a second.

El Nido Vacio

2008-10-26T11:49:00.000-07:00

SAN SEBASTIÁN.- "Siento que tengo cuerda para rato". Así lo ha comentado esta mañana Daniel Burman, el director argentino que ha presentado en el Palacio del Kursaal su filme 'El nido vacío' en la penúltima jornada de la 56ª edición del Zinemaldia donostiarra, acompañado por los productores y los actores principales de esta coproducción hispano-argentina, Cecilia Roth, Arturo Goetz e Inés Efron.

'El nido vacío' narra la situación de crisis por la que pasa un matrimonio argentino tras la marcha de su hija Julia a Israel, visto desde la mirada de Leonardo (Arturo Goetz), un escritor introvertido que no consigue afrontar los cambios por los que atraviesa su vida, mientras que ve cómo su mujer Martha es capaz de superarlo e incluso disfrutar y distraerse retomando sus estudios en la universidad.

La inclusión de dos cuadros musicales en el filme por parte de Burman, a pesar de haber reconocido que odia este género y que le da "vergüenza ajena", supone un contrapunto en el desarrollo de la película y responde según el director, a "la necesidad de encarar el drama desde una perspectiva distinta". De esta manera estos fragmentos se convierten en estrategias para manejar mejor el relato y así, "hacer más liviano y ligero lo doloroso".

Por otro lado, el realizador argentino ha comentado que el paso de realidad y ensoñación en el personaje de Leonardo, responde a una puesta en escena donde el personaje vive su espacialidad con una permanente incomodidad, y ayuda a enfatizar y reflejar la crisis existencial en la que está sumido el personaje. Es cuando Leonardo acepta la situación real en la que está sumido, cuando es capaz de ser realmente feliz.

El cineasta ha comentado que esta película surgió de su particular interés por el vacío que dejan los hijos en la casa de sus padres cuando parten, así como del modo en que las parejas interactúan con estos espacios. "En esta relación entre Martha y Leonardo se traslucen los diferentes caminos que puede tomar una pareja una vez que quedan solos nuevamente", ha afirmado Burman.

Por su parte, Cecilia Roth, una de las actrices argentinas de cine más prestigiosas actualmente y con más trayectoria, se ha mostrado muy halagada de volver al Festival de Cine, al que acudió por primera vez en 1977 y del que guarda "muy buenos recuerdos y anécdotas". De hecho, la actriz ha recordado su paso por San Sebastián con la película 'Laberinto de Pasiones', con la que compartió cartel con Antonio Banderas, el Premio Donostia 2008.

La primera actriz no española en ganar un Goya, ha manifestado estar muy satisfecha de haber trabajado en este proyecto con Daniel Burman, del que ha dicho que "sabe sacar lo mejor de cada uno" además de haber revelado que es "muy divertido".

Daniel Burman

Daniel Burman (born 29 August 1973, Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a film director, screenplay writer, and producer.According to film critic Joel Poblete, who writes for Mabuse, a cinema magazine, Daniel Burman is one of the members of the so-called "New Argentina Cinema" which began c. 1998. Film critic Anthony Kaufman, writing for indieWIRE, an online community of independent filmmakers and aficionados, said Burman's A Chrysanthemum Burst in Cincoesquinas (1998) has been cited as the beginning of the "New Argentine Cinema" wave.

Burman is of Polish-Jewish descent, and he was born and raised in Buenos Aires.

He holds both Argentine and Polish citizenship, like his films' character, Ariel. He studied law before changing to audiovisual media production.

In 1995, he launched his own production company together with Diego Dubcovsky, BD Cine (Burman and Dubcovsky Cine).

Burman is a founding member of the Academy of Argentine Cinema.[4]

His loose trilogy of films, Esperando al Mesías (2000), El Abrazo Partido (2004), and Derecho de Familia (2006), were all written and directed by Burman and star Uruguayan actor Daniel Hendler. They are largely autobiographical, dealing with the life of a young neurotic Jew in contemporary Buenos Aires.

He frequently collaborates with other Argentine Jews, notably writer and klezmer musician Marcelo Birmajer, and César Lerner.

His comedic touches often bring comparison to Woody Allen, a comparison Burman is quick to reject. He said, "It's not a measurable comparison. But I'm very happy with it. I admire him more than anyone else in the world."[5]

Burman's films have been featured in many film festivals around the world. El abrazo partido (2003) took the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, as well as best actor for Hendler.

Burman was co-producer of the successful 2004 film, The Motorcycle Diaries, as well as Garage Olimpo (1999).

It is arguable that the loose trilogy of films - Esperando al Mesías (2000), El Abrazo Partido (2003), and Derecho de Familia (2006) - all happen in the same "universe". The three share common traits - they are all written and directed by Burman and all star Daniel Hendler in the title role as a young Jew. Additionally, several actors and actresses appear twice in the films. Because Hendler's characters all share similar traits (they are all named Ariel: Ariel Goldstein, Ariel Makaroff and Ariel Perelman respectively) and because some characters from one film seem to appear in another, the trilogy is usually considered as happening in the same universe. Several continuity problems seem to state, however, that the three Ariels are different persons: in the first movie, Ariel's father is a restaurant owner, and his mother dies; in the second film, his father has been long gone, and his mother tends to a small shop; in the third movie, his father dies in the film, and his mother has been long dead. The Ariels cannot be the same. However, a character named Estela from the first film appears in the second, and is both times played by Melina Petriella. This at least connects the first two movies to the same universe. Additionally, Juan José Flores Quispe appears in the second and third movie as "Ramón". Although his character, unlike Estela, seems to vary from film to film, this seems to suggest that the second and third film also share the same universe, and thus, the trilogy itself is set in the same storyline, with the "Ariel persona" showing either different aspects of the same character or simply being a mere coincidence.

Lost Embrace (Spanish: El abrazo partido) (2004) is an Argentine, French, Italian, and Spanish comedy drama film, directed by Daniel Burman and written by Burman and Marcelo Birmajer. The picture features Daniel Hendler, Adriana Aizemberg, Jorge D'Elía, among others.[1]

The drama was Argentina's official choice for the 2004 Oscar Awards, Foreign Language film category.[2]

The comedy-drama tells of Ariel Makaroff, the grandson of Holocaust-era Polish refugees, who is currently on a complex search for his personal and cultural identity.

Esperando El Mesias

The film takes place in a Jewish community of Buenos Aires.

The picture tells of Ariel (Daniel Hendler), a restaurant waiter and a young man who is torn between his devotion to traditional family ties and the desire for something different, and, of Santamaria (Enrique Piñeyro) an older bank employee who suddenly finds his life in complete turmoil.

Santamaria is unexpectedly fired from his bank job due to the world's stock market shocks. His wife takes this event as an opportunity to get rid of him and put him out on the street.

Forced to make a small living returning stolen wallets, Santamaria finds some hope in a bathroom attendant (Stefania Sandrelli) who is waiting for her husband to be released from prison.

Ariel is very much against the restraints of a future that will see him take over his elderly father's (Héctor Alterio) restaurant and marry a nice Argentine Jewish girl (Melina Petriella).

At the same time, Ariel is also attracted to a sexy co-worker, Laura (Chiara Caselli), who tells him she's a lesbian.

Derecho De Familia

The film tells the story of Ariel Perelman (Daniel Hendler). While he has an easy going lifestyle, he's trying to find his way in life in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He works at a university as a law professor. The film begins with a long narration of the way things stand in his life. He describes his father, Bernardo Perelman (Arturo Goetz), in quite detail. Perelman, as he's known, is a popular public defender who meets his clients where they work or in restaurants so he can determine what they are "all about." Most of his clients are generally poor. He's very close to his secretary (Adriana Aizemberg) since his wife passed away fifteen years ago. Work fills Perelman's days, and Ariel is astonished by his energy.

After lusting after Sandra (Julieta Díaz), an attractive woman who takes his class, Ariel decides to chase her and takes the Pilates class she teaches. Not much happens until Sandra is sued for teaching Pilates without the approval of the company who hold the rights to teach Pilates in Argentina. Ariel (known as Perelman to Sandra) reaches out to his father for help and succeeds in winning the law suit.

In the process Sandra falls in love with the younger Perelman and they marry. She begins to decorate their home for a few years and they have a child they name Gaston (Eloy Burman), who turns out a quite charming young boy. She also starts to teach Pilates in their apartment.

Ariel's office building is shut down for a month because it had collapsed, and he is given some time off. However, he doesn't share this news with his wife. During this time his father starts spending some quality time with Ariel, which makes him think something must be wrong. Ariel is asked by the Swiss kindergarten school were Gaston attends to participate in a play and swim classes with the other fathers. Ariel first rebels but gives in.

The film ends with his father's death and burial and a long introspective look at Ariel Perelman's life in his 30's something.

Happy Go Lucky

2008-10-25T04:18:00.000-07:00

Happy-Go-Lucky is a 2008 film by Mike Leigh, shot in 2007 and released on 18 April 2008. It is a contemporary comedy, set in north London and starring Sally Hawkins.

Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is a life-loving, irrepressibly cheerful, Pollyanna-type primary school teacher who is thirty years old, single, and infinitely optimistic and accepting. She lives with her best friend and flatmate Zoe (Alexis Zegerman) in London. She is tested by a repressed driving instructor with anger problems (Eddie Marsan), and tests him in turn. She has exciting flamenco lessons, an encounter with a homeless man, a row with her pregnant sister, and a love-affair with the social worker guiding one of her students.

Happy-Go-Lucky received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. As of 18 October 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 95% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 76 reviews, giving the film a "Certified Fresh" rating, with the consensus that the film is "a light-hearted comedy with moments that bite, and features a brilliant star turn by Sally Hawkins.."[1] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 82 out of 100.

Sally Hawkins is a real delight in Mike Leigh’s new film as Poppy, a 30-year-old Londoner with a bubbly nature and an ever-present laugh that teeters between lovable and annoying. Hawkins’ performance, and Leigh’s harnessing of it, is a tease: when we first see Poppy, cycling through the West End and joking with a grumpy bookshop assistant before joining her friends for a late-night drunken session, we don’t know what to make of her. She’s loud, joyful and indulges in terrible jokes; surely there’s something wrong with her?

The trick that Leigh and Hawkins finally pull off so cleverly by the end of 'Happy-Go-Lucky’ is that we’re entirely in cahoots with her. Poppy is a mirror to us all: if we find her blind optimism and sunny nature hard to swallow, perhaps there’s something wrong with us instead? By then, too, we know that Poppy is not the blinkered soul we may first think: she is compassionate, perceptive and harbours her own sadnesses like the rest of us.

Leigh always finds plot in character, and ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ is more of a portrait than a story; a film that’s built around one performance. He is less concerned here, unlike, say, ‘Secrets & Lies’ and ‘Vera Drake’, with following a driving narrative than with minutely observing Poppy through her relationships with others, whether it’s the kids she teaches at her primary school, her repressed driving instructor (Eddie Marsan, excellently playing a heavy-duty bag of hang-ups), her close friend and flatmate Zoe (Alexis Zegerman) or her older, more settled colleague Heather (Sylvestra Le Touzel), whom she joins at flamenco lessons after work. In that sense, it’s comparable to ‘Naked’.

It’s a study in sadness versus happiness, a study in teachers and the taught, a study in how we carry with us everyday the burdens of what we have and haven’t learned. You know you’re watching something both delightfully light-footed and acutely meaningful when Leigh moves so nimbly between scenes at Poppy’s school, her flamenco class and her driving lessons. There’s also a wonderfully moving scene, darker and more poetic in tone, when Poppy encounters a tramp late at night. It’s a funny film – a surprise perhaps after ‘Vera Drake’ – and, crucially, it aches with truth.

Terror’s Advocate

2008-10-25T04:07:00.000-07:00

Since his 1969 film More, Schroeder has filmed Ugandan dictator Idi Amin Dada and writer Charles Bukowski, driven by his sustained interest in “monsters.” Vergès is one of them: a flamboyant and enigmatic figure, famous for his defense of the indefensible.

“[Vergès] became a lawyer by accident,” says Lionel Duroy, a journalist for Libération who investigated Vergès during the Klaus Barbie trial. After taking part in the Resistance during World War II, Vergès was appointed to defend an Algerian female bomber (like in Pontecorvo’s film, The Battle of Algiers). “I understand the Algerians’ struggle, and I do not condemn their violence,” he said. Vergès called on international help to save his client, Djamila Bouhired, who became the face of the Algerian Revolution. Had she been executed, he would have shot somebody, Vergès said. Instead, she was pardoned, and he married her.

The outspoken young Communist lawyer became known for his eccentric methods. Insulting judges, singing and waving flags, Vergès developed a dramatic persona. The son of a French father and Vietnamese mother, he was “born angry, born colonized.” Vergès used the court of justice as a tribunal and a stage to expose his anger.

Considering “[today’s] Palestinian is yesterday’s Algerian,” in 1968 and 1969 he defended the Palestinian fedayeen responsible for two El Al Israel Airlines attacks — and became the superhero for the cause of the oppressed. Vergès has said that for him, an acquittal is not the goal — rather, the goal is to expose the colonial crimes of Western nations.

Vergès’ full biography remains a mystery — he went missing between 1970 and 1978, during which time, rumors suggest, he joined Pol Pot in Cambodia, went to Vietnam, or acted as a secret agent for the French government. Schroeder’s rigorous investigation reveals Vergès’ involvement with Congolese dictator Moïse Tschombé. Vergès’ prolonged absence coincides with the emergence of Waddi Haddad’s international terrorist network, financed in part by a former Swiss Nazi, François Genoux, who supported the National Liberation Front in Algeria and Palestinian resistance movements, and is a close acquaintance of Vergès.

“Vergès’ trajectory grew ever more incomprehensible to me,” says the director, “but I always dreamt of knowing more about this character, whom I viewed also as a perverse and decadent aesthete.” Using archive footage and extensive interviews with the lawyer, his entourage and several former terrorists, Schroeder does a fine job at rendering the complexity and the many facets of Vergès’ personality — that of a refined provocateur and great storyteller who loves the spotlight. Although Schroeder conceived it entirely like a work of fiction, the film is still both stimulating and destabilizing, neither denouncing nor endorsing the disturbing character it portrays.

Lionel Duroy says, “[Vergès] should have or could have been a terrorist.” In fact, the film reveals his ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — financed German terrorist “Carlos The Jackal.”

Ultimately, Vergès’ opacity could have jeopardized the film, the way an unfinished puzzle only answers part of the central question: Why does Vergès do what he does, systematically? It is clear from the beginning that his posture denounces both the establishment and the illusion of moral comfort given by the (necessary) trials of terrorists. However, his initial post-colonial stance wears thin. Little by little, we find out Vergès lost faith in political models. Resistance as a motif became sufficient. In the end, his unconditional support for all activity classified as terrorism justifies his nebulous involvement with Holocaust denialists and dictators of all kinds.

“What thrilled me most,” says Schroeder, “was the opportunity, through Vergès, to make a film about contemporary history, about our experience of the last 50 years.” Also the story of world terrorism told through this film, by one man who connects the dots, makes it a breathtaking thriller indeed.

Schroeder confirms that the last time he and Vergès met after the film was made, the infamous lawyer hadn’t lost his cynicism: “[Vergès] says that I am treacherous and he is my victim.”

Los Girasoles Ciegos

2008-10-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

Orense, 1940. Cada vez que Elena cierra la puerta de casa, echa la llave a sus secretos. Su marido, Ricardo, amenazado por una despiadada persecución ideológica, lleva años escondido en el piso donde conviven con sus hijos: Elenita y Lorenzo. Salvador, un diácono desorientado tras su lucha en el frente, vuelve al seminario de Orense. Las dudas en la vocación del joven llevan al Rector a retrasar su acceso al sacerdocio durante un año. Mientras, Salvador dará clases en el colegio donde estudia Lorenzo, el hijo de Elena, a quien Salvador cree viuda. El diácono se obsesiona con ella y la acosa. La frágil realidad de la familia se tambalea.
Heridos y zarandeados por las circunstancias, se golpean contra un muro de represión, amores imposibles y derrotas emocionales, mientras buscan un resquicio para volver a la vida.

El Patio De Mi Carcel

2008-10-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

A story about women, about female inmates, excluded from life. It is the story of Isa, a caustic yet generous thief unable to adapt to life outside prison, and her friends. Dolores, a blonde gypsy who killed her husband; Rosa, a tender fragile prostitute; Ajo, in love with Pilar, who lives her love to unbearable limits; Luisa, a naive Colombian surprised by an environment she doesn’t understand... The arrival of Mar, a prison worker who doesn’t adjust to the rules of the institution, embarks the women on a journey towards freedom. With the help of Adela, the prison director, they create Módulo 4, the theatre group that will provide them with the energy they need to cope with life’s hard knocks.

Burn After Reading

2008-10-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

Burn After Reading is a 2008 dark comedy[1] film written, produced and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. The film stars John Malkovich, George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt. It was released in the USA on September 12, 2008 and will be released on October 17, 2008 in the UK. The R-rated film had its premiere on August 27, 2008 when it opened the 2008 Venice Film Festival.[2] The film is the brothers' first to follow their Academy Award winning Best Picture, No Country for Old Men.

Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) is a CIA analyst who quits his job at the agency after being demoted ostensibly because of his drinking problem. He then decides to write a memoir about his life in the CIA. His wife, pediatrician Katie Cox (Tilda Swinton), wants to divorce Osbourne and, at the counsel of her divorce lawyer, she copies many of his personal and financial files off his computer and onto an optical disc. Katie's divorce lawyer's receptionist accidentally leaves the disc at Hardbodies, a workout gym. An employee of the gym, Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) obtains the disc from the gym's custodian and ascertains that it contains classified government information. Along with his fellow employee Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), he intends to use the disk to blackmail Osbourne; Linda wants the money to pay for cosmetic surgery. They call up Cox in the middle of the night, but he is not receptive. When blackmailing him fails, Linda decides to take the information to the Russian embassy. At the embassy, she hands the disk over to the Russians, promising that she will give more information afterwards. Because Linda and Chad don't have any more information, they decide to break into Cox's house.

Katie's lover is Treasury agent Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), who by chance meets Linda online and begins dating her as well. Chad stakes out the Coxes' house and breaks in when Harry and Katie leave. Harry, however, comes back, finds Chad, and accidentally shoots him in the face. Harry, thinking that Chad was a spy due to his lack of documentation, disposes of the body. Days later, his paranoia increasing after murdering Chad, Harry leaves the Cox residence after a fight with Katie. On his way to leave he manages to tackle a man who has been trailing him for some time, thinking he was working for the CIA or some other government agency. After tackling him, Harry finds out that the man is working for a divorce firm hired by his wife who, it is later revealed, has been cheating on him as well. Harry is devastated and goes to see an agitated Linda who confides in Harry that her friend Chad is missing; he agrees to try to help. The next morning, Harry and Linda meet in a park and she provides him with more information about Chad's disappearance. When he realizes that Chad is the man he killed, he becomes paranoid and flees in terror, assuming that Linda is also a spy.

Osbourne had previously returned to his home only to find that Katie changed the locks as part of her preparations for divorce proceedings. He sleeps overnight in his boat, and the next day breaks into his own house with a hatchet. There he finds Ted Treffon (Richard Jenkins), the manager of Hardbodies, rifling through his computer looking for personal information. Due to his feelings for Linda, Ted decided to look for more information to give to the Russians, believing that the Russians had kidnapped Chad. Osbourne shoots Ted, who survives and runs out of the house. Osbourne grabs the hatchet and kills Ted in broad daylight.

The movie ends by returning to the CIA's headquarters, where an official (David Rasche) and his director (J.K. Simmons) are trying to sort out what happened: Chad is dead, Ted is dead, Osbourne is in a vegetative state and dying after being shot by an agent while attacking Ted, Harry has been arrested trying to board a flight to Venezuela (but the CIA wants to let him leave anyway so he's out of their hair), and Linda has agreed to cooperate in exchange for the CIA financing her plastic surgery. The baffled CIA agents then decide that they have learned their lesson: to never repeat whatever it is that they did in this case; though they are still not clear what it is they did.

Se había generado una lógica expectación por ver el nuevo trabajo de los hermanos por antonomasia del cine norteamericano –quizá del mundial; a fin de cuentas, ¿quién se acuerda a estas alturas de los Lumière?–, algo comprensible dado el éxito de la anterior (y magnífica) No es país para viejos (2007). Pues bien; Quemar después de leer es nada más (y nada menos) que una descacharrante parodia a mayor gloria de la estupidez supina donde la ligereza se combina ejemplarmente con la mala leche y el proverbial humor negro.

Algo no precisamente novedoso, por otra parte. No hay más que echar un vistazo a la compacta filmografía de los Coen para observar que la alternancia entre noir y comedia ha devenido en una constante, ya desde los seminales tiempos de Sangre fácil (1985) y Arizona baby (1987), si bien su evolución como cineastas les ha llevado a incorporar elementos de ambos géneros, primorosamente mezclados, en Fargo (1995) o El Gran Lebowski (1998). De hecho, el carácter ciertamente marciano de está última está presente en su nueva película, que huye de las coartadas referenciales que constituían la principal razón de ser de Crueldad intolerable (2003) o The Ladykillers (2004) para centrarse en el inmisericorde retrato de un grupo de tarados cuya inteligencia, más que “relativa”, es inexistente.

De hecho, si algo resulta evidente es que los diferentes personajes que articulan la trama han sido escritos, como aclaran los propios Joel y Ethan en el pressbook del filme, pensando en los actores y actrices que finalmente los han interpretado. De esta manera la tibieza del mcguffin argumental, que se apoya en un escurridizo CD con información relativa al funcionamiento de la CIA que todos esperan poseer por motivos bien diferentes, da pie a una auténtica exhibición de registros cómicos más o menos histriónicos, de los white trash encarnados con acierto por Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins y un sorprendente Brad Pitt (pasadísimo de revoluciones) a los más acomodados –pero no por ello menos estupidos– personajes de George Clooney (en las antipodas de sus anteriores colaboraciones con los Coen), Tilda Swinton y John Malkovich.

Que la película comience con un prolongado zoom desde la superficie planetaria a las interioridades de la sede de la CIA ya nos está indicando claramente lo que va a venir a continuación. Partiendo de la fatuidad de Osborn (Malkovich) y del insondable funcionamiento de los servicios ¿secretos? se van a ir encadenando una serie de situaciones que tienen en común la total estulticia con que se plantean hoy en día las relaciones humanas –de pareja, amistad o trabajo–, ya sea por pura insatisfacción o por un exceso de narcisismo mal entendido. No es casual que los protagonistas tengan cuanto menos los 40 años cumplidos, y que la sensación de no encajar en unos modelos físicos (McDormand) o sociales (Clooney) les lleve a actuar de manera insensata, sin duda por no asumirse tal cual son en realidad. De esta manera, y más allá de los excesos de todo tipo a que se ven abocados, a un servidor le generaron más lástima que otra cosa esta panda de losers descerebrados, sobretodo desde el momento en que, mediado el metraje, los hermanísimos tiran de su característico humor negro, mostrándonos las consecuencias de sus temerarios actos.

Es posible que tras las mieles de No es país para viejos (2007) muchos esperaran más de lo mismo, y que se vean decepcionados por una comedia ligera y (en apariencia) intrascendente. Allá cada cual; lo mejor que se puede decir de Quemar después de leer es que no puede ser más coherente con el ideario fílmico de los Hermanos Coen, tiene bastante más miga de lo que parece y, lo más importante, apela a la “inteligencia” de su potencial espectador. Un motivo más que sobrado para paladearla lentamente.

FICHA TÉCNICA: Burn after Reading. USA. 2008. 100 minutos. Dirección: Joel Coen y Ethan Coen. Guionistas: Joel Coen y Ethan Coen. Productores: Joel Coen y Ethan Coen. Productores ejecutivos: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Robert Graf. Director de fotografía: Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC. Diseño de producción: Jess Gonchor. Montaje: Roderick Jaynes. Música: Carter Burwell. Con: George Clooney (Harry Pfarrer), Frances McDormand (Linda Lizke), John Malkovich (Osborn Cox), Tilda Swinton (Katie Cox), Richard Jenkins (Ted Treffon), Brad Pitt (Chad Feldheimer).

SINOPSIS: El analista Osborn Cox llega al cuartel general de la Agencia Central de
Inteligencia (CIA) en Arlington, Virginia, para una reunión ultrasecreta. Por desgracia para él, el secreto no tarda en salir a la luz: le han despedido. Cox no encaja muy bien la noticia y regresa a su casa de Georgetown, Washington DC, para entregarse a la redacción de sus memorias y a la bebida –el orden no altera el producto–. Su esposa Katie está consternada, aunque no parece muy sorprendida. ya hace tiempo que tiene una aventura con Harry Pfarrer, un agente federal casado, y empieza a hacer planes para dejar a Cox por Harry.

En un barrio a las afueras de la capital, en un mundo totalmente diferente, Linda Litke, empleada de Hardbodies Fitness Center, tiene dificultad para concentrarse en su trabajo. Sólo piensa en hacerse la cirugía plástica total y decide confiar su plan a su compañero Chad. Linda no se da cuenta de que Ted Treffon, el director del centro, está loco por ella y se cita con otros hombred a través de Internet.

La Sconoscuita

2008-10-12T12:33:00.000-07:00

The Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore is best known for sweet, touching art house-friendly movies that send people away feeling gooey and cuddly. It's awfully tough to be a human being and resist his delightful Oscar-winning hit Cinema Paradiso (released in 1990). His film Malena (2000) had more detractors, but I found its images of a beautiful woman walking through the streets (with every eye following her every move) quite powerful and affecting. He once even made a movie with the life-affirming title Everybody's Fine. So when I sat down to Tornatore's new film, The Unknown Woman (his first since Malena), I was ready to be charmed. Instead, the film that actually unfurled was a restless, panicked, devastating emotional roller coaster, meticulously planned and executed like a razor.

Thinking back, I realized that there was more to Tornatore than his reputation suggests. In 2002, Miramax released the much longer director's cut of Cinema Paradiso with its rating tellingly changed from a PG to an R. A few years ago I tracked down an imported DVD of the director's cut of Malena, which was also considerably darker and more pointed; the Weinsteins were really the ones responsible for the softness of those films. I also remembered a movie called A Pure Formality (1994) about a police investigator (Roman Polanski) questioning a mystery man (Gerard Depardieu) found stumbling along the road; most of the film takes place in a damp, sinister police station with flashbacks to what might have happened previously. That tone gets closer to what's going on in The Unknown Woman, which starts with a knockout centerpiece performance by Kseniya Rappoport.

She plays a woman called Irena, who comes to Italy from the Ukraine looking for work. By paying a concierge part of her salary, she gets a job cleaning an affluent apartment building. She befriends Gina (Piera Degli Esposti), a nanny for an upper-crust couple, Valeria (Claudia Gerini) and Donato Adacher (Pierfrancesco Favino), and their daughter Thea (Clara Dossena). Irena deliberately trips Gina on the long stairwell and takes over Gina's job. She tries to win over Thea while casing the apartment, looking for access to the family safe. Very often, Irena suffers uncomfortable flashbacks to her terrible past, serving a pimp-like thug called "Mold" (Michele Placido) and attempting to break away from him when she falls in love with one of her johns. Tornatore reveals more and more details as the film goes on. In one flashback Irena digs through the filth in a city dump. What's she looking for? I had a guess, but I was wrong.

Tornatore begins his film with what looks like an outtake from Eyes Wide Shut, with masked, naked women posing for some unseen voyeur. After several candidates are surveyed, Irena is chosen, which is presumably the beginning of all her trouble. Critics who saw only the Miramax-ed Malena accused Tornatore of ogling beautiful women with no other purpose in mind, and this opening shot may bring up the same accusations again. But here, as with Malena, the focus remains on the women, not on the voyeurs. We follow the masked Irena out of the scene and watch her as she removes her mask, her eyes defiant and determined. In the flashbacks, she is a dirty blonde, very often victimized, pleading, submitted to rape and other forms of torture. The new Irena, 32, with a mound of tightly curled black hair, is not so easy to catch off guard. She was once beautiful, but her face has now weathered through pain and hard-earned wisdom.

The Italy we see here is covered with graffiti and no place appears to be safe or comfortable. Irena's apartment is ransacked (someone is looking for money) and left in a complete shambles throughout the film. Tornatore shoots low so that we can see the ceiling boards torn asunder. In another scene, a driving lesson occurs at night, with large numbers of pedestrians walking around the car in the half-light, while poor Irena suffers jarring flashbacks while trying to keep her eyes on the road. Tornatore's camera is constantly pacing and roaming, as if filled with pent-up energy and finding no place to spend it. Miraculously, he avoids the typical hand-held, shaky approach, which, these days, is used to signify chaos. Editor Massimo Quaglia keeps up with this restlessness perfectly, never disrupting it or breaking the flow, and legendary composer Ennio Morricone provides another effective, unobtrusive score.

Even Irena's relationship with little Thea is fraught with disaster. Thea suffers from a condition that prevents her from protecting herself when she falls; the natural reflex to put out her hands is missing. So Thea's every move comes with a dreadful anticipation and more than once she turns up bloodied and crying. Irena tries to train her by binding her hands, pushing her down on pillows and forcing her to get up again. How this was supposed to work I have no idea, and indeed, there is more than one logic-challenged scene in the movie, but like the violent crime ("giallo") films of his countrymen Dario Argento and Mario Bava, Tornatore's The Unknown Woman gets by on sheer guts and style.

Deux Jours A Tuer

2008-10-12T12:29:00.001-07:00

Asusta echar la cuenta de todas las películas que insisten cada temporada en que redecoremos nuestra vida, superemos nuestras inhibiciones y aprendamos a soñar despiertos, bailemos bajo la lluvia y caminemos descalzos por el parque. ¿Tan mal están las cosas en la realidad? ¿Tanto oprime lo mejor de nosotros mismos cuanto nos rodea? ¿Por qué, entonces, el noventa por ciento de esas ficciones catárticas son finalmente sólo analgésicas, productos que amagan cuestionar el orden establecido de las cosas para luego llenarnos los ojos de miel y dejarnos más ciegos y edulcorados que cuando entramos en la sala?

¿Por qué películas como Mi Vida es mi Vida, Happiness, El Club de la Lucha o La Edad de la Ignorancia son desconocidas, cuando no repudiadas, por el gran público, siendo con los defectos que se quiera propuestas que aventuran una ruptura verdadera con las convenciones a las que achacamos nuestros males? ¿Por qué en cambio tienen tanto predicamento imbecilidades absolutas que revelan en cada uno de sus rasgos ser parte del problema que pretenden denunciar? Cavila uno por qué nunca deja de estar vigente esa mentalidad bonancible que elude combatir la realidad a favor de la posición autoexculpatoria de víctima, de cervatillo incapaz de hacer otra cosa que ocultarse en el País de las Piruletas, El Señor de los Anillos o la Constitución Española incluso cuando está siendo enculado salvajemente por este valle de lágrimas… sin percibir o soslayando que su actitud es ideal como vaselina. ¿O será que la servidumbre compensa, que se ha aprendido a sacar tajada de ella?

Bien es cierto que sin ninguna sutileza, lo cual por otra parte es lógico teniendo en cuenta que para derribar murallas se precisa artillería pesada, durante sus primeros minutos Dejad de quererme funciona muy bien como requisitoria contra las imposturas de lo cotidiano. Antoine (un más que correcto Albert Dupontel) se cansa un día de perder tiempo y energías con gente que no merece ni una cosa ni otra: deja su trabajo como publicitario, asqueado por las mentiras que vendía y compraba diariamente; corta las alas a su insoportable suegra, trata a sus dos hijos como adultos, pone en tela de juicio la aséptica perfección de su matrimonio, devuelve un bofetón a una calientabraguetas, y se libra de sus amigos con una táctica tan sencilla como es la de señalarles sus incoherencias y rememorar cuántos actos han definido la calidad de la correspondiente relación (impecable al respecto la secuencia de la cena). “¿Qué te pasa, Antoine?”, claman su mujer y sus conocidos, “¿Te has vuelto loco? Todos te queremos bien”. Y Antoine podría responder lo que el inteligente título español de la película —el original, Deux jours à tuer, menos sutil, sería traducible como Dos días que matar—: “Dejad de quererme. No me chantajeéis con eso que llamáis amor y no es más que intercambio de miedos y complicidades”.

Pero el guionista y director de Dejad de quererme no es Todd Solondz. Ni siquiera Denys Arcand, por mucho que la actriz Marie-Josée Croze (Cécile, la mujer de Antoine) apareciese también en Las Invasiones Bárbaras. Sino Jean Becker, un tipo dotado de una “humanidad deliciosa […] cuyas películas tienen en común una gran sensualidad”. También, ya es coincidencia, una descarada comercialidad, basada, en el caso sin ir más lejos de su anterior cinta, Conversaciones con mi jardinero (2007), en una desvergonzada afectación ideológica y emocional. La misma que se desata a partir de cierto momento en Dejad de quererme, devolviendo la ficción al redil. La actitud de Antoine estaba motivada por razones nobles, además sufrió mucho de pequeño… el espectador asiste atónito a la conversión de la historia en un melodrama insultantemente burgués y repleto de “buenas intenciones”, que ya sabemos adonde conducen: a un infierno de melaza, que sólo podríamos quitarnos de encima devorándola hasta asimilarla o eliminándola con ácido; desgraciadamente, el nuevo proyecto de Solondz continúa sin encontrar financiación suficiente como para concretarse. Así que es de suponer que habremos de tragar durante la espera unas cuantas toneladas más de azúcar. Aunque a nadie le amarga un dulce, lo que no es de recibo es tener que resignarse a acabar con el cerebro tumorado por las caries. Pese a que muchos lo consideren el estado ideal para transitar por la vida.

FICHA TÉCNICA: Deux jours à tuer. Francia, 2008. 85 minutos. Dirección: Jean Becker. Guión: Jean Becker, Jérôme Beaujour, Eric Assous y François D’Epenoux, basado en la novela de François D’Epenoux. Producción: Louis Becker (ICE3, KJB Production, Studio Canal y France 2 Cinéma). Montaje: Jacques Witta. Fotografía: Arthur Cloquet (c). Música: Patrick & Alain Goraguer. Dirección artística: Thérèse Ripaud. Diseño de vestuario: Annie Périer. Con: Albert Dupontel (Antoine), Marie-Josée Croze (Cécile), Pierre Vaneck (padre de Antoine), Alessandra Martines (Marion), Cristiana Réali (Virginie), Mathias Mlekuz (Eric), Claire Nebout (Clara), François Marthouret (Paul), Anne Loiret (Anne-Laure). Distribución: Golem.

SINOPSIS: Antoine ha llegado a los cuarenta y dos años con buena salud, ejerce como publicista con gran éxito, está casado y es padre de dos hijos, tiene una amante, vive en una bonita casa a las afueras de París y sus vecinos albergan una excelente opinión sobre él. Sin embargo, un día las cosas cambian: Antoine empieza a destruir sistemáticamente lo que ha construido durante años. Basta un fin de semana para que un hombre aparentemente sin problemas eche por la borda trabajo y relaciones afectivas. ¿La crisis de la andropausia? ¿Un ataque de locura?

I've Loved You So Long

2008-10-12T12:21:00.000-07:00

I've Loved You So Long (Il y a longtemps que je t'aime) is a 2008 film directed and written by Philippe Claudel, and starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Elsa Zylberstein.

Juliette and the younger Léa are sisters. Juliette has served a long prison sentence, during which Léa never visited her. After being released she starts living with Léa's family, including her husband, his mute father, and their two adopted Vietnamese daughters.

Cual Medea reinsertada en una sociedad a la que no ha dirigido la palabra durante quince años, el personaje de Juliette que interpreta con la cara lavada Kristin Scott Thomas se erige en reclamo cardinal de la francesa Hace mucho que te quiero, primera película dirigida por Philippe Claudel (también novelista de cierto prestigio en el país galo). El encuentro con su hermana menor Léa (Elsa Zylbersetein) y la acogida en su seno familiar —marido, padre del marido y dos hijas adoptivas— marcarán la reconstrucción de Juliette como ser humano obligado a adaptarse a una forzosa convivencia que tenía relegada por su encierro carcelario. Tal transformación marcará el interés de una propuesta que, a pesar de sus notables imperfecciones, mantendrá al espectador inquieto antes de que Claudel lo estropee definitivamente con un aciago desenlace.

Los aspectos más loables de Hace mucho que te quiero son los que permanecen sotto voce: el tabú que depositan las palabras cuyo interior encierran secretos inconfensables, el doloroso recuerdo que transmite el pasado y el miedo al rechazo y la incomprensión gravitan con sigilo en su interior. Pero Claudel no es capaz de evitar tramposas argucias melodramáticas y temerarias salidas de tono a la hora de mostrar la reconversión de la protagonista en un entorno a priori hostil, incluido un final que desbarata el suspense manejado desde el principio y que menosprecia el juicio que el espectador se haya podido formar sobre Juliette, socavado cuando se desvelan las intenciones reales que provocaron la tragedia. No es el hecho en sí el que molesta, sino el modo en que se nos descubre. Tampoco ayuda el retrato simpático y bonachón del policía con el que la protagonista coincide cada quince días en la comisaría, y todavía menos las escenas campestres con los amigos de Léa y su marido en una casa en las afueras, casi de vergüenza ajena en un retrato mayoritariamente hosco y austero, este sí en sintonía con el carácter retraído y ausente de Juliette enunciado desde el primer fotograma. Aceptamos que la esperanza vuelva a tener sentido en su vida, pero no es admisible cómo guionista y director nos la hace vislumbrar.

Al escribir esta reseña me vino a la memoria un trabajo del mexicano Arturo Ripstein que pasó bastante desapercibido en su momento, Así es la vida (2000), el cual sí conseguía mostrar de frente la desesperación humana sin medias tintas. Hace mucho que te quiero nada tiene que ver con este en cuestión de estilo, aunque si hiciéramos un esfuerzo podríamos argumentar como nada franceses esos acordes de guitarra “a lo Gustavo Santaolalla” diseminados por el metraje que sí aportan cierta calidez a la frialdad tonal que caracteriza el film de Claudel. Quedémonos entonces con la mirada amarga, postura silenciosa y rostro sin maquillaje de una convincente Kristin Scott Thomas, verdadero reclamo de una historia que hubiera merecido una mayor introspección psicológica y un menor costumbrismo de salón. Algo así como el cine de Eric Rohmer.

FICHA TÉCNICA: Il y a longtemps que je t’aime. Francia. 2008. 115 minutos. Dirección y guión: Philippe Claudel. Producción: Yves Marmion. Fotografía: Jérôme Alméras (c). Dirección artística: Samuel Deshors. Montaje: Virginie Bruant. Música original: Jean-Louis Aubert. Con: Kristin Scott Thomas (Juliette Fontaine), Elsa Zylberstein (Léa), Serge Hazanavicius (Luc), Laurent Grévill (Michel), Frédéric Pierrot (Capitán Fauré). Distribución: Golem.

Sinopsis: Juliette sale en libertad después de pasar quince años en la cárcel. Durante esos quince años no ha tenido ningún contacto con su familia, que la rechazó. Léa, su hermana menor, la acoge en su casa de Nancy, donde vive con su marido Luc y dos hijas adoptivas. Debido al largo encarcelamiento de Juliette y a su diferencia de edad, las dos mujeres se sienten como dos extrañas.

The Argentine

2008-10-12T12:07:00.000-07:00

The Argentine is a 2008 biographical film about Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Benicio del Toro as Che. Soderbergh plans to make two films about Che with the other called Guerrilla. The Argentine will focus on the Cuban revolution, from the moment Fidel Castro, Guevara and other revolutionaries landed on the Caribbean island, until they toppled the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista two years later. Guerrilla will focus on the years following the Cuban revolution. It will begin with Che's trip to the United Nations headquarters in New York City in 1964, until his death in the Bolivian mountains in 1967.

While researching for both films, Soderbergh made a documentary with interviews with many who fought alongside Che in Cuba and Bolivia.[3] Originally, there was one screenplay but the director realized that it needed to be broken up into two films. The original source material for these scripts was Che's diary from the Cuban Revolution and from his time in Bolivia. From there, he drew on interviews with people who knew Che from both of those time periods and read every book available that pertained to both Cuba and Bolivia.

Both films were financed without any American money or distribution deal and Soderbergh remarked, "It was very frustrating to know that this is a zeitgeist movie and that some of the very people who told me how much they now regret passing on Traffic passed on this one too". Wild Bunch, a French production, distribution and foreign sales company put up 75% of the $61.5 million budget for the two films, tapping into a production and acquisition fund from financing and investment company Continental Entertainment Capitol, a subsidiary of the U.S.-based Citigroup. Spain's Telecinco/Moreno Films suppling the rest of the budget.

Soderbergh shot both films back to back over a 90-day period beginning in May 2007 with most of the dialogue in Spanish. According to an interview in Sight and Sound magazine, the original intention was that the first film "will be shot in 16mm anamorphic" because, "it needs a bit of Bruckheimer but scruffier". Soderbergh ultimately opted to shoot both films on early models of the RED One rather than 16mm film, but otherwise kept to his plan of shooting the first film anamorphic, and the second with spherical lenses. The film was shot in Puerto Rico and, according to actor Edgar Ramirez who portrays Ciro Redondo, the cast "were improvising a lot" and describes the project as a "very contemplative movie", shot chronologically.

Das Sichtbare Und Das Unsichtbare

2008-09-07T12:40:00.000-07:00

Maria (Hannelore Elsner) y Marquard (Guntram Brattia) son pintores y amantes, con una vida en común. Una vez que Marquard obtiene un importante premio, dotado con una considerable suma de dinero, su creatividad artística se desvanece. Mientras Maria trabaja en una serie de cuadros, Marquard visita a su amigo Gregor, un criador de caballos y filósofo, se acuesta con la angelical Angie y visita a su hija Lucia en varias ocasiones. Marquard y Lucia, que han comenzado una tierna y compasiva relación padre-hija, pasan dos días en un hotel de la costa, decidiendo no hablarse con palabras. Los sentimientos y la comunicación surgirá de un modo muy especial. Maria, que desconoce el paradero y el porqué de la ausencia de Marquard, se da cuenta por sí misma de que su amor se ha terminado.

El arte digno de tal nombre aspira a tomar por asalto los aspectos inaccesibles de lo real, a dejar en evidencia las imposturas aceptadas por el común de los mortales (que por eso odia la cultura: delata su conformismo). “Hay dos mundos muy diferentes. Uno es el de la realidad y de ese no hace falta hablar, es evidente. Pero hay otro que nadie percibe si el artista guarda silencio. Es del que debemos ocuparnos” (Oscar Wilde). Sin embargo, merced a esa apatía que nos consume en cuanto bajamos la guardia, también el arte acaba ciñéndose en muchas ocasiones a convenciones y corsés creativos que lo tornan tan estéril como su objeto de recreación… cuando no cómplice suyo, quizás el crimen más grave que puede cometer un artista con su don.

En tales casos, la representación visible no funciona como guía cifrada a una mayor comprensión de lo invisible. Sino como simulacro. Un modo de ganarse el pan, satisfacer la vanidad, ser digno del aprecio ajeno. ¿Qué pasa cuando el artista toma conciencia de ese fracaso? Es el planteamiento del director germano Rudolf Thome en Lo Visible y lo Invisible. Coincidiendo con el prestigioso premio que obtiene uno de ellos, la relación sentimental entre los pintores Marquard y Maria salta por los aires. Marquard intenta eludir su bloqueo creativo bebiendo, engañando a su amante y experimentando una epifanía íntima en compañía de su hija Lucia. Como reacción, Maria se niega a seguir facturando los cuadros decorativos que le pide su marchante, aborda una nueva obra de estilo muy distinto al suyo habitual, y recupera su pasado affaire con Gregor, un filósofo.

Thome, partícipe veterano y desconocido en España del llamado Nuevo Cine Alemán se revela, en el que había anunciado sería su último largometraje y resumen de sus inquietudes, superficial. Tanto analizando los temperamentos creadores como explorando las corrientes subterráneas que ligan sus experiencias vitales a la inspiración. Rodada con mirada literal, sin énfasis (firma la fotografía el prestigioso Fred Kelemen), en la estela de ese cine de autor que renuncia a trabajarse el material que circula frente a la pantalla y prima el momento como canalizador narrativo, Lo Visible y lo Invisible es víctima de la paradoja con la que abríamos esta reseña: ¿Cómo preocuparnos por las tormentas introspectivas de unos personajes cuando no se aprecia esfuerzo formal por calar en ellos, cuando todo en la imagen es instante y superficie? ¿Cómo transmitirnos el sentido tormentoso y extático de la actividad pictórica cuando para Marquard y Maria no parece suponer sino un divertimento más en el fárrago de banalidades emocionales al que consagran todas sus energías?

Habrá, claro, quien salga con la monserga de que eso es la vida, y que a ella está supeditada la actividad artística, etc etc. El discurso quedará muy bien entre colegas apiñados en una terracita, pero quien lo esgrima demostrará que carece de talentos, salvo para la cháchara y el dejar pasar los días. “El arte es verdad y la verdad es dolor. Por eso en el arte tiene que haber sangre”, escuchábamos en la obra maestra de Jacques Rivette, La Bella Mentirosa; película de argumento conexo a la de Thome, pero en la que temas como el credo artístico y sus limitaciones, la tensión por sublimar lo invisible, la lucha sin cuartel entre los requerimientos del simple existir y los de la creación, la prostitución artística, se concretaban en pantalla con un rigor expositivo muy superior. La sangre deja huella. Las soluciones acuosas, no.

FICHA TÉCNICA: Das sichtbare und das unsichtbare. Alemania, 2007. 118 minutos. Producción, guión y dirección: Rudolf Thome (Moana-Film, en asociación con ARD Degeto Film). Montaje: Dörte Völz-Mammarella. Fotografía: Fred Kelemen (c). Música original: Wolfgang Böhmer. Diseño de producción: Susanna Cardelli. Diseño de vestuario: Katrin Berthold. Con: Guntram Brattia (Marquard Von Polheim), Hannelore Elsner (Maria Döbereiner), Anna Kubin (Lucia), Hansa Czypionka (Gregor), Rufus Beck (Leo Barnstein), Anne Lebinsky (Eleonore), Stephanie Rosse (Angie Angler), Rebecca Rudolph (Sonja), Katia Tchemberdji (Katharina), Oliver Elias (Lucias). Distribución: Sherlock Films.

Saint-Jacques... La mecque

2008-08-16T00:45:00.000-07:00

A la muerte de su madre, dos hermanos y una hermana se enteran de que sólo cobrarán la herencia si van juntos a pie desde Le Puy-en-Velay (Francia) hasta Santiago de Compostela. Lo malo es que se odian entre sí y odian andar. Pero el afán del dinero puede más y se ponen por fin en camino. Se reúnen con el guía en Le Puy-en-Velay, donde descubren que irán con un grupo de otras seis personas. El camino es largo hasta Santiago de Compostela, y mientras recorremos con ellos unos espléndidos paisajes, asistimos a los percances, enfados, amoríos, fantasías y vivencias de estos nueve personajes.

Coline Serreau ha rodado películas de gran éxito en Francia y que posteriormente han servido como base para películas paralelas en Estados Unidos. La más conocida es Tres solteros y un biberón (3 hommes et un couffin, 1985) que tuvo continuación en Tres solteros y un biberón 18 años después (18 ans après, 2003). Otros títulos en su haber son Mamá, hay un hombre blanco en tu cama (Romuald et Juliette, 1989), La crisis (La crise, 1992) y la ya referida Caos (Chaos, 2001).

How To Cook Your Life

2008-08-05T13:29:00.000-07:00

documentary about Edward Espe Brown, a Zen priest and cook who wrote the popular Tassajara Bread Book, How to Cook Your Life may gently preach about organic cooking—and the bonds shared by eater and food—but gentle preaching is still preaching. How tolerable one finds director Doris Dörrie's film is largely dependent on how much one can tolerate Brown, who likes to recount proverbs learned from his mentor Suzuki Roshi and spout banal fortune cookie maxims while teaching students at Austria's Scheibbs Buddhist Center and San Francisco's Tassajara Mountain Center the finer points of cooking.

Dörrie conveys Brown's guiding belief in the intrinsic, spiritual relationship between people and victuals via the opening image of radishes with faces carved into their sides. The absence of narration and sharply delineated segments—each with a title card decorated with bushels of fruit and/or vegetables—give the film a welcome spryness in the face of Brown's lethargic ruminations on how modern culture has turned food into a prepackaged commodity. Brown doesn't address the global benefits of widespread food production or availability because he's primarily concerned with promoting a laidback Zen lifestyle that only seems feasible on a very small scale. Meanwhile, another interviewee's discussion of "Backdoor Catering"—which is a euphemism for rummaging around in supermarket garbage bins for discarded provisions, which she's subsisted on for two years—says less about developed-world wastefulness than an idiosyncratic desire to live like a hobo. Dörrie clearly adores Brown but isn't afraid to depict him as someone still working out lingering anger issues, and her willingness to non-judgmentally present his flaws certainly makes her portrait more engaging, albeit not completely, especially given her subject's penchant for telling unfunny anecdotes and then chuckling to himself with unreciprocated satisfaction

Hyazgar

2008-08-05T13:18:00.000-07:00

A poetic spirit of perseverance is to be sifted from Lu Zhang's Mongolian sandscape Hyazgar (Desert Dream, 2007), the follow-up to his much-acclaimed Mang zhong (Grain In Ear, 2005). Significant carryovers exist: once again, Zhang focuses on a widowed Korean woman with a young son thrust by desperate circumstances into an interaction (if not quite a relationship) with a strange man. The names of mother (Choi Soon-hee) and son (Chang-ho) remain the same as those in Grain In Ear, which Zhang—in an insightful interview with Hoo-nam JoongAng Ilbo—explains as avoiding "the stress of finding a new name."

Stress avoidance aside, however, Zhang employs the Korean widow with child in tow and their refugee status as an iconic, albeit personalized, reference to division in Korea and relations with China. Widowhood, in fact, was a common occurrence during the Cultural Revolution when so many fathers were either thrown in prison or executed. Mother Choi—played by Jung Suh, known for her performances in Chang-dong Lee's Peppermint Candy; Kim Ki Duk's The Isle, Il-gon Song's Spider Forest and Cheol-su Park's Green Chair)—and her impudent son Chang-ho (Shin Dong-ho) arrive at the yurt of Hangai (Osor Bat-Ulzii) seeking food and shelter moments after his wife and daughter have left him to attend to the daughter's medical needs at a hospital in the big city. What develops between the Korean woman and her son and the Mongolian tree farmer is a tenuous cohabitation thinly guised as a surrogate family; a guise braced for survival against a desolate and formidable backdrop.

Another carryover from Grain In Ear is a somewhat self-conscious camera technique of juxtaposing the overfamiliar with the unexpected. Grain In Ear's ongoing stasis provided the final scene's effectively startling movement. Again and again in Desert Dream, Zhang employs belated left-to-right and right-to-left camera pans to follow action after characters have walked into and out of initial frame-ups (a style FIPRESCI author H. N. Narahari Rao associates with Hungarian filmmaker Miklos Jancso). This proves to be a slightly distracting technique that draws attention to itself; but, achieves culmination in the film's final 360° rotation and a concluding image that—as Variety's Russell Edwards puts it—"is designed to have auds scratching their heads wondering, 'How did they do that?' " Though I could forego that question for an answer to what it essentially means. Of note is that the only time Zhang doesn't use this panning technique is when the handheld camera follows Choi into the desert on the few times she attempts to leave Hangai's yurt compound. "People who take refuge away from their homes are different from ordinary people," Zhang explains. "To depict their emotional state I used a handheld technique."

I am clearly not informed as to political and cultural particulars that would provide a better handle on this film; but, I'm grateful the film has made me aware of that sad fact, which I hope to respectfully remedy by subsequent research. Despite my own ignorance, however, the film retains a mesmeric charisma. The landscape of the Mongolian steppes is captivating in its barren windswept beauty.

Desert Dream had its world premiere at the 2007 Berlinale along with the similarly-situated Tuya's Wedding, which ended up attracting the most attention of the two, though Dinko Tucakovic in his FIPRESCI report complimented the "slow and talented" Lu Zhang for discovering "once again the varieties of the planet that we are sharing." It wasn't until the mid-summer Osian-Cinefan Festival of Asian & Arab Cinema that it gained rightful due, awarded the Best Picture prize by an international jury comprised of directors Hala Khalil from Egypt, Wu Tianming from China, Saeed Mirza from India, Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul, as well as former Cannes festival programmer Francois Da Silva. Their decision was based on "the conviction with which Zhang Lu depicts the contemporary crisis of our time. He has found the right cinematic expression to tackle a theme of such great importance."

Accepting Zhang Lu's own clues, a better translation for the film's Mongolian title Hyazgar might have been "boundary", which sheds light on some of the themes Zhang is pursuing. "Nations have boundaries," he has said, "and so do people's minds. …Once the boundaries are diminished, minds can connect. A film, after all, is about states of mind." Communication—complicated by different languages and cultural customs—is in turn tempered by the humorous moments borne from culture clash. Chang-ho frequently amuses in his comments about how annoying it is that his Mongolian host doesn't speak Korean.

The boundaries in Desert Dream are decorated with blue prayer ribbons. Just as Hangai's self-appointed vocation is to ward off the encroaching desertification of the Mongolian steppes—a shifting boundary measured by trees that will not grow and marauding military tanks that reflect prevailing realities—so the bridge that leads the film's North Korean refugees into their new South Korean home is given voice by blue flags ruffling in the incessant winds of change.

I wish I knew more the specific cultural meaning of the blue Mongolian prayer ribbons (and welcome feedback from anyone who does). I am aware that in the Lakota Sioux tradition, trees are perceived as praying figures with their branches like arms held up to the sky. It's not just that they are praying, it is that they are always praying, a difficult task, which anyone who stands with his arms uplifted can attest. Prayer ribbons essentially represent man's way of interacting with and taking part in the prayers of the tree, which by shamanic extension are the prayers of the culture. Prayer ribbons are tied to trees because life is ongoing. The tree is growing, the tree is praying. The wind moves the prayer ribbons. The relationship between that movement and the movement of the earth is related to the wind. Life is moving. When it stops it's dead. And that tree is praying every day as it moves in the wind. When you put a prayer into that prayer ribbon, it spreads it all across the earth.

Comparable to how trees were used for burials among the Lakota, I found it telling that—before finally leaving with his mother on the long journey "home" to South Korea—Chang-ho "buries" all the dead saplings by committing them to fire. This is where the shamanic substratum of Mongolian culture has affected our own Amerindian spiritual practices and why—with a minimum of dialogue—Desert Dream achieves a consummate level of storytelling.

The Garage

2008-08-05T13:15:00.000-07:00

Director Lenny Abrahamson made a telling choice in casting the comedian Pat Shortt as misfit Josie, the central character in Garage. Although unknown to most in the UK, Shortt is famous in Ireland with a popular television show 'Killinaskully'. Abrahamson's choice admits to the recent international success of Irish films, and conveys much about the ideas that led him, and writer Mark O'Halloran to make this hushed and reserved film.

Spare and austere, Garage tells the heartbreaking story of a slow-minded garage attendant. Sidelined and humoured by his small country town, Josie has worked alone, innocently content, his whole adult life. Then his boss decides the garage will open later at weekends and hires a teenager to work with him. Josie becomes friends with David (Ryan), and so grows to understand his own loneliness.

The casting of Pat Shortt will elicit a different reaction in Irish audiences than elsewhere. The idea of the misfit is effectively revealed through this conflict between the character and the popular actor. "He's a kind of national comic institution," explains Abrahamson, "His stuff is broad and big and wildly popular. There were times I worried these associations with Pat would topple the film over."

Dostoyevsky's novel 'The Idiot' pits the positively good man, open, meek, unassuming, against a corrupt society. Garage does not portray such a Holy Fool. Abrahamson comments, "The point of the film is not to say, 'ah look, you thought he was an idiot but he's higher than all of you', because Josie really is an idiot! The point is that even this insignificant, absurd life has immeasurable value."

Prevalent fears of stranger danger means a middle-aged male loner is an object of suspicion. The vague unease of the gentle humour in the first two thirds of the film raises expectations of a violent conclusion. In fact, the denouement is hyperreal, almost dreamlike.

"At the beginning, the film encourages the viewer to see Josie the way the rest of the town sees him - as harmless, absurd, shallow," Abrahamson says, "but as the story develops that view of him becomes harder to hold on to. In the end there feels like there is something profound, unfathomable about him."

Abrahamson and O'Halloran call Garage a "testament to vaudeville." With the subtle slapstick of a large lumbering man going about his routines in earnest, moving the display of oils, feeding a horse, doing morning exercises, it is perhaps vaudevillian only in our voyeurism. Abrahamson wanted to use elements of vaudevillian clowning in Josie's character, "Josie is a kind of clown who's had most of his gags taken away from him and is left standing in the centre of the stage feeling dislocated and gormless."

In an era of enthusiastic jump cuts, Garage is a still film, moving calmly from beautifully framed shot to shot. It is as though something is being said in a very harsh whisper.

Completed in the same spare style as Adam & Paul, the second collaboration between between director Lenny Abrahamson and writer Mark O'Halloran withstands comparison to the best of the Dardenne brothers. Garage weaves tragedy with comedy to tell a beautifully-drawn tale from the margins of contemporary rural Irish life. Regarded by his neighbours as a harmless misfit, Josie (Pat Shortt) has spent all his adult life as the caretaker of a crumbling rural garage. But his world shifts when a shy teenager, David (Conor Ryan), comes to work with him. Initially performing their menial tasks in silence, they tentatively open up and suddenly Josie is drinking cans down at the railway tracks with the local kids. This awakens dormant needs, leading to Josie's awkward tilt at intimacy with Carmel (Anne-Marie Duff).

Jason Wood: Garage is your second feature collaboration with writer Mark O'Halloran. Could you say a little about the working partnership and some of the sensibilities you share?

Lenny Abrahamson: Mark says that we plucked each other from obscurity and that's not far from the truth. There is a great connection between us artistically and a natural territory we inhabit when we work together. Looking at our films it's hard to disentangle his traces from mine. They are the result of real collaboration. Having said this, in terms of the way we work it's all quite traditional. We talk, he writes and I direct. Certainly this was true with Garage. On Adam & Paul everything was new and it took us a while to discover our method.

I think one of the big things which we share, which makes our collaboration possible, is that we don't like characters to be fully captured in a film. And we favour story over plot. What do I mean by this? Well, at the level of the characters, even though they are created by us, they are not reducible to a set of psychological traits or a list of motivations. And nor is it always easy for an audience to extract conventional plot points from the flow of events. Mark's writing is always open - the scenes feel true and are full of possible meanings; the voices are absolutely authentic.

That's the way life is: meaning is always there but there is no clearly given way of decoding it. Conventional cinema obscures this with an easy reduction of meaning to plot and schematic characters. Cinema at it's best can express something of the pure irreducible fact of things.

JW: What advances do you see between Adam & Paul and your second feature?

LA: I probably wouldn't use the word "advances". Adam & Paul is true to itself and complete and so for me is a fully realized piece of work. Garage is probably a deeper film - quieter, sparer, more resonant. But that emerged through dealing with its content, not because we sat down after Adam & Paul and consciously decided to move in that direction.

Shooting Adam & Paul was very tough. There was barely enough time and the budget was tiny. On top of that we shot in dangerous locations where we had little or no control or security. I was aware on Garage of defending a schedule that would give me space to work with more freedom. We also shot the film in a very beautiful, quiet place in the middle of the countryside. So the experience of making the two films was very different. Shooting Garage I felt relaxed, but at the same time intensely concentrated. I don't think I achieved the same purity of focus on the first film.

JW: You have described Garage as "slapstick tragedy" in that it mixes two genres that shouldn't necessarily match. What is it about this that interests you as a filmmaker? Were there specific pitfalls that you wished to avoid?

LA: Probably this description better applies to the first film. Adam & Paul is more obviously vaudevillian - it has lots of physical comedy as well some out-and-out slapstick routines in the Laurel and Hardy tradition. But there is still something of this in Garage in the way that elements of clowning are used. Josie is a kind of clown who's had most of his gags taken away from him and is left standing in the centre of the stage feeling dislocated and gormless. I find something moving about that style, without it ever being crudely emotive.

JW: The perception of Josie changes as the film progresses. We begin with how he is perceived by others and journey towards a more internal and retrospective portrait. Apart from the performance of Pat Shorrt, what tactics did you deliberately use to achieve this?

LA: The film is always with Josie - it's a chronicle of his life over a number of months - and Pat's performance is so subtle and deep, and the film is open and quiet enough to let you watch him closely, that after a time it becomes impossible to sustain your first impression of the character. The beginning, which is deliberately straightforward and unremarkable in presentation, encourages the viewer to see Josie as harmless, idiotic, absurd and, above all, slight - but as the story develops this view of him becomes harder to hold on to. There are scenes of him in nature, on his own at home, scenes with the horse, which open the film out and give it a denser texture and it becomes harder to think of Josie in easy social categories. Eventually as the film approaches the end sequence there is, I hope, a feeling that there is something unfathomable about him.

The important thing for me was to achieve this development without marking the changes in any obvious way. Josie could never describe his feelings - perhaps he is not even conscious that he has them. Actually, in a real sense, there is no change in Josie; no "character development". The change is in us as we watch him. All his depth, all his capacity is there from the beginning - we just don't see it. The film works by becoming quieter, more concentrated as it moves forward, which draws the audience in and intensifies its awareness. In a way, everything points towards the few seconds of silent black screen after the last image and before the credits.

JW: One of the things I most enjoyed about Garage is its willingness to communicate as much through what is left unsaid and suggested at as that which is made explicit. For example, the scene where Josie makes tea for Mr. Gallagher and we are left in no doubt that Josie is about to lose his home and his livelihood. Was this approach a major decision for you?

LA: We knew the scene you describe would end where it does, before anything significant is said. As shot it was longer, though - with all the dialogue you would expect - so that the actors could play the complete encounter and would not be anticipating the cut. Generally, there is an attempt in Garage not to load the dialogue with explicit meaning. I'm interested in the spaces between the significant moments in life, the parts that are usually discarded in memory and also - almost as a matter of principle - in conventional cinematic storytelling.

JW: You employ a minimalist visual style. Is this partly informed by the natural beauty of your locations and what other factors came into play when deciding the tact that you take?

LA: The process of shooting - of choosing shots - is intuitive for me and I just feel my way towards what seems right. In fact, though the filmmaking is always quiet, there are places where the images are expressive as well as places where the shots are deliberately functional. It's hard for me to define a single visual style that describes the film. Garage is minimal, I suppose, in the sense of being as simple as I could possibly make it. When there really is something authentic in a scene, and when you remove everything which feels inflected in the storytelling, anything unnecessary, then the scene can get an extraordinary intensity. Lots of this business of taking things away happens in the edit. I try to take bricks out of the building, and as long as it doesn't fall down they stay out. The danger in making something like Garage where the events are mostly "ordinary" - at least on the surface - in this very simple way is that if there is any kind of false note, then the powerfully prosaic becomes just prosaic. There is none of the bluster and effect of conventional drama to hide behind.

JW: The minimalism is also reflected in the sparing use of music. Why did you decide to use so little?

LA: I work with the same composer, Stephen Rennicks, on everything I do. I have a similarly tight relationship with him as I do with Mark. He's extremely talented and absolutely concentrated on his music as part of the film - never for its own sake. He composed beautiful, interesting music for many parts of the film and we would try pieces out, often keeping them in the cut for quite a while. But nearly always we came to feel that the sequence was stronger, purer, without the music. In the end there are three music cues left in the film; the titles and credits and one piece over picture. The music over titles is very dense, orchestrated and dramatic. It creates a kind of expectation which is undercut by the first, prosaic images of the film, but by the time a version of it recurs over the credits I think the expectation is met. The middle piece occurs at a very particular point in the film. It marks the end of something. Neither myself nor Stephen has ever worked as hard, or thought as much about film music as we did on Garage. There is so little of it but it is a hugely important part of the film.

JW: There is a sense of timelessness in regards to the environment where the film is set. How difficult was it to find your location and what key elements - a garage, presumably - were high on your list of priorities?

LA: With the garage itself we were very lucky. The building that we ended up using - and using with almost no alteration - was due to be knocked down to make way for new apartments, just like in the story of the film. Generally though, and all breathless news reports about the Celtic Tiger notwithstanding, most of Ireland looks a lot like it always has. There were many, many towns we could have used. Strangely, one or two Irish critics have said that places like this no longer exist. I think they're watching too much TV.

JW: Were there also certain images you were keen to avoid in regards to the depiction of rural Ireland and small town life? In many ways you are not afraid to reveal that despite the beauty, these is a sense of frustration, boredom and even cruelty associated with this way of living.

LA: I was concerned that while the film definitely had to show the insularity and occasional cruelty of small town life, it couldn't become about those things. There is a history of stage and film drama in Ireland - some of it wonderful - about the psychology of the depressed place, and for me there is not much to be said that's new. Garage is really a film about the significance of a small, unremarkable life and I wanted it to be a celebration of that life. It was often a difficult balance - to show it truthfully in all its sadness and at the same time to make about something deeper than that sadness.

JW: The relationship between Josie and David is beautifully realised. How natural was the camaraderie we see between Pat and Conor?

LA: Pat and Conor are easy-going, open people and they liked each other from the beginning of rehearsals. Like David, Conor is self-possessed, gentle, and has a very developed, dry sense of humour. And he is as natural in front of the camera as any actor I've ever seen.

JW: In a film of quietly remarkable performances - and I found Anne-Marie Duff to be especially striking - it is impossible not to mention again Pat Shorrt as Josie. I know that in Ireland he is a very popular comedian so did you have any reservations about casting him and how did you work together to achieve Josie's physical and mental appearance?

LA: Once I thought about Pat in the role of Josie it was impossible for me to imagine anyone else playing the part. We'd worked together briefly before and I knew that underneath his broad comedic style there was a great sensitivity as well as a profound understanding and familiarity with the kind of place Josie is from. If he had turned the part down - and I thought he probably would - I really don't know what we would have done. Pat is a performer, a character comedian, who is used to working from the outside in and that's a way that I like to work too. We didn't start with long conversations about Josie's feelings, or his history or his psychology. We started with how he walked, spoke, his bearing around other people, and we built him up that way, always with the script as our touchstone. Certainly casting Pat in a straight role caused quite a stir in Ireland and at one point I remember I did worry the Irish audience would see only Pat and not Josie. But his performance is so extraordinary people very quickly forget they are watching Pat Shortt and become absorbed in the character.

Pat's performance still amazes me when I watch the film. I shaped the performance with him and I've seen it hundreds of times through the edit and at many screenings but I am still struck by how Pat, without any obvious 'acting' is able to give glimpses of Josie's deeper inner life. It is also striking how he can move seamlessly between almost high farce and a very dark, truthful, realistic performance.

JW: The film, like Adam & Paul, was very warmly received and was relatively successful on its theatrical outing. Are you emboldened by its reception and has this in any way affected the scope with which you view your next project?

LA: Yes, I am happy with how Garage has been received. It was by far the most successful Irish film of the year, which is saying something given the kind of piece it is. Its reception critically in other countries, particularly France and the UK has also been extremely warm. This helps in getting the next projects funded and probably does open up possibilities for me to make bigger films. Having said that, I don't have any particular urge to make a bigger film for the sake of it. I like working on small films over which I have complete control. I'd hate to give up that freedom. There is one project I've been thinking about, though, which would have to be funded at a significantly higher level. Maybe it's now a real possibility that I could make that on my own terms. We'll see how it goes

The Elite Squad

2008-07-27T10:21:00.000-07:00

Tropa de Elite, English title: The Elite Squad. Literally: Elite Troop) is a Brazilian film released on October 5, 2007. The movie is a semi-fictional account of the BOPE (Portuguese: Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais), the Special Police Operations Battalion of the Rio de Janeiro Military Police. It is the second feature film and first fiction film of director José Padilha, who had previously directed the acclaimed documentary Bus 174. The script was written by Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Bráulio Mantovani, based on the book Elite da Tropa by sociologist Luiz Eduardo Soares and two former BOPE captains, André Batista and Rodrigo Pimentel.

The movie, set in 1997, depicts the story of Captain Nascimento, a BOPE captain, who with the imminent birth of his first child, is determined to leave the battalion and find a safer position for the sake of his family, but first he must find a suitable replacement for himself. At the same time, the movie focuses on two childhood friends, Matias and Neto, who become cadets in the military police, but become dismayed at the corruption surrounding them. Eventually, both Nascimento and the cadets' paths intersect, when the captain hopes that one of the two may become the substitute he is eager to find, as both decide to join the BOPE.

Comparisons between Tropa de Elite, from director Jose Padilha, and Fernando Meirelles' 2000 film City of God are inevitable. The films are similar in look, style, feel, location, and even a similar voice-over is employed. But rather feeling like a rip-off, Tropa de Elite feels more like an homage or a continuation. This will undoubtedly be one of the better films of 2008 by year’s end.

Before a visit by the Pope, a special elite squad is sent into the slums to clean them up and eliminate the risk of violence and drugs before he gets there. Meanwhile the team captain Nascimento is trying to find a suitable man to replace him after he quits to look after his wife and soon-to-be-born son.

Despite a frantic nature in several scenes, the film feels very in control. You can just tell that the director knew exactly what he was doing as far as handling the scenes goes, especially the action-oriented ones. We jump right into the action with a “funk party” (as the movie describes it) and a shoot-out between the drug dealers and the cops. It makes no bones about what it’s going to be like for the rest of the runtime; it lays its cards plainly on the table for you to see, and for that I applaud it. It doesn’t try to mask itself as something it’s not but rather reveals its true colours from the get-go and doesn’t disappoint on the grade-A level it promises.

Comparisons to City of God, which I think is one of the greatest films of all time, are inevitable, the first of which is in terms of its style. The same frantic, quick edits are employed here although not quite to the same extent. It’s done in such a way that it quickly cuts to various things seemingly all at once, but it doesn’t keep the viewer from becoming engrossed nor does it prevent one from being able to tell what’s going on. It’s in the action scenes that these editing techniques are employed and it's part of the reason they are so engrossing and exciting.

Although frantic and with quick-cut edits it feels very stately, unlike City of God. Instead of constantly being in the style of that film where it’s pretty much always flashy and frantic, Tropa de Elite has moments where the camera is quite still and there are intriguing and interesting conversations going which seem to be accentuated a lot more in this film.

Where the two films differ the most is in their main storylines. City of God was in depth with the actual drug dealers and dealing and how the people in the slums have to live whereas this deals with the law enforcement side of things and tackles the problem from the police perspective. The two films act as two sides of the same coin, complementing and contrasting with one another.

Wagner Moura, the actor who plays the main character of the elite squad team leader, has a great presence about him. He’s physically believable as the leader of this extremely tough and strong task force and equally believable in the scenes at home with his wife. It’s quite rare to find a film which has lots of elements working simultaneously being pulled off even remotely well.

Not only is this is a fun film to watch, down to its action/shoot-out sequences in particular, there’s also a lot more to it, such as strong messages about abuse of power and being honest, and just all around excellent technical filmmaking in almost all areas.

Tropa de Elite just goes to prove how raw, visceral, and real a non-documentary film can be. The action/shoot-out sequences are immensely engrossing and exciting, with you almost feeling every bullet and every body slamming to the floor. And the whole thing feels like it’s in the hands of someone who actually knows what they’re doing. This is this year’s City of God, and to even mention another film in the same sentence as that is a massive compliment on its own.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil has long been known as a city precariously balanced on the edge of chaos. A city of vibrant culture and life, it is also one of the most dangerous cities in the world. The majority of its population lives in one of 70 slums, known as favelas, which are ruled by violent drug gangs. These heavily armed gangs routinely engage in pitched gun battles with the police, with the city’s residents often caught in the crossfire.

With the police force under funded, under equipped and rife with corruption, the drug gangs pretty much have their way within the confines of the favelas and frequently outgun the police when fighting spills over into the city proper. The situation is bad enough that the government created a special paramilitary force known as BOPE (Battalion for Special Police Operations) charged with dealing with the drug gangs. With their symbol being a skull flanked by crossed swords and a pistol, it’s no secret what these guys are about. The new film “Tropa de Elite” (”Elite Squad”) spotlights BOPE in a way the Brazilian government would probably rather it didn’t.

Written by Rodrigo Pimentel, a 12 year veteran of BOPE himself, “Tropa de Elite” is a grim, frequently shocking, but ultimately evenhanded critique of the cycle of violence that engulfs Rio. The film focuses on Captain Nascimento (Wagner Moura, “Carandiru”), a hard-nosed squad commander in BOPE. With the birth of his first child only weeks away, Nascimento is struggling to find the reasons to keep putting his life on the line every day at work. He finally hatches a plan to find a replacement for his position so that he can quit the force.

This brings us to a parallel plot thread concerning two young police cadets - Neto, a gung-ho trigger happy thug and Matias, a fevela resident who attends law school on the side - whom Nacimento marks as his potential replacements. The problem is that he sees the qualities he wants in each man, but not enough of them in either one. However, several incursions into the favelas to clean them out ahead of a visit by the Pope shape the men in unexpected and tragic ways.

Filmed in a hand-held Cinéma-vérité style, “Tropa de Elite” is a fast paced and engaging film. It can almost be called a kind of the anti-”City of God,” following the police rather than the criminals. It employs a similar episodic narrative structure (complete with chapter breaks) and deadpan narration that keeps the energy high and the story moving forward. And like “City of God,” it doesn’t shy away from showing the grim realities of the conflict between the police and drug gangs. It offers a scathing portrayal of the corruption that is engrained in The System which prevents the wheels of justice from turning.

Each division commander has his own scam going, be it collecting protection money from the local strip clubs or selling confiscated guns back to the drug gangs. There’s even a hilarious sequence where each division keeps moving the dead bodies from a gang shoot-out to another division’s jurisdiction so their field reports look better. However, despite BOPE claiming to only want uncorrupted officers amongst its ranks, the film shows them routinely engaging in tactics ranging from torture to out and out murder. But the film does not demonize BOPE for its heavy-handed tactics. Rather, it calls attention to the impossible situation Brazilian society has painted itself into. The streets are controlled by the drug gangs through violence of such a level that the only conceivable way to combat it is through greater violence. Unfortunately, this leaves the average citizen to deal with the consequences.

“Tropa de Elite” was a sensation in Brazil before it was even released in theaters thanks to it ironically falling victim to the rampant crime it criticizes. A rough cut of the film was stolen from the editing studio and bootleg DVDs flooded the usual channels. The film has touched a nerve among Brazilians. With the country still struggling to come to terms with its past and recent history of paramilitary death squads, it has garnered praise and criticism in equal measure from all parts of society. The government, naturally, has condemned the film’s position that BOPE operates outside the law, with the government condoning torture and murder as routine investigative practices (after all, ‘torture’ is no worse than Fraternity hazing, right?). However, the citizenry, particularly the residents of the favelas, have praised the film as painfully truthful. Reality is probably somewhere in between, but with the film’s script writer being a former member of BOPE, I’m inclined to think it’s pretty ugly.

“Tropa de Elite” is a harsh and frequently painful film to watch, but its unflinching portrayal of Rio’s struggles is fascinating. While its style is perhaps too slavishly reliant on Tarantino-esque structuring, it’s not as convoluted as other films of this type, such as the works of Alejandro González Iñárritu. The pseudo-documentary style camera work does get a bit hyperactive at times, but thankfully doesn’t make viewing the film a vertiginous experience. Overall, this is a thoughtful, insightful and frequently darkly funny film, but the impact of its social commentary is very real.

I Served The King Of England

2008-07-20T15:01:00.000-07:00

The early 1960s. Jan Díte is released from a Czech communist correctional facility after nearly 15 years in captivity. Flashbacks showing his earlier life are interspersed with scenes of him post-captivity - he has a dead-end job laying gravel on the roads.

As a young man, Díte makes money by selling sausages to travellers at the railway station, and through observing the people around him comes to believe that avarice is common to all classes. He becomes a waiter, discovers the joys of sex at a local brothel, and plots his climb to the top. His career takes him to a series of ever more prestigious hotel restaurants. His life is transformed in the Nazi era: after meeting Líza, a beautiful German teacher of physical education, he throws in his lot with the Nazis. After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, his stock rises. He is allowed to marry Líza. She uses her contacts to get him a job at one of his old hotels, now a centre for breeding pure Germans. His job is to get young Aryan women ready for intercourse. When he fails to impregnate Líza, she enlists to go to the Front.

As the Germans begin to retreat, Líza returns from the Front, bringing a hoard of stamps stolen from deported Jews. Líza is killed when the hotel burns down at the end of the war. Díte sells the stamps and becomes a millionaire. When the communists come to power in Czechoslovakia, he is arrested and imprisoned. By the time he is released, he is a wiser

I Served the King of England marks the return of director Jirí Menzel, master filmmaker of the Czech New Wave. The story, told in flashbacks, concerns the rise and fall of an amorous and opportunistic apprentice waiter. Jan Díte is a little man with a big appetite for discreet sexual encounters and worldly success. His coming of age at various grand hotels exposes him to the lifestyles of the upper crust, the crème de la crème of 1930s Czech society, and a taste of their self-indulgent and carefree extravagance fuels his ambition. Soon he lands a job at a prestigious luxury hotel, where a chance encounter with a Sudeten German activist leads to a newly varnished Aryan identity. As the hotel changes hands from private ownership to the grip of the German SS, he finds himself in one of the Lebensborn breeding resorts designed to spawn the Aryan master race. It appears he finally has it made, but with the Germans occupying Czechoslovakia he is unfortunately on the wrong side of history. Luscious to look at, this finely crafted film is based on the picaresque novel of Bohumil Hrabal (1914–1997), a frequent Menzel collaborator who inspired a generation with his lyrical yet unsentimental view of 20th century life.

A funnier and darker view of serious political events is to be found in I Served the King of England adapted from a Bohumil Hrabal novel by Jirí Menzel, the Czech director still best known for his version of Hrabal's Closely Observed Trains. Its naive antihero is a hotel worker reviewing his life: prospering under prewar capitalism, surviving during the Nazi occupation, being sent to jail by the postwar communist regime and finding an odd happiness in provincial exile following his release. Bureaucracy, snobbery, avarice and self-seeking flourish in each era. There are nods towards Kafka and The Good Soldier Svejk and a good deal of gross Central European humour.

I Served the King of England is the latest of several Jirí Menzel films adapted from the novels of his close friend Bohumil Hrabal, who died in 1997. (Menzel's adaptation of Closely Observed Trains won an Oscar and was one of the key films in the emergence of the Czech New Wave; his 1969 feature Larks on a String, which he co-wrote with Hrabal, was banned by the communist authorities.) Now 70, Menzel has had an uneven directorial career since the heady days of the 1960s. Unlike his contemporaries Ivan Passer and Milos Forman, he didn't move to the US following the Soviet invasion of 1968, and publicly dissociated himself from his pre-invasion films, including Closely Observed Trains.

His own background must have given him a special affinity with Díte, the diminutive hotel-waiter anti-hero of I Served the King…, who is also obliged to perform a few ideological somersaults. As depicted by Menzel, Díte has more than a hint of Charlie Chaplin or the Good Soldier Svejk about him; he is a hapless everyman being carried along on the tide of history. His goal is simply to be accepted, and he will go to extreme lengths to give pleasure, whether to his customers, his sexual partners or - most disastrously - to the Nazis who've occupied his homeland.

The young Díte, played in very appealing fashion by Bulgarian actor Ivan Barnev, is generally far too interested in money and status to notice what's going on around him. Nothing seems to disturb him - not the rage of the train passenger he's just swindled or the sight of war-wounded amputees - though when confronted by money or women, his excitement is overwhelming. He is both cunning and absolutely naive.

The film has a zest that belies the director's age. There is no sense here of a distinguished director striking a ponderous and introspective note at the twilight of his career. Visually, I Served the King… is lithe and imaginative. It uses music, montage and silent-movie conventions with wit and energy. The downside to Menzel's approach is that he - like his central character - risks sidestepping or trivialising serious issues. The Nazis here have a strong hint of Mel Brooks about them (witness the scenes of masturbating Aryans trying to provide seed for the master race, or the bathing blondes who look as if they're on leave from a 1970s British comedy sketch show). Occasionally, Menzel reminds us that the Nazis aren't just eccentric naturists: there is a gruesome shot of a hotel guest who blows out his brains as the Germans march in; and when Díte's wife Líza (played with dry humour by Julia Jentsch) comes back from the Front with a hoard of stamps she's stolen from deported Jews, even Díte raises his eyebrows.

What the film lacks is the edge it would surely have had if it had been made in an earlier era. Closely Observed Trains and Larks on a String, shot either side of the Prague Spring, had an urgency that reflected the times. Today, Menzel is a senior figure in the Czech film industry and there's no one left to complain about the political subtext in his movie, or to try to censor the sex scenes. No one will doubt the skill and exuberance with which he continues to bring Hrabal's work to the screen. What he arguably now lacks is any real sense of subversiveness.

Caos Calmo

2008-07-19T13:54:00.000-07:00

A widower spends his mourning days on a bench in front of his daughter’s primary school in Antonello Grimaldi’s Berlinale Competition title Chaos calmo (Quiet Chaos). With Nanni Moretti as the widower and co-screenwriter, the film will of course recall Moretti’s own Palme d’Or winner La stanza del figlio (The Son’s Room), but Grimaldi’s adaptation of the bestselling Sandro Veronesi novel is different enough to stand on its own. Already a hit in Italy, where it was released on February 8 and currently stands at €4.5 million in box-office receipts, the combination of Moretti’s presence combined with the star power of Valeria Golino and Isabella Ferrari, a serious topic and a generous helping of gentle humour could make the film a minor arthouse hit on the continent.

In a somewhat awkwardly filmed opening sequence in which the technical shortcomings seem to reflect the contrived a-life-for-a-life metaphor, Pietro Paladini (Moretti) and his younger brother Carlo (Alessandro Gassman, Hamam / Steam) rescue two women who are about to drown at the seaside while at Pietro’s summer home his dedicated wife (Ester Cavallari) drops dead in the garden surrounded by slices of watermelon (there is a strange echo of the Godfather’s death amidst his tomatoes).

Pietro is a successful TV executive whose company is working out an important merger deal when his wife’s death leaves him to care alone for their 10-year-old daughter Claudia (Blu Yoshimi). On his daughter’s first school day after the funeral, Pietro promises to wait for her at the gate until school is out, something that might have been decided on a whim on that first day but quickly turns into a habit, much to the astonishment of his family and colleagues who nevertheless respect the right of father and daughter to deal with their grief in their own way.

Ivano Fossati -- Lamore Trasparente

Grimaldi, Moretti and co-screenwriters Laura Paolucci (L’orizzonte degli eventi) and Francesco Piccolo (Moretti’s Il caimano / The Caiman) have cunningly opened up the narrative cinematically, as in the novel Pietro remains stuck in his car but in the film the TV executive has a nice tree-lined Roman square at his disposal. As time passes, Pietro gets to know all the regular passers-by and they get to know him. Even his colleagues now come to his designated park bench to have meetings with him, with the impending merger revealing some corporate backstabbing from several French co-workers (Hippolyte Girardot, Denis Podalydès, Charles Berling and Roman Polanski in a cameo) in a subplot that is played just right except for an unnecessary Venice-set flashback.

The most-discussed scene in the Italian media in what is otherwise a totally accessible film for all ages is a steamy sex scene between Moretti and Isabella Ferrari, which is remarkable seen that the two actors together are almost a century old. It is clearly meant as a spontaneous moment of release for Pietro, who might finally have crossed the threshold from simple grief to acceptance and the realisation that life goes on. Thankfully Grimaldi does not linger too much on the fact that Ferrari’s character is the same woman that Pietro rescued in the film’s opening sequence, thus largely avoiding a transfer of affection-gimmick that would have been more at home on Italian television (incidentally also the place where Grimaldi has been employed for the last ten years after several features made for the cinema in the early 1990s).

Throughout Caos calmo Moretti is effectively low-key and he avoids bringing back memories of La stanza del figlio, while Yoshimi as his daughter Claudia is cute without bringing much else to the table. Valeria Golino (Respiro) puts in an appearance as Pietro’s twitchy sister-in-law but it is Alessandro Gassman as Pietro’s younger brother Carlo who steals the show. One of the film’s best scenes has Pietro visit Carlo at night to pick up Claudia after a day spent with her cool uncle (he designs jeans), when Pietro finds his younger sibling smoking opium. Without once going into stoner comedy territory, Grimaldi creates a scene of gentle comedy that fits right in with the film’s subdued yet not unhumorous tone.

Modern music is emphatically present on the soundtrack though not to the extent of an Ozpetek film; Grimaldi knows where to place his Rufus Wainwright and Radiohead (the latter also played an important role in the original novel). The film’s closing scenes set in the snow resolve everything nicely with a quietly earned respect for the characters.

Pretextos

2008-07-06T08:43:00.000-07:00

Silvia Munt puede estar satisfecha de su nuevo trabajo detrás de las cámaras, “Pretextos”, que se estrena en toda España este viernes, día 13. Esta mañana ha presentado la película ante la prensa en Madrid, acompañada de buena parte de su reparto (Ramón Madaula, Francesc Garrido, Álvaro Cervantes, Mercè Llorens y Laia Marull) y del productor Quique Camín, que se ha mostrado «muy satisfecho de esta cuarta colaboración con ella. Es nuestra primera película de ficción juntos, y nos hemos sentido muy a gusto». Tras esta introducción a la charla, la realizadora ha tomado la palabra para referirse a lo que sentía en ese instante: «las presentaciones siempre son un momento agónico, pero al tiempo esperado. Al ser mi primer trabajo de ficción he querido meterme las manos dentro de las tripas y sacar fuera cosas que llevo dentro, y mostrar la insatisfacción de esa burguesía acomodada que somos en muchos casos; he intentado retratar la relación entre hombre y mujer, y mostrar cómo es posible que haya gente que no quiere seguir luchando y tirar para adelante. Y siempre con sinceridad, lo que es cuestión compleja. Se ha escrito que este proyecto es para mujeres, y no es así, es para todos. Pero es cierto que cada personaje tiene algo de mí».

La trama se presenta uniendo teatro dentro del cine, ficción dentro de la realidad, mundos unidos y distantes que generan un esquema estructural muy complejo. Munt se ha referido a ello comentando que «el teatro, para mí, explica lo que no entiendes de la vida. Creo que lo que mejor resume toda la película es la famosa expresión “dime que me quieres, aunque sea mentira”. La representación teatral nos expone mejor de qué trata esta obra». Así pues, ante tal sinceridad por parte de la cineasta no se puede evitar pensar que este trabajo cumple para ella, en cierto modo, una función de catarsis en la que se ha sumergido a fondo, ya que también firma el guión junto con Eva Baeza. «Escribir y dirigir no me daba miedo, ya lo había hecho antes. Pero el reparto no lo tenía tan claro, Viena ─el personaje central, al que también presta sus rasgos─ está muy dentro de mí. Lo que he hecho ha sido rodearme de amigos». Desde luego, es indudable que estamos ante un proyecto muy íntimo, pero no sólo para ella: Ramón Madaula, su pareja en la ficción, lo es también en la vida real. «Bueno, es un tema que sopesamos mucho ─ha confesado─. Es indudable que al preparar el libreto partes de algo personal, pero luego los roles se disparan, te metes en tu rol y no hay más problema. Tenemos algún punto de similitud, claro, pero muchos otros no».

Laia Marull interpreta a Eva, un papel que vive inmerso dentro de la propia Silvia Munt. Pero la actriz ha asegurado que «ha sido fácil, porque ella me transmitió toda su fuerza. Y en cuanto leí el guión, me enamoré de Eva. Me encanta cómo han preparado el texto, cómo la respetan, sin juzgarla». Por su parte, Álvaro Cervantes se mete en la piel de Lucas, quien ha de grabar la obra de teatro, convirtiéndose en una especie de juez de los acontecimientos; en realidad, según ha dicho, esto «me ha servido enormemente como experiencia, ya que cuando rodamos tenía 16 años, así que he aprendido con todo lo que he visto y he tratado de absorber toda la potencia del personaje». Mientras hablaba, Munt le miraba con aire maternal, y no ha podido evitar un tierno comentario: «este chico me ha robado el corazón, de verdad. Creo que voy a adoptarlo». Vista la intensidad de la propuesta, podría dar la impresión de que se trata de una película triste, aunque la realizadora ha querido desmarcarse de esa idea, alegando que «es mi visión de la vida. Todos tenemos algún anciano en nuestra vida, y a chavales jóvenes, y todos tenemos relaciones que avanzan a trancas y barrancas… Es así. A mí lo que me parece triste es el típico chico-conoce-chica/chico-besa-chica/felices-para-siempre; creo que lo bonito es conectar con los demás, tirar del carro todos juntos de la mejor manera posible. Ahora bien, esta es mi idea, lo que quiero es que cada espectador saque sus propias conclusiones. Pero no he querido ahondar en la tragedia».

Volviendo a los actores, dan vida a profesionales del teatro, pero dentro de una película de ficción. Las opiniones sobre la dificultad de aunar ambas formas de trabajar han sido distintas; por un lado, Francesc Garrido se ha mostrado «encantado, ha sido un sueño. Lo mejor de ambos mundos, máxime con una directora de actores como Silvia. Ha sido sencillo, también porque siempre confías en que la cámara haga su trabajo, y recoja cada punto y cada pauta concreta». Por su parte, Mercè Llorens ha declarado haberse «concentrado muchísimo en la actriz de teatro, me olvidé un poco de dónde estaba la cámara, hasta el punto de que cuando vi el resultado final descubrí otra película. Me resultó complicado, no saber dónde está la mesura; algo que agradecí mucho fue poder ensayar, no siempre tienes la oportunidad y ayuda mucho». En el lado opuesto, Ramón Madaula, cuyo Daniel es un médico de geriátrico enfrentado a su pareja por el hecho de que considera que los artistas no aportan nada a la sociedad, todo lo contrario que él: «sabe que es la mujer de su vida, pero considera que su profesión es superflua. Esto es cierto un tanto en nuestro mundo, en el que lo artistas copan las portadas de las revistas mientras que médicos y tantos otros, gente útil que hace que todo funcione realmente, son anónimos». La propia Munt ha rematado el comentario: «también buscamos expresar las complejidades de la vida en pareja, cómo la fuerza de la costumbre puede acabar con todo, pero por otra parte puede impulsarte a seguir sin realmente quieres a la otra persona. Creo que es así, y creo en la vida».

Breath

2008-07-06T07:40:00.000-07:00

Kim Ki-Duk goes for something a little less extreme with Breath, a spare and potentially less disturbing film than one might expect from the well-known auteur, whose predilection with cruelty and violence have made him a notorious arthouse figure. The film stars Taiwanese actor Chang Chen as Jang Jin, a death row inmate who attempts to hasten his upcoming demise by stabbing himself in the throat with a sharpened toothbrush. The attempt is unsuccessful, only raising the concern of his cellmates, one of whom who carries an unspoken homoerotic crush on the doomed Jang. The suicide attempt also makes the news, reaching the attention of disaffected housewife Yeon (Zia), who passes her days sculpting, doing laundry, and generally looking like she's going to step off her balcony one day.

Yeon has a daughter and a husband (Ha Jung-Woo), but the latter has strayed. Impelled by her anger or perhaps merely her daily monotony, Yeon visits the prison, and asks to see Jang Jin, saying that she's his ex-girlfriend. She's rejected, but is let in soon afterwards by the prison's apparent in-charge, a faceless, nameless individual running the prison's security cameras. This person seems to have an odd and perverse interest in seeing Yeon interact with Jang Jin, first separated by a window, and then within the confines of a visiting room during her later visits. At the first visit, she tells Jang about her own near-death experience, when she held her breath for five minutes underwater as a child. After telling Jang Jin not to hurt himself again, she leaves, returning to her cold, evidently unfulfilling life.

But she returns again and again, bringing a new season each time. During each visit, she wallpapers the visiting room to resemble a season, dresses in the appropriate clothing, and even sings a song, while Jang Jin looks on quietly. He's mute because he stabbed himself in the throat - which helps out the Korean-impaired Chang Chen - and he watches her curiously, intently, and ultimately affectionately. Chang turns in a fine performance, considering that he can only communicate through minute actions and facial expressions, creating a character that's interesting and even sympathetic, though the enormity of his death-row crime seems a little jarring once its revealed. There seems to be a connection between his crime and Yeon's life, as the cold reality of modern life is portrayed as a silent, oppressive weight, suffocating individuals until they can only react, either by forming a bizarre connection with a death row prisoner or, in the case of Jang Jing, something far, far worse.

Kim Ki-Duk is not explicit about the film's message, but the themes are obvious. His settings are cold and unwelcoming, with only Yeon's wallpapered visiting room and colorful outfits and performances providing any spark or life. It seems that the characters in Breath must step outside the norm to find life, and create it for themselves if it's not there. Otherwise, life is a drag, with people seemingly uncommunicative and unsympathetic towards one another. And yet Kim does allow the film its uplifting emotions, bringing unspoken understanding between characters and the promise of accord that seems to indicate better times even outside the visiting room's walls. Meanwhile, other characters take an almost perverse interest in Yeon's activities. The security monitor and even Yeon's husband seem to be okay with watching, almost like they see the benefit and even approve of her extreme playacting. Again, it seems like Kim is sending us a positive message. Maybe what he's saying is we all need a vacation, even if it's to a visiting room filled with colorful wallpaper announcing the arrival of fall. That, and people should let their loved ones have vacations.

Or maybe it's not all rosy, because Kim still has a chance to bring Breath some cynicism. There's complexity and a darkly humorous sensibility in how Kim arranges the film, creating characters that are perverse and unlikable, and yet engaging and sympathetic. Breath involves lots of repetition; each visit from Yeon brings a new season, plus new despair to Jang, and the pattern repeats up until the unexpected, quiet end. When it's all over, it's curious if the film really does make its aims clear, but there's emotional substance in the moments and in the wounded performance from Zia, who adds layers that the sparsely worded script doesn't communicate. Ultimately Breath manages to affect without really doing very much, using its quirky black humor and glimmers of small hope to speak volumes that may not really be there. For audiences - and even for the film's characters - the experience may be more about what is individually taken, rather than what is explicitly given. (Kozo 2007)