Caotica Ana (Chaotic Ana) A Film by Julio Medem

Like a malevolent fart criss-crossing three continents, Julio Medem’s latest opus manages not only to soil a great filmmaker’s reputation, but also cause immense embarrassment to viewers who passionately embrace ‘visionary’ cinema, such as this particular writer.

As I watched Medem’s leading lady make stunted facial expressions, while the soundtrack swelled into a worried, multi-ethnic crescendo, I wondered whether the title of the film, ‘Caotica Ana’ (Chaotic Ana) was given to it after it was finished in a bid to alley the viewers’ concerns regarding the director’s state of mind during its making.

Medem, who is widely recognized to be one of the most significant cinematic voices to come out of Spain in the last two decades, is no stranger to sweeping, fable-like narratives that often revolve around his pertinent obsessions on identity, spirituality and fate.

Here, he pushes these obsessions to front and center, composing his film like a fairy tale about a young, beautiful painter from Ibiza (Manuela Velles in her debut) whose artistic talent is spotted by a mysterious patroness, Justine (Charlote Rampling). Justine invites Ana to Madrid to take part in an artist’s residency that looks almost like a parody of Andy Warhol’s ‘Factory’. The emotionally open and pure Ana loses no time in connecting with another sexy resident, the Berber artist Said. Even before she can have her first ‘deep’ orgasm, Ana senses a ‘deep’ connection with Said (including his parents and his country), which invades her consciousness like ghosts from his past or to be more precise, like shaky POV footage from a handycam.

Inexplicably, Ana gets hypnotized by one of Justine’s cronies who insists that she is a reincarnation of an ancient spirit or spirits. The trouble is that the freewheeling spirit has a nasty tendency to die violently when she reaches the age of twenty-two. After Said suddenly (lots of sudden things happen in this film) disappears, Ana becomes increasingly concerned about the possibly grisly fate awaiting her. Thus she makes a desperate attempt to run away from her destiny, which naturally only leads her back to the “where it all started” – an ancient Navajo cave… Once at peace with her omnifarious selves, Ana can finally fulfil her ultimate calling as an indomitable being by throwing a very ‘in-your-face’ challenge to Western Capitalism or American Imperialism or God knows who… This penultimate scene must have been directed by John Waters while Medem was on his lunch break since none of the other explanations quite worked out…

When previously attempting a New Agey marathon such as this, Medem had very wisely confined his horizons to very specific locations (usually the Basque region of Spain) and time-frames, precisely fine-tuning the fragile, incandescent connections between his sexy (here is that word again) protagonists and their doppelgangers/past lives/spiritual mates/etc/, insuring that we were never thrown out of the sweet daze of his beguiling stylistic euphorias by some jarringly crude decision.

It would not be an inflated claim to describe all these previous works such as ‘Vacas’, ‘Red Squirrel’ and ‘Lovers of the Arctic Circle’ as major achievements, with ‘Tierra’ sporting such breathtaking mastery of the medium that it begs to be called a masterpiece. All these films are stylistically and structurally baroque to the extreme, rivalling Veronese in the ultimate skill of narrative and retinal mind-games. But even the ludicrously fanciful narrative coils and knots of ‘Sex and Lucia’ are somehow pinned firmly in place, grounded in the gravitas of the performances and a naturalistic script. And this ‘mortar’ is exactly what is missing from ‘Caotica Ana’. It’s not that Manuela Velles doesn’t try her utmost to render Medem’s thematic obsessions into palpable emotions that the audience can connect with or that Charlotte Rampling doesn’t do her best in order to suppress the urge to laugh hysterically while mouthing some of the clumsiest dialogue in recent memory – they simply aren’t fully invested in their roles and it shows. At one point Medem perhaps forgot that it was Velles who was supposed to be acting, not her breasts.

Hence, I couldn’t help but pine for the majestically effortless presence of the director’s ex-muse – the glorious Emma Suarez, whose mere smile in ‘Red Squirrel’ was enough to make me want to move to the desolate Basque country and grow wine.

By constantly operating on the level of metaphors and robbing his characters of their right to exist as something other than mere ciphers, Medem unstitches his clothing to reveal something utterly naked, blatant and somewhat unhinged. The sight, to say the least, is not pretty. The lack of critical perspective exhibited here usually points to a highly personal, confessional nature of the film and sure enough, Medem dedicates the film to his deceased sister (whose paintings are used in the film) and daughter – both of whom are called Ana. It is almost as if the director has attempted to convince himself of soul’s immortality by creating this cinematic ode to the female spirit. But what should have been poetry ultimately has come out looking like a training video for a fanatical occult society. Naturally, I’m somewhat alarmed that Tom Cruise might have seen this film…  

But of course, the underlying problem is not the philosophy or the thematic concerns of the filmmakers – otherwise Leni Riefenstahl wouldn’t be in the collection of Museum of Modern Art. It always comes down to aesthetic decisions and the execution of the idea. And Medem’s fatal mistake is the foolish attempt to tell this fairy tale in a relatively straight-forward, linear manner resulting in a film with an acute case of mistaken identity. Had the director pushed his hyperboles further and more outward into that dangerous twilight zone populated by filmmakers such as David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowski and Guy Maddin, he just might have gotten away with a Spanish ‘Inland Empire’, which surely isn’t as bad as having a particularly painful case of cinematic diarrhoea.

‘Chaotic Ana’ (in its English translation) is released on DVD courtesy of DV1, who have provided an almost pristine transfer of the film. The 16x9 enhanced, progressive image looks very crisp indeed, only occasionally lacking detail in darker scenes. Since the film was shot on high definition cameras there are no film artifacts to speak of. The subtitles are thankfully removable and very easy to read. There are no worthy extras to speak of. Medem had shot a short film with his daughter Ana prior to embarking on this feature and it would have been nice to see it included.  But this being only the second English-friendly release of the film so far, we’re not complaining (about the DVD that is).

Vigen Galstyan 2009

Sydney Film Festival 2009: Three Monkeys

The beacon of Sydney’s film-life is back in its 56th year. Until its arrival, it was difficult to imagine how film-starved this city has become. Devoid of proper cinematheques and with the local art house theatres playing ‘Angels and Demons’, Sydney can not even remotely be called a film-friendly city.
Alas, this year’s festival is a lot leaner, slimmer and, unfortunately thinner… Unlike the stupendously overloaded 2007 edition, the 56th outing of the festival offers a collection of gems that barely make a mark on the radar.
I found it somewhat ironic that the festival’s promotional poster features a nerdy looking guy and a tired-looking dog sitting in an armchair in what supposedly means to a TV set. The logo? ‘Don’t try this at home’. ‘… or you might go to sleep’ should’ve been the punchline.
No no no. I’m not deprecating the standard festival fare that is featured here. It’s just, even I had to admit half-heartedly, there were going to be very few surprises this year. Yet, as I booked my twelve sessions (the only ones I could master up some enthusiasm), I was hoping for a miracle.

THREE MONKEYS: Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Before I begin the review of the following film, I’m going to indulge in a little digression.
It’s the 2009 Cannes film festival. The Jury has convened to make their final decision. Who’s going to get a bite of the small prize pool? While the only prize that really counts at Cannes is Palm d’Or, it’s better to go away with at least a small paper certificate than without anything. It is an unusually good competition this time around, which some commentators had already dubbed ‘the battle of the auteurs’. The Palme d’Or was probably a foregone conclusion with Hupert as the president and Haneke presenting his strongest film in years (so we hear). The rest of the prizes would have proven difficult to distribute considering the exceptional standard of most of the films. One prize that is almost as equally coveted is the best-director gong. Various jury members present their choices ‘Almodovar. Campion. How about Von Trier? No, that would be too much for him. Audriad has made an amazing film. Isn’t it time one of the greatest French filmmakers received a prize here – Alain Resnais. Yes, that would be perfect, he’s at the death’s door and he’s made such a beautiful film…’ But from a corner comes a quiet but dignified voice “I think the prize should go to Brilliante Mendoza…” The voice belongs to Nuri Bilge Ceylan – a Cannes darling who was the lucky recipient of the said award in 2008. The jury stares at Nuri in stupefication (except Isabelle Hupert, whose astonishing face NEVER changes its expression). “Yes… I think he made an amazing film… it’s a really challenging and enigmatic movie with a unique style”. “But you can’t see anything in it” pitch in a few of the members. “Well… it is a very dark film, so the director has found the appropriate treatment for it”… “But the material… it’s like a B-grade Hollywood thriller dressed up as a snuff move”. “… it’s a brilliant treatment of a B-movie. Just like my film from last year, for which I won the best director prize”. Since nobody in the room had seen Nuri’s film and were too ashamed to admit it, the jury unanimously decided to give the prize to Mendoza’s film – the worst film in the history of Cannes according to the press.
This is of course a big load of conjecture and I can not confirm Ceylan’s attitude to Mendoza’s film (which I haven’t seen). Yet I couldn’t help but think about it while watching the latest film in the Turkish director’s cannon – ‘Three Monkeys’, although I much prefer the sound of its Turkish title , pronounced ‘Uch Meymoun’.
The story tastes like badly aged wine. An influential politician, just before the elections, runs over a pedestrian on a dark, isolated road. His plate number is recorded by another driver and in desperation, the politician seeks the help of his driver, Eyup. He asks Eyup to take his place and give himself up to the police. He’d only have to sit it out for a year and upon release will receive a large sum of money for services provided. Eyup, considering the odds, takes the offer. His wife and son are strangely unmoved about the arrangement. The beautiful Hacer goes on about her routine as always, fretting over her handsome, adolescent son Ismail, who has failed his school exams and prefers to loiter about. Ismail is also bored and being stuck in a small coastal town does not help. Soon he’s pressuring his mother to ask the politician for an advance so he could get a car. The mother reluctantly complies, but when she meets the man decides to get something for herself too. No, not money. Just a good lay. In the tradition of those great Hollywood noirs, the plot thickens into a black pool of blood, but slow enough that you could say ‘Preminger, Hitchcock, Visconti, Chandler and Tarkovsky’ before the next scene comes.
Mixing Tarkovsky and Chandler (or most likely Cain - the references are too generalised here) is a great idea on paper and Ceylan makes a very strong attempt to bring this gimmick to life. Yet, essentially the two aesthetics are not just incompatible, they are mutually exclusive. Chandler’s characters inhabit a universe that is driven by dialogue, wordplay and language. You could probably film an entire Chandler film in a dark closet and still get a pretty good picture. Tarkovsky on the other hand requires not so much dialogue as poetry – to accompany the powerful images he conjures up. The free associative way that Tarkovsky constructs his films, full of ellipsis’s, off-screen dialogue and negative spaces, is diametrically opposed to Chandler’s focus on human psychology and semantics. So Ceylan’s film never really knows where it wants to be. It is a very reluctant thriller. The mechanical plot clicks its way through an almost too pat a conclusion. But it is not really the airport novel plot that is at fault here. Trashy material has made the basis of many a good film – just look at any Godard adaptation. What is problematic however is Ceylan’s off-handed, simplistic and at times offensively stereotypical treatment of his characters. At times I thought I was watching a really corny 70s Turkish melodrama, which happened to be photographed by Christopher Doyle. None, and I mean none of the main characters come remotely close to being complex. Complexity is suggested by the loaded imagery, but immediately dissipates when the characters so much as open their mouths or make a predictable plot movement. They are driven by the customary characteristics that define a typically ‘Eastern’ patriarchal unit. The one to suffer most is of course the woman. Not only is she presented to be morally dubious, but is also a weak creature in thrall of the man. It is possible that Ceylan is making a non-too subtle critique on the way men abuse the women in their lives. But I don’t buy it. There’s just a way that Ceylan photographs Hacer, with her twisted mouth and a desperate look in her eyes that suggests some kind of primal instability – a madness that is just brimming under the surface of her finely etched features.
Ceylan is obviously much more concerned with the way the light falls on the actors, the furniture and the landscape, than he is with philosophical musings on guilt and redemption (themes that are central to his work). Had he attempted to even slightly move away from the formulaic narrative, he might have achieved something resembling the iconographic grandeur of Tarkovsky or Antonioni for that matter. For Ceylan has a truly astounding eye: his images are mercilessly detailed and at times overpoweringly monumental (take for example the brilliant last shot). Looking back at his previous film, ‘Climates’ I understand why I enjoyed it so much. By taking out the narrative out of the equation, Ceylan had given his images the possibility to tell thousands of stories instead of just one. His new film on the other hand reveals only one story – that of the director’s very significant shortcomings.

Belated end to a failed reporting career: The last few days of Telluride 2008

The insignificance of it all…
I don’t envy the journalistic masses who have to shuttle from one film festival to another like constant refugees in search of happiness.
After two intense nights of film viewing and writing I quickly gave up on 'reporting' in Telluride. No wonder. There was no one paying me for it after all. Could there even be a choice between writing a blog that no one reads and late-night drinking amidst the romantic setting of Colorado mountains?

Fast forward two and a half months (and then another four months) and I get the strong desire to finish off the job with one (actually two) massive chunk of post-reportage. Aha. And that’s only because I have absolutely no desire to work on the film I’m supposed to be working on.
So how did it go in the last three days of the fest? I don’t remember much actually, so I’ll avoid the chronology of the events as much as I can.

Looking in the crystal ball, I see David Fincher - sitting only slightly regally as the newly crowned
king of American cinema (at least that was the insinuation of the leaflet published by the festival). The man was humble and funny in a way that is only too correct for an autocratic director such as him. “It was all Darius Khonji” or “the amazing talent of Jodie Foster transformed the film” and so on. Well good for him! As a visual stylist Fincher is yet to be surpassed in contemporary American cinema and the selection of segments from his best music videos and commercials proved it. Yet the twenty minute segment of the latest instalment in the Brad Pitt trilogy also proved that he will never truly achieve a cinematic nirvana that he COULD have delivered had he worked outside of the studio system. Even in its unedited form, these loosely connected scenes displayed a brilliant visual sensibility, yet overall, the whole thing was just… a literary adaptation. There was something old and heavy about the whole affair, like a film made by a director in his twilight years (Funny and Alexander comes to mind). It was all Capra with technicolor sugar-coating and I really think that American filmmakers should get over Mr. Smith. Watching Cate Blanchet do another Meryl Streep transformation (this time as a ballerina) I kept thinking where is the man who put those cones on Maddonna’s tits gone?
Rather more fascinating encounter awaited me in old library hall where an unkempt-looking man with dirty long hair and a pot belly pranced about nervously with a pile of papers in his hand. Slavoj Zizek. The great, enfant terrible of post-everything philosophy took up the stage to explicate the astounding wonders of a soapy Nazi melodrama called… oh god… just a moment while I check the title on IMDB.

Found the title, but I’ll have to take a coffee break.

Right... it was called 'The Great Sacrifice'. Do I need to go into the plot? Well, alright then. A young man comes back from his travels in Asia and decides to marry the virginal daughter of a local historian (or maybe he was a philosopher). It is all very upper-class with readings of Nietzche in an enormous mansion with darkened rooms and performances of melancholy pieces by Bach. This intellectual potpourri is not really to the liking of our hero, who likes the outdoors and “healthy thoughts”. He doesn’t have to search long to find his ideal in a Finnish neighbour who likes to swim naked in the lake and ride horses through the countryside, in between arrow shooting practices and frequent sex sessions. We don’t get to see much of the last bit alas – Nazi filmmakers proved to be surprisingly conservative when it came showing bodies in action, other than when they prance around half-naked in water or on horses.

Zizek was a nervous mess as he sprouted forth ideas on the aesthetics of fascism and how closely it relates to the aesthetics of contemporary cinema. The philosopher is famous for contradicting himself and one couldn’t escape the notion that he was frequently coming up against his own remarks. “We should believe in cinema because it’s more real that reality itself” and then “the truth is on the outside, not inside the soul – which is fake”. Considering that the film he was showing was busy depicting the melodramatic ‘soul’ of fascist ideology, it was certainly a complete lie. What are we to believe then? Frankly Zizek’s theories spouted during this mini-lecture and in the extended (and quite brilliant) documentary ‘The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema’ (which I managed to see only recently) engage on a visceral level, but after a close scrutiny don’t hold up very long. Maybe that’s why he’s so open about his contradictory nature… However, I’m too cautious about attempting to unravel any of his philosophical dictums – I’m not ready to go completely mad just yet.
An important occasion of the festival was the screening of the restored print of Lola Montes, which glowed and glistened like a polished diamond. Yet, somehow, it failed to generate the emotional charge of Ophulse’s other masterpieces. Only in the last few scenes does the pathos and irony of the situation register its power. For me, the film remains first of all, an astonishing feat on a purely artistic, aesthetic level. The camera turns into a crafty magician, rising up and down, pirouetting around time and space. Genius, even if a tad boring.
Amidst all the archival, retrospective screenings, it was a distinct shock to find oneself seated at the surprise, world premiere of Danny Boyle’s kinetic take on Bollywood cinema – ‘Slamdog Millionaire’. Like most of Boyle’s work, ‘Slamdog’ runs fast and think later. It has a complex structure that encircles the entire life of the lead character from childhood to adulthood. The scenes depicting the children of Mumbai are truly terrific, shot with a demonic energy that immediately sweeps the viewers into their cinematic reality. While Boyle keeps his eyes open on the most despicable conditions that children face in contemporary India (in particular children with no families and homes) he still manages to cover it all with a saccharine coat that dilutes the hopelessness of reality. Which is why I guess the audience screamed ‘Oscar’ in ecstasy after it all finished. How easy it is for people to digest shit when it is served with plentiful of chocolate.

Talking about shit… Despondent at being unable to see anything at the ‘Opera House’ I dragged myself (very reluctantly) to a screening of …. ‘Hunger’. Despite its multitude of prizes and rhapsodic reviews I really didn’t feel like sitting through a film about an Irish terrorist who starves himself to death in a British prison. Especially since hunger was a constant presence in my stomach throughout the five days of the festival (food being expensive and all). Sitting in the most uncomfortable seat imaginable, which was perched on the balcony of the tiny theatre, I looked at the most moving and powerful images that blinked on Telluride’s screens. Even while the prisoners smeared their shit all over the walls of that horrific prison I could barely look away. The astonishing precision and clarity of each scene and shot was breathtaking. Not to say anything about the extraordinary real transformations of the actors who turned from handsome young men into blue corpses covered with cuts and bruises. At times, the film recalled images from Francis Bacon and Leucian Freud and even at its most horrific had a tangible poetry about it.

The hyper-kinetic Korean ‘Noodle-Western’ by Kim Ji Woon made no apologies for recycling the over-chewed remnants of Sergio Leone’s films. The title says it all of course: ‘The Good, The Bad and The Weird’. Revolving around three highly divergent characters (a hero, a villain and a fool) who rush through the film in order to get their hands on some treasure, the film basically is concerned with staging as many spectacular and comical shoot-out scenes as possible.
Ji Woon, whose previous efforts include the Korean hit ‘A Tale of Two Sisters’ and an exceptional segment for the horror trilogy ‘3 extremes’, made a solid Pop-mash of various film references, in-jokes and some inventive physical comedy. Unlike Takeshi Miike who also attempted an idiosyncratic ‘Noodle-Western’ recently, Woon is primarily concerned with surfaces and their immediate, visceral effects. The movie works horizontally and does not dig deep, it spreads out wide across different periods, styles and themes, brushing past all that historical bric-a-brac like some 2-D animated character from ‘Sailor-Moon’.
Ji Woon was present at the screening as a sparse group of film-nuts huddled under plastic covers and umbrellas while sitting on dripping fold-out chairs in the open air cinema as heavy rain poured mercilessly in the bitter cold. It was surreal and otherworldly and very appropriately Ji Woon bubbled on saying absolutely nothing of consequence. I loved it…

Quite a contrast really to the somber and wrenching mood that the Austrian film ‘Revanche’ was radiating in one of the small cinemas across the street. I seriously suspect that Austrians have developed only one aesthetic movement in cinema and are desperately sticking to their guns – whatever anyone else might be doing. How might one categorise this ‘movement’. Is there a term that I don’t know about? I’d call it the ‘lancent’ or ‘morgue-table’ cinema. Well, why not? The British have their ‘Kitchen Sink’ don’t they?
The thing about the Austrians is their Arian precision and coldness, which reminds me of a lancet-cut in the flesh. It bleeds and is horrific, but somehow you are meant to remain detached and analytical. The emotional response is always akin to a deadening shock and speechlessness. Now, Gotz Spielman’s film about revenge is nowhere near the harrowing terror unleashed by Haneke’s ‘Funny Games’, but in its brutal clockwork mechanism and unflinching look at human fallibility, it makes for an uneasy viewing experience. What Spielman does however in the end is effective because he has been so uncompromising throughout the rest of the film. He mellows his existentialist angst and gives the characters a ray of hope (and by default – the audience too). Its transcendental resolution does not ring fake, because it is as powerful as all the horror that has come before it.
Overall, I think the film is a much more balanced and successful work than its more extreme and fetishist counterparts by… say Ulrich Seidl.

Finally, THE film that had everyone talking and lining up in the long queues. ‘I Loved You So Long’ was the filmmaking debut of the French writer Philippe Claudel and somehow it had become the word-of-mouth sensation of the festival.
Starting Kristin Scott-Thomas in what could only be called a ‘performance of a career’, this Bergmanoid film developed through a brilliantly tuned structure. It pits the audiences with a character that is a cross between Joan Crawford and Hanibal Lecter – at least that’s how it seems in the beginning – and tells us that we must sympathise with her plight. Juliette (Thomas) has just been released from prison and her younger sister Lea (Elsa Zylberstein) is there to meet her. They haven’t seen each other for 15 years. Juliette moves in with Lea and her family and tries quietly and desperately to adapt back into society. Of course, the moment anyone hears of her horrific crime, they reject her instantly. You see, she has murdered her son.
Scott plays her character almost like a Sphynx come to life. Her face is a mask; impenetrable, mysterious and at times frightening. Every time she’s around children you see her facial muscles jerk just a little. You know she’s in absolute agony, but never fully trust her. The director brilliantly builds the tension by giving clues and hints – much like Chabrol does in his bourgeois satires of the 60s and 90s, yet ultimately he can not avoid the final act of ‘disclosure’. And what a let down it is… Instead of a sensational tale of alienation and rebellion we get a snivelling TV movie by the end. The brilliance of the best Chabrol films lies in their lack of release. The pent up frustration and confusion gets exacerbated by the end. We leave more anxious after his films are finished than we got there. Claudel pussy-foots the real issues of his film by giving us a reassuring pat on the back. We get the Bergmanoid hysterics and ethical/moral issues I hinted about, but Bergman would have made EVERYONE face the issues – not just a single character that we can feel sorry about and think “thank God THAT hasn’t happened to me”. I had a layer of disgust and disenchantment over my whole body when I left the theatre as I looked at all the happy, exorcised and cried out faces of nice little old ladies and their rich husbands.
Other films I witnessed were: some Scottish kitchen-sink drama about two children who run away from home (we’ve all seen it before so I won’t even try to remember its name), a mildly amusing Hitchcockian thriller with the beautiful Jean Simmons called ‘So long at the fair’ (made in 1950, featuring the exact same story that appeared as an episode in 'Alfred Hitchcock presents', which is much better in my opinion) and a portion of the epic ‘The Emigrants’ - starring Liv Ullman and Max Von Sydow - by one of the greatest of all Swedish directors, Jan Troel.
Troel was there to give a talk and I just loved listening to this exceptionally grounded, humble and fascinating director. I immediately wanted to see everything he’s directed, but then as things turned out didn’t get to see a single of his films in their entirety.
That’s one of the problems with Telluride. Too many films, too little time. You spend more time organising schedules than watching films. But… I’m not complaining. Other than the ‘Golden Apricot International Film Festival’ I have never been in such close proximity to so many amazing, talented filmmakers and never had a more ‘educational’ film-going experience. And once you get past all the self-congratulatory “we’re just here to celebrate film” bullshit, Telluride does start to weave its magic pretty quickly. No wonder the customary goodbye line at the end was “see you next year” … Well, maybe in a few years…

Telluride - Day 1

Telluride is probably the most audience friendly film festival I've ever been to. Once you get past the exhorbirant costs associated with the attendance.

Take the opening night for example. No grand speeches, red carpets or swarms of paparazzi to spoil the mood. Instead, the whole main street was blocked to traffic and tables were lined up with plentiful of food and alcohol. You could even bump into Laura Linney or Mike Leigh while waiting to fill up your plate with salad.

The general aura of excitement was in the air and everyone seemed anxious to get started on the films. My first strike - to see Slavoi Zizek's 'Perverts Guide to Cinema' - proved unsuccessful as the tiny, make-shift cinema in the town library (seating only 50 people) was already packed.

Screenings proper started at around 6pm and the first film we were "almost" guaranteed an entry into was Sergei Dvortsevoy's 'Tulpan' - a remarkable film set in a remote Kazakh steppe.
While I'm not a huge fan of 'anthropological' films (that is films that are anxious to present on screen the lives and traditions of different, usually remote cultures) - Tulpan proved to be an exceptional achievement. The film focuses on a young ex-marine, Asa, who has returned to live with his sister's family in the steppes, where he helps he brother in law to heard sheep. Asa is determined to set up his own farm, but in order to do so, he has to get married, otherwise the 'Big Boss' will not allocate him a herd. The problem is that the only eligible girl around has absolutely no desire to marry him, claiming that Asa has big ears (but who actually simply wants to escape the steppe in order to study at a college).
From this simple premise, Dvortsevoy builds a magnificent tapestry that is so rich with delicate observations and unaffected emotions that it could almost be a documentary. The director's previous documentary works had paved the way for his contemplative style, with long, languid takes, anxious pauses, unexpected and sudden incursions of various elements into the frame. It's almost as if Dvortsevoy's camera is floating around, waiting for something to happen, to afraid to cut in case it misses something vital. And in the harsh landscape of the Kazakh steppe, every element gains a monumental importance - like a small tornado ominously circling the hut, a dead lamb lying in the dust, or the startling incursion of a Bonny M song in the windy landscape.
It's all perfectly calibrated and timed, even if Dvortsevoy occasionally indulges in an over-long pause, overstatement or not too subtle metaphor.
The director gave a humble but insightful interview after the film. Like Zvyagnitsev's and Ilya Khrjanovsky's astounding debuts, 'Tulpan' proves that the post-Soviet cinematic landscape can attain the same great peaks reached by Tarkovsky and Paradjanov even in a decidedly neo-capitalist environment. Must be something in the water I guess...

Right after, we managed to sneak into the tiny 'Nugget' cinema, which seats only 185 people to take a look at Ole Christian Madsen's 'Flame and Citron'. This is apparently the biggest budget film ever made in Denmark. I was more shocked to find out that the budget was only $9 million.

Based on the real-life events, the film tells the story of two Danish resistance fighters during WW2. Flame and Citron are a strong team that commit various assassinations on the orders of a man named Winther - a go between the British and the Resistance.
It doesn't take long for Flame to question some of these orders though as it becomes increasingly less apparent who the enemy is. Everyone seems to be leading double lives, including the alluring femme-fatale, Ketty with whom Flame becomes infatuated with.
'Flame and Citron' certainly has a very gripping story at its core, full of suspense and moral dilemmas, but somehow it never quite ac hives full flight. The film seems too weighed down by its own importance and it's not quite sure what it wants to be - an espionage thriller, a war movie or a moralistic diatribe. It wants to be all, but the parts never really mesh together.
Paul Verhoeven's very similar 'The Black Book' at least had the courage to be unashamedly entertaining and thus strikingly subversive. Madesen should have made more use of his Dogme beginnings to infuse more bite and cynicism in his story, instead he often goes for the obvious.
Still, the film has its moments of true suspense and heart-breaking tragedy and its excellent cast, in particular the always reliable Mads Mikkelsen and the revelatory Stine Stengade, make the [long] journey worthwhile.

The Race to Telluride: The Film Festival That Didn't Want to be Seen

It's been almost... nearly... practically... well... over a year now since I last made a post here.

Well you know the saying - in [cyber]space no one can hear you scream!

So I guess there have been no disappointed fans craving for me to take up the keyboard again. And why should one write for a readership? I realized that the blog is ultimately just a personal diary that I was too lazy to keep and the knowledge that someone, somewhere might [accidentally] access it, only makes it slightly more titillating.



But back to the main reason for my "comeback" - Telluride Film Festival.



Where do I start?



A couple of months ago a friend of mine whom I hadn't seen for months called me out of blue and asked me if I wanted to take trip to US to attend the notoriously high-brow TFF. "They've got Zizek as the guest director", he said breathlessly. "Wow! Amazing! I would so love to hear him" I replied (last time I've tried to read Zizek I took three coffee breaks by the time I'd reached the second page). Of course David had no idea that I'd already decided to quit my job and take another extended working holiday in Europe and Armenia. The major festival I wanted to attend was Venice of course, but... Telluride is so off the beaten track that I'd probably never even think of going unless something like this happened. So I said yes.

Flash forward two months and a few unexpected twists and turns, and I found myself packing for the trip, even though I had tried to quit, change the ticket to Toronto and grew desperate at the huge cost that was looming ahead.

Even though we decided to go to Telluride nearly three months before it started, we found out that it was still quite late for getting things organised.

We barely managed to buy a 'Cinephile' pass for $350 - which had a suspiciously vague description, then accommodation (affordable accommodation) proved to be an impossible dream. Telluride doesn't even hostels. Everything was booked for the season. Fortunately I was able to find a nice girl by the name of Rebecca who was willing to share her room with us for $500 apiece.
That settled, another problem presented itself. How the hell do we get there?
Dave suggested we drive from Albuquerque to the town, but I was against the idea, so... from LA, I took a plane to Phoenix, then Albuquerque, then hang around the flat expanses of this non-descript town until 1.50 am, met Dave (who had come ahead of me) and then took a bus to Durango. At 9.30 am the shuttle bus from Telluride picked us up (for a cool $60) and drove up very slowly up the mountain passes, stopping at the Durango airport to pick up more passengers.
We got there after three hours, checked into our hotel and started exploring the town. The landscape is of course stunning, with high mountain chains circling the few tiny streets of the old town. The locals seem to have struck a perfect balance with nature, they know how to enjoy its delights while respecting its mighty power and purity.
All in all, it's quite an awe-inspiring sight, but I soon found out that the rapid changes in temperature, lack of sleep and the blasted air-conditioning in the mini-bus had made me lethargic and on the verge getting sick.
David seemed to be fine and was already making plans for a two-hour hike up the mountains, but my poor, office-bound body was refusing to go anywhere but the bed.
The added pressure not to snore at night (so as not to wake up my two companions) made for a truly torturous night.
Next day, I found myself enjoying the space more and really getting into the festival mood. The program was out so it was time to plan which films were going to be on the menu for the next four days...

Competition Heat in Venice

Well, well, well...

Four of the major films at VIFF have already been screened and there seems to be a leader already. While the opening night film - 'Atonement' garnered very strong reviews, another film has blown into town to sweep everyone away - De Palma's 'Redacted'.

"Harrowing", "Emotional", "Cathartic", "Shocking", "Sensational" and simply "Great" are just some of the laudatory remarks coming from the media. The film apparently stunned the audiences with its extreme power and gut-wrenching depiction of explicit violence. Reports of a ten minute standing ovation confirm that this is a clear front-runner for the prize. It also helps that this is perhaps the most politically edgy film among a whole bunch of very politicized pics in Venice. If one were to look at the winners of Golden Lion for the past decade a clear pattern emerges. Films with a strong agenda and relevant "messages" had won the day and this year can't possibly be any different. De Palma is also one of the few great filmmakers in the world who has never won a prestigious festival prize in his career, so maybe Venice will be able to "atone" for that come next week.

Regardless of the relevance of De Palma's film, I'd still like the festival to award the most artistically ambitious picture in the competition. Greenaway and Haynes? Maybe not.

Ang Lee's film has fallen behind for some reason. The reactions have been strangely lukewarm. Kenneth Branagh's new version of 'Sleuth' is a reportedly a mild, if accomplished, entertainment. Then there is the George Clooney starrer 'Michael Clayton'. We know what suit George was wearing at the premiere but we couldn't find anything on the film itself.

Venice... oh... Venice

It seemed only yesterday when I stepped off the train and stood in front of a mirage known as Venice. Perhaps no other city in the world can sustain an image of a fairy-tale with so many tourists swarming through its every single crevice. The fact that it is also home to the world's oldest film festival is only apt - its like living a dream within a dream...

It helps of course, that Venice International Film Festival has consistently showcased the very best in world cinema, putting art one step ahead of scandal (the reverse is certainly truer for Cannes). While it might be slightly conservative in its tastes, VIFF's selections are always reliable for their high quality and supreme merit.

This year is no exception with a slate of 22 pictures from some of the greatest filmmakers around the world.

Here's the list.

Atonement by Joe Wright

The Darjeeling Limited by Wes Anderson

Sleuth by Kenneth Branagh

Heya Fawda by Youssef Chahine

Redacted by Brian de Palma

The Assassination of Jesse James by Coward Robert Ford by Andrew Dominik

Nessuna Qualita Agli Eroi by Paolo Franchini

Michael Clayton by Tony Gilroy

Nightwatching by Peter Greenaway

En la Ciudad de Sylvia by Jose Luis Guerin

In the Valley of Allah by Paul Haggis

I'm Not There by Todd Haynes

The Sun Also Rises by Jiang Wen

Help Me Eros by Lee Kang Sheng

la Graine et le Mulet by Abdellatif Kechiche

Se, Je by Ang Lee

It's a Free World by Ken Loach

L'ora di Punta by Vincenzo Marra

Sukiyaki Western Django by Takeshi Miike

12 by Nikita Mikhalkov

Il Dolce e l'amaro by Andrea Porporati

Les Amours d'Astree et de Celadon by Eric Rohmer

It's a fascinating mix... everything is here from the token Italian films that never seem to go anywhere after the festival and the big-budget, high-concept American morality tales that sweep the Oscars come February (remember Brokeback Mountain?). The presence of so many

major American films is a sign that Hollywood prefers Venice to Cannes for launching some of

its prestige titles. Venice is not exactly known for breaking careers, so its a relatively safe choice, yet it can considerably boost the profile of a film because so many major critics attend it and actually GET to see the films.

It's always hard to predict what can win at Venice because of the very high standard of the entries. But I'll make a go of it.

Considering that the president of the jury is Zhang Yimou (twice a winner at the festival) and that Ang Lee had only recently triumphed with Brokeback, that would discount "Lust, Caution" (and probably every other Asian film) which will not need any prizes to sizzle on every critics top ten list by the end of the year. The trailer promises a noirish delight the likes of which we haven't seen since Body Heat and I know of no other filmmaker who can be relied on to produce a near-masterpiece every time he makes a film.

The de Palma film, on the other hand, gives us a cause to worry. I love Brian's work, but the plot of his new opus sound dangerously similar to his previous war drama - 'Casualties of War'. He's always strayed too close to plagiarism and here he could be seen to be cannibalising his own work. But then, he's got a reputation to keep - he is the preeminent postmodern filmmaker after all. I just wish he kept making his escapist thrillers that fuel so much analytical literature in film studies (witness the magnificent 'Femme Fatale').

I won't even bother talking about Wes Anderson's new film... He's quickly proving to be a one-note wonder.

Much more exciting amongst the English-language contingent are Todd Hayne's and Andrew Dominik's new films. Haynes has been a consistently fascinating filmmaker, always surprising with his choices. 'I'm Not There' could be his most radically experimental work which finds six actors portraying Bob Dylan at different stages of his career. Of course, like most tricks in cinema, this one is also old hat. Another Tod (Solonz) made the highly controversial 'Palindromes' using the same device which of course was originally put to brilliant use by Bunuel in 'That Obscure Object of Desire'. Still, I'm holding my breath in anticipation and think that its likely that Haynes will walk off with the gold (or silver).

The long awaited second feature by Andrew Dominik is quietly accumulating steam. Word is that it is a philosophical meditation on masculinity and violence a la Kubrick and Mallick and the trailer gives us hints of its possible magnificence. I've got a hunch that it just might put a spell on everyone - including the Golden Lion - courtesy of Brad Pitt's strangely hypnotic gaze in this film (is it me, or is he doing a Robert Redford impersonation?).

Another strong candidate that has the potential to sway the judges is Nikita Mikhalkov's '12'. A harrowing (I'm sure) war film set in Chechnya this is actually an adaptation of '12 angry men' (!!!) This might be a great Dostoevskian yarn in the line of classic Soviet cinema of the 50s or it could be a turgid, PC dud in the line of well... most big-budget Russian films of recent years. But I've always admired Mikhalkov's ability to marry serious subject matter with populist sentiment and it might just prove to be a winning formula this time around (it did in 1991 with 'Urga').

Then there's Eric Rohmer's whimsical fantasy film based on a 17th century novel. If it's anything like his 'Marquise O' or 'Perceval'... I'll give it a big miss. I could never understand how his limping, terribly theatrical 'historical' adaptations could garner so much acclaim. Rohmer is a director of modern morality and when he goes for broad strokes and symbolism... well it just turns ugly.

Youssef Chahine seems to be the only thing to remind us that there are films made in Egypt, but I doubt it'll help him win a key prize at any of the major film festivals. This one sounds like a typical potboiler that could've been scripted by Mahfouz - it's all good v evil, sexual frustration sprayed with a heavy dose of morality. Chahine's preachiness never quite appealed to me despite the very liberal outlook his films unfailingly possess and I don't think the festival judges are going to care for it either.

The one and only true outsider in this year's festival is the dauntingly creative and unstoppable Takeshi Miike. The man, who'll surely make films even after he dies, comes to Italy with a Japanese "western" set in the 11th century. Well, we all know that Venice IFF was responsible for opening up Japanese cinema to the West. They always did love them here, yet Miike is a director that can challenge even the most unethical, immoral, unscrupulous and jaded audience member in the world (I know what you're thinking, but no... I still have a thin coat of ethics to shed). So his presence at Mostra is surely meant to be an electrifying aphrodisiac to help digest all the other politically loaded dishes. I don't care. He's hands down the most imaginative director on the menu and the biggest risk-taker of all. How can you not be excited by a film with a title like Sukiyaki Western Django and starring Quentin Tarantino anyway?

Yet, in the presence of Peter Greenaway's latest art-work (I don't dare call them films anymore) all else pales in comparison. This time, Greenaway has adopted a PAINTING into a film. That's right, a painting. It's a hefty masterpiece too - Rembrandt's 'Nightwatch'. From the vague descriptions I've read, the film revolves around the mystery surrounding the painting's conception and if one were to be absolutely literal

we might call it an 'art historical thriller'. I know that Greenaway's reputation has suffered seriously in recent times, but that just means that he's a filmmaker who is somehow outside time and taste. This one is doubtlessly going to be as challenging and textually loaded as 'The Baby of Macon' (I'll have to make sure to re-read Simon Schama's great book on Rembrandt). But the injection of pure aesthetic pleasure comes like a warranty note with any Greenaway film and 'Nightwatching' has an irresistible combination of art, suspense, philosophy and a sick sense of humour. I'm drooling all over the computer as we speak.

I'd like to think that the festival jury will be able to grace Greenaway with a much deserved top prize. But its a long shot...

Right now, I'm putting my two dollars on either Dominik or Haynes...

Red Road. SIFF

The Dark Route Through Female Psyche.
Andrea Arnold's 'Red Road'.

June 21

'Red Road' was one of the two films that I anticipated most for over a year, the other one being 'Inland Empire'. There's some kind of weird symmetry to the fact that I got to see them back to back on the same night.

Arnold's film screened in the main competition at Cannes last year - almost an anomaly for a debut feature - where it garnered exceptional notices and a Grand Prix award. Everyone was talking about a potent new voice on the scene and I could not wait to have a taste of it. What made it even more fascinating was that it is the first film in a series of three that are going to feature the same characters. Each film will be directed by a different filmmaker (the other two will be helmed by two Danish members of the Dogme project)

But anticipation is a double-edge sword, ready to topple down your enthusiasm to the ground. 'Red Road' did not prove to be what I expected to say the least. Not because of any inherent faults. Rather, it was akin to taking a boat to Tahiti for a rowdy holiday and ending up in a cold Edinburgh port instead.

I'm not passing judgement here, Edinburgh is beautiful, but I felt out of sorts with this film, completely understanding its aims but not being able to give a shit anyway.

The central figure in the film is Jackie (Kate Dickie), a single woman in her mid 30s who works as a CCTV monitor operator. Jackie seems detached from the world around her, preferring to live life vicariously in her God-like position up in (literally) air. She does have an occasional passionless encounter with a fellow officer, but something has obviously died within her. That is until she spots a red-haired man (Tony Curran) on one of her screens. Her demeanour changes completely. We learn that the man has committed a crime and Jackie isn't too happy seeing him out of prison. She soon descends from her omnipotent throne into the stinking dump of Glasgow's urban wasteland to take matters into her own hands (again, literally). The film takes its time to get to this point and I sunk in my seat comfortably expecting a bracing thesis on justice from a female point of view. And Arnold, who is an Oscar winning director after all (for a short film), holds the suspense remarkably well, constantly teasing us with her character's seemingly left-off field actions. It's a device that would be best described as "cropping" - giving us only certain information without the necessary caption to make the context clear. It reminds us just how deceiving "information" can be - particularly visual. We think that we can read a situation by just seeing it, but as they say... it's only the tip of the iceberg. For example, in once scene, we see Jackie follow the man, Clay, into a pub. Just before she goes in, she picks up a stone from the footpath and puts it in her handbag. We assume, it's there to protect her. It's obvious and logical, yet the implications of this action turn out to be completely different a few scenes later.

While manipulative and slightly contrived this is an approach that has been used by most of the great suspense masters and it's what I like most about 'Red Road' - the complexity of its narrative construction, the exceptional understanding and mastery of visual language. Yet, like any road, this one must end at a certain destination. In this particular case, where you've been second guessing yourself constantly, the final point begins to grow to an almost unsustainable importance. The audience MUST be surprised at any cost. It's the kind of promise that 99% of films, especially thrillers, fail to deliver. When they do... well... just look at what happened to 'Sixth Sense'.

'Red Road' does deliver a surprise... but one that is so underwhelming that I momentarily found myself completely thrown out of the film, wondering how elaborate the gilded plasterwork in the State Theatre was. It's a beautifully tacky building, constructed in a neo-baroque style, deliberately mixing a myriad of influences in its decor to create a dreamy, magical atmosphere. A perfect movie palace really, where the mystery extends to the corridors even after the film is finished. Built in 1929, the State Theatre...

I'm so sorry... where was I?

The punchline in this film is not, as I might've insinuated, weak. It's simply rather conservative.

I watched a 1960s Mexican horror film recently based on the legend of La Llorana. It featured a woman, a witch to be more precise, bent on gaining "absolute" power and knowledge. Even if it meant sacrificing everyone around her. What is exceptional in this case is the purity of this desire, its blatantly empowering motivation. Something I believe that La Llorana shared with the femme fatales of 1940s. But then they were all evil right?

I only bring this up because I feel that the "good" heroine of 'Red Road' could have made for a fascinating analysis of guilt and gendered notion of power because she is a character that is at once extremely natural and recognizable yet full of contradictions and mystery. Jackie (and Clay for that matter) is not a movie cypher put there by the director to explore some abstract theory (as happens in a lot of French films recently). She presents a rare chance to see a woman who is not only in control, but also takes action. The sex scene that comes at a... uhum... climactic point (just like in Nuri Ceylan's 'Climates'), hints at a truly twisted sensibility behind the ordinariness of this woman's face. Of course, the trick is in the motivations and unfortunately Arnold can't help but trap herself and her heroine in yet another 'woman's picture'... apron strings and all...

Turkish Sour Delights: 'Climates'. SIFF

June 20

CLIMATES

She stands... silently looking at her partner. It's hot and there's a hint of annoyance on her face. He seems not to notice her as he takes photographs of some Hellenistic ruins. Finally she approaches, gently brushing against him, making her presence known. He asks if she's bored, she lies and then leaves him again to sit on a hill opposite of the ruins. She looks on some more and then starts crying.

It takes a good couple of minutes (or so it seemed) for a tear to appear and then ever so slowly to glide down Ebru Ceylan's ravishing cheek. Edit that Harvey Weinstein!

It's a tell-tell opening scene of a film that has become somewhat a cause celebré among online film enthusiasts. Battle lines have been drawn and positions have been established, either embracing or attacking Nuri Bigle Ceylan's new film for its meditative stylistics and its relentless ambiguity. So what's all the fuss about?

A softly spoken architecture professor (Bigle Ceylan) is vacationing with his partner, the much younger art-director Bahar (Ebru Ceylan) in Turkey's South West. Their relationship is on the rocks, presumably because the professor can't keep his fly zipped. They separate after a particularly violent quarrel and Bahar disappears from the picture while the professor takes up with his fiery ex with whom he obviously enjoys a much more... lets just say interesting, sex life. His peace is however disturbed when he finds out that Bahar has left Istanbul, possibly with another man, to go on a long location film shoot in Turkey's East. Soon, he's off printing photos of their summer vacation and picking up romantic trinkets in the hope of enticing Bahar back.

That's about it really. Yes, its minimalist, its simple, there's hardly any exposition... whatever. I won't indulge in facile arguments about boringness, slowness or any other base reactions. We should always approach the filmmaker on his own terms, without demanding that he dress down to suit what we want. In fact, the film is actually compulsively watchable. You're carried along from one scene to the next, just because you don't know where it's going to go. It's a significant advantage that is achieved by keeping the characters shrouded in heavy fog: "Heavy ambiguity ahead! Turn on your brain searchlights please!"

So, herein lies the charge: Is Nuri Ceylan masking a rather embarrassingly simplistic tale of love turning sour with a heavy coat of bullet-proof pretentiousness or is he really making a profound statement about alienation and the emotional malaise of the modern man?



Herein lies the evidence: take a female character, put her in a shopping centre and have her sobbing in front of a shelf full of detergent. In one version she's shouting to a woman standing next to her that her husband's been cheating on her. In the other version, she's just standing there, looking at the detergent bottles and silently sobbing and sobbing while people pass her by. Version one is what you're likely to see in a 'Neighbours' episode and it'd take a really great director and actress to make the scene anything but trashy. Version two could be a scene from Nuri Ceylan film. And lets face it, we're going to be much more intrigued with version two, simply because we don't know what is making the woman cry. If it sounds suspiciously easy... well, I'm afraid it is. A clever director always makes good use of the unknown quantity and mystery - David Lynch has built his whole career concocting impregnable puzzles. Yet, as always, it's a question of degrees. Compare what Lynch does with a similarly cliched 'relationship in crisis' story in 'Lost Highway' to Nuri Ceylan's film and you'll know what I mean. It's like exploring a new galaxy as opposed to a small Caribbean island. Ceylan has neither the astounding imaginative power of Lynch, nor the philosophical depth of Antonioni to transform his film into a path-breaker. Which does not mean it's not successful on its own, smaller scale. Granted, the film feels like the bastard child of Rossellini's 'Voyage to Italy' and Antonioni's 'La Notte' and it shows in every sprocket of its celluloid DNA, but it's not a mere clone (read: simulacra). I do think that 'Climates' takes up the very same thematic concerns of these earlier films, but travels much further in its deconstruction of a romantic relationship. In a way, Ceylan has made a transgressive film, but made it so covertly, most people seem not to notice. Those who love it are enticed by its romanticism, tending to read it as a quiet emotional roller coaster. Those who hate it, blame it for the same reasons - it's short in its reach and doesn't do much more than whine about banalities.


To me, the transgression lies in the fact that this is an anti-romantic romantic movie. The central relationship is constructed around something that the characters perceive of as LOVE - a notion that Ceylan progressively begins to dismantle. When Bahar instigates a near-fatal accident this act is immediately read as a passionate gesture on her behalf, proclaiming her love and frustration towards Isa. But looking closely, it's a rather pathetic imitation of amour fou, its impact weak and embarrassing. Bahar is playing a role she thinks she must fulfil because the scenario calls for it, like an impressionable child acting out a scene from a Hollywood movie since she has no better way to respond. Similarly, her constant sobbing is usually interpreted as a genuinely earnest statement by the filmmaker - an indictment of Isa's actions. The crying is an important detail since not only does it become a kind of emotional apex in the film, but also causes much irritation or admiration in the audience. But it is meant to be irritating! Bahar's tears hint at the theatricality inherent in this relationship. She's unable (or unwilling) to comprehend that their problem is not because Isa has an occasional fuck outside of their non-matrimonial unit, the problem is that they're absolutely uninterested in who the other person is. Isa wants Bahar only because she looks good on him. His narcissism is implicit in the way Ceylan acts out the character, rendering him almost infuriatingly passive; his blankness is not a result of stupidity but dismissiveness. He doesn't care what his partner thinks (never mind about feelings) and once he's "used" Bahar, he discards her through a persuasive double-speak by arguing that she can find a more appropriate partner because she's still "young and attractive". His coldness and detachment are only underlined by the fact that they're in an idyllic setting - a context that is rife for romantic regeneration. But Bahar is masochistic, which is mainly self-induced and Isa simply hates people. She has a dream during which Isa mistreats her and the rest of time milks his infidelity for all the self-pity she can get. He, on the other hand, can only sustain interest by reducing his partners to objects of possession, his ex-girlfriend, Serap, for example. Once he sees her in a bookshop with a friend, his interest is suddenly piqued. Serap knows Isa all too well and her long, knowing laugh reduces Isa to a stale nut - something which he later forces her to eat in the ambiguously staged, highly borderline sex scene.





This subversiveness is the most fascinating aspect of the film. Here we have two very unlikable characters, rather fearlessly portrayed by the director and his real-life wife, playing a charade which they wish to will into reality by sheer play-acting. Maybe Ceylan's film would've been more successful if he was more upfront about his intentions. But I like the deceiving nature of this film. By conning the audience into 'buying' this cheap melodrama, Ceylan seems to be saying that we're all involved in "playing the game". And it's a cruel one but as it transpires in the end, the characters (and maybe the audience too) are only too happy playing it.

Flanders, Eye in the Sky, SIFF Day 12

June 19

I don't think I've ever missed watching a film to which I'd bought a ticket. Come rain or snow, I'd be there in front of the cinema, like a pilgrim awaiting religious ecstasy in the darkness of the temple. So it says something about my mindset that on the morning of June 19 I simply couldn't give a fuck... Or maybe I simply forgot that I had a 12.00pm screening of Susan Bier's 'After the Wedding', I'll never know for sure. In any case, after feeling sorry for myself throughout the day for losing 8 bucks (cheap tickets with a multiple pass, but still...) I realised that I'd see the film on DVD in couple of months anyway. Besides, this gave me a lot of time to prepare for a vicious attack from Bruno Dumont at 6.30pm in the evening. I only had a light lunch, just in case...

Dumont is not exactly a household name, but in France, he's a formidable presence, at least in many critic's books. Many of them love him, most of the public loves to hate him, for this is a director seemingly bent on making unlikable films. Sorry, make that utterly detestable.

'Flanders' is no different. Set in a farm somewhere in Northern France, the film follows André - a boorish looking young fella - as he works the land and has very awkward meetings with Barbe - his neighbour's daughter and a childhood friend. Barbe is a nymphomaniac and seems to only know how to connect to people through her body. After Andre refuses to acknowledge their relationship, Barbe picks up a new guy in a bar and starts fucking within two minutes of meeting him. Quel Poésie!

'Flanders' then makes a sharp turn into war film territory as André and Barbé's new beau are sent to an unspecified war somewhere in the Middle East. They're in the same regiment and are soon caught in some heavy fighting. If this is starting to sound like 'Pearl Harbour', let me give you this flash forward - somebody gets his balls cut-off in real-time. Meanwhile Barbe has a breakdown and is sent to a mental hospital.

And herein lies Dumont's hardline stance. He does not buy into myths or romantic notions. Hell, the guy even refuses to give us a single, mildly likable character to root for. Everyone's liable for their selfishness and innate cruelty towards fellow human beings. Dumont's anti-war vision is certainly not new, but rarely has it been so bleak, so frankly pessimistic. He posits no allegiances and simply stares passively at the ugliness of the human animal. Stuck in a foreign war, these soldiers have off-loaded their morals at home and they are truly frightening in their blank disregard and brutality. They've become machines. Although treated slightly more sympathetically, the oppressed are not seen to be much different. They just don't have as many guns. The parallel universes of Flanders and the war zone are intercut to emphasise the underlying crisis of human condition in general. We are in a constant state of war Dumont seems to be saying.

Watching this film, I realised with astonishment how most war movies fail to make a truly anti-war statement by indulging in heroism, something that 'Flanders' is completely devoid of. This makes the film into a most discomforting, wrenching experience imaginable, yet at the same time... isn't that what a war is? In a way, the film confounds our own selfishness by making us aware of our desire to be "elated" and "inspired" by cinema - to be lied to. I admire this filmmaker for his integrity even if I invest more in his films than I get back. Dumont's indulgence, his grating superiority and his love for human filth is an obstacle that is hard to surmount. A Dumont film is often like watching a corpse being dissected - humanity reduced to banal, rotting matter. And call me selfish, but I do like to leave the cinema with some spiritual charge rather than making me want to slash my wrists.

Ever since watching his previous two films, I've felt that Dumont's problem is in his inability to provide a closure or leave a door open. Once you step into his inferno, there's no way out. Even Pasolini gave us a feeble hope with the closing shot of 'Salo'. Here (wisely), Dumont makes a tentative move and gives his new film a sense of redemption towards the end, which makes this work his most complete and successful to date and among the best examples of the new cinema of violent chic.

Just in case you're wondering what cinema of 'violent chic' is (you read it here first), think American torture porn ('Hostel', 'Saw') French style. The leading proponents of what I consider to be definitely a new movement akin to the 80's cinema du look, are filmmakers such as Gaspar Noe, Alexander Aja and our topic of discussion - Bruno Dumont. What makes their films so different (and so chic) is the way the violence is orchestrated and who it is directed at. If Eli Roth in his 'Hostel' films tries to push the body horror to the extreme, Noe and Dumont go for irreversible psychological damage (pan intended). Just an example here to clarify their approach. In 'Irreversible' Noe stages an epic 9 minute rape scene. Static camera no cuts. Pure, unfiltered "action" that is as much about our endurance to sustain "looking" as about the Bellucci character surviving. The most disturbing element about this scene is not so much the actual violence, but the framing device the director uses - the moralistic, political, psychological implications of the violator and our implication as a spectator. Dumont stages a very similar rape scene in his highly contentious '29 Palms' (2003), but this time, the victim is a man. It becomes immediately apparent that Dumont's aim is not to out gross jaded sensibilities, but to disrupt moral barriers and send a shock-wave of Foucaldian panic. Sex and violence are above all polemical tools in these filmmakers' hands (another example might be Cathrenie Breillat's 'Romance') who want to draw the dark side of the audience into the open and play a dangerous game of extreme ethical disengagement. Yet, to me, the fire under the unease of watching a film such as 'I Stand Alone' (Noe) or 'Humanite' (Dumont, 1999) is their unrelenting stylishness - the chic of it all. There is a sensory thrill as you watch Noe's mesmerising formalistic experiments even while what he's depicting is a man's head being pulped into a mashed potato. You're violated but at the same time can't help but gasp at the ultra cool of it all. The same goes for the more restrained, dour elegance of Dumont, whose style, ironically is the anthitesis of formalism. What you get is neatly framed, monumental canvases filled with drabness and silence, draped in mystery and dread (Dumont purposefully avoids "pretty" shots). The stylishness here is derived from ambiguity that is very Antonionesque in its semiotics (again, landscape as a language). The viewer is informed from the first frame that he'll be getting a philosophical enquiry rather than entertainment out of the experience. It's a long way off from 'Kill Bill' indeed but I like travelling the distance.

__________________________________

I could feel the grunt rising inside about two minutes in. Three minutes later I could hold it back no longer.... Uuuuurghhhhhh.....

Disappointments are as common in film festivals as revelations are rare. And I purposefully took a chance on the Hong-Kong thriller - 'The Eye in the Sky' - to offset the debilitating effect of Bruno Dumont's 'Flanders'. Dammit, I wanted to be entertained for a change. And there is no other film genre that does it better for me than thrillers. Alas, not this time.

'Eye...' is the feature debut of Nai-Hoi Yau, a writing collaborator of that latest John Woo wanna be - Johnny To. That should've rang some warning bells as To's films are laughable imitations of American gangster films that somehow manage to shoot their through to festivals like Cannes and Venice.

The plot sounded intriguing enough though. A young woman is training to become an SVU, basically a surveillance officer who has to follow and report on suspected criminals without being noticed. Her supervisor is a wise old goose, who takes a chance on the woman because she's too dumb looking to be suspicious. Soon the team is tracking down a highly organised group of jewel thieves, at the head of which is a slippery crim played by the indefatigable Tony Leung Ka Fai (is he like in every Hong Kong movie or what?).

There's much ominous music, much surveillance camera footage, some rudimentary shooting (on a completely empty motorway no less!) and some silly humour Hong Kong style. And then it all disintegrates into a one-note boring cops and robbers chase film with stock characters that might've been ordered from a 'ready to film' catalogue. Awash in bland cinematography, bland performances, some idiotic dialogue and absolute predictability, this is by far the most wasteful film I've seen during the festival.

'Nikita' it aint certainly, but the film ignores also the rudimentary largess of ridiculous pomp that is such a fixture of most Hong Kong action films. By choosing to opt for a subtler approach, where the thrill is derived from psychological cat and mouse games rather than car chases, the director has completely missed the point. He doesn't give us fully-fledged characters who can possibly exist in the real world (we know practically nothing about these people outside of their job) and he takes out most of the action? What is this, a con? That's what I consider a film that fails to deliver on almost every level.

I have never been enamoured of Hong cinema with two very big exceptions - Wong Kar-Wai and John Woo. This film proves that that's exactly they are - exceptions.

Poison Friends and Family

June 18

Is the Art House film almost like film noir, with certain stylistic conventions that cross over from one genre to the other? Of course not, but on a purely superficial level, you can't help but group them. After all... it's the same kind of people that are going to see those films. Isn't that a strong enough convention? My definition would be thus. Art House = pseudo intellectual cinema watered down for middle-class urban audiences. These two films are perfect illustrations of what makes or breaks this kind of cinema.

Maybe only the English can elevate writing to a matter of life and death the way French do. So when I saw a French 'literary thriller' on the SIFF menu, I couldn't resist taking a bite.

Unfortunately the film in question - 'Poison Friends' (dir. Emmanuel Bourdiau)- turned out to be more like French cuisine than Balzac; a lot of dressing and no meat.

The concept is fascinating. A bunch of literature students studying in Sorbonne fall under the influence of a brilliant fellow called Andre (Thibault Vincon, in a magnetic performance), who rubs everyone under his thumb by ridiculing their writing aspirations. 'Why do people write?' he quotes I can't remember which quotable writer - 'Because they're too weak not to'. Now anyone who has a healthy suspicion of their creative ego can't possibly not shake in terror at this "profound" assessment. People like Eloi (Malik Zidi in what appears to be sleepwalking rather than performance) and Alexandre (Alexandre Steiger). They soon become Andre's adoring groupies, hanging to his every word, letting him direct the course of their lives. What's more is that Andre takes almost an erotic pleasure in controlling the silly buggers. The power play between the group depends not only on the inflation of one's ego, but the deflation of the other's. It is immediately obvious to us that Andre's attempts at preventing his friends from writing has less to do with his nihilistic philosophy but much more with his deep insecurity as a writer himself. He is a man of ideas who is never able to consolidate more than hot air in the drab Parisian weather.

OK, the question is posed. To write or not write? It's a question that is asked not only by the characters; it is distinctly aimed at us - the audience. And Bourdieu takes it very seriously. Which is where he makes a fatal mistake. The question is superfluous because it views writing as some kind of an autonomous media that is separate from any other field of creativity. To me, the question is much larger - why create? Isn't writing and by that I mean literature, simply one form of self-expression? Is it any more important than music, painting, architecture or... well... film? It's not an accident that the Greeks sent out the muses together. They were a group - interdependent, interconnected and always performing essentially the same function - inspiration.

At one point Andre 'forgives' Alexandre (who wanted to be playwright) because he has decided to become an actor. "That's different" he states. Why? Is it much less of an intellectual pursuit hence less threatening or simply because Alexandre is not a literary threat anymore? The film never aspires to make its position clear on this point. And even if we disregard these obvious lapses of logic, the filmmakers still don't rise up to the challenge of providing a satisfactory solution to the initial issue they've raised. I must turn to Bergman again for some guidance. In one of his watershed films ('Through a Glass Darkly), Bergman showed a writer as unmerciful and cruel as they come. A man outwardly caring and gentle, but who is driven to exploit his sick daughter and naive son for the sake of his pen. Bergman was unsparing in his assessment of the creative ego - it is all consuming and in many ways above humanity. To him, art is as terrifying as a faun-splaying Apollo, but that's what constitutes its greatness, period. Granted, Bourdieu's aim is different. He's not so much concerned about what takes to write but more about what it costs not to write. A wonderful example of this dilemma is Hal Hartley's 'Henry Fool' - a remarkably similar film in many ways, which at least has the courage to argue for a place under the sun for its brilliant 'con artist' (for isn't being 'brilliant' an art in itself?).

But it's this film's nastiness is exactly what puts me off. It's just about the calibre of a mosquito bite. Irritating. At one point Andre deletes his librarian girlfriend's (Natacha Regnier in a wasted role) short story from her computer. "It was crap" Andre states. And you know what? It probably was, but Bourdieu doesn't let us enjoy this moment of delicious malice. The short story must be rescued at all costs, because God forbid that this hot little librarian should be prevented from expressing her point of view. Have even the French gone PC? What is the world coming down to?

Alas, Bourdieu's formula is as bogged down in mechanics as any previous screenplay about the nature of writing - success is the best revenge. Maybe so, but here it's not even sweet. The supremely passive Eloi overcomes his fear of literary 'exposure' only because his mother (a famous writer) rescues his manuscript from the rubbish bin and gives it to her publisher (nepotism goes a long way, but the director fails to even milk this ironic faux-pas). His half-hearted reaction to his success is as suspicious as everything else in the film. It's like "Oh... you mean I'm brilliant and all I had to do is write about myself?" Indeed, the only character who seems passionate enough about the art of letters is Andre. Perhaps he knows too much about it to be able to make a go at it himself. When your standards are up there with Dostoevsky, naive confidence is perhaps the best medicine the doctor can prescribe. But 'Poison Friends' is ultimately like its protagonist - confused and lost, unable to harvest the irony or the tragedy from a very classic set-up (where art-thou Chabrol?). In the end, the whole thing feels like an overpriced dessert made of lettuce: a bland concoction that is pretentious enough to fool some into thinking that they just ate a Kirsch Soufflé.

On the other hand there's 'Wolfsbergen'. Even the title, with its frightening challenge to pronounce itself, spells out a certain foreboding - it is NOT going to be a Woody Allen film. It's not even (gasp) French! I can already see the crowd thinning out... Which is a pity.

Nanouk Leopold's film is what soap operas are made of: a large middle-class family in crisis. And indeed, almost every screw in this story has been screwed before, after all, there aren't that many ways you can destroy a patriarchal unit in two hours. But the originality comes in the packaging, the presentation of this well worn material.

A father sends out letters to his daughter and two grandchildren, telling them that he doesn't want to continue living after the death of his wife. The women, each suffering from their own pent-up problems refuse to take the matter seriously, one of them doesn't even get the letter. The daughter is having trouble communicating with her husband on any level, her eldest daughter is in turn trying to hard to do the right thing while completely disregarding the fact that her love-affair and constant clashes with her husband are psychologically hurting her two children. And the youngest granddaughter has a strange affliction (she cries constantly without any reason) which renders her anti-social and lonely.

Taking her cues from Chekhov, Leopold makes these seemingly banal relationships twist and turn in quietly fascinating ways, relying on perfect doses of understatement and dead-pan, sometimes ink-black, humour to elevate a dime-a-dozen story into something utterly compelling and moving.

Yes, at times it is pretentious... Some of the characters are crafted with not much more than blank looks and long stretches of silence (silence being cheap and all), as if the refusal of communication automatically constitutes profound depth. But the film is any many ways about silence - moments that can describe a situation equally as well as words (awkwardness, hesitation, shock, grief) and that is why I like this film so much - it wears its pretentiousness (in the form of ambiguity) on its sleeve. As with Antonioni, the cinematic gesture and posturing become a mode of communication in itself. And you learn to read it as you go along, thanks in large part to the director's consistency and commitment to her vision.

It is all composed of static mid shots, not a single camera move in sight; exquisitely arranged compositions framed by doorways, corridors and windows, superbly chosen colour scheme and almost mathematical precision of rhythm, timing and editing. The whole film feels like a Vermeer re-imagined by Mondrian and crafted by Bauhaus: a majestic style that is all about balance, harmony and cerebral introspection. You'd know it's Dutch even if the film was silent.

Leopold succeeds in a faultless combination of form and content - a tough task to pull off in any director's hand - and with three films under her belt, she's already a bonna-fide auteur.

The ending of the film, with its reassuring calm and quiet (yet wrenching) power reaches almost philosophic heights. It is a benign meditation on life and death that is surprising and reassuring in its all-encompassing sense of normality. Translated into American, you'd probably get a double episode of the Jerry Springer show.