Goliath killed his girlfriend?

Summer of Goliath (2010) - Pereda

The film starts with our unseen filmmaker interviewing bunch of kids in gorgeous close ups. Among them is Oscar, a handsome, sullen teenager. Everyone calls him Goliath because he is said to have killed his girlfriend. The details of Oscar's story from the testimonies are somewhat fuzzy. And so begins Summer of Goliath, a part documentary, part narrative, surveying the psycho-geography of fractured, violence ridden family lives in the small mountainous village in Mexico.

Summer of Goliath's a grittier Mexican version of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. But it lacks humor and the spirituality of the Thai film. Nicolás Pereda takes the 'poetic' way to tell these impoverished people's lives where you are forced to live side by side with your mortal enemies, who have killed your loved ones.

Goliath's strength lies in the revealing interviews with its real village subjects. When it switches to the narrative side with Teresa Sanchez with her sad sack stories of woman being abandoned by her cheating husband for a younger woman, it falls apart. Her abandonment issue seems extremely trivial compared to the enrapturing beginning segment of the film.

With its 74 minutes running time, Summer of Goliath doesn't give you enough time to contemplate on what it means to be living in fear and anger, where drug wars and corruption are everyday occurrences. Still, with long takes and hand-held tracking shots and doc/narrative hybrid, Pereda seems to be cultivating his own voice.

Circle of Violence - Broken Loudly

Incendies (2010) - Villeneuve

A mother's last wish sends her adult twins Jeanne and Simon to Lebanon to find their father and a brother they never knew existed. The story cuts back and forth btwn the present and Nawal Mawan (Lubna Azabal)'s harrowing story of how the country's civil war btwn Christian nationalists and Arabs in the 70s killed her Arab refugee lover and tore her world apart.

Resembling a Greek tragedy, this 'circle of violence must be broken' parable is too heavy-handed to be taken to the heart. Azabal's performance is amazing and there are some great photography work to speak of, including the Radiohead accompanied opening. I really wanted to see this more than anything else at this year's ND/NF. But for me it was a major disappointment.

Raise your voice!

Microphone (2010) - Abdalla

Watching Microphone now, which is basically a love letter to Alexandria, is all the more poignant considering what's been happening in Egypt for the last few months. Director Ahmad Abdalla succeeds in capturing the essence of the youth culture in the Egypt's second largest, cosmopolitan port city. This film was first conceived as a documentary- shot on HD with a small mobile crew. Then it later evolved into a narrative starring the TV/film superstar Khaled Abol Naga (who also serves as a producer) while keeping the small scale filmmaking intact. It features some of the best underground musicians and graffiti artists the sun drenched bustling Mediterranean city can offer.

Khaled comes back after 7 years of living overseas. He finds that his old flame no longer wants him, his father non-communicative after his mother's death and himself not knowing what to do with his life. While working at an advertising firm and wandering around the city, he encounters many young street musicians, artists and tech-savvy skaters. Collecting underground music becomes an obsession for him. He teams up with the local college film students who have been working on their thesis project about the street culture, and tries to organize a show.

The music is outstanding, Abdalla gives an ample time to each real performers (notably Massar Egbari, Y-Crew, Mascara, Soot Fel Zahma and Nossair) to express their thoughts through their diverse musical forms - hip-hop, metal, rock, etc. Some music reflect their discontent of the government and some connect with the other theme of the movie - love and heartbreaks. The disjointed breakup scene of Khaled and Salma is present throughout the film.

As Khaled and crew work on going over the hurdle that National Art Council set up for them, it becomes apparent for all to see that the old folks who are in charge will always embrace the old and never give a chance to the young generation to voice their opinion- there is a funny bit where a weaselly art council member announces that he decided to go for a friend of Umm Kulthum (perhaps the best known traditional Egyptian singer, born in 1893) instead of Massar Egbari for one of the government sponsored concert.

It's a bittersweet, elegiac film fluidly put together with the colorful, vibrant backdrop of Alexandria. It is a very portentous film, as the one of the characters in the movie says, "You move on, but live each day with a little bit of sadness."

Microphone plays as a part of ND/NF 2011, 3/29 8:30pm at MoMA and 3/31 6pm at FSLC. For more information and tickets, please click on ND/NF 2011 website here.

Not too fragile

Curling (2010) - Côté

Jean-François (Emmanuel Bilodeau), a shy middle aged divorcé and his twelve year-old bespectacled daughter, Julyvonne (Philoméne Bilodeau) arrive in the snow swept small town near Quebec. For some reason, JF is deathly afraid for his daughter's safety: he won't let her go to school or interact with anyone. Even when he is out working at a local motel and a bowling alley, he rather wants his daughter inside the house alone all day, studying by herself. Something must have happened prior. Julyvonne's mother is in jail. "The girl is retarded. There is nothing in her eyes!" yells the mother at JK in the visiting cell.

Treading somewhere between Fargo and The Sweet Hereafter, Curling is all about keeping in mind what's left out of its rather simple narrative while watching it. The film's full of loose threads that don't lead you anywhere. Our father and daughter keep to themselves with their blank faces, doing their daily routines, thus obliterating their rather scary surroundings.

Working under scruffy Kennedy, the owner of the bowling alley and Isabelle, his goth-girl cousin, JF/Moustache (as he is called because he dons a thick one), slowly lets his guard down and lets his daughter hang with the local crowd a bit. Julyvonne finds her own darker Alice in Wonderland-like adventure in the frozen forest near their house populated with a tiger and frozen dead bodies. Their actions are at times strange and unorthodox, but it's in their damaged stares that speaks volumes.

Unlike Fargo, which is a tightly written, ultimately soulless genre exercise, Curling, even with all the oddities, is much more humanistic. It demands audiences to invest in JF and Julyvonne's lives because you care for them by the end. The real life father-daughter team (Emmanuel and Philoméne Bilodeau) does an amazing job conveying their damaged characters' fear and resolve through their silences. The film's not all dread though. There are many humorous moments (including the curling fantasy scene) and unexpected tenderness throughout. Winner of the Best Director award at Locarno Film Festival 2010, Curling is written and directed by a French Canadian director Denis Côté. Anchored by the down-to-earth performances from his two leads, Côté skillfully balances the film from going too quirky or too dark. It's one of those films that will linger in your head for days.

Curling plays as a part of New Directors New Films series at MoMA and Film Society of Lincoln Center. For more information and tickets, please click on this link