Familial Comedy from Uruguay

Tanta Agua (2013) - Guevara, Jorge

Alberto (Néstor Guzzini), a schlubby divocé takes his two unenthused children, Lucia (Málu Chouza) and Federico (Joaquín Castiglioni) on a road trip from Montevideo to a famed hot spring. The problem is, when they get there, the pool is closed because of an electric storm. Then the kids are surprised to find out that the motel room they are staying at doesn't even have a TV. But dad is determined to have some quality time with the kids. Not even torrential downpour won't stop his plans. But much to Al's annoyance, kids only want to eat what their mom packed for them and play with kids their own age. Al's idea of easy-peasy-lemon-squeazy vacation becomes difficult-difficult-lemon-difficult.

As the focus of the film moves from Al to Lu, Tanta Agua becomes a sort of an adolescent summer fling story. A sullen preteen with braces, Lu embodies a normal girl of her age who is not yet rebellious but not so keen on taking trips with her parent. She is discovering boys and cigarette. She befriends with another vacationing girl Suzanna and starts flirting with a hunky boy with a bike. But she soon finds out that the boy is using her to get closer to prettier Suzanna. After the boy asks her to come to the local disco and bring her pretty friend along, Lu lies to Al and ditches her friend so she can go to the disco alone.

Uruguayan directors Ana Guevara and Letitia Jorge acutely observes the normal modern family dynamics. The devil is in the details- Al secretly dumps mom's sandwiches while the kids are sleeping, Lu finds string of condoms in Al's suitcase, Lu's wearing her best friend's flaming high tops.

Tanta Agua is a light, gentle comedy that speaks universal language. But it's not Little Miss Sunshine. There are no big revelations here- no one acts out in frenzy or learns life altering lessons. It just has subtly drawn characters who are real and have normal problems. The film is a fine tuned familial comedy full of awkward moments but also great deal of tenderness.

Tanta Agua garnered top prizes at Miami International Film Fest last year, played as part of Latin Beat 2013 and will be available on DVD and VOD on May 13 in North America by Film Movement. Please visit Film Movement website for more information.

Doppelgänger

The Double (2013) - Ayoade

Simon James (Jesse Eisenberg) is as plain as his namesake. For 7 years, he's been working as a low level data entry clerk at a firm. He is so unnoticeable, even people at work still don't recognize him and demand to see his ID every single time he enters the building. Simon is in love with Hannah (Mia Wasikowska), equally shy, lonely co-worker, but he is too introverted to even speak with her. Instead, he spies on her through a telescope at night, since they live in nondescript, highrise buildings across from each other and collects her discarded scribbles and drawings from her garbage. One day, a new employee, James Simon (Eisenberg again) arrives at the firm. He is a dead ringer for Simon: he even wears the same clothes. But he is polar opposite in every way- a suave, funny, extrovert everyone takes immediate liking to. Soon the double smooth talk Simon to cover for his ineptitude at work. No one will notice if we switch places from time to time, he says. Slowly, James takes over Simon's life, even Hannah.

Based on Dostoevsky's vision of bureaucratic nightmare combined with underdog love story , The Double, British funnyman Ayoade's film is an often hilarious dark comedy. The look of the film is a total retro 80s dystopian movies: big, ominous machines, air ducts, a creepy, creaky elevator, grey, muted colors and populated by pruny, white haired old people. Ayoade, a sort of renaissance man of the British comedy excels here with his absurd humor and classic, lo-fi effects - sound and production design instead of CGI. Eisenberg is perfect for lonely, nebbish frontman who goes mad and Wasikowska is adorable in her doily dress. Many of Ayoade cohorts from Submarine make appearances here too. Falling somewhere between Brazil and Hudsucker Proxy, Ayoade's The Double is a fresh air to turgid mainstream comedies.

Dostoevsky is Funny: Richard Ayoade Interview

Writer, actor, director, gameshow host and author, British Comedian Richard Ayoade is some sort of a renaissance man. His directorial film debut, Submarine, a rare teen romance from British Isle in years, delighted audiences with its wry humor and tender depiction of youth. His new film, The Double, based on Dostoevsky's novella is wildly different both in themes and style and great leap forward in filmmaking. In person, Ayoade is reserved and soft spoken but one can sense his fierce intelligence underneath wild curly hair and behind those silly black rimmed glasses.

Even though you write a lot of contents for many of the projects you are involved in, those two films you've made - Submarine and now The Double, are based on someone else's writing. I wonder how you choose what films to make.

Well, in the case of Submarine, I've been doing music videos for Warp (Records) Films. They just optioned the book (written by Joe Dunthorn) and they wanted me to look at it. With that, I always loved the teen genre which didn't exist in England for a long time. I was obsessed with Dawson's Creek, the first, Kevin Williams season. After that, I had some issues with it. And I love The Graduate and that kind of coming of age movies. Then I read Joe's book, and I was happy to do that film. Around the same time is when I met Avi (Korine, brother of Hamony) and I read his script (for The Double) when he came by Alcove who produced this. They worked with Hamony Korine (Trash Humpers) and met Avi through doing that. Again I just really liked the script. I guess that's the only script I've read that I really have gone for. And we ended up writing together later. Especially on this, it was really enjoyable working, co-writing together with Avi. With Submarine I wrote on my own, even though Joe was a resource who I can speak to. The Double was great because Avi is such a good writer and I like him so much personally. I do like working with people.

You wouldn't think Dostoevsky as a funny writer…

Many would think that but he is. Notes from Underground is really funny I think. The Double is funny. There is sense that his writing is very weighty, serious and important. He is those things because he has this amazing psychological depth that goes very deep. He tackles very deep sort of relationships in people in extremes. But he manages also to prick people's vanity and pomposity in a way that is very funny. Yeah, it's his name that sounds serious. If he was called Maury.... (I crack up) You'd think he's funny. Tony Maury.

Did you grow up in London?

I was born in London. But I grow up in this town near Ipswich, outside London, very small--

I'm just trying to figure out because your sensibility and humor is very different. So I'm wondering how your growing up in a small town shaped your sensibility. Can you tell me your childhood a bit?

Hmm. I am an only child. I had a very fortunate childhood. Ehm, no real dramatic incidents of any kind really…. But I read quite a lot and was quite solitary. Yeah I always liked reading. My dad fixed television for living, so because of that I was really weary of watching too much television. I didn't watch to much TV until I was quite older. I was always interested in writing, but I didn't watch a lot of films, I wasn't really one of those people.

Are there any specific influences that attribute to your sense of humor?

I don't know. I can only sort of say things I really like, but influences... it's hard to say. I like Woody Allen and Richard Pryor who are relatively, unassailably great people. There are million people I like… Peter Cook, and stuff that Chris Morris did, like Day Today, Coogan and Alan Partridge and Iannucci and that whole set of people are very important for people of my age I think. Chris Morris is really big for me and John Oliver because we really love Morris's stuff.

How was directing Morris in The Double?

By that stage I've known him for a while. It was just great! He is so unique! You are just so excited to start it. And that's a really nice feeling. All these great actors, you just want to get going on them and see what they are going to do.
I love him so much as a performer and he doesn't perform very often. So it was great to see him and Jesse. Also great to see how much Jesse enjoyed him. Because Jesse isn't a big consumer of media.

So I've heard.

It was so fun to see Jesse trying so hard not to laugh, and to see Jesse encountering all these different people like Tim Key and Chris O'Dowd… that kind of hysteria was good for us because Jesse was kind of punch drunk among these people who were saying all these awful things but very funny at the same time.

So most of the cast is comprised of the actors who were in Submarine, except Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska who are big stars now. Was it any different directing them (Eisenberg and Wasikowska)?

I wouldn't say there is. I think it really comes down to individual personality. In many ways, they are less defensive. There are some actors who don't think they haven't had too much success in their careers that they could be defensive and that can be inhibiting. But no, I mean, they are incredibly brilliant to work with and there is no difference at all. I mean, I think it was the only film where an actor asked not to have a trailer because he was never in it. You know, we are in an industrial park in the middle of nowhere, one hour outside London at night. This was no fancy place.

It's interesting to see how stylistically different the movie is from Submarine. A lot of night scenes, confined spaces, moody and atmospheric. How was the shooting this one different for you and your DP Nik Wilson?

Submarine was very quick. Just on a basic level we could do a number of setups a day. The Double, everything was lit, so it went slower. But that provided for us to rehearse a lot during the day between setups. It just felt what's appropriate for the material, really. That was the way to go.

I mean, I've always thought Woody Allen as a visual director, as well as… you know. Just think of the great variety of style from Stardust Memories or Husbands and Wives to Zelig, you know, any number of films with extremely different style. I think he receives literally little to no recognition as a visual stylist even with his incredible ability. Each one is goes with what its material suggests. An approach like that - rough approach in Husbands and Wives, I feel is completely appropriate. There is a slightly more stately feel in, say, Sweet and Lowdown…. So he is a director, if you try to think of a style, you go maybe long takes, possibly? But then again we don't remember about Stardust Memories because of jump cuts or Zelig because of long takes. I don't know what his hallmark style is.

That's very true.

But it always feels like him and his voice, but it comes from what the story is about and how to best support it. I'd like to be like that and go where a story suggests.

I read it in one of your interviews that in everything you do, you approach it as a newcomer, because of different circumstances and different environment you are in.

I think so. Also because whenever you feel you can rely on something working out and it never does. But if you risk something without fully knowing how to do it, it often ends up turning out best. So I think it just practically always is-- the situation never seems to repeat itself, you are always in different spots- different places, different actors. Even with the same actors you've got different roles and different set of problems. So it always is. I think filmmaking is one of those things that uniquely feels difficult to learn that much from each time. I think if you were maybe John Ford, making number of films you might have that kind of authority but if you make something every few years, I don't think you will get that kind of mastery. I mean how many films John Ford did before the Searchers? 50 or 60...?

So maybe in twenty, thirty years you will have a…

Two more films. (we laugh)

The look of the film is very 80s retro sci-fi feel to it. Very reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Is it something you came up with?

It's a combination of things. The idea of it in the script was kind of modern metropolis which was full of people teaming, which I felt oddly, have been done by a quite number of films whether it was King Vidor's The Crowd or Modern Times or The Apartment, you know, those small-man-in-a-big-city movies. I wanted it more feel like a quite decrepit, unpopulated city, that is sort of alternate universe, more like, Edward Munch town where everyone's old and there aren't very many people. I guess as soon as there is kind of antiquated bureaucracy that became Gilliam's calling card or seems to be, although I view him as somebody much more satirical or rather Fellini-esque. Probably my favorite film of his is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Brazil is not what I'm really conversing with. I've seen it as a teenager and haven't seen it since. To us, for the theme's sake, I was thinking more of In the Mood for Love, more to do with lonely places, lonely corners of office space or more like Aki Kaurismaki or Eraserhead even.

OK, something more to do with confined space.

Yes, there is not a lot of bustle. That was more kind of feeling that…again, that feeling was suggested by the book. There is something funny of it being described as Kafkaesque. Because linearity of time is on Dostoevsky's side. (laughs) HE DID DO IT FIRST. It's this quite similar thing that he came up with in the middle of the nineteenth century where this kind of office bound clerk in a strange kind office where you don't quite know what they do and the doppelgänger. It all comes from the book.

I guess I have to read the book now.

Yeah the book's great.

I know you are busy but is there any project you are working on that we have to be aware about?

I've written a book that is going to come out which is like a fiction book but in non-fiction form. It's about film but like a kind of funny book.

What is it called?

Well, that's under negotiation. we are not sure what to call it yet. There are few titles kicking. Part of it will definitely be something like Ayoade on Ayoade like Kieslowski on Kieslowski, but it's going to be a funny book.


It will be released on VOD and theatrically on Friday, May 9 in New York (and LA) at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema. A national rollout will follow.

Queen of the Damned

Queen Margot 4K Restoration Director's Cut (1994/2013) - Chéreau

Famed French stage and film director Patrice Chéreau (Intimacy, Gabrielle, Those Who Loved Me Can Take the Train) passed away last October. Now Queen Margot, Chéreau's most commercially successful film, gets a 4K restoration treatment on its 20th anniversary and comes back to theaters, thanks to Cohen Film Collection. This timely release is a rare opportunity to experience what many consider as the most radical redefining act in the period costume drama genre ever, in 4K digital glory. Queen Margot 4K Director's Cut receives a theatrical run here in New York, May 9 - 15 at Film Forum.

Based on Alexandre Dumas's novel, Queen Margot tells a bloody chapter in French history when a war between Catholics and Protestants was raging. The main players in this tumultuous time are weakly Catholic King Charles IX, his domineering mother Catherine of Medici, her other two cunniving sons, their sister Margot, her reluctant husband Henry of Navarre, the leader of Protestants, and La Môle, Margot's Protestant lover.

In the guise of truce, venomous Catherine arranges the marriage between Henry and Margot and invites Henry's cohorts into Paris. Then she masterminds the St. Batholomew's Massacre which turns Paris streets into an open tomb of 6,000 dead bodies of Protestants overnight.

Queen Margot is not your grandma's costume drama. It's a bloody, violent, sweaty, dirty epic with a lot of nudity and sex. While Chéreau and co-writer Danièle Thompson stay true to most of Dumas's writing, it's the dizzing, bravura filmmaking that takes a center stage. The visceral massacre scenes with all its arterial sprays and loose limbs don't really have an equal in cinema to this day when it comes to sheer scope.

The cast is also ridiculous here. Actors assembled for the film were a who's who of 90s French cinema: Isabelle Adjani (at the peek of her beauty) plays Margot, Jean-Hugues Anglade provides an unhinged performance as the tragic king, Daniel Auteuil plays righteous Henry of Navarre, Virna Lisi won the Cannes Best Actress Award for her icy performance as Catherine of Medici, Pascal Greggory dons grungy hair and a goatee (a dead ringer for Chris Cornell of Soundgarden era) as a dashing mama's boy Anjou, Vincent Perez as hunky La Môle, the star-crossed lover of Margot and baby Asia Argento as a sexy sacrificial lamb, the duchess of Sauve.

Pathé restored Queen Margot under the supervision of Chéreau and editor François Gedigier in 2013. The task was entrusted to the Eclair Group laboratories for the image and L.E. Diapason for the sound. The version that is shown today is based on the Director's Cut released on French DVD in 2007. Several additional editing tweaks, desired by Chéreau, further enrich this new version.

Here are excerpts from the press release on 4K restoration:

The image restoration was conducted in 4K resolution based on the original 35mm negative. Although slightly damaged, the negative retained a beautiful photographic quality, especially when it comes to the shadows and the chiaroscuros of the interiors, as well as the dawns and the dusks of the exteriors. The 4K resolution enabled us to recover all the information from the 35mm film and bring back all the finesse and contours of Philippe Rousselot's photography to the screen.

Color grading, still under Patrice Chéreau's supervision, required three weeks of work. Queen Margot's sound mixing did evolve from version to version, with the music namely taking an ever growing importance. Today's version is based on the music that appears in the 2007 Director's Cut, converted into a format adapted to digital projection. The powerful dynamics of the original soundtrack were painstakingly preserved.


I haven't seen the film since its original, theatrical version in 1994. Seeing the unblemished, crisp images without cigarette burns is almost unnerving. The film was amazingly shot by master cinematographer Philippe Rousselot (Henry & June, A River Runs Through It, Big Fish, Sherlock Holmes) to begin with. This kind of cinematic quality - depth of colors and contrast, in my humble opinion, is still achievable only by shooting on 35mm. The film is beautifully preserved through the 4K transfer.

After 20 years, Queen Margot still remains to be a ridiculous film in many ways - ridiculous in its scope, ridiculous in its over-the-top romanticism, ridiculous in its depiction of sex and violence with ridiculously gorgeous cinematography and ridiculously attractive actors. Watching this film on the big screen is a chance you don't want to miss!

In addition to New York screening, Cohen Media Group is rolling out the film in LA on May 16 at Laemmle Music Hall.

New York African Film Festival Reflects Ever Evolving Continent

In its 21st Edition, New York African Film Festival is a month long celebration of the continent's best of the best with staggering 40+ films slated in its lineup. They will be showing in three different cultural venues throughout the city. The festival presents a unique selection of contemporary and classic African films, running the gamut from features, shorts, and documentaries to animation and experimental films.

At Film Society of Lincoln Center, in celebration of the centenary of Nigeria's independence, the series kicks off with Nollywood dark comedy Confusion Na Wa by Kenneth Gyang. Centerpiece film is the much-anticipated Half of a Yellow Sun, directed and adapted by Biyi Bandele and starring Thandie Newton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Anika Noni Rose. The sweeping 1986 epic Sarraounia is selected as the closing night film.

The series runs May 7 - 13 at FSLC, moves to Harlem's Maysles Cinema May 15 - 18, then ends up at Brooklyn Music Academy (BAM) May 23 - 26. For tickets and more information, please visit African Film Festival Inc.'s website.


Here are 5 great films I had a privilege to preview for the festival:

Grigris (dir. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Chad)

Despite his deformed right leg, Soulemane (Soulemane Démé), known as Grigris, kills on the dance floor every night. But petty cash he garners on the dance floor is not enough to subsist a living when his stepfahter gets hospitalized and can't work as a neighbor's jack of all trades. Short on cash for medical bills, Grigris gets entangled with oil smuggling operation, headed by shady, ruthless businessman Moussa (Cyril Guei). He also develops a relationship with Mimi (anaïs Monory), a cute prostitute who frequents the disco, after developing photos for her modeling career. Things go bad when Grigris crosses Moussa to cover the medical bills. He and Mimi have to flee the city and settle in with Mimi's relatives in the countryside.

Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's Grigris is bustling with energy. The colors and sound of the capitol of Chad, N'Djamena - the people, livestock, disco and nightlife have a look and feel of any medium sized metropolis. Démé, in his first acting role, possesses immense physical presence and quiet intensity, as a good man down on his luck, trying to get by in a dog eat dog world. The plot seem predictable at first but it takes an unexpected turn which sets apart Grigris from other urban noir type films.

Grigris is a winner of Technical Achievement Award at the last year's Cannes. Film Movement has picked it up and is releasing it on VOD on May 30.


Aya of Yop City (dir. Maguerite Abouet, Clément Obrerie, Ivory Coast)

Maguerite Abouet and Clément Obrerie's popular graphic novel series Aya of Yop City becomes an animated feature. This semi-biographical story is based on Abouet growing up in the booming 70s in Yopougon, Ivory Coast. Beautifully drawn with colorful characters, Yop City reflects the issues of Ivorians in that era - women's rights, infidelity, family and community. Abouet doesn't let the French colonial past and its influence on Ivorians slide either - girls still swoon over suave rich men from Paris.

Just like Percepolis before it, we get to experience growing up in another country far away from us through Aya and her friends and realize that their trials and tribulations are not that different than ours. The film is funny and immensely likeable and relatable.

Partly because it's based on one of the series of books, nothing really gets resolved and nothing is ever clear cut in Aya of Yop City, just like in real life.


Mugabe: Villain or Hero? (dir. Roy Agyemang, Zimbabwe)

What starts out as a simple pursuit of scoring an interview with Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president of struggling African nation under crippling economic sanctions by the West, becomes a full blown, 3-year chronicle of a nation still reeling from colonialism.

Mugabe, yet another figure vilified by the West as a gross human rights violator and a ruthless dictator is seen from a different perspective by British based filmmaker of Ghanaian descent, Roy Agyemang, whose idea of post-colonial pan-Africanism has been indoctrinated by his parents at an early age, wants to find out the truth about the man himself.

Agyemang arrives in the southern African nation where things are dire, 2007- its inflation so high, the country became the first nation to print a trillion currency bank note. The breakfast cost 5 million Zimbabwean currency and three months later, it cost 356 million. The doc gives a detailed yet digestible history of the country's colonial past. Formerly known as the republic of Rhodesia, Zimbabwe was the last British colony in Africa to gain independence. Mugabe, a guerrilla fighter for independence became its president in 1980, agreeing not to touch land owned by white farmers for ten years with Thatcher's gov, in the Lanchaster Agreement. When Tony Blair's Labor Party came into power, it annulled the agreement and stopped paying for the land owned by the whites. Mugabe, a man of principal and staunch nationalist, began forcibly taking back the lands. The violence ensued and outraged British government and rest of the West started demonizing Mugabe and imposing sanctions on his people.

The documentary observes the bitter 2008 presidential election, where Mugabe battles the West friendly Morgan Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai won the majority of votes but did not meet the 50 percent threshold. Frustrated, Tsvangirai contested the results, accused the Mugabe government of rampant intimidation and election tampering. He then withdrew from the runoff in protest and fearing for his life, took refuge in the Netherlands embassy. Later on, mediated by then South African president, Thabo Mbeki, Mugabe and Tsvangarai sign a historical power sharing agreement for better future for Zimbabwe.

Sure, Agyemang is a full time convert by the end of the film, swept up by Mugabe's affability and infectious pan-Africanism. But the film is not exactly a whitewash- he questions Mugabe regime's extreme secrecy and illustrates ensuing violence just after the country gained independence in 1980 in series of well researched clips. He is also critical of the Western hypocrisy wherein Mugabe was once the toast of town- knighted by the Queen, nominated for Nobel Peace prize, the shining example of post colonial Africa, then turns on a dime and makes him the African Hitler.

The film's structured like Roger and Me, where a filmmaker never gets to interview its high and mighty subject one on one. But by the time the interview actually happens after three years, we are comfortably acquainted with the subject and history, it feels like an afterthought.

The film is a must see for understanding the state of Africa now. After years of 'economical terrorism' by way of IMF & World Bank perpetrated by the West, resource rich Africa seems finally finding its footing with self-determination for better future.


Afronauts (dir. Frances Bodomo, Zambia)

Talented new director Frances Bodomo's beautiful short, Afronauts, is not some dreamed up story of a first African astronaut. It is based on the true story of Zambia's attempted space program which actually took place in 1968.

Peppered with magic realism, Bodomo's poetic interpretation of the historical event is cinema's myth-making at its finest.


Kwaku Ananse (dir. Akosua Adoma Owusu, Ghana)

A fashionable young woman with an American accent comes back to Ghana to attend her father's funeral. She has an ambivalent feeling about this home coming. He had another wife and a child in Ghana. During the ceremonious funeral with a spider shaped coffin, she walks off and into the forest as if in trance. There she finds all the wisdom that her father gathered over the years.

Putting the popular West African traditional folklore of the not-so-wise spiderman (you heard right, spiderman) within a contemporary setting, director/writer Owusu creates a dreamlike netherworld full of beauty and transcendence.

Hey Little Sister What Have You Done?

Ida (2013) - Pawlikowski




Sister Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) is an war orphan who is about to take a vow. The Mother Superior tells her that her only known relative, aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) finally contacted her and Anna is to leave the convent and stay with Wanda before committing herself to God.

Chain smoking and boozy, aunt Wanda is kind of a mess- a guilt ridden Jewess war survivor, she became a judge hell bent on revenge. She tells Anna that her name actual name is Ida Lebenstein, a daughter of a Jewish couple who perished in the war.

Together they take a trip to find out what happened to Ida's parents. They confront a Polish farmer who might or might not have killed Ida's family during the Nazi occupation of Poland. During the trip, Ida also attracts attentions from a young jazz saxophone player who is playing at the hotel they are staying in.

Picturesque full frame photography and great use of negative space, Ida is a breathtakingly gorgeous film (shot by Lukascz Zal). Every frame is a work of art. Doesn't hurt that luminous first-timer Trzebuchowska is in almost every frame. Also there are no wasted moments - clocking at mere 80 minutes, the film is a remarkably lean experience.

The family tragedy befallen under Nazi occupation isn't the main draw here. While Wanda seems to carry around the weight of the war past, Ida literally buries the hatchet. The film is rather a loving character study of a young woman who represents a clean break from the past. Clear eyed, reserved Ida is at once naive enough not to realize her dimples have enormous effects on the opposite sex and wise beyond her years to know what she wants.

Further tragedy strikes and Ida comes back to Łódź. Alone in the apartment left for her, she thinks about exploring the world that she never lived. With beautiful black and white imagery accompanied by John Coltrane tunes, Pawlikowski's Poland in 60s is as irresistible to us as is to our little Sister. This little vacillation or the test that she sets herself in, provides one of the loveliest movie sequence in history, accentuated by Trzebuchowska's unassuming beauty.

Ida is one of those quiet, artfully crafted little masterpieces that goes unnoticed in dead of Spring movie season. I haven't seen anything this year that is more lovelier than this. Don't miss seeing this film in theaters.

Ida opens May 2 in New York and LA. National roll out will follow. For more information please visit Music Box Films website

Beauty Matters

The Girl and Death (2012) - Stelling

Recently I came across an article at salon.com titled David Foster Wallace was right: Irony is ruining our culture by Matt Ashby and Brendan Caroll. In it, they talk about our popular culture so completely immersed in irony and lazy cynicism that it has become a hindrance to move forward in art. It's a theme I've been thinking about a lot. I have to admit that I am just as guilty of contributing to creating this environment though. My articles, over the years, have been inundated with sarcasm and dismissive one-liners. I have lost my way to see beauty as it is when it presents itself. Sentimentality has become my enemy and I incessantly mocked whoever embraced it.

The Girl and Death, winner of 2012 Golden Calf Award (The Netherland's Academy Arward) for Best Picture, written and directed by Jos Stelling (co-written by Bert Rijkelijkhuizen), is one of those rare beauties that makes me less cynical. At first, the film might seem ridiculously musky and full of unblemished sentimentality that any trigger-happy reviewer wouldn't hesitate to use the eye-roll emoticon after every other sentence. It plays out like overly melodramatic Chekov. By the end of it though, I was genuinely moved by its unabashed, old fashioned tragic love story full of yearning and nostalgia.

An old Russian doctor (Sergey Markovetsky) travels to Germany to visit an old mansion/brothel he was once familiar with. The mansion is shuttered up and abandoned long time ago. From there on, we are walking down the memory lane some 50 years back.

A young, sensitive Russian student Nicolai (Leonid Bichevin) with a book of Pushkin poems sticking out from his tattered tweet jacket pocket, is on his way to Paris to study medicine. But he falls helplessly in love when he sees the vision of loveliness (as old Pushkin puts it), Elise (Sylvia Hoeks) at the grand mansion.

With the help of Mme. Nina (Renata Litvinova), he tries to woo Elise despite many warnings from everyone that she, along with everything else, belongs to the brutish Count (Dieter Hallervorden) who uses the mansion as a whorehouse and a gambling den for his old friends.

Nicolai delays his departure again and again ceremoniously, to get a chance to get a glimpse of Elise and talk with her. He makes an impression with bouquet of white roses and a Pushkin poem. He is forced out by the count and his henchmen. But he comes back after two years. This time, the Count's henchman beats him to a pulp. Elise breaks the Count's grip and runs to the young student, and brings him back to health. Free but penniless and in mounting debt without the Count's help, Elise is trapped and can't leave the mansion with Nicolai. Oh dear.

One can easily see the attraction here: Elise (embodied by Sylvia Hoeks) is a porcelain doll beauty. She's the kind of woman you don't dare to touch because you are afraid to break her.

Three years pass. Nicolai, now successful and almost comically moustachioed, comes back with vengeance in mind. He wins all the money at the card table while doing all the fancy tricks and whatnot. He throws all the money he wins at the count's face. Then he says "a whore will always be a whore!" in poor Elise's face and leaves. The count has a heart attack and dies.

Elise has tuberculosis and is dying but she still waits for Nicolai to come back. Time passes, everyone leaves the mansion. Elise hides and remains in the empty building for years.

But by the end of all this nonsense, I stopped rolling my eyes. However improbable and moth eaten the story is, one can't deny its beauty. It made me put my guard down and won me over. It's even quite refreshing to see something this old fashioned in this day and age.

It's the first time in a long time that a film put me in a position where I have to reassess my attitude toward looking at the world. It doesn't mean I'll be digging into Douglas Sirk melodramas any time soon. But with The Girl and Death, beauty transcends a corny storyline and cheap sentimentality. Stelling shows that beauty still matters.
The Girl and Death opens April 25th in New York at Cinema Village and May 23rd in Los Angeles at Laemmie Hall via Shadow Distribution.

Teen Life

US Go Home (1994) - Denis


A couple of years before Nenette et Boni, Claire Denis did an hour-long film with the same principal cast (Grégoire Colin, Alice Houri and Vincent Gallo), commissioned by French TV. The series was called Tous les garçons et les filles leur age.... Naturally, US Go Home feels like a younger sibling to N & B- with Colin and Houri playing brother and sister in both. But the film is no less great. It's a pitch perfect movie about teens.

There were guides that Denis had to follow to meet the criteria of the series -- the film has to take place in its directors childhood time, has to be about youth and has to have a song that plays in its entirety. That third rule, for me, thank heavens, provides one of the best movie moment in history (perhaps the second best only to the last scene of, yet another Denis film, Beau Travail)! It's teenage Gregoire Colin in his room dancing to Eric Burdon & the Animals' Hey Gyp.

So the setting of US Go Home is a suburb of Paris in the 60s. It starts with Alain (Colin) quoting the book he is reading, which warns that there is nothing honorable about men who surrender themselves to lust. Whether the passage is having any effect on him remains to be seen throughout the film. Martine (Houri) wants to get laid. She and her sultry Russian friend Marlene (Jessica Tharaud) wants to go to a party at a house where the parents will be away. Martine's mom won't allow it though, unless her older brother Alain accompany them. He begrudgingly agrees. The girls gussy themselves up like crazy. In the middle of the bus ride, the bickering siblings go separate ways - girls to the party and Alain, as usual, to his rich friend's house where older kids mingle. Soon the girls find the said party lame - Parents are still there and everyone's doing samba. The girls then trek to Alain's hangout. There are people smoking, drinking punch and making out on the couch. Music also is rad! Alain ignores them. Pretty Marlene finds dance partners easy, and starts eyeing Alain. It's a little more difficult to find a guy for Martine with her baby face and dark kinky curls.

Teen years are confusing, humiliating, scary times. Desire overwhelms everything. Expectations are never met with satisfaction. After disappointing night, the siblings meet American sailor, Captain Brown, on the road. He wants to give them a ride home and share his last remaining coca cola. Alain, despite his fondness for American rock n' roll, refuses the offer, saying that he is a communist. It's a comment Captain Brown laughs off of. Just like Martine's hollow 'US must go home!' chant, it's something he picked up saying without conviction. Gallo is perfect with his 'I haven't slept in 36 hours' look and asshole nonchalance as a man who is not sad but always miserable. He and Martine bond.

Denis and co-writer Anne Wiazemsky know how to capture all the angst and disappointment and loneliness of teenage years. US Go Home is a tender, thoughtful, emotionally resonant film that happens to be one of Denis's very best.

Taiwan, My Love

Almost Home: Taiwan (2014) - Linchong

Back in March, I had a privilege to attend the sneak preview of Victoria Linchong's lovely documentary Almost Home: Taiwan, at Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, down in East Village. Armed with handicam, Victoria and her family travels to Taiwan, her parents' homeland, to visit their relatives and pay respect to their ancestors. I've joked with Victoria about how our knowledge of Taiwan is limited to watching master Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien's films. But I wasn't really prepared for the natural beauty of Taiwan in her footage. Amazing mountains in the fog, hot springs, temples, beautiful coastline..., Victoria's travelogue has awakened wanderlust in me like no other films have.

The documentary also serves as a great history lesson. Victoria interviews political figures who were involved in Taiwan's independence movement and even employs funny DIY animation sequences to illuminate Taiwan's very complex and little known history. Linchong managed to strike a fine balance between an intimate, personal travel documentary and political essay. Almost Home is not only a beautiful tribute to her homeland, but also extremely educational film that needs to be seen.

My wife, Nicole Schulman, also contributed to the poster project to help finishing the documentary.
Please visit Almost Home: Taiwan website.


Almost Home: Taiwan - Trailer from Victoria Linchong on Vimeo.

Oppression and Resistance in Silence

Libera me (1993) - Cavalier








How do you convey oppression and resistance without ever uttering words? Alain Cavalier does it beautifully here. Libera me is even more austere than his Therese or any of Bresson films. Grey background doubles as any discernible locations. Non-actors act out in succession of beautifully lit tableaux. No moment is wasted, no thoughts, feelings and gesture go unnoticed. There are two families - a butcher and his three sons and a photographer and his wife who take passport photos which seem to be invaluable commodity in the fascist world, that the film takes place in, where mass killing and torture seem ordinary. They fight against the powers that be. This non-silent-silent film is a wonder to behold. Cavalier seems to be operating on another cinematic level that is guileless and stripped down to its pure elements. I am in awe.

Libera me plays as part of Art of the Real series at FSLC. Please visit their website for tickets.

Preview: Art of the Real Tests Boundaries of Documentary Filmmaking

Film Society of Lincoln Center's inaugural film series Art of the Real - a showcase for nonfiction films that pushes the farthest boundaries of documentary filmmaking, is for me, one of the most exciting film series I have a privilege to be part of, even in New York standards.

It's only been the last couple of years that I've been writing about film seriously, realizing that film medium can go much further than just mere entertainment and that freeing from the dominant narrative structure can be exhilarating.

What started out as a simple question that if there was an adequate name to describe the current crop of shape-shifting postmodern cinema pulled me into the very depth of the cinematic rabbit hole, left me exhausted and confused and exhilarated at the same time. As I was reminded watching Film Socialisme (Godard), Sans Soleil (Marker), Fontainhas Trilogy (Costa), Koker Trilogy (Kiarostami), Tren de Sombras (Guerrin), Tabu (Gomes), A Man Vanishes (Imamura), and Two Years at Sea (Rivers) that I am just scratching the surface of this great artistic medium. At the same time, I feel glad and relieved that there are so much more to explore.

It was Lucien Castraing-Taylor and Verena Paravel's Leviathan screening at New York Film Festival in 2012 where everything clicked for me. Watching the film and noticing French filmmaker Philippe Grandrieux, whose visceral art films which happen to be some of my very favorite film watching experiences, in the audience. They turned out to be good friends. And the subsequent discussion I had with Castraing-Taylor and Paravel reaffirmed me that there could be much more to film as an art form than mere storytelling.

Curated by Denis Lim and Racheal Rakes, and presented in collaboration with the 2014 Whitney Biennial, along with the focus on the Sensory Ethnography Lab, I have no doubt Art of the Real's enthralling lineup would delight serious, adventurous film lovers senses and help expand their minds.

The series include last year's festival favorite Manakamana, works by renowned experimental filmmakers/documentarians - Thom Andersen, Harun Farocki, Robert Gardener, Alain Cavalier, Raymond Depardon, James Benning and more.

The series runs April 11 - 26. For tickets and more information, please visit Film Society of Lincoln Center website.

LUKAS THE STRANGE - John Torres

A girl narrator, friend of a 13-year old Filipino boy named Lukas, whispers to him softly and gives a loose, elliptical narrative to the all together dreamlike, strange film. The narrator tells him that it's the beginning of the film and he doesn't know it yet, but he will fall in love with an actress later in the film. One night, Lukas is told that his father is tikbalang (half-man, half-horse). In turn, his father abandons his family and disappears across the river. There is a film crew in town, casting roles and everyone in town is in a buzz. So goes Lukas the Strange - part documentary, part narrative, part free-association visual essay, part...

Lukas thinks he inherited some super powers and needs to test his abilities. He can run fast, he can jump high. He is bullet proof and has scars to prove it. Meanwhile, his father has settled in neighboring town. He earned a scar when he crossed the river but left his memories behind. The river has magical powers like that. There are videotapes that the narrator girl collected from the river. It contains grainly black and white footage of the actress the narrator talked about in the beginning. Lukas watches and falls in love (at least he tries to masturbate to it).

Shot on 35mm in full frame format, the rural Philippines in rainy season has never been more beautiful. The faces of none actors with out of synch sound (or just made up sound to push along the narrative) gives the film its light, playful tone. Perhaps the dreamest, strangest film about boy entering manhood. Folklore, improvisation, formal rigor...this is good stuff, very much akin to Weerasethakul films.


ACTRESS - Robert Greene

Brandy Burre was an actress who was in The Wire. She gave up acting to have a family, moved to Beacon, NY with her partner, Tim. They have two young children. They own two restaurants/bars. But now in her late 30s, she realizes that being a housewife/mom of two kids is not what she wanted. She wants to get back to the business. Director Robert Greene chronicles trials and tribulations of an actress as she struggles with her life. Brandy's story is nothing really special. A lot of people go through the same family vs career crises. She has an affair, Tim moves out, she looks for a job, battling ageism and stage fright. It couldn't be any more special than a Lifetime channel movie. But that's just it. Because she is a real person, not an actress, it is quite compelling.

There is a scene where Burre putting away toys in the 'toy room', labeling them carefully with label maker. She says, "This is how I express my creativity." Then she says it again, as if reciting a line from a script. It's meta-ness aside, Actress, thanks to Burre's brevity to reveal her life in such a frank way and Greene's intimate approach, is quite mesmerizing experience. I had to imdb Burre and she has one more film under her name after Wire. Good to know that she is working. Hopefully she will retain her freedom by making a living as actress again.


TIME GOES BY LIKE A ROARING LION - Philipp Hartmann

An average German male who was born in the 70s, lives up to be 76 1/2 years. Philipp Hartmann started filming in 2010. He, then 38 1/4, was exactly at the half point of his life. Suffering from chronophobia - fear of passing of time, he made this movie, clocking at 76 minutes, one minute counting as one year of his life. At the half point of the movie, he hurriedly catches up to "now" in a very inventive fashion. This philosophical visual quandary isn't as dry as it sounds. It's warm, funny, and thought provoking.

The still photos of Hartmann's childhood in the beginning, all only half part exposed, are the compilation of the beginning of each film rolls, signifying the images just before his father captured that moment. He visits scientists at the site of atomic clock in Braunschweig. Apparently, because the earth is spinning slower at times, the clock needs to be adjusted a second every 18 months. The scientist futzes around with the switches and says, "Uh oh, I don't think it goes back..." Hartmann travels to the world's largest salt desert in Bolivia and contemplates the absence of time. He sets up situations with actors, narrating scenarios dealing with time. He asks one of his subjects/friends, who is a compulsive gambler about how he feels about ruining relations, his future. The friend replies that as the time passes faster, it hurts a little less. We watch Hartmann's shadow, sitting on a ski lift rolling over the green hills for the last 3-4 minutes of the movie. Contemplative and lyrical, Hartmann's inquiry is sincere and heartfelt rather than clever.


THE ANABASIS OF MAY AND FUSAKO SHIGENOBU, MASAO ADACHI AND 27 YEARS WITHOUT IMAGES - Eric Baudlaire

Paris based visual artist Eric Baudlaire films modern day Lebanon in super 8 at the request of Masao Adachi, a former United Red Army (later Japanese Red Army) member and guerrilla filmmaker. The film juxtaposes the footage of Lebanon and Japan. It is narrated by Adachi and May Shigenobu, a daughter of JRA leader Fusako and a Palestinian guerrilla fighter. Both Adachi and May spent 27 years in hiding in Lebanon, then extradited to Japan in 2001. Their lives are filled with fascinating stories: Adachi, along with Koji Wakamatsu and Nagisa Oshima, plays a pivotal role in Japanese New Wave. But politically more extreme and hands on, Adachi chose a path that led him to devote in Palestine's cause for statehood, lived with guerrilla fighters in Lebanon refuge camps. May, who was born in Lebanon, never had a national or cultural identity until she was a teen, narrates her fascinating story in uninflected English. Their shared stories glide over the city and nature landscapes, film clips and news reels, accompanying the narrative. It's an interesting experiment: borrowing images, not to explicitly match them with someone's memories but to help us to imagine their experience. It's fascinating trip.

The series also plays The Makes, Baudlaire's adaptation of Michelangelo Antonioni's notes on unmade films and The Ugly One, a sort of a sequel to Anabasis.


A THOUSAND SUNS - Mati Diop

Mati Diop, the alluring actress in Clare Denis's 35 rhums directs A Thousand Suns, a dreamy documentary fantasy that encompasses Senegal's past, present and perhaps future simultaneously. Taking cues from her famous Senegalese director uncle (Djibril Diop Mambéty)'s seminal African avant-garde film Touki Bouki, she incorporates the real actor Magaye Liang of that film, now an old man, still living in Dakar, herding cattles, into a fiction and vice versa. New and old collide and co-exist, as Liang watches Touki Bouki on the screen in an outdoor screening projected digitally. He says proudly that the dashing young man on the screen is indeed him. The street kids laugh at him. In that seminal film, Mory (Magaye Liang) stays behind while her lover Anta (Mareme Niang) sails to France. It reflects what happened in real life some 40 years ago, sort of. Magaye tracks down Anta, now supposedly living in America. It turns out she lives in Alaska and works as a security guard on an oil rig or she tells him. The following snowy scene is jaw-droppingly sensual. The film is filled with colors, layers upon layers of hidden stories and rapturous images. I can't wait to see Diop's other work.

The series also plays Diop's Atlantiques which tells the story of a young boy’s tragic migratory voyage over the Moroccan border.


SWEETGRASS - no director credited *Part of Focus on The Sensory Ethnography Lab

My full review here.


FOREIGN PARTS - Verena Paravel, JP Sniadecki *Part of Focus on The Sensory Ethnography Lab

Shot in 2008-2009 in industrial neighborhood of Willets Point, Queens by Verena Paravel (Leviathan) and JP Sniadecki (People's Park) of the Havard's Sensory Ethnography Lab, Foreign Parts presents a rare glimpse into the lives of its inhabitants. Willets Point, in the shadows of 7 Train Line, Citi Field (Mets Baseball Stadium) and the constant planes flying overhead (La Guadia Airport only a stone's throw away) is where cars go die and being gutted and mutilated for their parts to various auto related shops. Without sewage system and sidewalks and most of work force being immigrant workers, you'd think you are in Mexico or some other less developed countries. Paravel and Sniadecki just follow them around as they go about their daily business. There is Joe Ardizzone, a white haired, vocal resident who's been fighting for the city's redevelopment plan, there is Julia, a sweet natured, tiny old lady, and there are Luis and Sara, a couple who live in an abandoned car. They all talk candidly about their lives. The combination of these people's lives and their otherworldly surroundings - mountains of auto parts, unpaved dirt roads, gigantic water puddles, roaming wild feral animals, sonic plane engine and car noise, make Foreign Parts a fascinating concoction.

Travelers and Magicians

Yeelen (1987) - Cissé





Talking about an epic of Biblical proportions, Soulemane Cissé tells a Bambara myth steeped in animism and sorcery I couldn't help but compare Yeelen to Scorsese's Last Temptation while watching it. Like many other folk tales from different cultures, Yeelen concerns a great journey, good vs evil and father-son rivalry. Young sorcerer Nianankoro is on the run with his mother from his all-powerful, vengeful father, Soma. Niananko apparently possesses an amulet (a big gemstone) that belongs to Komo. Niananko needs to go to his uncle/Soma's twin Djigui. During the long journey, he gets friendly with a tribal king and helps him to ward off his enemies with his magic powers. The king requests another favor. His youngest wife is barren and he wants Niananko to fix her infertility. After taking some hallucinogenic roots together, then overcome by desire, Niananko and the young wife of the king does a dirty deedly. Seeing how remorseful the young man is, the chief awards him the girl, who is now pregnant and carrying Niananko's child. In the mean time, Soma is trailing along, with his magic post, carried by two servants, on his way to destroy Niananko.

Yeelen features some beautiful imagery of Mali. Even though the acting is heavily theatrical, all the principals involved have genuine presence and are great at conveying their feelings. Cissé uses simple effects to show sorcerers powers: burning bushes, sound effects, playing the action backward, star-filter effects, etc. The film has a very different sense of lyricism and visual poetry I'm not really familiar with, and it's very refreshing. I dig it.

Grand Illusion

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) - Anderson

Anderson's children's picture book diorama with the ever growing cast of cardboard thin characters continues. This didn't annoy me as much as his other movies however. I think mainly it's because of the apt casting. Anderson fits all these known actors into the carefully designed mold and they fit perfectly. Ralph Fiennes has an impeccable comic timing and has never really been better since forever as Gustav H.; first, the concierge then the owner of The Grand Budapest Hotel deep in the Alps in the made-up republic of Zubrowka. Adrian Brody and Willem Defoe also excel as baddies. Anderson skims over WWII, Nazism and racism uncomfortably but shoves pink cream cakes in our faces whenever it gets awkward. The star of the movie is, of course, the production design. Everything is bathed in warm, if not drab colors that give the movie your parents' rec room carpet familiarity. Some seriously gorgeous matte paintings too. It seems like a logical step for Anderson to move his locale to Europe. First it was stop motion animation, now it's old Europe where his not so American sensibilities lie - money, white, nostalgia. It all fits perfectly. I enjoyed it very much.

Fraternity of Womenhood

Snow Canons (2011) - Diop




Mati Diop, a niece of famous Senegalese director Djibril Diop Mambéty and daughter of a musician Wassis Diop, directs this short film. She is also the luminous actress who starred in one of my all time favorites, Clare Denis's 35 Rhums. She says in an interview that she makes films based on what she finds interesting at that moment. All her films, 4 to date, are very different in subject matter and method I'm told. Snow Canon concerns a slight lesbian romance with the stunning French Alps as a backdrop and its very delicious. A lanky teen Valina (Niala Bal) is left to her own devices in a house overlooking the Alps. She incessantly exchanges texts about boys with her bbf who is traveling in South America. Then an American babysitter Mary Jane (Nour Mobarak) shows up. Smokey eyed and heartbroken, she tells Valina never to fall in love. Valina's sexual curiosity gets the better of her though. Mary Jane is hot. They develop certain physical intimacy. Diop's presentation is never obvious. As they take bath together and play dress up, there is a certain fraternity between them rather than something sexual. Shot in 35mm, the film's gorgeous and less experimental but just as rapturous in its mood and sensuality. There is a nod to a quite a bit of Clare Denis there, not only the appearance of bunny rabbit.

You Don’t Have a Home Until You Leave It

Touki Bouki (1973) - Mambéty







Mory (Magaye Niang) dreams of leaving Dakar and going to Paris with his college student girlfriend, Anta (Mareme Niang). Always on his trusty motorbike with a cow skull attached to the front, Mory is somewhat of a dreamer and doesn't really fit well in a society where young men only talk about revolution. The couple cheats and steals their way through getting tickets for a sea voyage, but Mory has second thoughts at the last minute. He realizes that wherever he goes, he will be like that of a bull in the slaughterhouse with a noose around his neck. That is the legacy of colonialism. It dawns on him that there is no escape, that he might as well stay.

Even though Mory and Anta are from a shantytown, Touki Bouki is not an overtly socio-political condemnation of colonialism or anything. It's definitely there though. There are elements that stress the view of white Europeans on Senegalese but that's beside the point. The film is, first and foremost, fun. It has a very loose structure and fluidity and playfulness throughout. It's very much French New Wave. You can totally see Breathless- Touki Bouki- Leos Carax connection here. The energy combined with colors and sound make quite an arresting experience.

Panorama Europe 2014 at MoMI and Bohemian National Hall

Making films is an all consuming affair: the time and energy and money and talent that put into one film production is staggering. Yet, year after year, tens and thousands films go unnoticed, unseen, not just in this country, but everywhere. Disappearing Act, a New York tradition for the last half a decade, has devoted itself to seek out some of the most daring, noteworthy films from continental Europe, which would've undoubtedly gone undistributed and unseen in the States. I had covered Disappearing Acts in the Past. This year, I got to see 3 films in advance. The series runs April 4 - 13. For a complete list of the films and tickets, go to MoMI website.

Programmed by David Schwartz, Chief Curator, Museum of the Moving Image

Co-presented by Museum of the Moving Image and the European Union National Institutes for Culture, Panorama Europe is a unique showcase of seventeen contemporary European features and a program of short films. Formerly known as Disappearing Act, the newly re-named festival continues the mission of showcasing vital European filmmaking as distribution remains challenging for foreign-language films in the United States. Panorama Europe gives New York audiences what may be their only chance to see these acclaimed films from the festival circuit on the big screen. This year’s festival will take place at Museum of the Moving Image in Queens and at Bohemian National Hall in Manhattan.  

SEDUCE ME (dir. Janko Mandic, Slovenia)

With cheers and a cake, Luka (Janko Mandic) moves out of a youth home where he spent the last 9 years of his life. He finds a lodging and a job at a slaughterhouse with the help of a social worker. His emotionless mother is still alive but he's not in a hurry to see her. At the job, he befriends Ajda (Nina Rakovec), a foreman's daughter who is working there because she has to pay her abusive dad back for the new car she just bought. And the foreman is none too happy about their relationship. Ajda is a thrill seeker and only wants pleasure in life which suits young Luka fine at first, but her willful disinterests in his life and background rubs him the wrong way. While she undresses him, he protests that they don't know anything about each other.

Luka has a good head on his shoulders and a good heart, and is tasting adulthood for the first time. I'm pretty sure Mandic's natural boyish presence will bring out strong paternal/maternal instincts out in the audience. Just like Antoine Doinel and many others before him, Luka makes you root for him as he struggles through life's many incongruities.
The setting of Seduce Me is not a glamorous one. Drab scenery in Ljubljana, Slovenia is seen through the windows of the bus which Luka takes to his even more depressing job. It contrasts with the beautiful forest seen from the train as Luka visits his mother. I interpret the title as Luka crying out for the life ahead of him, the lure of his future. However drab his circumstances are, we know that he is too good and earnest for it and deserves something better. It reminded me strongly of Atmen (Breathing) by Karl Markovics, from a couple of years back. They both are about a good youth trying to survive something called adulthood. Seduce Me is a beautifully written and directed feature film debut by Marko Santic. I'd love to see more from him.


HONEYMOON (dir. Jan Hřebejk, Czech Republic/Slovakia)

In veteran Czech director Jan Hřebejk's new film, the honeymoon period is astonishingly short.
It's the wedding day of a well-to-do, handsome couple, Tereza (Anna Geislerová) and Radim (Stanislav Majer). It's an ideal setting for the happy couple - friends and family, a big lakeside house, nature, booze, dancing and lots of shrieking children. Everyone is having a great time... except for one: a nebbish optician who calls himself Jan. This uninvited guest shows up at the reception, claiming to be Radim's old schoolmate. As the day winds down, Jan's sour talk on the marriage takes a toll on Tereza's mood. He refuses to leave until she opens his wedding present which turns out to be an urn filled with someone's remains. She has to confront Radim about his past and needs to decide if she wants to marry someone she hardly knows.
Honeymoon is a tense drama in the same vein as Thomas Vinterberg's Celebration. The taboo subject here is severe bullying. Hřebejk skillfully drops hints from the beginning that this idyllic setup has a dirty secret. The film asks us just how much of one's past sins others can forgive and live with. It also puts so-called 'masculinity' under the microscope. Jan and his dead friend's experience is a blood curdlingly horrendous one. The savage bullying sequences involving a effeminate boy being forced to dress up as Nastassja Kinski in the flashbacks are heart wrenching. The heartbreaking third act examines that people might never change who they really are. Hřebejk leaves the film open ended, suggesting that the couple's future is uncertain. And thanks to this film, I can't look at Nastassja Kinski the same way ever again.


FISH N' CHIPS (dir. Elias Demetriou, Cyprus)

Elias Demetriou, a citizen of Cyprus, Britain and Greece, tries to navigate through a complicated modern European geo-socio-political landscape. The film's protagonist is Andy (Marios Iannou, giving a down-to-earth, affecting performance here), a Fish n' Chips shop manager in a working class London neighborhood. Andy decides to take a trip back to Cyprus with his aging mom and his East-German girlfriend Karin and her grown-up daughter Emma. Once in Cyprus while crashing at his seemingly well-to-do brother's house, Andy decides to set up a chip shop, only to find out that Cypriots, who are comfortable basking in Mediterranean sun and eating kebabs, have no appetite for thick battered fried fish. After the drug fueled beach party to jumpstart the shop goes wrong and his senile mom goes missing, Andy has to make a choice: does he stay in his native country where he is seen as a foreigner or does he go back to London, where most of his adult life has been spent, where locals still harass him and call him Paki?

Fish n' Chips tells an all-too-familiar, down and out story of an immigrant whose loyalty and cultural identity become at odds. Despite strong, earnest performances by everyone involved, with on-the-nose dialog and a tiresome plot, the film ends up soaked in melodrama.