The International (US-Germany-UK, 2009)

Much more interesting than Bond or Bourne

In the 1930s the Warners gangster cycle was sold as movies made off newspaper headlines. The International is, the end credits suggest, made off today’s headlines. I think that’s true except the newspapers don’t explain what’s behind the events; this film does. Based on the premise that international finance is corrupt (who’s going to argue with that?) the film investigates ‘how much can good people do?’

If that sounds too heavy then the film delivers as a thriller with a fantastic set piece in the Guggenheim museum that has shades of Michael Mann.  Clive Owen’s hero remains human and fear leaks off him when he’s under fire: he’s no Bourne killing machine or Bond poser.

From the opening sequence Tom Tykwer’s direction is gripping and locations, numerous cities across Europe, as well as New York, are used brilliantly. There’s a constant refrain of overhead shots making people seem like ants; referencing Harry Lime’s speech in The Third Man (1949). The International has the kick of an early ’70s ‘New Hollywood’ paranoia thriller with an intense topicality that makes it the first ‘must see’ movie of 2009 and international-European filmmaking at its best.

Das Leben der Anderen(The Lives of Others, Germany, 2006)

Humanising the inhuman

It was no surprise that this should win an Oscar: technically proficient, superbly acted and humanist whilst bashing the ‘commies’. It is a gripping thriller but, as Anna Funder points out in Sight & Sound (May ‘07) utterly ridiculous. The Stasi member who is humanised by music and a poem by Brecht! Great to think so: play that music to Bush!

Funder, who’s book Stasiland (2004) is excellent, also points out that the Stasi are currently trying to rehabilitate themselves and so this sympathetic portrayal of a member of that organisation is politically dubious to say the least. But the film’s excellent for the reasons cited above and who wouldn’t want to believe that art can humanise a monstrous system? Well, those who run that system I suppose.

L’auberge espagnole (Pot Luck, France/Spain 2002)

Xavier (extreme left) and flatmates.

Film titles can be important for audiences. When French director Cédric Klapisch showed his film at festivals he is said to have wanted to call it Europudding (see this Guardian interview). This title has a very unfortunate meaning in the UK, where it is a term of abuse (a bit like ‘mid-Atlantic’) implying a film made simply to qualify for various forms of co-production funding and lacking any sense of coherent identity or artistic purpose. That isn’t what Klapisch meant of course and it eventually emerged as Pot Luck, which in English refers to a meal for visitors or travellers produced out of whatever ingredients are available – “I’ll take pot luck”. I’m not sure this is a better title, but at least it does relate to the plot. The French title, explained in the film, refers to the practice in a ‘Spanish inn’ when travellers brought food with them which was cooked in the inn. I missed the film on its cinema release and my memory is that it was still being described in the UK as a ‘europudding’. I’m not sure if this put me off, but since I’d seen (and enjoyed) the two previous comedies by Cédric Klapisch, I suspect not. I was probably just busy. Recently, I rented the DVD, spurred on by the lead role for the excellent Romain Duris and a support role for Cecile de France, so good in Un secret.

I enjoyed the film and I think it would work well with film students – the subject matter is relevant and the film benefits from sparky performances. I suspect that some of the quirky special effects which seem to irritate critics might work with younger audiences. Most of all, it offers a case study in using national stereotypes and transcending them. It’s also an interesting film in terms of American v ‘European’ understanding of the issues. (However, the reviews are mixed.)

The basic narrative idea draws on the Erasmus programme which offers exchange possibilities for European university students. Romain Duris is Xavier, a high-flying Parisian student who joins the programme to gain a postgraduate qualification for entry into the civil service and finds himself on an economics course in Barcelona. He gets to spend his year with a Brit, a Belgian, a Dane, a German, an Italian and a Castilian. The DVD no doubt confuses audiences outside France by promoting Audrey Tautou who plays a minor role as the girlfriend Xavier leaves behind in Paris. When the film was being made, Audrey Tautou had not achieved her high profile via Amélie.

Barcelona has been one of the most attractive cities in Europe for some time and Klapisch makes the most of its possibilities (although I’m surprised that more isn’t made of the waterfront and the Nou Camp). The intelligence in the film for me is highlighted by a subplot which sees Xavier making love to a beautiful young French woman he meets on the plane to Catalonia.

The woman is a newly-wed with an older husband (also French) who is the kind of boring guy that Xavier would usually ignore. However, when his accommodation falls through, Xavier is forced to look up the newly weds and plead for a chance to sleep on their couch. When the husband neglects his young wife because of work commitments, he persuades Xavier (now in a student flat) to take her out sightseeing. We know the young woman is distressed and attracted to Xavier (she had seen him crying on the plane), but when she criticises Barcelona as ‘dirty’, we know that Xavier is justified in upbraiding her. But later, when the couple have got together very successfully, Xavier lets himself down by boasting about his new sexual prowess. I recognised much of Xavier’s behaviour as typical of the awkward process of ‘growing up’ and I think that this is the strength of the film. It deals with national types and familiar instances of language/culture splits (relating the Flemish/Walloon split to that of Catalonia/Castile) in a light and witty way and concludes that all the different students are warm human beings rather than comic ‘cut-outs’. The director’s interests clearly lie with the French and English characters, but I thought that they were presented in the same clear-eyed way as the others.

The IMDB comments are interesting in that there is an obvious awareness about how different this is to a Hollywood ‘fraternity comedy’ with several commentators noting that American films in this genre are usually far less subtle. On the other hand, it is quite strange to see negative comments about the sexual behaviour of the students (including Xavier) – plenty of mileage in discussing societal attitudes here.

Of course, L’auberge espagnole is a ‘popular film’ and comparable to the ‘brat pack’ films from Hollywood in the 1980s. Romain Duris and Cécile de France have since become stars and Kelly Reilly and Judith Godrèche were already established. The film has been enormously successful across Europe, clocking up nearly 5 million admissions across the ‘Europe of 36′ since 2002. Not surprisingly, France saw nearly 3 million admissions. Perhaps surprisingly, the US saw over 600,000 and Quebec 170,000. Spain, Germany and Italy were other big markets, but the UK was pathetic with admissions below Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary and many other European countries. Was the title really a problem or is it a bad case of Europhobia? I’m amazed (and saddened). I hope some UK schoolteachers will take a chance on the film. I’m off to find the sequel, The Russian Dolls from 2005, and I look forward to local screenings of the latest Klapisch, Paris (starring Romain Duris and Juliet Binoche).

European Box Office Data 2007

One of our aims on the blog is to promote ‘cross border’ knowledge about films. Outside Hollywood, many films only circulate in their own domestic market or associated language markets. Films have to be sold to distributors for different territories. There are reasons why sales don’t take place for some titles, but sometimes it is just a matter of luck or timing – whereas Hollywood films are often sold to affiliates/partners of the US studio distributor.

It is relatively straightforward to discover what is happening in Europe since there is good quality data available from several sources including the Lumiere Database, Cineuropa and Focus. These sources collate data from across the EU (and sometimes beyond to the ‘Europe of 36′). The only slight problem is that UK box office data is usually expressed as box office revenue. This has to be converted into approximate admissions data to match the European convention.

Here is the Top 25 European-produced films of 2007 (taken from Focus 2008)

(Showing title, producing country, year, director and admissions)

1 Mr. Bean’s Holiday GB/FR/DE/US 2007 Steve Bendelack 15,251,106
2 La Môme FR/CZ/GB 2007 Olivier Dahan 7,225,794
3 Taxi 4 FR 2007 Gérard Krawczyk 5,334,716
4 Hot Fuzz GB/FR/US 2007 Edgar Wright 4,849,649
5 Das Leben der Anderen DE 2006 F. H. von Donnersmarck 4,057,710 (a further 1.8 million admissions in 2006)
6 Ensemble, c’est tout FR 2007 Claude Berri 3,304,303
7 Manuale d’amore 2 (Capitoli successivi) IT 2007 Giovanni Veronesi 3,134,777
8 Natale in crociera IT 2007 Neri Parenti 3,074,353
9 Atonement GB/FR/US 2007 Joe Wright 3,059,096
10 Arthur et les Minimoys FR 2006 Luc Besson 2,902,293 (a further 4.8 million in 2006)
11 Lissi und der wilde Kaiser DE 2007 Michael Herbig 2,751,339
12 Katyn PL 2007 Andrzej Wajda 2,735,777
13 Elizabeth: The Golden Age GB/FR/DE 2007 Shekhar Kapur 2,686,064
14 Die Wilden Kerle 4 DE 2007 Joachim Masannek 2,655,249
15 Ho voglia di te IT 2007 Luis Prieto 2,309,624
16 Una Moglie bellissima IT 2007 Leonardo Pieraccioni 2,306,726
17 The Last King of Scotland GB/DE 2006 Kevin Macdonald 2,250,156
18 Run Fatboy Run GB/US 2007 David Schwimmer 2,202,040
19 Notte prima degli esami – Oggi IT 2007 Fausto Brizzi 2,057,238
20 Notes on a Scandal GB 2006 Richard Eyre 2,052,873
21 Hitman FR/US 2007 Xavier Gens 2,038,333
22 Beyaz melek TR 2007 Mahsun Kirmizigül 1,995,040
23 Eastern Promises GB/US/CA 2007 David Cronenberg 1,940,419
24 28 Weeks Later GB/ES 2007 Juan Carlos Fresnadillo 1,873,720
25 Le Coeur des hommes 2 FR 2007 Marc Esposito 1,846,351

The chart does not include the UK/US films designated ‘Inward investment’ by the UKFC, so no Harry Potter or The Golden Compass etc.

In many ways, the chart offers what you might expect with most of the films coming from the four biggest economies – Germany, France, Italy and the UK. There is no Spanish entry, which signals the recent decline of Spanish domestic production. (However, there must be a mistake in compiling the chart as the horror film El Orfanato was released in October 2007 attracting over 4 million admissions – nevertheless, Spain has recently seen a real decline in domestic successes.)

What is perhaps surprising is the relatively high position of the Italian entries, signalling something of a resurgence in domestic production. Note also the high position for Andrzej Wajda’s Katyn and the entry of a Turkish film, Beyaz melek, which made money in Germany and the UK as well as Turkey and some other non-EU countries.

There is some American money involved in European majority co-productions, but it is significant that several of the films here are co-productions involving UK, France or Germany.

The real importance of the chart for our purposes is to note how many/few of the films have been released widely in Europe. A rough calculation suggests around a half of these titles have been released in more than two or three European countries.

The films that are assumed not to travel are usually comedies. Manuale d’amore 2 (Capitoli successivi) is, as the title implies, a sequel to a previous hit in Italy. IMDB describes it as a ‘comedy romance’ and lists it as opening in Spain in 2007 and Greece (and South Korea) in 2008. At the moment, it is only showing Italy on the Lumiere database. (The film does have a star known acroos Europe in the form of Monica Belucci). Much the same goes for Natale in crociera. The other three Italian films are all comedies. The two German films at nos. 11 and 14 are also comedies, but only released in Germany and Austria. IMDB rates all these films very low on the 10 point scale, but presumably somebody out of the millions who saw the films enjoyed them? How do we take account of these productions in terms of European Cinema?

The Turkish film Beyaz melek is rather different. It appears to be an ‘epic drama’ about people in a retirement home in Eastern Turkey and is the first directorial effort by a Turkish singer. The film played to diaspora Turkish audiences in at least Germany and the UK and possibly other European countries as well. In the UK, the screenings were at Wood Green Cineworld and Lee Valley Odeon in North East London. I for one would be very interested in seeing this film with English subtitles.

The crunch film in the list is Katyn. Poland has both a potentially large domestic market and a large number of Poles both temporarily and permanently overseas. In the UK, Dogwoof has imported Polish films (see our review of Wesele). However, Andrzej Wajda is not only the doyen of Polish filmmakers, but also a world figure. There was some dismay when a rumour began that the major arthouse distributor in the UK did not want to buy Katyn, seeing it as ‘old-fashioned’. Now it seems it will be released in the next few months. The story, about the massacre of Polish Army officers by the Russians in 1940, is both a ‘national story’ for the Poles and a personal story for Wajda (whose father was one of the officers killed). The UK has missed out on similar films before (e.g. Wajda’s Pan Tadeusz in 1999).

The distributors may well be correct in their commercial judgment about how films will travel, but Hollywood has persevered and sold us dross. Perhaps European distributors could be more adventurous?

(As of 3 August, I have been unable to confirm that Katyn has got a UK distributor, so the statement above should be ignored until further notice.)

Conference Report: Europe on Screen 2008

11/12 June 2008

Academic film studies tends to be more interested in analysing films than in studying how they are distributed and exhibited and as Andy Willis, one of the three conference organisers, pointed out, academic contact with the film industry usually tends to be concerned with production. Here then was a chance to reverse the usual approach. Over a day and a half, ‘Europe on Screen’ featured a mix of academics and industry personnel (with some speakers wearing both hats) addressing issues focused on the distribution and exhibition of European films on European screens. Willis suggested that it was important to assess how specialised cinema was coping with the consolidation of twenty years of multiplex building.

Mark Cosgrove, cinemas director at Watershed Cinema in Bristol, opened the main proceedings with a personal account of how he saw distribution and exhibition in the UK, drawing on experience of more than 20 years of working in independent cinemas. He gave his paper the title “Where have all the films gone?” He outlined the difficulties he faced operating away from London, even in a major centre like Bristol and he also bravely attempted to explain some of the seemingly strange behaviour of the UK Film Council. Cosgrove contrasted his early experience as a programmer, encouraged by his success introducing audiences to new filmmakers, with the commercial realities of trying to develop audiences today. Watershed as an institution attempts to meet its array of targets re European films but it increasingly has to work within the more commercially orientated structures created by UKFC support for specialised film – which for instance, selects certain films to be promoted and others which it deems “difficult to attract new audiences to”. This sees relatively high profile European films like Downfall or the co-production, The Motorcycle Diaries, gaining a further push whilst others receive no support at all. Cosgrove wanted to to try persuade other exhibitors to get together and support new filmmakers who would otherwise be ignored

Sarah Perks and Rachel Hayward from the education department at Manchester’s Cornerhouse Cinema outlined the wide range of activities that makes Cornerhouse an important focal point for European Cinema in North West England – whether it is the diverse screening programme, the education events in various modern foreign languages, the high profile Viva! Spanish Film Festival or the variety of Director Q & As, evening classes and other day events.

The final session on the first day featured Janet Harbord from Goldsmiths in London. She presented early findings from her research into ‘Cinema exhibition as nostalgia’. Taking a cultural studies approach, she has begun to investigate how the Picturehouse chain of cinemas, operated by City Screen, offers what she termed ‘positive nostalgia’ to its clientele. The Gate in Notting Hill, one of City Screen’s acquisitions, was compared to one of the company’s ‘new builds’, the Picturehouse in Stratford, East London. Harbord discussed the ethos of City Screen and how this was represented in the choice of architects for new builds and how it had produced designs with nods towards Bauhaus and Le Corbusier whilst also seeing a sensitive updating of acquired cinemas, some with a long history. City Screen has positioned itself somewhere between the commercial multiplex and the kind of independent British cinema that has developed since the establishment of the ‘Regional Film Theatres’ in the 1970s by the British Film Institute. There was some discussion about whether City Screen’s approach could be compared to that of ‘quality art cinemas’ as seen in North America, but not previously seen in the UK. There were certainly many interesting questions here, but since the research did not take on the business interests and structures of City Screen (now controlled by Arts Alliance) there was a potential missed opportunity to link the presentation to others where Arts Alliance also figured. (City Screen ‘virtual’ – its programming service for other cinemas – now has a strong hold over specialised cinema bookings in the UK.)

On the next morning the conference was treated to a bravura performance by one of Europe’s leading film academics, Thomas Elsaesser from Amsterdam. Elsaesser’s paper discussed ‘The place and role of film festivals’ based on a current research project. He identified the central role that film festivals have played in European Cinema since the demise of the film clubs which operated in parts of Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. Crucial to Elsaesser’s approach was his search for other theoretical models outside of film studies and he focused on aspects of systems theory in an attempt to explain how and why festivals have proliferated. He sketched in a background that recognised the political imperative of old spa towns looking for a new role (e.g. San Sebastian) and major cities used as part of deliberate cultural interventions (e.g. Pusan in South Korea and earlier the promotion of Leipzig in the GDR to rival Oberhausen in West Germany).

Elsaesser’s was the longest and most detailed presentation and it offered a great deal for delegates. Just to pick out a few plums, he identified the plethora of modern festivals as offering something ‘thrillingly unpredictable’ – yet actually very standardised. The festival film has become not an evaluative category, but an institutional category. He then traced the impact of this development and its influence on the relationship between European independents and Hollywood and also upon production, distribution and exhibition worldwide and certainly within Europe. He also discussed the role of the festival director, now arguably more powerful than the auteur director as a presence in European Cinema and negotiating a role informed both by Hollywood and the museum curatorial tradition. He argued that post-war festivals have created ‘all auteurs’ (except presumably those created retrospectively by the auteur critics) and posited that festivals have an important function in relation to the public sphere combining ‘mediatisation and politicisation’ of film culture.

Elsaesser’s injection of a theoretical debate crossed with insights into film cultural practice across Europe gave a real boost to the proceedings. It was a hard act to follow, but the next three sessions all offered some useful ideas. Paul McDonald from the University of Portsmouth offered ‘Bringing European film home: DVD in Europe’. It must be difficult to research and prepare presentations on this as the market is changing so quickly. McDonald discussed the decline of DVD rental and the rise of online retail and rental – what termed ‘e-tailing’ – as well as the coming of film downloads as a potentially viable market (the VOD market has been touted for a long time, is ‘Download to rent or own’ going to become meaningful more quickly?). He touched on Arts Alliance and its interest in LOVEFilm (now merged with Amazon’s rental business in the UK and Germany) and also asked whether the ‘long tail’ of the ‘e-tail’ market offered audiences a way out of the bottleneck of theatrical distribution – if the film doesn’t come to you, go and get it on-line.

Julia Knight from the University of Sunderland followed with discussion about independent film in the digital era entitled ‘Digitalisation and Diversity’. Knight herself has a background in independent distribution and she reminded us of the earlier claims of VHS as an alternative distribution mode. She introduced contemporary alternative modes such as the successful viral marketing of Outfoxed (US 2004) and various websites hosting independent short films and archive material. Knight operates a website which gives background on the history of distribution of ‘Independent Film and Video’ in the UK plus ongoing research projects and links etc. She discussed the possibilities opened up by Web 2.0 but also raised the issue of rights for avant garde filmmakers and the websites that don’t seek permissions.

David Sin is the Acting Director of the ICO (Independent Cinema Office) in the UK. He has many years experience in the specialised cinema sector and he began his paper by suggesting that 2008 was a very different scenario compared to 2000, when many European films failed to secure a UK release. The ICO aims to support and promote the exhibition of specialised films in the UK and it offers a film booking service used by 18 independent cinemas, as well as training courses and touring seasons of films. Sin outlined a current scenario with seemingly paradoxical factors. On the one hand, there are many new independent distributors, with theatrical exhibition being seen as a means of raising the profile of a DVD release. On the other hand, specialised cinema screens are closing and what was once ‘arthouse cinema’ is developing a Hollywood mainstream mode (not helped in my view by City Screen’s increasing use of mainstream films in its programming). Sin was only a few weeks into his acting role and therefore reluctant to say too much about how the ICO could counteract these trends, but he suggested that they weren’t necessarily good for European film. He left us with two  questions to ponder. With specialised cinema screens closing in London, are regional cinemas becoming more important in the UK? And, how important is the retention of the DVD window in terms of theatrical distribution?

The last speaker was Ian Christie, film historian and polymath from Birkbeck, London, but on this occasion speaking as Vice-President of Europa Cinemas. There are 42 UK cinemas registered as members of the Europa group and for many of us the ident telling us about the cities across Europe in which Europa operates is as familiar as any studio logo. However, in an impassioned presentation Christie warned us that we in the UK don’t get involved enough in Europa activities – we don’t join in and we don’t get the benefits. As arguably the second most valuable film market after the US, we could do a lot more to promote European film. He stressed that certain myths had been established in the UK, such as the assertion that the 1930s quota system had been a failure – it hadn’t, it had been a success and many of the UK’s failings in Europe were as a result of 1980s ‘de-regulation’ policies. In the UK, we should be involved in all Europa’s four priorities: distribution as a driver of policy, script development, training and support for exhibition. Too often, the UK has missed out for no good reason. Europa aims to promote ‘National’ and ‘Non-national European’ films across Europe (and beyond into the Mediterranean littoral). It is in the latter that the UK lags behind.

There was a little time at the end for general discussion and Thomas Elsaesser announced an interesting new research project in which he envisages re-thinking the ways we categorise/classify films for study by considering the terms used in internet discussions via ‘Tag Clouds’.  (One for us on this website possibly.)

It was an enjoyable and informative couple of days and I certainly got a great deal from it. I’d like to thank all the speakers and organisers and especially Andy Willis, for making me welcome.

More on the University of Salford’s Institute for Social, Cultural and Policy Research here.