15th Kolkata International Film Festival

The 15th Kolkata International Film Festival ran from 11-18th November  and it was a privilege to be able to attend some of the screenings.

The festival is non-competitive and aims to bring the best in global cinema to the cultural capital of India. The event is funded by the Government of West Bengal and as a consequence its main function is to bring a range of films to cinephiles in Kolkata. It takes place mainly on the site of various auditoria built by the government for the cultural benefit of the city and the delegates are mostly students, filmmakers and actors from West Bengal. Invited guests tend to be international filmmakers flown in to discuss their films.

This year the festival had its budget cut by 30% and also faced serious security issues after an increase in activity by Maoists in North East India. I did wonder if it was all going to happen at all, especially when the festival’s website seemed to be out of action. But at the last moment, the festival sprang into life. I’ll report on some of what happened over the next few days.

Leeds International Film Festival

The 23rd Leeds International Film Festival runs from November 4th till the 22nd. There are more movies than ever and I think this is the strongest programme for several years. What promises to be particularly interesting is the selection 20 Years of German Reunification. There are a number of promising titles in this slot, plus a couple of episodes from the seminal series Heimat. The latter also has a public symposium devoted to both series, I and II.  There are other events with presentations and discussions and Leeds University contributes with a Film Music Conference.

As in previous years there are a wide range of films including new commercial releases like Jane Campion’s portrait of the romance between the poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, Bright Star. And at the other end of the spectrum there are documentaries, experimental films, and animation together with the regular horror slot. One topical film is the Palestinian Pomegranates and Myrrh (Al More wa al Rumman, 2008), dealing with land confiscation. There is also an Israeli film, Seven Minutes in heaven (Sheva dakot be gan eden, 2008), which includes a bus bomb in its plot. I did wonder if this was felt to be some sort of balance?

There are a wide range of formats, and the printed guide helpfully lists these. Unfortunately several films that were once available on celluloid are now presented on digital video. This includes the Eastern European Underground slot, featuring rare classics like the Czech film Daisies (Sedmikrásky, 1966). This is presumably down to the distributors: substituting video copies for film, is an increasing problem across the UK exhibiting sector.

The official guide is rather fulsome in its praise for nearly every film on show. This can make it difficult to decide between competing films. I am inclined to privilege the cinematic forums, with the Hyde Park, a treasured relic from 1914, heading my list. This Cinema is host to one of the real treasures in the programme: a screening of two films by the 1920s French avant-garde director, Germaine Dulac. The Seashell and the Clergyman (La Coquille et le clergyman, 1928) was strongly influenced by surrealism. The British Board of Film censors banned the film in the UK with the memorable comment; “It is so cryptic as to have no apparent meaning. If there is a meaning, it is doubtless objectionable.”  The other film is her earlier The Smiling Madame Beudet (La souriante Madame Beudet, 1923), which fits into the earlier ‘Impressionist’ film cycle and presents the ‘inner life’ of a young woman facing an oppressive marriage. Since these are ‘silent’ films there will also be live music for this performance.

The free guide should by now be available in most local libraries and there is a festival Website, www.leedsfilm.com.

There are also videos on You Tube www.youtube.com/user/LeedsFilmFestival and more on twitter, facebook and flickr. So it should be fairly easy to check screening information. We will be bringing you reports on some of the films from the Festival.

Redes / The Wave

The fishermen in Redes

Mexico 1936.

This 61 minute docu-drama has been restored by The World Cinema Foundation and was screened at the 2009 Il Cinema Ritrovato.

Directors: Fred Zinnemann, Emilio Gómez Muriel. Scenario: Augustin Velázquez Chávez, Paul Strand, Emilio Gómez Muriel, Fred Zinnemann, Henwar Rodakiewicz. Photography Paul Strand. Editing Emilio Gómez Muriel, Gunther von Fritsch. Sound Roberto, Joselito Rodriguez. Music Silvestre Revueltas.

Cast: Miro – Silvio Hernández. Entrepreneur – David Valle Gonzalez. Politician – Rafael Hinojosa. El Zurdo – Antonio Lara. With a supporting cast local fisherman.

The film was made by Mexican and US filmmakers for the Secretaría de Educación Pública of the Mexican Government. The story is set amongst a small fishing community and shot on location in Mexico at a river mouth in the Gulf of Mexico. The film is in black and white, with Spanish dialogue and English sub-titles. The film was among the early credits of Paul Strand and Fred Zinnemann.

Strand was a photographer who had worked in the National Film and Photo League. He had also worked on two silent experimental films. He was to become the central figure in a group of progressive filmmakers in the USA committed to politically informed documentaries. His later work included the photography for The Plow That Broke the Plain [1936] and the radical Native Land [1942].

Zinnemann had migrated to the USA from Germany where he had worked as an assistant cameraman, and was part of the team that produced Menschen en Sontag [1929]. Redes was his first directing credit and he later achieved success in this role in Hollywood. The two Mexicans who were important in setting up the project were Carlos Chavez, who was a noted composer, and Narciso Bassols, the Secretary of Educación Pública.

The simple story follows a fisherman, Miro, who is exploited by a local entrepreneur. The latter controls the fishing boats and access to markets. Miro becomes more radical when his son dies because he cannot afford medical care. He leads the fisherman in a revolt. But he becomes a martyr when his death is organised by a politician in the pay of the entrepreneur. The end of the film suggests the fisherman will fight on.

Visually the film is in a style that will become familiar in Mexican cinema: using the landscape to create a sense of belonging. The figures are frequently posed against water, clouds, their thatched huts and the implement of fishing. The use of camera angles suggests the influence of Sergei Eisenstein, who had worked in Mexico on the unfinished Que Viva Mexico between 1931 and 1932. This is also true of the editing which cuts between characters and actions to create meanings after the style of Soviet montage.

The film’s social consciousness is presented in a narrative that follows many conventions of the Hollywood model. We have an individual hero, and a linear plot, with clearly delineated morals. From that point-of-view the film seems to look forward to another set of filmmakers, Herbert Biberman and Paul Jarrico. Their Salt of the Earth, [1953] was set in New Mexico and dramatised a strike by Mexican migrants working in the mines. The pair of films would make an excellent double bill.

The World Cinema Foundation is dedicated the ‘preservation and restoration of neglected films from around the world’. The moving spirit in the Foundation is Martin Scorsese. Other noted filmmakers on the Board include Souleymane Cissé, Abbas Kiarostami and Wong Kar-Wai. www.worldcinemafoundation.net

The restored films are premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and they are also screened at Il Cinema Ritrovato. The latter is an archive festival held annually in the city of Bologna. The festival covers world cinema from the early silents up until recent productions. http://www.cinetecadibologna.it/cinemaritrovato.htm

Stills kindly provided by Il Cinema Ritrovato.

Three Times / Zuihaode shiguang

A Time for Love

France/Taiwan 2005

Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien

With Shu Qi, Chang Chen, Di Mei Certificate 12A 135 minutes.

In colour, aspect ratio 1.66:1. With English subtitles.

Screenplay: Chu Tien-wen, A Time to Love inspired by Tai Ai-jon, Ms Gin Oy. Director of Photography: Mark Lee Ping-bing. Supervising editor: Liao Ch’ing-song. Production designer: Hwarng wern-ying. Music: Lin Ciong, LiKuo-yuan, K-B-N.

The film features three stories, all starring Shu Qi and Chang Chen, and including Di Mei in supporting roles.

The first, A Time for Love, is set in 1966. Shu Qi plays May, a snooker-hall girl. Di Mei is her mother. And Chang Chen is Chen, a military conscript on leave.

The second, A Time for Freedom, is set in 1911. Taiwan, [then Formosa] was under Japanese control. In Mainland China, after a revolution, Sun Zhong Shan proclaimed the Republic of China. Shu Qi plays a courtesan, Di Mei is the ‘madame’ of the house, whilst Chang Chen [Mr Chang] is a republican.

The third, A Time for Youth, is a contemporary story set in the world of techno-rock and clubs. Shu Qi is singer Jing, who suffers from epilepsy and partial blindness. Di Mei plays her aunt and Chang Chen [Chen] is a motor-biking photographer. Jing also has a girlfriend, Blue (Chen Shih-shan).

Though Hou Hsiao-hsien’s film focuses on love stories, it also alludes to the political history of Taiwan. This is most overt in the second story, set in the tumultuous year of 1911. But there are also references in the other stories. Hsiao-hsien’s earlier films have also addressed Taiwan’s chequered history.  A City of Sadness (Beiqing Chengshi, 1989] dealt with events in the late 1940s, when following the Civil War the mainland Guomindang government evacuated to the island. The Time to Live and the Time to Die (Tongnian Wangshi, 1985) was set in the 1950s and followed the life of a mainland family who had emigrated to the island.

At various stages in it history the Island, formally known as Formosa, was occupied by the Portuguese, Dutch and then Chinese. China ceded it to Japan after the war of 1895. This meant the island people were excluded from the great democratic revolution in Mainland China of 1911. The Island remained under Japanese control during the 1920s and 1930s, when the Japanese invaded both China and Korea. And it remained occupied during the Pacific war from 1941 to 1945. It was recovered for Mainland China in 1945 by the Nationalist Guomindang Government. Conflict ensured and there was an island rebellion in 1947, which was brutally suppressed. When the Guomindang lost in the Civil War to the revolutionary Chinese Communist movement, it retreated to Taiwan. With US support they retained the title Republic of China, and benefited from US aid. Despite US propaganda about ‘democracy’ it was an authoritarian regime with little direct democracy. The détente between China and the USA in the 1970s undermined Taiwan. It lost its UN seat and later the US annulled the mutual security pact. The island’s political system gradually opened up though it was only in 1990 that mainland Guomindang members ceased to dominate the parliament. In 2001 the ban on trade and communication with Mainland China was partially lifted.

STYLE.

It is worth observing the mise en scène in the film: and Mark Lee Ping-bing’s lighting and photography are finely crafted. The selection and organisation of camera shots also show that Hsiao-hsien uses distinctive techniques. He particularly favours the long shot and the long take. The editing of the overall film [as opposed to shot-to-shot] is also distinctive. The arrangement of the stories is not chronological, and a parallel breach of chronology also occurs within the stories. Indeed each story has its own distinctive set of techniques and style.

The sound design produces an evocative track, and music plays a key part in this. Each story has a particular and appropriate song. And the music has both diegetic [part of the story] and non-diegetic [accompanying the story] functions.

The following contains plot information and comments on techniques. I should say that when I first saw the film, at the 2006 Göteborg Film Festival, I found an important part of the pleasure was the way the film surprises viewers.

A Time for Love

The setting in various snooker halls crosses over with Edward Yang’s film A Brighter Summer Day (1991). However, those in this film are not especially seedy and are the locale for a romantic story. The film opens with a shot of May watching Chen play billiards, [the following scenes the game is snooker; the director in an interview refers to pool halls, but we never see that game]. Only later we realise that this shot is out of sequence. Chen only meets May during the course of the film. The mood of the story is partially set by two classic popular songs – Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Rain and Tears. The latter song actually has a diegetic function as Chen mentions listening to it in a letter to May. But, like the classic Platter’s track, it also provides a commentary on the developing relationship.

A Time for Freedom

A Time for Freedom is set in 1911 and presented in the silent film format of that period. The use of a dubbed soundtrack was due to technical limitations, but the style that the director has produced is the result of inspired choice. As with the original silent films, dialogue is imparted by title cards and there is accompanying music. In fact, in two scenes which more or less bookend the story, the accompanying music is a traditional song, which the courtesan is actually performing. But this is entirely appropriate, as alongside early experiments in sound there were also silent presentations where live music was synchronised to the cinematic image. The mise en scéne and the music become especially poignant as the courtesan’s situation mirrors that of Taiwan, left alone and outside the great democratic revolution that swept Mainland China.

A Time for Youth is the most ambiguous of the three stories and the trickiest to follow.

Jing is a singer with two relationships, one with Chen and one with Blue. A key scene shows Jing returning to her flat, where she left Blue earlier.  Blue has awakened and found Jing gone. She types a message on the computer:

I’m fed up hearing your lies, fed up waiting for you.

I love you more than you love me.

You’ll regret this. I’ll kill myself like your ex-girlfriend.

Jing returns. She lights a cigarette and looks round the flat. She read the message left by Blue. There is an off-screen sound and Jing goes and looks on the balcony.  She sits on the bed smoking. Her emotions are difficult to decipher. The viewer is given no further information. I wondered about this scene, and only when I saw the film again was I convinced that the sound we hear is Blue jumping from the balcony. Thus the sequence seems to use a comparatively rare technique, a plot point made by a sound cue.

A Time for Youth

I have now seen the film three times, appropriately. I still find it an exceptionally fine film, and well up to Hou Hsiao-hsien’s high standards. It also crosses over with the work of Edward Yang; several of the cast have also featured in his films. Yang’s films also make interesting use of sound tracks. This seems to be a particular skill among Taiwanese filmmakers.

The film is still available in 35mm in the UK. And has been released on DVD by Ocean-films.

A Brighter Summer Day (Gu ling jie shao nian sha ren shi jian Taiwan, 1991)

Gu ling jie shao nian sha ren shi jian, Taiwan, 1991. Director Edward Yang, who died in June 2007. In Mandarin and Taiwanese with English subtitles. Colour.

Sly, Si'r and Cat in class

The film has been restored to its original 237 minute length. This version was seen only briefly in the UK. The version seen in the BBC top ‘100’ was the shortened version, which only runs for 3 hours. The shortened version appears to have had mainly subsidiary scenes that refer to supporting characters edited out. The main story is still clear in this version, but the complete film fills out the world of school and gang cultures.

This is clearly an epic film to watch, but one that amply repays the time spent. Yang shares some characteristics with his fellow Taiwanese filmmaker, Hou Hsiao-Hsien. The latter’s Three Times (Zul Hao de Shiguang, 2005) covers a slightly later period in its first story, A Time for Love. The long shot and the long take dominate the film. Yang frequently uses slow pans that allow a viewer’s gaze to survey the settings in which events occur. And the narrative follows an elliptical course, becoming quite complex as it cuts between a number of major characters. It opens, a title informs us, in September 1960.

The following contains plot spoilers.

The central characters in the film are Xiao Si’r (Zhang Zhen) and his family, which includes and an elder brother and three sisters. His father is a civil servant who migrated to the island when the Guomindang fled the mainland after losing the Civil War with the Chinese Communist Party.

One recurring family incident concerns a valuable watch belonging to the mother which the sons ‘borrow’ in order to pawn and raise money. A key early scene concerning the watch is missing in the short version.

Si’r attends a ‘night school’, in Taipei. Taiwan appears to have had an unusual arrangement of schools in this period, with less privileged pupils attending some daytime and some evening classes. Much of the action occurs in the school and we see a variety of classes and actions there. Examinations and tests are frequent.

The other important, though unofficial, institution is the youth gang. The films focuses on the rivalry between the Little Park Gang [which includes Si’r and his friends] and the 217 Gang, which is from a working class district. The youth gang culture actually afflicted the island in this period. And the violent climax that resolves the film was also based on an actual incident that the director remembered from his youth. An opening title suggests that the gangs are a manifestation of young people’s insecurity, resulting from their parent’s own insecurities after fleeing the mainland for the Island.

The film’s primary focus is male. Si’r close friends are Cat [Wang Qizan] and Airplane [Ke Yulun]. And there is an uneasy relationship with Sly [Chen Hongyu], the substitute leader of Little Park Gang. The original leader, Honey [Lin Hongming], had to go into hiding following a fatal incident. At school Si’r acquires another friend Ma [Tan Zhigang], who comes from a more affluent military family. He has been moved to the school after an earlier and violent incident at another institution.

Another key character is Ming [Lisa Yang], a girl pupil at Si’r school with whom he gradually develops a relationship. She was originally the girl friend of Honey, and appears to have other relationships as well. But the films masculine focus includes a critical perspective. Ming tells Si’r that, like all her boyfriends, ’you want to change me’ for selfish reasons. All these characters are affected by the ups and downs in gang conflicts.

The screenplay that Yang wrote with three colleagues, both evokes and comments on the troubled times that followed the Guomindang’s arrival in Taiwan. The defeated nationalist party instituted an authoritarian state, though one that went unremarked by its US allies even as they denounced ‘totalitarian’ Mainland China. In the film Si’r father [Zhang Guozhu] is the victim of a secret police interrogations whose purpose is never clearly explained. Like Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Yang’s films explore the impact of the Taiwan’s chequered history on its inhabitants. Both are now able to explore the repressions and conflicts that for years were not publicly recognised.

The complexities of plot and character mean that an audience has to work to follow events and developments. One of the pleasures of a second viewing was I was able to explore the film more fully. Also, seeing the full-length version for the first time I noted scenes that previously been missing, and which filled out some of the characters and their situations. Yang has a real mastery of mise en scène, and the long takes enable one to note the settings and the many visual motifs that help construct the film.

One of these is light. The film opens with a shot of a solitary light bulb. Early in the film Si’r acquires a torch, which he then carries for most of the rest of the film. He pinches the torch from a film studio that he visits one evening. Just before the film’s climax he returns and inadvertently leaves the torch. And the lighting and blocking in the film constantly reinforce this theme. Torchlight, candlelight, power cuts and blackouts are spread across the film. Much of the film is shot in twilight or at night. Some scenes, with large blocks and shadows, reveal only little of the action. Sight and watching is another motif: characters frequently stand and observe other characters. Si’r himself has an eye ailment for which he receives injections at school.

One of the arresting images in Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Three Times was the snooker hall in the sequence A Time for Love. Similarly in Yang’s film a snooker bar is an important setting. But this is a seedier and darker site than in the later film. The most violent confrontation between the two gangs takes place here.

The film also has a fine soundtrack. One frequently finds oneself listening to accompanying sounds like bands, firing ranges, bicycles, doors and so on. The film uses music to comment on the narrative. The film’s title is taken from Elvis Presley’s song, Are You Lonesome Tonight, which is sung up by one of Si’r friends, Cat, after Si’r elder sister [Wang Juan] has transcribed the lyrics. The song re-appears in the final sequence of the film, and is clearly ironic.

A Brighter Summer Day is an extremely fine film that is certainly worth a viewing. I can think of considerably shorter films that seem to take a lot longer on screen. Its complexities are beyond a relatively short review. For example the film studio that appears briefly in the film offers an interesting commentary on film itself. In his last visit a disillusioned Si’r shouts at the director  [Danny Dunn] that he cannot tell ‘real from fake’.

The World Cinema Foundation is dedicated to the ‘preservation and restoration of neglected films from around the world’. The moving spirit in the Foundation is Martin Scorsese. Other noted filmmakers on the Board include Souleymane Cissé, Abbas Kiarostami and Wong Kar-Wai. The restored films are premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. www.worldcinemafoundation.net

They are also screened at Il Cinema Ritrovato. The latter is an archive festival held annually in the city of Bologna. The festival covers world cinema from the early silents up until recent productions. http://www.cinetecadibologna.it/cinemaritrovato.htm

Still courtesy of Il Cinema Ritrovato.

Al Momia (The Night of Counting the Years, Egypt 1969)

The Night of Counting the Years [UK release title].

Egypt, 1969. Colour.  Arabic with English subtitles.

Director: Shadi Abdel Salam.

This is a classic Egyptian film that has been restored by the World Cinema Foundation at the Cineteca di Bologna and screened at Il Cinema Ritrovato. It was the only feature film to be made by the writer and director Shadi Abdel Salam, though he did make a few short documentaries. The film credits bear the title ‘sponsor Roberto Rossellini’. Apparently Salam visited Rossellini and asked him to direct the film, but Rossellini persuaded Salam to direct it himself.

The film dramatises events that occurred in 1881, when it was discovered that precious archaeological treasures from one of the tomb of an ancient Pharaoh were being sold to foreign collectors. This was the Deir el-Bahri cache, a tomb shaft that contained over 50 mummies, unusually, from five separate dynasties. These had originally been moved and secreted by priests to prevent looting as the Egyptian Empire collapsed. The cache was sited in cliffs away from the famous Valley of the Kings on the West Bank of the Nile. It is worth noting that 1881 was the year that a nationalist rebellion broke out against the colonial domination of Egypt. In 1882 the British fleet first bombarded Alexandria and then occupied the country.

The following contains plot spoilers

Salam turned the events surrounding the hidden cache into an evocative and haunting tale. In the film a local tribe, the Horabat, are secretly raiding a lost tomb near Thebes. The Egyptian Archaeological Society sets out to disrupt this illegal trading and find the actual location. However, the bulk of the film focuses on the activities of the Horabat tribe and dissension amongst its members.

The film is slowly paced and has a poetic feel. Martin Scorsese writes: “Al Momia has an extremely unusual tone – stately, poetic, with a powerful grasp of time and the sadness it carries. The carefully measured pace, the almost ceremonial movement of the camera, the desolate settings, the classical Arabic spoken on the soundtrack, the unsettling score by the great Italian composer Mario Nascimbene – they all work in perfect harmony and contribute to the feeling of fateful inevitability.” [Il Cinema Ritrovato catalogue 2009).

The scenes are presented one by one, without transition shots. Frequently an event seems disconnected from its predecessor. The film often uses tracking shots, mainly forward or reverse, which are grimly slow. The colours are muted and many scenes are fairly dark. Daylight is opaque and night-time or interiors have great blocks of darkness. The use of classical Arabic is unusual, even in Egyptian films.  There is an almost dreamlike quality, appropriate to the themes of death, memory and the past.

The English language title of the film is set out in the first scene at a meeting at the Cairo Museum. Professor Raspére presents a quotation to his colleagues from the 3,000 year oldBook of the Dead. He offers an incantation that:

“. . . restores to the dead the power to remember his name. A spirit without name is doomed to wander in perpetual anguish.”

This sets up the major themes of the film, names and identity, memory and the past. It is worth noting that a number of key characters in the film are not identified by name. These include the leader of the Society’s expedition: one of the brothers in the tribe, his mother and the elders: and the officer of the Egyptian militia.

Professor Raspére also shows his colleagues a parchment that has been illegally trafficked to the West and which relates to an unknown tomb of a Pharaoh. This leads to the Archaeological Society visiting the valley near Thebes, out of season, hoping to catch the grave robbers unprepared. The only support for these effendi [as the locals call them], after a steam journey up the Nile, is a group of the Guards of the Mount of the Dead.

The viewer’s first encounter with the Horabat tribe is the funeral procession for the dead leader, Selim. The procession ends at a circle of white funeral obelisks. Here, Selim’s two sons are taken apart by tribal Elders and informed that they must take responsibility for a secret held by their father. This is the secret cache, which is regularly raided for valuables that are sold to a middleman, Ayoub. The sales appear to be the main source of income for the tribe.

The stealthy journey to the cache leads us through a chain of mazes and labyrinths. Such labyrinths recur throughout the film, in rock defiles, caves, and ruined palaces. At the end of these is the treasure. However, there is also a monster - desecration of the dead motivated by greed –  which leads to the death of the elder brother.

He tells the elders that they should ‘leave the dead in peace’, and refuses to continue the robberies. The younger brother, Wannis, is confused and uncertain. But their mother sides with the elders, and tells the older brother, ‘I no longer have a name to give you.’ This brother attempts to leave Thebes, but is killed on a boat, which bears a mysterious sign, ‘two hands in the shape of a butterfly’. This probably has some meaning in Egyptian culture, but certainly for foreign audiences it feeds into the overall ambiguity that envelops the film.

For much of the film the younger brother Wannis is torn between loyalty to his tribe and his revulsion at the grave robbing. He is subjected to a series of temptations, by the elders, and by Mourad, an accessory of Ayoub, who wants to take up dealing himself.

Finally Wannis visits the Society’s steamer and discloses the site of the cache. Guarded by the guards the 40 odd mummies are transported to the steamer, which then sets off to Cairo and the museum.  The ending resolves the problem of the film in one sense; the cultural treasures are passed into safekeeping. And it resolves one problem regarding names and identity.

“Rise you will not die out. You will be called by your name. You are given new life.”

However, the film’s ending has a desolate tone. Still bruised from an attack Wannis wanders away along the banks of the Nile. And the gulf between the tribe and their desolate area and the elite in their metropolitan city appears as wide as ever.

The World Cinema Foundation is dedicated the ‘preservation and restoration of neglected films from around the world’. The Chairperson of the Foundation is Martin Scorsese. Other noted filmmakers on the Board include Souleymane Cissé, Abbas Kiarostami and Wong Kar-Wai.The restored films are premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. www.worldcinemafoundation.net

These restored films are also screened at Il Cinema Ritrovato. This is an archive festival held annually in the city of Bologna: 2009 was the 23rd. The festival covers world cinema from the early silents up until recent productions. http://www.cinetecadibologna.it/cinemaritrovato.htm

Stills kindly provided by Il Cinema Ritrovato

Edinburgh Film Festival 2009: Antichrist

Charlotte Gainsbourg in Antichrist, photo by Christian Geisnaes

Antichrist has many of the qualities of previous Lars von Trier films and I have to use the ‘m’ word (‘misogyny’) immediately.  It came up quickly in the Q & A at Edinburgh with its cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle – and continued to come up during the subsequent discussion, and it was clear that many in the audience rightly had issues with its politics. I can only offer my view below, as someone who has frequently ‘had problems’ with Von Trier’s representations of women – and I‘ve found that (two days on) I’ve not quite had the response I would have expected. I hope that my few thoughts might stimulate some discussion because I think it’s an interesting and brave film. The furore at its release is interesting  as well, as it conforms to type. Without a comprehensive knowledge of the history of censorship, Antichrist falls into that category of film that creates a huge outcry, mainly from parts of the media that represent audiences who would never choose to go to see it and make it represent an evil that it simply does not equate to (Crash springs to mind as a worthy antecedent at the centre of a similar furore).

Antichrist is a powerful cinematic experience. The use of the image is tested to certain limits within a popular cinema context. Put this film in an art gallery, and you wouldn’t have the same kind of responses or issues. The fact that Von Trier chooses to work in a popular medium, deliberately with a view to changing the constitution and perception of that medium, means that his films can exist in a context that struggles to accommodate it. The particular challenge of his films is interesting when we are routinely able to ‘handle’ the unquestioned misogyny of mainstream cinema and extremes of representations of sex and violence that exist there. And it’s not that Von Trier’s film contains representations that are more realistic – as in the effects or results of violence or sexual obsession – the film is shot with his trademark attention to an ‘alienation effect’ to ensure that you are constantly aware that you are contemplating a work of art. And I mean ‘contemplating’ – Dod Mantle talked about the deliberate decision to slow the frame rate in order to allow the viewer to study the images being shown as you would contemplate a work of art in a gallery. Using high speed camera equipment (Phantom) some sequences were shot at 1,000 frames per second (compared to the usual 25).  It is similarly relevant that Von Trier does overtly credit the influence of Tarkovsky on this film. The particular quality of an artwork is, I think, enhanced as it is completely shot on digital. Other filmic devices Dod Mantle discussed were the deliberate decision to abandon the 180 degree rule in the sequences at the family home (post tragedy), which creates a dynamic contrast against the more static sequences. This was very clear as you watched it – the disintegration and the disassociation taking place within the marriage. This does work incredibly effectively as well as the single framing that results for each of the protagonists, emphasising their painful, painful isolation in this grieving couple. In lesser hands, it could just appear chaotic and disorientating. In the context of this, the female genital mutilation is not (as has been portrayed in some responses) the central narrative focus, but occurs at a specific narrative moment and expresses a particular emotion of Gainsbourg’s character. Is it gratuitous? I read an article in last week’s Observer Film supplement that felt it was, and decried the film’s casual use of it, quoting Ousmane Sembène Moolaadé as a far more sensitive treatment of this issue. This seems to imply that the film lacked humanity in its representation of its subjects. But this seems a different kind of human expression – of intense misery, grief – of darkness and despair – recreated through visual symbolism in a highly-aestheticised piece of art. Inevitably, it will always be testing and challenging our ability to feel connection – empathy, sympathy – because of this self-consciousness but I do not think it necessarily ‘achieved’ alienation. Somehow, through the extreme events and high art aesthetic, those people and their emotions were real. The intensity of the chamber-piece style and the particular actors involved is, as in other Von Trier films, a vital factor in that communicating the emotions convincingly. Despite what he must put them through, you would guess Von Trier is an actors’ director – the aesthetics serve the performance and foreground it rather than detract.

So, back to the misogyny. The narrative does superficially present a story that warns of the atavistic and illogical and dangerous influence and acts of women. A bald telling of the plot details would make this clear (which obviously I won’t do). However, this film (more than others I have watched by Von Trier) does create a powerful balance between its apparent mistrust of women and the ineffectual nature of patriarchal behaviour. Dafoe’s character is clearly the logic and control of male patriarchal authority which the film consistently questions, even whilst representing female extremes. It is clear that these extremes are produced in the context of this kind of patriarchal control and the lighting and colour choices emphasise the theme. The institutional look of the apartment they inhabit (the bathroom especially with the utilitarian basin and toilet and bland hospital-style tiles) together with the greenish colour bias seem to emphasise this unbalanced pathology within the marriage. The role of nature (conceived as its own separate character) is also a central theme – through the evil that men do, a battle between instincts and logic and a questioning of our relationship to the ‘beasts of the field’ – all represented visually in a highly aestheticised and anti-naturalistic form.

The final, fine balance is achieved through the dominance of the role ascribed to Charlotte Gainsbourg (who won the acting award at Cannes) compared to Dafoe – her dominance of the screentime and her devastating performance is a strong argument for credible female empowerment in this dark and challenging story.

‘Can Do’ Cannes 2009?

Ken Loach and Eric Cantona working on 'Looking for Eric'

International art cinema is in crisis according to several sources. With less money to risk on distribution deals, US distributors will make conservative choices and the number of international pick-ups will fall. The major studios have already started looking at their commitments and last year Warner Brothers closed their specialty divisions.

I’m not sure whether in the long run this is what will happen, but it’s interesting that Cannes this year is fielding the biggest line-up of A List arthouse auteurs for some time. I’m more excited about what might be coming our way than I have been for several years. In particular I’m looking out for the following films in the official competition:

Looking for Eric – Ken Loach

Fish Tank – Andrea Arnold

Map of the Sounds of Tokyo – Isabel Poixet

Une prophète – Jacques Audiard 

Thirst – Park Chan-Wook

I’m not going to suggest that one of these five will win or that the films of the other major directors such as Jane Campion, Pedro Almodóvar, Ang Lee etc. won’t be just as enjoyable. I can say that I’m not going to rush to see the work of Michael Haneke, Lars von Trier or Quentin Tarantino, although I’m sure that this trio will command most of the press attention. It’s just a matter of taste, so I’ll be interested to see what a stir they make, even if I don’t particularly want to watch them.

My choice of five is easy to explain. I’ll always support Ken and his latest film, again written by Paul Laverty and this time with football ‘action philosopher’ legend, Eric Cantona, despite its Man U connections sounds just like vintage Loach. Red Road, Andrea Arnold’s first feature was a real event in UK Cinema and I’ve been looking out for the follow-up. I can’t find out much about the film except that it doesn’t seem to be the adaptation of a novel that I was expecting. It does, however, sound like a film about working class women in South London and the disruption caused by the arrival of Europe’s young actor of the moment, Michael Fassbender. Isabel Poixet’s Tokyo-set thriller sounds intriguing since she quotes various Japanese novelists as inspirations in the press pack and I’m a sucker for aspects of Japanese literary fiction.

Jacques Audiard

If I’m honest, the film that really has me salivating is the Jacques Audiard polar, Une prophète. Based on an idea by Abdel Raouf Dafri, it is about a young Arab who joins a Corsican criminal gang in prison and then starts his own rival organisation. Audiard’s previous four films were all excellent and it is ironic that in the year when we are celebrating 50 years since the New Wave, Audiard is one of the leading French auteurs. His father was one of the great screen writers of la tradition de qualité in France in the 1950s – the the tradition so despised by Truffaut et al. It’s also interesting that the French crime film seems to be back again.

Finally, Thirst re-unites Park Chan-wook and Song Kang-ho, two of the central figures in Korean Cinema, in a film which brings together that genre combination de jour, the vampire romance, with a plot line that involves a virus in the blood and a trip to Africa. The film is a Korean/US co-production and this should ensure that it gets a proper release in Europe and North America. It’s already a big hit in South Korea.

I just hope that these films fulfil their promise and get a decent release worldwide. I’m interested in both popular and arthouse films from around the world and if Cannes 2009 can raise the profile of great filmmakers with significant films it will indeed be a ‘can do’ festival.