A Film a Week - One Day in Ukraine / Den' Dobrovol'ca

 previously published on Cineuropa

A darkened Metro station. Suspenseful music in the background, and a textual info card that says so much with just a few words and numbers: 13 March 2022, or the 2,943th day of the Russian-Ukrainian War. This is not some kind of speculative fiction along the lines of Valentyn Vasyanovych’s Atlantis, but merely a matter of perspective. While for the global public, the war started this February when the Russian troops invaded Ukraine, for the Ukrainians, it is a phase in the conflict that is in its ninth year now, having started when the Maidan Uprising took place. The camera moves to the better-lit, deeper layers of the station, which provides shelter for the women, children and elderly people, and continues observing life there in an unbroken, five-minute, dialogue-free, hand-held shot.

The day referred to in the title of Volodymyr Tykhyy’s One Day in Ukraine is actually the following one, 14 March, or the 2,944th day of the war. The movie directed by the filmmaker behind Maidan: Rough Cut (2014) and the founding member of the Babylon ‘13 collective, which serves as its principal production company, had its world premiere at the recently concluded Sheffield DocFest, where it bagged a Special Mention in the main competition. The topic itself and Tykhyy’s fitting direct approach to it should be enough to secure the film a future on the documentary festival circuit.

The Metro station and the people taking shelter there are just some of the things that Tykhyy and his co-cinematographers (all 12 of them) focus on. The second narrative thread follows a group of drafted soldiers and members of the territorial defence guard in their duties, from fighting to drone reconnaissance and policing the disaster-stricken areas in order to prevent looting. The third one revolves around a young woman who copes with the situation through activism, from cooking meals for the defenders to feeding stray dogs and taking part in efforts to save the pets that owners have had to leave behind.

One of Tykhyy’s points is that almost everybody does their best to support the defence effort in their own way and by their own means, but this kind of discourse focusing on the ideals of patriotism and solidarity is standard for any defensive war. What is more interesting here is something even more universal: the way our perception changes in times of distress. The things that had been unimaginable just a month ago have become the facts of daily life, while things considered quite normal, or even mundane, like video adverts and a Stop-Zemlia movie poster in the Metro station, seem like relics from the distant past.

Operating with material from different sources, Tykhyy and his co-editor Ivan Bannikov still manage to find a sense to it all and a certain style in welding it together, sometimes to considerable emotional effect. They also incorporate shots of the actual combat and the devastating consequences of it, which are usually obtained by the reconnaissance drones belonging to one group of our protagonists, and in those moments, the harrowing musical score by Mykyta Moiseiev, consisting of a pulsating beat and a synth drone imitating wind instruments, is especially effective in filling in the soundscape.

In the end, we even learn that the day has not been chosen randomly, because it also has a certain symbolic significance: in Ukraine, it is Volunteers Day, which is connected to the Maidan and post-Maidan events. Nor does One Day in Ukraine feel random, like an ordinary chronicle of wartime events, but rather like a valuable testimony of the unbreakable human spirit.

A Film a Week - Old Boys

previously published on Cineuropa

Few things are considered more British (or even English) than the country’s school system with its signature gender-segregated boarding schools. The key attribute of those places is a conservative set of values based on the idea of keeping the existing class system alive, which is demonstrated through the different traditions and rituals that each school adopts of its own accord. The very setting of Toby MacDonald’s feature debut, Old Boys, which recently screened in the competition of the 16^th Zagreb Film Festival, is arguably its strongest point.

Traditions might vary wildly from one school to another: take, for example, the (for the sake of this film, invented) sport called streamers, which is a variation on rugby played in a stream and involving a wall, a tree stump and a square ball. Nevertheless, the basics of the internal hierarchy among the students are always the same. Our unlikely hero is a scholarship student called Amberson (played by Alex Lawther, of The Imitation Game and Departure fame), who is at the bottom of the school’s pecking order, as he is bullied by his fellow students and teachers alike for not being manly enough. He is often a prime target for “alpha male” Winchester (Jonah Hauer-King) and his clique. The school authorities, portrayed by a Shakespeare-quoting principal played by Nicholas Rowe (Young Sherlock Holmes) and an over-enthusiastic sports teacher, Huggins (Joshua McGuire), do nothing to stop it – quite the opposite, in fact.

The Cyrano de Bergerac-style plot starts unfolding when Amberson stumbles upon a French girl named Agnes (Pauline Etienne, glimpsed in supporting roles in The Midwife and 2 Autumns, 3 Winters), the daughter of the new French teacher and failed writer Babinot (character actor Denis Ménochet). Visiting her father at school, she sees and hears Winchester reciting sentences in French (which Amberson is whispering to him), mistakes him for a poetic soul and falls for him. He might be popular and privileged, but he is neither romantic nor particularly smart or creative, so he asks Amberson, as the only brainy and artistic person in his immediate surroundings, for help, failing to assume that the two of them actually share the same crush.

The very idea of the film might not seem particularly original, and not all of the jokes in it land well (especially the ones about bullying and Babinot’s writer’s block), but under the surface, Old Boys examines the toxic masculinity of boarding schools in all its futility: those places will not make men of boys; they will leave grown men permanently locked in a boy’s state of mind. The topics of class and gender differences are not explored in depth, which means that the film falls far short of Lindsay Anderson’s 1968 masterpiece If…, but Old Boys is still lean, clear, easy to follow and entertaining, thanks to MacDonald’s sure-handed, if not spectacular, directing of a somewhat typical script written by Luke Ponte, a frequent collaborator on his shorts, and the more seasoned Freddy Syborn, who has several TV credits to his name.

Setting the whole thing in the colourful times around the fall of the Berlin Wall was a smart move, not just in terms of using the now-popular and omnipresent 1980s references, but also because it underlines how boarding schools are obsolete and are just relics of the not-so-happy past. The palette of predominant browns and greys suits the film well, highlighting the protagonists’ mood via the landscape.

A Film a Week - Guidance Through the Black Hole

originally published on Cineuropa

Life itself can be stranger than fiction and that is the reason why documentaries can be as interesting as fiction features, if they are done properly, that is. Sometimes it is a matter of topic; sometimes it’s all about the protagonist. A polished narrative and visual style don’t hurt either. Guidance Through the Black Hole [+], a film by Aleksandar Nikolić and Zlatko Pranjić world-premiering in Sarajevo Film Festival’s Documentary Competition, has it all: the protagonist, the plot twists and lots of style, heart and soul. Further festival exposure is expected, especially in the former Yugoslavian region.

The issue of “immigrant blues” might seem to be used and re-used in cinema, but in the case of the man nicknamed Sule, a Bosnian immigrant and one of the last true bohemians of London’s Portobello Road, it seems completely fresh. An interesting person, a poet, a painter, a serial procrastinator, a compulsive gambler and an alcoholic who is his own worst enemy. He never quite adjusted to life in London, the sole destroyer of his marriage, homeless for several years and with one single dream: to see his hometown of Banja Luka again. He will get his chance at redemption with an offer to exhibit his work in the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in London. His only task is to finish the four remaining paintings from the titular cycle.

In a genuine, no-nonsense style, Sule narrates his life achievements, slip-ups and his attitude and opinions on the mistakes that he has made: friendship, fatherhood, religion, art and personal development. He is what he is, he honestly wants to make things better and he gets so close. But can he really change? As a highly individual character, Sule makes his story both distinctive and universal. Guidance Through the Black Hole is not just a film about migration, integration, the lack of it and nostalgia. Neither it is just an exploration of creative processes and making art. It is about life as a whole. 

First-timer Zlatko Pranjić and the more experienced Aleksandar Nikolić - known for his work as a cinematographer, editor, writer and director on another well-known documentary The Serbian Lawyer - felt comfortable with their protagonist and knew what to do with the material he provided them. Filmed almost completely in black and white, the film underlines the moodiness of its main character and contrasts it. One sequence in vivid colour near the end shows the sweetness of success on the horizon. The sound design, consisting mainly of background noises cut with sharp beats accenting the tense scenes, is also interesting and so is the soundtrack, which varies from Serbian alternative rockers Goribor to melancholic Bosnian folk music (“sevdah”) standards.

A Film a Week - Land of the Gods / Dev Bhoomi

Note: The review was previously published on Cineuropa

Land of the Gods, the latest film by veteran Serbian filmmaker Goran Paskaljević, is the first of its kind in at least two ways. It is the first Serbian film to be filmed in India, with Indian actors and a Serbian crew, and is also the first Serbian film to be picked up by Amazon for global VoD distribution. The film, which world-premiered in the Toronto International Film Festival’s Masters section, will benefit from some more festival exposure, but very limited theatrical distribution ahead of its VoD premiere at the end of April.

Paskaljević, who penned the script together with the film’s star Victor Banerjee (known from A Passage to India and Bitter Moon), tells a simple, local, yet universal story about a man who comes back to his native village in the Himalayas after spending most of his life abroad, only to find out that some things never change. 

After a beautiful opening shot of a religious ceremony in the holy city of Haridwar, on the banks of the Ganges, we meet Rahul Negi (Banerjee) during a long cab ride to the place he once called home. The cab driver (Raj Zutsi, from Slumdog Millionaire) informs his passenger about the monsoon and landslides that hit the area a couple of years ago, claiming thousands of lives. Rahul, on the other hand, feels tired and has only one goal: to see his village, his family and his one-time love, Maya, for the last time before he completely loses his failing eyesight.

But he is an unwanted visitor, and his return stirs up old, deep resentments. Aside from his only old friend (Avijit Dutt, from Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love), the guru at the local temple, and the new teacher (the beautiful Geetanjali Thapa) who wants to bring some modernity to the village, everybody else sees him as a threat. As the story unfolds at a deliberate, meditative pace, we learn that he had previously challenged traditions, which resulted in him being banished from the village. The model of patriarchal rule and caste system is still alive and kicking, even though the world has changed and the village is becoming depopulated.

Building on the simple set-up with deep emotions, and adding details of the local context to it, Paskaljević has arguably made his best work since Powder Keg (1998). The camera work by his regular DoP, Milan Spasić, is stellar, catching the beautiful vistas of Uttarakhand state as a contrast with the hardships of daily life in the mountains. The sense of realism is underlined by relying only on local, traditional costumes and music. The only thing not local, but still quintessentially Indian, is the great poet and Nobel Prize laureate Rabindranath Tagore, to whom Paskaljević refers twice in the film, as well as concluding it with a title card of one of his quotes.

Paskaljević has worked on fairly unorthodox productions before, filming abroad and always blending into the culture of the country where he filmed and the milieu of his characters, as in Someone Else’s America (1995), or in the Irish-set How Harry Became a Tree (2001), while his Honeymooners (2009) was the first ever Serbian-Albanian co-production. With Land of the Gods, Paskaljević has taken this to another level. Filmed within the tight timeframe of only five weeks in difficult terrain and on a tight budget, Land of the Gods is a great Indian film with universal appeal.

A Film a Week - The Traveller / Le Voyageur

Note: A Film a Week is a weekly column on this blog, run on Sunday for our English-language readers and friends, presenting usually local or European festival films to a wider audience. Every review is directly written and not translated.
Note #2: This review has been developed through the NisiMasa workshop on this year's edition of Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. It has been originally published on Nisimazine and Cineuropa.

A life devoid of travelling can be frustrating, especially for those who are stuck in one place that they don’t particularly like, or which they even despise. But once that dire existence of doing the same things day after day is changed for the better, the sudden surge of new experiences can prove to be too much to handle. This is the theme of Hadi Ghandour's The Traveller [+], which world-premiered in the Tallinn Black Nights First Feature Competition.

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Adnan (Rodrigue Sleiman from Halal Love (and Sex) [+]) is a travel agent who can sweet-talk and impress customers with his broad knowledge of sights from around the world, but he has never left his home country of Lebanon himself. His luck is about to change, however, when his boss sends him on a business trip to Paris. 

But the vibrant metropolis proves to be too much for the first-time traveller. The conference he is attending is confusing and overwhelming, shown in a montage with ever-increasing speed. Things are no better at his temporary Parisian home: he gets in the middle of a generational clash between his cousin Insaf (Aïda Sabra), a traditionally minded divorcee who has never adjusted to life abroad, and her daughter, Layla (a confident Donia Eden), a completely integrated, modern Parisienne. The fact that his boss is pushing him to close a deal and his wife Souad (Romy Melhem) is feeling insecure about him being in Paris doesn’t help, either. The only pleasant and friendly moments are the ones he shares with restaurant owner Jean (Sebastian Bertrand), born in Lebanon but raised in Paris by his adoptive parents, and dreaming of the country he has never seen. But if he ever went there, he would probably be just as lost as Adnan is in Paris. Insaf knows both worlds and tries to make the best of them, but she has never found true happiness in Paris, and Layla is the only one who feels comfortable in her own skin.

Writer-director Ghandour is no stranger to multiple identities: born in Jordan to Lebanese parents, and having grown up in Belgium, this London Film School graduate living in Paris tackles the issues of migration, integration and the clash of cultures. Films that bet all their chips on these broad themes generally tend to lose their characters halfway through, but this is not the case here. Adnan is not only on a journey towards his dreams, nor to Paris; he is on a life journey, during which he will learn new things about himself.

The city of Paris as an additional character was not picked by accident: the symbolism of the place is strong, especially for the Lebanese people, for both historical and cultural reasons. It is portrayed as a big, chaotic, modern metropolis, but without using images of well-known tourist hotspots. In contrast with the early scenes in Lebanon, which are shot with a static camera, the ones set in Paris feature more noticeable camera movements.

Confidently acted and shot in natural colours, this is a solid debut, albeit with its faults, such as the sometimes oversimplified characterisation and its 100-minute running time, which proves to be a tad excessive. But the author certainly has something to say and has articulated it in a satisfying manner.