A Film a Week - Cottontail

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

Alzheimer’s and its consequences for the family dynamics is a staple diet of international, festival-friendly cinema, as we can see year after year. Usually, the very topic is used to tell a terminally tragic story, but other roads are also possible. How about a journey of reconciliation?

This is the case with Patrick Dickinson’s Cottontail, developed from his earlier short Usagi-san (2013). The film premiered at Rome Film Festival last year, bringing its auteur the award for the best debut (fiction) feature. It was also screened at Belgrade International Film Festival – FEST, just before its release in Japan, which is in its own merit a success for a small indie that is predominantly a British co-production.

However, the story starts in Japan, where recently widowed former writer Kenzaburo (Lily Franky, often seen in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s emotionally charged dramas) has to come to terms with his beloved wife Akiko’s (Tae Kimura) passing as the consequence of Alzheimer’s. In his stubbornness, he tries to distance himself from their son Toshi (Ryo Nishikado) by practising his bad habit of drinking himself stupid, but he is actually more protective towards the grown man he still sees as his little boy, than he is downright cold to him. On the other hand, it is evident that it was Akiko who kept the family together.

The chance of reconciliation between the father, the son and his own family consisting of the wife Satsuki (Rin Takanashi) and their precious little daughter, comes in the form of Akiko’s dying wish recorded in the form of a video-letter. In her “last will” of sorts, she declares that her ashes should be scattered around the lake of Windermere in England, where she spent one summer holiday with her parents in her childhood, reading the books by Beatrix Potter, mostly about Peter the Rabbit and his family (hence the title). It is her possibly the clearest of her childhood memories, and the memory she is most fond of, but it also turns out to be the reason why she met Kenzaburo at first place: when they were both young, she approached him to teach her English, so she could revisit the books and the place of her memory and fantasy.

Guided by only one pretty generic photo, Kenzaburo, Toshi and his family take on the quest of finding the place to say goodbyes to Akiko. But when Kenzaburo’s early dementia combined with his stubbornness sets in, he decides to take a trip on his own in a completely foreign country, so the Sisyphean endeavour becomes even more complicated.

As said before, Cottontail is a British-Japanese co-production by a British filmmaker whose previous work consists mainly of shorts and TV documentaries in his native country. However, Dickinson studied Japanese cinema both in the UK and in Japan, so it should not come as a huge surprise that he nails the tone and the emotion of both the classic and the contemporary Japanese drama movies, from Ozu to Kore-eda. Like with the Japanese masters, everything in Dickinson’s film is subordinated to the humanity (and the humaneness) of his characters.

Script-wise, there is still something to be desired in the terms of the characters’ backgrounds that could be more detailed, making the starting point of the dynamics between them a bit more clear. Also, the connection between Akiko, Potter’s children’s literature and the place seems a bit underdeveloped and, at times, random, demanding a considerable leap of faith from the viewers. But the well-meaning ones ready to submit to Dickinson’s story will not feel it as a pain or even a particular effort.

Luckily, Dickinson trusts his actors, especially Lily Franky, to channel all the right emotion, and Franky showcases the ability to command the emotion with his sheer screen presence. The involvement of Ciaran and Aofie Hinds in smaller roles later in the film also helps a lot. Dickinson’s use of the gentle music score by Stefan Gregory, the locations and the close-ups in Mark Wolf’s Cinemascope cinematography is a proper treat, while the measured editing by Andrew Jadavji keeps the runtime in the low-90s, making sure that Cottontail never outstays its welcome. It is such a sweet and warm piece of cinema.

A Film a Week - Sanremo

 previously published on Cineuropa

Dementia is usually treated in one of two ways in cinema: either we get a “serious” (melo)drama that goes for “pity for the poor old human beings”, or we get a comedy that tries to convert the mishaps and forgetfulness into insensitive jokes and cheap laughs. Both of those approaches are exploitative. Bosnian-born, Slovenian-based filmmaker Miroslav Mandić manages something quite rare with his newest film, Sanremo, which has just premiered in the competition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. He gives the subject of dementia a gentle, humane cinematic treatment.

We meet out protagonist, Bruno (thespian Sandi Pavlin), engrossed in a very peculiar situation. He is trying to borrow a bicycle from a younger woman so he can get home and feed his dog. On the way, he gets lost, while the woman follows him closely, and the two end up on a river bank. The nurses and security guards from the local nursing home arrive later on, taking him back to the place where he actually lives. He has escaped – it is certainly not the first time he has done so, and probably not the last, either.

Back in the home, Bruno meets fellow “inmate” Duša (veteran actress Silva Čušin) or, more likely, he keeps meeting her over and over again. They develop certain sentiments for each other, regardless of the fact that they might not remember the feelings they had developed for each other previously. The only thing that connects them is also the only memory they have in common: Gigliola Cinquetti's song “Non ho l’età”, with which she won at the Sanremo Music Festival in the times of their youth. Could these two lost souls find love in a hopeless place?

Mandić is not really interested in social criticism. The nursing home seems like a pleasant, even idyllic, place, with a nice garden and some woods beyond its back gate, located in a picturesque area with hills, mountains, vineyards and even a whiff of sea air. The staff treat the retirees with care, but also with some firmness in order to keep them safe. Instead, Mandić focuses on Bruno’s internalised suffering, portrayed through heart-breaking details, like the fact that he “learns” about his beloved wife’s and equally beloved dog’s death over and over again from his daughter.

The finely tuned acting by the leading couple and the rest of the cast fills the film with emotion, but Mandić also proves himself to be a master of visual storytelling. The cinematography by regular Werner Herzog collaborator Peter Zeitlinger exposes and showcases the full colour of the beautiful landscape season after season, but there is a certain sense of fogginess in many of the frames, clearly reflecting Bruno’s clouded state of mind. Once he feels focused on something, the “fog” clears, and the colours start shining through. The film also benefits from Andrej Nagode’s measured editing, which complements the deliberately moderate pace and the abstract score by Croatian-French musician Darko Rundek, which is in sync with Bruno’s quiet inner confusion. In summary, Sanremo is a complete, heart-felt viewing experience.