A Film a Week - Valentina and the MUOSters / Valentina e i MUOStri

 previously published on Cineuropa

In her previous three mid- and feature-length documentaries, all of which were co-directed with other collaborators, Francesca Scalisi tackled a number of topics, such as microcosms disappearing in our ever-changing world (Bath People, 2015), staying in your home even when it’s falling apart (Half Life in Fukushima, 2018) and a young woman torn between tradition and modernity and between an imperative to obey the rules and an urge to break free (Digitalkarma, 2019). Her newest feature-length documentary Valentina and the MUOSters, world-premiered in this year’s Visions du Réel’s National Competition where it won a Special Jury Prize and now screened in DOK Leipzig’s International Competition Documentary Film section, is a synthesis of the various motifs explored in her previous three works. Interestingly, it’s also Scalisi’s first solo work in feature-length format.

Our titular protagonist is a 26-year-old woman living with her parents in her native village of Niscemi in Sicily. She has never moved out of her home, never had a job nor a driver’s licence to travel from her family’s farmhouse to the centre of the village. She still has her hobbies, like crocheting woollen flowers and walking to the woods to her favourite ancient oak tree, and she still dreams of moving away and finding a job as a cook. But she has put them on hold in order to be close to her ageing parents, by whom she’s constantly scolded, either for being too unrealistic in her desires, or too lacking in ambition.

The second part of the film’s title is a play on an acronym. MUOS is a satellite communication system established, operated and guarded by American soldiers, which serves the military purpose of spying on other armies’ movements in the Mediterranean and Central Asian regions, and, more recently, on a spy-drone launching base. The locals, however, see it as a health hazard, mainly because of the strong electromagnetic waves its antennas transmit. The antennas themselves can constantly be heard, since their humming is louder than natural sounds, which leads the few remaining locals to suspect they might just be responsible for all the droughts and forest fires. Their protests, however, bear little fruit, regardless of the political “colours” the protesters wear. Will Valentina ever free herself from this place and from the role of an eternally clumsy child, imposed on her by her parents?

Valentina and the MUOSters echoes the work of two great contemporary masters of Italian documentary filmmaking: Gianfranco Rossi (the portrait of a small community caught up in the turmoil of global events brings Fire at Sea to mind) and Roberto Minervini, especially his opus about people on the margins of society in the American South. But Francesca Scalisi opts for a more intimate approach, centred on her protagonist and her immediate surroundings. In this respect, the cinematography of the director’s regular collaborator Stefania Bona, who adopts a boxy 4:3 aspect ratio, foregrounds Valentina to the fullest, whilst also getting the most out of the usually barren landscape. But the real “MVP” among the film crew is composer and sound designer Olga Kokcharova, whose work in both departments creates the perfect synergy of droning noise, reminding us that Valentina and her family feel constantly threatened by a situation which far exceeds their ability to change it.

A Film a Week - Block 5 / Igrišča ne damo!

 previously published on Cineuropa

Life is not easy for a new kid on the block. At a certain age, moving seems like a total reset: with a new neighbourhood also comes a new school and the obligation to make new friends and fall in with a crowd that has already been there and shares a certain, established dynamic. Having a cause in common (or creating one) might help, but it might also drive a deeper rift between the kids’ and the adults’ worlds. This is something that we see in the new film by versatile Slovenian filmmaker Klemen Dvornik, Block 5, which premiered at Locarno, in the Locarno Kids sidebar, and is now screening at Sarajevo, in its Children's Programme.

Our protagonist, preteen girl Alma (Kaja Zabert), has just moved into a flat in a housing block in Ljubljana with her father, Filip (Marko Mandić, seen recently in Sonja Prosenc’s Family Therapy and Hanna Slak’s Not a Word). Life seems hard for her, since the same gang of skateboarding kids bullies her at school as well as in the neighbourhood. Once she finds out that her father is handling the development project that will turn the block playground, complete with its skating park, into a car park, she reaches out to them, so they all overcome their differences and form a pact to put a stop to it. Alma has a deeper personal reason to take part in this environmental project, since her mother died on such a mission in the Amazon. The adventure, which resembles a war game between the kids and the adults, begins, and along the way, animosities will be turned into friendships and a sense of community will be forged.

Working from a script written by Croatian-born, Ljubljana- and Prague-educated writer-filmmaker Dora Šustić, Dvornik demonstrates his versatility and eye for detail. Although they both occasionally rely on clichés, they manage to capture the life of kids and adults in a complex neighbourhood that is ethnically mixed and has class divisions, much like most of the estates on the outskirts of Ljubljana. Dvornik also shows he has a decent knowledge of contemporary young-adult culture, as he insists on TikTok-style interludes of vertical videos of their skating shenanigans set against a background of contemporary trap-pop music.

The director also knows how to work with young actors and newcomers, when to give them directions and when to step back so they can create their own interplay in an organic way. It results in great chemistry between them, with Kaja Zabert and Kaja Šuštar (who plays Alma’s nemesis-turned-best friend Luna) being standouts, while the rest of the young cast also fare pretty well. The adult cast members, except for Marko Mandić, reliably good in his role, have bit parts, and some of them, such as Ivana Roščić (playing Luna’s mother), Enes Bešlagić (playing a local kebab parlour owner) and Gregor Zorc (playing an unemployed man who wants to stick it to the system and therefore shows the most empathy for the kids’ venture), imbue their characters with life, while Tihomir Stanić (who plays Filip’s boss, Brabec) nails the vibe of the main villain.

Shot observantly by Czech DoP David Hofmann, who captures the details that could easily have been neglected by a cinematographer more familiar with the setting, scored by David Herceg to highlight the emotion in a discreet way, and edited vibrantly by Ivana Fumić, Block 5 is a film that should find fertile ground with elementary-school children, while also keeping their parents’ and teachers’ thoughts occupied for 80 minutes.

A Film a Week - Spoor / Pokot

After several years working on different television series, Agnieszka Holland returned to filmmaking with modern day rural thriller set on Polish-Czech border with ecological and political undertones Spoor which premiered in this year’s Berlinale competition and won Alfred Bauer Prize. This is her first film since Oscar-nominated In Darkness (2011). It is to early to speak about awards ambitions, but, in Polish and Central-Eastern European context of “non-liberal democracy”, Spoor will be talked about in months to follow.

The film is based on Olga Tokarczuk’s novel Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead (2009), adapted for the screen by novelist and the director themselves. The plot is centered around Mrs. Duszejko (Agnieszka Mandat-Grabka in a great turn), a retired civil engineer who moved to a small village in mountain region, took a part-time job teaching English in local elementary school and developed interest in astrology and eco-activism. The latter can be especially tricky in the region with strong hunting traditions, where literally everyone is connected through hunting societies and where the grade school age children are thought hunting anthems.

First her dogs disappear, which can be a natural hazard of life in the wilderness, or more likely provocation of sorts. Shortly after that, dead bodies of hunters start popping up, from a low-life poacher to local magnate, police chief and even mayor and all of them had their disagreements with the “crazy” old lady. Mrs. Duszejko has a theory that, since all the crime scenes are covered in different animal tracks, it is some sort of natural cycle and payback for all the hunting and poaching. Or maybe we have the case of a good ol’ fashioned serial killer here...

Luckily, she is not all alone there. Her neighbour Matoga (Wiktor Zborowski) makes some moves towards her, but more than that, they enjoy the company of one another. Mrs. Duszejko’s kindness towards a troubled young woman called “Good News” (Patrycja Volny) will result in friendship with her and another outsider, an epileptic computer technician Dyzio (Jakub Grieszal) working for the police. And her “party” is rounded with a travelling Czech university professor interested in insects named Boros (Miroslav Krobot).

The sense of community, no matter how marginal and alternative it is can be crucial for mental sanity in the conservative, patriarchal, even primitive and primal environment. It is not just about ecology and making the case against hunting (even though the film’s internal calendar is informing the viewers about the hunting seasons). It is about Polish society in general: the strong influence of the Catholic Church and interwined conservative structures that are posing for absolute majority even if they are not. The anti-eco argument was pulled out for the last parliamentary elections, the old left-leaning government was accused of taking care only after “eco-fanatics, bicycle-riders and vegans in big cities”, and not giving a damn about “regular”, conservative, god-fearing “majority” of Polish people. That kind of narrative worked: Polish society is divided in two sides pitted against one another, with virtually no dialog in between them and little hope that the things will change in near future. Having that in mind, Spoor is a film that perfectly nails the current moment of time, no matter the fact that the source novel was written years ago, when the overall situation was not that bleak.

I would like to say that Spoor is as good piece of cinema as it is an important, uncompromising social statement. Unfortunately, it is not true, it is good, but not that good. The production values are decent, on the course of similarly themed Nordic thrillers. The TV-roots of such films are evident on every step on the way, and Holland’s recent work leaves its mark. She tries and somewhat succeeds to tweak it up with some marvelous shots of nature changing with the seasons and humorous intervention with the hunting calendar. The actors’ performances are also commendable, with the stage and film veteran Agnieszka Mandat-Grabka leading the way with the “juiciest” role of the film’s heroine and others following her cue and taking their moments to shine.

The main problem with Spoor is not the fact that it relies to heavily on context, but its logic and mechanics taken from literature that works so well on paper does not cut the deal for the film. Right from the start, it is obvious that Spoor is a direct screen adaptation just by its rhythm. The feeling is cemented with the ending which is perfect for a crime novel, but is over-explanatory and too verbal for the art and craft of filmmaking. That should not come as a surprise since the writer was involved in adaptation of her own work, and the good thing is that Spoor works for the most of the time, but it still could and should be a better piece of cinema.