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 - Flowers of Ukraine / Kwiaty Ukrainy

 previously published on Cineuropa

Major historical events can also change the lives of marginalised people. One such person is the protagonist of Adelina Borets’ debut feature-length documentary Flowers of Ukraine: an elderly lady called Natalia who has probably spent all of her life on the fringes of society. The event in question is the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which makes the premiere of Borets’ film, the opening movie in DOK Leipzig’s International Documentary Competition, a very timely one.

Borets opens her film with a series of shots of high-rises taken from ground level in a Kiev neighbourhood, followed by a reverse angle shot revealing the main seat of the action: a cluster of humble little houses which are basically shacks on a plot of land. One of these is occupied by Natalia, an elderly lady who’s full of life and who spends most of her time in her yard full of flowers, fruit and vegetables, where goats roam freely and chickens lay eggs. The atmosphere here is joyful and sees her living with a man of Russian origin nicknamed Kitty and often visited by her family members, including her teenage granddaughter Eva and her neighbours. The year is 2021, and the commune’s primary concern is a property development company’s attempts to drive them out in order to build a private kindergarten on their plot. Natalia sees her legal battle to keep her land as equal to the Ukrainian struggle to keep their language and faith during Soviet times.

Then, full-scale war breaks out and everything changes. Kitty tries to run away to Lviv, while Natalia is determined to stay on her land, for better or for worse. She doesn’t lose hope, and even joins the local territorial army on non-combat assignments, such as clearing rubble and providing help for those most in need. Her seemingly carefree attitude becomes an act of resistance towards a situation which is getting harder day by day.

Borets adopts the observational style and point of view of her protagonist, showing sympathy for Natalia and her causes without feeling the need to pass comment from an external position. The horrors of war unfold slowly and naturally, at the pace of Natalia’s own life, but there’s also a lot of poetry to be found in seemingly small and mundane things, such as blooming flowers, casual conversations and the cycle of life that goes on and provides optimism.

In this respect, special mention should definitely be given to cinematographers Bohdan Rozumnyi and Bohdan Borysenko, who always seem to be in the right place to capture what’s going on and to execute an array of impressive panning shots. The editing duo consisting of Agata Cierniak and Mateusz Wojtyński should also be congratulated for their tight work when it comes to highlighting the contrasts between the protagonist’s challenges and optimism, all with a sense of rhythm, at a moderate pace and within a restricted runtime of just 70 minutes. The DakhaBrakha quartet’s music, meanwhile, varying from joyful ethno to tense electronica, provides an emotional landscape to complement its visual one.

Ultimately, Flowers of Ukraine is a film about war and destruction. But more than that, it’s an ode to the honest and adamant human spirit and to life and nature which keeps on going, in spite of all hardship.

A Film a Week - Good Children / Dobra djeca

 previously published on Cineuropa

We mature, we age and our lives change, but does the dynamic between siblings morph as time passes by, or do they stay attached to the patterns of behaviour they developed in their childhood and youth? Those are the questions that up-and-coming Croatian filmmaker Filip Peruzović asks in his feature-length debut, Good Children, which has just premiered in the 1-2 Competition of the 40th Warsaw Film Festival.

Nikola (Filip Šovagović, of No Man’s Land fame) and Saša (Nina Violić, most recently glimpsed in Good Times, Bad Times) are siblings on a specific mission: to clean up a large house after their mother’s death. Saša has her whole life and family in Canada, so time is of the essence. Contrary to his sister, Nikola seems like a bit of an idler, stuck in a rut in his own life, so he clings to both the objects and the sentiments of the past. During breaks from cleaning the house, getting rid of the furniture and packing up the memorabilia, they have conversations that quickly turn from mundane to passive-aggressive and, afterwards, play games like they did in their childhood, which fuel the toxicity of their relationship even more.

The script, written by the filmmaker and Nikolina Bogdanović, shows the differences in character between the two slowly and tactfully, but also in great detail. As a director, Peruzović creates the notion of the separate worlds they live in and of the one they have to share owing to these specific circumstances. He does so by employing Tomislav Sutlar’s hand-held camerawork at short-to-medium distance, imbuing the movie with warm, patinated colours. This world seems to be stuck in the era of their childhood, or even before that, thanks to Dino Topolnjak’s production design full of objects from Yugoslav times that appear to be in daily use. On the other hand, the striking sound design by Ivan Zelić, consisting of both interior and neighbourhood noises, reminds us that we are watching a contemporary story, and the fusion of the two makes it appear timeless and universal.

Largely a two-hander, except for the sequence in which the neighbour (Vinko Kraljević) comes to offer his condolences and try to retrieve a trimmer he lent to their mother a while ago, which sparks one more awkward conversation, Good Children depends heavily on the two main actors. Both of these thesps are more than capable of holding our attention individually and on their own terms, while the chemistry between them seems playful, natural and completely believable, making the film an easy watch.

On the other hand, even despite the running time that clocks in at 78 minutes, Good Children has a bit of an aura of an extended short, since most of the plot, the atmosphere, the relationships and the sprinkling of details could easily be laid out in under 30 minutes, even while keeping the deliberately slow pacing in Iva Ivan’s editing, which suits the situation that the characters find themselves in perfectly well. This should not come as a surprise, given that Peruzović mastered the short format before moving on to the feature one, ranging from his early work Tetrapak (2010) to Sinking Objects (2018), which was also included in the Deep Cuts omnibus. But in the end, the longer format offers the opportunity for the slow passing of time to be felt more intensely, and Peruzović seizes it, making Good Children more than a solid debut.

A Film a Week - Alpha.

 previously published on Cineuropa

There is nothing that can derail a person from the safe, straight tracks of a carefully built, ordinary life like the sudden arrival of a family member. Parents can press the buttons of their adult children in the worst possible ways. Even distance, whether physical or psychological, does not make things any easier: children are programmed to be triggered by their folks. This is the case with the fourth film written and directed by Jan-Willem van Ewijk, Alpha., which has just premiered in the Giornate degli Autori sidebar of Venice.

Rein (Reinout Scholten van Aschat, from 2011’s The Heineken Kidnapping) is a Dutchman who has moved to the Alps, where he works as a snowboarding instructor and spends his free time mostly meditating. The idyll of his existence is about to be shattered when his recently widowed father, Gijs (legend of Dutch film, TV and stage Gijs Scholten van Aschat), first calls to announce his visit and then appears in front of the building where Rein lives. Make no mistake, Gijs is not a harmless, jovial Toni Erdmann-esque old man, but a former star actor who seeks dominance over his son and knows exactly how to push his buttons.

The game of push-and-pull between the two is probably fuelled by jealousy and unresolved conflicts from the past, and they certainly have form in this regard. Gijs seeks and gets the attention of Rein’s friends, even his sort-of girlfriend Laura (Pia Amofa), prompting Rein to pull daredevil stunts or to try to teach his father a lesson by competing with him on his home turf – the snow. However, those in-house power games can prove to be dangerous, since one can overestimate one’s own strength, and the mountain itself can be treacherous…

The filmmaker certainly knows what he is trying to communicate and has the means at his disposal to do so eloquently. Even the 4:3 aspect ratio, which has become a bit of a gimmick recently, makes sense here: the boxiness of the picture is a reflection of the protagonist’s boxed-in state of mind, meaning the beautiful and ominous peaks with which the filmmaker opens and closes the film become secondary. Van Ewijk also uses Douwe Hennink’s cinematography deftly to portray the relationship of the central father-son duo and the changes in it without unnecessary explanations first by establishing, and then by shortening the distance, and the same goes for the use of Ella van der Woude’s score, from the drone on wind instruments to the silly, fairground-like organ theme and back.

However, the canniest trick he pulls is the casting of the real-life father and son, who have different sensibilities. It does not just open up a meta level for connoisseurs of the Dutch acting scene to enjoy, looking for “Easter eggs”, but it also paves the way for improvisation based on genuine triggering and authentic reactions that cannot be scripted easily. Needless to say, both Reinout and Gijs van Aschat relish the opportunity for this interplay and make the best of it, although in a non-flashy manner.

Alpha. is not without its faults, especially regarding the development and the timing of the plot twists, but it is definitely worth seeing for the director’s, the actors’ and the crew’s commendable work. It is one of those seemingly small movies to which wider audiences might relate.

A Film a Week - Bekim Fehmiu

 previously published on Cineuropa

Bekim Fehmiu was one of the finest Yugoslav actors of all time and the first one from Kosovo to surpass the language barrier and play in theatres all across the former country. He was also the first and one of the rare Yugoslav actors to have, at least at one point in his career, a shot at stardom both in European art house cinema and in Hollywood. He was also a man of principle who decided when, why and how to end both his career and his life. 

His life and career stand in the centre of Valmir Tertini’s documentary, which was also the filmmaker’s debut in the feature-length format. After five years in production, a premiere in Albania last year, and a tour of regional festivals, Bekim Fehmiu screened in the documentary section but out of competition at the 30th Sarajevo Film Festival.

Bekim Fehmiu is a typical biographical documentary in which the interested audience might learn the facts of its subject's early life (Fehmiu was born in Sarajevo, spent his early childhood in Skhodër, Albania, before his family settled in Prizren, Kosovo), his first acting steps (in Pristina's County Popular Theatre), his acting studies in Belgrade, his marriage with his colleague Branka Petrić and his national and international career in cinema, from his breakout roles as Beli Bora in Aleksandar Petrović’s I Even Met Happy Gypsies (1967), Odysseus in Franco Rossi’s mini-series The Odyssey and Dax Xenos in Lewis Gilbert’s The Adventurers (1970) onwards. We also get to learn about the status of the national cultural hero and the window to the world that Fehmiu enjoyed in Albania during the dark times of Enver Hoxha’s dictatorship, as well as the respect he had from his colleagues and filmmakers he collaborated with.

Most of the film’s 67 minutes of runtime goes to interviews (filmed by Endi Hoxha) with different people who knew Fehmiu and played a certain role in his life, such as his wife Branka Petrić, brother Arsim Fehmiu, filmmaker Goran Marković, writer Miljenko Jergović, late film critic Milan Vlajčić, and colleagues Faruk Begolli, Enver Petrovci, Branislav Lečić and Eleonora Giorgi, to name a few. Those interviews, against a completely black background, are constantly accompanied with music (credited to the star actor who managed to walk Fehmiu’s path later, Rade Šerbedžija) that switches genres and registers to fit the topic of the particular passage. Other than that, we can see some archival material from different countries, usually showing Fehmiu's screen successes and public appearances edited into the mix by Afrim Peposhi and Riza Vreko.

In the end, Tertini's documentary is a decent, respectful, but not exactly exceptional biographical documentary that could be a better fit for television than for a theatrical release. Bekim Fehmiu the documentary certainly respects Bekim Fehmiu the actor, the hero and the public figure, but it does not get beyond the surface in presenting his greatness.

A Film a Week - Cent'anni

 previously published on Cineuropa

Sometimes, a documentary filmmaker ends up with a completely different film than was originally planned or even imagined because we never know what reality might bring further down the line. For instance, this happened to Slovenian filmmaker Maja Doroteja Prelog and her debut feature-length documentary, Cent’anni. After the long process of shooting, editing and structuring it, as well as the world premiere that took place at Trieste earlier this year, Cent’anni enjoyed its international premiere in the documentary competition of the 30th Sarajevo Film Festival.

The film was originally envisioned as a triumphant, celebratory affair, just like the event it portrays: the filmmaker’s partner in life and art, Blaž Murn, embarks on his own Giro d’Italia-inspired cycling endeavour from the Dolomites in the north all the way down to Etna in the south in order to celebrate his all-clear from leukaemia and to serve as inspiration to the patients still fighting the disease. Along the way, however, it became a chronicle of their long relationship finally falling apart and them falling out of love with each other. For the filmmaker, from whose point of view we watch the events unfold, some figuring-out has to occur…

Before the fateful trip and project, their relationship seemed to be able to withstand every challenge, from abortion to his illness and her nursing him back to health, even though she is not really the type. The reason for this was Maja’s fascination with him and her determination to be the “cool” girlfriend who would not bother him too much. But the illness changed him into an ego-maniac who likes the sound of his voice so much that he speaks in long monologues, and maybe even into a narcissist who demands awe masked as respect – but is not able to give any to others. In “his” film, her role was one of technical support and a communicator between the star and the crew.

Maja Doroteja Prelog is pretty hands-on regarding her approach, given that, other than writing and directing the documentary, she also filmed most of the material herself, giving the camera to another cinematographer, Lav Predan Kowarski, Blaž or another crew member only when absolutely necessary. The cinematography itself is beautiful, thanks mainly to the choice of attractive locations that also have a foreboding, or at least slightly perilous, edge to them, but the focus also remains faithful to both Blaž’s heroic effort to complete his “race” and Maja’s to make a film in such conditions. Other technical components are stellar as well: Uroš Maksimović’s editing is precise, Sebastian Zawadzski’s music corresponds with the landscape of Maja’s state of mind and emotions, while Julij Zornik’s and Ricardo Spagnol’s sound design satisfyingly fills the sonic landscape.

Cent’anni is a rare personal and sincere film in which its filmmaker gives her all. It is also a highly subjective one, but rightfully so, since its topics are sensitive, and the director does not judge anyone apart from herself. Rarely do we see a person willing to expose her inner life to us to such an extent.

A Film a Week - Dwelling Among the Gods / Među bogovima

 previously published on Cineuropa

Sometimes, it is hard to put a human face to large-scale and long-lasting events, such as the current refugee crisis, or even find the words to describe them, before one gets lost in numbers and statistical data. With his sophomore fiction feature, Dwelling Among the Gods, Vuk Ršumović tries to do just that by telling a story that happened (or at least could have happened) to people in Serbia, along the “Balkan Route”. It has premiered in the fiction competition of the 30th Sarajevo Film Festival.

An Afghan family consisting of mother Fereshteh (Fereshteh Hoseini), her husband, Reza (Reza Akhlaghirad), and three of their children has stopped in a refugee centre in Serbia en route to Germany. Through NGO lawyer Zoran (Vule Marković) and Dari-language interpreter Nikola (Nikola Ristanovski), Fereshteh has learned that the young man who drowned recently might be her brother Ali. She sets off on a mission to prove his identity and her relationship to him, claim his body and organise a proper burial.

However, every step of the way, there is a logistical, legal or bureaucratic obstacle to overcome, and time is of the essence, since members of Reza’s family want to continue their journey as soon as possible. The waiting and running around in circles affect the couple, too, and the fact that their elder, teenage daughter has fallen for a guy from their camp does not make things any more bearable. The idealistic Nikola is very willing to help, the more realistic Zoran less so, given that Fereshteh is not his only client, but the system personified in the nameless clerk (Petar Zekavica) is simply too rigid for such situations. And Fereshteh’s father’s insisting on getting Ali’s body to Afghanistan makes things all the more complicated.

For his previous film, 2014’s No One’s Child, Ršumović drew inspiration from a real-life case to tell the story of an individual who has to learn to survive in a closed system within a wider one that also depends on politics. While he changes the protagonist, the setting is quite similar here, with one or two added layers of “systems”, since Fereshteh also has to navigate her family, her primary cultural and religious environment, as well as Serbian bureaucracy. Crediting investigative reporter Momir Turudić as the co-screenwriter also suggests the origin of the story is rooted in true events that were happening along the Balkan Route.

Portraying the murky-grey landscape of both life inside the refugee centre on the outskirts of Belgrade and life in Serbia in general through the lens of Damjan Radovanović’s often handheld, cinéma vérité-style camerawork is a logical and fitting choice here that adds to the sense of urgency. The sound design by Dubravka Premar also stands out, filling the sonic landscape with a realistic murmur, meaning that Dwelling Among the Gods acts like a legitimate successor to the cinéma vérité classics.

The trouble arises elsewhere: in the casting and the work with the actors. The Iranian performers chosen for the two leads operate in an elevated emotional register, and the rest of the cast in a restrained, more realistic one, and this “clash” does not work in the leading actors’ favour. Also, the dramaturgical devices introduced to feed the audience with the context of Afghan culture where Fereshteh, as a woman, does not have the same degree of agency as her husband, father or brother, barely scratch the surface and merely constitute common knowledge. In the end, Dwelling Among the Gods is a noble and, to some extent, accomplished work, but its cinematic qualities remain unworthy of the urgency of the story it tells.

A Film a Week - Mother Mara / Majka Mara

 previously published on Cineuropa

Films centred on women of a certain age are not that common in Serbian cinema, and those that look at things from a distinctive, feminine perspective are even rarer. However, actress-turned-filmmaker Mirjana Karanović (of Esma’s Song fame) has decided to forge her filmmaking career with exactly this kind of movie. Her first directorial effort, A Good Wife (2016), in which she told the story of a woman who has to face up to her husband’s involvement in war crimes during the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia, made quite a splash on the festival circuit after its world premiere at Sundance. Her sophomore film, Mother Mara, has just premiered as an out-of-competition gala at Sarajevo.

The titular protagonist, played by the filmmaker herself, has just lost her son Nemanja (Pavle Čemerikić in flashbacks and short mobile phone-shot inserts), who was the apple of her eye. Mara raised him as a single mother, while also building a career as a corporate lawyer, and now, everybody from the ranks of her family and friends both at and after the funeral reminds her that she is left with nothing to live for. Since the stern Mara is not exactly the crying type, she tries to overcome her muted grief by returning to work.

There, a young man called Milan (Vučić Perović, mainly seen on Serbian TV) insists on her representing him in a routine probate case. Although this type of case is something more suitable for a junior lawyer at Mara’s firm, Milan has a strong argument: he knew the part of Nemanja’s life that was hidden from his mother, the gym sessions and the wild nights out in the floating river clubs in Belgrade. The strictly professional relationship between the middle-aged woman and the man, who is one generation younger than her, turns personal, carnal and romantic, placing Mara in a completely new situation.

As an actress, Karanović has a commanding screen presence, and she is quite expressive both in the muted and in the more vocal parts of her role, and the chemistry she shares with Perović is compellingly awkward, as is usually the case in slightly repressed cultures where many things are still taboo. The presence of regionally recognisable actors such as Boris Isaković (Karanović’s acting partner in A Good Wife), Jasna Žalica (recently seen in May Labour Day) and Alen Liverić (of No One’s Son fame) in supporting roles also works in the film’s favour.

Karanović has also developed a certain style as a director, based on intriguing and clear ideas, such as the camerawork by Igor Marović corresponding with the protagonist’s current state of mind, with the symmetrically arranged, static shots (usually taken from mid-to-long distance) and the more dynamic, hand-held ones both having their respective functions. The centrepiece scenes also look good, thanks to Lazar Predojev’s methodical editing. Production designer Dragana Baćović should also be commended for her work, since the sterile coldness of the sets corresponds with Mara’s milieu and her personality (or at least the façade of it), and the same goes for the discreet score composed by Ephrem Lüchinger.

Relying on the help of her co-writers Maja Pelević and Ognjen Sviličić, as well as Darko Lungulov, who is credited as a creative consultant, Karanović has made Mother Mara as a solid, controlled and well-thought-out piece of contemporary cinema. However, the lack of proverbial “dirt” in it sometimes makes it seem a tad too “doctored” to be heartfelt.

A Film a Week - My Late Summer / Nakon ljeta

 originally published on Cineuropa

We have watched enough Croatian movies by now to know that those “wacky” islanders have their own saints and relics that should not be defiled, touched or disrespected in any way. In the newest film by Danis Tanović, My Late Summer, the pantheon of an unnamed, remote, miniature island consists of Comrade Tito, the Virgin Mary, the Hajduk Split football club and the golf cart belonging to the mayor (who also happens to be the owner of the only bar). There, we also find a female World War II veteran who cannot stand any German- or Italian-sounding music, free-roaming cows that get high by ingesting marijuana, hidden bottles labelled as “experiments”, not-so-friendly neighbourhood affairs, and dirty secrets involving the most highly respected locals, which are not that well concealed after all.

It seems like Bosnia’s most highly decorated filmmaker Tanović (who was behind the Best Foreign-language Oscar winner No Man’s Land) has now become a regular Sarajevo Film Festival opener. Three years ago, it was with Not So Friendly Neighbourhood Affair, and now we have My Late Summer. Both films could be defined as romantic comedy-dramas (with a dash of melodrama) infused with humour connected to specific places and the mentalities of their locals, which makes them a hard sell for the international festival circuit. But, like its predecessor, My Late Summer should fare reasonably well in the region of the former Yugoslavia.

Our protagonist, Maja (Anja Matković, also the co-screenwriter), comes to the island on a very specific mission: to prove that the late sea captain Jakša was her father and to collect her fair share of her inheritance. Since the procedure can be lengthy, she decides to stay there for a while. The only option for her is to take a waitressing job at the only bar, owned by Mayor Ićo (Goran Navojec), which also comes with free accommodation. There, she meets an older US expat of Yugoslav origin, Saša (Uliks Fehmiu), who fancies himself as an aspiring writer and moved there for the nostalgic aspect of the place. A romance sets in, but his life situation is just as complicated as hers. As the summer season comes to an end and seemingly innocent incidents threaten to destroy the fragile “ecosystem” of human relationships on the island, all three will have some serious figuring out to do…

My Late Summer starts off strong and snappy, with rapid-fire jokes, but the director cannot maintain this pace, so he chooses to switch the tone first to romantic comedy, and then to (melo)drama, while frugally using what is left of the humour reserves to keep viewers at least mildly entertained until the end. Apart from Anja Matković, who was promoted to the big screen by Tanović in his previous film, and who really owns her character here, the rest of the actors, in supporting and episodic roles, are basically left in improvisation mode, so they opt for recycling their usual types with some minor variations to them, which just about does the job.

The splendorous production and craft values serve the film well. Miloš Jaćimović’s cinematography alternates between intermezzos of the picture-perfect Adriatic vistas and the seemingly floating hand-held mode that imitates the predominant state of mind on the island. The production design by Veronika Radman complements the locations perfectly, making My Late Summer an easy, watchable viewing experience. However, its low-risk philosophy and the fact that it runs low on fuel for the better part of the second half hinder its ambitions.

A Film a Week - The Flood / La déluge

 previously published on Cineuropa

We know how it all ended for France’s last royal couple, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. It was part of our history lessons, we’ve read it in books, and we’ve seen it in movies. Jean Renoir’s The Marseillaise (1938) and Robert Enrico and Richard T Heffron’s epic The French Revolution (1989) tried to capture a holistic historical perspective, while Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006) and Benoît Jacquot’s Farewell, My Queen (2012) aimed for a more intimate tone. The question is, however, whether there might be anything new and fresh to be said about the topic.

Italian filmmaker Gianluca Jodice, who has a thing for historical figures and situations, has tried to provide an answer to this question. His newest work, The Flood, has world-premiered as the opening film of the 77th Locarno Film Festival.

The year is 1792, the pinnacle of the French Revolution, and Louis XVI (Guillaume Canet) is dethroned and, along with his family, imprisoned in The Temple Tower to await trial. While the king tries to keep spirits high and old manners intact, in accordance with his seemingly jovial and mild-mannered personality, the perceptive and intelligent queen Marie Antoinette (Mélanie Laurent) is far less enthusiastic about their predicament. Their children, Marie-Thérèse and Louis-Charles, are still too young to realise the gravity of the situation, and their religious upbringing provided by the king’s sister Elisabeth (Aurore Brutin) also helps, at least to an extent. Some of their captors try to remain civil, while others, like the captain (Hugo Dillon), err more on the vengeful side.

The royal family is slowly deprived of everything they are used to from their former, lavish life. First, they are left with only one servant, the loyal Cléry (Fabrizio Rongione), according to whose diary the film was supposedly made; then their possessions, down to their books, pens and pencils, are taken; and finally, they are separated from one another. Nevertheless, at their closely observed meetings, the royal couple discusses the situation, each side from their own standpoint, trying to debate their relationship and the destiny that awaits them…

Jodice opens the film on a high note, with beautifully and symmetrically composed wide and long shots taken by cinematographer Daniele Cipri, which capture Tonino Zera’s marvellous production design and the sonic background consisting of Fabio Massimo Capogrosso’s neoclassical (albeit edging more on the modern side) musical score and the striking, prominent sound design. However, by the end of the first act, the whole thing runs out of steam, since the filmmaker drops the stylistic rigour in favour of a looser approach. The same could also be said for the script written by Jodice and Filippo Gravino, especially when it comes to the seemingly philosophical, but profoundly fake-sounding, dialogues it is riddled with.

Logically, the actors are the ones who have to pay for most of the script’s “crimes”, and it is a pity to see thesps as strong as Mélanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet struggling with the dialogue they are provided with and having to resort to hysterical over-acting, masked as improvisation. There might be a meta-moment in the lines when they admit they were playing certain roles and that they have to adapt to the new ones, but the question remains as to whether this was intentional or not.

Jodice tries to get back on track with an ending whose symbolism involving torrential rain is certainly strong and on point (after all, the title of the film is derived from the expression “After me, the flood”, attributed to Louis XV), but the ball has already been dropped. The filmmaker’s effort to humanise these protagonists that we were taught to hate is admirable, but The Flood might not be the best way to do it.

A Film a Week - Summer Teeth / Šalša

 previously published on Cineuropa

It is easy to label any seemingly unserious piece of cinematic work as “trash”, but sometimes, there is a method to the madness. Dražen Žarković’s Summer Teeth, fresh from its premiere at the Pula Film Festival, might not be the only Croatian film of its kind (some might remember Predrag Ličina’s 2019 zombie-infested political satire The Last Serb in Croatia, for instance), but it is carefully thought out and meticulously executed in every respect, so it could prove to be a cinematic hit in the wider region of the former Yugoslavia. Its universal humour, anti-nationalistic message, and the fact that the film is a co-production between Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina might seem like good arguments to support this claim further.

Close to losing his poorly paid job and the flat he is renting, Zagreb-based student Vatroslav (Montenegrin actor Momčilo Otašević) accepts an offer from his co-worker and buddy Filip (Roko Sikavica, glimpsed in The Uncle) to replace him and help his grandmother Mariljka (Snježana Sinovčić Šiškov, seen in Safe Place) with the summer chore of harvesting tomatoes on the remote Dalmatian island of Little Head. Once on the island, Vatroslav is met with its inhabitants’ general quirkiness, which sometimes turns into open hostility. It seems that the only person willing to help him is local dentist Irena (Ivana Gulin, so far mostly active on television), while the others, including granny and the couple of Serbian tourists who are staying in her property, Mića (Ljubiša Savanović) and his heavily pregnant wife Jelena (Milica Janevski), might seem too eccentric to be helpful in any way. Furthermore, there is clear resentment between the youthful, party-loving island minority and the intolerant majority…

The isle and its abandoned military base from Yugoslav times harbour more secrets that will soon be revealed, once it emerges that the brandy that the granny uses as fertiliser is not just an alcoholic beverage, and the tomatoes laced with it cause a zombie epidemic among the inhabitants. After a tomato-fuelled fiesta, Vatroslav and his new buddies have to run from an angry mob of zombie-vampires with pointy teeth, led by two incompetent cops played by Slavko Sobin and Damir Markovina.

Working from a playful but solid genre script written by Ivan Turković Krnjak and Maja Todorović, Žarković – whose most recent filmmaking credits include two movies for children and youth, The Mysterious Boy and My Grandpa Is an Alien (co-directed with Marina Andrée Škop) – does a superb job of directing a smooth blend of an action-horror and a comedy-parody-satire by mixing both types of ingredients deftly to tell a story in a dynamic and easy-to-follow manner. His command of the technical crew is stellar, since the cinematography by Saša Petković is always appropriately kinetic and picture postcard-pretty in terms of the colours, and the editing by Saša Karakaš Šikanić keeps the movie in a high gear most of the time. With the help of the award-winning visual effects by Krsto Jaram, Summer Teeth is a pure joy to watch.

The same could be said of Žarković’s work with the actors, whereby he allows their interplay with one another pretty freely, channelling the palpable dynamic between the characters. Momčilo Otašević is a natural-born leading man with the capability to achieve a smooth transformation between confusion and assertiveness, which helps him with the transition between genre keys, and the chemistry he shares with Ivana Gulin is undeniable, while Ljubiša Savanović’s, Milica Janevski’s and Snježana Sinovčić Šiškov’s characters have the most comedic “juice”.

A Film a Week - The Wrath of God / Božji gnjev

 previously published on Cineuropa

Kristijan Milić returns to the Pula Film Festival with one more genre piece, based on a novel by Josip Mlakić centred around the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia. The filmmaker once again blends different genres into a smooth and consistent amalgam with The Wrath of God, which has just premiered in the Croatian competition of the national festival. As a genre piece with universal appeal, one could expect specialised festivals to book the film in the future, but it could also fare reasonably well in the regional theatrical distribution landscape.

Central Bosnia, the winter of 1993. Ilija (Ivo Krešić, glimpsed in Milić’s previous feature, Dead Fish), formerly a maths teacher, is now a miner in the Croatian forces fighting against the Bosnian ones. His war routine is broken when he hears the news that his brother Goran was killed in action in a village several kilometres behind enemy lines, without his death having any strategic significance for the struggle. Furthermore, there is no official record of the action, and Goran and his comrades received a cash payment in US dollars for their involvement.

With the help of his contact in the intelligence department Zoran (Marko Cindrić, in his third collaboration with Milić), Ilija sets off on a mission to uncover who sent his brother and his comrades to death and what for. The conspiracy he discovers leads all the way to Zagreb and the shady deals between both sides of the conflict, with military and political officials involved. Ilija's investigation threatens to turn into revenge…

The war, or at least its echoes, serve as a primary topic in Milić's films, but the filmmaker's approach is always different in terms of genre. His debut The Living and the Dead (2007) blended WWII and the 1990s war in a mix of war movie, mystery, fantasy and supernatural horror. The subsequent Number 55 (2014) told the true story of the Croatian War for Independence as a pure high-octane war-action movie, while Dead Fish (2017) was an Altman-esque account of post-war human destinies in a divided city. This time, the foundation of the war movie is converted into a thriller with its sub-genres, such as the crime procedural, the film noir and the 1970s-style paranoid conspiracy thriller.

As a director, Milić makes all the calculated, smart moves to keep the plot going and intriguing for the viewers throughout the 110 minutes of its runtime. The pacing is usually moderate, which gives the sense that the plot breathes, while the shifts in genres are underlined by shifts of styles. For instance, the colour palette of Mirko Pivčević’s cinematography moves from the greys and browns of the war landscape to more bluish tones more suitable for an urban noir, and the music by Andrija Milić turns from old school orchestration with some acoustic guitar highlights, to something more jazzy and progressive as the plot moves to a different genre.

The same level of meticulousness can be observed in Milić’s choice of actors from the ranks of those he knows and has previously directed. Ivo Krešić as a leading man in a genre piece might have seemed a risky idea before, but the actor seizes the opportunity to prove himself capable of such an endeavour. He gets a lot of help from Marko Cindrić who plays Zoran in a very grounded fashion, Slaven Knezović (also the producer of the film) who plays Ilija's benevolent commander, while for Domagoj Mrkonjić in the role of Ilija's closest buddy could be a career-starting performance.

In the end, The Wrath of God is a slightly retro but never outdated, fulfilling genre movie experience. This kind of rock-solid but never flashy genre piece has become more and more of an oddity today.

A Film a Week - It All Ends Here / Svemu dođe kraj

 previously published on Cineuropa

Everything has to end at some point, and legendary Croatian filmmaker Rajko Grlić supposedly decided to wrap up his career with a genre piece along the lines of a crime and political thriller, film noir, romance and satire all in one, which was also intended to rail against the corruption and the abuse of power deeply rooted in Croatian society. It All Ends Here premiered at 71st Pula Film Festival, the same place where Grlić showcased his feature debut, Whichever Way the Ball Bounces (1974), for the first time 50 years ago.

Written by Grlić and novelist Ante Tomić as their fourth collaboration, It All Ends Here is actually an adaptation of Miroslav Krleža’s 1938 novel On the Edge of Reason. The novel itself is tough to adapt owing to its structure of concentric circles, but the duo did a fine job of streamlining it and converting it to an eventful, linear plot that’s easy to follow and suits the genre cinematic approach. Their decision to move the plot from the first half of the previous century to a contemporary setting also proved to be a good way for them to make their point.

At the centre of the story we have lawyer Maks Pinter (Živko Anočić, seen in last year’s Pula entry Escort), who becomes fed up with serving his client, tycoon Dinko Horvat (played by Serbian actor Boris Isaković, best known for the role of Ratko Mladić in Quo Vadis, Aida?), after getting him off the hook for the murder of two trespassers, both former workers of a meat-packing facility that Horvat ran into the ground. Maks is willing to sacrifice his social status and even his cosy family life, so he turns to his former lover Nina (Jelena Đokić, glimpsed recently in 78 Days), who also has her own motives to try to hurt Horvat. Maks actually has a video that he can use to blackmail Horvat, but can the duo endure the pressure exerted by the powerful, psychopathic magnate, who also has strong political ties?

The main problem with the film lies in its dialogues, which sometimes sound as if they have been lifted directly from a work of literature and at times are overly theatrical. This is compounded by Grlić’s and Tomić’s tendency to speak through the characters in order to make a point, which is something that does not sit well with genre filmmaking that “likes” certain rules, but which cannot abide unsubtle didacticism. Also, this type of dialogue puts pressure on the actors to deliver the lines, which all of the leading trio do fairly well. Živko Anočić is a standout here, since those ambivalent types of characters suit him, while Boris Isaković does enough recycling of his preferred type of menacing characters to make Horvat compellingly scary, and Jelena Đoković adds a bit of craziness and vulnerability to the seductiveness of a noir femme-fatale type.

The technical aspects are also well done. Branko Linta’s camerawork uses a lot of bluish tones that suit the genre, while Tomislav Pavlic’s precise editing keeps the viewer engaged during the merciful running time of 89 minutes. Grlić’s directing is generally unobtrusive and invisible, so it lacks a bit of the flavour and flare much needed for a genre piece, but it does not overly hamper the film, which uses spoken threats as its primary fuel. With this “message over both style and substance” approach, It All Ends Here lands in the territory of a decent film that also serves up a strong statement.

A Film a Week - Vista Mare

 previously published on Cineuropa

It’s easy to assume a position of moral superiority when dealing with the subject of tourism, since said economic activity has a triangular scheme of exploitation linking the guests, who have needs; the workers, who cater to them; and the businesses, which provide the services. On the other hand, it is harder to remain neutral and objective when portraying the whole process of exchange among the three parties.

In their sophomore documentary, Julia Gutweniger and Florian Kofler strive for absolute objectivity as they observe the large-scale operation that is the tourist season on the Italian North Adriatic coast. Vista Mare premiered last year in the Semaine de la Critique section of Locarno and has toured several festivals since. Its visit to the Diagonale was fruitful, since the film scooped two prizes there, for cinematography and for sound design, which were handled by Gutweniger and Kofler, respectively.

The duo opens the film on a grey, windy day on an almost empty beach, where a single swimmer battles against the waves, set to the sounds of eerie wind music composed by Gabriela Gordillo, followed by still shots of empty rental apartment blocks and swimming pools. It is an off-season period in an unnamed tourist town, and although all seems quiet, preparations for the coming boom are under way. Leaflets are printed, deckchairs and automatic parasols are tested and repaired, the new generation of tourism workers are trained in vocational schools, hotels and restaurants, and heavy machinery is even utilised to restore the eroded beaches by adding more sand.

Then, some half an hour in, the first tourists arrive and these places of peace and quiet morph into crowded, busy ones. The deckchairs and parasols are arranged in perfect order. The lifeguards and vendors exchange small talk amongst themselves while some serve customers almost on autopilot. The hotels and the rental apartments are filled to maximum capacity. Kids’ parties happen during the day and raves take place at night on the beach. The attractions nearby are also busy: customers can choose between a dolphin show, an aquapark and a park featuring a miniature model of Venice. A workers’ rights protest even takes place in the town, but it also seems like a mere routine in which both the protesters and the police play their predefined roles.

Gutweniger and Kofler opt for a strictly observational method, predominantly using fixed, mid- to long-distance shots, overhearing conversations but never intervening in them and refusing to portray the whole operation as a class conflict. Gutweniger’s long takes are immaculately composed, and even if the symmetry is not always perfect, they are still astonishing and serve the purpose of showing the terrifyingly large scale of the business, in which all individuality tends to get lost. Dealing with the sound recording and design, Kofler does pretty much the same, creating a rich tapestry of a soundscape. The structure of having two asymmetrical acts also serves the film well by highlighting the contrast between the life of the town (or towns in the region) during the off and high seasons. The filmmakers’ approach might at times seem cold and calculated, but Vista Mare can still move the viewer merely by showing the size and the complexity of the process.

A Film a Week - Asche

 previously published on Cineuropa

Even before Elena Wolff’s sophomore feature, Asche, starts, the audience is warned that the film features certain things that might trigger them, such as drug and alcohol abuse – and, oddly enough, the city of Linz. Why the capital of Upper Austria should serve as a trigger for anyone remains a mystery, but this aspect also highlights the young filmmaker’s primary intention to provoke the audience however she sees fit. The film, however, did not premiere on home turf, but rather some 200 km away, at the Diagonale in Graz.

Asche is set in the circle of aspiring and up-and-coming artists from the budding Linz scene, and centres on three women who are part of an artistic collective whose performance we see early on, while we meet their partners at the afterparty following it. Lulu (the filmmaker herself) hooks up with Simeon (Thomas Schubert, of Afire fame), a self-confident photographer who proclaims himself to be an authentic genius and the alpha male of the scene. Their relationship is turbulent and based on shaky foundations, since he insists that it should be open while also acting like he owns her, but the question is how long his “muse” will be willing to put up with it. On the other hand, Anna (Selina Graf, collaborating with Wolff once again, after her 2022 debut, Para: Dies) tries to break away from the toxic romanticism of her boyfriend Felix (Simon Kluth), using a move to Berlin as an excuse, while she might also be interested in some much darker stuff that she can find in Linz. Finally, the seemingly idyllic relationship between Élise (Naomi Bah) and Emilia (Celine Meral) falls apart due to their conflicting ideas of closeness. And there is also Jakob (Nils Svenja Thomas), a non-artist, a potential stalker and maybe even an incel with whom Lulu starts conversing in the park…

Asche is a film drenched in excess, and all that foul language, cocaine and alcohol abuse, as well as the use of largely gratuitous nudity, are clearly aimed at provoking a strong reaction from the audience. In the dialogue department, the filmmaker tries to shine a spotlight on the toxicity of interpersonal relationships, even in artistic circles, that is enabled by the predominant patriarchal model, but she does so in a clumsy way that seems more like rambling than firmly pointing a finger at the problem. Even the third-act turn into the territory of revenge horror seems like a vague, underdeveloped idea and yet another attempt at shocking the audience.

Wolff tries to forge a new and unique visual language, but it often ends up somewhere between music-video aesthetics and an attempt at alternative arthouse cinema. First-time DoP Nora Einwaller sometimes opts for plainly odd angles that deform the actors’ features for no apparent reason (although her work still managed to persuade the festival jury to give her an award), while the editing by Alba Diaz is too choppy for a story that unfolds in two different timelines, presented simultaneously. In the acting department, Asche is also uneven, since the helmer casts herself in the main role so that she can expose herself, in every sense of the word. Apart from her, only Thomas Schubert and Naomi Bah play their characters with a bit of swagger, while the rest of the thesps end up being a tad bland in comparison. In the end, Asche can be seen as a striking movie, a bit like a punch to the eye, but it could benefit from more coherence.

A Film a Week - The Owner / Hozyan

 previously published on Cineuropa

Over the course of the last decade, Yury Bykov has positioned himself as something of a renaissance man in Russian independent cinema. Beyond writing and directing a number of modestly budgeted, genre-infused and socially charged films, he has also often acted, edited and composed the music for them.

His newest effort, The Owner, which had been in production since 2020, finally premiered at last year’s edition of the Geneva International Film Festival. Most recently, it scooped the top prize at Belgrade International Film Festival FEST, marking the helmer’s second time winning the Belgrade Victor award, after the success o The Fool back in 2015.

Once again, Bykov deals with an ordinary man who gets entangled with corruption in the contemporary Russian provinces. This time, our man is Ivan / Vanya Menshov (Artyom Bystrov, star of The Fool), a modest car mechanic living a simple life with his wife (Klavdiya Korshunova) and their two children in a snowy provincial town. Their lives are about to be changed when they witness a horrific car accident, after which Vanya reacts promptly and bravely, saving the man involved from his burning car.

That man, however, is not an ordinary person, but Dmitri / Dima Rodin (Oleg Fomin), the most powerful local FSB (Federal Security Service) agent, and, as it turns out, the master of business, life and death in the region. The two start spending more and more time together, which initially turns out to be rather beneficial for Vanya as he quickly rises in the ranks of the luxury car dealership owner’s affairs. However, both Dima’s power in the greater scheme of things and his gratitude have their limits, and so does Vanya’s tolerance towards Dima’s shady and vengeful character…

Bykov once again creates a lean but powerful political thriller powered by the lived-in performances of his actors, who elevate their archetypal characters to a more life-like plane. The visual style employed to portray the contrasts between crumbling Soviet-era urban locations and the perks of the nouveau-riche lifestyle, with hand-held camerawork that tends to get shaky during the action sequences, is quite suitable. The same goes for Anna Krutiy’s dynamic editing, which makes the film’s two-hour runtime seem much shorter. Even Bykov’s writing has improved from his previous efforts, and his penchant for preaching through the mouths of his characters is kept at a bare minimum.

On the other hand, it seems that Bykov is now more critical of the system as a whole, as The Owner aims higher than corrupt police officers (The Major), local officials (The Fool), or tycoons who privatise the factories (The Factory). Dima’s profession might be a clear hint at whom his character is a stand-in for, while the repeating motif of grassroots ecological protests being dispersed at his order may indicate what Bykov represents.

A Film a Week - The Holy Family / Sveta obitelj

 previously published on Cineuropa

Back in 2012/13, the debut fiction feature by Vlatka Vorkapić, Sonja and the Bull [+], became a smash hit at the Croatian box office with just under 100,000 admissions. After that, she went on to direct documentaries like Delayed Revolution (2015) and Our Daily Water (2018), while also taking part in omnibus projects, such as Transmania (A Twisted Game) from 2016. A decade after her biggest success, Vorkapić is back with a period romantic drama called The Holy Family. After the world premiere took place at the Sao Paulo International Film Festival in October, it has been released in theatres in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The plot is set in the Croatian eastern flatland region of Slavonia in the 1960s, then part of socialist Yugoslavia. Our protagonist, Janja (Luna Pilić), is a seasonal worker from Bosnia who comes to Slavonia at harvest time. Her first encounter with the village and its culture is her visit to a shop managed by Communist Party representative Milan (Aleksandar Cvjetković) and operated by his wife, Nota (Judita Franković Brdar), whose family used to own the store before the war. Janja stares at some sweets in a glass jar, probably seeing them for the first time in her life, and since she cannot afford any of them, Nota gives her some for free.

Soon enough, Janja gets selected by the village’s richest land owner, Marko (Serbian thesp Nikola Đuričko), who has a reputation as a well-meaning, soft boss who does not press workers too much and rather enjoys his jovial lifestyle. When Janja proves to be a hard worker and an honest person, Marko gets the idea to arrange a marriage between her and his only son, Iva (Ivan Čuić), much to the disapproval of his wife and the young man’s mother, the snobbish religious fanatic Ana (Anita Matić Delić).

At first, this might seem like a stroke of good luck for poor Janja, but she is not heading for a fairy-tale ending. The villagers look down on her, and Iva does not seem happy from the get-go, spending his time drinking with his friends or going hunting at night, instead of showing his wife any affection. Also, it turns out that Marko is not that well-meaning or jovial after all, but rather predatory when it comes to younger women. Other family secrets slowly come to light, and in order to survive, Janja has to forge alliances with different members of the household at different times.

The cinematography by Filip Tot channels the mood of the film from a pastoral aura early on to darker tones later, while the editing by Ivor Šonje is meticulous, especially during the wedding-party centrepiece, which gets some horror-like undertones added to it. The ensemble cast does some fine work, but the actors with more star power (such as Đuričko and Franković Brdar) make their characters appear meatier with more ease. Although the script for The Holy Family is an original work by the filmmaker and Slavica Šnur, the film itself seems like an adaptation of a rather conservative novel. Having said that, the old-fashioned flavour of it makes it seem rich in detail and handsome, especially in the visual department. The soundtrack, consisting mainly of lascivious, folksy songs, also adds to that feeling.

Vorkapić obviously knows how to juggle all of these details and draw the viewer’s attention to them. The trouble is that she is not that apt at handling the characters’ secrets any better than they do, dosing them out until it’s time for the revelation, making the whole story quite predictable, and even causing the titular metaphor to fall flat. In the end, The Holy Family is a handsomely packaged piece of confectionary.

A Film a Week - Consent / Le consetement

 previously published on Cineuropa

There is a well-known cliché that it is easier to adapt a mediocre book into a good film, than to achieve the same success with exceptional source material. When it comes to influential books, only a few could wear that label more proudly than Vanessa Springora’s autobiographical novel Consent. The book not only spawned a loud public discussion and triggered the downfall of a sinister but powerful public figure, it also significantly contributed to change national laws in France about the legal age of consent.

The long-awaited adaptation, helmed by Vanessa Filho who also wrote the script in collaboration with the author herself and François Pirot, has already had a healthy theatrical run in its home country in France and sold to many territories in Europe and overseas. Its international premiere took place in the official competition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Filho opens the film with on-screen text informing us that what we are about to see is a version of Springora’s memoir that has been slightly fictionalised for cinematic purposes, in order to better bring the author’s voice to the big screen. The story follows the relationship between then-14-year-old Vanessa (Kim Higelin in her first role in a feature film) and the renowned writer Gabriel Matzneff (Jean-Paul Rouve of La Vie en Rose fame), three times her age. Matzneff was known for his sexual offences against teenage (and younger) girls and boys, both in France and abroad on his sex tourism trips, which he openly wrote about in his novels, memoirs, journals and essays, most openly in “Those Less than 16” from 1974. He was celebrated despite this, and sometimes because of it.

The two met at a dinner party when Vanessa was just 13 and she first became interested in his work. When she turned 14, Matzneff started seducing her with letters and surprise visits to her school. Warnings from Vanessa’s mother (played by Laetitia Casta) about Matzneff’s reputation meant little to the young girl in love and unable to resist the manipulative, predatory moves of a “genius” writer. However, the real trouble for her began when “the artist” decided to drop her and discuss the details of their relationship in his memoir. Much later, confronted with the newest round of Matzneff’s stalking, the now-adult Vanessa (Élodie Bouchez) fights back.

Vanessa Filho’s previous film Angel Face (2018) met with negative reviews at its world premiere at Cannes, but was praised for the performance of its young co-lead actress. Acting, especially on Kim Higelin’s part, is also the high point of Consent. Her efforts are also complimented by those of Rouve, who plays Matzneff as a less than sympathetic man, and by the controlled performance of Casta as the mother. Along with convincing production and costume design, these elements elevate the film up to a point.

However, those merits on their own cannot conceal the fact that Filho is engaged in an uphill battle here. Beside the fact that the story is well known and its details revealed quite recently, it also seems that the director possesses only a finite number of tricks up her sleeve to make this work throughout the nearly two hours of the film’s runtime. Writing-wise, the repetitions of similar scenes and conversations present the biggest challenge, while Filho’s directing rarely seems inspired enough to break the predictable proceedings of a typical case of seduction, manipulation and emotional abuse. In the end, Consent might not be a stellar cinematic success bringing anything new to the debate, but the sheer importance of its topic and its timeliness could redeem the film with audiences.

A Film a Week - Unmoored

 previously published on Cineuropa

“Nothing is what it seems at first glance” is a tagline that could be applied to most thrillers, mysteries and suspense flicks. Caroline Ingvarsson’s feature debut, Unmoored, freshly premiered in Tallinn Black Nights’ First Feature Competition, is definitely a movie that could sport said tagline. The trouble with it, as is also the case with many other films in various genres, is that the creative team behind it assumed that its ideal viewers are slow learners, unable to at least “expect the unexpected” thanks to the movies they have previously seen.

Our protagonist is Maria (Mirja Turestedt, mostly active on Swedish TV), a journalist and TV presenter who hosts a show dealing with serious topics. Along with occasional troubles at work, she also has to deal with problems at home. Her writer husband Magnus (Thomas W Gabrielsson, recently glimpsed in Nikolaj Arcel’s The Promised Land) is facing rape charges which he staunchly denies, and his publisher Bergman (Sven Ahlström) expects him to finish the project they agreed upon previously. To escape the pressure, the couple decides to go on a trip, but the two cannot agree on a destination. While Maria suggests England, Magnus manages to persuade her to go to Marrakesh in order to visit his friend and the friend’s new wife.

The visit does not end well for Maria, who feels like she is the odd one out in a pretty patriarchal gang. During the trip back home, she and Magnus have a heated argument in the car, after which he gets out and wanders off to a beach. She follows him to a bunker, but afterwards starts running away from it, eventually changing the destination of her trip back to her original idea – England. There, she meets a man named Mark (Kris Hitchen, of Sorry We Missed You fame), whom she feels instantly attracted to, but strange events start happening around her, such as blackmail attempts via e-mail and a car with a Polish numberplate that seems to follow her around the countryside. A series of flashbacks will show us what happened…

The source of Unmoored’s problems lies in Michèle Marshall’s script, which is generally predictable and is further weakened by its over-reliance on dialogue, rather than visual storytelling, to drive the exposition in the first third, as well as the roughly sketched-out characters, which are pretty one-dimensional throughout. This forces the actors into a very tough position, and they have no option but to emphasise the characteristics they are given. Unfortunately, their over-acting takes the film, envisioned as a mixture of a relationship drama and a mystery-thriller, straight into the realm of an unintentional comedy.

To be fair, it is not just the actors’ fault, but also the director’s, as she does not manage to steer them towards giving very inspired or lived-in performances. The switch in the storytelling mode and the dramaturgical devices that Ingvarson uses in the second and the third acts works for a while, and in the first-time director’s defence, she does a good job with the crew: the cinematography by Michał Dymek sets the mood, the editing by Agata Cierniak keeps the running time in the region of the low 90 minutes, while the synth-heavy score by Martin Dirkov fine-tunes the tension and ramps it up when necessary. In the end, Unmoored is a film that does not demand much of the viewer, but the reward it offers is underwhelming.

A Film a Week - Power / Moc

 previously published on Cineuropa

Someone wise once said that politics is the art of the possible. In order to achieve some common goal often described as the greater good, the interested parties have to make deals and compromises using money, power, influence and services as currency in deal-making. The trouble is that there is no strict definition of the greater good and no manual on how to define it. A seemingly ordinary but actually very complex situation illustrating this conundrum stands in the centre of Mátyás Prikler’s sophomore feature Power, which premiered earlier this year at IFFR and was just shown in the Network of the Festivals in the Adriatic Region programme of the Zagreb Film Festival.

It all starts with a hunting accident in which a young local man named Adam gets killed. Since the local police and the forensics cannot trace the bullet to any of the local hunters’ rifles and the hunting party included some high-ranking politicians, it becomes a sensitive question. Steiner (Szabolcs Hajdu), a former lawyer now employed in security services, is tasked with conducting the investigation with utmost discretion. The ailing man, who only has a few months left to live, reluctantly accepts the offer from his chief (Roman Polák) in order to provide some extra resources for his family.

The investigation gets him into the orbit of several players in the ethnically mixed part of the country. There is the family of the young victim, who want justice to be served. There is the suspected shooter, minister Berger (Jan Kačer), who is the official candidate for the role of EU strategic water commissioner and whose opponent runs on the platform that would allow the privatization of the water resources — neither he nor the government can allow for such a scandal to be made public. There is also a journalist (Lucia Kašová) in search of a big break, and a high-profile political scandal might serve her cause perfectly. Finally, there is a disgraced former cop named Ondris (Mihály Kormos) who might serve as an ideal fall guy and might want to make such a deal. Each of the characters mentioned, Steiner included, has some sort of a moral compass, which makes the ideal scenario less possible.

If judged simply for its merits as a political thriller, Power is bound to fail since there is almost no mystery about the event, the actions or the motivations of the characters involved, making the ending too logical and too neat. However, the film functions way better as a drama about ethics powered by moral dilemmas and as an examination of deal- and compromise-making. 

The script, co-written by the filmmaker himself together with Marek Leščák, is ornamented by realistic details of life in a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual provincial environment and largely populated by firmly drawn characters that nevertheless leave actors plenty of room for interpretation. Actor and filmmaker Szabolcs Hajdu seizes the opportunity to play Steiner in a restrained manner with a lot of integrity, while Jan Kačer as Berger does something similar but in a slightly higher emotional register.

In terms of direction, the frequent use of one-take scenes, framed with a sense of symmetry and filmed from fixed positions and from various distances, serves the film well. The execution on the part of the cinematographer Gergely Pálos, who shoots them in wintery tones that add to the cold atmosphere, is also astute, while the piano and strings score by Zsófia Tallér highlights the seriousness of the topic and Matej Beneš’ editing keeps the structure clear and the format efficiently compact. Power might not be the most philosophical or deepest study of the titular term crucial to politics high and low, but it works well in its simplicity and clarity.