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 - 4 Years in 10 Minutes / 4 godine u 10 minuta

previously published on Cineuropa

The point of Mladen Kovačević's latest documentary, 4 Years in 10 Minutes, shown in the Documentary Competition of the 24^th Sarajevo Film Festival, is stated early on, in the first title card. “What I expected at the beginning of the journey, what I was going through and what I got at the end had nothing in common” might sound like a sparkling gem of banality and pseudo-philosophy, but it is true, sometimes painfully so, when it comes to climbing mountains – and especially conquering Mount Everest, which is the case here.

The course of action is predictable: it consists of an initial, casual curiosity, like in a piece of ethnological cinema; the physical and mental hardships of the ascent and descent; a bit of technical talk, just enough for viewers to realise just how dangerous the challenge is; moments of enlightenment, shock and fear; and eventually slowly returning to a “normal” life. The title, spoken by protagonist Dragan Jaćimović later on during the climactic moment on the summit, filmed in a continuous sequence, sums it up correctly, although we only see the final two months (from the end of March until the end of May 2000) of it packed into the lean running time of just over an hour. However, Kovačević's film feels quite unique not just in its earnestness, but also thanks to his daring, borderline experimental (but still clever) ideas and the top-notch work by his crew, editor Jelena Maksimović and sound designer Jakov Munižaba (both known for their work on Ognjen Glavonjić's Depth Two and The Load).

There was not very much material to work with – the small volume of Jaćimović's own amateur DV-camera footage and some 200 handwritten pages of his diary. Since the video material was not of a great quality, some fine-tuning had to be applied, especially in terms of the sound (of course, recorded simultaneously with the picture), which in the final version became an important tool for creating the atmosphere, from the rhythmic sound of bells at the beginning in a Nepalese village, underling the calmness of the moment, to the howling wind at higher altitudes enhancing the impression of the threatening situation that our protagonist-cameraman has got himself into.

On the other hand, the diary provided more to chose from for the often philosophical title cards that Kovačević uses in abundance, although they never bore the audience. He is playful with them, converting them into a means of showing the relative nature of time, which merely reflects our inner impressions: for the first two-thirds of the movie, they are shown against freeze frames and on a small portion of the screen, complete with the date, only to be later printed on a black screen and, finally, just over the running footage.

But the film’s biggest success is probably remaining faithful to the structure of the original material, thereby providing an authentic picture of climbing, regardless of the dramatic clichés. The tricky part of that is the fact that it is as much of an inner battle as it is an external challenge.

Ha’har / Mountain

2015
scenario i režija: Yaelle Kayam
uloge: Shani Klein, Avshalom Polak, Haitham Ibrahem Omari

Maslinova Gora uzdiže se istočno iznad Jerusalima i najstarije je jevrejsko groblje na svetu, ujedno i sveto mesto za hrišćane, kao i za muslimane. Da bi se “ojačalo jevrejsko prisustvo” u zapravo dominantno arapskom okruženju, u spartanskoj kući pored groblja živi učitelj sa ženom i četvoro dece. Oni žive u skladu sa religijskim učenjima: on radi, ona se brine o kući i deci. Međutim, čini se da niko time nije zadovoljan. Učitelj Reuven (Polak) je sve manje kod kuće, forsirajući humanitarni rad. Njegovoj ženi Tzviji (Klein) to nije pravo, ali ona nema pravo na otvorenu pobunu i jedino što joj ostaje je pasvina agresija. Deca to osećaju, posebno najstarija kćerka na rubu puberteta.
Tzvia ventilira onako kako jedino zna: šetajući se po groblju, pušeći i čitajući poeziju izraelske pesnikinje Zelde, što joj je zapravo jedini kontakt sa realnim životom. Ponekad joj se preko dana na groblju pridruži Abed (Omari), arapski radnik na groblju sa kojim razmeni poneku lepu, kurtoaznu reč. Ponekad u njihovu kuću dođu posetioci groblja, pitajući za informaciju ili čašu vode, kao dve hasidske udovice u jednoj od uvodnih scena. Tzvia, očito ne-vična sitnim razgovorima sa strancima, svoju situaciju nazove “zoološkim vrtom”, zapravo nekakvom turističkom atrakcijom. Šala loše padne.
Onda u jednom trenutku Tzvia dođe na ideju da bi se mogla tako šetati i noću. A groblja noću nisu isto što i groblja danju. Nije tu stvar u zombijima (ipak smo na teritoriji minimalističkog, vrlo utišanog “arthouse” filma), nego u marginalnim likovima izraelskog društva koji takođe žele mirno okruženje za svoje noćne eskapade: kurvama, makroima, pijancima, kriminalcima... Tzvia ih prvo posmatra iz distance, ali kad bude otkrivena, počinje komunikaciju s njima, onako kako bi to domaćica učinila - preko hrane.
Ima stara jevrejska legenda o rabinu koji je prestao da voli svoju ženu, nakon godina i godina inicijalno dogovorenog braka i posledičnom ženinom očajanju. S tim u vezi, indikativan je Abedov lik i njegova sudbina: i on je u braku koji je bio dogovoren, ali su se on i žena ipak zavoleli. Iz očajanja, Tzvia polako kreće na put spoznaje, ali pitanje je hoće li smoći snage da se otrgne uticaju tradicije.
Autorica filma, novinarka Yaelle Kayam, kaže da je htela da snimi film o Maslinovoj Gori kao značajnom toponimu za svakog Izraelca i Jevrejina, religioznog ili ne, pa se uputila na istraživanje tako što je živela tamo nekoliko meseci u samoći. U to doba, nije pisala scenario. To je učinila kasnije, oslanjajući se na svoja iskustva i razmišljanja. Rezultat toga je film koji će mnogi otpisati kao klasičnu festivalsku “slice of life” varijantu, ali koji je vrlo suptilan i odmeren film koji savršeno prenosi atmosferu teskobe i tereta, a svaki pokret i svaki kadar nešto znače. Ovo je jedan od onih filmova koji nas uvlače i za čiju nam je protagonistkinju stalo, a Yaelle Kayam, uz veliku pomoć perfektno taktilne glavne glumice Shani Klein itekako ume da priču ispriča do kraja i ostavi nas u razmišljanju.
Ne, ovo nije samo festivalski film, “slice of life”, šta već. Ovo je studija ljudske usamljenosti, teskobe i nemoći, suočavanja sa stvarnim životom nasuprot idealiziranoj tradiciji. Izraelska “arthouse” scena se sve više dokazuje kao nešto što treba gledati. Pa ipak, Mountain od gledaoca zahteva određenu kondiciju, pa bih sa preporukom bio oprezan.