This January I had the privilege of attending the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and managed to see every film competing for the Hivos Tiger Award, the Festival's central prize to a first or second feature. Three Tiger Awards are given out and each of the three winners receives a prize of €15,000--legitimate seed money for their next film. The competitors spanned the globe and brought a huge variety of style and subject matter--from documentary to dreamy poetry, distorted video artifacts to glossy cinematographic purity. This year's International Film Festival Rotterdam was scheduled the same week as Sundance, so the coverage of these films has been spotty because of the gravitational pull of Sundance. Joyless Creatures is proud to shine a light on these films. If we are lucky, half of the competitors may make it to US distribution; keep your eyes open for them if they do, since most number among the most interesting new directors in the global scene.
Menuju rembulan (Another Trip to the Moon)
| Director: Ismail Basbeth Writers: Ismail Basbeth, B.W. Purba Negara Producers: Ismail Basbeth, Suryo Wiyogo, Andhy Pulung Cinematographer: Satria Kurianto Editor: Dwi Agus Purwanto Music: Charlie Meliala |  Cast: Tara Basro, Ratu Anandita, Cornelio Sunny Runtime: 80 min Country: Indonesia |
Contemporary art films seem to have confused ponderousness for artistry, and nowhere is this more apparent than in Ismail Basbeth’s Another Trip to the Moon—an achingly slow film that is an attempted retelling of an Indonesian legend. The film follows two women who live in a lush jungle, hunting and gathering and being followed by scavenging dogs or scavenging men wearing dog masks. Without uttering a single line, the two women creep through the undergrowth in search of prey. They sleep in a nest of furs, curled up like a yin yang symbol and wear leather scraps for clothing. All of this is photographed so beautifully it looks like 60’s Technicolor—the vibrancy of the jungle nearly leaping off the screen. And although the film is without any dialogue, aside from a few grunts and screams, the soundtrack is full of the sounds of nature, a rich tableau that takes in everything around them. All of this is exquisite, it’s just that through the film’s 80 minutes (and it feels much longer than that) nothing ever happens.
But that’s not completely true; things do happen—an alien abduction, a lighting strike, a wedding, a birth, a shaman’s ritual—but they are all paid the same amount of attention as any single moment in the jungle, be it the bubbling of a brook or the artful placement of an arrow. The result is a puzzling mixture. Is this a non-narrative art film? Is it a retelling of an Indonesian myth? Or is it a contemporary tale set in the wilderness? Basbeth’s failure to answer these questions is what makes this film quixotic, a strange intersection of visual beauty and the tiniest hint of storytelling, yet the whole thing fails to address a bigger question—why should we care? It creates a vividly dreamy surreal setting but it lacks characters or story. So while it is a well-crafted work of art, there is little separating Another Trip to the Moon from an animated painting. It is lush and beautiful but its engagement with time, that essentially cinematic element, is pedestrian. The film would be equally well-suited as a looped video installation, as it is enveloping and stunning but lacking in content.
But that’s not completely true; things do happen—an alien abduction, a lighting strike, a wedding, a birth, a shaman’s ritual—but they are all paid the same amount of attention as any single moment in the jungle, be it the bubbling of a brook or the artful placement of an arrow. The result is a puzzling mixture. Is this a non-narrative art film? Is it a retelling of an Indonesian myth? Or is it a contemporary tale set in the wilderness? Basbeth’s failure to answer these questions is what makes this film quixotic, a strange intersection of visual beauty and the tiniest hint of storytelling, yet the whole thing fails to address a bigger question—why should we care? It creates a vividly dreamy surreal setting but it lacks characters or story. So while it is a well-crafted work of art, there is little separating Another Trip to the Moon from an animated painting. It is lush and beautiful but its engagement with time, that essentially cinematic element, is pedestrian. The film would be equally well-suited as a looped video installation, as it is enveloping and stunning but lacking in content.
La mujer de los perros (Dog Lady)
| Directors: Laura Citarella, Verónica Llinás Producers: Laura Citarella, Mariano Llinás Cinematographer: Soledad Rodriguez Editor: Ignacio Masllorens Music: Juana Molina |  Cast: Verónica Llinás Runtime: 95 min Country: Argentina |
Dogs felt like a strong theme amongst this year's Tiger competitors, but in La mujer de los perros they play their most prominent role. This near-wordless meditative drama follows a reclusive woman—played by co-director Verónica Llinás—who lives in an abandoned shack along with a pack of 10 or 15 wild dogs. The dogs follow our wordless protagonist everywhere, even in her frequent forays into town to scrounge and steal supplies from wherever she can.
The camerawork is relaxed, mostly handheld and often claustrophobically close, giving the whole experience a poetic feeling rather than a realist one. This feral figure's alienation from society shines a subtle spotlight on the cruelty of that world, especially when they interact; a group of kids shoot at her with a slingshot and call her a "crazy old witch" until her dogs scare them off. She only really seems to be able to communicate or empathize at all with her pack, often staring blankly at those humans who talk to her, then fearfully escaping at the first opportunity.
The narrative progression feels very animalistic, like it is truly written from a dog's perspective. It's almost preverbal, with little action actually taking place, but at the same time it is very emotional. At any moment there is a strong impression of what is happening and why it matters, but verbalizing those moments is a challenge. Often we find her looking on in wonder at peculiarities of the human world, like a big dirt bike rally taking place in a nearby parking lot.
Where the film fails is not in its intention, but in its performance. Llinás, for all her directorial skill, fails to give the impression of someone who can survive in the wild. Little things, like her carefully shaved legs and armpits, or her clumsy inability to start a fire belie her true nature—a film director, not a wild woman. The whole enterprise gets at something beautiful, a dog's-eye-view of the kino eye, but only if you can close your eyes to its central figure's incongruities.
The camerawork is relaxed, mostly handheld and often claustrophobically close, giving the whole experience a poetic feeling rather than a realist one. This feral figure's alienation from society shines a subtle spotlight on the cruelty of that world, especially when they interact; a group of kids shoot at her with a slingshot and call her a "crazy old witch" until her dogs scare them off. She only really seems to be able to communicate or empathize at all with her pack, often staring blankly at those humans who talk to her, then fearfully escaping at the first opportunity.
The narrative progression feels very animalistic, like it is truly written from a dog's perspective. It's almost preverbal, with little action actually taking place, but at the same time it is very emotional. At any moment there is a strong impression of what is happening and why it matters, but verbalizing those moments is a challenge. Often we find her looking on in wonder at peculiarities of the human world, like a big dirt bike rally taking place in a nearby parking lot.
Where the film fails is not in its intention, but in its performance. Llinás, for all her directorial skill, fails to give the impression of someone who can survive in the wild. Little things, like her carefully shaved legs and armpits, or her clumsy inability to start a fire belie her true nature—a film director, not a wild woman. The whole enterprise gets at something beautiful, a dog's-eye-view of the kino eye, but only if you can close your eyes to its central figure's incongruities.
| Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes) |
 | Director: Juan Daniel F. Molero Writer: Juan Daniel F. Molero Producer: Juan Daniel F. Molero Cinematographer: Omar Quezada Beltrán Editor: Juan Daniel F. Molero Music: Carlos Guitérrez Quiroga |  Cast: Muki Sabogal, Terom, Liliana Albonoz, Michel Lovón, José Alegría Runtime: 103 min Country: Peru |
Great artists have always been able to dissect modern technological advances into their most base, human elements, and that's what Juan Daniel F. Molero does with Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes) as he finds the perversity and violence at the heart of the so-called "YouTube generation." The film is shot in a shockingly lo-fi style, with handheld cameras that feel as emblematic of our video-saturated world as The Blair Witch Project's shaky camcorder was of the early nineties and give the whole enterprise a gritty documentary feel. The story also begins in the world of video saturation, as Junior (Terom), an early 20s burnout hoping to make it as an amateur porn manufacturer tries to sell upskirt videos he and a paraplegic friend shot by holding a camcorder at wheelchair level. Junior is sweet, if decidedly corrupted, and soon he is on a date with Luz, a young girl he met on Chatroulette and convincing her to let him videotape their awkward sexual interactions.
Their standoffish teenage tête-à-tête rings uncomfortably true, especially as Junior tries to take Luz on a real date and fails miserably. Luz herself is cooler, younger, and more adventurous than her geeky would-be porn star date—and the film follows her into some of its more striking moments, particularly an overwhelmingly sensorial acid trip on top of an Incan ruin. The plot devolves as the film progresses, menace and fear soon replacing Junior's initial depraved naiveté, and as the plot collapses in on him the celluloid (or in this case, videotape) seems to devolve as well, with ghost images, video artifacts, static, and artful video distortion taking over the screen.
Molero's distortion is as confidently executed as any of the experimental makers who have been jiggling around play heads for years trying to get interesting results—his trippy video overlays are perhaps most reminiscent of Nicolas Provost's Long Live the New Flesh--yet Molero manages to incorporate these distorted visions into the lives of his characters, their amateur porn bodies devolving into a fluid amorphous form of flowing pixels haunted by video artifact ghosts and demons, so much so that the un-pixelated scenes feel oddly false, as if they can't reach that same reality that can be found through haunted analog distortion. A costume party, with the cast of coked-up teenagers dressed in gaudy, brightly-colored store bought costumes (a lot of them from Dragonball Z) becomes almost funerary when compared to the psychedelic distortions that precede it. The trip into Videophilia is a hard one to forget, somewhere between Boogie Nights and The Savage Detectives.
Their standoffish teenage tête-à-tête rings uncomfortably true, especially as Junior tries to take Luz on a real date and fails miserably. Luz herself is cooler, younger, and more adventurous than her geeky would-be porn star date—and the film follows her into some of its more striking moments, particularly an overwhelmingly sensorial acid trip on top of an Incan ruin. The plot devolves as the film progresses, menace and fear soon replacing Junior's initial depraved naiveté, and as the plot collapses in on him the celluloid (or in this case, videotape) seems to devolve as well, with ghost images, video artifacts, static, and artful video distortion taking over the screen.
Molero's distortion is as confidently executed as any of the experimental makers who have been jiggling around play heads for years trying to get interesting results—his trippy video overlays are perhaps most reminiscent of Nicolas Provost's Long Live the New Flesh--yet Molero manages to incorporate these distorted visions into the lives of his characters, their amateur porn bodies devolving into a fluid amorphous form of flowing pixels haunted by video artifact ghosts and demons, so much so that the un-pixelated scenes feel oddly false, as if they can't reach that same reality that can be found through haunted analog distortion. A costume party, with the cast of coked-up teenagers dressed in gaudy, brightly-colored store bought costumes (a lot of them from Dragonball Z) becomes almost funerary when compared to the psychedelic distortions that precede it. The trip into Videophilia is a hard one to forget, somewhere between Boogie Nights and The Savage Detectives.
Gluckauf
| Director: Remy van Heugten Writers: Gustaaf Peek, Remy van Heugten Producers: Joram Willink, Piet-Harm Sterk Cinematographer: Mark van Aller Editor: Moek de Groot Music: Jorrit Kleijnen, Alexander Reumers |  Cast: Bart Slegers, Vincent van der Valk, Johan Leysen, Joy Verberk, Ali Ben Horsting, Kiki van Aubel, Jan ten Haaf Runtime: 102 min Country: Netherlands |
Gluckauf is a distinctly conventional film compared to the rest of the competitors for this year's Tiger Awards, one that sneaked into this group of weirdo offerings by virtue of its Dutch tenure. (The Dutch film industry is small enough to make a film of this quality notable.) "Gluckauf" is a traditional miner's greeting, and set in the rural mining region of Limburg in eastern Holland, its understood meaning of "get back above ground safely" becomes a clear metaphor. The film follows Lei Frissman, a middle aged petty criminal, and his son Jeffrey as the latter begins to get sucked into working for the local crime boss, Vester. Vester disdains Lei for being immature and irresponsible, seeing him as a small-time loser more interested in hunting and having a good time than he is in paying his debts—he owes Vester a good deal of money—or doing the dangerous (and often violent) jobs that Vester has to offer.
Their troubles begin when Jeffrey, who is a hotshot kid trying to get rich, learns about his father's debts and starts working for Vester to pay them off. The relationship between Lei and Jeffrey, one that has been very close since childhood (when Lei left his wife and brought Jeffrey with him), begins to fray.
The story is old but well delivered, mostly due to tremendously good acting. Performances are impressive across the board. Vincent van der Velk shows flashes of brilliance with the lupine grace he brings to Jeffrey, but Bart Slegers (Lei) blows the rest of the cast out of the water. The world-weary weight of a lifetime as a loser seems to suffuse his every muscle, and as we get to know him better, as he gets mixed up with Vester and his son, we see a strong, iconoclastic moral code. Lei is something like a film noir detective; like Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade he is a man operating by his own rules, continually screwing up his chances for success in favor of self-imposed moral integrity. He is complex and sad, and Slegers gives him all the naturalistic weight that Bogey would have. Lei is a man born in the wrong time and his son—who has the moral ambivalence and initiative of any young thug—is the modern, less tortured version of him, ambition without conscience. Remy van Heugten's tight script makes this family drama emotionally powerful, and well deserving of its unusual programming position.
Their troubles begin when Jeffrey, who is a hotshot kid trying to get rich, learns about his father's debts and starts working for Vester to pay them off. The relationship between Lei and Jeffrey, one that has been very close since childhood (when Lei left his wife and brought Jeffrey with him), begins to fray.
The story is old but well delivered, mostly due to tremendously good acting. Performances are impressive across the board. Vincent van der Velk shows flashes of brilliance with the lupine grace he brings to Jeffrey, but Bart Slegers (Lei) blows the rest of the cast out of the water. The world-weary weight of a lifetime as a loser seems to suffuse his every muscle, and as we get to know him better, as he gets mixed up with Vester and his son, we see a strong, iconoclastic moral code. Lei is something like a film noir detective; like Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade he is a man operating by his own rules, continually screwing up his chances for success in favor of self-imposed moral integrity. He is complex and sad, and Slegers gives him all the naturalistic weight that Bogey would have. Lei is a man born in the wrong time and his son—who has the moral ambivalence and initiative of any young thug—is the modern, less tortured version of him, ambition without conscience. Remy van Heugten's tight script makes this family drama emotionally powerful, and well deserving of its unusual programming position.
Vanishing Point
 | Director: Jakrawal Nithamrong Writer: Jakrawal Nithamrong Producers: Chatchai Chaiyon, Phuttiphong Aroonpheng Cinematographer: Phuttiphong Aroonpheng Editor: Jakrawal Nithamrong Music: Pakorn Muiskaboonlert |  Cast: Ongart Cheamcharoenpornkul, Drunphob Suriyawong, Chalee Choueyai, Suweeraya Thongmee Runtime: 100 min Country: Thailand |
Vanishing Point opens with an intimate and chilling sight, the black and white photographs documenting director Jakrawal Nilthamrong’s parents’ fatal car crash. While not referenced explicitly in the film, this is all a way to explore the lingering effects of such violent erasure. Through several seemingly unconnected stories, Nilthamrong explores how fate, chance, and random occurrence can push otherwise normal lives into such a dramatic, untimely end.
The sense of melancholy is heavy throughout the film, be it the lonely factory owner who can no longer communicate with his wife and daughter, the accused rapist forced by police to act out the alleged act with a novelty-sized teddy bear, or the young man who can only find solace in the arms of an older prostitute. While every character is filled with a deep sadness, they are portrayed with such humanity that the effect is not depressing as much as complicating. And while their stories are unconnected and told in no particular order, the editing flows naturally and clearly and individual scenes have a strong sense of place.
Particularly striking is a scene where the factory owner—the nominal main character—wanders through the woods and comes to a priest sweeping up a shrine who tells him a long story about his dreams. The symbolism is hard to follow, and maybe that’s the point. This is a film with universal appeal because of its subject matter—the beauty, sadness, and arbitrary cruelty of life no matter where we find it.
The sense of melancholy is heavy throughout the film, be it the lonely factory owner who can no longer communicate with his wife and daughter, the accused rapist forced by police to act out the alleged act with a novelty-sized teddy bear, or the young man who can only find solace in the arms of an older prostitute. While every character is filled with a deep sadness, they are portrayed with such humanity that the effect is not depressing as much as complicating. And while their stories are unconnected and told in no particular order, the editing flows naturally and clearly and individual scenes have a strong sense of place.
Particularly striking is a scene where the factory owner—the nominal main character—wanders through the woods and comes to a priest sweeping up a shrine who tells him a long story about his dreams. The symbolism is hard to follow, and maybe that’s the point. This is a film with universal appeal because of its subject matter—the beauty, sadness, and arbitrary cruelty of life no matter where we find it.
Oi entyposeis enos pnigmenou (Impressions of a Drowned Man)
| Director: Kyros Papavassiliou Writer: Kyros Papavassiliou Producers: Monica Micolaidou, Yiannis Chalkiadakis, Kyros Papavassiliou Cinematographer: Konstantinos Othonos Editor: Yiannis Chalkiadakis Music: Nikos Veliotis |  Cast: Theodoris Pentidis, Marisha Triantafyllidou, Christodoulos Martas Runtime: 82 min Country: Cyprus/Greece |
Kostas Karyotakis is one of Greece’s most well-known poets, a 1920’s existentialist. He is famous, like so many poets tortured by the agony of existence, for committing suicide at a young age (33). The strange premise of Impressions of a Drowned Man, a film that takes its title from Karyotakis’s final poem, is that, as a sort of penance for earlier sins, Karyotakis must return to earth each year on the day that he died and see all those people he left behind—grief-stricken parents suffering from 80 years of dementia, a pregnant girlfriend stuck in a state of limbo (a few months pregnant for 80 years), and an actor famous for portraying Karyotakis in a film that is shown every year in his honor. The result is sort of a reverse Groundhog Day, in which Karyotakis wanders through the world trying to discover who he is and why he is there, while the eternally suffering people around him explain, to his horror, the purgatory they have been stranded in.
Kyros Papavassiliou illustrates Karyotakis’s post-mortem existential crisis in an elegant and obscure manner. It’s worth saying that this might be significantly less obscure to Greek viewers, those more familiar with the poet’s persona, but Papavassilou’s methods are alienating enough to intellectualize the experiences of even the most involved viewers. In one of the film’s most impressive sequences, Karyotakis goes into a photo booth to provide the police with a series of photographs so that they can identify him next year when he mysteriously reappears, yet to their chagrin, the images that come out of the developer are not of his face, but are instead lonely landscape photos—an abandoned train alleyway, an underpass, a field of wheat with a city on the horizon—all the places Karyotakis is doomed to wander through again and again. Like a vampire in a mirror, Karyotakis has no measurable image, as he floats wistfully through a world he hardly recognizes. By the film’s surreal finale, the experience is so alienating and hollow that a formalist turn seems like the only way to complete such a bleak film. It poses more questions than it answers, but delves deeply into the psyche of a re-incarnated suicidal poet.
Kyros Papavassiliou illustrates Karyotakis’s post-mortem existential crisis in an elegant and obscure manner. It’s worth saying that this might be significantly less obscure to Greek viewers, those more familiar with the poet’s persona, but Papavassilou’s methods are alienating enough to intellectualize the experiences of even the most involved viewers. In one of the film’s most impressive sequences, Karyotakis goes into a photo booth to provide the police with a series of photographs so that they can identify him next year when he mysteriously reappears, yet to their chagrin, the images that come out of the developer are not of his face, but are instead lonely landscape photos—an abandoned train alleyway, an underpass, a field of wheat with a city on the horizon—all the places Karyotakis is doomed to wander through again and again. Like a vampire in a mirror, Karyotakis has no measurable image, as he floats wistfully through a world he hardly recognizes. By the film’s surreal finale, the experience is so alienating and hollow that a formalist turn seems like the only way to complete such a bleak film. It poses more questions than it answers, but delves deeply into the psyche of a re-incarnated suicidal poet.
La obra del siglo (The Project of the Century)
 | Director: Carlos M. Quintela Writers: Abel Arcos, Carlos M. Quintela Producers: Natacha Cervi, Hernán Musaluppi, Pablo Chernov Cinematographer: Marcos B. Bohórquez Editor: Yan Vega Music: Vicente Rojas |  Cast: Mario Balmaseda, Mario Guerra, Leonardo Gascón Runtime: 100 min Country: Cuba/Argentina/Germany |
Particularly timely in the midst of America's reconciliation with Cuba, La obra del siglo is a personal look at the aftermath of Cuba's association with the Soviet Union, specifically focusing on a family in one small town—"Electro-Nuclear City"—built adjacent to the never-finished Soviet-funded Juragua Nuclear Power Plant that was to power the whole island of Cuba. Three generations of men in this family have all been intimately affected by this construction (and its ultimate failure), from the grandfather Otto (Mario Balmaseda), who worked construction on the project and now dreamily remembers meeting Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin during the construction of this cement-block behemoth; the father Leo (Leonardo Gascón), an aging, divorced geek who was trained to be one of the plant's nuclear engineers and speaks Cuban-accented Russian from his time in training in the Soviet Union; and the son Rafael (Mario Guerra), a heavily tattooed 20-something punk, reeling from his own recent divorce and part of the non-industrial modern generation, left jobless by the disappearance of manufacturing and construction work.
The family drama all takes place in the apartment that Otto and Leo share (and in which Rafael is staying since his divorce), where the acerbic Otto spits endless abuse towards the son he sees as useless. Leo and Otto spar while Rafael sulks menacingly—his physicality is a constant threat to the two old men who fight each other at every turn. Leo brings a new girlfriend to meet the family and Otto is relentlessly mean, bringing her to tears several times, his anger and resentment seemingly a result of the failure to complete this enormous construction project, an achievement that would have been "the work of the century" but that he jokingly refers to as "the planetarium" for its huge, now useless, central dome.
All this is shot in black and white and intercut with grainy 80's color-television footage—presented in its original 4:3 ratio in the center of the screen—that traces the history of that construction and its economic collapse along with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. While the connections between these interlocking narratives are clearly laid out, the ambitiousness of trying to tell the story of two countries through one family is slightly more than the film can handle. At times, they feel like two unconnected stories, especially when the domestic tale flutters into fantasy—animals die and come back to life—and the historical found footage feels dry and flat in comparison. But as the family dynamic dissolves into violent chaos and the Soviet Union too collapses, the whole film becomes a beautiful mess, all nostalgia for lost days and the glowing future that they promised, and an unrecognizable hybrid of documentary and fiction.
The family drama all takes place in the apartment that Otto and Leo share (and in which Rafael is staying since his divorce), where the acerbic Otto spits endless abuse towards the son he sees as useless. Leo and Otto spar while Rafael sulks menacingly—his physicality is a constant threat to the two old men who fight each other at every turn. Leo brings a new girlfriend to meet the family and Otto is relentlessly mean, bringing her to tears several times, his anger and resentment seemingly a result of the failure to complete this enormous construction project, an achievement that would have been "the work of the century" but that he jokingly refers to as "the planetarium" for its huge, now useless, central dome.
All this is shot in black and white and intercut with grainy 80's color-television footage—presented in its original 4:3 ratio in the center of the screen—that traces the history of that construction and its economic collapse along with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. While the connections between these interlocking narratives are clearly laid out, the ambitiousness of trying to tell the story of two countries through one family is slightly more than the film can handle. At times, they feel like two unconnected stories, especially when the domestic tale flutters into fantasy—animals die and come back to life—and the historical found footage feels dry and flat in comparison. But as the family dynamic dissolves into violent chaos and the Soviet Union too collapses, the whole film becomes a beautiful mess, all nostalgia for lost days and the glowing future that they promised, and an unrecognizable hybrid of documentary and fiction.
Norfolk
| Director: Martin Radich Writer: Martin Radich Producers: Finlay Prestell, Rachel Dargavel Cinematographer: Tim Sidell Editor: Mark Trend Music: JG Thirlwell |  Cast: Denis Ménochet, Barry Keoghan, Goda Letkauskaite, Eileen Davies, Sean Buckley, Rupert Proctor Runtime: 87 min Country: UK |
Martin Radich’s new film (his second feature) takes its setting as its central thesis as it builds a world around discomfiting rabbit-hole farmland and desiccated farmhouses full of peeling paint and obsolete tools. Norfolk County is one of England's most rural, sparsely populated regions and it lacks the verdant charm generally associated with the British countryside. It has a reputation for being backwards, spawning the expression "Normal for Norfolk" to describe the country people who live there. At the center of this tale lie a father and son, Denis Ménochet and Barry Keoghan, billed simply as Man and Boy. Ménochet is a mercenary whose orders come in through one of seven retro television sets he keeps on all the time in his peeling living room. His son, meanwhile, spends most of his time outside, playing with a neighbor girl and being secretly spied on by an older couple intent on kidnapping him.
At least that's the impression that comes through on a single viewing. The plot is so obtuse and the characters are so emotionally repressed that it's hard to figure out what's really happening at any point. Radich's tendency toward unlabeled symbolic and metaphorical moments only make the plot more convoluted—do the Man and Boy really come across a dead dog in their yard or is that a vision, indicative of something more primordial? Central to the plot are the torn left half of a black and white photograph, a group of foreign revolutionaries, a pair of tortoises named Mr. Gonzalez and Michelle, and the tortured history that is manifest in Ménochet's physical performance, but beyond that the details are hard to pin down.
While the film's story may be largely inaccessible, what is present in every frame is an overwhelming sense of menace. All of this flows from Ménochet's brooding performance—he displays some of the simpering intensity of actors like Tom Hardy, particularly in the scenes where he acts out violent moments alone in his kitchen. Simply his physical presence is enough of a threat to put any viewer on edge, and add to that the real moments of sudden violence and the spare, post-apocalyptic setting—a world in which no one is there to hear you scream—and this film's modest tale of family drama becomes more intense and arresting than it has any right to. Not all of Radich's formal experimentation is effective, but he has developed a consistent tone and style that rivals even the most experienced filmmakers.
At least that's the impression that comes through on a single viewing. The plot is so obtuse and the characters are so emotionally repressed that it's hard to figure out what's really happening at any point. Radich's tendency toward unlabeled symbolic and metaphorical moments only make the plot more convoluted—do the Man and Boy really come across a dead dog in their yard or is that a vision, indicative of something more primordial? Central to the plot are the torn left half of a black and white photograph, a group of foreign revolutionaries, a pair of tortoises named Mr. Gonzalez and Michelle, and the tortured history that is manifest in Ménochet's physical performance, but beyond that the details are hard to pin down.
While the film's story may be largely inaccessible, what is present in every frame is an overwhelming sense of menace. All of this flows from Ménochet's brooding performance—he displays some of the simpering intensity of actors like Tom Hardy, particularly in the scenes where he acts out violent moments alone in his kitchen. Simply his physical presence is enough of a threat to put any viewer on edge, and add to that the real moments of sudden violence and the spare, post-apocalyptic setting—a world in which no one is there to hear you scream—and this film's modest tale of family drama becomes more intense and arresting than it has any right to. Not all of Radich's formal experimentation is effective, but he has developed a consistent tone and style that rivals even the most experienced filmmakers.
Bridgend
| Director: Jeppe Rønde Writers: Jeppe Rønde, Torben Bech, Peter Asmussen Producer: Michel Schønnemann Cinematographer: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck Editor: Olivier Bugge Coutté Music: Mondkopf |  Cast: Hannah Murray, Steven Waddington, Josh O'Connor, Adrian Rawlins Runtime: 99 min Country: Denmark |
Dutch director Jeppe Rønde's first feature film demonstrates a remarkable knack for polished execution, with all the glossiness and swift pacing of a David Fincher film. It takes its name from its setting, Wales's Bridgend, a small rural city of 50,000 notable for the dozens of teenage suicides—almost all found hanged in the woods—that have occurred there since 2007. The film's protagonist is Sara (Hannah Murray), a new girl in town whose father (Steven Waddington) is a police detective sent out from the big city to investigate this rash of teen hangings. While her father begins to dig into the gang of cliquey, popular teens whose friends keep dying and who refuse to talk to the police, Sara slowly becomes one of them, sneaking out to go clubbing and skinny dipping in a orange-tinged quarry near the woodland trails where all the bodies are found.
The mystery plot is genuinely gripping as we start to piece together why all these deaths might be happening, but seeing the collective mania that grips these kids makes it more interesting than a police procedural. While we are interested in the deaths—are they murders or suicides?—the further Sara is subsumed into this group, the more unstable and intoxicating their perspective becomes. The whole thing feels like a beautifully shot but deranged episode of Masterpiece Theatre.
The ending, which leaves the cause of these deaths mysterious (as they remain in real-life Wales), only makes the mystery more compelling. Hannah Murray shines as Sara, giving a lived-in performance as a bored teen growing out of parental supervision and into a dangerous new friend group. The rest of the cast of teenagers, many of whom are real kids from Bridgend, project a threatening calmness, the sense that they are part of something secret and incomprehensible—particularly frustrating to the very conventional adults trying to drag them to church and away from whatever dangerous suicide cult they have forged.
The film is fascinating to the end, its only real faults lying in its questionable connection to reality—for those kids and parents really suffering through this mass tragedy this curious case might feel more personally tragic than puzzling. Still, this is a tremendous showing from a rookie filmmaker and a great display from Murray, who grows here far beyond her more pedestrian work on Game of Thrones. We are left to wonder at the true reason behind this seemingly senseless death as the film's surreal finale answers nothing but beautifully complicates our understanding.
The mystery plot is genuinely gripping as we start to piece together why all these deaths might be happening, but seeing the collective mania that grips these kids makes it more interesting than a police procedural. While we are interested in the deaths—are they murders or suicides?—the further Sara is subsumed into this group, the more unstable and intoxicating their perspective becomes. The whole thing feels like a beautifully shot but deranged episode of Masterpiece Theatre.
The ending, which leaves the cause of these deaths mysterious (as they remain in real-life Wales), only makes the mystery more compelling. Hannah Murray shines as Sara, giving a lived-in performance as a bored teen growing out of parental supervision and into a dangerous new friend group. The rest of the cast of teenagers, many of whom are real kids from Bridgend, project a threatening calmness, the sense that they are part of something secret and incomprehensible—particularly frustrating to the very conventional adults trying to drag them to church and away from whatever dangerous suicide cult they have forged.
The film is fascinating to the end, its only real faults lying in its questionable connection to reality—for those kids and parents really suffering through this mass tragedy this curious case might feel more personally tragic than puzzling. Still, this is a tremendous showing from a rookie filmmaker and a great display from Murray, who grows here far beyond her more pedestrian work on Game of Thrones. We are left to wonder at the true reason behind this seemingly senseless death as the film's surreal finale answers nothing but beautifully complicates our understanding.
Above and Below
| Director: Nicolas Steiner Writer: Nicolas Steiner Producers: Brigitte Hofer, Cornelia Seitler, Helge Albers Cinematographer: Markus Nestroy Editor: Kaya Inan Music: John Gürtler |  Runtime: 120 min Country: Switzerland/Germany |
Nicolas Steiner’s dizzying documentary look at the unseen underbelly of the American Southwest is literally incredible—its shots are so beautifully choreographed and photographed and its subjects so forthcoming that it leaves you incredulous about its veracity. The vistas are sweeping and the camerawork is flawless—suddenly floating up into a crane shot out of the blue without losing any of its handheld intimacy. Semi-standard documentary interviews are intercut with stunning non-narrative images, like a man swimming alone in a frame of nearly opaque sky-blue water or thousands of Ping Pong balls riding the flood wave through a storm drain, and while this artistry does pull away slightly from their stories, it elevates the film above the limitations of conventional documentary. This is as beautiful as any art film but also true.
Above and Below focuses on a few people scattered across the Southwest: Cindy and Rick, who we spend the most time with, are two of the approximately one-thousand people who live in the storm-sewers beneath Las Vegas, always on the edge of having their home and all their possessions flooded away from them by a thunderstorm; Dave is a former truck driver who lives alone in an abandoned military bunker in the desert, sending messages to God that he spells out with bottles in the sand (messages like “I NEED $7,000”); April, though less down-on-her luck than the others, is in an equally bizarre world as a Martian explorer-in-training, wearing a space suit and running simulations of the surface of Mars in the barren Utah desert. April is particularly open about her life, sharing uncomfortably intimate truths about her family and why she hopes to leave Earth behind for good. This is the stuff of science fiction—from mole people to abandoned bomb shelters to Mars colonies—but the subjects are so honest and forthcoming, due no doubt to something welcoming and nonjudgmental in Steiner’s approach to interviews, that their portraits are as familiar as they are moving. Its final shot, a man climbing out of a manhole to walk amongst crowds on the Las Vegas strip, is emblematic of the film's whole project: portraying people on the fringe of American society who, like everyone else, are just trying to survive.
Above and Below focuses on a few people scattered across the Southwest: Cindy and Rick, who we spend the most time with, are two of the approximately one-thousand people who live in the storm-sewers beneath Las Vegas, always on the edge of having their home and all their possessions flooded away from them by a thunderstorm; Dave is a former truck driver who lives alone in an abandoned military bunker in the desert, sending messages to God that he spells out with bottles in the sand (messages like “I NEED $7,000”); April, though less down-on-her luck than the others, is in an equally bizarre world as a Martian explorer-in-training, wearing a space suit and running simulations of the surface of Mars in the barren Utah desert. April is particularly open about her life, sharing uncomfortably intimate truths about her family and why she hopes to leave Earth behind for good. This is the stuff of science fiction—from mole people to abandoned bomb shelters to Mars colonies—but the subjects are so honest and forthcoming, due no doubt to something welcoming and nonjudgmental in Steiner’s approach to interviews, that their portraits are as familiar as they are moving. Its final shot, a man climbing out of a manhole to walk amongst crowds on the Las Vegas strip, is emblematic of the film's whole project: portraying people on the fringe of American society who, like everyone else, are just trying to survive.
Haruko’s Paranormal Library
| Director: Lisa Takeba Writer: Lisa Takeba Producers: Ono Satoshi, Lisa Takeba Cinematographer: Shu G. Momose Editor: Yoshihiro Nishimura Music: Kentaro Fujinaga |  Cast: Aoi Nakamura, Moeka Nozaki, Fumiyo Kohinata, Sayaka Aoki, Yakumi Saito, Yumiko Takahashi Runtime: 76 min Country: Japan |
“This is a love story between me and my TV.” So opens Lisa Takeba’s madcap fable of the consumerist dream realized. When Haruko (Moeka Nozaki) yells her 10,000th insult at her old console television (a "VIDEODROME" brand) it comes to life, becoming a handsome young man (Aoi Nakamura) with a television for a head. Haruko, obsessed since childhood with the paranormal, thinks this man must be a poltergeist, but soon discovers that he is nothing more than a personified television. Soon the two fall in love and eventually Television ventures out into the big world where his skill with languages—he is fluent in every language ever played on TV—makes him a success. This is the story of someone so fed up with contemporary society that she hopes to find happiness through an object instead of through other people, or as Haruko puts, “Family, friends, lovers, they’ll betray you, but objects won’t.”
The concept and execution are wacky and campy enough that the low budget props and sets and over-the-top characterizations work to the film’s benefit. And the pace is frenetic, with outrageous jokes piling on almost faster than they can hit. Many center around Television being very well endowed, a joke played out a few too many times in a few too many scenarios, but one that gets to the heart of one of the film’s critiques—namely that masculinity and toughness is a façade easily broken down by a single household object with a big dick.
But 76 minutes feels like a long time to sit through such a silly concept. By the third or fourth major plot twist, the campy charm has worn off a little, and the still-rolling plot verges into melodrama. Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory is destined to be a zany cult favorite, if it’s ever released broadly, but not a whole lot more than that.
The concept and execution are wacky and campy enough that the low budget props and sets and over-the-top characterizations work to the film’s benefit. And the pace is frenetic, with outrageous jokes piling on almost faster than they can hit. Many center around Television being very well endowed, a joke played out a few too many times in a few too many scenarios, but one that gets to the heart of one of the film’s critiques—namely that masculinity and toughness is a façade easily broken down by a single household object with a big dick.
But 76 minutes feels like a long time to sit through such a silly concept. By the third or fourth major plot twist, the campy charm has worn off a little, and the still-rolling plot verges into melodrama. Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory is destined to be a zany cult favorite, if it’s ever released broadly, but not a whole lot more than that.
Parabellum
| Director: Lukas Valenta Rinner Writers: Esteban Prado, Ana Godoy, Lukas Valenta Rinner Producers: Lukas Valenta Rinner, Alex Poperno, Juan Pablo Martínez Cinematographer: Roman Kasseroller Editors: Ana Godoy, Javier Favot Music: Dino Spiluttini |  Cast: Pablo Seijo, Eva Bianco, Martin Shanly Runtime: 75 min Country: Argentina/Austria/Uruguay |
The end of the world has become a topic of massive commercial exploitation here in late capitalism, perhaps because it seems so terrifyingly possible. Reality shows, Hollywood narratives, young adult fiction, and real-life movements, all centered on impending apocalypse, have bloomed in the last decade. Lukas Valenta Rinner’s new film—his first as a director—takes the corporatization of the apocalypse to its ultimate, ludicrous endpoint, extrapolating that anxiety into an apocalypse training camp. A middle class Argentinian man working as a clerk leaves Buenos Aires by boat along with a dozen other similar candidates, all wearing blindfolds. They are taken to a camp in the jungle. The whole place appears to be an all-inclusive resort with cabins that look like part of an Ewok village and a charming PA system that chirps “Good morning explorers” to wake them before describing the daily schedule of classes, from survival to self-defense. But what's striking and rings true about this crop of would-be Mad Maxes is their unlikeliness. Rather than chiseled (if dirty) Hollywood stars, this crew of explorers look like they could make up the staff of a typical office—most are middle-aged and overweight and few of them look like they've ever thrown a punch.
Soon this class of apocalypse-trained schlubs leaves the school to wreak havoc on the Argentinian countryside, raiding rich houses and stealing boats to work their way up the river toward Buenos Aires. Rinner’s direction is austere and no-nonsense, reminiscent of his Austrian countryman Michael Haneke, which gives this parody a heavy tone. While its premise is outrageous, Rinner treats it with such somber intensity and his casting choices make this film uncomfortably real. This isn't a squadron of models with quaffed hair climbing out of the rubble, but your next-door neighbor, school teacher, and the kid down the street who loves Halo. The uncomfortable closeness of this portrayal makes the whole enterprise too real to laugh at. As the film’s middle-class losers-turned-action heroes become sociopathically inclined, the tone is positively chilling.
Soon this class of apocalypse-trained schlubs leaves the school to wreak havoc on the Argentinian countryside, raiding rich houses and stealing boats to work their way up the river toward Buenos Aires. Rinner’s direction is austere and no-nonsense, reminiscent of his Austrian countryman Michael Haneke, which gives this parody a heavy tone. While its premise is outrageous, Rinner treats it with such somber intensity and his casting choices make this film uncomfortably real. This isn't a squadron of models with quaffed hair climbing out of the rubble, but your next-door neighbor, school teacher, and the kid down the street who loves Halo. The uncomfortable closeness of this portrayal makes the whole enterprise too real to laugh at. As the film’s middle-class losers-turned-action heroes become sociopathically inclined, the tone is positively chilling.
Tired Moonlight
| Director: Britni West Writers: Britni West, Paul Dickenson, Liz Randall, Hilary Berg, Rainleigh Vick, Alex Karpovsky, Charles Smith, Nick Stockton, Stephen Gurewitz Producer: Britni West Cinematographer: Adam Ginsberg Editors: Britni West, Adam Ginsberg Music: Paul Grimstad, Jake Sullivan |  Cast: Liz Randall, Paul Dickenson, Hilary Berg, Rainleigh Vick, Alex Karpovsky, Charles Smith, Nick Stockton Runtime: 78 min Country: USA |
Britni West's first feature is a dreamy poem shot on 16mm, an elegy for a lost American innocence, and a loving portrait of a small Montana town. The film opens with Dawn (Liz Randall), the closest thing to a protagonist that Tired Moonlight has, picking up an old fax machine from the side of the road and using it to photocopy crossword puzzles so that she can sell them on eBay. Dawn works as a hotel maid in this small Montana town but aspires to make it rich through eBay entrepreneurship, a supremely dismal dream. The cast of characters is broadly defined, since everyone in this small town is connected in some way and they are all equally important to West's roving camera as she plumbs the depths of sad beauty that exist in the setting—West's hometown of Kalispell, Montana. The only movie star in the cast is Girls' Alex Karpovsky, but his character, a local businessman who still takes care of his Russian immigrant mother, is treated with the same gentle interest as everyone else. In a sense, the characters are secondary to the place itself, and the spider web of connections between these people.
Nothing drastic happens over the film's 78 minutes. One of Dawn's old lovers, a poet named Paul (played by Minneapolis "punk rock poet" Paul Dickenson), comes back into town to deal with his mother's personal effects and renews an awkward love affair with Dawn with haphazard vigor. Dawn and Paul go to a carnival. Sarah (Hillary Berg), a grocery store checker and single mom, goes to a Fourth of July barbecue and her daughter Rainy (Rainleigh Vick) plays with older girls, swims in the pool, and watches a fireworks show with guileless awe. But what happens isn't quite as important as where they are; the mystique of a small town in the American West is intoxicating.
The whole film is edited like a dream, drifting in and out of moments and constantly leaving us in media res with melancholy characters wallowing in this beautiful place. Cinematographer Adam Ginsberg's 16mm cinematography certainly doesn't hurt, wedding the gritty feel of an experimental documentary and an interest in natural beauty that brings to mind the early works of Terrence Malick. Paul Dickenson's rambling beat-twinged poetry often serves as voiceover and it seems fitting, since this particular small town feels like it hasn't changed too much since Ginsberg and Kerouac hitchhiked their way through it. Tired Moonlight is a love song to Americana, and especially impressive as a freshman effort from Britni West; she demonstrates a unique knack for modest, beautiful filmmaking.
Nothing drastic happens over the film's 78 minutes. One of Dawn's old lovers, a poet named Paul (played by Minneapolis "punk rock poet" Paul Dickenson), comes back into town to deal with his mother's personal effects and renews an awkward love affair with Dawn with haphazard vigor. Dawn and Paul go to a carnival. Sarah (Hillary Berg), a grocery store checker and single mom, goes to a Fourth of July barbecue and her daughter Rainy (Rainleigh Vick) plays with older girls, swims in the pool, and watches a fireworks show with guileless awe. But what happens isn't quite as important as where they are; the mystique of a small town in the American West is intoxicating.
The whole film is edited like a dream, drifting in and out of moments and constantly leaving us in media res with melancholy characters wallowing in this beautiful place. Cinematographer Adam Ginsberg's 16mm cinematography certainly doesn't hurt, wedding the gritty feel of an experimental documentary and an interest in natural beauty that brings to mind the early works of Terrence Malick. Paul Dickenson's rambling beat-twinged poetry often serves as voiceover and it seems fitting, since this particular small town feels like it hasn't changed too much since Ginsberg and Kerouac hitchhiked their way through it. Tired Moonlight is a love song to Americana, and especially impressive as a freshman effort from Britni West; she demonstrates a unique knack for modest, beautiful filmmaking.
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