Xavier Dolan expands the frontiers of filmmaking and emotions with Mommy— a film review
February 12, 2015
Throughout his oeuvre, writer/director Xavier Dolan has presented viewers with the great range of loving relationships. Love cannot be contained in neat categories constrained by normalcy or appropriateness. In his films, love spills over, revealed in raw emotion both beautiful and ugly. In Mommy, Dolan has developed characters filled with contradictions, shortcomings and limitations, brought to life through powerful performances by Anne Dorval as Diane, mother to teenage Steve played by Antoine-Olivier Pilon. These raw performances coupled with Dolan’s stylistic narrative make Mommy one of the most immersive, adventurous and – dare I say – masterful films of this year. It rightfully won the jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014 tying with another master, Jean-Luc Godard (Godard’s Goodbye to Language 3D affirms a master filmmaker’s place in history of cinema). Mommy also won the Best North American Film Award at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.
The film opens to a stark announcement about a law that allows parents to commit their children to a state-run facility if they are beyond control. The harsh law is also a warning for the audience to brace themselves, as the world we are about to enter is not an easy one. Mommy is the story of a dysfunctional family, a recently widowed woman and her teenage son, who has just been released from an institution, struggle to make a life for themselves. Circumstances constrain both mother and son. They live in economic distress and have difficulty managing their emotions in socially acceptable ways. The emotionally fractured characters are all strong and vulnerable, needing a family while rejecting structures — a modern tale of family.
The film kicks off with the encounter between mother and son, which is both a violent clash between two opposing worlds and a beautiful encounter between two family members who love each other so deeply it hurts. Diane “Die” Després (Dorval) is a recently widowed single mother living pay check to pay check. Die flaunts an over-sexualized image complete with youthful, scantily clad outfits that make for a garish exterior. Her maternal instincts kick in when Steve comes to live with her. Steve is loud and rude, but his is also screaming for attention and starving for familial connection. Going through 
adolescence, Steve’s sexuality is also very much present. Both Die and Steve are deeply affected by the loss of Steve’s father a few years earlier, and although they love each other deeply, their dynamic is fraught with confrontations that escalate to conflict easily. Dolan does not hold back, constraining much of the action in a suffocating 1:1 aspect ratio, and inviting the actors to express their characters to grating, bombastic heights that those familiar with his work should be prepared for.
Early in the movie, Steve comes home with bags filled with groceries and a gift for Die: a gold necklace that spells “Mommy.” He clearly has no way to pay for any of these things, and his worried mother scornfully implies thieving, shutting down his at first triumphant and exuberant entrance. Feeding off her negativity, Steve’s joy quickly turns to a violent outburst, one of the constants in the character dynamic throughout the film, which also seems on the edge of exploding in unpredictable ways.
Pilon’s performance captures that teenage angst and volatility brilliantly, and Dolan understands how to ratchet them with his shooting style. Some of the shots of Steve by himself running around and playing with a shopping cart in a parking lot showcase that combination of boredom and excess of energy all captured in the narrow confines of a life that seems overbearing, as demonstrated with a tighter aspect ratio than the sometimes familiar and more comfortable 4:3. Dolan’s stylistic choice therefore pushes the film medium to new heights, which is what makes him an exciting director. His defiance to the establishment can be likened to Steve’s own frustration with rules and order.
The complex relationship between mother and son is somewhat alleviated by the presence of neighbor Kyla (Suzanne Clément), who becomes a friend to Die and a caretaker to Steve. Unable to connect with her own family because of a mysterious trauma early in her life, Kyla suffers from a speech impediment that becomes less pronounced as she settles in with Steve and Die. Her ability to find her voice comes as the three characters discover an unconventional family structure
. The trio go from feeling trapped in their own circumstances to a freeing state that feels easy and open. As the entire mood of the film changes, “Wonderwall” by Oasis takes over the soundtrack, and beyond Steve’s smile, we can hear Noel Gallagher’s bratty cool voice intone, “Back beat, the word is on the street/That the fire in your heart is out.” The relief is so enjoyable it’s easy to forget the looming warning foreshadowed at the top of the film: the possibility of having Steve committed.
Dolan’s fifth film is as much an exploration on familial relationships and friendships, as it is a transformation in his filmmaking to another level. The exuberance and emotion that jump out of the screen are as much a product of strong performances as they are a result of Dolan’s directorial vision to take light, music and even the screen in a different direction. The stylistic choices in Mommy are not gratuitous but serve the overall arc of the story, doing what cinema does best, telling a story with imagery that captures all your senses. Dolan’s Mommy grabs on to your psyche and does not let go, and it will stay with you.
Mommy runs 139 minutes, is in French with English subtitles and is rated R (for cussing and sexual referencing). It opens this Friday at the Coral Gables Art Cinema in Coral Gables, the Miami Beach Cinematheque in Miami Beach and The Classic Gateway Theater in Fort Lauderdale. To find screenings elsewhere in the US click here. The Coral Gables Art Cinema hosted a preview screening for the purpose of this review.
Timbuktu presents a humanizing portrait of life under jihadist oppression — a film review
February 3, 2015
From the country of Mauritania comes Timbuktu, one of the most heart-breaking and humanistic films you will see this year. Do not be turned off if you do not know where Mauritania is, for director Abderrahmane Sissako, who co-wrote the script with Kessen Tall, has put together a border-busting story that is both stark and beautiful. It also helps that the film has been nominated for the best foreign language Oscar. At last year’s Cannes Film Festival, it won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the François Chalais Prize.
Sissako grew up in Mali but was born in Mauritania. As a filmmaker he has worked from Russia and France, making movies concerned with Africa both inside and out. He has not made a movie since his much-loved Bamako (2006), now long out of print on DVD. In interviews, Sissako has said he makes movies when he is called to it. In 2012, the stoning death in a small town in Mali of an unmarried couple who had children outside of wedlock compelled him to make Timbuktu. His extraordinary film tells a story about oppression in Timbuktu by fundamentalist interlopers, true to its current history. Co-produced by a French company, Timbuktu expresses a universal idea informed by the current climate of fear propagated by a fundamentalism that oppresses expression in many forms.
The film opens with a small gazelle running for its life as men, with faces covered by turbans, riding in the beds of speeding pickup trucks displaying a large black flag of Islamic jihad fire AK-47s. Next they are shooting up African masks and statues, including a fertility goddess, symbols of paganism to them but also icons of earthbound humanity. When they arrive at the dusty city if Timbuktu they use a megaphone to announce: “no music, no smoking and women must wear socks.” When they enter a mosque, the imam scolds them, “One cannot enter the house of God with shoes and weapons.”
“But we can. We’re doing jihad,” says one of the men, his mouth covered by a turban. The layers of hypocrisy are rich, from the jihadists’ desire for anonymity to their entitlement, and it permeates this film in various stories featuring an array of characters. Kidane (Ibrahim Ahmed dit Pino) lives on the outskirts of the village in a tent with his wife Satima (Toulou Kiki), his young daughter Toya (Layla Walet Mohamed) and Issan (Mehdi A.G. Mohamed), a 12-year-old boy who shepherds Kidane’s small herd of cows. Kidane’s life seems a peaceful one, where he can play guitar and sing to his wife and daughter. Abdelkerim (Abel Jafri) is a jihadist who patrols the outskirts of Timbuktu and has a crush on Satima. He sneaks cigarettes, but as his driver tells him, “Everyone knows you smoke.” Then there’s Zabou (Kettly Noël), a woman who not only does not wear a veil, but wears her unkempt hair and a brightly colored robe with a long train with a pride many dismiss as madness. She is almost Shakespearean in her role as the town fool, having found her own sense of freedom in insanity in this insane world. At least she can get away with calling the jihadists “assholes” and carry on her merry way.
These stories cross only incidentally, and Sissako presents them with little embellishment. Their connections may seem tenuous to some, and there are some characters that are hardly developed and mysteriously drop out of narrative, but it does not detract from the film as much as you might think. It speaks to the chaos and coldness that the jihadists bring to the community. That it does so in such a banal way speaks to the terrible, heavy cloud they have brought to Timbuktu, a once mystical place of romantic mystery.
The film is consistently and impressively shot. There are beautiful wide shots of the arid lands outside the city walls. The vistas are sometimes punctuated by the spare lute and flute-dominant score by composer Amin Bouhafa. But it never comes across as self-conscious and moody. It’s more contemplative, inviting the viewer to appreciate the beauty of a moment of peace. On the other hand, inside the city, dirt streets are crowded by the walls of buildings, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere, and when music appears in the city, it’s in violation of the militants’ law.
That some of these men are foreigners adds further insult to their presence for these people who are only trying to live, love and enjoy life in peace, while still recognizing the importance of God in their lives. What becomes terrible is when these people are forced to submit under the threat of sharia punishments like lashings and even execution by stoning. The harsh dualism calls intense attention to the dynamic that drives the film’s drama, and Sissako mostly presents it with a stark, unembellished touch. Violence and even death comes suddenly, interrupting a languorous life defined by the quotidian but peaceful details.
What Sissako has created with Timbuktu is a piece of art that reminds the viewer of the everyday beauty of love, be it between people or the arts, like music, and even sports (the film features a surreal and bitter-sweet moment of boys playing soccer without a ball, for even soccer is forbidden by the jihadists). All the while the cloud of terror looms over the drama, driven by an old testament idea of justice and informed by narcissistic, vengeful righteousness, far from anything truly holy. Timbuktu is a vital film presented by a man deeply in touch with his humanity. If it does not call attention to a country cursed by a post-colonialist fate, it should at least speak to the horrors dished out by the more popularly known invaders in Iraq and Syria who are calling for a new nation under the flag of jihad built on the spilled blood of innocents.
Timuktu is in French, Arabic, Bambara and English. It runs 97 minutes and is not rated (some language and stark encounters with violence). It opens Friday, February 5, in the South Florida area at the MDC Tower Theater in Miami and the Cinema Paradiso – Fort Lauderdale. If you live outside of my area, it could be screening in your town already or coming soon. Visit this page (that’s a hot link) for other screening locations across the U.S. Cohen Media provided a screener link for the purpose of this review.
‘Heli’ director Amat Escalante talks about making waves in indie film — An IndieEthos Exclusive
May 29, 2014
In an exclusive interview with Independent Ethos, Amat Escalante, best known for receiving the 2013 Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his recent film Heli, talks about winning that award, why his film is so controversial and violence on film, among other topics. A close collaborator with Carlos Reygadas, who also was awarded Best Director at Cannes only a year earlier, Escalante shines a light on independent filmmaking with a conscience. The director tackles one of the more important issues in his country: drug trafficking and the ills it’s surrounded by, such as corruption, power in the hands of the few and suffering.
Although Heli is only his third full-length film, Escalante has a strong voice and a particular point of view. His take on filmmaking includes a deep faith in audience members who do not want to be told how to feel or what to think. The Mexican director shows his own perspective through a realistic style that is closer to his own life experience than what he sees on popular movies or television. He was in Los Angeles when he called Ana Morgenstern, who wrote a glowing critique of the film yesterday (read the review here). They spoke in Spanish. You can read the English transcription below.
Ana Morgenstern: How did you feel about winning the Cannes prize for best director? Were you surprised since Carlos Reygadas won the award the previous year?
Amat Escalante: Well, while being in the competition you are aware that there might be a possibility of winning, maybe one in 20 or maybe more because there are 20 movies competing and five of those get awards. So, to begin, it was quite impressive to be able to be part of the competition for the first time. When they called us the last day of the festival, telling us to go to the awards ceremony, I was very happy to hear the news that we would win something, but we didn’t know what it would be. That’s when I thought that the best director award was out of the question because Carlos, who is a close collaborator and producer in Heli, had just won the previous year. 
I thought to myself, it would be too unlikely to win that prize. So, winning best director was absolutely surprising. It was great for the entire team that the film was recognized with such an important award after working on it for over five years. On top of that, it was so important that Mexico won best director for two consecutive years. In that sense, the experience was very rewarding, and it has helped boost interest in the film. When it opened in Mexico, I think being recognized in the festival helped a lot, because a lot of people showed up to watch the movie, and it’s been selling well in video. It has also been sold to 35 countries. I don’t think the success is due just because of the award. I think it’s because the film tells a story that envelops the audience, and it’s a thrilling movie, but the award has certainly helped a lot.
How have different audiences received the film?
In Cannes, the film was shown on the first day of screenings. Everybody was anxious to start watching the competing films, so being the first one meant that it grabbed lots of the attention. The audience in Cannes is mostly press; there are also industry people but mostly press. The first encounter with the press in Cannes was brusque. I think they did not understand some parts of the film, and they paid too much attention to the violent parts without seeing the love story that the film also tells. 
I was a little surprised by that. Later on, though, the jury, which was mostly composed by filmmakers, received the movie a lot better. They liked the film, including Steven Spielberg who said it was one of his favorite films from the past festival. He was also the president of the jury that year. In Mexico, the acceptance of the film by the public and also the critics was great for me. They understood the movie very well, and they thought it was important that a movie like that was made. We ourselves premiered and distributed the film in Mexico without the backing of millions of dollars, which is what normally happens with other commercially distributed films. Even so, a lot of people went to see the movie, and I’m very happy about that.
What do you think are the different reactions to your film between a Mexican and an American audience?
Paul Hudson of Outsider Pictures, who is currently distributing the film, is taking a risk because he loves the movie, and he wants people to go see it in the States. But this is a big risk to show it in theaters to American audiences. It would be easier to put it straight to DVD and TV. It’s very different, the public’s reaction in the States because when you do not live in Mexico, even if you’ve lived in Mexico or you’ve been living a few years abroad, you start to idealize the country. I think some people are embarrassed to see a situation that is taking place in Mexico. 
They do not see why that should be seen outside of Mexico or why to make a film about that. That’s what I’ve encountered in the States. But many people have liked it too, it’s shown in several festivals, and I just showed it at a University in California, and the reactions have been very favorable, to save a few of people who get angry and feel attacked by the sheer force of the film. I’ve seen that reaction abroad a lot, but less so in Mexico because in Mexico, the film came out of Cannes labeled as an extremely violent movie. But people in Mexico have been able to see beyond that, and I think a lot of people in the States will be able to see that too and that they’ll like the film because of the story it tells and because of the characters.
Why do you think the reaction to the violence in Heli has been so visceral?
I think it’s because of how I show violence. I think that we are used to seeing people die in the big screen. It’s the most common thing when you go to the movies that somebody dies or somebody gets killed; that’s what’s normal. If you think about it, it’s rare when you go to the movies and somebody doesn’t die. Out of 10 movies maybe there’s one where nobody dies. The most normal is that people get killed on screen. For example, in Batman Dark Knight about 15 people get killed in the first five to 10 minutes. But there is a way of showing death that people are used to, but when you show it in a different way, as if you were sitting right there without diversions, it’s different. I didn’t want to make violent scenes that were sexy, or dynamic or cinematic. I wanted to make those scenes un-cinematic. 
For me, cinematic has to do with editing and camera movements but those scenes are shot in an “anti” cinematic way, “anti-Hollywood” let’s say. That’s why people have a bad reaction to it. In a similar way, people are not used to seeing the acting style shown in my film and react poorly to it. For instance, in Mexico, people can watch a lot of telenovelas and never complain about the acting, but to me that acting is completely false and not credible, but when they watch my movie they complain about the acting because they are not like in a telenovela. People have already been so programmed in the way they watch something that they can be upset when they’re shown something that’s not within the parameters they expect it to be. Not everybody, obviously, but when people are very set in a way and a movie breaks with that there might be a clash sometimes. But this is also why this movie is so powerful. It is outside of the way in which we normally see things.
How did you prepare for this film in terms of research, raising funds and pre-production?
It took about four years to raise the funds to make this film. Normally, one would take about two years to get money for an independent film. In that time, I was also writing the script with the other screenplay writer Gabriel Reyes and searching for the cast. We did not do research. Rather, we are very observant. I think of myself as someone who listens and is very sensitive. Everything that is in the film is known in Mexico. For instance, that scene with the DEA officer was taken from a YouTube video that I think you can still get if you look up “cops in León Guanajuato torture another cop.” Everyone knows that it happens, and I’m not revealing anything 
that I had to go and look for. We are just simply connecting the dots. There are some things in the film that we took directly from the newspapers and some situations we took directly from real life, and from there we started to construct a story. It was not necessary to do research because everything in the film is taken from the public domain. I wanted to go a different route, not research, but showing humanity and sensibility. That’s also how we did the casting. We got people that are from that area, live there, and could be in that situation in some way. The cast bring with them a lot of the context and the reality that adds to the authenticity of the film. We also changed some of the dialogue to fit the way in which they would say something.
How did you carry out the casting? Are they all non-actors?
Yes, they are all from that region, except for the main actor, who is from Mexico City and was going to acting school when we cast him. My brother, Martín [Escalante], found everyone in the street including the girl and the detective. I interviewed them, took photos and started to get to know them, and that’s how I knew they were right for the part. None of them, except for the main character, had acting experience.
How do you think the drug conflict will evolve?
I live in Mexico and love my country. That’s probably why I made the film, out of concern. I think people with a lot of power in Mexico— that’s just a handful of people— are interested in having this ongoing violence and corruption. I think that it is something relatively easy to eradicate if people really wanted to, but there’s a lot of people that are doing fine with corruption and violence. I don’t mean common people but the top echelons, even from the United States. The conflict is making a lot of people rich. The war against drugs could go another way, drugs could be legalized or something like that to stop the assassination and extortion of so many people. 
Those options simply do not exist because people with power are not interested in things really getting better. I don’t think a movie can really create a change, but I think that it’s important to reflect on the problems in the country. It’s important that we look at our own problems and that we let other people see them as well, and that gets you closer to a change. For instance, when you are sick, the first thing you do is go and tell someone else or show someone where it hurts. I think Mexico has a virus that affects certain parts of the country, or certain sectors of society, and through talking about it we can start to advance. The movie is also about young people, the new generation; that’s where I think hope lies, but we as a society need to look after those young people and those babies through education and care and not abandon them like so many people have been abandoned in Mexico. For example, the girl in the movie that has a baby at 13, the 6-month-old baby that appears in the film was born to a 14-year-old mother. This is not common, but it’s something more or less common in Guanajuato. That situation is related to education and all that. What that child that was born from a 14-year-old mother will become, it’s likely that he will end up doing something not morally correct.
Heli opens this Friday, May 30, in South Florida at the Miami Beach Cinematheque, Bill Cosford Cinema and the Tower Theater. Program Note: Independent Ethos critics Ana and Hans Morgenstern will introduce Heli on opening night, this Friday, at the Miami Beach Cinematheque, at 9:15 p.m. and again Saturday, at 7 p.m. Let us know if you will be there by signing up on our Facebook event page. For screening dates in other parts of the U.S., visit the film’s official website here.
Update: Heli is also showing in Broward County Friday and Saturday only at the Cinema Paradiso in Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood … if you absolutely can’t come see in Miami Beach.
Set in Guanajuato, Mexico, Heli tells the story of the crude life the city’s residents endure while dealing with the ongoing militarization of the “war on drugs.” The opening shot augurs the harshness of the rest of the film, as we see two of the main characters, Heliberto, who goes by the nickname Heli (Armando Espitia), and Beto (Juan Eduardo Palacios). Beaten and battered, they ride half-conscious in the back of a pickup truck. Heli’s bloodied face is pinned down by Beto’s boot. The camera lingers on Heli’s face for an extended shot, allowing a sense of helplessness to seep into the audience. The violent scene is straightforward, stark and shown without music; a style that is carried throughout the rest of the film.
Heli’s director, Amat Escalante was bestowed the 2013 Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival, only the fourth Mexican director to be recognized with the prize in the 68 years of the film festival. This accomplishment was no doubt a boost for the film but also proves the magnitude of its relevance. Escalante was raised in Guanajuato, the town depicted in the film. His close and personal connection to the area is palpable, as Heli shows the many layers of social disruption the war on drugs has left on Mexico.
Escalante’s genius lies on his focus on human relationships, as blossoming first love and strong family ties provide the backdrop to the action in Heli, while presenting the merciless effect of the shock waves generated by drug-dealers and corrupt police. Early in the film, we learn Heli is a 17-year-old who tells a census worker he is the head-of-household living with a wife, a baby son, younger teenage sister Estela and his father. He works at a Japanese car factory and cares for his family, struggling to do the “right thing.” Estela (Andrea Vergara) is the picture of innocence. She is involved with Beto, a boy several years older than her. The romance seems harmless enough, filled with clumsy moments of young experimentation, until Beto gets a “smart” idea involving a couple of stolen kilos of cocaine that will allow the two to elope.
Beto is a trainee with the militarized Mexican police force and has easy access to confiscated drugs. The cruelty that befalls him begins as early as the training sequences in the desert, which reveals how deeply-rooted brutality is not only in the streets but also in the groups meant to protect citizens. The irony could be lost, as viewers can easily be swept away from the big picture by one particularly stark moment during training. 
An American adviser shows a Mexican drill sergeant how to break the wiped out Beto, who has vomited during exercises. The gringo instructs the commander to order the collapsed trainee to roll over his own throw-up. Scenes like this unfold in static wide shots that show the contrast between the broad skyline, complete with beautiful scenes of the desert that seems so open and full of opportunity, against the small world in which Heli and his family struggle alone and left to fend for themselves against overpowering forces.
The director’s raw style allows the audience to feel something different from most Hollywood films and their depiction of violence without being led to a specific reaction. One of the sequences that has garnered the most attention is an extended torture sequence where Heli and Beto face the blow-back created by their entanglement with drugs. They are taken to a safe house associated with a drug cartel where young men (including some boys playing video games) 
are already waiting for them. As the torture begins, we even get glimpses of an older woman in another room, cooking. One of the boys asks, “What did this one do?” The torturer shrugs and tells the boys watching to record the scene so they can later upload the footage to YouTube. The savagery unfolds as if the audience was in that tight space with nowhere else to go. Again, there’s no showy camera use, distracting editing or added music beyond the drone of the video game.
The representation of brutality is one of the main themes in the film. Far from glamorizing or presenting a stylized version of it, Heli presents the raw and unpleasant nature of what it’s like to witness violence. There is no escape from what is happening on-screen. You will not walk out of this movie feeling like drug traffickers are “cool” or that our hero “wins.” Heli‘s take on violence is more faithful to reality and far removed from any Hollywood characterization of violent conflict. One is immersed into the sociopolitical rooting of savagery in what otherwise would seem like a sleepy town in the less developed areas of Mexico. Indeed, the complex social situation that emerges from dealing with corruption, the flaws in an economic system with few opportunities for working class people and the dismantling of trust among neighbors who are either part of the drug trafficking economy or not, are all present in Heli.
The ongoing victimization of the characters goes beyond their encounter with drug traffickers who are tightly entangled with police. It shows why many are hesitant about reporting crimes or engaging with the state during such perilous times, as they can be further victimized. The situation is not particular to Mexico; it occurs in many other places, even at home in the USA. A powerful reminder is the recent documentary The Invisible War, which grapples with the story of military rape survivors who are continually victimized by that institution. Few bother speaking out and when they do, it’s like they are fighting a downstream current. Heli vividly characterizes a similar kind of hopeless victimization, though it does offer at least a form of catharsis at the end of the film.
In all, Heli is not subtle about its criticism but shows the intricacies of the current state of affairs in Mexico with a disturbing, visceral flair. However grim depictions are, people in Heli go on as life goes on too. Not all is lost, the human spirit is resilient, and the youth of Estela as well as her brother may symbolize that, for young democracies, it is still a long vertiginous road.
Heli runs 105 minutes, is in Spanish with English subtitles and is not rated (the violence may be difficult for some to sit through, however). It opens this Friday, May 30, in South Florida at the Miami Beach Cinematheque, Bill Cosford Cinema and the Tower Theater.
Program Note: Independent Ethos critics Ana and Hans Morgenstern will introduce Heli on opening night at the Miami Beach Cinematheque, at 9:15 p.m. and again Saturday, at 7 p.m. Let us know if you will be there by signing up on our Facebook event page. For screening dates in other parts of the U.S., visit the film’s official website here.
Update: Heli is also showing in Broward County Friday and Saturday only at the Cinema Paradiso in Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood … if you absolutely can’t come see in Miami Beach.
Romanian New Wave – 5 top films
May 14, 2014
Cinema is one of those art mediums that can succinctly introduce us to the zeitgeist of a particular country. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Romania has experienced a filmmaking revival that captures a culture in transition with deep attachments to the past and mixed emotions about capitalism. Young Romanian filmmakers are not subtle about their statements. This new crop of films tend to be raw, shot in a naturalistic style and seldom adorned with fancy soundtracks or special effects. In fact, recent films have a hyper-realistic or cinéma vérité character. Some might argue it could be the transparency of the films’ low budgets. However, the minimalist aesthetic is a choice that is part of the narrative, portraying a lived-in austerity that also heightens human drama.
Still from Police Adjective
The shift from the USSR to a type of capitalist system has in fact created a state of confusion where embedded practices such as favors, clientelism and nepotism meet the rules and regulations of the free market, where previously banned themes such as religion and traditional costumes harken back to the days of monarchy are now revived along with the contrasting influences from Western culture. For instance, in Beyond the Hills (read our review here), the contrast between these two parallel streams of influences are portrayed on film with a powerful physical performance by the amazing actress Christina Flutur, who shared the Actress prize at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival with her co-star Cosmina Stratan (it was also our favorite film of last year). The tension between different influences from traditional religious thought, to Western life views, capitalism and the remnant Soviet bureaucratic structures are some of the recurring themes of these films.
Still from the Death of Mr. Lazarescu
A wealth of studies have described and analyzed post-Soviet politics and economics. However, the extent to which culture and the daily reality of how people live remains an open subject. Film rather effectively captures the daily aspect of life in the confusing post-Soviet context, at times with shocking imagery, such as in Beyond the Hills, and at times with rather dark humor, as in Police Adjective. With these films we learn that transition is a complex and painful process where a country rediscovers its ancient past through religious beliefs and looks to the future by embracing foreign influences from the West, still a new territory for this developing democracy. These films tend to be sarcastic and embrace a sort of black humor that understands the irony of change tinged with a lack of expectations on a bright future.
The film revival in Romania has not only brought us insight into the country, however. It has also given us some all-around terrific films. The list below is a short taste of some of the more salient and powerful of these films.
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days*
One of the most famous exports of the Romanian New Wave, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days takes place in the late 1980s, during Ceausescu’s communist regime. It explores the relationship between two girlfriends, one of whom is pregnant and in search of an abortion, which was illegal under Ceausescu. The film offers a focused analysis of interpersonal relationships during Soviet rule and a peeping hole through which we can learn a few facts about how life was like behind the iron curtain. For instance, the prevalence of a black market in many facets of daily life, not just back alley abortions. Director Cristian Mungiu became the first director of the Romanian New Wave to earn a Palme D’Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. His minimalist style and realist treatment of unresolved or problematic issues in Romania are now a signature of the movement, but his deft cinematic pacing remains unmatched.
Police, Adjective
Police, Adjective is a black comedy that wittily exposes the fissures of modern life in Romania. The existence of draconian laws alongside a reality that cannot fit with those laws results in many dark comedic moments. Officer Cristi is tasked with arresting a young marijuana dealer but cannot bring himself to do it. He finds that the definitions of procedural justice lack an inherent morality. Police, Adjective has some great moments straddling the creaky line between the factual to the absurd aspects of the judicial system. As opposed to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, the film’s pacing will feel languorous to some, but it’s all the better to highlight the film’s deadpan observations.
Beyond the Hills
Another triumph by Mungui, Beyond the Hills showcases the relationship between two women who grew up together as orphans and re-encounter each other after years of separation. Alina emigrated to Germany to work, and she believes her dear friend Voichita will join her there. Instead, Voichita decided to join a convent in the small town where the friends grew up in together. A dearth of opportunities for young people in their home country makes it so the choice of migrating or joining a convent appear as archetypal of a lack of social mobility and opportunity since the fall of Soviet rule. When these two women meet again, there is an immediate tension. Alina is ready to pick up where they left off, as there is a suggestion of deep intimacy between these women. However, Voichita cannot see past her religious garb and the strict patriarchal environment she has been part of since leaving the orphanage. Orthodox Christianity (pre-dating the Enlightenment) and Western influences collide through Alina and Voichita. Alina is no match, as Voichita’s character is embedded in the Orthodox Christian convent, with its hierarchical arrangement and a priest at the helm leading the charge against female disobedience. This is a must-see from the movement and a personal favorite.
Child’s Pose
Bureaucracy, corruption, status and plain greed come together to paint a stark reality of what it’s like to live in contemporary Romania. It is not only a difficult proposition for those who are born out of privilege. For those who occupy the seat of privilege, life does not seem that much better. This intelligent and challenging drama presents the life of well-to-do, overbearing Cornelia (Luminița Gheorghiu) who would do anything for her child. When her son finds himself in serious trouble she jumps at the opportunity to save him and take charge of his life. What happens next is surprising, as despite the existent system of corruption, what prevails is a redemption of those who seek forgiveness.
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
One of the earlier films of the wave, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is Director Cristi Piui’s version of Dante’s Inferno (he followed it up with another strong entry, Aurora; read our review here). It all begins when Mr. Lazarescu calls an ambulance after he falls terribly ill. Paramedics respond, and the EMT, at first rude and cold, takes him to the hospital. And so begins his slow, gradual process of deterioration. The critique on the healthcare system is impressive. Hospitals move at a glacial pace and with the heaviness of Soviet bureaucracy. This is no surprise; it was in 2012 when the international media took notice that Romania’s healthcare system works through bribes and some of the most in-need are left without care if there are no bribes to give. The film was ahead of the international media coverage, released in 2005. While Lazarescu waits to be treated, even though he is clearly dying, life carries on around him in the most trivial of ways as when a doctor complains that there is nobody around to lend him a Nokia charger. The stark reality is also met with humanity as the EMT grows invested in helping Mr. Lazarescu. However, his death is still imminent. The cruelty of reality without embellishment, one of the main features of this film movement, is aptly captured by this film.
*The Bill Cosford Cinema in Miami will host a special one-day-only 35mm screening of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days on Sunday, May 18, at 11:30 a.m.
Film Review: ‘Like Father, Like Son’ looks deep into familial bonds by undoing them
February 22, 2014
With his latest film, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda adds another film to his oeuvre that closely examines familial relations and how the smallest efforts can resolve the most daunting of circumstances. The most difficult obstacles to overcome often arise between people who love one another the most. One of the most powerful relationships has to be that between a father and son. With Like Father, Like Son, Kore-eda brews up a situation and digs so deep it cuts to a core rarely seen in cinema, despite what some may think is a plot contrivance.
Ryota and Midori Nonomiya (Masaharu Fukuyama and Machiko Ono) are a well-off husband and wife living in a luxury condo with an only child, 6-year-old Keita (Keita Ninomiya). Ryota is a hard-working project manager involved in a plan to up-date the design of Shinjuku Station in Tokyo, the central hub of Japanese transportation. Midori is a stay-at-home mom who makes sure Keita practices his piano, despite the little boy only having the ability to muster a halting version of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” The fact that Keita never protests and finds a way to stay satisfied with his piano lessons despite his mediocrity seems to quietly annoy his parents who send him mixed messages of encouragement (the father) or offer him a choice to stop (the mother).
Using a wit that’s subtly humorous but still brews pathos, Kore-eda sets up audience sympathy for this family with a few, well-placed lines early in the film. During a quick interview by a panel at a prestigious private school for Keita, the couple says a few words about their child as he sits between them, hands politely on his knees. “He doesn’t mind losing, which is dissatisfying as a father,” says Ryota. The one compliment the father is able to say about Keita is that he is kind, noting he takes after his mother. “These days kindness is a fault,” he adds.
Indeed there’s a coldness here. Kore-eda has a keen eye as sharp as his sense for dialogue. He highlights stark, neat architecture around this family for transitional, establishing shots. Later on, when things turn earthier, he focuses on nature and at another home important to the story’s eventual plot, defined by a sensibility that may seem chaotic but still has a warmth and easy-going atmosphere.
As any good upper middle class couple, the Nonomiyas strive to provide the best for their son. However, one day, they get a phone call from the hospital where Keita was born informing the couple to come in for news about their son. “I hope it’s nothing messy,” says the rigid father. He may be more concerned about how this might take away from his time at work and not the impact it might have on his son.
He has no idea.
Six years after the fact, it has come to the hospital’s attention that the Nonomiyas’ son had been switched at birth. The hospital has identified the couple who mistakenly got their biological son and where Keita came from. “In cases like these,” says a hospital official, “One hundred percent of families exchange.”
It will turn out the Nonomiyas’ biological son lives with a tinkering shopkeeper in the outskirts of the small town of the hospital where Midori insisted to have their first child because that was where she was born. “This is pathetic,” comments Ryota, as they pull up to the shop with its aging storefront. Yudai Saiki (Rirî Furankî) is a man with seemingly little ambition and already has three children with his take-charge wife, Yukari (Yôko Maki). It will turn out the eldest and tallest of all the kids is Ryosuke (Isao Natsuyagi), who originally belonged to the Nonomiyas.
The families agree to have meetings and introduce the boys to one another. Yudai makes sure to collect receipts so the hospital picks up the tab for meals (and maybe indulges in a little extra). Ryota, meanwhile, plots with a lawyer to take custody of both boys. The fact that Yudai puts an end to Ryota’s plans with a slap reveals Kore-eda’s brilliant sense to present powerful “statement” moments that undo many a complex ploy, and this film has many such powerful, blink-of-an-eye moments of resonance that pitch the plot along, despite what some may think is an indulgent two-hour run time.
Ultimately, this film finds a way to tug at your heartstrings in a beautiful, stirring, multi-layered manner that speaks to undeniable bonds of family despite what might seem like a contrived situation. It’s a crowd-pleaser of a film, so it’s no wonder it won the jury prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. But it doesn’t only go for the gut. It examines a complex relationship between fathers and sons and the cycle of behavior often inherited and passed along in families. Though Ryota may sound villainous, Kore-eda, who also wrote the script, fleshes him out to make him as sympathetic as his own, saucer-eyed, innocent of a “son,” little Keita.
Speaking to the power of the writing and pacing of the film, the majority of Like Father, Like Son’s best moments lie in short, revealing scenes that present telling behaviors of all those involved. The film opens and closes with some sentimental, spare piano melodies (in ironic contrast to Keita’s playing) and moments of over-explicating dialogue, but it’s easily forgiven, as the film goes on to explore the relationship on several, organic scenes without scoring. For much of the film, Like Father, Like Son looks deep within family, defying notions of sentimentality. Its greatness lies in the purest moments of raw, relatable family drama that pile up like neat bricks in a wall that will either unite these people or divide them.
Like Father, Like Son runs 121 minutes, is in Japanese with English subtitles and is not rated (nothing offensive about it). It’s now probably at a theater near you (visit the film’s official site linked at the top of this review). In South Florida, it has already opened at the Miami Beach Cinematheque and the Bill Cosford Cinema on Friday, Feb. 21. The following week, starting Feb. 28, it expands to the MDCulture Art Cinema at Koubek Theater. IFC sent me a DVD screener for the purposes of this review.
“We’re all bad seeds,” says a character in Elena, a Russian film so focused on moral corruption it feels like a perfectly symmetrical sculpture of drama. The film by Andrei Zvyagintsev unfolds with a graceful efficiency that I have not experienced since the Dardenne Brothers’ Kid With a Bike (‘The Kid With a Bike’ harnesses potency of simple filmmaking). But where that film ended on a poetic, if ambiguous note, Elena hums along on a stark, chilling drone that never lets the viewer go.
The film’s tone steers far from the high-pitched. Zvyagintsev guides the drama with a firm, steady hand. It opens slow, as dawn arrives outside an upscale apartment. The shrieks of crows on the bare branches outside the ultra-modern apartment turn to the twitter of little birds.
Inside, a couple wakes in separate beds. Middle-aged Elena (Nadezhda Markina) gets up just ahead of her alarm, and she wanders to another room to tap her slightly older-looking husband, Vladimir (Andrey Smirnov). Their relationship seems ambiguous at first, even after discussion of family and money. Instead,little details of it (they have been married two years, he met her when she worked as a nurse almost 10 years earlier) come out in well-placed tidbits here and there, cropping up to do the best service to the drama, calling for an attentive but not over-alert audience.
The film seems to just wash over the viewer with simple but illustrative situations. The viewer will soon meet Elena’s son Sergey (Alexey Rozin) and his family, after Elena takes a lengthy trek via streetcar then train followed by a long walk. 
All the while Philip Glass’ broody “Symphony No. 3, Movement III” drones along. It is the only extra-diegetic music Zvyagintsev uses, and it will only appear three times in the film. Like the best of efficient filmmakers, Zvyagintsev knows how to use mood music for maximal effect, cuing audience awareness.
He also knows how to use action, dialogue and set pieces to their fullest narrative potential, including subtext. The extreme difference between Sergey’s rundown, tiny apartment, located near a nuclear power plant, which also houses his wife, teenage son and baby boy feels cramped. It seems to ooze cheap possessions from its cracking façade. The graffiti covered hallways on the ground floor, along with the teenage punk loiterers stooped outside the building sharing a bottle of drink bring to mind A Clockwork Orange.
Elena is a stark experience to watch unfold, and it is so well made, it almost feels like a spoiler to explain the plot beyond the director’s expert handling of all the devices he can employee of cinema. He earns every scene while avoiding quick, flashy cuts, hysterical acting and over-stylized camera use. The film only has one jarring scene of shaky handheld camera, and when it appears it carries with it an ominous sense of dread.
Zvyagintsev employs steady-handed direction that even makes the banal dreck of game shows and lifestyle reports coming out of the TV in some scene feel relevant to his statement. Do not expect much of a cathartic release come the film’s end. In fact, the path the director takes to arrive there feels like a sickening downward spiral that offers a harsh critique of society and only continues to propagate the scary image of post-Soviet Russia. Despite its bleakness, watching the masterful work of Zvyagintsev offers its own reward. This film did not win the Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize at Cannes 2011 for nothing.
Elena is not rated, runs 109 min. and is in Russian with English subtitles. Zeitgeist Films provided a preview screener for the purposes of this review. It opens in South Florida on Friday, June 8, at many independent cinemas Miami Beach Cinematheque, the University of Miami’s Cosford Cinema, Cinema Paradiso, Living Room Theaters, Movies of Delray, Movies of Lake Worth and the Lake Worth Playhouse. For screenings across the nation, visit the film’s official website.
Independent Ethos 