The Vessel is a strong debut for Malick acolyte — a film review
September 15, 2016
If it’s hard for Terrence Malick to weave together an affecting story from shreds of beautifully photographed pastiche and disembodied voice over, then imagine one of his acolytes giving it a try. With that in mind, The Vessel, the feature-length directorial debut of Julio Quintana, a camera operator who worked with Malick on The Tree of Life and To the Wonder, actually comes across as quite accomplished.
Embrace of the Serpent director talks about casting Amazonian non-actors, cinematic mysticism and the unconscious influence of 2001
March 16, 2016
Last week, Embrace of the Serpent, a movie that will certainly go down as one of the best films that saw release in the United States in 2016, started playing in area art houses in South Florida. This writer caught it last year as part of “Gems,” an annual mini film festival hosted by Miami Dade College’s Miami International Film Festival. For the most part, during the weekend-long event, I could tell when I saw excellent work (The Assassin, My Golden Days) and rather problematic work (Youth, The Club). But Embrace fell into another kind of category as far as cinematic experiences go. It confounded me. I knew I saw a brilliant film, though I did not understand how it worked as well as it did. It reminded me of the first time, back in 1999, when I saw Eyes Wide Shut in theaters. I knew I saw another masterpiece by Stanley Kubrick, though I could not express exactly why it was so great. Several viewings later, having read the source material and written about it during my master’s degree, I came to understand it better and admire it deeper (I promise to publish the Lacanian analysis I wrote of the film by the end of the year).
It was a similar experience with Embrace of the Serpent. It took a second and even a third viewing before I could confidently understand what a masterpiece this film was. In speaking with at least four other film critics, over the months since I first saw the movie, I learned I was not the only with that same experience.
With it’s commercial release in 2016 last month by the marvelous indie studio Oscilloscope, it came time to reckon with this movie. I was honored that Michael Koresky of Film Comment, Criterion Collection and now Metrograph fame, allowed me to tangle with a close reading of it on Reverse Shot, the website he co-edits with Jeff Reichert. You can read my in-depth and somewhat spoilery review (but I think it will enhance a first time viewing, if you don’t want to invest in seeing it more than once) by jumping through the site’s logo below:
As the film headed to Miami, earlier this month, I also could not pass on an opportunity to speak to the film’s director Ciro Guerra, who helped clarify some questions I had about it. Guerra explained that he wanted to respect the culture he represents on the big screen. His research was extensive, including spending months in parts of the Amazon. After reading two books written by two early 20th century European explorers of the region, the German ethnographer Theodor Koch-Grünberg and the ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes, he came up with the film’s dual narrative with co-screenwriter Jacques Toulemonde Vidal.
The film’s stories unfold by alternating between the narratives, one at the start of the 20th century and the other 40 years into the future. The film’s lead character is Karamakate, played by two native, non-actors, Nilbio Torres and the elder Antonio Bolivar, as he guides two different explorers based on the authors of the books Guerra used for research (Jan Bijvoet and Brionne Davis) on similar journeys in search of a near extinct plant with hallucinogenic properties called the yakruna. And don’t bother looking up yakruna. Its name was made up for the movie. “The Shaman asked to keep it fictional because those names are sacred,” said the director, speaking via phone from his home country of Colombia. “You shouldn’t learn them from a movie,” he added.
It’s a mystical film both thematically and cinematically. The connection between landscape and setting and the similarities among the different people Karamakate encounters speaks to the ineffable tangents of time and place (he thinks of the two explorers as the same man, as the later one uses the older one’s book in furthering his knowledge). This begs for something other than a straight narrative, which Guerra fulfills throughout the movie. He harnesses this anti-linear approach to storytelling to make insightful connections between scenes that share locations at different times as well as connecting the two explorers Karamakate guides through the Amazon basin via their essential selves and not their physical bodies. There’s even a duality in the shaman’s two selves that transcends age.
Below are some highlights of our conversation that should not spoil the film but allow for some insight into it. There’s simply nothing like this movie, and the more prepared you are for it, the more thrilling it will feel. Below our abridged Q&A you will find a link to a story I wrote in the Miami New Times, last week, which goes further into the concepts that inform the film.
Independent Ethos: What did the non-actors who played Karamakate surprise you with in their performances?
Ciro Guerra: I was very concerned about that at the beginning of the process because these are real people who haven’t been acting, and they have no relationship to theater or to cinema, so I thought it was going to be difficult to ask them to act. But they may not have this contact, but they have this oral tradition that they have kept alive for centuries really. So they know how to tell a story and they really, really know how to listen, and it’s not that easy to find an actor who can listen. They were especially happy about making the film and being able to perform in their own language.
What did either one of them bring to their roles that was special?
Nilbio, He’s more playful. He has a broader range. He could play very well if he’s angry. He could play very well if he’s sad. He could play with this very complex range of emotions because he’s really open to emotional experience. He’s a really dynamic actor. Antonio has the more serene approach. He just stands there and just with his existence, his gaze, looks at you. They were two completely different actors in a way, but what we did was we built on that. We constructed the two faces of a character, but they also trust their gut. They also helped us re-write part of the script to make them more accurate and true in many ways. It was a very creative process, a very collaborative process.
Where did you learn so much about pre-Colombian mysticism in the Amazon?
It was a long process of research. I didn’t know anything about it, but basically it was the writings of the explorers. They were my guides, at first, and then, when I arrived in the Amazon, I stayed about two and a half years, going back and forth and spending a lot of time with shamans, elders and different communities in the Amazon, learning about what makes the community different and special. It was very difficult at the beginning because in the Amazon you are constantly confronted. It’s just a different way of thinking from our own that it makes you wonder a lot of different things about who you are.
The sequence at the end of the film is amazing. How did you create those special effects?
It’s iconography of the Barasana people. That’s the way they represent the spiritual world. When we made the film, we didn’t want to do a special effects show. It was something more primitive. It was something a child could draw.
For me, the final scenes recall 2001‘s stargate sequence. Was that an influence?
Some people have said that, and it’s surprising to me, but it also makes perfect sense because these guys, these explorers, were the ones that opened up these ideas of the spirituality to the people, and that was something that was very big in the ’60s. So it sort of comes full circle in a way.
But it wasn’t a direct influence?
No, no, no. Maybe not on a conscious level because 2001 is one of my favorite movies of all time, so maybe on an unconscious level it was.
The musical score is incredible as well. It mixes electronics and native chanting. Can you tell me how this idea to mix the two came about?
It wasn’t just about using indigenous music, and that’s it. The film is about dialogue between two cultures, a dialogue that can be very violent at times, but it’s a story of cultures coming together, so the score is basically indigenous music in dialogue and the work of Western composers.
Why did you choose to shoot in black and white?
I couldn’t see the film in any other way. If I had to do it in color, I would prefer not to do it. It would be a completely different film.
This is the third time Colombia submitted one of your films to the Oscars. Now you are nominated. How does that make you feel?
It’s surprising. This year there were so many films by masters, and it was a surprise when we made the short list, but to be nominated is not something that you can see coming.
* * *
You can read more of our conversation, including more on why Guerra shot in black and white, the quantum level of time and existence he learned from the Amazon tribes he encountered during the filmmaking process and how it influences his storytelling, in the Miami New Times by jumping through the link below:
Embrace of the Serpent runs 125 minutes, is in Spanish, Portuguese, German, Catalan, Latin, Tikuna, Cubeo, Huitoto and maybe some other Amazonian dialects with English subtitles and is not rated (expect violent images and transcendence via natural hallucinogens). It is now playing in our South Florida area at the Tower Theater, Miami Beach Cinematheque, O Cinema Wynwood. To the north, in Broward it is playing at the Cinema Paradiso – Hollywood. For theaters in other parts of the U.S., where it is scheduled to continue to roll out through April, visit this link and scroll down to “screenings.” We first saw this movie as a guest of Miami International Film Festival’s Gems event, in October. All images in this post were provided by Oscilloscope, except for that of the director, which is from IMDB.com. Oscilloscope also provided a screener link for repeat viewings.
James White uses meticulous performances and precise camerawork to make damaged person sympathetic and real — a film review
December 12, 2015
Director/writer Josh Mond’s feature debut, James White, stands out in this year’s crop of indie dramas because of two incredibly powerful performances and some brilliant camerawork. Released by the young indie film distributor Film Arcade (they hit the scene in 2012), the film has garnered awards on the festival circuit and received coveted nominations at both the Gotham Independent Film Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards. Mond, who is also a producer of such edgy and respected movies like Simon Killer (2012) and Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011), deserves due respect for making such a powerful debut out of an intimate story. However, it is the performances by Christopher Abbott and Cynthia Nixon that make this film, and the camerawork of Mátyás Erdély that seals the deal.
James White is a 20-something man unmoored and out of touch with the world around him in need of finding his way back to solid ground. In a brilliant establishing shot, we meet him dancing in a club, listening to music on headphones. The camera remains tight on his face. The harsh, tacky hip-hop of Danny Brown’s “Smokin & Drinkin” reverberates off the tinny walls of the venue, merging with Ray Charles’ smooth version of “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying.” Neither overtake the other, they just mix into a mélange of sonic unease, representative of the state of the conflicted James who will find himself having to grow up fast over the course of a winter in New York.
As the film’s titular character, Abbott is outstanding as a young man who allegedly has a talent for writing but can’t find work. Over the course of a few months, he must endure the funeral of a father he hardly knew and a mother dying from cancer while straining to break out of a state of arrested development crippled by these life-changing circumstances, not to mention his alcoholism. It’s a sad situation that some might find frustrating to follow, as James seems rather pathetically inert about his exigency. This means the viewer will have to search for small moments of grace to forgive James’ bleak dark side and sympathize with him.
Abbot rises to the occasion by channeling this stasis with slight, tense ticks, as Erdély’s camera hovers close to his face during much of the proceedings. His eyes and the tilts of his neck speak for themselves. Even though Abbot’s mouth utters statements like, “It’s cool,” he conveys a sense of suffering inside. Outside the focus of the camera, Abbot plays with the small details. His voice cracks as he kicks out interlopers into his mother’s home during a “shiva” for his father (neither his mom or father are Jewish nor did James even know his father had remarried). James is trying to act strong though he only projects a man who can’t find a chance to grow up as he tangles with a sudden change.
Erdély knows a little something about perspective through cinematography. He is also the DP who has received immense praise for his work on Son of Saul, the film that presents Auschwitz through the eyes of a prisoner tasked to clean up at the Nazi death camp. I have not seen Son of Saul yet, but if the tight focus work in James White is a clue, Erdély’s camerawork is key to that film’s success (it’s been nominated for a Golden Globe and won the Grand Prix at Cannes). The tight, shallow-focused camera is always on James. Besides making it obvious who the film’s about, this also serves to keep supporting characters, like his best pal (Scott Mescudi) and girlfriend (Makenzie Leigh), at a distance, creating an imaginary barrier reflective of James’ ego. His difficulty to truly connect with anyone is not only in what he says or how he acts but also realized visually in this incredibly suffocating, constricted field of view. This tight focus also does something extremely subtle. James is a hulking bruiser of a man. Short-fused, he always seems ready to throw a punch — and sometimes does — to settle a problem with others. However, the enveloping lens, shrinks James without perspective context, heightening his vulnerability.
Mond, who also wrote the film’s script, shows great understanding in how difficult James’ situation is, and he doesn’t cheapen it with a pat resolution, which would be a disservice to the film’s titular character. Thus, the film’s climax is not what one would expect. It arrives during a sometimes difficult to watch extended scene of James caring for his mother. This brings us to Nixon’s performance in a stellar supporting role. The confusion and helplessness of a mother who still has work to do but is slipping away from existence is as frustrating a character as the man-child James. Nixon plays the wiped out woman lost from the inside with grace but also an uncomfortable rawness of a body that’s lost its will to hold a persona that still hangs on to its unconditional love for her messed up son. It’s a powerful supporting performance in that it might be lost in its role to characterize James. It’s also stark to watch Nixon — of the light fare of “Sex and the City” — play, a sweaty, incontinent shriveled person in hospice care. Her role is both physical and metaphorical. A loss James needs to go through to grow up, and Nixon plays the pain with disquieting preciseness and a loss of her own sense of self.
With the mother’s final days, comes a shift in perspective. The camera is held back to allow James’ mother into the frame, as he learns to care for someone beyond himself. His concern eclipses his issues. There’s a calmness and alertness to his tending of his mother, as she starts losing her place in his life. The ending of the film is a bit tricky. It’s not in the traditional place you might expect. It is here, in this scene of reckoning of love and death. The hope for something more for this man is revealed in how he cares for his mother in her final days. This is where you can see that there is a goodness in James. He’s so concerned for and devoted to his mother. It’s not just in his attentiveness. There is a sense that he has come to understand someone beyond himself, something he lacks with everyone else. Thus, hope arrives in this revealing, raw encounter with death, a key component to transformation.
James White runs 85 minutes and is rated R. It opened in our South Florida area on Friday, Dec. 11 at Cinema Paradiso in Hollywood, located in Broward County. Further south, the film is playing exclusively at the Regal South Beach Cinemas. For dates in other U.S. cities, visit this link. All images courtesy of the film’s distributor, Film Arcade, who provided a screener link for the purpose of this review.
Eight years after his first film outside of either Taiwan or China (the Paris-set The Flight of the Red Balloon), Hou Hsiao-hsien could not have returned with a more Chinese film: a wuxia movie. The Assassin takes place in ninth century China, during the waning years of the Tang Dynasty. The legendary Taiwanese filmmaker, known for a meticulous style, worked with four other writers to get the details of the later years of the Tang Dynasty just right. The result is a remarkably subtle piece of storytelling that is as enthralling as it is discreet.
Because Hou has such a wonderful feel for location, it makes sense to describe the setting before the plot of The Assassin. He chose to shoot the film in the forests of Mongolia, standing in for ancient China. The wind creating waves over the tops of trees has as much presence as the landscape. Hou never bothers with grand exteriors of palaces where the human drama drives the story. Any appearance of a palace is obscured by trees. Even some of the fight scenes unfold behind lush branches (here’s a clip) and between tree trunks (here’s a different clip). The power of nature is also in the conflicted story of the titular assassin, Yinniang, played bracingly and with scant lines of dialogue by Hou regular Shu Qi. As often as characters talk about the past or discuss political maneuverings, nothing really matters as much as Yinniang’s quiet, conflicted feelings for her trade as a frighteningly skilled assassin.
Yinniang was abducted as a child by a former princess turned militant nun (Sheu Fang-yi) who trained her to become a killer for China’s central government. However, Yinniang has an Achilles heel: her heart. As the nun tells her, “Your skills are masterful, buy your mind is weakened by human sentiment.” After Yinniang fails one of her tasks by showing mercy, the nun sends her on a mission to kill the governor of her birthplace in Weibo Province. Lord Tian J’ian (Chang Chen) also happens to be Yinniang’s cousin. To complicate their connection, Yinniang was once betrothed to him.
Tensions run deep in this film, as many subplots course through this central arc. There’s instability in Tian’s house from politics to a strained marriage. A pregnant concubine (Nikki Hsieh Hsin-ying) becomes the target of Tian’s wife (Zhou Yun) via a deadly wizard. 
Meanwhile, when Yinniang is not stalking Tian in the shadows or fighting off his guards, she finds refuge with a Japanese workman (Satoshi Tsumabuki), a mirror polisher in the countryside who she grows casually and sweetly attached to. Then there are the politics of the provinces, which seem to make the film leaden with story. However, The Assassin has a music and poetry that makes plot feel secondary. It’s reflective of Yinniang’s true path: to severe her ties with the past and begin anew.
The story may be complex, but it’s not hard to get beyond its complexity via Hou’s gorgeous cinema, a fluid pace of beautifully detailed mise-en-scène where the repetition of a famous Chinese poem about a blue bird and its relationship with a mirror reveals more about Yinniang than what she could ever say in dialogue. The Assassin is a cathartic thing to watch, and you will feel it deep in your soul as opposed to being told it with exposition. This is a cinema that harnesses the power of the medium by a master. Visuals, editing and sounds tell us more than words can.
Between the lavish set design, breathtaking landscapes, intricate makeup and costumes is Mark Lee’s delicate camera 
work capturing shadow and flickering light to rapturous effect. From his shots of the expressively wild forests of Mongolia to the flowing silk walls during dramatic interior scenes, as the titular character lurks in the shadows, The Assassin never shortchanges the audience of impressive imagery.
Hou is known for holding unedited shots for long periods of time. His cinema is sometimes unfairly called “languorous.” To be honest, Hou’s scenes never outwear the receptive and open-minded viewer’s interest because of their rich staging. There are also moments of long monologues, and the information can feel impenetrable. It’s ironic that the film’s heroine hardly has dialogue, yet her actions and Shu’s performance speak volumes. For those hoping for lots of wuxia action, it should be noted that the film’s fight scenes are lightly sprinkled in between the drama, which eventually reveals a love story that transcends romance. Hou never takes killing lightly. You won’t see gore, guts and blood, yet he never short changes the thrills of combat. The Assassin, however, transcends its violence to reveal great compassion for humanity and life via movie-making that harnesses the power of the intrinsic medium.
The Assassin runs 107 minutes, is in Mandarin with English subtitles and is not rated (it has some violence). It opens for its premiere Miami theatrical run at the Miami Beach Cinematheque this Thursday, Oct. 29. It continues its run theatrically in Miami the following day at Tower Theater and up north in Broward County at Cinema Paradiso Hollywood. It continues to expand across the U.S. and Canada through December. For dates in other cities, visit this link. The film had its Florida premiere this past Sunday, Oct. 25, during Miami Dade College’s Miami International Film Festival’s weekend-long premieres event, GEMS. The GEMS festival hosted a preview screening for the purpose of this review, which first appeared in the Miami New Times as a shorter capsule review.
I also had an opportunity to interview Hou Hsiao-hsien, which resulted in a two-part interview below:
Hou Hsiao-hsien on his intuitive filmmaking and The Assassin; more in Miami New Times
All images courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment.
The Tribe depicts violent, unmuted world of Ukrainian deaf mafia with unblinking style– a film review
July 24, 2015
For all of its gimmicks — a Ukrainian film inspired by silent movies that eschews subtitles and features a cast of deaf characters — The Tribe (Plemya) is also something else: one of the most uncomfortably disturbing films you will probably see this year. It’s a challenging movie to sit through, not just because there is no dialogue for those who don’t know Ukrainian sign language, but because the notion of the distant objective camera (with no closeups) adopted from silent film presents such an unflinching gaze. The deaf teenagers writer/director Miroslav Slaboshpitsky follows are involved with the deaf mafia, a very real organization in the Ukraine with all the rules you might expect of organized crimes, and it’s brutal (read my interview with the director and actress in Miami New Times: Ukrainian Film The Tribe Explores the Little-Known World of the Deaf Mafia).
Grigoriy Fesenko plays the film’s lead, who we meet at a bus stop located across the street from the cameraman. In the wide shot, traffic whizzes by as he struggles to get directions from a woman to the deaf boarding school. The camera lingers so long, one can’t help but notice the rusted shell of a Trabant next to the bench, half buried by dead leaves, which speaks to the ills of post-Soviet Ukraine. The camera then follows him as he begins to walk to the school. This is a movie of long takes and distant camera. It’s a bold stylistic choice. While it often looks beautiful, it also often works to the film’s detriment.
There’s already a barrier between the audience and the characters due to the language and lack of translation. There’s a particularly frustrating scene that kills the flim’s momentum when the two female leads, who sneak out of the boarding school to moonlight as prostitutes, enter someone’s apartment surely higher up in the mafia. The characters sit around signing to one another for some time before the girls try on T-shirts advertising Italy. Only in the next scene, when the girls appear in line for a visa to Italy, does it become clear that they are to take a trip overseas to — most likely — peddle their bodies. It takes a long time before that becomes clear, and too often you’ll be thinking about running time in scenes like these.
But then there are the moments of extreme violence and raw sex acts between Fesenko’s character and one of the girls he pimps out and finds feelings for (Yana Novikova). It’s only worth noting these scenes not as spoilers but as fair warning about what you are getting into when you buy a ticket to The Tribe. You can expect some skull crushing violence, a backroom abortion that takes its time with every tool needed for the act and a sexual encounter where the two lovers 69 for sometime, where their slurping becomes a highlight for a largely voiceless movie. As Slaboshpitsky allows the camera to roll on and on … and on and on, you may find yourself tuning out of the narrative to grumble that you get the point.
Also, for all it’s stylishness, the distant camera makes it hard for the audience to feel anything for the characters, except for the primal difficulty of their most physical experiences. It works on that level, maybe too well. But it doesn’t work on a level of character development. It is a film about outsiders, after all, and this style stays true to that, but you need some intimacy to connect with these people if you want the audience to sit through the duration of this 132-minute movie and actually care about what happens to them. However, Novikova deserves special mention as the most expressive of the lot. From her emphatic signing to a rare moment where she must scream out, she is the film’s heart.
There’s no denying this will be a difficult film for most to sit through. The film’s violent finale takes into account deafness at a harrowing level, but some will wonder if it’s too gimmicky. Maybe I am a little mixed about this movie, but it’s not an exploitation film or some movie devised to be cruel to the audience, like that terrible movie Gaspar Noe concocted, Irreversible. The Tribe is a product of the Ukraine. Anyone who has ever visited (the only ones I know visited for research or educational purposes) can speak to the post-communist chill of the nation’s disillusioned people. The Ukraine has long struggled with a corrupt leadership that has left many disheartened citizens to struggle on their own. Now Russia wants the territory back and has used some of the most flagrantly violent means and deceits to do so. What of its underclass and handicapped? This is a country coming apart shred by shred by the hollow promises of the Soviet Empire, a specter that still looms over its empty present. Sure, Slaboshpitsky has shot an unblinking violent, perverse and often shocking movie but can you blame him?
The Tribe runs 132 minutes, is in Ukranian sign language without subtitles and is not rated (you’ve already been warned about content in the review). It opens in our South Florida area this Friday, July 24, at the Miami Beach Cinematheque and further north, in Broward County at the Cinema Paradiso Hollywood. It could already be playing in other locations across the U.S., if not coming soon. For other screening dates, visit this link and scroll down. The Miami Beach Cinematheque hosted a preview screening for the purpose of this review. All images are courtesy of Alamo Drafthouse. You can also read more of my conversation with Slaboshpitsky and Novikova in this post from a few days ago:
Interviews with the director and lead actress of The Tribe
Note: the Q&A with actress Yana Novikova below features frank talk about sex and may reveal plot spoilers. If you are offended by either, you might want to skip that part of the article.
The first ever deaf-led film from the Ukraine will not be an easy experience for anyone. The Tribe (Plemya) is concerned with teenagers who work for the country’s Deaf Mafia, a real thing, according to Ukrainian filmmaker Miroslav Slaboshpitsky. The writer/director was once a crime reporter in Kiev, and he has seen it all. It’s no wonder he doesn’t hold back when he presents the world of these kids with a distant camera that hardly ever blinks. The sex and violence is presented with an unflinching gaze, and it has rattled people the world over, as the film has collected many awards.
Speaking via Skype, Slaboshpitsky says he noticed something rather funny about the cultural differences of certain countries with how they reacted to either the film’s sex or violence. “The film is already released in 144 countries,” he says, “including the United States … We had this discussion with my French distributor. It received the rating of 16+ in France. It’s very big. I think 18+ … only 10 films per year receive this rating, but 16+ is not good. For example Blue is the Warmest Color has 13+ and my French distributor told me, ‘We have no problem with sex in your film, but violence was a problem for French audience, and this rating, 16+, can inform the audience it is a violent film, so for this reason we can lose some viewers.’ Anyway, we have a successful release in France, but I have the same with my American distributor, and he told me, the violence wasn’t the problem with the film, but the sex is. It’s very funny. It’s a different culture,” he adds with a laugh.
It took a special cast to put the film together and Slaboshpitsky spent about six months working on casting the film. He said he auditioned approximately 300 deaf people for the movie before settling on the bold group of actors that make up the teenagers of The Tribe. Of lead actor, Grigoriy Fesenko, he said he needed some patience before he could tap into the talent he saw from the start. “A friend of Grigoriy sent us his photo,” he reveals, “and I thought his look was very nice. Then he came to audition, and it was very tangible because Grigoriy is a real street guy. He is a parkourist. He has experience in street fighting and hooliganism and something like that. In the audition, he was so nervous he completely fucked up the whole audition. It interested me because it was a very interesting mix of the brutal street guy and … very, nervous … and I ask him to come to the audition again, and I asked him come again and finally we took him in the film.”
Meanwhile, the female lead, Yana Novikova, took the director by surprise. She stood out during an audition for someone else Slaboshpitsky was considering for the role. “Yana it was a very special story because I wasn’t sure about Yana before we started to shoot the movie,” he recalls, “so [the character] is a prostitute, and I’m looking for someone who is more sexy, much more Marilyn Monroe style, something like that. So I go to audition at a special deaf theater in Kiev, and Yana was one of the persons who tried to take part in this audition, and I’m coming to see the other girl, which really looks like a sex bomb. When I saw them doing all these different tasks for the audition, I didn’t notice this sex bomb anymore. Yana took all my attention. Finally, we invited her to rehearsal, and she really, really impressed me.”
To read more from Slaboshpitsky about the film, as well as Novikova, jump through the logo below for the Miami New Times’ Art and Culture blog:
Now, for those still here, below is my complete interview with Novikova. She responded to my questions via email which were translated for her and then translated back and sent to me. It was a lot of work for everyone involved, and she gave some long, intelligent and insightful responses, so I wanted to share the entire interview somewhere, and Independent Ethos is probably the best place for it. Note: this is also where the frank talk of sex and spoilers come in, including reference to an incident on set that would make for a funny blooper reel on the home video release were it not X-rated.
Hans Morgenstern: Your performance is incredibly powerful. Did you ever think you would become an actress? I read you have always dreamed of acting since childhood. What attracted you to it when you were a child?
Yana Novikova: I was 6 or 7 years old and I went with my mother to see “Titanic.” I loved Kate Winslet’s performance. I realized then that I wanted to become an actress, and what an interesting thing it is to do. It’s such a beautiful profession.
Which of the films the director showed you in preparation for your role did you like best and why:
Last Tango in Paris
La vie d’Adel (Blue is the Warmest Color)
9 Songs
Shortbus
Any of the films by Lars von Trier or Larry Clark or Pier Paolo Pasolini?
The director advised me to watch some good movies. I was most impressed with Blue is the Warmest Color. We saw it with the guys who also star in The Tribe. I was so impressed with the performance by the lead character. It is because of her performance in that film that I changed my attitude towards the role in The Tribe. I was no longer afraid.
Where did you find the courage to express yourself with such a demanding performance that includes nudity and violence?
After watching Blue is the Warmest Color I realized that working in cinema is art. Internally I was ready for it. The movie is not about nudity. This is a very profound film, and I came to its subject and depiction seriously. I rehearsed and worked on the role for a long time, trying to get used to the image of myself as a prostitute. When it was time to film the intimate scenes, I asked Myroslav to keep the set to a minimum number of people. So the only one’s present were the camera, sound and translator. Even Myroslav was in another room, watching at the monitor. I still do not feel comfortable about being naked in front of strangers, it is unnatural for me. And we had to do a lot of takes. I had a good understanding with my scene partner, and I did what I intuitively felt. This was not porn, the scenes have an aesthetic purity, there is feeling to them. These scenes are important to convey a sense of fullness, so that the audience believes and empathize with the hero. In some ways it’s like a cinematic representation of some of the great Renaissance art. For example, one of our scenes is very similar to the painting of Adam and Eve by Albrecht Durer.
There is a disturbing scene where you undergo an illegal “backroom” abortion. What was it like to shoot and how long did it take?
Myroslav prepared me well in advance that there would be a graphic abortion scene. I agreed immediately, but I was also worried about it, because I did not know how I should move or react like a real person might when having this procedure because I had never had one. The first day I was in rehearsal with Marina [Panivan], who played the woman performing the abortion. The second day we went to the director of a hospital, and we rehearsed in the hospital with a gynecologist. There was a special doll, a dummy, that they used to let doctors train on, so we could watch how it is done. The next day we filmed the scene, and it all turned out. And each time it was necessary to re-live the pain, to cry, to put forth the necessary emotion. In addition, I felt physical pain. The whole day I had to lay on that bare board, and by the end of filming that scene I was all cried out.
Though it is shocking movie, I’m sure you also must have enjoyed doing it. What did you enjoy most about making it? Was there anything that you didn’t enjoy so much about the shoot?
I like that the film is completely without subtitles and words. It seems to me that a deaf actor can convey more emotion than a hearing actor, because everything must be written on the face, all of the emotions: joy, sadness, hatred, resentment. Wherever we showed the film, viewers who hear all understood. Of course, when deaf audiences see it, they pay attention to the gestures, to what the characters say with their hands. But that’s not the signed dialogue, that is the emotions, because deaf foreigners who don’t understand International Sign are like hearing audiences forced to understand it from the emotions. When Myroslav explained to us what he needed us to do, he emphasized that the main thing was what emotions we give. If we forgot a word, he did not want us to worry, the main thing was to show emotion. It was okay to improvise, especially when there are gestures, not words. You do not need to hear dialogue when everything is written on the face, you can see all you need to in the movements. Because of that, The Tribe is truly a film for everyone. I like that.
Was there a fun moment you had on the set?
Yes, there was a funny moment where Myroslav said to me and Grigoriy that it was necessary to come up with a position we liked for a sex scene. I laughed, and I could not pick a position, then Myroslav came up with the “69” position, but I did not want to do “69,” and I wanted to choose something else. But Myroslav showed us the “69” position and how beautiful it looked, like how a “snake” moves. We were in rehearsal and we just could not be serious about this. We were laughing so hard, no one could keep from laughing about this.
Do you have any other roles lined up in the future?
I have received several offers for new films, and I hope to be working on a new project soon. I’m also planning to study in the U.S. and earn my masters in dramatic arts.
The Tribe opens in our South Florida area this Friday, July 24, at the Miami Beach Cinematheque and further north, in Broward County at the Cinema Paradiso Hollywood. It could already be playing in other locations across the U.S., if not coming soon. For other screening dates, visit this link and scroll down. The Miami Beach Cinematheque hosted a preview screening for the purpose of this article. All images are courtesy of Alamo Drafthouse.
Balancing humor and poetically stunning black and white cinematography, Güeros tells the story of two brothers: Sombra (Tenoch Huerta) and young Tomás (Sebastián Aguirre). After one too many pranks in his native Veracruz, their single mother sends Tomás to live with his mellow slacker of an older brother in Mexico City. Sombra shares an apartment with Santos (Leonardo Ortizgris), who has an anger problem. When the teenage Tomás arrives in Mexico City, he soon realizes that Sombra and Santos may be even more clueless than he. They live in a dilapidated apartment that does not have electricity and are enrolled in the public university (UNAM), which is in the middle of a long strike, which took place in 1999 and lasted almost a year. The title, Güeros refers to a slang word intended to mean “blonde” or “lighter skinned,” which, depending on circumstances, is used derisively to refer to someone who does not belong in a specific social context.
The loose narrative that Director Alonso Ruiz Palacios utilizes emphasizes the natural flow of the story, which touches on several themes, including inequality in Mexico, the complexity of the mega city, the challenges of public education and the feeling of loss the two brothers still feel after their father’s passing. The beginning of the movie shows several idle moments of aimlessness. For starters, the strike at the University speaks to the idleness and lost moments of Sombra and Santos, who are not engaged in a direct way and seem to be wasting away – as many of those who endured that strike did (they choose to go on “strike against the strike”).
The arrival of Tomás changes this dynamic, however, as the young kid is full of energy and nostalgia for those days when their dad was around. He carries a tape that his father gave him by one of the best musicians in Mexican rock history, an 
allegory for the golden days. He finds that this mythical musician is still around but is close to death, which gives the trio an excuse to venture out from their home. Ruiz Palacios shows the impact of this music without ever revealing it via lengthy shots of the characters using headphones to listen to tape and focusing on their reactions that shift from moved to amazed and ends in a deeply affected state. The genius of this strategy is that it allows the music to be part of the characters, not the focus of the film itself.
Throughout their adventure, the three characters find themselves travailing the city, which at times shows a disconnect between them and the variety of characters found in each of the neighborhoods. Güeros’ portrayal of Mexico City is one of the most honest depictions in the film. An ode to one of the most complex cities in Latin America, Güeros explores a journey of self-discovery that parallels an exploration of Mexico City in an intimate, real way.
The film takes on a self-referential and funny turn once the trio end up in the University campus, where the strike is in full swing. One of the protesters turns his attention directly to the camera and starts talking about the film as it is, in a straightforward way, making fun of the film itself. The conversation immerses the audience in the filmmaking process itself
and removes the real or perceived barrier between the director and the audience, also doing away with any lengthy expository dialogue. Ruiz Palacios cuts straight through the typical Hollywood conventions and addresses us and his actors in a dialogue devoid of fluff, a narrative that has a sense of humor but questions its social relevance at the same time.
At the protest, we also meet Ana (Ilse Salas), one of the leaders of the student movement and Sombra’s love interest. The encounter is intense at a personal level but is also one of the key moments that Ruiz Palacios uses to showcase the embedded social inequality that exists in Mexico City. The debates at the university ring so true, it feels like one is experiencing the university on a vividly genuine level, in a script that could have only been written by someone who was personally impacted by that protest. Ruiz Palacios has described in an interview that he was close to attending UNAM when the protest erupted but learned first-hand from friends how it affected hundreds of people who both supported and were against the university takeover.
This self-referential humor happens once more when Sombra has a fit at an elegant party that Ana takes the trio to, and directs a rant to the crowd – and by extension, the film’s audience — about the hypocrisy in Mexican art house films that parade non-trained actors and complain about the country’s ailments abroad. The self-referential awareness of the precarious situation of art that can be at once constructive and destructive reveal a filmmaker who is keenly aware of the sociopolitical issues in Mexico and takes a constructive stand via the same medium he criticizes. This is surely an art-house film that does away with clichés by directly poking fun at them in a playful way.
The black and white film, presented in the 4:3 aspect ratio, combined with the naturalistic acting style speaks to the influence of the French New Wave, but this film is so much more. The narrative encompasses an honest account of a sociopolitical reality that is tough to encapsulate. The film also shows a coming of age of sorts for Sombra, who is alienated and detached at the onset of the film but finds the courage to connect to his little brother, his friend and his love interest throughout the journey to finally come to terms and become part of the world he inhabits. In a nod to 400 Blows, Riva Palacio ends the film with a shot of Sombra who turns around to the camera with an all-knowing gaze that signals growth and a recognition of the self. Güeros never takes itself too seriously but remains a poetic film.
Update: Güeros is coming back to South Florida for an exclusive run in Broward County at the Cinema Paradiso Hollywood. It opens there on July 17 (details here).
Güeros runs 102 minutes, is in Spanish with English subtitles and is not rated (it has cursing, smoking and some sexuality). It opened this past Friday, June 26, in our Miami are at the Coral Gables Art Cinema where it plays until July 2. For dates in other parts in the U.S. and Canada, visit this page, where there are dates scheduled through September. All images are courtesy of Kino Lorber, Inc.
Independent Ethos 