FILM INTERNATIONAL (VOL. 10, NO. 2)—Between Past and Future: Looking For Buenos Aires in Hugo Santiago's Invasión (1969)

I'm pleased to announce the publication of my interview with Hugo Santiago in the current issue of Film International (Vol. 10, No. 2), on the occasion of the archival screening of Santiago's 1969 classic Invasión in the Argentine City to City sidebar at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.

TIFF 2011 / PSIFF 2012: MICHAEL (2011)—The Evening Class Interview With Markus Schleinzer

Austrian filmmaker Markus Schleinzer's truly disturbing directorial debut Michael (2011)—not to be confused with Ribhu Dasgupta's Hindi feature of the same name (also released in 2011)—exerts a morbid fascination on the viewer, compelling attention to its unpleasant yet undeniably suspenseful narrative of a pederast (Michael Fuith) who keeps a 10-year-old boy imprisoned in his cellar. Not for the righteous and hardly for anybody else, Michael nonetheless deserves its audience and ranks with Baran bo Odar's The Silence (Das letzte Schweigen, 2010) as a memorable examination of the dark suffering of the perverse soul. Despite its provocative subject and the mixed critical reaction when the film premiered at Cannes, Michael was nominated for a European Film Award and indieWIRE recently included Schleinzer as one of the 40 New Faces of Indie Film in 2011, affirming "there's no doubt that Schleinzer has established himself." Likewise at indieWIRE, Eric Kohn praised the film as "a triumph of uneasy cinema."

I caught Michael at its North American premiere at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) where several of my colleagues with children of their own made it adamantly clear to me that they refused to watch this film and were somewhat surprised by my intention to do so. Judging by their reactions, Schleinzer was more offensive than brave for broaching such an unseemly subject. In some ways, Michael could be classified as the same kind of crime horror film as Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), which likewise left me put off and disturbed. So many movies claim to stare into the heart of evil—and usually do so through stylized effects that help to distance the spectator from the film—but, Michael downplays the shock and spectacle to achieve a naturalistic and amazingly non-judgmental document that feels all the more uncomfortable for leaving no room to hide behind more customary genre conventions. I wasn't sure at all if Michael would traffic after TIFF, but it appears to be gaining traction, and has been scheduled in the World Cinema sidebar at the upcoming Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF), where I predict some outraged walkouts.

My thanks to Marcus Hu of Strand Releasing for arranging time for me to sit down at TIFF with Schleinzer to wrestle with the controversy of his film. Schleinzer carries the stigmatization of that controversy squarely on his shoulders and it was a delight to find him so pleasant and well-spoken. Unfortunately, due to a technical issue with my recorder, our recorded conversation was corrupted and I was only able to save the first half of our conversation. Hopefully, down the line, Schleinzer and I will have the opportunity to complete this discussion. Until then, I offer what I have.

* * *

Michael Guillén: Markus, as you can imagine I was profoundly challenged and disturbed by your film and wanted to have the chance to speak with you. It's my understanding that you are primarily an actor but have served as a casting director for some of the films of Michael Haneke, notably The White Ribbon (2009). What motivated you to approach directing and to start off with such a difficult subject?

Markus Schleinzer: It's actually the other way around. I've been a casting director for 17 years and sometimes—when I've been asked—I've played some parts in movies. During my work as a casting director, I have often been told by other directors to think about doing a movie myself. When Haneke and I were working on The White Ribbon, he was the one who said, "It's time. Go and make your own movie."

This was at the end of 2008 and—at that period of time—you couldn't pick up a newspaper or watch television without facing the issue of child abuse. It was everywhere. We had this huge case in Austria regarding Natascha Kampusch, you have probably heard of her? Then there was this big case as well about Josef Fritzl who kept an entire family in his cellar for 26 years. There had been an infamous incident in America as well, so the phenomenon was world-wide.

What disturbed me the most, at least in Austria and Europe, was that this issue was handled so sensationally by the press. I couldn't find another view. This was when I sat down and thought about what this different view on the subject, on this issue, might look like. How could one do a movie about such a subject without being provocative or scandalous or trying to earn quick money off the issue?

Guillén: So the media coverage inspired you to write a script that would present this issue from a less salacious perspective....

Schleinzer: It took me five days to write the script.

Guillén: Five days? So it had clearly been playing in your mind? How difficult was it, then, to sell this script and to secure the financing to film the story?

Schleinzer: It was not difficult at all, otherwise I would not have done it. The story was easily sold and we got all the money we needed immediately. There were no problems at all.

Guillén: Michael strikes me as a contemporary horror film presented as almost a documentary. As you went into production, I'm curious how you negotiated casting and working with your child actor David Rauchenberger? How did you explain to him what would be required of him in the role? How much of a context were you required to provide him in order for him to participate in such a grisly narrative?

Schleinzer: With the child it was very important from the beginning to be as honest with him as possible and not to hide anything. That started in the casting process. I brought a short synopsis with me when I started the casting process, in which I didn't hide anything at all. It wasn't the whole script, of course—it was just 10-15 sentences—but, it laid out the whole story. I didn't want the parents of children coming to the casting not knowing what the story was going to be about. I couldn't make a movie about child abuse and then abuse the people involved by not letting them know in advance what the movie was about, what would be shown and what would not be shown. We had four or five casting rounds from a pool of about 700-750 children. With every round I gave more and more and more information. By the last round there were still four boys I was considering and who interested me and I met with all their parents and gave them the complete script. I told them to take the script home, to read it thoroughly, and then we would meet again to discuss it. Finally, with David's parents, I explained again what would be seen, what would not be seen, and we drafted up a contract. Even after the movie was completed, I showed the footage to David's parents and asked them, "Is there anything you want me to cut out?"

I dealt the same way with David himself, speaking honestly to him about the film's issue of child abuse, and I have to say that his generation has a certain gift that our generation did not. David was 10 when we shot the movie, he's now 11, but when he was 9 there was a psychiatrist who came to his school and attended his class and taught the children not to go with the man who said,"I have a puppet in my car. Would you like to touch it?" So children of David's generation are already aware of certain dangers, which I knew nothing about as a child. When I was 10, I was told that adults were in complete control and to never doubt them. I would have gone with anyone.

I think it's possible to tell the truth on one hand and on the other hand to watch your language as you tell the truth. I have to say, I often felt ashamed talking to David about certain parts of the story, but—on the other hand—I think it's best for adults to be open-hearted and open-minded with children. Just because a parent is ashamed to talk about certain issues doesn't mean they disappear.

Guillén: Since you clearly have a talent for casting, what were the qualities you were looking for in your actors when you were seeking to cast not only the role of the boy but the leading role of Michael, the pederast, to achieve the dynamic you were hoping for in this film?

Schleinzer: That wasn't easy with the boy but with the adult role it was clear to me that I wanted a complete unknown actor, which is easy world-wide; but, I wanted to focus first, of course, on Austrian talent. I was shocked when the film was chosen for Cannes because I had thought of it as a small Austrian movie which might gain some following in Austria. So my thought was to use an unknown Austrian actor. Of course the people financing the film wanted me to use a known actor like Christoph Waltz so they could sell the movie better; but, I doubted that strategy because I knew that putting a star in this role meant the character would have more of a possibility for salvation, which isn't what I wanted. If people saw Christoph Waltz in this role, they would recognize him from his character in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, they would know him already as a person, and could thus draw a certain distance from the role in this film.

I'm very glad that I found Michael Fuith. At first, I wrote the script and then became depressed because I didn't know who to ask to play the role. But by a lucky chance, I was on a jury for the Austrian Filmmaking University and I had to watch about 80 short films and Fuith was in two of them. He hadn't acted before and these were his first feature parts. I thought he was perfect so I gave him the script, he read it, and then he called me and said, "I don't want to do it."

Guillén: Understandable. It would take a courageous actor to take on such a role.

Schleinzer: Yes, it demands a courageous actor. So then I said, "Okay, what's it going to take?" He asked for two more weeks to think about it and then he decided to do it.

Portrait of Markus Schleinzer courtesy of Viktor Bradzil, NGF.

TIFF 2011 / PSIFF 2012: MISS BALA / MISS BULLET (2011)

As one of Variety's "10 Directors to Watch", there's no denying that Gerardo Naranjo's chops are significantly maturing with each venture. Naranjo's crime thriller Miss Bala maximizes explosive action by way of impressive long shots, for example; but, as Adam Nayman has cogently summarized in Cinema Scope's (now legendary) pre-festival coverage for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF): "Miss Bala undoubtedly has a point to make: that the drug war, if you hadn't heard, is bad news. Throw in the fact that so much in Miss Bala feels like a demonstration of its maker's virtuosity, and you have a film that, while superficially totally of a piece—it's shapely, as they say, and filled with visual and dramatic rhymes—leaves a viewer feeling at odds. Naranjo's craft is to be admired, and, at least theoretically, so is his commitment to social critique. I worry, though, where those things—and the inevitable critical and possible commercial success of Miss Bala—might take him."

The film itself is something of a fractured fairy tale, which means of course that there's no happy ending or resolution to Naranjo's brutal portrait of corruption and culpability in the Mexican drug wars. Any woman catering to a fairy tale in this volatile environment is ... well ... a pendeja and deserves what she wishes for, which explains why Lars Von Trier has nothing on Gerardo Naranjo, who puts his lead actress Stephanie Sigman through one torturous trial after the other. It's to her character Laura's credit that she survives at all, which is nothing short of miraculous, if largely unbelievable and bordering on the ludicrous. In fact, her escape from one bad situation is a mere pretext to guide her into an even worse situation: from the frying pan into the fire and then onto the top broiling rack of a gas oven. I couldn't escape the feeling—as Nayman has hinted above—that Naranjo's exploration of the rampant violence in Mexico is less social commentary than thinly-guised and glamorized brutality. Is this really what audiences want to see in Mexican movies? Obviously so, since Miss Bala has now arrived in the Awards Buzz sidebar at the 23rd edition of the Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) as Mexico's entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards®. Clearly, box office is expressing its prurient "watch-her-burn" interests?

At MUBI, Dave Hudson has vigilantly rounded up the enthused reviews from Cannes where Miss Bala premiered in the Un Certain Regard section. MUBI's Cannes coverage includes festival dispatches from Marie-Pierre Duhamel and Daniel Kasman and a video "questionnaire" conducted by Kasman and Ryland Walker Knight. Hudson then monitored the film's dampening critical reception at TIFF and the New York Film Festival.

I caught the North American premiere of Miss Bala in TIFF's Contemporary World Cinema sidebar where it was introduced by its Canana producers Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna with director Naranjo and actress Sigman in attendance. Further—as it was the 10-year anniversary of 9/11—Miss Bala was preceded by a TIFF-produced short that recalled the role of the festival in ameliorating the shock at the time. Bernal recalled, "Ten years ago we were presenting a film here. The first time that we worked together. For those of you who don't remember, we had just won an award in Venice for Y Tu Mama Tambien. That was exactly 10 years ago. And as we know, stuff happened and the show had to be canceled on the 11th; but, we presented it on the 12th and it was a huge relief for everyone who was there in the cinema. We perhaps had one of the best and the most emotive projections of that movie. So we're incredibly happy to be here once again in Toronto presenting on September 11 as well a film that's relevant to our situation right now."

TIFF 2011 / PSIFF 2012: THE TURIN HORSE / A TORINÓI LÓ (2011)

My kneejerk reaction to watching Béla Tarr's Berlinale winner The Turin Horse when it screened in the Masters sidebar at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was to recite the childhood jingle, "One potato, two potato, three potato, four." In essence, this summed up the film's narrative thrust. Then again, only Béla Tarr could exact such exquisite rhythm, resonance and weight—not from a childhood jingle at all—but from the following anecdotal wellspring:

"In Turin on 3rd January, 1889, Friedrich Nietzsche steps out of the doorway of number six, Via Carlo Albert. Not far from him, the driver of a hansom cab is having trouble with a stubborn horse. Despite all his urging, the horse refuses to move, whereupon the driver loses his patience and takes his whip to it. Nietzsche comes up to the throng and puts an end to the brutal scene, throwing his arms around the horse's neck, sobbing. His landlord takes him home, he lies motionless and silent for two days on a divan until he mutters the obligatory last words, and lives for another ten years, silent and demented, cared for by his mother and sisters. We do not know what happened to the horse."

The Turin Horse suggests that the horse's possible fate is a comparable world weariness and sickness of the soul. As Dimitri Eipedes synopsizes in his program notes for TIFF, the ailing horse has given up providing the livelihood on which an aging father (János Derzsi) and his daughter (Erika Bók) depend, as if sensing the inevitable. The horse "refuses to eat, drink or carry them where they need to go. Nevertheless, the man and his daughter forge ahead with their tasks, even after their one attempt to escape confirms there is nowhere left to go." Eipedes explains that Tarr, "has crafted a mostly dialogue-free meditation on how humans refuse to give up the fight even when there's no battle left to win" or what Robert Koehler describes—in his informative Cinema Scope interview with cinematographer Fred Kelemen—as an "absurdist essence, the will to go on despite all dire signs to the contrary."

The Turin Horse contests mythologist Joseph Campbell's assertion that it is through the performance of everyday tasks that one's brilliance shines through. Rather, it suggests that the weight of repetitious tasks extinguishes any form of brilliance. Only a master like Béla Tarr could render such weariness incandescent. Though Fred Kelemen's B&W cinematography seems less lustrous than Tarr's previous entry The Man From London—the whites less milky and the blacks less inky—the look of the film remains hauntingly beautiful, if dauntingly grey. Tarr's long takes, of course, are an acquired taste, if not a calculated exercise to frustrate spectatorial patience and, thereby, destabilize expectation. The Turin Horse sports—count 'em!—30 such long takes or as Kelemen describes in his conversation with Koehler: "The moving image is thus a thinking image."

The program capsule for the film's appearance in the Awards Buzz program at the upcoming 23rd edition of the Palm Springs International Film Festival—as Hungary's official submission for the foreign language category at the 84th Academy Awards®—suggests that Tarr's adamance that The Turin Horse will be his final film—"he plans to stay busy by opening a film school in Split, Croatia"—might account for the film's "sense of finality." Rarely has such a keen observation of the quotidian signaled an impending end to the world. Fortunately, the cancellation of the film's release after Tarr's well-publicized interview with the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel—wherein Tarr accused the Hungarian government of obstructing artists and intellectuals, in what he referred to as a "culture war" led by the cabinet of Viktor Orbán—appears to now be a sequestered memory.

Critical reception for The Turin Horse has been thoroughly aggregated by David Hudson at MUBI, first from the film's premiere at the 2011 Berlinale (where it won the Jury Grand Prix as well as the FIPRESCI prize for best film in Competition), the subsequent Der Tagesspiegel controversy, the film's appearance at the 2011 New York Film Festival, and two lovely pieces from that festival, first by Daniel Kasman on the film's "mesmeric viscosity" and next by Doug Dibbern on "tracking shots at the gates of dawn."

MELANCHOLIA (2011)

As is often the case, one need look no further than MUBI to achieve an overview of Lars Von Trier's Melancholia (2011). After offering the trailer, David Hudson rounded up the reviews from the film's premiere at Cannes (where Danny Kasman also weighed in), reported on the controversy surrounding Von Trier's press snafu that earned him the status of persona non grata, and then expanded his critical round-up from the New York Film Festival. Most recently, Hudson has reported on Melancholia's multiple nominations at the European Film Awards.

I caught Melancholia at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and was stunned by its somber beauty and its unflinching infatuation with the apocalyptic. The film opens theatrically this week and—though I don't really have much to add to what's already been written—I do have a few tangential impressions I wanted to share. When I watched the film, I was struck by its depressive weight, its gravitas if you will, where gravity is determined by the pull of celestial bodies upon each other. If ever the "inner reaches of outer space" could be palpably felt, Melancholia achieved that microcosmic / macrocosmic correspondence in shaded spades. For me the film was a grim and dark fantasy about inauthentic weddings and the clay feet of the paterfamilias.

It was Charlotte Rampling's stony performance as Gaby that most unnerved me. Gaby possesses what Jungian analyst Sylvia Brinton-Perera has brilliantly described as the "death eye" in her groundbreaking study Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women (Inner City Books, 1981), which explores the deeper meaning of the wedding ritual by way of the Innana / Persephone mythologem. In essential ways the death eye is grounded in the authentic experience of marriage, even as it mercilessly exposes the false marriage (one might say the marriage of convenience) through lancing insight. Brinton-Perera provocatively suggests that what feels at first like a curse might actually be a key to feminine strength and freedom. Gaby's psychological attitude triggers Justine's descent and Justine (in an award-winning performance by Kirsten Dunst) does, indeed, go down under the weight of her mother's negativity. But it could be argued that Justine needs to find her own strength because she cannot rely on any of the men around her. Her philandering father Dexter (John Hurt) is of no help, weakened by a penchant for saturnalia; her spouse-to-be Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) can't live up to his namesake and conquer the devil of her depression; and her brother-in-law John (Kiefer Sutherland) favors science and reason to ill effect, trying to ward off an impending loss of control, only to succumb to the ultimate act of cowardice and abandonment. The archetypal underpinnings of Von Trier's narrative are so pronounced that they are nearly hidden in plain sight.

This visually ravishing descent narrative cogently captures the oppressive influence of a suffocating familial environment and—as I watched the film—I kept thinking of an early memory of Carl Gustav Jung's, poignantly recalled in his autobiography Memories, Dreams and Reflections: "I had anxiety dreams of things that were now small, now large. For instance, I saw a tiny ball at a great distance; gradually it approached, growing steadily into a monstrous and suffocating object. ...I see in this a psychogenic factor: the atmosphere of the house was beginning to be unbreathable."

Melancholia takes my breath away on multiple levels, both oppressive and liberating. It is, indisputably, one of the year's best films and will be a front runner in the oncoming awards season (which sometimes feels like an impending planetary collision in its own right). When the cast of Melancholia appeared on-stage at TIFF, Kirsten Dunst saw the film's opening sequence—frequently interpreted as oneiric—as less Justine's dream than the very real possibility that Justine was actually from the planet of Melancholia, which was how she worked with the role. Kiefer Sutherland added that Von Trier shot much more specific footage for the opening sequence that he decided not to use. By doing so, he allowed the sequence to be sparse enough so that it could be interpreted variously by each audience member, which Sutherland believed was "a strong move."

Regarding the strength that Justine develops to face the apocalypse, a strength that is nowhere evident earlier in the film, Dunst stated, "Lars and I talked about that a lot. When people are depressed, they're less afraid or not afraid of what's about to happen. In having no fear, you can be the strongest one in such a situation." For me, this is a clear confirmation of the value of Brinton-Perera's notion of the "death eye."

Sutherland: "One of the things that Lars did that was truly unique from any other experience I've ever had in film, we didn't block scenes out and we didn't do a lot of rehearsal. We were actually forced to find moments as they were happening. There was some panic and fear about that. At first, I thought it was his way of trying to control the thing, but there was actually a reason for him to do it like that. It had a profound impact upon me as an actor and Lars and I talked about that a lot. I think that was one aspect that allowed us to focus on the moments instead of the whole scope of the film." Udo Kier added that—after having worked with Von Trier for years—he's learned that Von Trier hates actors who act. He wants them to be in the moment, reacting honestly.

One hilarious moment in the TIFF Q&A was when an audience member asked Udo Kier how he maintained his youthful, sexy appearance? "You've made my evening," Kier beamed, and admitted that—since he has had no plastic surgery—he must be sexy by nature. Another respite arrived when the cast was asked what working on the film had taught them about the anxieties and depressions of people in their own lives. Skarsgård was quick to refute: "I'm from Sweden and we're all very happy in Sweden." When asked if he thought things would have "turned out differently" if Jack Bauer had been on the scene, Sutherland fessed up that Lars Von Trier would have kicked the shit out of Jack Bauer.

TIFF 2011: LE GAMIN AU VÉLO (THE KID WITH A BIKE, 2011)

Le gamin au vélo (The Kid With A Bike, 2011)—the latest achievement by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne—arrived at the 36th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) after a successful premiere at Cannes, where Danny Kasman dispatched to MUBI and David Hudson followed suit with a suite of reviews. Continuing their coverage of the film, MUBI published Dan Sallitt's dispatch from TIFF and Hudson's aggregate of follow-up reviews from the New York Film Festival (NYFF). It's now positioned in the San Francisco Film Society's French Cinema Now.

The Dardenne Brothers return to form in their engaging The Kid With A Bike, the tale of young Cyril abandoned by his deadbeat father (Jérémie Renier, whose performance salutes his own youthful debut 15 years earlier in the Dardenne's La Promesse). The film tracks Cyril's ensuing emotional delinquency. Angry, nearly feral, and desperate for his father's love, Cyril (in a volatile turn by Thomas Doret) has to learn that lashing out at the world will not bring him love. Cécile de France—last seen swept away by an unusual destiny in the blue sea of Eastwood (Hereafter, 2010)—plays Samantha, a hairdresser who befriends Cyril and strives to contain his volatility; a tsunami of a different sort.

Though The Kid With A Bike harbors now-familiar Dardenne themes of culpability and consequence, its narrative is delivered with a lighter, less realistic touch, and enhanced by a bright palette, emotionally informed by primary hues. Cyril's bright red jacket becomes an indelible image of his frantic pedaling to find a place where he belongs. and the punctuated usage of Beethoven's "Emperor Concerto" suggests the larger spheres of feeling that this small boy is hungry to access.

One notable review not included in Hudson's round-ups is Girish Shambu's capsule wherein he enthusiastically "responded to this film with a primal force because it's about ceaseless movement. Running, pedaling, chasing, being chased, climbing, falling, ducking, darting, hurrying: the film is a virtual catalogue of these (and other) dramatically urgent forms of movement. There's a great moment when the kid shows off his prowess on his bike by stopping it and balancing himself to a point of complete stillness for an instant. It's a quietly humorous moment—an apotheosis—because it tells us that movement is the natural state; it is stillness that must be achieved with the special application of skill." Revisiting the film after TIFF, Girish "was struck by how fully formed the Dardennes' stylistic approach and command were fifteen years ago [with La Promesse]. There's a fantastic moment when Igor, unable to tell the African woman (Assita) the truth, lunges for her and wraps himself around her mid-section in a tight hug, not letting go. The same gesture is repeated in Kid in the boy's first encounter with the woman at the medical office, where he heads straight for her (never having seen her before) and wraps himself around her waist. (He's on the run from pursuers.) I love her split-second response: 'You can hold on to me, but don't squeeze so tight.' "

Girish's sole critique concerned the use of Beethoven, which "seemed like the only false step ... underscoring what the film had already accomplished by other means." In her wrap-up from NYFF, our favorite Self-Styled Siren reported that The Dardennes declared in their on-stage presentation that—though they have admittedly not used music in their previous films—they felt it appropriate in The Kid With A Bike. "They thought of the music," Farran reported, "as a caress: 'It's what Cyril is missing in his life, which is love.' "

Cross-published on Screen Anarchy in an earlier edit.

TIFF 2011 / NYFF 2011: EL ESTUDIANTE (THE STUDENT, 2011)—The MUBI Interview With Santiago Mitre

My thanks to Danny Kasman and MUBI for publishing my conversation with Argentine filmmaker Santiago Mitre on the occasion of his directorial debut El Estudiante (The Student, 2011), which premiered at BAFICI and travelled on to become an official selection at the Locarno, Toronto and New York film festivals.

Earlier at MUBI, Dan Sallitt dispatched from TIFF: "First-time Argentinian director Santiago Mitre, who has written several films for Pablo Trapero, has scored one of the hits of the fall festival circuit with The Student, which premiered at Locarno and travels from Toronto to the New York Film Festival. The dense script is set in the world of college politics, which Mitre posits as an all-consuming, warlike activity, requiring that its most dedicated practitioners give up going to classes altogether. I was reminded of Soderbergh, both in the realistic dynamism of the verbal pyrotechnics and in the somewhat conventional deep dramatic structure. Much of the large cast hovers on the edge of TV-like solemnity, but newcomer Esteban Lamothe carries off the lead role well, and there's a great supporting performance from Romina Paula as a girlfriend who is decidedly not restricted to the domestic sphere."

Subsequently, David Hudson rounded up the reviews from NYFF.

Photo courtesy of Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images North America.

TIFF 2011: THE IDES OF MARCH (2011)

The opening film at the 68th Venice International Film Festival, George Clooney's The Ides of March (2011) [official website] screened as a gala presentation at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. It releases wide on October 7, 2011.

It's perhaps obvious to expect a dark lining to the overcoats worn by men running for political office. It's perhaps even more obvious that political corruption has long been a favored form of mainstream entertainment. Since our votes no longer seem to matter, slapping down ten bucks provides some assurance that no amount of spin will negate what we all fundamentally know about pants and their heedless zippers sheepishly strolling the corridors of power.

With an A-list cast that includes George Clooney (also directing), Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour-Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei, Jeffrey Wright, and Evan Rachel Wood in efficient and top notch ensemble form, The Ides of March campaigns forward by the sheer volition of its undisputed talent even if it is essentially a sermon for the converted and a somewhat melodramatic and predictable one at that.

Is it just me or are Philip and Paul playing the same roles over and over and over again? Marisa gleams with malice as a conniving journalist. I have to give a heartfelt shout out to Evan Rachel Wood who has matured into one of our loveliest and most gifted actresses. She's come a long way from being a child in the ill-fated TV series American Gothic. Just you wait, she's going to do something in the future that will knock our socks off and earn her an Oscar®. This, however, is not that role but ranks her as ready and able.

Cross-published (in an earlier edit) on Twitch.

TIFF 2011: ACQUA (2011)—The Evening Class Interview With Raha Shirazi

Raha Shirazi was born in Tehran, Iran and immigrated to Canada with her family at the age of eleven. Her short film Four Walls premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival 2007, and has gone on to screen at international film festivals around the world.

In 2008 Raha was selected as one of six Canadian representatives in the Berlinale International Film Festival Talent Campus where she was also given the opportunity to pitch her upcoming documentary. Raha is focusing on post-production of Picturesque, a narrative film funded by the Ontario Arts Council shot last spring in Mexico and her next project a documentary entitled, Prisoner of Tehran, funded by Canada Council for the Arts and Toronto Arts Council.

Raha Shirazi is an Artistic Co-Director of Plural Productions and holds an MFA in film production from York University with a joint diploma from New York University and Famue Film School in the Czech Republic, where she completed intensive training in the cinematic arts.

Her most recent film Acqua (2011) is premiering in the Short Cuts Canada programme of the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. Shirazi describes her film as a "reflection of spiritual traditions" that "organically brushes the portrait of a young woman's journey with water through the cyclical meditation of life and death." As Magali Simard notes for the TIFF catalog: "As winter borders on spring, a young woman silently walks alone to retrieve water from a natural source. A celebration of traditions, Acqua presents the quest for water partly as a necessity, partly as a solemn pilgrimage. Raha Shirazi unfolds this idea with great visual scope and personal investment."

Acqua does, indeed, excel in its visual language, subtly revealing the role that ritual and vigil play in negotiating grief. Cinematographer Ita Zbroniec-Zajt's style has a touch of the Dardennes. Via abstracted close-ups, the beauty of water is expressed in varying patterns: from raindrops on a pool of water to bubbling flow. The fundamental truth applies: water is life.

My thanks to Alma Parvizian of Touchwood PR for facilitating an interview with Shirazi. [This conversation is not for the spoiler-wary!]

* * *

Michael Guillén: First and foremost, congratulations on being programmed into the 2011 Toronto International. How did that come about?

Raha Shirazi: Thank you for your kind words. I think Toronto International is one of the most important festivals in which a Canadian film maker can participate, not only on a national scale but also internationally. After the submission process, I was incredibly excited when I heard the good news. Although I've had the honor of participating in the festival previously, this opportunity feels completely independent of my previous experience at TIFF and I'm looking forward to the new and unchartered path the film will provide this time around.

Guillén: Already as a young filmmaker you exhibit an international pedigree. You were born in Iran, from which you emigrated to Canada, and then educated in Toronto, New York, and the Famue Film School in the Czech Republic. Does this comport or conflict with your being identified as a Canadian filmmaker? How important is it for you to think of yourself as a Canadian filmmaker?

Shirazi: The international pedigree, which you mention, is directly a result of my being a Canadian filmmaker. As a young country that is home to many first generation immigrants, I think it can be difficult for one to identify as Canadian. Yet with time, I have realized that a foundation of being Canadian has its roots in the terrain of multiculturalism: that is, being Canadian is an attempt to shape and form a new identity which embodies your culture and traditions at the same time as it makes room for and welcomes new ones. Nonetheless, I cannot deny how great a weight my Iranian roots carry in the process that is who I am and who I will be, and thus naturally their influence is heavy in my work. Yet I am neither Canadian, nor Iranian; I would rather like to think of myself as an Iranian-Candian filmmaker.

Guillén: Talk to me about your co-artistic directorship with Plural Productions, "a multiarts collective that encourages collaboration, support and innovation while actively seeking out artists in various disciplines around the world." What are you seeking to effect here? What is the value of a filmmaker participating in her own production company?

Shirazi: Plural Production is about art in all its forms. This collaboration started between myself, Cole J. Alvis and Chelsea McMullan after we graduated from York University. The passion that we shared for the arts brought us together and thus Plural Production was born. Our goal was to first create a space where we could all experiment with different mediums, work with different artists, and create multidisciplinary work that was new and exciting. Looking at the world right now one cannot help but think that the idea of borders is merely an illusion; the internet has provided us access to places and people that we would not otherwise be able to so easily reach and connect with. This is something that has definitely started to show itself in art on a global scale and it makes it much easier to connect and work with artists from different places and backgrounds. This can make for great and interesting work. I have learned a lot from this process and have been lucky to collaborate with artists with an array of experiences on a global scale.

Guillén: In her program note for Acqua, Magali Simard states: "Raha Shirazi unfolds this idea with great visual scope and personal investment." Can you speak to working with Polish cinematographer Ita Zbroniec-Zajt to achieve that "visual scope"? How you negotiated the look of the film? And what Simard is referencing by "personal investment"?

Shirazi: Acqua was made in a workshop that I completed in Italy with Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Frammartino in December—I was one of six international young filmmakers selected to participate in this workshop and Ita Zbroniec was another. As a director of photography, she was looking to collaborate with a director and—when I approached her with my idea—we instantly connected. I loved her work and she was interested in the story that I wanted to tell. Ita and I spent a lot of time location scouting, getting still images and looking at visual references to create a specific look for the film. By spending a tremendous amount of time with one another, we slow thought together, in harmony, as artists. It was absolutely magical. I had never worked with someone where I was able to connect with them so easily. By the end of it we both spoke the same visual language.

The personal investment to which Simard refers, is the connection I have with the story: while the cultural practices of water that are depicted in the film were rooted in my past, the experience of creating these images was my present experience of being in Italy and furthermore, using my own body as a means to connect to nature, to go through the culture of my past first hand. Put differently, my personal investment in the film was not only the final product but also the overall process.

Guillén: Clearly, your "visual scope" was engineered through an eschewal of dialogue and a reliance on narrative ellipse. Can you speak to how you worked out telling this narrative purely through visual language? How did the script develop? Do you storyboard?

Shirazi: I have recently found myself drawn to the narrative concepts that explore the relationship between nature and human beings. What has happened to these relationships and how do they differ from one another when the geographical location of the individual (city versus rural life) changes? I also find myself more and more interested in the cinematic form of the hybrid. Where do the boundaries of documentation and fiction cross and how do we use these elements with care and precision to convey a deeper understand of the image itself? How much of film is visual storytelling and does narrative cinema depend on dialogue to carry its weight? These are the type of ideas that have shaped the premise of my recent works. I didn't know beforehand what I was going to make while I was there and I tried to find a connection between myself and the place in which I found myself. I allowed myself to be inspired and to truly connect to my surroundings and thus the story was born. I didn't have a script in the traditional sense, but I did have a clear narrative in mind and I storyboarded everything. My storyboarding was based on the locations that I found: I create a storyboard by taking photos at locations and so my storyboard is a series of stills.

Guillén: In your interview with Katie Uhlmann for TTN-HD, you specified Acqua was shot in Italy. Can you speak to that experience? And, again, how it characterizes you as a Canadian filmmaker to be shooting outside of Canada?

Shirazi: As I mentioned before, this film was done in a workshop with Michelangelo Frammartino, which consisted of filmmakers from seven different countries: four of these filmmakers were from Italy and six were from other countries. It was amazing to be around young talent that represented the future generation of filmmakers globally. We learned so much from one another and continually taught one another. The experience changed me for the better: not only was I able to make a film which is my strongest work yet, but I also learned and built friendships that will last me a lifetime. I think the experience reflects both my identity as a Canadian filmmaker and the future of filmmaking around the globe. With co-productions, immigration and globalization on the rise comes a new approach to filmmaking. There is a new generation of emerging talent out there which will use this to create interesting work.

Guillén: As the film starts out and the protagonist walks through the snow to fetch water, the audience experiences a cognitive dissonance. Why not melt the snow for water? It becomes instantly clear that this is a ritual pilgrimage for purposes of vigil. Where does this ritual come from? Is it invented? Is it Iranian?

Shirazi: Indeed, as soon as the film starts, the main character is surrounded by the element of water in its different forms: there is snow, rain, and many other forms, yet she is on a specific quest and on her way to a precise place. The story and the stem of this ritual is very real. In both Iran, and where I was in Italy, a long time ago women would travel from their village to bring back water. Fetching water was always a woman's job. Even now for purpose of vigil in these areas, women travel to a specific place and bring back water. I found an instant connection between these two cultures and that only brought me closer to my natural surroundings. The film became a ritual, a representation of traditions and their roots. I walked into the water, I carried it on my head in freezing weather as I hiked up the mountain. Using my body as a canvas, I was able to find the elements which connected my past, Iran, to my present, Italy.

Guillén: How influenced are you by Iranian cinema? Who are your influences as a filmmaker?

Shirazi: I love Iranian cinema, especially Iranian cinema before 1979. One of my favorite films is Gav (The Cow, 1969) by Dariush Mehrjui. Another favorite filmmaker of mine is Masoud Kimiai. Early work by Abbas Kiarostami is also inspirational: Close-Up is in my top ten list. And now after the Green Revolution, I am so interested to see what will come out of Iran. There is a film this year at TIFF, called This Is Not A Film by Mojtaba Mirtahmasb and Jafar Panahi. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Carl Theodor Dreyer, François Truffaut and Andrei Tarkovsky are just a few of my favorite filmmakers. In recent years, Michelangelo Frammartino's work has been incredibly inspirational for me.

Guillén: You are a clear example of a young filmmaker whose short films have been supported by Canadian agencies: the Canada Council for the Arts, the Toronto Art Council, and the Ontario Arts Council. Can you speak to your interaction with them and if they will be involved with you and Plural Productions to further your dream of a full-length narrative feature? What are your first steps to achieve that dream?

Shirazi: OAC, CCA, TAC have been crucial in my career as an emerging filmmaker. Without their support, all this would have never been possible. These institutions are why I will always remain a Canadian filmmaker. They have made my career possible and I hope that there is more support for them from the government so that the Canadian arts and culture can keep growing and flourishing to its fullest extent. By supporting artists that work internationally, they are making it possible for Canadian filmmakers to reach international success. Plural Production has been working with these organization in many different capacities, and will continue to do so; their support has made our projects possible.

As for the feature, I think it might be a bit more complex, I don't have enough information to answer that question properly except that I know there is not enough money from these organization to support all types of feature projects—I think it mostly depends on what type of feature film you are making and what your budget is. That being said, they have fantastic grants available for writing and I think that might be one of my next steps. At the moment I have a treatment for a feature length film that is also very personal, a story that takes place here in my city, Toronto. My next step will be to develop it further and whatever avenue makes that possible, I will seek to find.

Cross-published on Twitch.