Perhaps it's a just matter of perception, but it appears there might be fewer Asian films at this year's San Francisco International Film Festival. Admittedly, not many movies from the continent generated festival buzz in 2015 and several of those that did, such as Hou Hsiou-hsien's The Assassin, Apitchatpong Weerasethakul's Cemetery of Splendor and Jia Zheng-ke's Mountains May Depart have already played the Bay Area. The biggest surprise is that there isn't a single film representing Southeast Asia. Fortunately, there's still plenty to look forward to from the region, including the film that topped my wish list for SFIFF59 inclusion. Here's a country by country overview.
South Korea
Of all the films in the festival, I'm most excited about Hong Sang-soo's Right Now, Wrong Then. It's the director's 17th feature in a 20-year career, which probably makes him Asia's most prolific (non-genre) arthouse filmmaker. His works never receive a Bay Area theatrical release, so I'm incredibly grateful to SFIFF for screening his movies year after year. I confess that I haven't always been a fan. The protagonists in his early efforts were so obnoxiously pathetic as to render the experience of watching them insufferable. That began to change somewhere around 2009's Like You Know It All and I've been on the Hong love train since. The 65-minute bonbon Hill of Freedom was the funniest movie I saw at last year's festival.
Some critics accuse Hong of making the same movie over and over again. From what I've read, it sure doesn't sound like Right Now, Wrong Then will change any minds. All the familiar Hong tropes appear firmly in place—an artistic-type male protagonist travels out of town and attempts to hook up with an enigmatic female, accompanied by lots of booze consumption and Hong invariably messing with the story's narrative's structure. More specifically in this new movie, a film director comes to Seoul for a festival and meets an attractive artist while sightseeing, followed by an alcohol-fueled incident that turns things sour. At the film's mid-point the clock gets reset, with the title changing to Right Then, Wrong Now. The entire story gets replayed with slight variances, affording the hero a shot at redemption. The jury at last year's Locarno Film Festival gave the film its top prize, the Golden Leopard, as well as the best actor award to leading man, Jeong Jae-yeong.
While RNWT might be the lone South Korean entry in SFIFF59, it's also worth mentioning Vitaly Mansky's Russian documentary Under the Sun, which adds to the recent groundswell of non-fiction films reporting on life inside North Korea. Under the Sun is one of 11 films competing in the Golden Gate Awards Documentary Feature Competition.
Japan
There are three Japanese selections at the festival and I've had an opportunity to preview two. I especially recommend Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Journey to the Shore, which is the director's latest metaphysical exploration and his best film since 2008's Tokyo Sonata. In the pre-opening credits sequence, a piano teacher comes home to find that her husband, played by Japanese superstar Tadanobu Asano, has returned home after dying at sea three years previous. He invites her on a journey to experience the villages where he "lived" during his absence, working as a newspaper assistant at one location and a cook / astrophysicist teacher at another. Journey to the Shore is filled with melancholy longing and regret, as well as a goofy kind of sweetness. This being Kurosawa, one keeps waiting for the appearance of some malevolent entity that never (quite) shows up. Stylistic flourishes include the dimming and brightening of interior settings for emotional effect, and an archaically sweeping music score that lies somewhere between Max Steiner and Arvo Pärt. Journey to the Shore premiered at Cannes and received mixed reviews, with some critics calling it an "overlong afterlife story" that's "undecided if it belongs in the arthouse or on afternoon TV." Un Certain Regard jury members rightfully thumbed their nose at these naysayers, awarding Kurosawa the sidebar's Best Director prize.
I've also taken a look at Ryûsake Hamaguchi's Happy Hour, which has the distinction of being SFIFF59's longest movie at 317 minutes. Is it worth the huge time investment? My answer is a qualified yes. Happy Hour centers on the lives of four 30-something women in Kobe who are best friends. When one of them announces her impending divorce, plus the fact that she's having an extra-marital affair, it destabilizes the group and causes the others to question their own relationships with men. Hamaguchi's film is rich with character detail and features several extended set pieces that invite comparisons to Jacques Rivette and Eric Rohmer. I was particularly struck by how the director places his actors within the frame, achieving meaning via their relationship to the camera and each other. Unfortunately Happy Hour wears out its welcome in the plot-heavy final hour, which also includes the least engaging of the aforementioned set pieces. The performances by the quartet of first-time, non-professional actresses are effective, if occasionally awkward. Collectively they won the Best Actress prize at Locarno. The script, which was developed through a series of workshops, also won that festival's Best Screenplay prize. The third Japanese SFIFF59 selection is Eiichirô Hasumi's Assassination Classroom, which screens in the festival's Dark Wave sidebar.
China / Hong Kong
There are zero narrative features from China in the festival, which is quite a contrast to last year's powerful and artistically accomplished triple punch of Black Coal Thin Ice, Red Amnesia and Dearest. The closest we come this year is Paths of the Soul, a highly acclaimed docudrama from narrative filmmaker Zhang Yang (Shower, Getting Home). The director's latest recreates a grueling 1,200 mile pilgrimage to Lhasa during which a group of 11 Tibetan Buddhist devotees stop every few yards to prostate themselves. Along the way they endure extreme temperatures, flooded roads and a mini-avalanche. Stops are made en route, once for a participant to give birth, and again for the group to perform manual labor in order to earn travel expense money. In his rave review for Variety, Richard Kuipers calls Paths of the Soul "a stirring study in faith and spirituality that will inspire many viewers to think about big and small questions of life." The other mainland Chinese documentary at SFIFF59 is A Young Patriot. The film traces the disillusioned transition of a die-hard young Maoist as he's forced to confront the realities of his country's rush to cutthroat capitalism. The film's director, Du Haibin, is expected to attend the festival.
The SF Film Society presides over a separate Hong Kong Cinema festival each autumn. That, combined with the fact that Hong Kong (and mainland Chinese) films now receive year-round Bay Area theatrical exhibition could explain why there are only two HK flicks at SFIFF59. The one I'm looking forward to is the U.S. premiere of Hong Kong Trilogy: Preschooled Preoccupied Preposterous, the third directorial effort from ace cinematographer Christopher Doyle (known for his work with Gus Van Sant, Zhang Yimou, Pen-ek Ratanaruang and most memorably, Wong Kar-wai). Each section of this docudrama triptych spotlights a different generation, with "actors" playing slightly modified versions of themselves. The first is set amongst a group of elementary schoolchildren, the second focuses on young people involved in the 2014 "Umbrella Revolution" and the third spends time with a group of "speed dating" seniors. According to reviews, the middle segment is by far the most compelling. Also representing Hong Kong at SFIFF59 is Trivisa, a high-octane crime thriller set during HK's 1997 handover to China, which screens in the festival's Dark Wave sidebar.
India
The big news here is that Mira Nair will be given the festival's Irving M. Levin Directing Award, making her the first woman to receive the honor since its inception in 1986 (when it was initially called the Akira Kurosawa Award and later, the Founders Directing Award). The India-born, New York-based filmmaker will be on hand for an An Afternoon with Mira Nair at the Castro Theatre on Sunday, April 24. The program will include an on-stage conversation, clips reel and a revival screening of the fabulous 2001 Oscar® nominated Monsoon Wedding. We're also promised a preview of Queen of Katwe, Nair's upcoming biopic of Ugandan chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi starring Lupita Nyong'o and David Oyelowo. Be sure to check out Michael Fox' excellent SF Film Society Blog essay on Nair's career, "Mira Nair: Between Two Worlds".
The only new Indian film showing at the festival is Raam Reddy's Thithi, which has gotten plenty of attention since winning the New Directors Prize at Locarno. It screened at last month's New Directors New Films series in New York (along with nine other films playing SFIFF59) and will compete for our festival's New Directors Prize as well. In this folk comedy-of-errors set in a South Indian village, three generations of sons react in very different, but all too human ways to the death of the family's 101-year-old patriarch. At issue is what's to be done with the old man's estate, as the family prepares for the thithi, or final funeral celebration taking place 11 days after death.
Turkey
The festival has done a fine job programming new Turkish cinema in recent years and I'm thrilled they've secured Emin Alper's Frenzy for SFIFF59 inclusion. The director's second feature won the Special Jury Prize at last year's Venice Film Festival. Set in an Istanbul shantytown amidst a quasi-apocalyptic, near-future dystopia, Frenzy's protagonist has just been released from prison after 20 years. He's assigned the job of combing through people's garbage in search of terrorism clues and lives with his brother whose occupation is shooting stray dogs. Reviews describe Frenzy with adjectives like "tense," "brooding" and "paranoid," making special mention of its dark visual palette and nerve-jarring sound design of explosions, alarm bells, rattling trucks and clanging metal doors. "A parable about a society brought to heel by its fear of terrorism" is how Jay Weissberg sums up Frenzy in his review for Variety, a description that certainly has applications extending beyond Turkey given our planet's current socio-political zeitgeist.
Iran
While there aren't any Iranian films per se at SFIFF59, there are three very promising-sounding features which are Iranian in terms of either setting or co-production. Radio Dreams is the latest from director Babak Jalali, whose Frontier Blues won the festival's FIPRESCI prize in 2010. Set during a single day at a San Francisco Farsi-language radio station, this bittersweet deadpan comedy stars Moshen Namjoo, a.k.a. the Bob Dylan of Iran, as a station manager awaiting the arrival of Metallica. The Bay Area metal band has promised to come jam in-studio with visiting Afghani rock group Kabul Dreams. Jalali's film, which won the prestigious Tiger Award at January's Rotterdam Film Festival, has been praised for how it gently touches on issues of immigration, national identity and assimilation. A large coterie of the film's talent, including the director, producers and cast members are expected to attend the festival, with Kabul Dreams performing a concert after the April 28 showing at the Victoria Theatre.
Although I'm not a particular fan of genre films, I have no intention of missing debut filmmaker Babak Anvari's Under the Shadow, which has garnered terrific write-ups as it's traveled the 2016 U.S. festival circuit. The story takes place in a Tehran apartment building near the end of the Iran / Iraq war where Shideh, a resentful, aspiring female doctor lives with her young daughter. When a missile crashes through the roof of the top floor unit, it unleashes an evil force that takes special interest in the girl. In his favorable review for Variety, Justin Chang asks us to imagine Under the Shadow as "an Asghar Farhadi remake of The Babadook," with "feminist anger blazing at its core." He also praises lead actress Narges Rashidi, who "plays Shideh like an instrument slowly going out of tune, modulating skillfully between maternal tetchiness and scream-queen abandon." The film unsurprisingly screens under the festival's Dark Wave banner.
Finally in the documentary Sonita, an 18-year-old undocumented Afghani refugee lives in a Tehran homeless shelter, all the while aspiring to become a rapper. Tensions come to a head when her mother tries to return her to Afghanistan, where she'll be sold for $9,000 so her brother can afford his own bride. In the World Cinema Documentary section at Sundance, Sonita won the Grand Jury Prize as well as the Audience Award. Director Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami, who ends up stepping outside her role as objective filmmaker in order to assist Sonita, is expected to appear at the SFIFF59 screenings.
Franco-cinephiles in the Bay Area look upon the San Francisco Film Society, with its international film festival and French Cinema Now series, as their principal source for important and interesting new works emanating from France. The eight eclectic features chosen for SFIFF59 include one animated movie, two feature directing debuts, three new works from mid-career auteurs and the latest from an octogenarian I'm guessing to be the oldest filmmaker in the entire festival. Here are some thoughts about what's on offer from April 21 to May 5.
A name that links three SFIFF59 French selections is Thomas Bidegain, the screenwriter best known for deconstructing genre-movie masculinity in his work with director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone and last year's Cannes Palmes d'Or winner Dheepan). Bidegain finally makes his directorial debut with Cowboys, a contemporary drama that's been thematically linked to John Ford's 1956 western The Searchers. Here the protagonist is a French aficionado of American cowboy culture whose daughter converts to Islam in 1995 and then disappears. He sets off to find her, and following the events of 9/11 he's joined by his son in a years-long search that touches down in Syria and Afghanistan. The film received very positive reviews when it premiered in Cannes' Director's Fortnight sidebar last year, but reactions from Toronto and the NY Film Fest were less kind. One reviewer went so far as to sum up Cowboys as "meatheaded pulp." Regardless, it remains a must-see for this SFIFF59 attendee.
Bidegain also lends a screenwriting assist to Clément Cogitore's Neither Heaven Nor Earth, which is competing for the festival's New Directors Prize. The film premiered in Cannes' Critics Week sidebar and has toured the festival circuit thus far as The Wakhan Front. Fortunately it's been renamed with a literal translation of the French title, Ni le ciel ni la terre. Jérémie Renier stars as a French army captain serving in Afghanistan. After several men under his command disappear, followed in short order by a handful of nearby villagers, a suspicion of paranormal or perhaps even theological causation comes into play. Reviews have been favorable, with some quibbling over the effectiveness of the film's denouement—or its lack thereof. Renier is one of my favorite French actors and it's hard to believe 20 years have passed since his teenage debut in the Dardenne brothers' breakout film, La Promesse. It's worth noting Renier played another Afghan War vet in last year's The Great Man, which screened at French Cinema Now, and he appeared at last year's fest in Bertrand Bonello's Saint Laurent biopic, whose script also bore a Thomas Bidegain imprint.
The third SFIFF59 selection with script collaboration by Bidegain is Joachim Lafosse's The White Knights. Belgian director Lafosse is known for a trio of effectively transgressive domestic dramas—Private Lessons (2006), Private Property (2008) and Our Children (2012). Lafosse broadens his scope with the ironically titled The White Knights, based on the true story of earnest NGO workers employing dubious means to smuggle orphans out of Africa for eventual adoption in France. The film stars Vincent Lindon, who took home the best actor prize at last year's Cannes for The Measure of a Man (French Cinema Now 2015), as well as actor / director Valérie Donzelli as a reporter embedded with the NGO. Lafosse, whose "gift for sustained emotional tension and moral ambiguity" was praised in Justin Chang's positive review for Variety, won the Best Director prize at last year's San Sebastián Film Festival for The White Knights.
I've had the pleasure of previewing two of SFIFF59's French selections, but their "hold review" status restricts to me to brief remarks. First off, I flat-out adored Michel Gondry's Microbe and Gasoline, which is his best film since 2006's The Science of Sleep (and I say this without having seen the poorly reviewed The Green Hornet or Mood Indigo). In this wondrous road movie about two teenage outsiders, Gondry tones down his predilection for frenzied whimsy and aims for something more low-key and heartfelt. Microbe is a budding artist nicknamed for his small size and resultant low self esteem, while his unlikely pal Gasoline exudes self confidence and possesses a talent for things mechanical. After cobbling together a petrol-powered cottage on wheels complete with geranium boxes, they hit the summertime byways of rural France in an effort to escape worrisome problems at home. Gondry's endearing script thumbs its nose at our high tech world—an iPhone literally gets pooped on—and low-fi surprises await our heroes, and us, with each passing kilometer. I'll be surprised if I see a funnier movie this year.
When it comes to animation, I sheepishly admit I'm not much of an enthusiast. When I noticed that Phantom Boy hailed from the same creators as the extraordinary A Cat in Paris, however, I couldn't resist having a look. Jean-Loup and Alain Gagnol's latest is set in an alternate NYC where everyone speaks French and a Dick Tracy-like villain threatens to unleash a cataclysmic computer virus. A wheelchair-bound cop and a plucky journalist (voiced by Audrey Tautou), with assistance from a terminally ill boy who's discovered a way to float outside his body, all work in tandem to put an end to his treachery. While I wasn't as impressed by Phantom Boy as compared to Cat (which the festival screened five years ago), I was still taken by its vibrant rendering of the Big Apple and the genuinely moving plight of its juvenile protagonist. Both elements should be greatly enhanced via a big screen experience, and co-director Gagnol is expected to attend the festival screenings. Animation fans might also want to check out additional titles being screened in SFIFF59's World Cinema Spotlight: Animating the Image. For those who miss them at the festival, Microbe and Gasoline will open in Bay Area Landmark Theatres on July 15, followed by Phantom Boy on July 29 (although the latter could possibly show up in a dubbed version).
I've considered Anne Fontaine a fairly middling director for some time now. Her recent efforts have included Coco Before Chanel (vastly inferior to Jan Kounen's Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky released the same year), My Worst Nightmare (Isabelle Huppert embarrassing herself as a rich-bitch buffoon) and Adore (Naomi Watts and Robin Wright having sex with each others' sons). The thought of her making a movie about pregnant nuns is enough to induce major eye-rolling. That movie, however, which premiered at Sundance as Agnus Dei and is now titled The Innocents, has gotten rave reviews and is now one of my most anticipated films of SFIFF59. Set in 1945 Poland, it stars Lou de Laâge, a relatively unknown actress outside of France, as a French Red Cross doctor on a mission to assist concentration camp survivors. Her efforts become diverted upon discovering a convent of pregnant nuns who were raped by Russian soldiers, many of them consumed by shame and now perhaps questioning their faith in God. In his review for Variety, Justin Chang calls The Innocents Fontaine's "finest film in years," admiring how it "manages to respect faith even though it refuses to partake in it." He also singles out two performances for special praise. Agata Kulesza, who was memorable as the hard-edged aunt in Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida, plays the convent's strict Reverend Mother, and Vincent Macaigne, an actor heretofore known exclusively for his schlubby slacker roles, appears as a more experienced doctor brought in to assist with childbirths.
The octogenarian referred to earlier is 82-year-old French-Georgian director Otar Iosseliani, who's a long-time SFIFF favorite. His latest is titled Winter Song and it's the filmmaker's 12th movie to play the festival in 30 years. For me, Iosseliani reached a career high with 1999's masterful Farewell, Home Sweet Home. Since then his style of stringing together sight gag-filled absurdist vignettes has become overly precious, reaching an insufferable nadir with 2006's Gardens in Autumn. Iosseliani actually flew to San Francisco five years ago to screen his semi-autobiographical Chantrapas. While I didn't care much for the film, I was delighted by his spirited Q&A that continued long past midnight. Winter Song premiered in competition at last year's Locarno Film Festival and can seemingly be summed up in three words—geezer buddy comedy. The film has its champions, particularly Eric Kohn at Indiewire. If I decide to catch Winter Song, it'll be due to a featured performance by legendary French comic actor / director Pierre Étaix, as well as an extended cameo by Mathieu Amalric. The latter made his screen acting debut at age 19 in Iosseliani's Favorites of the Moon.
The only SFIFF59 French selection not previously on my radar is Pascale Breton's Suite Amoricaine, which premiered at Locarno and brought home the festival's FIPRESCI prize. Illumination, Breton's previous (and only other) feature screened at the fest 10 years ago, but it seems I missed it. Her latest centers around an art history professor who becomes destabilized after leaving a 15-year relationship in Paris. She comes to teach at her alma mater in the Brittany capital of Rennes, where her past and present become tangled in heady and dreamlike ways. There's no one in the cast I've heard of, but the reviews are stellar and the trailer is captivating. SFFS programmer Rod Armstrong makes a reference to director Arnaud Despechin in the festival capsule, which pretty much seals the deal right there. Pascale Breton is also expected to attend the film's SFIFF59 screenings.
Finally, I'll make mention of Chantal Akerman's No Home Movie, which is of course in French and is the only Belgian film in the festival that's not merely a co-production. I previewed No Home Movie via Fandor and will be necessarily brief due to its "hold review" status. As many people know, iconic experimental-feminist filmmaker Akerman committed suicide two months after the film's premiere at Locarno. It's essentially an ode to her concentration camp survivor mother and speaks to the idea that "there's no more distance in the world." We observe Akerman and her mother interacting within the confines of a Brussels apartment, as well as via Skype during the director's time abroad. As her mother's condition deteriorates, the camera pulls back and records her from increased distances. No Home Movie requires a patience not every moviegoer possesses. Lengthy static shots—of a treetop whipping in the wind, an empty room devoid of people, a tracking shot of barren, scrub-covered hills filmed from a moving car—achieve profundity from the mundane for those willing to dig deep. If you miss No Home Movie at the festival, it will screen again at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from May 19 to 22, along with I Don't Belong Anywhere, Marianne Lambert's new career-spanning documentary on Akerman.
IFF Panamá celebrates its fifth edition on April 7-13, 2016. For a North American film journalist, the undisputed value of an international film festival venued in Latin America resides in the festival's local showcase and—in the case of IFF Panamá—its Ibero American Portal, which boasts a particularly robust and diverse selection this year of both festival favorites and introduced works. What follows are Jose Teodoro's festival capsules enhanced with critical overview, where available.
3 Beauties / 3 Bellezas (2014, dir. Carlos Caridad-Montero, Venezuela)—Venezuelan Carlos Caridad-Montero has directed numerous short films prior to making his feature film debut with 3 Beauties (2014). This is the story of Single Mother Perla (Diana Peñalver), who is determined to transform one of her daughters into a beauty queen, going so far as to enforce food restrictions and offer lessons in bulimia. Whimsical on the surface yet incisive in its details, 3 Beauties dissects our obsession with conventions of feminine poise, provoking us to reconsider what it means to be beautiful. Official site. IMDb. Facebook.
600 Miles / 600 Millas (2015, dir. Gabriel Ripstein, Mexico / USA)—American ATF agent Hank Harris (Oscar® winner Tim Roth) is about to make what should be an easy arrest of two inexperienced arms smugglers. But the miscreants surprise Harris and beat him unconscious, and young Arnulfo (Kristyan Ferrer) makes an impulsive decision to take Harris back to Mexico with him. When Harris regains consciousness and convinces Arnulfo that his decision could prove life-threatening for both of them, the men form a tenuous bond as they realize each must trust the other in order to survive. Sustaining a heady level of tension throughout, director Gabriel Ripstein—son of Mexican maestro Arturo Ripstein, whose Bleak Street is also screening at this year's Festival—handles this taut narrative with a perfect balance of sensation and integrity. 600 Miles is a complex and original border drama, one that reminds us how trouble runs both ways, and builds toward a bold, unexpected finale
600 Miles screened in the Panorama section of the 65th Berlin International Film Festival where it won the award for Best First Feature. It was one of fourteen films shortlisted by Mexico to be their submission for the Academy Award® for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards. On September 17, 2015 it was selected to represent Mexico for the Foreign Language Oscar® but it was not nominated. IMDb. Wikipedia.
At Variety, Peter Debruge notes 600 Miles "serves as a comparable corrective to bombastic Hollywood portrayals of south-of-the-border criminal activity." He praises first-timer Gabriel Ripstein's choice "for a less sensational, true-to-life approach" and contextualizes: "600 Miles tackles an issue that's gotten considerably less exposure in the news for the simple fact that Americans don't seem to care that the corruption and violence so widespread in Mexico today is being carried out with weapons manufactured on U.S. soil." At The Hollywood Reporter, Jordan Mintzer's bottom line is that two-hander 600 Miles is a "well-made gunrunning thriller that doesn't quite ignite" with "plenty of guns but few actual shots fired." Jessica Kiang at Indiewire describes it as "a lean, careful, clever tale of divided loyalties and divided territories in the borderlands of Mexico and the U.S." and "a study in liminality, of places, life-stages and mentalities that are trapped between two states, and afforded the protection and security of neither." Dan Fainaru writes at Screen: "If the script isn't always as neat as one would expect, at least the result is satisfactory, thanks to the authoritative presence of Tim Roth (one of the film's executive producers) as an American federal agent tracking arms traffickers, and of upcoming young talent Kristyan Ferrer as an adolescent apprentice in crime, whose conduct alternates between Travis Bickle braggadocio—when he is alone in front of a mirror—and sniveling terror when he is faced with real life."
Alias María (2015, dir. José Luis Rugeles, Colombia)—María (Karen Torres), a 13-year-old guerrilla soldier, is given a mission to complete along with 3 other soldier-kids: bring the commander's newborn baby to safety in a neighboring town. But nobody knows the secret she is hiding: María is pregnant and having a child is forbidden in the guerrilla. During the mission her secret is revealed and she runs away to avoid being forced to abort. Through María's eyes we experience the devastating results of Colombia's armed conflict: towns ravaged by massacres, peasants trapped in the cross-fire, parents who have lost their children, and kids trying to grow up normally amid the carnage. Thanks to a new instinct born inside her, in José Luis Rugeles' Alias María our protagonist will find the strength to look for a new life. Official site. IMDb. Facebook. Central American Premiere.
Alias Maria screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival where it was respected by the trades for its efforts to expose the plight of child soldiers in Colombia, but criticized for failing to do so in a way that could emotionally resonate with audiences. As Boyd von Hoeij states at The Hollywood Reporter, "[I]ts unusual angle on the ongoing war in Colombia is certainly worthy of attention. But the filmmaker's tendency to pare back his narrative to its barest essentials makes it very hard to identify with anyone, with all of the characters despondent archetypes rather than real people." He adds that Rugeles' approach "comes down to removing practically all references to not only personal lives—which these extremely young guerrillas don't really have anyway, the occasional bout of sex between fighters notwithstanding—but also private thoughts or emotions. The 'cause' does indeed seem to be their only raison d'etre, which might be lifelike but doesn't necessarily make for a good story." Peter Debruge concurs at Variety: "In contrast with numerous recent child-soldier stories, from the manipulative Salvadorian drama Innocent Voices to the entire mini-genre emerging in response to similar issues in Africa (like the Oscar®-nominated short That Wasn't Me), Rugeles opts for an austere art-film style, rather than the more conventionally accessible melodramatic approach that might help the film reach the widest possible international audience. Though informed by research, Diego Vivanco's script withholds much of the essential context viewers need to make sense of its long, wordless stretches, while Rugeles' execution fails to generate the tension that approach requires." In gist, Debruge complains, "this film drags when it should electrify."
The Apostate / El apóstata (2015, dir. Federico Veiroj, Spain / France / Uruguay)—Sleepy eyed madrileño Gonzalo Tamayo (co-scenarist Álvaro Ogalla) is a dreamer. Though well into his 30s, he has no career, no compulsion to complete his studies and no romantic life to speak of. But he has decided on one clear goal, one ambition to animate him with a sense of purpose: to apostatize from the Catholic Church. Will the Church's archaic bureaucracy prove too labyrinthine for our slacker hero to navigate? Imaginative, sexy, and composed of one elegantly rendered image after another, Uruguayan Federico Vieroj's The Apostate is a sophisticated, Iberian spin on the man-child comedy. Official site [sp]. IMDb.
David Hudson has rounded up the Toronto reviews for Fandor's Keyframe Daily. He notes as well that The Apostate won both the FIPRESCI Award and a Jury Special Mention at the 63rd San Sebastian International Film Festival. James Kang offers the most recent reviews at Critics Roundup.
Bleak Street / La calle de la amargura (2015, dir. Arturo Ripstein, México)—Based on a true story: Bleak Street recounts the 2009 accidental deaths of fraternal mini-luchadores at the hands of two female sex workers, Adela (Patricia Reyes Spíndola) and Dora (Nora Velázquez), in a Cuauhtémoc hotel. The latest from Mexican maestro Arturo Ripstein, Bleak Street lures us into Mexico City's gloomy backstreets, fleabag hotels and cramped flats to relay a strange, engrossing tale of desperation and desire. IMDb. Central American Premiere.
At Fandor's Keyframe DailyDavid Hudson has rounded up Bleak Street's first reviews from Venice. My review timed to the film's San Franciscan theatrical release is on The Evening Class.
The Clan / El Clan (2015, dir. Pablo Trapero, Argentina / Spain)—Torture and extortion manifest in this true story. Based on one of the most shocking stories in the annals of Argentine crime, El Clan is as real as it gets. The latest film from Pablo Trapero (White Elephant) is a grippingly grotesque, ferociously and stylish thriller about the infamous Puccios, a Buenos Aires family whose secret business consists on kidnapping and murder. In El Clan—which had the largest opening weekend of any Argentine film in history—Arquímedes (Argentine superstar Guillermo Francella) hasn't fared well professionally since retiring from the state intelligence service. His solution to financial decline is a radical one: He devises a kidnapping scheme with the help of his eldest son Alejandro (Peter Lanzani), which draws victims from the very social elite that comprises his neighborhood. IMDb. Wikipedia.
The Clan was selected to be screened in the main competition section of the 72nd Venice International Film Festival where Trapero won the Silver Lion. At Fandor's Keyframe Daily, David Hudson gathered the reviews from both Venice and Toronto. The film was selected as the Argentine entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards® but was not nominated.
Desierto (2015, dir. Jonás Cuarón, México / USA)—In Jonás Cuarón's unnerving and politically pointed thriller, Desierto, Mexican superstar Gael García Bernal plays Moises, a migrant worker who unexpectedly becomes the de facto leader of a group that's on the run from a seemingly omnipresent sniper called Sam (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). With his truck, long-range rifle and German shepherd trained to terminate its preys, Sam will stop at nothing to keep these foreigners from entering his beloved homeland. The more blood Sam spills on the desert floor the stronger he seems to get, yet in Moises he finds his most elusive target, who is fueled by his moral compass and a strong will to survive. Official site. IMDb. Wikipedia. Facebook. Central American Premiere.
Desierto was shown in the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize. At Fandor's Keyframe Daily, David Hudson grouped together the mixed reviews from Toronto.
Embrace of the Serpent / El Abrazo de la Serpiente (2015, dir. Ciro Guerra, Colombia / Venezuela / Argentina)—Embrace of the Serpent tells two parallel botanical adventure stories, one set in 1909, the other in 1940, both unfolding in an Amazon ravaged by colonialism. Gorgeously photographed in silvery black and white, this elegiac epic surveys a vanishing way of life and the natural world that we neglect at our peril. IMDb. Wikipedia.
Along with its significant Cannes win (where David Hudson scooped up the first reviews for Fandor's Keyframe Daily), Embrace of the Serpent picked up honors at the 2015 Lima Latin American Film Festival (Best Film and a Critics Award) and the 2015 Odessa International Film Festival (Special Jury Mention in the International Competition). The film was selected as the Colombian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards® and made Colombian film history by advancing to the final five. Admittedly my favorite film of 2015, I transcribed actor Brionne Davis's Q&A at the 2015 Mill Valley Film Festival, and seized the opportunity to converse with Guerra at the 2016 Palm Springs International, published thereafter at Cineaste as an online exclusive.
From Afar / Desde allá (2015, dir. Lorenzo Vigas, Venezuela / Mexico)—Lorenzo Vigas' remarkable feature debut, which won the Golden Lion at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival, tells the story of an upper-class denture maker (Alfredo Castro) who develops an unlikely friendship with one of the young lower-class men he pays for companionship. Desde allá speaks eloquently to Venezuela's present reality with a narrative that traverses the disparate social classes that comprise the country's capital. IMDb. Wikipedia. Facebook.
At Fandor's Keyframe Daily, David Hudson has aggregated reviews from both Venice and Toronto.
Land and Shade / La tierra y la sombra (2015, dir. César Augusto Acevedo, Colombia)—Astonishingly beautiful and overwhelmingly moving, César Augusto Acevedo's masterful debut concerns a rural family struggling with illness, labor exploitation and longstanding emotional wounds. Returning home many years after having abandoned his family, Alfonso (Haimer Leal) finds that his son, sugarcane worker Gerardo (Edison Raigosa), has fallen gravely ill with a respiratory disease, yet his daughter-in-law (Marleyda Soto) and estranged wife Alicia (Hilda Ruiz) continue to work the local cane fields, slashing and burning crop, a routine—yet highly toxic—part of the annual harvest. The actors give arresting performances, while the use of locations—from the colossal banyan tree to the apocalyptic burning fields—infuse Land and Shade with an air of myth. IMDb. Wikipedia. Facebook.
Land and Shade screened in the International Critics' Week section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival where it won the France 4 Visionary Award, the SACD Award, the Golden Rail and the Camera D'Or (awarded to a first-time film-maker across the whole festival selection). It also picked up wins at the Lima Latin American Film Festival, and the Mumbai and Thessaloniki Film Festivals. At Variety, Peter Debruge writes: "While mirthless in the extreme, César Acevedo's deliberately paced and distant-feeling debut works its way under audiences' skin, weaving a haunting allegory through painterly compositions, while distinguishing itself as a worthy candidate for that subset of festivals which specializes in arduous cinema." At The Hollywood Reporter, Jordan Mintzer adds: "Capturing much of the action in a series of well-choreographed sequence shots, Acevedo and DP Mateo Guzman provide an array of roving, memorable images, including the opening scene (repeated later with a slight variation) and one involving a horse that’s straight out of an Andrei Tarkovksy movie." At Screen, Fionnuala Halligan notes: "Some of Arcevedo's compositions call to mind The Good Earth, his family captured in almost heroic-profile as the ravages of modern development take their toll. ...Arcevedo is certainly as preoccupied with image as he is content and it is perhaps the individual frames and tableaux which linger on past this resolutely-downbeat, emblematic story."
Magallanes (2015, dir. Salvador del Solar, Perú / Colombia)—Happening inside of a vehicle, Magallanes, the directorial debut of Peruvian actor Salvador del Solar is an atmospheric thriller that tells the story of a terrible secret that comes back to haunt a middle-aged cabbie (Damián Alcázar), a mysterious woman (Magaly Solier) and a senile old man (Federico Luppi) who was once a fearsome colonel during the worst years of the Shining Path insurgency. IMDb. Facebook.
Magallanes screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. At Variety, Scott Tobias deems Magallanes "a quietly gripping Peruvian thriller about old political wounds and the elusive quest for redemption." He adds: "Del Solar makes meaningful associations between this personal story and the history of a country still coming to terms with its fight against the Shining Path and its troubled relationship to indigenous people. In the film's most affecting moment, an anguished Celina reverts to her native Quechua and while neither the characters nor the audience can understand her words, their meaning comes across with startling intensity. It's a communication gap that cannot be bridged." Jonathan Holland's bottom line at The Hollywood Reporter is that Magallanes is a "gripping character study built into a story of potent tragedy."
Much Ado About Nothing / Aquí no ha pasado nada (2016, dir. Alejandro Fernández Almendras, Chile)—Inspired by a real-life incident, this latest drama from Alejandro Fernández Almendras is a meticulously constructed condemnation of a criminal level of classism. Much Ado About Nothing lures us into the laid-back luxury enjoyed by Chile's upper crust, before gradually revealing how privilege insulates these characters from feeling responsibility for their actions. Official site [Spanish]. IMDb. Facebook. Central American Premiere.
Aquí no ha pasado nada had its World Premiere in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at Sundance 2016 and its European Premiere in the Panorama sidebar at the Berlinale 2016. Alejandro Fernández Almendras' previous effort To Kill A Man (2014) won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and his anticipated follow-up Aquí no ha pasado nada purports to be the second installment in an intended trilogy on "justice", this time addressing how the wealthy and influential classes pervert the judicial system towards their own interest at the expense of the middle class.
Based on a true story ripped from recent headlines in Chile, Vicente (Agustín Silva) is a handsome young man from a middle class family who is picked up on a beach by a group of wealthy kids who get drunk and accidentally kill a pedestrian with their car. The driver is the son of an important politician who can't hazard the scandal so he hires an attorney to pin the blame on the presumably innocent Vicente. According to Boyd van Hoeij of The Hollywood Reporter, the film's ominous set-up capsizes into mannered distantiation weakened further by disinterested characterizations. "Why should audiences care about apparently careless people who are falsely accused of anything?" he asks. Peter Debruge concurs at Variety. His review interestingly details the Chilean source case but complains that "the film adopts Vicente's free-floating attitude ... without ever quite getting into the heads of its characters" and without taking "a more overtly moral stand." By choosing to depict tagalong accomplice Vicente as the "victim"—as opposed to the dead pedestrian—Debruge feels Almendras has cynically courted controversy. He concludes: "It can be tough to discern which is harder to take, Almendras' cynicism or his characters' ambivalence."
My Big Night / Mi gran noche (2015, dir. Álex de la Iglesia, Spain)—Renowned actors share the screen in Álex de la Iglesia's My Big Night: Mario Casas, Raphael, Carmen Machi and Santiago Segura, among others. An audacious ensemble comedy brimming also with showbiz satire, the latest from madcap maestro de la Iglesia (Witching & Bitching) recalls the frenetic social panoramas of Fellini, Altman and Almodóvar. My Big Night offers an all-access backstage pass to the taping of a TV variety show in which everything goes spectacularly (and hilariously) wrong. IMDb. Wikipedia. Central American Premiere.
My Big Night had its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, which is where Variety's Ben Kenigsberg reviewed it: "The hapless advance filming of a New Year's special is complicated by a squashed extra, an assassination plot, blackmail, riots, raging libidos, ghastly ego trips and, of course, a few song-and-dance numbers in My Big Night, an enjoyably antic farce that’s built to spill over—and largely delivers on its party-hardy promise. ...but while this breathless ensembler may be too campy for some tastes, it is also a feat of elegant construction that could draw viewers who once flocked to early, transgressive Almodóvar, provided they're in a frivolous mood. ...The pervasive flippancy makes it easy to overlook the tightness of the film's construction (the script was written by de la Iglesia and regular collaborator Jorge Guerricaechevarria). Editor Domingo Gonzalez maintains clarity and a rapid pace while cutting among the surfeit of storylines. The supersaturated palette, tacky outfits, and glitzy set—a character in itself—are essential to the show."
Jonathan Holland's assessment at The Hollywood Reporter is considerably more qualified in its enthusiasm: "The days of film makers pretending that fiction can outdo reality may be long gone, but this madcap comedy—and yes, it's basically old-fashioned enough to deserve that moniker—shows that de la Iglesia seems prepared to give it one last shot with this yarn about the struggle to film a New Year TV special. If you wanted to get serious about My Big Night, you'd say that it was a 60s-inspired, Fellini-esque record of the night that old-style variety performance, swollen by its own audience-seeking successes, finally blew up. But My Big Night doesn't want you to get serious. It wants you to sit back and enjoy the ride, and mostly you will, if overblown kitsch, hammerhead subtlety and gags are your thing. What’s frustrating is not the film itself, but its director: de la Iglesia seems permanently blighted by a boyish restlessness which so far has prevented him from slowing down and taking stock to make the special film he’s capable of." Holland's bottom line? My Big Night is "vertiginous, vacuous, dated fun."
No Filter / Sin Filtro (2016, dir. Nicolás López, Chile)—Pía (Paz Bascuñán) is a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown: everyday life is crushing Pía's soul. The stress is manifesting in chest pains. But a mysterious acupuncturist removes Pía's filter, and suddenly a lifetime of repressive instincts vanish. It's time for Pía to air her grievances, tell it like it is, let loose her aggression—and quite possibly change her life. IMDb. International Premiere.
Retribution / El desconocido (2015, dir. Dani de la Torre, Spain / France)—Revenge threatens Luis Tosar in a fight against a madman's ticking clock. Drifting from the vast desert to a claustrophobic automobile, Dani de la Torre's high-octane thriller tells the story of a family that, while trapped in their car, are forced to contend with the seemingly impossible demands of a lunatic extortionist, who threatens to blow up a bomb placed under their seats. A perfect vehicle for Spanish superstar Luis Tosar, Retribution will keep you on the edge of your seat—and make you terrified to leave it. IMDb. Latin American Premiere.
Retribution screened in the Venice Days section of the 72nd Venice International Film Festival, where David Hudson rounded up the reviews for Fandor's Keyframe Daily.
Road to La Paz / Camino a La Paz (2016, dir. Francisco Varone, Argentina)—Argentinian-born Francisco Varone's Road to La Paz covers some 2,000 miles, building a bridge between characters 40 years apart in age and worlds apart in lifestyle. Sebastián (Rodrigo de la Serna) is a shaggy, unemployed, 35-year-old porteño. All he has is his band, his father's old Peugeot and his wife Jazmín (Elisa Carricajo). Otherwise, he seems completely aimless. Yet his life takes a new direction when elderly and ailing Jalil (Ernesto Suarez) hires Sebastián to drive him all the way from Buenos Aires to La Paz, on his way to Mecca. This gentle and wise road film explores those rare intersections in life when we receive the opportunity to become a better version of ourselves by better understanding someone else. IMDb.
At The Hollywood Reporter, Jonathan Holland guides that "what's interesting here is that it's the passenger, and not the places, which impact most on our hero, on a journey which could be taking place almost anywhere. ...Though both de la Serna and Suarez are strong in their roles, with de la Serna's eyes seeming to express constant yearning, it's the relationship between them that really counts, and they're rarely seen outside it." At Twitch, Todd Brown enthuses: "Varone's script is littered with moments of gentle humor and he allows the relationship between his characters to grow naturally, the road doubling as a pathway to maturity for Sebastian as he slowly learns to shift his focus away from himself and on to larger issues. ...Quietly funny, deeply empathic, laced with exotic imagery, Road To La Paz is a remarkably strong and assured debut from a very talented filmmaker, one who is hopefully just at the beginning of his own road."
The Second Mother / Que horas ela volta (2015, dir. Anna Muylaert, Brazil)—In a dynamic common to many Latin American households, after so many years of looking after Fabinho (Michel Joelsas), devoted São Paulo housekeeper and nanny Val (Regina Casé) has become a kind of second mother to this boy now on the cusp of manhood. This wry comedy of manners from Brazilian writer-director Anna Muylaert follows a housekeeper and nanny who becomes so good at mothering her employer's family that she winds up neglecting her own. The Second Mother is a big-hearted exploration of class difference, family and the search for one's place in the world. Official site. IMDb. Wikipedia.
The Second Mother premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, won the Audience Award at the Berlinale's Panorama Section, and was later released theatrically in Brazil August 2015. The film received critical praise in and outside Brazil and was selected as the Brazilian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards®. Variety's Geoff Berkshire chracterizes The Second Mother as "the sort of savvy, socially conscious crowdpleaser that occupies a rare middle ground between genteel and intellectual world cinema." At The Hollywood Reporter, Boyd van Hoeij praises: "This densely layered yet almost fast paced-feeling drama ... passes not only the Bechdel test with flying colors but dissects with both chilling precision and humor such matters as class differences, real mothers vs. caretakers and whether privilege and one's own station are things that can be questioned or changed." His bottom line? "Beautifully written and acted with precision, this film's a winner."
Semana Santa (2015, dir. Alejandra Márquez, Mexico)—Dali (Anajosé Aldrete) hopes that holidaying at one of Mexico's idyllic beaches will provide a respite from her woes, but the resort in which she means to stay with her eight-year-old son (Esteban Ávila) and new handsome beau (Tenoch Huerta) has seen better days—and being crammed into a small room together only helps to draw everyone inward. Brimming with moments of sorrow and grief, as well as humor and tenderness, Mexican Alejandra Márquez Abella's fiction feature debut is a memorable evocation of the confluence of longing, hope and memory; Semana Santa immerses us in the mysteries of the human heart. IMDb. Facebook. Central American Premiere.
Semana Santa screened in the Discovery section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival where Harry Windsor dispatched to The Hollywood Reporter: "Márquez Abella demonstrates a deft, economical, sense of storytelling."
Spy Time / Anacleto: Agente secreto (2015, dir. Javier Ruiz Caldera, Spain)—Even worse than a party gone south, what could go wrong when a wide-eyed teenager has to help his father, a secret agent (secret even to his own son), save himself from a revengeful criminal? The latest from Spanish director Javier Ruiz Caldera (Ghost Graduation) finds a secret agent father (Imanol Arias) teaming up with his slacker son (Quim Gutiérrez) to fend off a powerful criminal bent on revenge. A giddily entertaining fusion of high-tension 007 tropes with tender moments of intergenerational bonding, Spy Time will have you exploding with laughter. IMDb. Central American Premiere.
Strange Days / Días extraños (2015, dir. Juan Sebastián Quebrada, Argentina / Colombia)—Colombian Juan Sebastián Quebrada's striking debut follows a young couple adrift in a strange city with nothing to do but wander, party, fight, fornicate and try to make ends meet. Having moved from Colombia to Buenos Aires, the couple is young enough to amuse themselves with the slightest novelty or act of transgression, but aimlessness has a way of poisoning a relationship. Photographed in an exquisitely graded black and white, Strange Days captures the allure and menace of misspent youth—as well as the promise of its redemption. IMDb. Central American Premiere.
The Thin Yellow Line / La delgada línea amarilla (2015, dir. Celso R. García, Mexico)—After Toño (Damián Alcázar, also starring in Magallanes) is fired from the junkyard where he served as watchman for 11 years, he runs into a colleague from his old days in roadwork and leaps at his offer to supervise a small crew and paint the center line along 120 miles of desert highway. The Thin Yellow Line follows Toño and his men—a former circus stagehand, a trucker with failing eyesight, an ex-con, and a sullen teenager saving up to go to the US—for two weeks as they fulfill their duty despite numerous obstacles, infighting and horrendous dangers. Supported by a formidable producing team that includes Guillermo Del Toro, Mexican writer-director Celso R. García's heartfelt debut offers us a rare glimpse into the lives of hardworking factotums, men who do what they need to just to get by, who withstand ordinary tragedies as best they can, who take pride in fleeting triumphs, and who ultimately find comfort in acts of sharing, solidarity and the satisfaction of a job well-done. IMDb.
The Thin Yellow Line had its World Premiere at the Guadalajara Film Festival where it nabbed the audience award and several other kudos. "As in the best road movies," Alissa Simon writes at Variety, "the journey of the workers changes their way of seeing and understanding life. For them and us, the line they paint comes to symbolize the thin line between right and wrong, laughter and tears, and life and death." John DeFore opines at The Hollywood Reporter: "As straightforward in its action as in its conceit, the film hits very familiar beats but does so in unusually credible fashion, thanks in part to the moral gravity of taciturn leading man Damián Alcázar." At Screen, Lee Marshall adds: "Moments of melancholic truth, drama and comedy are coaxed out of the contrast between ordinary people and a big landscape, and working-class male emotional reticence drives a plot that dips lightly into a series of slowly revealed back stories."
Truman / Una Sonrisa a la Vida (2015, dir. Cesc Gay, Spain / Argentina)—The latest from Spanish director Cesc Gay (A Gun in Each Hand) stars Ricardo Darín and Javier Cámara as old pals meeting for what will surely be the last time. Truman is a tender, honest portrayal of a man facing mortality, and of the companionship that sustains him in this most trying of times. Official site. IMDb. Wikipedia. Facebook.
Truman screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival and in the Official Section of the 2015 San Sebastián International Film Festival, where it was awarded the Silver Shell for Best Actor for Ricardo Darín and Javier Cámara. It won five Goya Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor (Ricardo Darín) and Best Supporting Actor (Javier Cámara). Variety's Joe Leydon describes Truman as "wise, wistful and well-observed" and "by turns amusing and affecting." Jonathan Holland at The Hollywood Reporter considers Truman to be "Gay’s most emotionally direct work to date, thoroughly shedding the clever-cleverness of some of his earlier work, and also his most accessible—a clean-lined, sensitively-written and beautifully played two-hander that tackles complex issues in a refreshingly straightforward, downbeat way."
The Violin Teacher (2015, dir. Sergio Machado, Brazil)—Having blown an audition for the city's prestigious symphony orchestra on account of nerves, violinist Laerte (Lázaro Ramos) finds himself saddled with a gig teaching music at a public school in the São Paolo shantytown of Heliopolis. Laerte is Afro-Brazilian, and his professional demeanor earned him the nickname "Obama Junior" from his pupils. The students can't read music, and most have little experience handling instruments, much less mastering their potential. Laerte might be able to teach some of these kids to believe in the power of classical music, but can he teach them to believe in themselves? Drawing upon a finely tuned screenplay whose authors include Marcelo Gomes (director of IFF '13's Once Upon a Time Was I, Verônica), director Sérgio Machado orchestrates The Violin Teacher's various motifs into a harmonious whole, a film at once tense and truly inspiring: sometimes having one person who really believes in you can clear the path toward a brighter future. IMDb. Latin American Premiere.
Variety's Guy Lodge describes The Violin Teacher as "a familiar but affecting Brazilian tale of classical music's healing urban power." At Screen, Allan Hunter asserts: "The Violin Teacher (Heliopolis) treads a well-worn path but does so with enough polish and sincerity to make its redemptive tale hard to resist."
