Filmfest Hamburg 2015

(Originally appeared in EXBERLINER on Nov. 11, 2015)

This year we’ve covered the film festivals in Cannes, Venice, and of course the Berlinale here at Exberliner. Was there any reason, then, to pay a visit to their younger, considerably smaller counterpart in Hamburg? Turns out there was. Cinephiles may not get the same roster of glitzy world premieres from A-list auteurs at the beautiful Hanseatic city, but the Filmfest Hamburg offers that rare opportunity to actually enjoy a thoughtfully curated programme featuring obscure arthouse hits and major award winners. Away from the stress of “See it here first!” and cushioned in the romantic chill of autumn, the comfort level of spending some days in Germany’s second largest city – and Berlin’s often-rival – getting drunk on cinematic highlights and discoveries of the year, is surprisingly high.

For those who couldn’t make it to Locarno or San Sebastián, the 23rd edition of the FFHH has scooped up a healthy sample of their competition lineup. Right Now, Wrong Then, the eventual winner of the top Swiss film festival, is a sweet, dizzyingly idiosyncratic mind trick from Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo. Telling the tale of a chance encounter between a famous director and an aspiring painter that may lead to something more – not once, but twice – the two-parter bears all his signature quirks. Although it never reaches the strange, giddy heights of In Another Country or exudes the breezy, organic charm of Hahaha, this formally daring reflection on coincidence, perception and choice does intrigue with a bold expressive form and should delight Hong-loyalists everywhere.    

Also crossing over from Locarno and later even winning the London Film Festival is Greek writer/director Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Chevalier, a wicked comedy set around six men on a fishing trip. Out of boredom the group starts to play a game where each of them devises a contest in secret and scores the others accordingly, in order to determine who among them is “the best in general”. As ambitious as it is ludicrous, the highly unusual premise picks apart modern masculinity in an often frivolous manner, hovering between broad gags and unsettling insights. While the film ultimately feels too unstructured to land any substantial, lasting impact, it may well count itself a worthy addition to the new wave of Greek cinema sparkling with conceptual brilliance à la Dogtooth or Alps.

Equally quirky, albeit more carefully mapped out is Dutch helmer Alex van Warmerdam’s comedy-noir Schneider vs. Bax. Featuring a hitman eager to get back to his own birthday party, another coke-snorting hitman doubling as a writer, an old prostitute dragged into a hit job by accident and other cuckoo characters that could have been lifted from a Coen brothers flick, it dances through an endless supply of plot twists and keeps you hooked on its deliciously macabre humour.

Not nearly as entertaining is the San Sebastián alumnus The Demons, a coming-of-age drama crossed with kidnapping thriller set in suburban Montreal. Canadian director Philippe Lesage has an eye for suggestive visuals and the nose for creepy atmosphere, but the film borders on the schizophrenic with its many subplots and tonal changes. Lacking a strong focal point to drive the whole narrative, we’re left to admire the undeniably effective camerawork and the moments of foreboding beauty it brings.
Other festival champs include Sundance winner Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, a lively, tender and, above all, seriously funny tearjerker that actually deserves both your laughs and sobs. Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon gets the healing power of comedy and delivers a refreshingly, brutally genuine take on the girl-dying-of-leukemia genre. His trio of perfectly cast actors, assisted by a terrific group of supporting players, also helps inject that air of inspired unsentimentality into the film.

While less innovative in its approach, French-Turkish director Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Cannes hit Mustang proves to be a jolt of energy impossible to resist. Set around five sister growing up in a conservative household in rural Turkey, the girlhood drama vividly depicts the debilitating effects of female oppression and the indefatigable human need to break free. Glowingly photographed and showcasing some affecting, naturalistic performances from its young leads, the film doesn’t aim terribly high but breathes so much life it dazzles nonetheless.            

So yes, the festival tent of the FFHH appears positively modest in comparison to the Grand Théâtre Lumière, the Palazzo del Cinema or the Berlinale Palast, but it’s never about that glammed-up hoopla in Hamburg anyway. Over there by the lovely Alster river, it’s more about appreciating good movies, special movies from all over the world that might have gotten lost in the shuffle even for avid festival-goers, as well as the opportunity to exchange ideas with the filmmakers in a relaxed environment. Honestly, what joy it is to (re-)watch gems like The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien) or The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos) on a giant screen without the hassle of hour-long queuing; and where else do you get to speak with László Nemes (Hungarian director and Cannes Grand Prix winner for Son of Saul) at length without some demoralising journalistic jockeying? All things considered, the 90-minute ICE ride seems like an awfully reasonable bargain indeed.

Les démons (The Demons)

(Originally appeared in The Film Stage on Nov. 6 , 2015)

Part coming-of-age story, part familial drama, part psychological thriller and even carrying with it a whiff or two of supernatural horror, Canadian director Philippe Lesage’s first narrative feature The Demons is a composite of intriguing leads, except none of them really goes anywhere. The result is something almost psychedelically meandering – or simply arbitrary and incoherent.

The story is built around Félix (Édouard Tremblay-Grenier), a watchful, contemplative grade-schooler who seems uncommonly serious for his age. He has a painful crush on his teacher, he suspects his father is having an affair, he fears he might have gotten AIDS for being an unknowing homosexual. In addition to all that, he learns there’s a kidnapper/killer on the loose who targets little boys just like him in suburban Montreal. With a worried look etched on his face, our protagonist leads us through the anxiety-filled everyday of a young person just starting to stumble on life’s many complexities.

While this premise is promising enough, the structure of the actual script is seriously off, pieced together from isolated anecdotes without a firm grasp on arc, momentum or thematic focus, so that the whole thing comes across pretty loose and strangely shapeless. Like the limited attention span of a pre-teen, the story can’t follow through on any of the subplots it started. As a result, scenes of Félix’s quotidian pile up but fail to charm or inform in the aggregate. A couple of overtly emotional twists later in the film thus land with hardly any impact.

Around its halfway mark, the inarticulate but generally sweet-natured drama turns unexpectedly sinister as the child abduction plotline takes over. Further stressing a lack of continuity, the narrative leaves Félix’s POV altogether and switches to the school lifeguard with an unspeakable secret. Despite the perspective and tonal disconnect, this part of the movie proves the most effective, thanks to the simple fact that it settles for a more consistent, undistracted portrait. Dedicating a significant chunk of screen time to the act of crime as it slowly progresses from intent to execution, from a relatively harmless joyride to the dreadful final trip into the woods, Lesage does a surprisingly good job creeping under your skin with this patient observation of a disturbed mind at work. And even though the violent outcome of this ugly episode is somewhat predictable, the shock of seeing human beings’ raw, animalistic urge of lust, shame and regret play out this plainly still leaves a ringing echo behind. So it’s with some reluctance that we once again return to the whims of Félix, until the film wraps on an appropriately confounding note.

Overall, the film is never a chore to look at. Cinematography by Nicolas Canniccioni not only pleases the eye but conjures up a quiet sense of malevolence through its unnatural composure. Whether tracking the breezy drive of a killer looking for his next victim or gliding languidly across a swimming pool bustling with activity as if withholding something terribly obvious, the camera often releases a magnetic pull that tickles and alarms. What also delights is that, rather refreshingly, the child is not portrayed as the embodiment of innocence here. How their curiosity and lack of moral inhibition can lead to mindless cruelty gets the honest treatment for once. Félix forces his will on his even tinier schoolmates doing things that would have seemed mean, borderline criminal, if taken out of the juvenile context.

It’s a shame, then, that the evocative, partially compelling picture can’t seem to sort out what it really wants to say. Throughout the many incidents that suggest plenty but express little, we get a taste of the angst and confusion of someone first finding his own identity, but in terms of what’s so demonic about growing up, we are ultimately none the wiser.

Filmfest Hamburg: Tu dors Nicole (You're Sleeping Nicole)

Canadian writer/director Stéphane Lafleur's female slacker movie "Tu dors Nicole (You're Sleeping Nicole)" has cute, witty dialogue sprinkled throughout and recurrent flashes of visual/aural flourish, but as a feature film there's just not enough material or structure to make it feel present, memorable, consequential.

Set in suburban Canada, the young protagonist has the house to herself and a long summer ahead with the parents away on vacation and her first credit card in hand. The brother soon moves in with his rock band, whose new drummer seems to have the right stuff for a romantic fling. The best friend talks her into booking a spontaneous trip to Iceland, only to back off from the plan herself. And then there's the ex-boyfriend with his new wife cruising around and the skinny kid from the neighborhood with a newly dropped, ingeniously dubbed voice making age-inappropriate advances... While plenty of events seem to take place, they're not driven by a central narrative and appear altogether peripheral, decorative. Besides acquainting the audience with these characters, the story barely progresses after the entire first hour.

Here and there we're treated to deceptively goofy passages that strike a chord with their take on the folly of life. And the black-and-white photography, while not always looking crisp or high-contrast enough, does give us some yummy, warmly atmospheric shots, often accompanied by psychedelic, indie-spirited music. One can also hardly fault lead actress Julianne Côté, who not only makes a strong physical impression with her boyishly square chin and high forehead, but is also quite winsome with her open looks of impatience, suspicion, relief. But overall, the movie is way too lax to make any substantial impact. Above all else it serves as an additional reminder of just how miraculous an achievement the similarly themed and styled German stunner "Oh Boy" was.

Filmkunstmesse Leipzig: Mommy

(Originally appeared in the Berlin Film Journal on Sep. 16, 2014)

It's at once understandable and baffling that Jane Campion's jury awarded Canadian wunderkind Xavier Dolan's 5th feature "Mommy" the coveted Jury Prize in Cannes this year. The film's altogether likable and tugs at heartstrings because it openly aims for them and, of Dolan's films to date, it's the most eager to please. But it underwhelms for the very same reasons.

Set against the fictional backdrop of a new Candaian legislation, under which overtaxed parents may unconditionally enter their behaviorally disturbed children into medical facilities, the movie tells the story of a love-hate-fear relationship between a single mother Diane and her hyperactive adolescent son Steve. Written also by Dolan, it's the least ostensibly sexual of his scripts and concentrates on such universally embraceable themes as the uplifting, exasperating, redeeming familial bond and the never-ending yearning for freedom. At his best, Dolan shows in his writing an uncanny understanding of human psychology and finds its expression in inconspicuously staged scenarios ("J'ai tué ma mère (I Killed My Mother)", "Tom à la ferme (Tom at the Farm)"). With this latest work you can still sense that fine radar at work in the characters he creates- vividly drawn, fueled by passion and impulses- but there's also a less satisfactory narrative arc in terms of plot development to be observed. The introduction of the neighbor Kyla, arguably the most interesting character of the movie, first jolts the somewhat flatlining storyline back to life. And the ensuing unconventional ménage à trois does hold your attention for a while, before another bottleneck seems to be reached and you realize nothing except easy appeals to common sympathy seems to be driving this thing forward. Dolan is nothing if not an instinctive writer though. And you notice that sometimes even better in what he leaves unsaid- in this case the whole back story of the mysterious Kyla, who would rather spend time with a mother-son duo with a penchant for violence than with her own husband and child. Never fully explained, she becomes this unknowable but thoroughly intriguing figure that serves as the much needed catalyst in a duet that otherwise would've long grown old.    

The direction is equally fine if not unflawed or particularly challenging. Possibly taking a cue from the bad notices he got for going overboard visually with "Les amours imaginaires (Heartbeats)" and "Laurence Anyways", "Mommy" is relatively subdued in optical terms. Gone are the fanciful, indulgent color sprees, substituted by a more grounded, quotidian look. Of course there are still the occasional sequences of surreal prettiness, like a golden boy falling slo-mo onto a bed drenched in golden light spilling through golden curtains, and, let's be honest, even when he goes for shabby, there's that slight rosy tint to a Dolan film. But overall it's a controlled aesthetic that serves the story well and would likely offend no one. At other places, though, Dolan displays an ambition to up his directorial game to only mixed results. Most obvious is his choice to play with the aspect ratio of the film, which looks unusually narrow for the majority of the running time. It takes some getting used to, but at least this viewer sees that approach as an effective way to leave out the rest of the world and focus on the predicament of those portrayed by simply chopping off the panoramic view. However, the couple of times he expands the field of vision to the normal, wide format and back again, coinciding with the sudden sense of liberty or returning despair experienced by the characters, feel too literal to be called genius. Also less than ideal are the scenes where he goes for the warm and fuzzy moments shared by damaged people, which often come across as forced, and the way he uses music in this film, with the loudly soothing score and the Top 40-friendly soundtrack both being a tad too pushy.        

All three principal actors are strong. Suzanne Clément plays Kyla with the necessary reticence and makes you see in her a woman finally allowing herself to be happy with her crazy neighbors. Anne Dorval is highly watchable as the hot mess of a mom with partially dyed hair and bejeweled jeans. Even though her performance still betrays a hint of shrill mechanicalness in those scenes of aggressive confrontation, she's delightful in her sassy body language and shows especially good timing in her delivery of feisty one-liners. Even more impressive is probably lead actor Antoine-Olivier Pilon, whose Steve is explosive, goofy, sweet, flirty, sometimes all at the same time. The instability of his mind and the depth of his anger are beautifully portrayed in a scene set in a Karaoke bar. Bringing three distinct personalities to the screen, these three actors keep you engaged and invested even when the storytelling itself slacks, so that even a moment like taking a group selfie can end up being as pregnant with emotion as it is.

Avoiding to a large extent any controversial subject or subversive stance, opting for a pleasantly inobtrusive visual style, coasting a lot more than previously on compassion and basic kindness of the heart, there might be shouting, fighting and maiming galore in "Mommy", but it might also just be the most widely accessible and least risky movie Xavier Dolan has made so far.

Maps to the Stars

"Maps to the Stars" is kind of like and kind of not like what one would expect from a movie about celebrity, excess and the twisted cosmos by the name of Hollywood.

You know going in it'll be about how neurotic actors are and how cutthroat showbiz is, and the acidic, ruthlessly satiric script by Bruce Wagner, in which ridiculous, clearly fabricated yet frighteningly probable scenarios are concocted with a biting language hurtful, malevolent at every turn, indeed gives you that. It depicts with an almost offhand shrug the rarified lifestyle of stars in the context of therapy, drug abuse, promiscuity and an ingrained hierarchical, nepotistic survival instinct. Everybody's always pitching, gossiping, second-guessing, back-stabbing it's hilarious and also exhausting just to watch.

The tone is correspondingly dark, with the recurring themes of incest and arson revisited with disturbing frequency. Somewhat surprising is how the film goes that extra mile into supernatural territory from time to time. But, reinforcing the point that this town is haunted by its own inhumanity and paranoia, these all-out crazy interludes feel inobtrusive, even appropriate. So far- the snarky dialogue, the wacky story- it's all cruel, wicked fun.

That Canadian director David Cronenberg doesn't opt for a high-gloss, fast-paced look or beat for the film, is the true shocker. Instead, the tale about all these glamorous people trapped in far-fetched realities, moves at a deliberate, sometimes languid speed. Except for the posh furnishings, the picture looks plain, listless, conspicuously sans makeup and there's almost no music. One could argue this approach accentuates the intellectual and moral vaccum these characters live in, but some tightening, cutting and polishing would probably strengthen the effects of a perverse world subsisting on vanity and better communicate its crazed energy.

The actors are good, first and foremost Mia Wasikowska, who gets the nervous, doubtful and patient faces of an unbalanced person just right. Julianne Moore has the showiest part and she bares it all- flaccid flesh and vacant soul- to portray this deeply troubled actress passing her prime. Unhinged, self-righteous, pathologically insecure, it makes for a great, even sicker counterpart to Michael Keaton's Birdman. In limited roles, Olivia Williams, John Cusack and the reliably creepy Sarah Gadon are all well cast and complete an unflattering mosaic that's L.A..

Short takes

"Maleficent" has exactly one moment of glory, when Disney's most famous villain interrupts a stately ceremony and, in an emerald storm of fury, casts a spell on the newborn princess. The cradle, the needle, the baby and the caped slender figure... it's iconic fairytale imagery conjured into life with uncanny precision and unapologetic fanfare, a goosebumps-worthy high that the rest of the movie sadly never reaches again. Its biggest mistake lies in the misguided need to humanize/heroize the title character, which not only compromises her mythic appeal but practically chops off the wings of Angelina Jolie, who does evil like no other. Director Robert Stromberg opts for a loud, minutely CG-ed aesthetic for the film, which, while not as ugly as Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland", rarely gets the feel of a timeless tale right. When a movie about the baddest witch out there is so sanitized it takes a Lana Del Rey song in the credits to kick up the creepy factor, you know an opportunity has been missed.

"Tom à la ferme (Tom at the Farm)" has an instantly attractive premise in the exploration of deception and its many emotional byproducts. When identities are confused and motives left unsaid, such forceful instincts as grief, rage, desire become all the more volatile and dangerously seductive. Too bad, then, that the plot lacks a convincing second act and an appropriately explosive finale, so all that build-up ultimately doesn't have anywhere to go. The movie's still highly watchable, if only as a disturbing mood piece. Canadian director Xavier Dolan keeps his penchant for splashy visual pizazz under control and operates here on a stripped look that, combined with his deft hand at close-range human observation, puts a blunt, chilly focus on the tension depicted. Maestro Gabriel Yared's music proves to be an unexpected misfire, its sensual cues too obvious and the way it's used shows about as much restraint as a Hong Kong zombie flick from the 80's.

"Edge of Tomorrow" starts off rather unspectacularly and on the whole feels long, due in no small part to the repetitive nature of its central conceit. But high-minded sci-fi movies like this do pack that extra level of satisfaction once you get past the initial feeling of foreignness and into their particular groove. However insensibly it demands you to think, once you're ready to consider the characters' plight using their bent logic, fun is to be had. Director Doug Liman acquits himself admirably describing the mundane horror of someone having to relive the same day over and over to figure out the flaw in the alien's world domination plan. Every editing choice he makes is mindful of its narrative function and he seldom misses a beat. The movie also boasts numerous furiously choreographed and shot action sequences. While the set design for exterior Paris is subpar, that final battle scene has scale, speed, intensity and style, a pure blast to watch.

"Stereo" tries to be fresh by taking familiar elements from established genre traditions and mixing them up. But the script is neither clever nor ambitious enough to hide the tired taste of recycled formulas or to elevate the picture fully above a weeknight TV-thriller. German writer/director Maximilian Erlenwein does manage to keep things interesting thoughout by the employment of heavily filtered lenses and a heightend color scheme that makes everything look deliciously dirty. The sound design is even more lascivious, cranking out all kinds of delightfully sordid, aggressively techno noises that wouldn't be out of place in Berghain. The cast does a respectable job holding things down as the movie goes into visual and aural overdrive. Lead actor Jürgen Vogel has the rare gift of appearing both menacing and fragile, giving the somewhat implausibly drawn character a more nuanced portrayal than it probably deserves.

Enemy

Canadian director Denis Villeneuve's "Enemy" is a stylistically remarkable but narratively undernourished entry into the familiar genre of Doppelgänger-thriller.

The technical craftsmanship invested here is undeniable. Chronically underlit but done so in a waxy, faded fashion, the movie looks gorgeous and creepy from the get-go. The unsettling sense of an alien beauty is further enhanced by the sleek camerawork that often finds unexpected, slightly disorienting angles into a scene and the architectural backdrop of Toronto that's mutely foreboding in its hypnotic geometry. Finally completing the oppressive visual spell is the bold, borderline showy editing, which disrupts the order of the already cryptic frames some more to give the whole thing a proper puzzle-like feel. The score is also effective. From the tiniest sound of a spider scurrying on glass to the bossy, ominous strikes of the timpani, it's all part of a lush and scary soundscape.

Which is, of course, why it's so frustrating for me not to be able to embrace this movie. Despite the superb job on the visual and aural design, the film is exceedingly light on charater- and motive-building. Thinking beyond any superficial level and asking about the plausibility of the actions portrayed would bring one immerdiately out of the trance and cast everything in a somewhat silly light. So even with a stupendously ballsy ending that kind of, sort of comes brilliantly full circle and demands you to connect the dots scattered from the very beginning, the feeling of being cheated by a measly short bloated to feature size that's a little too confident for its own good is hard to shake.

Prisoners

French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve's "Prisoners" is an almost in every way commendable dramatic thriller: plot-driven, performance-heavy, solid old-fashioned storytelling of which there should only be more. But...but... it's just so maddeningly, distractingly imperfect on so many levels! The script is plagued by plausibility issues as people keep looking the wrong places and asking the bad questions. Jake Gyllenhaal's detective character is especially messily written, sabotaging the emotional involvement of the audience and the necessary balance in a narrative about choices. In retrospect the film is also faultily structured. Clocking in at 158 min, way too much time is spent on red herrings and blunt morality tests. There are weak links in the overall impressive cast (hello, Terrence Howard), but Hugh Jackman brings great volatility and vulnerability to the central figure and Viola Davis, in her sadly limited role, is divine.

This movie is not nearly as strong as Villeneuve's last feature "Incendies" (my Top 10 of 2011), but when it works, it's quite the adrenaline ride. The last hour, with its goosebumps-worthy big reveal, is intense as hell.

Take This Waltz

In the last 20 minutes of "Take This Waltz", the movie changes course quite drastically and diminishes the magnificent, bittersweet swoon left by the 90 minutes that came before considerably.

That said, with the help of the infinitely talented and adorable Michelle Williams and her two brilliantly cast on-screen partners, a splendid visual palette exploding with kaleidoscopic colors, a pop-flavored soundtrack swaying in cheers, sorrows and brittle expectations, and above all the funny, perceptive, honest words penned by writer/director Sarah Polley, we get to see how the most natural attraction between two people develops ever so subtly, innocently, unstoppably, how the flirting, pining, dreaming, despairing blend into a hopeless dance, how love goes about casting its spells and doing its damage all within an hour and a half- and it's a beautiful, heartbreaking thing to see.

Berlinale: Captive / Keyhole

Brillante Mendoza's "Captive" chronicles the travails of an international group of hostages in the Filipino jungles over the course of one year. Its true-to-life, semi-documentary-style depiction made the eventful story somewhat tedious, but both Mendoza's uncompromising approach and lead actress Isabelle Huppert's volcanic performance are forces to be reckoned with; Canadian director Guy Maddin's "Keyhole" is 90 torturous minutes of feverish black-and-white pictures, jarring music and an utterly logic-free storyline featuring a bike-pedaled electric chair, a naked old man chained to a bed and Isabella Rossellini. Even for an insane mind, this is some twisted, tripped-up dream.