Duel au Sommet

Nordwand

Philipp Stölzl :: Germany, Switzerland, Austria :: 2008 :: 2h

Two young provincial army recruits in an early Nazi Germany, are challenged to climb up the Eiger. The mountain had never before been successfully scaled from the north face (Nordwand) and it would have been the perfect introduction for the showcase 1936 Nazi Olympic games in Berlin. While the propaganda machine waits in a five star hotel next to the mountain, the competing teams go up.

The advancement of the climbers Toni (Benno Fürmann) and Andreas (Florian Lukas) dangling from the icy rock is cut-up with scenes from the extravagant hotel down below, where we also find Toni’s childhood love Luise (Johanna Wokalek), as the aspiring (photo-) journalist. She is there with her Berlin boss, who oscillates from charming to Nazi and back again throughout the film. The contrast between the ostentatious luxury of the hotel life and the harshness of the mountain works beautifully, most of the time, although the real strength of the film is mountain photography.

Not only is the daunting steepness of mountain wall impressively portrayed, the unpredictability of its ascent is too. The men against the elements, with their frozen woollen mittens and home-made pegs give a taste of realism to mountain-climbing. The movie gives a taste of the excitement and immense difficulty of climbing, even if here it is enveloped in an air of rashness.

Bizarrely enough, for this day and age, the story has the feel of a Nazi propaganda film. The film is dominated by the heroism of the climbers. The subtle difference is perhaps that one of the two, Toni, is not in it for the glory but for the love of climbing. But even if they are not both climbing for their medal from Hitler, it is their courage and “noble savage” spirit which shines – not only doing their national duty of serving the Führer in his army but also having that unbreakable masculine outdoor courage in which the party prides itself.

When they accept the challenge, going to Switzerland by bicycle (700km!), we are shown two other teams which conclude that the weather conditions make the trek up impossible. It is curious that different teams of experienced climbers would have such divergent opinions on whether or not you can go up, but there you have it. It could have been dismissed as a tension builder, if it was not that the two teams which considered it reckless were the French and Italian teams, and those which considered it feasible were the German and Austrian teams. And then we discover that the Austrians are bungling amateurs. It all sounds painfully like a Nazi plot, but there is one other message which finally leaves the after-taste as you walk out: the futility of the pursuit of glory.

In the end, Duel au Sommet is about a mountain and a group of climbers. And it is there where the film excels. If you’re ready for icy rock and avalanches, you can not get much closer to the climbers than in this one. But be warned, the tip of your couch will seem like too close to the edge.

www.nordwand-film.de

The Limits of Control

the limits of controlThe Limits of Control

Jim Jarmusch :: USA :: 2009 :: 1h56

A tall black man in a shiny suit (Isaach de Bankomé) is sent to Madrid. A few mysterious meetings later, he gets off a train in Seville. And then another stop. He is on a mission, or perhaps on several missions, taking him cross country over the Iberian peninsula. This is a film without a customary narrative, leaving you to paradoxically guess the ongoings. Paradoxically, because every step taken by our hero is meticulously planned and controlled. He, at least, knows what he is doing, with a silent, patient cool.

At times the film looks like an old-school 1970s thriller. At other times, we see carefully chosen images which look more like works of art photography than than part of a feature film. At again other times, the surroundings and characters are so painfully normal that it seems out of place with the rest. As you are taken along, you will notice that the same structure of the scenes is repeated, with little curious reminders forwards or backwards in time to create an overall harmony. Perhaps the aesthetic could have been even more formal than it was, as after all the whole film takes on an experimental role. The background canvases of the countryside might at times even have been fake, as it would not have mattered. Reality is a flexible notion in the film and could easily have been bent a little more.

Reconstructing the film in a cafe afterwards is a lot of fun, so try to avoid seeing the film by yourself. You can take the side characters, the locations and the sparse exchanges to reconstruct a world in which the different characters all have their own obsessions and interests. But somehow they all work together. This succession of characters who are “in” on the conspiracy, even originate from widely different horizons, apparently all motivated to work together against the final puppet-master, whose presence we feel intrusively hovering above us throughout the film. And make sure you are up for it too. If you did not catch it yet, the pace of the film is slow.

www.thelimitsofcontrol-lefilm.com

La Vida Loca

LaVidaLocaLa Vida Loca
Christian Poveda :: France, Mexico, Spain :: 2009 :: 1h30

In stark contrast to the tranquility of the little painted houses in a tree-lined suburban housing estate in El Salvador, a violent gang culture permanently kills, maims or has jailed the young of the community. With a rate of 9 murders a day amongst the young, the country is caught in a massive gang feud. The gangs, and the feud, originate from the 1980s run-down south central Los Angeles. The problem could have been contained, considers Poveda, were it not that in 1996, the US government (under Clinton) decided to send 100,000 convicted gang members from US prisons to central America. Combined with a foreign policy of supporting dictatorships and financing civil wars, the scene has been set for human tragedy.

The fearless photographer and documentary-maker Christian Poveda submerges himself into central America a decade later, into the underbelly of society. He managed to get permission from the Salvadorian police and one of the gangs, the “18”, to follow them in their lives. Four years later, La Vida Loca sees the light, taking you along the path of violent outcasts of society. And it is very different to what you might imagine.

The documentary takes us from the unfolding of someone’s life to their funeral after a shooting. It is an endless spiral of gang violence, with seemingly no point to the gang war whatsoever, other than that of having an enemy to unite them. Joining a gang is not even an alternative employer for the poor, as the gang does not offer any external symbols of success (wealth, privilege, whatever). In fact, the gang does not seem to offer anything at all but the prospect of death, jail or invalidity. Hardly the attractive option, but these youths are already broken by their lives. And change becomes inevitable with the gang tattoos (voluntary or forced) marking their allegiance. Once you are have your face covered in tattoos, you can no longer send your CV anywhere. They can not back down.

The film lets the youths talk for themselves. They talk about their broken pasts, of growing up without the guiding support of a family. They speak of the love they get from the gang. They talk, with a peculiar detachment, of passing from one social service (juvenile detention) to another (jail), exposing an existential loneliness at the impoverished fringe in which they live. The gang might not offer the flash of fast cars, bikinis and swimming pools, but it does offer loyalty, stability and a shared suffering. The love of the gang is a love which fills an emotional void, giving them a sense of belonging amongst their peers. The gang is so much an end in itself that its members do not even fear death for it, but rather they expect it. The gang is not the path to wealth, status or happiness but rather a goal in itself. An end. But their fearlessness does not come from a feeling of superiority, what you might expect, but rather from an all-round stunted emotional development born out of their misery. They are phlegmatic, almost accepting their fate as a given. And hence they can tattoo themselves, as a confirmation of their fate, as whatever should befall them would befall them anyway.

But some do try. Christian Poveda follows a re-insertion programme, where ex-gang members try to set up a bakery. We see them, the tattoo-ed ex-bullies, kneading the dough, we know they are serious about doing the right thing, of trying to improve their lives despite expectations. We see them pray, and talk with priests, but it is as if the words just float over their heads. When push comes to shove, who knows what they will do.

As tragic as the lives of the gang members are, as surprising it is to see that there is a normal society outside the walls of their lives. When they get hurt, they find themselves in a capable hospital, with all health services paid for by the state. When they find themselves in court, they are confronted with seemingly capable legal actors. When they are confronted with the police, they seem professional and organised. You might expect the gangsters to be aggressive ego-tripping characters, perhaps even with dubious contacts in the judiciary, but they are not like that at all. At least, they are not presented that way. When they are stopped by the police, they let themselves be searched or taken. When in court, they hear the court’s verdicts stoically, accepting their fate as givens. Of course it is that same stoicism which makes them untouchable, even from punishment. Everything is pointless.

Seeing the film today, so shortly after director Christian Poveda was shot dead in El Salvador, makes the film all the more moving. It is a unique chance to meet people you will never meet, and hear words you will never hear spoken. A look into a violent, criminal subculture normally hidden from view. A testament to a culture which so badly needs understanding, to, hopefully, one day rest in the past.

www.lavidaloca-lefilm.fr

Sin Nombre

sin_nombreSin Nombre

Cary Fukunaga :: USA, Mexico :: 2009 :: 1h36

Sayra is picked up in Honduras by her father, who she barely knows, to take her up north with him to New Jersey (USA). Without money and without papers. Once on her rough and dangerous journey to a prospective better life, she meets the young Mexican gangster Willy. The young man, nicknamed Casper, had grown up in the violent Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS) gang. Their stories begin to intertwine as Casper slowly but surely turns his back on the gang, and Sayra takes his hand so they can run together.

Sin Nombre (“without a name”) drags us through the underbelly of society, along the railway tracks, with the aspiring immigrants, the profiteers, and the omni present gangsters. The dangerous journey they embark on, is one which will define their lifetime. For Sayra, if she makes it to her family in New Jersey, she will be at the beginning of her new life as an illegal immigrant. However it turns out, her story will have started with that continental crossing, on the roof of that train. For Willy, who knows he can not outrun his Casper shadow, his future is as uncertain as the whims which control the life and death of a gangster.

Carefully put together with an excellent cast, Sin Nombre is as a fictional companion to La Vida Loca, with the wider perspective of poverty and migration in North America. Long after you have left the film, you will still see the train cutting through the countryside with, on the roof, a mass huddled together dreaming of a better future for themselves. A dream, which survives through the hardships and cruelty of the world. A tough watch.

www.sinnombre-lefilm.com.com


Un Prophète

Un PropheteUn Prophète
Jacques Audiard :: France :: 2008 : 2h35

A young man is being admitted into prison. The scars on his body and face betray a violent past. He can barely read and write. He has no friends. Malik (Tahar Rahim) is 19 years old. Out on the concrete courtyard, he is recruited by the ruthless Corsican mafioso César (Niels Arestrup) to kill a rival passing through their prison. Malik is beaten into submission. His life could have ended right there and then. But that is not how it was to be. Malif comes out the corner fighting.

Most of the film is concrete slabs and dirt. There is the constant murmur of the rumours passed around in Arabic and Corsican if it is not in banlieue slang French. And then there is the violence. Nobody gets punished because nobody interferes. Even when inmates get killed there is no indication that they are being investigated. The detainees are all on their own. We do see the state’s legal machinery operating in the background with lawyers and judges shifting paper. We see the inmates work in the prison factory sowing clothes. We see the willing bullies being schooled. But the penitentiary staff shine mostly in their absence. Malik knows it is going to be a long 6 years.

He takes what he can get, and tries to make the best of himself. He could have made an excellent career for himself in the army, if life had been different. He has the adaptability, the patience, the dedication, the intelligence and the lack of moral restraint to make it far, in the right framework. If only he had been in an organisation which could contain and direct him, rather than unleash him, as prison did. We see him slowly becoming a man to be reckoned with, creating his own new order. Make no mistake, this young man is taking you along to the bitter end.

Un Prophète is a tough film to watch, but immaculately constructed. I can not claim to have captured the full finesse of the all the criminal dealings, but it does not matter. The audience is thrown into the story as the young Malik is. Thrown in, to live it with him. And live it, you will. It is a masterfully made film with a clever script, an excellent cast and a surprising attention to detail. A rare pearl in the genre, bound to be as rewarded as director Audiard’s previous De Battre mon coeur s’est arrêté, which won no less than 8 Césars!

www.un-prophete-lefilm.com

Thirst, Ceci est mon sang

ThirstBak-Jwi
Park Chan-wook :: South Korea :: 2008 :: 2h13

Sang-hyun (Song Kang-Ho) is a modern catholic priest. He is both rational and motivated by a selfless desire to help and to do the right thing. He volunteers for a risky medical experiment to find the cure for a deadly virus, in which he ends up receiving donor blood from an unknown source. He miraculously survives the virus, but the blood transfusion changed him, strengthened him even. Unfortunately, the flip-side of his new strength quickly becomes apparent, when he realises that to stay healthy, he needs to drink human blood. He has de facto become a vampire.

Sang-hyun survives his affliction without compromising his integrity, too much. But along with his craving for blood, came his lust for carnal pleasure too. From there it does not take long for his eyes to fall on the young Tae-Joo (Kim Ok-bin), married to a mildly retarded childhood friend of his. Treading with tenderness and care, he manages to seduce her. Tae-Joo, who was practically living as a family slave, reawakens as a femme fatale, challenging her lover well off the right path. The film swings from dark humour to sexy and from absurd to scary and all that in an aesthetically rich environment. Thrist is a great new twist on the vampire theme, even if it wonders off a little at times. It is funny to note that the marketing boys also had a tough time placing the film.

The French release poster has Kim Ok-bin’s character hanging upside-down from the Priest’s neck like a bat, exposing a lot of rosy hued skin in a darkness. It is a pure aesthetic, with a clear sensual feel, which has a “mainstream” look, as if the film plays down its foreign-ness and its originality to attract its audience. It is immediately visible that Sang-hyun is a priest, offering the intrigue. Any doubt you might have is taken away with the title “Ceci est mon sang” which has a religious ring, and the merit of mentioning “blood”. The film is actually more original and more horror laden than the poster would suggest.

Thirst Korean poster

Notice the difference with the Korean poster. It is as a scene from a faded film, where the female character’s near-panic is contrasted with the male character’s more controlled fear. The two characters are in full view, almost filling the entire poster, although the twist that Sang-hyun is a priest remains hidden. The two characters are white with a fear of something external, even though, on closer inspection, it is Sang-hyun himself who has blood on his lips! Although such an existential fear is not really the subject matter of the film, the poster does suggest fear and blood in old-school cinema. This is not only an accurate description, but also targets the audience who would most appreciate the film. If it is you, do not hesitate – Thirst is a great film.

www.thirst-lefilm.com

Humpday

Humpday

Humpday

Lynn Shelton :: USA :: 2009 : 1h35

Ben (Mark Duplass) is living a quiet life in Seattle with his wife Anna, when his old university friend Andrew (Joshua Leonard)shows up, as the prodigal son. Andrew has been bumming around for ten years in hippy semi-artistic circles, and the two men look at each other as different versions of what they could have done with their lives. From a combination of an “I’m free, you’re not” kind of argument and an amateur porn-as-art festival, comes the idea of the two of them having homosexual sex on film. Although the idea repulses them, neither wants to give in to the other, for the risk of losing face at the challenge.

The idea of a homosexual challenge is both very silly and potentially amusing, but here we are left stranded at the former. And it has silliness written all over it. It has even been shot in a messy way – with an unstable, low quality camera which is sometimes out of focus. The script follows suit, by seeming to be mostly based on improvisation judging by its simplicity. The film is actually the 20 minutes or so in a hotel room (where they are to have sex), the rest could just as easily have been scrapped. The whole amateur approach could have been an added value for a film which needs the “fear-of-gay discomfort” element to work, but we never actually get to some value, to be able to consider any more added on.

The characters act (and dress) as if they are 15 years old, with a matching insecurity, no sophistication (although supposedly with an education), teen-style pushing each other around and with no direction in their lives. They are just permanently uncomfortable with themselves in relation to others.

Ben is supposed to be living a dull bourgeois life, with a wife and house, and Andrew the adventurous drugs and swingers life, but neither are a mentionable success. If being married and having a house is to be considered boring (!?) then the movie could have shown them sitting silently in front of a TV game show, with him taking a grey commuter train to work in the morning and Anna pruning the roses under the auspicious eye of the elderly neighbours. So to speak. Just saying that he has a house and a wife is meaningless.

If the contrast is supposed to be with his country-hopping lost friend Andrew, then surely Andrew should have received a little more credit himself, rather than just a pretension. Already in the introductory scenes, Andrew is shown giving an inappropriate kitsch gift followed by a story of his work at an artistic community in Mexico, which we can only assume to be a failure as he left. Despite his talk about art, he does not produce anything or show any understanding of it. That leaves us with sex and drugs. His uncommitted swingers life should have given him an ease in sexual relations, but even there he does not excel, or have any noteworthy advantage to justify a superiority. The character is just shown as a loveable loser. The contrast does not work.

Basically, we are left watching two cowardly superficial characters fail. If they had wanted to succeed they could have brought along some alcohol. Or some drugs. Or perhaps eased themselves into it with something more accessible first. Or perhaps they should have just set themselves some more constructive goals, closer to their heart to try to grow up. As the director should have done. And remember that this production is marketed as a comedy. Perhaps something funny could have been squashed in there somewhere in too…

www.humpday.com

A Deriva

a derivaA Deriva
Heitor Dhalia :: Brazil :: 2009 : 1h43

The Sao Paulo writer Mathias (Vincent Cassel) and his wife Clarice (Débora Bloch) are at their beach house in the coastal town of Buzios for the summer. They spend their days living a bohemian life with their friends, their three children and the rest of the young rat-pack from the beach. Their beautiful eldest daughter Filipa (Laura Neiva) is coming of age, although sitting on her fathers lap she is slowly but surely discovering her femininity. However the spring time of her youth sees not only the pitfalls of young love, but also a growing rift between her parents, and the threat of a disintegrating home.

A Deriva is a pleasure to watch, despite a simple storyline. It hinges on the relationship between Mathias and his daughter Filipa, as the film’s warm focal point of the fragmenting family. Their roles are well worked out in these trying times. Mathias, and his wife Clarise, wisely protect their children from exposure of their marital rifts, but naturally the children -and specifically the eldest- feel the overshadowing conjugal burst.

What is perhaps the most remarkable, is how the same story filmed through the eyes of another culture, would have been so different. There are two elements at play here: a romanticised Brazil and the time frame. By placing the story in Brazil, we are taken into a joyful carefree latin world of beaches, beautiful people, love and dance. By placing the story in the 1980s, were see a reality as if it was recalled by a much older Filipa looking back. It is a reality without a technology-inspired stress and superficiality, with a seeming authenticity of life orientated around physical people, living in homes filled with curiosity relics, without made-in-China goods and television-mimicking sentiments. It is a vision which justifies a perhaps kinder look at reality.

For everyone who is wondering how French top actor Vincent Cassel found himself in a small Brazilian production – Cassel is a frequent visitor of Bahia, the African-influenced state in the tropical north. He speaks Portuguese fluently, but as all attentive viewers will notice, it is not his (slightly off) accent which puts him in a curious position in the film – his role does not get lines as credible as those which the other characters get. Mathias’ character, and hence the film, is saved by Cassel’s acting talent. But then the movie was destined to float or sink on Cassel and Laura Neiva’s capacity to convey the sensual lightness of living anyway. And that, they pull of masterfully.

District 9

District9District 9
Neil Blomkamp :: South Africa :: 2009 : 1h50

The unlikely action hero Wikus works for a large international paramilitary organisation called the MNU. The company deals with the affairs of the almost 2 million aliens which were rescued from their stranded ship over Johannesburg, and grouped together in an area named District 9. After an uncomfortable status-quo of apartheid, Wikus is assigned the mission to move the aliens to a new district further out of town… and out of sight. The disorientated aliens are not wholly complying with the MNU’s wishes.

Amongst the things which go wrong during the eviction of the rundown township of district 9, Wikus is exposed to a unique alien matter which turns him into the most sought after man on earth. With the ruthless and the power hungry at the South African political helm, all means are deployed to hunt him down. There is but one hiding place he can think of: back to District 9.

This is not just science-fiction film. District 9 lets you into its world through its network of websites (see below). The film is presented as but part of the story you are thrown into through the websites, allowing you to live the film before actually going in. On the internet, you get to hear mock interviews with people on the streets criticising or supporting the aliens and the apartheid system. It is an amusing (if bitter) satire to surf through.

Once you get to the cinema, you will find the film both unconventional in its form as in its matter, despite having the general blockbuster structure. The aliens and the people are not scared of one another (although shockingly uninformed!), but find themselves in an abusive cohabitation. In normal human society, relations between different groups are usually determined by who controls either the economic means (capital) or the army – in other words, the wealthy dominate the poor or the stronger dominate the weaker. Politics can be a big part of the problem, or it can even out the propensity to abuse to create a more harmonious ensemble.

Here, the government is clearly part of the problem, hoping to maximise its power no matter the cost. When these two civilisations -alien and human- meet, the aliens objectively seem to have the upper hand: they have superior technology (read: weaponry), yet they find themselves oppressed. The aliens are not even particularly noble creatures either, making it all the more peculiar for them to be a civilisation armed to the teeth, flying far from home and be pacifist all at the same time. If they were that peaceful, surely they could have travelled without arms, as explorers? And also, why were they travelling with so many of them if they did not have the intention to settle down somewhere? On earth, they suffer under South African rule, and even within their limited scope for movement, they do not seem intent on making something of their lives (they must have been organised to get where they are). These story lapses matter because the film has the pretence of being true, offering a possible world as our own.

To get to that reality-tv approach, the film, as the websites, film the action in a messy and grainy way to give you the impression of being there. But as opposed to stringently sticking to a shoulder camera realism approach, the film sometimes lets you look at the action “on tv”, sometimes through “security cameras” and sometimes as if you are crouched at a distance looking in. This variation keeps the excitement in the film, without loosing the realism element – it is easy to stay in character with the film.

With so much emphasis on this story being potentially true, we are constantly reminded of the racial Apartheid law which ruled the country for so long. If we were to draw a parallel, then the government and its agents are accused of being (having been?) downright evil, blinded by a thirst for power. The human race comes off so badly in word and deed, that we can barely recognise ourselves. But that, is perhaps rather to our credit.

www.district9.fr // www.d-9.com

Les Derniers jours du monde

19136432_w434_h_q80Les Derniers jours du monde

Jean-Marie Larrieu, Arnaud Larrieu :: France :: 2008 :: 2h10

The world is coming to an end and does not do so quietly. Amid the chaos, we follow Robinson (Mathieu Amalric) who has just separated from his bourgeois wife Chloé (Karin Viard). While everyone is running, Robinson is searching, desperate to spend another night with the fantasy of his life, the extravagant Laetitia (played by the Dominican model Omahyra Mota). As world, morality and life crumble around him, he lungs himself forward in the unknown to be able to hold her once more.

This is a very curious film, mixing genres like they do not exist in a permanent flirt with the absurd. Even before entry. Consider the title -Last Days of the World- together with the slogan -Finally free!- and you know that you are in for a controversial ride. But where to? What are we to be freed of? The film definitely takes you places: from a chic Biarritz to a mythical Pamplona and from a refugee-filled Toulouse to the nightlife of Taipei. This is a road-movie in its true sense. You never know where they are taking you and what will happen next and with who.

In that moral emptiness provoked by the chaos of the end of the world, the characters discover an egoism they never before had the chance to reveal. This egoism leads them to be pulled along by desire rather than boxing it in for a conjugal peace. The pain and disappointment of separation are softened by the sentiment that nothing matters anymore, as suicides and deaths go by as the first passengers to board a flight. But none the less, rating sexual experience or desire as higher than self-preservation or a developed love is strange. Perhaps the idea originally sounded credible that, if the world ends you would pursue your unfulfilled desires. But would you, honestly, not rather be with the people you love? In real life, the answer would be related to how honest your life and love is. But in the film, most of the characters around Robinson seem to have chosen death or are fleeing in a desperate rush of self-preservation, but we are not encouraged to care about them.

It is Robinson who is our subject of interest. Swimming against the current, near oblivious to the crumbling world around him, he feels free from the conventions which bound him. And then we come to a sublime moment. He is walking with Laetitia, in a deserted post-apocalyptic Paris, when she takes off her clothes. Because she can. He does the same thing and they run through the empty streets happy in their back-to-nature state. And then, for just a few seconds, we see them crossing a busy boulevard with people and cars, as if nothing had changed, as if we are still in the here and now. Was that their imagination of convention shining back at them, or is the whole world-ending actually in his mind?

The film is filled with symbolic imagery to discover, dreamy eroticism and original locations. It is a mysterious road movie through the absurd which is really best watched late at night, when reasoning powers are looser and the adventure of an unpredictable world can welcome you in. A daring piece of cinema.

www.lesderniersjoursdumonde.com