The Minneapolis St Paul International Film Festival recently celebrated its 39th anniversary, and while it featured the usual heaping helpings of Slavic and Scandinavian-leaning fare, its ambitions went far beyond our fly-over land status quo. Extending its schedule by a week, MSPIFF 2011 was able to catapult its selection to over 200 films (50 more than has ever been programmed at the fest), with screenings spread across three weeks at the end of April. For the Festival dabbler, this provided plenty of options; for the fest obsessive, it was a challenge, a bit like entering into a no-holds-barred death-match—who would run out of steam first! As for the films themselves, many qualify as 'yesteryear's festival circuit news.' Nevertheless, the selection represents a smorgasbord of the best contemporary international cinema out there—and below you'll find a mere sampling of its variety.
My Joy / Sergei Loznitsa. A kindred, chaotic spirit of Huang Weikai’s “Disorder,” Sergei Loznitsa’s “My Joy” has a rigid Russian gloss that takes a traditional approach only if you watch a portion of the film’s random hopper of narratives. Although “My Joy” is made of two halves, those halves meander through various stories that each leave a lingering vapor trail to a much larger allegory. Corruption unapologetically blankets the film, trickling down from a history of authoritarianism and extreme conditions. Any kindness is met with an untrusting hostility that, at least within the gage of the film, is not unwarranted. But these vignettes, in their structural ambiguity, are anything but detached. Heavy with heartbreak and despair, each sequence is loaded with the components of profound social destruction and deranged malaise. “My Joy” opens with a mysterious corpse being covered in cement and ends with a shell-shocked murderer walking off into the darkness of night—although the literal connection is abstruse, the cyclical implication is crystal clear. The narrative is loosely structured around Georgy, a stolid truck driver, and the people he comes in contact with. Loznitsa and his cinematographer Oleg Mutu, who worked on “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu” and “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” tell much of their story through the complex and sardonic ‘joy’ on peoples’ faces. As the camera takes an impromptu walk through a market crowd we see it all—anger, frustration, fear, judgment, distrust, hate—and, in this case, for no logical reason, only to trail off after a man in an unexplained panic. The disjunctive anatomy of “My Joy” may be an aggravation to some, but I found it entirely euphoric with extremely detailed elements of subtle surprise that I could have never predicted in my wildest dreams.
The White Meadows / Mohammad Rasoulof. “The White Meadows,” a gorgeous overly symbolic film, is impossibly anchored to Mohammad Rasoulof’s current situation and Iran’s alarming politics. Rasoulof, along with Jafar Panahi, was arrested last year and sentenced to six years in prison. Although released on bail and yet to serve his sentence (affording him the ability to eek out a new film that premiered at Cannes), Rasoulof is nonetheless an artist under great constraint. “The White Meadows,” finished before he was arrested, doesn’t necessarily predict his conundrum as it does poetically contextualize the societal effects of the hard-line politics that led to the very public protests of 2009 and 2011. The film is an allegorical repository for the collective sorrows of the people of Iran, but not without inherent contradictions. Rahmut is an elderly man saddled with the duty of traveling via boat to satellite islands of tragedy. There he devotedly collects peoples’ tears, literally, and in doing so bares witness to humanity’s weaknesses and flaws. A woman is killed because she “humiliated men” with her beauty. An artist is tortured for painting the sea red. A man is sent on a suicide mission of taking confessions sealed up in jars down into a well. The entire film is very carefully calibrated into a myth that we understand with devastating clarity. I would criticize "The White Meadows" for being too overt if it weren’t for its otherworldly beauty, nearly pushing it into science fiction. The placid salty waters of Lake Urmia, juxtaposed with its encrusted white islands and coasts, may as well be on another planet—and it's within these geographical abstractions that Rasoulof constructs his striking images. One of the most breathtaking is a floating graveyard where logs, tied to discarded bodies, mark the unnamed sacrifices. “The White Meadows” is an insurmountable work given the circumstances, because even though many of us get to see this film in a bubble, it certainly wasn’t made that way.
A Useful Life / Federico Veiroj. Frederico Veiroj’s clever examination of cinephilia focuses on Jorge, an intrepid yet placid employee at the dying Cinemateca Uruguay in Montevideo. The first half of the film spies on Jorge as he carries out the mundane tasks at the Cinemateca: checking seats in the auditorium one by one, eating his dinner while watching a film in the projection booth, recording the dry pre-show announcement (on a cassette tape no less), attending a meeting on the financial priorities of the organization and then smoothly slipping on his jacket and tie to work the sparse crowd. But behind the backdrop of the preparations for a Manoel de Oliveira retrospective, it's announced that there are no more funds for “cultural institutions that are not profitable.” So begins Jorge’s exploration of the sublime intellectual and emotional joy of film through the pain of a pink slip. He empties his desk into his bag, has a good cry on the bus, calls his father to tell him he will be late—because he “has things to do”—and sets out on an adventure to an appropriated cinematic score. He gets his haircut and ditches his bag like the MacGuffin that never was, throws coins into a fountain, masquerades as a college professor, does a dance like Fred Astaire on some stairs and asks a woman out on a date. The ordinary becomes a touch more dramatic, and Jorge discovers an ability to respond viscerally to a life that had become laden with cerebral drudgery. Jorge’s work at the Cinemateca may be a lamentation of independent and repertory film exhibition, but it is also a tribute to the working stiff behind the dedicated venues that still survive around the world. Film critic Jorge Jellinek plays Jorge with a wry perfection and little affectation. “A Useful Life” thoughtfully pokes fun at those of us who spend too much time analyzing life’s theatrical imitation without actually experiencing it. But it never goes so far as to insinuate we need to leave the movies behind. Jorge’s idea of a date is, after all, going to the movies.
Au Revoir Taipei / Arvin Chen. A rom-com lite by way of Taiwan, Arvin Chen’s debut is an effortless breath of fresh air that takes the chaos of Scorsese’s “After Hours” and smoothes it out into a sweet coming-of-age love story. As the film opens, a young man's girlfriend is getting into a taxi and leaving for Paris. Kai (Jack Yao) spends his subsequent lonely days helping his parents at their food stall, hanging out in a bookstore studying French, and leaving unreturned voicemail messages to his amour in Paris. When she finally does return his call, it's to tell him the obvious: she's moved on. In a fit of youthful resolve, Kai seeks out local gangster Brother Bao, a regular at his family’s food stall, for the funds to go to Paris himself. Brother Bao asks Kai for a favor in exchange for the funds, tongue-in-cheek “Godfather” style, setting in motion a citywide caper involving two vapid cops, four real estate ruffians in orange suits, Kai, his amiable friend Gao, and Susie (Amber Kuo), a young woman from the bookstore who has a soft spot for Kai. With nearly one foot on the plane to Paris to win over an unresponsive girlfriend, Kai embarks on an overnight adventure that will eventually change his perspective on what is important in his life. “Au Revoir Taipei” has an infectious charm that works on you the entire 85 minutes and seals it with a grin-inducing finale. Chen never overplays his hand with the revolving door of eclectic but refreshingly familiar personalities. At various points in the film, characters are seen watching a stereotypical over-the-top television drama. Chen, probably realizing that his film has many of the same components of a soap opera, throws the comparison out there as if to say, 'Don’t worry—I won’t go this far.' Suffice it to say, the romantic and criminal themes of “Au Revoir Taipei” are far more modest and all the more irresistible.
Beginners / Mike Mills. Throw Ewan McGregor, Mélanie Laurent, Christopher Plummer and an adorable talking Jack Russell Terrier into a Mike Mills rom-com and you get exactly what you might expect: effortless entertainment. Mills fashions a premise, partially autobiographical, and a backdrop for the undemanding charisma of this trio of actors. Oliver (McGregor) is trying to come to terms with the recent death of his father, Hal (Plummer), who came out of the closet late in life, both in terms of his sexuality and his repressed personality. Through a series of flashbacks, we bare witness to Oliver’s cool parental upbringing under a marriage of convenience and the eventual joy his father finds through true companionship. Oliver is less concerned with his father’s homosexuality than distilling his memories of a man he barely knew into a rational narrative. As much as his father was willing to eventually jump into life head first, Oliver’s own verve is stymied by fear and uncertainty probably from what he saw between his mother and father. And then he meets Anna (Laurent) who seems to have the potential to pull him out of his funk and put an end to his pattern of lost girlfriends. Mills taps into his collage and music video sensibilities and punctuates his free flowing story of boy-meets-girl with creative deviations that allow “Beginners” to evade the type of apathy I usually feel for such films. McGregor and Laurent are so adorable you want them to be your girlfriend and boyfriend. The inevitable complication to the couples’ complications feels obligatory and kicks the magic down a notch, but that is probably all for the best. Mills doesn’t exactly dish out the perfect ending that the film seems to promise, and instead allows us to dangle a little bit with the anxiety of possibility—true to a world hesitant toward perfection.
Cracks / Jordan Scott. Having a pedigree in film probably never hurts when trying to get a movie made, but it doesn’t tend to help critical assessment. Those two sides of the coin are hugely evident in “Cracks,” the debut feature of Jordan Scott, daughter of Sir Ridley. The visual achievements of this assured first feature are sure to be handed to a seasoned crew that worked on the film, and the narrative failures are sure to be loaded directly onto Scott’s own shoulders. Based on the novel by Sheila Kohler, “Cracks” has a setting—a girl’s school in 1934 England—that nearly predefines its trajectory. The hierarchy of this feminine microcosm is established when we're introduced to the teen tyrant, Di (Juno Temple). Di is not only the leader in her class, but the pet of their sultry and worldly teacher, Miss G (Eva Green). Miss G represents life beyond the cloistered walls of their school, with her exotic tales and uninhibited sexuality. But the apple cart is upset when a new student arrives from Spain, and Miss G immediately takes a shine to her. Jealousy and betrayal mixed with forbidden ‘lustful thoughts’ run amuck while coyly hiding a mystery that is never fully revealed. The beauty of the landscape’s pallor wears off as soon as the story starts to unravel and dissolve into device. Both the sophomoric psychology and deliberate storytelling stretch the 104 minutes into an eternity. The young actors cast as the devilish girls do a great job, but Eva Green feels out of place, as does her convoluted character. These girls might be able to recite Shelley at the drop of a hat or do a perfect dive into a cold lake when called upon, but it is simply not enough to save this film from its drawn-out and anti-climatic ending.
Curling / Denis Côté. “Curling,” despite its difficult nature, is bound to play better in a place like Minnesota than more urban international haunts, and director Denis Côté, in attendance at MSPIFF, admitted as much. First, Minnesotans know what curling is and understand the joke of this innocuous sport. And second, we recognize the inhospitable landscape and prevailing isolation. A teenage girl and her father make their way home on foot on a barren road, under a grey sky barely discernible from the snow covered ground, in a blistering wind that causes them to pull their hoods tightly around their faces. A police car pulls up and an officer gets out, first to stare at them, but eventually to ask them what they're doing. Although the officer offers them a ride, the exchange seems more like a standoff with little movement and long silences in the most extreme weather conditions. This early sequence is a surreal harbinger in “Curling” that channels some of Roy Andersson’s dark absurdity before eventually chasing after a social commentary that has some kinship with Giorgos Lanthimos’s “Dogtooth.” (In fact, “Curling” produces a sequence set to Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now” that nearly topples the uncomfortable dancing scene in “Dogtooth.”) Jean-François (Emmanuel Bilodeau) plays the overprotective father of Julyvonne (real life daughter Philomène Bilodeau) and has subconsciously transferred his sociopathic tendencies into ill-advised parenting. Quarantined to her home except for special trips to prison to visit her mother or to the bowling alley where her father works, Julyvonne is an unsocialized and maladjusted girl facing a very peculiar adulthood. Côté has crafted a disturbing family portrait with drool humor and incidental violence, stitched together with nearly latent oppression. Just as a mysterious tiger becomes a surreal symbol for Julyvonne’s precarious future, the group sport of curling represents a glimmer of hope for the lonely and paranoid Jean-François. The barren landscape is a perfect fit for the abstractions that lie beneath the surface narrative—mostly in the form of death, both brutal and serene. “Curling” teeters on a chasm of tragedy with measured control, never caving in to obvious moral assessment. And Bilodeau’s stark performance enables our sympathy and our repulsion without blatantly asking for either. A somber elegy at the end of the world, “Curling” was one of the best films I saw at MSPIFF this year.
Filme Socialisme / Jean-Luc Godard. Although I firmly believe Jean-Luc Godard is not done doling out filmic conundrums, if he had to cap off his career with an opus, I can’t imagine it being more magnanimous than “Film Socialisme,” an erudite essay to be debated and dissected for years to come. Four years in the making, it’s an overwhelming grab-bag of ideas spoken, for all intents and purposes, visually. Only partially subtitled, the direct meaning of the spoken words is not the main concern of Godard, but rather a vernacular created on the periphery. But the difficulty lies in the very specific, if not somewhat exclusive, themes that the film drives after. Or seems to drive after. Where do we connect? Where do I connect with Godard? And how did this romanticized global village become such a convoluted mess? “Film Socialisme” is divided into three parts: the first a microcosm on a cruise ship, the second a farcical standoff between the press and a family who runs a gas station, and lastly a meta-montage swirling with images and script that left my poor literal mind in the dust. After quelling us with a multitude of languages, it is only fitting that its lasting question—Quo Vadis Europa?—be in the mother of all Western tongues, Latin. Those who have seen “Notre musique” and “Historie(s) du cinema” will be well aware of the rigorous intellectual trial that ‘Socialisme’ has in store. It’s as scrappy as anything Godard has made (and by this I mean feisty, not tattered.) Godard uses the digital age for its full appropriative effect with clips of other films and footage that feel like surveillance, and while the narrative arch is elusive, its components move at a fair clip. Like much of today’s contemporary art, “Film Socialisme” teases out concepts with playful ease but with the gravest of intents. This sort of bravado, relegated to so-called "high art," rarely finds its way into such a high profile feature film, and for me this is a triumph. Whether I can meet the challenge of this film is, however, still in question. “Film Socialisme” was a cavalier choice among the safe programming at MSPIFF, and, recently picked up by Kino for US distribution, another jewel on the crowned legacy left by Donald Krim.
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Feature by:
Kathie Smith
