By: Henry J. Fromage –
This week is dedicated to the IFFR Rotterdam and Berlinale films I can just now publish my thoughts on- good slates both!
126. A Russian Winter
This documentary forms an interesting companion piece with My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow. Like that opus of a documentary, this one focuses on educated, artistic youth in Russia who found their world turned upside down by the increased repression since Putin’s invasion of Moscow. These people have already left, though, and now find themselves trying to make what’s hopefully a temporary life, but quite possibly much more, in unfamiliar places like Istanbul and Paris. A revealing exploration of the mindset of another of the many sets of victims of Putin’s aggression both within and outside of Russia’s borders. Two Beers.
127. Ivan & Hadoum
This complex Spanish film follows young trans man Ivan as he’s forced to choose between potentially providing a better life for his factory-owning family or the love he shares with Moroccan heritage employee and organizer Hadoum. It’s a film that both shows a more enlightened society and then how cracks can appear in the facade as soon as you get in the way of somebody’s money. Perceptive and quite well-made. Two Beers.
128. Papaya
I went ahead and gave this wordless Brazilian animated film a shot because I skipped out on Dandelion’s Odyssey last year and have heard by all accounts that film’s a good time. This one, though, is exactly as child-targeted as the artwork would lead you to suspect, even with a laudable environmental message underpinning it. I’m sure a toddler in your life would enjoy this story of a papaya seed exploring her environment and avoiding taking root, but it’s just not for me. Four Beers.
129. I Understand Your Displeasure
Another Berlinale-debuting film steeped in economic anxiety, this one follows cleaning company manager Heike as she hustles at a breakneck pace to keep this business on the rails and its customers and employees happy, but instead finds herself increasingly compromising her morals and in the end pissing just about everyone off instead- at least until she decides it’s time for a change. Ken Loach would assuredly be proud (although the filmmaking here induces far more stress – purposefully- than one of his social issues drama ever has). Two Beers.
130. Paradise
This Berlinale-debuting drama follows what at first seems disconnected stories about a young fisherman’s son in Ghana and a single mother and her teenage son in French-speaking Canada. It takes its time drawing these stories together, but when it does you’ll likely be surprised how- at least I was. This is a humanistic but not naive uniquely 21st Century story that avoids easy answers and develops your empathy for all of its characters. Two Beers.
131. A Family
This Dutch debut at Berlin tells the story of the end of a marriage from the eyes of the two young children at the center of it- a teen daughter and her slightly younger brother. It inventively stages scenes in chapters told from both of their respective points of view before bringing it all back together in a third and final coda, and doesn’t shy away from the psychic damage being pawns in a power struggle between their parents is leveling on them, nor the necessity of clinging to those familial structures you can in such a time- namely each other. Two Beers.
132. Home
This Danish/Serbian film follows a family from the latter who emigrates to the former from their bucolic but unsustainable farm in search of work. It’s told primarily from the eyes of the young daughter of the family as she grows up a bit too fast after she picks up the language more quickly and increasingly is relied upon to help her parents navigate this new land. It’s an at-times familiar but often quite perceptive immigrant story. Three Beers.
133. Conrad & Crab: Idiotic Gems
This shaggy, amiable French crime comedy follows long-time police partners to a small backwater town where a ring has been stolen from a local gem show. The crime’s pretty besides the point, though, as both pursue romantic prospects while one hustles to the best of his ability to solve the crime and get back to the big(ger) city police force while the other finds himself enjoying the slower rhythms of live there. It’s low key and funny enough, if not exactly the more overtly comedic film the title promises. Three Beers.
134. The River Train
This enigmatic magical realist film from Argentina follows a young boy who’s studying the Malambo folk dance, at least until his family all falls asleep at the dinner table one day and he hops a train to the big city, where he finds he’s probably better off in his small rural town after all. It’s a film where things kind of just happen, but strikingly shot and short which makes it all go down fine. Three Beers.
135. 2m2
This Turkish-Belgian documentary out of Rotterdam profiles one of the two Turkish funeral home directors in the country, a job made more complicated by the desires of the majority of the Turks who die there to be repatriated to their home nation to be buried. Its subject is a character, eager to share the details of his unique profession, charismatic in front of audiences large and small, and clearly beloved by his family, even if not so much by the extended relatives he left behind when moving to Belgium. He’s caught between worlds as so many are, but pretty well-adjusted regardless. Two Beers.
136. Special Unit – The First Murder
This Rotterdam film tells the story of the origin of Denmark’s Special Unit, purportedly analogous to the FBI, in the 1920s as they’re tasked with helping an insurance company investigate a possible arson and along the way uncover a series of murders to solve. The aesthetics and even plot details clearly drew at least a little inspiration from David Fincher, particularly Mindhunter, and while this doesn’t measure up to that gone-too-soon masterwork, it’ll do in a pinch. Three Beers.
137. Home Bitter Home
This Rotterdam film is actually five in one, as five different directors and actors were given the common theme of an artist trying to make a living in modern Beirut and then allowed to go and do what they would with it. The results were edited together into a single feature, one that plays a bit overlong, but remarkably coherently- this is no loosely related omnibus film but really one that takes into account the contemporary fears and preoccupations of an artistic class making their home in Lebanon. Three Beers.
138. Nina Roza
This Berlinale selection follows a Canadian-Bulgarian art expert as he travels back to his homeland for the first time since he left decades ago in order to evaluate the claims of a possible 8-year-old painting prodigy in a rural small town who’s caught attention on social media. This is a story about how you can’t come back home again, or at least not the way you were, as much as it is one of art world intrigue, but is effective in both modes. Two Beers.
139. Safe Exit
This Berlinale film is about a young Libyan man beaten down by the specter of never-ending conflict in the Middle East. As a boy, he and his father were kidnapped by ISIS, with his father getting executed for refusing to renounce his Coptic Christian faith, but himself being released for reasons he still doesn’t know why. He lives a nondescript life as an apartment security guard in Egypt now, until a woman with her own sad past (and just as sad present) asks him to allow her to stay in the building so she can attend appointments at a doctor’s office within it. This is a subtle and quiet film, at least until an Islamic fundamentalist hiding out with his mother provokes old fears and a more dramatic finale that I’d expected. Three Beers.
140. Narciso
This energetic Paraguayan film is set in the early 1950s, a time that heralded two conflicting new forces in its history and culture- the arrival of rock ‘n roll to its airwaves, and the start of what would end up being a 35-year military dictatorship. These shifts are reflected through the story of a closeted radio station director with a bit of an authoritarian bent of his own and the hot young man pushing to bring the latest musical sensation to the masses. This is a film that builds in its complexities as it goes, pulled between the poles of freedom and control, fear and desire. Two Beers.
141. Yellow Letters
The first text we see on screen informs us that our story is set in “Berlin as Ankara”, the reason for which becomes apparent before too long. This is a scathing criticism of an increasingly authoritarian regime in Turkey, one that’s been dominated by Recep Erdoğan only three fewer years since Putin has ruled Russia. A married stage director and actress snub the wrong politician on a photo, and end up in a Job-ian spiral of political persecution, which also isn’t exactly great for their marriage and family life. Enraging stuff. Two Beers.
