26.1.24

 Hop-in-ing at Sundance 2024

- The good, the bad-



5 nights and 5 days of constant filmic enthusiasm, up to our ears laughter and delish mountain food, were absolutely worthy the endless plane, train and automobile debauchery that lasted 22 hours+ one way only.

Addicted to Q and A's and side discussions on the creative process, I might have already forgotten the less impressive films that occupied my agenda at this year's SUNDANCE. I shall therefore mention the very few that stay with me this morning, 2 days before the awards fall on Park City, Utah.


ENO

A documentary trying to answer the fashionable question of:" Can AI make a good movie?". 

The answer is no. 

As a self-described glam-rocker, Brian ENO id definitely a genius and the father of synth pop. Instead of doing a typical biopic of his life, the filmmakers took 50 years of interviews  and hundreds of hours of footage, and created a software algorithm. 

The machine is piecing up together all this material in as such that we can watch a completely different movie at each screening! Cool concept! 

Yet, in reality, we get 90 minutes of an artist talking about his creative process, but missing a real beginning, middle or end. 

High concept, confusing and scrambled result!


FRIDA KAHLO. The Icon, The Artist.

A superb documentary about the icon with engrossing music, gorgeous animations and treatments. A must see. If you think you know Frida, you'll fall in love with her punk rock, feminist, creative spirit. 

Total star ahead of her time!


SKYWALKERS. A LOVE STORY.



This vertigo-inducing documentary follows 2 Russian climbers, Vanya and Angela, as they chase love and adrenaline by climbing skyscrapers and turning death and danger into art. 

This left me sweaty, on the edge of my seat.


SUJO.

Part of a very Latino Sundance edition this year, with myriads of Latino (female) stars and starlets, south American films and projects, this slow slow sloooow burn film follows a teenage Mexican boy. 

It is a coming of age film about sicarios, witches, refugee life, murder, robbery. And it's still on the limit of boring. Well done, but not enough to hold attention. 

I've seen this story done better.


THELMA.



Destined to be this year's "Little Miss Sunshine" breakout hit, this unexpected comedy stars the superb 94 year old June Squibb in this true story revenge tale with heart. 

The whole audience was laughing and applauding. Hm...


PRESENCE.



Steven Soderbergh's latest is a creepy voyeuristic haunted house movie that stands out as it is told by the perspective of the...phantom! Why is it there? What are his powers? 

With some AI masterful long shots and an impressive performance of Lucy Liu, this film imposes reflection, and had me wondering: who's watching over me???!!!...


HANDLING THE UNDEAD. 

- Handtering av odode-


Just imagine a zombie movie where the still living are surprised when their recently dead loved ones reanimate! Imagine the grief and the confusion they would feel! 

This very Norwegian movie treats this at a pace slower than a dead zombie. Hoping someone out there might like it as much as I did...


THE BATTLE FOR LAIKIPIA.




In central Kenya, the Laikipia plateau is home to wild animals and two co-existing enemies: the Europeans, who have been there for 4 or 5 generations, since the locals sold them the land, and the local tribes, who have been there since the beginning of time. 

This gorgeous and careful doc was shot over 7 years and it shows both sides of the story. It does not pick up a winner, but it just describes what happens when climate change forces the pastoral cow herders onto vast conservation land, in search of WATER. 

A story that has become more and more familiar to us, climate change! The one that impacts all our lives, cultures, resources, and ultimately safety.


A REAL PAIN.



I confess I am not usually a fan of Jesse Eisenberg. he is anxious, neurotic, overly busy. Not at aaalll like me!...As Director and Writer of this very good drama, though, he and his depressed cousin go on a tour of Poland to pay homage to their recently deceased Jewish grandmother.

Kieran Culkin is a screwed up free spirit agent of free chaos, yet they have a deep love for each other, as they both process grief in different ways. 

Culkin and Eisenberg shine and lead a fabulous supporting cast and heavy landscapes of Holocaust sites. Wow!


WAR GAME.

What happens when you get a room full of 30 year public servants together from the military, the White Hoiuse, legislature, and more on a 6 hours time hgame? That's what this uncomfortable doc about January the 6th explores. 

It's going to happen again, and the questions is - are the Americans ready for it? 

Or will decision makers push them into  Civil war? 

It's a razors edge.


SUNCOAST

Cute tragicomedy with one to watch Nicole Parker as teenage Doris and the freak de service Laura Linney as they cope with Doris' brother Max's pass away. Doris is kind and all she wants is to be a normal teenager. But her mother is single sighted on Max. 

Doris is challenged by her life passing by and not getting attention from her family members. Funny and indie, this is a lovely forgettable low budget movie from a first time director. 

There is nothing very special about it, but it's trying to be good, and it is just that. 

Fine and not bad.


Just as this 2024 Sundance edition...





by Giulia D







10.1.24

BAS LES MASQUES!


The French Riviera. A magical place, magnetic in its refined beauty, but which, behind its splendor, can hide disturbing aspects. Just as in his time the great Jean Vigo composed in  "À propos de Nice" (1930).



The Côte d'Azur - and, specifically, the city of Nice - has proven itself time and time again over the years as the perfect location for love stories and successful noirs (in full tradition with French cinema, after all). The last of the directors who, therefore, let himself be inspired by this paradise is Nicolas Bedos with Masquerade, presented out of competition at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

Masquerade – Thieves of Love, is an adrenaline-filled thriller, but also a singular love story, due to a constant and desperate need for affection, one that many of the protagonists have never known during their lives.

The story   is that of young Adrien (played by Pierre Niney), once a successful dancer, but who, due to an accident, had to leave his profession. The young man therefore lives on the French Riviera, at the expense of the charming but no longer young actress Martha (Isabelle Adjani). She is just happy to have him as a companion, despite knowing that he is not in love with her. Things suddenly change when, during a party at Martha's house, Adrien meets the beautiful Margot (Marine Vacth). Between them it will be love at first sight.

Adrien and Margot have much more in common than it initially seems: both, in order to survive, usually defraud people much older than them by embarking on unlikely relationships, where they inevitably end up feeling even more alone.


But what would happen if, together, they had to devise a plan to finally set them "free"?

Masquerade leads us by the hand into an increasingly intricate labyrinth in which there almost seems to be no way out. A labyrinth that Adrien and Margot built with their own hands and in which they themselves, at a certain point, no longer seem to orientate.

In staging the intrigues and (mis)adventures of the two young protagonists, Nicolas Bedos made use of an agile and dynamic direction, where the characters are put first and foremost in the foreground, each of them looking practically impeccable (even when they look in the mirror after an "involuntary" dip in the pool). Each of them is perfectly placed within a luxurious and glossy context, in which the location itself is treated as a magnetic co-protagonist.


The duo schemes, disguises themselves, steals, betrays. But in this square plot, it's every man for himself: the young lovers also lie to each other and when feelings seem to erupt, they are immediately showered by a thick layer of cynicism.
Men here are all “pigs”, “assholes”, fickle and violent. “We get older, we get bigger, you hit us and you leave,” summarizes Margot. Who, in a particularly disturbing scene, asks her lover to disfigure her. And provokes him with “Be a man!” Hit like a man! » until he complies... as if he then had no choice.

An alternating montage with very tight rhythms (well emphasized by an appropriate musical commentary), does the rest and makes this Masquerade - Thieves of Love become a very refined thriller, which almost reminds us of some of the "past glories" of François Ozon.

Let’s agree: although it is a successful and perfectly enjoyable product, this fourth feature film by Nicolas Bedos does not represent anything new within the contemporary cinematographic panorama.

But that's it.

In any case, in its practically impeccable packaging and with its robust and flawless script, the present Masquerade can give us two abundant hours of adrenaline-filled twists, all seasoned up with a welcome touch of irony and self-irony.

And this, as we know, is no small matter.

 


Original title: Masquerade

Director: Nicolas Bedos

Country/year: France / 2022

Duration: 134'

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Crime, Romance

Cast: Charles Berling, François Cluzet, Emmanuelle Devos, Marine Vacth, Pierre Niney, Isabelle Adjani,

Screenplay: Nicolas Bedos

Photography: Laurent Tangy

Editing: Clément Selitzki, Anny Danché

Music: Anne-Sophie Versnaeyen

Producer: Marie de Cenival, Kristina Zimmermann, Jérôme Seydoux,

Production company: Pathé, Les Films du Kiosque, Télé Monté Carlo (TMC), Umedia, Orange Studio, Hugar Prod, Fils Prod, Canal+, TF1 Films Production, Ciné+, TF1

Release date: 03/01/2023


By Giulia D

 

 

 

















19.9.23

Victory for Victoria

 

Victoria hold my heart

 

 Watching “Victoria” is like the equivalent of not blinking for two hours – that is, if you could. It’s a film propelled by a gimmick, which is to follow a handful of characters in the wee small hours of the morning in Berlin using one long handheld take – by long, I mean the entire film is void of editing. It’s understandably loose and technically impressive and, at first, that seems to be all there is to it. Although the drama the titular character gets sucked into becomes very intense very quickly, for the viewer it becomes an endurance test, one that’s satisfying albeit quite tiring. 


Director Sebastian Shipper, who also co-wrote and co-produced, started out acting in “Run Lola Run”, so maybe his approach stems from that film. Well, this film lacks the kinetic pacing and lively camerawork of that film and it unfortunately takes a while to drum up any interest in what is happening to the characters. It’s a viewing experience that provided me with a renewed appreciation for editing and its use in visual storytelling.

What I found most enthralling about this German film seen at the Berlinale,  it was that Victoria has that foreboding ambience that keeps giving off the vibe that something unfortunate is going to happen any moment now …

Shot in real time, filmed in one continuous take of 138 minutes, VICTORIA is made all the more believable by excellent performances.

The film covers a couple of hours in the life of Victoria (Laia Costa),  a Spanish young woman visiting Berlin, who is hit on one late night at a club by Sonne (Frederick Lau) and winds up carousing with the charming flirt and his friends, Boxer (Franz Rogowski), Blinker (Burak Yigit), and Fub (Max Mauff), as they walk around the desolate city, drinking and hanging out on a rooftop. Victoria gradually develops a connection with the kind and gracious Sonne, after they steal beer from a market and make their way to a restricted rooftop. Just as they are about to part their ways, the eager-to-please Victoria agrees to serve as a driver to what is unknowingly a bank heist after a drunken Fub passes out. The job is done in a hurry with an adrenaline high for all and then panic sets in once police search the area for four thieves, finding Victoria and her new ‘friends’ desperately fleeing into the early morning hours in order to survive.




The film opens with the doe-eyed Victoria solo-dancing in the nightclub with cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen (who lensed “Rams” which premiered at last month’s Chicago International Film Festival and last year’s Kim Basinger thriller “The 11th Hour”,  also shot in Germany) circling around her and following her from behind, as well as the Berlin boys she eventually hooks up. We’re underground, walking on streets, going up and down steps, inside a vehicle and in and out of a bank and a hotel. It may take some getting used to, but at no point will it make you queasy. If  anything, Shipper’s approach to his real-time storytelling is hypnotic, even if it did make my eyelids heavy during the overlong first hour.

The first half establishes the background of the characters. They stroll through the streets   and the roofs of a magic Berlin. But the second half is one nail-biting tense thriller that siderites the spectator!

The film is not just a story of crazy love at first sight, and clearly it's not just a story of an assault. It is a film about a young woman who, lost in the loneliness of her life, agrees to do everything so that, at least for the least amount of time, she can get out of the state in which her life is. In the state in which she was, no matter what or who would appear in front of her… as for anyone in a tunnel being swallowed by darkness, any light coming from their end is a sudden feeling of freedom.

And what an amazing and complex 138-minute one take!!!! What do I have to say about it? Just WOW!!!!

It took 3 attempts to film the movie. The take used for the final cut was the third take and completed from 4:30 AM to 7:00 AM on 27 April 2014 in the Kreuzberg and Mitte neighborhoods.


Its single take lasting 138 minutes might be the combined result of clever editing, seamless switching & careful masking but what impressed me most is that despite it being an impressive technical feat, it never for once overshadows the unfolding drama which remains the centerpiece throughout its runtime.


The one-take approach here is not as stylized as last year’s “Birdman” and is a completely different film since there is a seamless shot, untouched by CGI. The filmmaking method used is fascinating (and crazy), but it’s not what held my interest. What interested me more about “Victoria” was the story taking place all within one time frame. That aspect reminded me of Sleepless Night one of my favorite thrillers of recent years.

The actors are highly convincing in their given roles, their work gets better as the plot progresses, and it only helps in further uplifting the story.



On an overall scale, Victoria ends on a far better note than where it appeared to be heading during the first act, keeps its main focus on the titular character from beginning to end, and manages to be an emotionally rewarding experience with or without the one-shot gimmick. Devoting as much attention to its story as it invests in seamlessly pulling off its technically challenging production, this German thriller is one of the finest films of this year, and comes thoroughly recommended.


Most of the negative critiques of this film are about the technique, or that the single-shot challenge hides a shallow story. But I quite liked the two-hour long romance between the title character and Sonne, and the quick but tragic decisions they all make in the spur of the moment.



I kept expecting a darker, more disturbing film, sure that Victoria was heading toward sexual assault, which meant its trajectory surprised me. Young people make really dumb decisions all the time, which doesn't mean they're bad or evil, and "Victoria" embraces that without judgment.

Unspooling in real time, it feels like a day has passed between the nighttime streets and then the dawn light over Berlin. There's magic in that too, which for anybody who has stayed up clubbing or such can attest to, and "Victoria" captures it perfectly.


It seems cliché to say, but this is definitely a film where the camera itself feels like a character. In many ways, with such a visceral and exhilarating film, it feels like that character is the viewer. In the end, the audience may wind up being just as exhausted as Victoria. I certainly left the film with a “how’d they do that” feel. Despite the length taken to establish the characters in the first hour, the payoff of “Victoria” can be found in its rare and unique execution and its lead performance.

 



written by: Olivia Neergaard-Holm, Sebastian Schipper and Eike Frederik Schulz
produced by: Jan Dressler, Christiane Dressler and Sebastian Schipper
directed by: Sebastian Schipper
rated: unrated
runtime: 138 min.
U.S. release date: October 9, 2015 


by Giulia Dobre


19.8.23

Sarajevo mon Amour 2023



 in Sarajevo with “Safe Pace.”













From August 11 to 18, the capital of Bosnia & Herzegovina transformed into a city that never sleeps, traking over diverse venues, from cinemas to restaurants on the mountainside, and drawing guests from around the globe.

The Sarajevo Film Festival is up there with the A-listers of the continental landscape, albeit with less rigidity than its far western brothers. 

It has a tenor that is both an elite and a non-conformist affair, which suits me just fine. This was my eighth year, and I’ve grown totally familiar with its practices and host city. 


The 2023 edition was now an official throwback to the days prior to the plague – packed cinemas, open air and indoors, clubs and restaurants with lines around the block, DJs banging out windows, and surprising cultural nooks everywhere you turn, resulting in diversity amongst the richest in Europe. 

One of these nooks, the Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts hosted the impactful photography exhibition «The First Wartime Cinema Apollo,» which essentially kicked off my experience for the week to come.

A documentary about the close ties that grew between Sarajevo rock musicians and the Irish band U2 during the Bosnian capital's 1992-1995 siege has opened the city's annual film festival, with U2 members Bono and The Edge as star guests.

The Sarajevo Film Festival, which was founded towards the end of the Bosnian war by a group of film enthusiasts, has become southeastern Europe's largest such event, showcasing 235 films this year.




Elene Naveriani’s Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry” won the top prize, the Heart of Sarajevo Award for best feature film, Friday at the Sarajevo Film Festival. The Georgian film, in which a stoically independent woman in her late 40s experiences an existential awakening during an affair with a local deliveryman, also won the best actress prize for Ekaterine Chavleishvili’s performance.



The award for best director went to Ukraine’s Philip Sotnychenko for “La Palisiada,” and the best actor prize was picked up by Serbia’s Jovan Ginić — who won the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award at Cannes — for “Lost Country.” Serbian director Nemanja Vojinović’s “Bottlemen” took the documentary film award.

Director Kumjana Novakova was recognized with the Human Rights Award for "Silence of Reason," and director Gergo Somogyvari received the Special Jury Award for the film "Fairy Garden." Flora Anna Buda's film "27" claimed the short film category, while director Anna Gyimesi's "Falling" was awarded the top spot in the student film category. 

Turkey's public broadcaster, TRT, made a strong showing with three award-winning films: "Kanto," "Club Zero," "La Chimera," and "Blaga's Lessons."

"Kanto" was honored with the Cinelink Impact Award in the "Work in Progress" category."Kanto," directed by Ensar Altay, tells the story of an elderly woman who mysteriously disappears, yet her absence goes unnoticed. In total, 49 films across various categories, including feature films, short films, documentaries, and student films, vied for the prestigious "Heart of Sarajevo" award. 


The ceremony at Sarajevo’s historic National Theater took place beneath stormy skies, as thunder rumbled over the green hills that ring this picturesque Balkan city and arrivals did their best to strike poses on a red carpet still water-logged from evening rain showers.

 It was a fittingly sober close to a festival that played out against the backdrop of a grisly crime that has left this small Balkan nation reeling.


Last Friday, in the small northeastern town of Gradačac, a man livestreamed the murder of his former wife on Instagram before killing another man and his son, injuring a further three people before committing suicide. Officials later said some 12,000 people watched the slaying live, and the video received 126 likes.

Many at Friday’s closing ceremony wore orange ribbons pinned to their lapels that were handed out by the festival as a symbol of the fight against gender-based violence. 

Accepting the Human Rights Award for “Silence of Reason,” a haunting documentary about women who suffered sexual violence and torture in rape camps during the Bosnian War, director Kumjana Novakova said: “This film is really a poem for any woman who survived any kind of violence in the world…especially today for the women of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We are here, we survived and we can only make it better.”.


Of the screened films I've noticed a few that I shall probably remember in a dozen of years. Among those in competition, Sofia Exarchou’s Animal (2023) creates a sensation of acute unease, as most new Greek cinema does.  

Exarchou, who has also written the film, takes us to a facet of resort/hotel life that aims to evoke pleasure for the onlookers and co-participants. 

The protagonist, Kalia (Dimitra Vlagopoulou, in a Locarno festival-winning performance ), is one of the leading animateurs at a Greek hotel. She has been in the business of entertaining hotel guests for years.

The viewer senses the impact of each night, each performance in its hectic precarity, chipping away at her soul and emotional equilibrium. Kalia can recognize she is losing balance and holds on to her sanity by mercilessly inflicting another round of performance upon herself, even after a heavily draining one.

Exarchou is careful not to turn her film into a sob story. There is a fine balance between awareness of one’s agency, which may be miserable, and the liberatory impulse that knows no way out of the dark. 

Exarchou’s film occupies a strange, disconcerting space somewhere in between.

THe georgian highly awarded film never acts with high drama, only a rigid, stern admission of circumstances and long-term actions of both one and the other. But the vision signals something of a fissure in the life whose rhythms Etero (Eka Chavleishvili) felt she had reins on. It sharpens an acute recognition of the mundane texture of her life. Suddenly, everything acquires a clearer edge to them.

This sturdy woman has been running her store and pivoted her entire life wholly around it. The first thing that strikes the viewer is her having blocked off access to love and tenderness. But Naveriani shows that running a family, taking care of her brother and father all on her own, yet being subject to their immense stranglehold took a psychological toll on her. These two men haunt Etero, both of whom have controlled her life. She feels she can still hear their call for her. She strikes by being cold and bitter.


When she has a tryst with a man who delivers goods at her store, she experiences an awakening of sorts. 
A hunger is sparked. 
She wants more romance, but also stays very cautious about it. 
Etero is nearly vigilant in keeping her fervent anticipation from showing. 

The filmmaker builds the inner world through a keen sense of the languorous, sensuous, and rich attuning to a woman discovering a thickly concealed self after the sexual encounter. Deep within, she is desperately vulnerable and lets no one glimpse even a flash of that crumpled self she protects so fiercely.

But the film also packs humor and hilarity with a strong punch. A scene where a bunch of middle-aged women exchanges lewd jokes about Viagra and male virility enlivens the film’s wan mood and feels  refreshing in its sexual candor. 


Although several dramatic moments seem to be out of tune with the story we are following,  even if the actress chose a sometimes tiring Buster Keaton style,  the director Naveriani creates a protagonist who demonstrates a moving, winning receptiveness to the world, to new sensations, and the impulses of the young.

 The magnificent final shot brims with ambiguity, astonishingly modulated by Chavleishvili, and washes away most sins of this bizarre film.


All in all, it was an interesting and entertaining week. Though affected by the horrific, Instagram-streamed femicide that yielded a national day of mourning (ultimately causing the festival’s expansion into the 19th), Sarajevo remained itself through and through. 

And, in this day and age, sometimes that is the freshest breath of air there is.


Sarajevo, August 18th, 2023