Month: November 2019

Dead Volume (Volume Morto)

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Seven-year-old Gustavo has been acting weird during his English lessons. He does not speak at all, despite his lips moving. His colleagues have therefore nicknamed him “dead volume”. His drawings include a mysterious Japanese character, and his illustrations of mum and dad suggest there’s something wrong at home. Perhaps domestic violence? Otherwise, Gustavo is intelligent and gregarious. One evening, his seemingly sweet and doting teacher (Fernanda Vasconcellos) invites his parents (Julia Rabello and Daniel Infantini) for a discussion after everyone else has left the school and the building is seemingly empty.

Virtually the entire film takes place inside the classroom, packed with desks, books, children’s drawings stuck to the blackboard. Dead Volume would work as a theatre play, with just one setting and four characters (teacher, mother, father and a fourth one who I cannot reveal without spoiling the story; the boy himself is never seen). Both parents and the teacher seem genuinely concerned about the well-being of the child, an they suspect that the other side is hiding something from them. A real teacher versus parents battles ensues. Tension escalates and the three people resort to extreme measures in order to elicit information from the other side. Viewers keep guessing who is being dishonest.

Sadly, it isn’t just the school that is primary. The film script is on a very similar level. It starts out as an interesting psychological drama (with a very convincing Vasconcellos), but it quickly slips into a pool of random narrative devices. The plot is entirely absurd and incoherent, blending so many artifices that I’m never entirely sure where it’s trying to get. There is a drawing of a sexual nature, there are flavours of horror (the drawings of the mysterious Japanese character are rather creepy), an altercation on whatsapp, talks of bullying, fainting, a very strange telephone conversation and even violence. It gets so confusing that I lost interest for the final closure halfway through the 77-minute minute. The ending, perhaps unsurprisingly, is also silly and pointless.

Dead Volume is showing in Competition at the 23rd Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. I doubt it will snatch any major prizes.

Man from Beirut

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This German crime thriller may as well be described as a neo-noir. It has all the ingredients of the genre: a low budget (with no public funding), black and white footage, abundant interplay of light, numerous and murderous twists and even a blond femme fatale sporting a black wig. It’s an indie production targeted at a niche audience. It won’t make it big outside Germany.

Bulky and heavily bearded Momo (played by Kida Khodr Ramadan, who was indeed born in Beirut) is a skilled Lebanese hitman living in Berlin. He’s extremely nimble and accurate. Despite being sightless, he always kills his victims with surprising precision. One day, he is commissioned to murder three people inside a flat. He fatally shoots two adults, but does not manage to pull the trigger on a young girl called Junah (played by his very own daughter Dunya Ramadan).

Momo and Junah bond. He treats the child with a type of kindness and affection that he does not bestow upon adults. He does his utmost to evade both his associates (who wish to eliminate Junah) and the authorities. A blonde woman called Jessica is tasked with tracking down the missing child, and she is prepared to resort to very unorthodox procedures (including faking a motorbike accident) in order to achieve her goal.

There are various problems with The Man from Beirut. The script is disjointed. Many characters are entirely redundant (such as the two men in the car crash). Junah’s character isn’t credible: she is completely unfazed by successive deaths in front of her very eyes (quite unusual for a child). And her chemistry with Momo is rather lukewarm (despite the fact that the actor is her real father). The connection with Lebanon is also a little clumsy. Momo wants to escape to his home nation with Junah. His desire is illustrated by successive images of the Mediterranean country’s coast, including underwater wave shots. It feels a little random and unimaginative. Plus the violence in the very last sequence is excessive and gratuitous. All in all, a misfire.

Man from Beirut is showing in Competition at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

In the Strange Pursuit of Laura Durand

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Antonis (Makis Papadimitrou) and Christos (Michalis Sarantis) share a small flat in Athens, and they also work together as musicians. They are both infatuated with a soft porn star from the 1990s called Laura Durand. They watch her videos repeatedly, until one day a fragment magically appears in the middle of the footage. In it, Laura is desperately crying for help. The two friends immediately embark on an incredible adventure is search of the elusive female.

They follow a number of clues and tips, going from one surprising corner to the next. A very unusual tour of Greece. At first, they interact with a group of hippies. Christos engages with a beautiful woman called “Sunbeam”, the first one he has had sex with in years. Next they visit an old lady in a large house, and then a very peculiar hermit. But are those just red herrings or are they on the right track? Will they encounter and rescue their much beloved muse? Or is she no more a figment of the prolific imagination of two young men obsessed with music and porn?

A different cinematic device is used for each step of their journey, ranging from plush 1970s aesthetics to split screens, black and white, pixelated, fuzzy and grainy images. As in an an old television set. A nostalgic tribute to a bygone era, to experimental film and also to music videos. The sound score is pervasive. Jaunty tunes bolster the narrative throughout, and keep your adrenaline pumping . Think of James Bond meets Boogie Nights (PT Anderson, 1998) and you are halfway there.

Dimitris Bavellas’s second feature film is a feelgood comedy aimed at young adults, particularly males. It’s likely to please teenagers, too. It is, as the film title suggests, a strange movie. It blends so many filmic devices that it becomes a little jumbled up. Sometimes the tricks (such as the constant changes of texture) feel gratuitous. Plus there are some indecipherable intertitles, and I’m not sure of their purpose. There’s also an element of cancer and constant talks of a biopsy, but I could never work out how this ties up to the story, neither narratively nor allegorically. Perhaps a little too ambitious, but still worth a viewing.

In the Strange Pursuit of Laura Durand has just premiered in Competition at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Kontora

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Our story takes place in an unidentified small town somewhere in modern Japan. It deals with the very Japanese topic of WW2 wounds and secrets, in a closely-knit family unused to changes and external influences. You’d be forgiven for thinking this was a a Shohei Imamura or a Nagisa Oshima movie. In reality, it was directed by Indian helmer Anshul Chauhan, and photographed by Estonian cinematographer Maxim Golomidov.

The plot is very simple and straightforward. A young girl lives called Sora (Wan Marui) with her father and grandfather, and one day the latter passes away. Her father’s cousin and his daughter are about the only company that they have, but they also have their differences. Life is uneventful, and so Sora dreams of moving away to Tokyo in search of challenges and excitement. Then two very unusual and apparently unrelated events take place, turning their lives upside down.

Firstly, Sora finds a diary next to her grandfather’s dead body, with writings and drawings of his experience during WW2. It says that he buried his “metal arm” in the forest, and there are some vague instructions of how to find it. Sora sets herself on a mission to find the unusual item. This exciting quest overshadows her desire to move to the nations’ capital.

Secondly, Sora’s father runs over a backward-walking homeless man while drunk-driving. Sora welcomes the hapless into their household, despite her father’s protests. The man does not talk, and nobody knows where he comes from and why he walks backwards. The relationship between the doting Sora and her selfish father begins to collapse as they are unable to agree on the fate of their unusual guest.

Most of this 145-minute purposely languid and meditative movie is built upon these two plot devices. It keeps viewers guessing up until the very end whether the two events are connected. Is the backward-walking man some sort of reincarnation of the late grandfather? Is his backward-walking a war-related gesture? Is he a ghost? Perhaps a sombre presage of something wicked about to happen? Or does he simply have mental health issues? A couple of sudden outbursts suggest that there are more things between heaven and Earth. Presumably, there are references to Japanese culture that I could not grasp.

Entirely shot in black and white, with auspicious actors and a convincing script, Kontora deftly blends dreamy images with very earthly matters. It’s interesting enough to watch, even if it could do with a shorter duration (maybe an hour less). This is ne for the silver screen. It might get a little soporific on a small screen in your lounge.

Kontora is showing in Competition at the 23rd Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, which is taking place right now.

Golden Voices

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It’s 1990. Sicty-two-year-old Raya (Maria Belkin) and her husband Victor (Vladimir Friedman) have just migrated to Israel, leaving behind their home nation and decades of dubbing foreign films into Russian for Soviet audiences. They have to grapple with a number of novel challenges: finding a job, paying rent, filling out paperwork and living with the constant fear of a chemical attack (it was of the year the First Gulf War). They also have to learn Hebrew from scratch, a language entirely foreign to the, despite their Jewish heritage.

Due to her impressive vocal skills – she can switch from one voice to another effortlessly – Raya quickly lands a well-paid job as a… telephone sex worker. She must entertain and tickle the libido of Sergey, Serge and many other lonely males at the other end of the line. Her husband – who’s blithely unaware of the real nature of his wife’s new occupation – also leverages his past work experiences. He finds work as a dubber in the video shop catering for Russian speakers. The trade is entirely illegal. Videos are captured with a hidden camera inside in the movie theatre, and Victor has to assist on every step of the operation (not just the dubbing bit).

These various pressures and changes take their toll on Raya and Victor’s marriage, and their once solid relationship begins to collapse. A brand new love grows in the most unlikely of places, but could it also blossom? Golden Voices has some ingredients an old-age romcom, yet it’s never mawkish and implausible. In fact, it’s perfectly relatable and credible – whatever your age, religion and nationality. Belkin is beyond magnificent with her large pearly eyes and expressive lips. She combines an exuberant personality with a quiet and yet assertive joie-de-vivre. She’s delicious to watch. Friedman is also very convincing as the devoted husband and cinephile.

Raya is seeking a sense of freshness and adventure, some sort of personal rebirth. She can act and sound 22 years of age whenever she wishes. There’s a real sense of tenderness in her strength. She is a fascinating artist and human being.

This 88-minute-long Israeli movie is a also a nostalgic tribute to the seventh art. Fellini is repeatedly referenced through the movie, particularly 8 1/2 (1962) and The Voice of the Moon, which was in cinemas in the year our story takes place. The movie theatre is a place for redemption and reconciliation, the final sequence reveals. Golden Voices is also a hilarious movie. The awkward sex phone sequences will have your bursting out with laughter. The movie even manages to find both humour and warmth in a possible chemical attack.

Director Evgeny Ruman and cinematographer Ziv Berkovich joined forces in order to write the fascinating screenplay based on their very own childhood experiences upon arriving in Israel in the year of 1990. Their parents worked as dubbers in the Soviet Union prior to immigration.

Golden Voices has just premiered in Competition at the 23rd Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. A strong contender for the event’s top prize. Our editor Victor Fraga is covering the event live, as a special guest.

Girl with no Mouth (Peri)

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In his third feature film, Turkish director Can Evrenol moved away from adult horror into partially new territory: children’s horror/fantasy. Peri (Denizhan Akbaba) lives with her father in a house in the woods. She has no mouth, literally. She drinks liquid through her nose and injects solids through a tube attached to her stomach. One day, her uncle Kemal shows uninvited and kills her father and dog. Peri runs into the woods and joins a group of three boys around her age, who call themselves “the Pirates”.

Kemal works for “the Corporation”, an elusive organisation that’s somehow responsible for the apocalypse that has befallen the region. We never learn the details of what happened, yet we do know that Kemal is intent on killing his niece and the other three boys. The four children were born with deformities. One of boys has no eyes, the other has no ears and third one has no nose. They rely on each other for the senses that they do not possess. For example, the no-eyed boy depends on others for vision. Peri relies on her friends for speech. And so on. The foursome must stick together in order to survive.

They come across abandoned buildings and vehicles, in what looks like a civilisation nearing its extinction. They must keep on moving in order to evade Kemal and his thugs, and also in search of food. They enter a large mansion and come across a rifle-toting formidable old lady. Maybe she isn’t as menacing as she seems. Could she become some sort of motherly figure and join them on their crusade against their evil hunters?

Not all is doom and gloom. There are touching elements of solidarity and an important message of tolerance, reminding children that they must support each other despite their differences. These differences are not a handicap. In fact, they complement each other. And no disability makes you a human being of lesser value.

The Girl with no mouth is indeed constructed as a children’s movie. The Manichæan battle of good versus bad, with a very simplified plot. The didactic message of tolerance and diversity. A child’s adventure: pirate clothes, slingshots and swords. And as such it’s more likely to rivet and enthral little human beings. Those under 12 years of age will likely holler as our four juvenile heroes contend with the malevolent adults attempting to kill them. Grown-ups less so, even if the movie is still enjoyable enough to watch.

Girl with no Mouth has just premiered in Competition at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. A very unusual selection, normally reserved for specialist festivals and festival strands.

Coming Home Again

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This is no one’s idea of a happy return. Chang-rae (Justin Chon) has a promising job and career in New York. His mother regrets that he left and hardly visits his parents in San Francisco. The family migrated from Korea when our protagonist/scriptwriter was just three years old. One day the young and bright writer does return, but there are hardly reasons to celebrate. His mother is dying with stomach cancer. The chemotherapy isn’t working and the tumour is quickly methastasising. Chang-rae wishes to bond with his still young and good-looking mother. They have to bond mostly through pain, as there is virtually no joy in terminal cancer.

The latest movie by 70-year-old Hong Kong-American writer Wayne Wang zigzags back in time to before and after his mother was diagnosed with cancer. The healthy and vibrant female is contrasted with her bald and ailing version, as she experiences the symptoms of very intense chemotherapy. Chang-rae notes that the disease is particularly cruel because it prevents her from eating. Food is central not just to Korean cinema, but also to Korean culture as a whole. There is abundant kimchi, yache twigim and noddles throughout the film. Food of a token of love. We learn that mother used to make delicious kalbi, and she taught her son that “the meat should always stay attached to the bone”. Her teaching acquires a tragic symbolism as she succumbs to the fatal disease.

In the film’s most powerful sequence, Chang-rae attempts to make kalbi on New Year’s eve for his mother, father and sister. At this stage, mother has requested that all chemotherapy should stop and she should receive palliative care instead. Chang-rae and his sister struggle to acquiesce the impending death. Mother is far more accepting of her fate. It becomes clear that wanting to protect and hang on to the loved ones is sometimes a gesture of selfishness. Her children’s altruistic yet erratic behaviour only serves to increase her pain.

We also learn about the moment mother first experienced symptoms of cancer, during a car journey with her husband. He stopped the vehicle so that she could throw up. Despite not being present, that event became fossilised in Chang-rae’s mind. He shudders with fear and raises a number of questions every time he sees two people huddled up in a car parked on the roadside. Could one of these people be about to experience the same fate as his mother? A very accurate depiction of trauma by proxy.

Based on an essay by Korean-American novelist Chang-rae Lee himself, Coming Home Again is cinema at its most raw personal. Plus a fine example of cinema as a healing tool, for a wound that Chang-rae left open for a long time. This is particularly difficult viewing for me because losing my mother – who also lives very far away and has battled with cancer – is my very greatest fear in life. Coming Home Again reminded me of the unbreakable bond between mother and son, and of unchallengeable nature of impermanence. A must-see.

Coming Home Again just premiered in Competition at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, which is taking place right now.

Gutterbee

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Two outcasts join forces in order to set up a German restaurant in the fictional Midwestern town of Gutterbee, a shabby cowboy and white supremacist paradise. Mike McCold (Antony Starr) is a local who has just been released from the “slammer” (prison), and is now seeking redemption from his past crimes through an honest trade, while the German immigrant Edward Hofler (played by iconic Scottish actor Ewen Bremner, who does come across as über German) wants Americans to experience his culture, particularly his sausages and the Bavarian Schuhplattler (slap dance).

The two unlikely business partners have to contend with the highly xenophobic and flamboyantly named Jimmy Jerry Lee Jones Jr. (W. Earl Brown), a local singer, cowboy and petty gangster with a profound dislike for anything vaguely un-American. He has previously tortured and expelled a Chinese man called Chan from the community (with a helping hand from Mike, who ended taking the blame and the custodial sentence). He despises his son Hank because he believes that he’s a homosexual. Mike attempts to convince his former associate that the German restaurant may not be a bad idea after all. He’s nearly persuaded once Mike proposes a white Bavarian (sausage) should be made bigger and called a White American instead. The social satire is silly and puerile. Never caustic, stinging and dry.

The film is peppered with peculiar characters. They include Sheriff TV Brown, who is obsessed with a receding hairline, the enthusiastic cabaret/local joint owner Luke Kenneth Hosewall, and so on. There is also a pretty lady called Sue with a prosthetic leg (which Edward loves varnishing, alongside his furniture). She’s the only prominent female character, in this grotesquely white and masculine world. A film guaranteed not to pass the Bechdel test.

This is the second feature film by Ulrich Thomsen, after In Embryo (2016). Both films are set in the US. The 36-year-old actor-turned-director is neither American nor German, but Danish instead. He does, however, knows what it feels to be a foreigner in the Land of the Free, having previously worked as pizza delivery boy on American soil.

Gutterbee feels too long at just 107 minutes. That’s because the movie script, which was also penned by Thomsen, is highly convoluted. It tries too hard to extract humour from every single sequence, every single minute. And that gets tiring. Plus the story is broken down into incomprehensibly-titled chapters (I’m still not sure whether that was deliberate). The jokes about sausage are hackneyed and repetitive, while the references to German culture are too esoteric. There are multiple attempts at highbrow slapstick, such as in the slap dance, but it just comes out as infantile and not funny at all. At best, Gutterbee is a charming feelgood comedy, and it might occasionally make you smile. But it won’t make you burst out laughing.

Gutterbee just saw its world premieres at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, as part of the event’s official Competition.

Muscle

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This is a movie packed with a toxic mixture of testosterone and steroids. Simon (Cavan Clerkin) works in a call centre cold phoning prospective clients in search of their credit card number. He has a pretty partner and stable home, yet monotony seems to have taken its toll on him. His small beer belly epitomises both his passivity and frustration. So he joins the local gym, in an attempt to inject some vim and vigour into his life.

The highly intrusive and aggressive personal trainer Terry (Fairbrass) approaches Simon almost immediately, telling him that he’ll quickly cripple himself if doesn’t learn how to lifts weights properly. The 55-year old Eastenders and Rise of the Footsoldier star here plays the character he knows best: the tough guy/manipulative conman. The inexperienced Simon is easily persuaded, and soon takes up Terry’s “services”. He’s virtually forced to take steroids, making him fickle, irritable and violent. As a consequence, his partners simply packs up and leaves, and he also loses his office job.

Gradually, Terry takes control of virtually every aspect of Simon’s life, assisting in every step of his personal collapse and deconstruction. He eventually moves in, bringing a prostitute friend along. The once respectable office employee has now become an informal worker reliant on his personal trainer. The once clean and civilised flat has now turned into a party and drug den, where orgies are routinely held.

Terry is highly volatile and outburst-prone. Expletive-laden rants and threats are the norm. He does not allow Simon to make decisions. Fairbrass’s character represents a grotesque type of hyper-masculinity that’s incompatible with modern conviviality. Yet he’s strangely enticing. Even seductive. Perhaps this bromance could develop into something else. Something sexual? Something lethal? Or could this erratic lifestyle slip into criminality?

This 109-minute black and white thriller has enough twists and turns to keep you guessing the nature of Terry’s elusive personality and also of his relationship to Simon up until the very end. Plus the photography of the barren and lifeless suburbs and industrial estates of Newcastle makes for gripping viewing. This is a movie satisfactory enough for fans of British thrillers/neo-noir. But that’s about it. It has little to offer in terms of innovation, and mostly sticks to trite old formulas.

Muscle showed in Competition at the 23rd Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. It’s out on BFI Player on Monday, September 4th (2023). On Sky and NOW in June. On most VoD platforms from July

Malpaso

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[dropca]T[/dropcap]he short opening sequences shows a dead mother following child birth. The two newborn babies are crying on a makeshift cot next to her, their umbilical chords still attached to them. The bed is soaked in blood. Yet you can’t see the vibrant red because Malpaso is a black and white movie. This is a film where the contrast between black and white acquires an entirely different dimension. Here black and white complement each other, like the yin and yang.

The two orphans, whose father is never identified, are brought up by their grandfather. They have a remarkable difference. Candido (Ariel Diaz) is albino, while Braulio (Luis Bryan Mesa) is very black. They are told that a man fell in love with both the moon and the night. Candido is the child of the moon, while Braulio is the child of the night. They live mostly secluded in a small shack until the age of 15, when their grandfather passes away and their home catches on fire. They have to move to the nearby town of Malpaso and face a hostile hitherto environment unbeknownst to them.

Malpaso is a hustling and bustling commercial town in the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Both Spanish and French Creole are widely spoken. Significantly, the name of the town (which does exist) is Spanish for “bad passing”. Violence and intimidation are the main currencies, and soon the two naive and inexperienced siblings have to abide by the rules. They must grapple with menacing thugs, who extort and terrorise the local traders, and take pleasure in bullying Candido. The capo – a man called La Cherna – takes their money obtained from the sale of a donkey and forces them to work for him.

Braulio is super protective of his quiet, pure and vulnerable brother. Others are both repelled and fascinated by the colour of his skin. Orthodox superstitions prevail. A woman is warned that a thousand spells will befall her if she lays a finger on the teenager. He’s perceived as some sort of demigod. Or witch. Reactions are very mixed because people do not understand the precise nature of albinism. One day, tragedy strikes. Braulio and Candido could be separated. Will the latter be able to fend for himself?

The sharp black and white photography of the titular town is the most impressive element of Malpaso. Poverty is neither fetishised nor sanitised. Everything is primitive and precarious. Malpaso consists of muddy roads and shabby wooden constructions. There is very little hope and dream in town, except perhaps for a healer who sells magical potions. There’s a lot of emphasis on naked skin and facial expressions, typically set against a dramatic backdrop. A lot like a photograph by Sebastiao Salgado. A hypnotic viewing.

Malpaso is showing in Competition at the 23rd Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. DMovies have been invited as special guests to cover the event.

Fiela’s Child (Fiela Se Kind)

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Based on the eponymous 1985 novel written by Dalene Mathee and entirely spoken in Afrikaans, Fiela’s Child tells the story of a mixed race woman (the titular Fiela, played by Zenobia Kloppers) who lives with her black husband and four children in the arid hinterlands of South America, in a remote house behind the mountains. They are virtually cut away from the rest of the world. One day Fiela encounters a small white boy at her doorstep. She names him Benjamin and raises him as her own offspring.

Nine years later, the local authorities visit her dwelling while conducting a census. They are astounded to find the young Benjamin, whose skin colour is in profound contrast to the rest of his family. They take the child away, leaving Fiela and her family despondent. A local peasant recognises the boy as her very own child who went missing nine years earlier. The magistrate orders Benjamin to take up his new home, alleging that his real identity is Lukas van Rooyen. Benjamin/Lukas slowly settles in with his the family (with a new mum, dad, two elder brothers and a sister around his age). His formidable new father tells him that Fiela simply accepted the judge’s decision, and was happy that he had been returned to his blood relatives. In reality, Fiela had done everything her power to retain her much-loved son.

Fast forward to adulthood. Benjamin/Lukas is now a handsome young man, but his relationship with the van Rooyen’s isn’t a very healthy and rosy one. His father is violent and abusive. He has a very cosy and intimate connection with his sister Nina, bordering on the incestuous. One day he receives a letter from Feila revealing that one of his siblings has died. Perhaps it’s time he should return to his black origins.

Brett Michael Innes’s second feature film is constructed as a fable rather than a drama. There’s a distinctive magical feel about the cinematography, with the dry landscape of Benjamin/Lukas’s childhood contrasted against the verdant forest of his upbringing with the van Rooyens. The imagery is plush and delightful to look at.

But there are also a few issues. The script is very rigid – likely the consequence of being a literary adaptation -, and actors are never allowed to fully showcase their dramatic skills. The outcome is sometimes a little wooden. The music score is a somewhat treacly, peppered with schmaltzy little tunes. Plus the narrative has a few loose ends and gaps, which I presume come full circle in the book. For example, the relevance of Fiela being “brown” while the rest of the family are black is never clear. Fiela mentions that there was something unusual about the clothes Benjamin/Lukas was wearing on the night he was found, but that too is never elucidated.

In a nutshell, this is a cute little movie about racial segregation. It’s not a flawless period drama. But it deserves credit for portraying a moment of South Africa’s history unknown to most people.

Fiela’s Child has just premiered at the 23rd Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, in Competition.