Author: Paul Risker

Catching Dust

Posted on by Paul Risker

A colourful sunset fills the Texas desert sky at the beginning of director Stuart Gatt’s directorial feature debut, Catching Dust. We can see the silhouetted trees and hear the dust blowing in the wind. Slowly, the montage sequence arrives at the abandoned Karl Madison commune, where a modern-day cowboy, armed with a rifle, runs his fingertips against a painting on the side of a cabin. He enters, and the window is lit up by the flashpoint of a gunshot.

The atmospheric and visually striking opening establishes the theme of isolation that runs throughout the story. Following the violence, there’s a deescalation as we’re introduced to Geena (Erin Moriarty) and her husband Clyde (Jai Courtney), a couple hiding out in a rundown trailer. They’re coy as to why they’re lying low, but Clyde is paranoid about anyone finding them. He refuses to let Geena accompany him into town, and while he disappears for hours on end, hunting and doing whatever else he does, she paints and draws.

She feels trapped, as though her life and any meaning have been stripped away in their hideout. She tells Clyde, “I need things that the desert can’t give me.” Her desire to return to the city is a source of tension and when New York couple Andy (Ryan Corr) and Amaya (Dina Shihabi), looking to hit the reset, arrive unexpectedly, the tension begins to escalate. Clyde’s paranoia and stubborn belief that nothing good can come of his new neighbours being there, threatens his own marriage and the commune’s peace.

The observational gaze of the film’s opening introduces the director’s observant eye. Gatt has a penchant for homing in on subtle and suggestive details, such as Amaya sharing a box of cakes, fresh from New York. It represents a stirring temptation and longing for something lost for Geena, who enjoys the rare, tasty treat. Clyde walks off, refusing a cake. It’s a reminder, that unlike her husband she doesn’t belong in the desert. Even the shots of the birds circling above the commune, increasing in number as the tensions escalate, serve as a metaphor.

Gatt has an eye for storytelling through these visual details. It shows his appreciation for visual language and its connotations, that elevates the film above its rudimentary origins of a familiar story told well. While Catching Dust is a meticulously crafted film, there’s an occasional scene where the symbolism feels laboured and intrusive, albeit this is a minor quibble.

There’s a welcome playfulness in the film, that teases familiar narrative patterns, and ultimately creates a messier take on relationships. Geena and Clyde’s marriage is not without a sensitivity and romance, but it’s suffocated by Clyde’s masculine dominance and strength. He’s a stubborn man, who fails to listen to Geena, believing he can convince her that they can be happy in the desert. He even begins building a new place for them, which emphasises, to the audience what Clyde fails to realise – Geena is like a pretty bird cooped up in a cage.

When Andy arrives, he and Geena unsurprisingly begin to bond. He says he hates his job in finance and teaches art classes two nights a week to stay sane. Aside from their shared passion for art, they can identify with one another’s incarceration – she in the desert, he in his workplace.

Early on, their affair feels set to be the driving narrative force of the film; two souls lost in their respective relationships who find a connection with another person. From a gentle love story set against a harsh physical and human landscape, Gatt pivots instead to a story that’s not dominated by the affair, instead focusing on the dynamic between the two couples and their individual relationships.

Throughout, Gatt leads us to misunderstand his characters. It’s not deceitful on his part, because the story encourages us to use our cineliterate minds to jump the gun and anticipate who they are, and what will happen. Catching Dust moves at a steady pace, allowing the relationships and tensions to develop towards its eventual climactic finale. As the characters are stripped back, we see the contradictions and Gatt’s intent to create a messier take on human nature. In the end, is it Gatt that’s manipulating us, or is it our assumptions? Either way, it’s an entertaining and engaging film.

Thematically, Catching Dust is about the failure of masculinity, and for its women, it’s a story of extremes where everything is too much – Geena is suffocated and Amaya is not loved enough. Gatt presents us with two flawed men, who in different ways hurt the women they claim to love. While one character feels more redeemable than the other, the end of the film leaves us feeling that we’ve witnessed a dramatic fallout.

Striking is we see what happens, but it’s a film that requires us to dig down into how we feel about these emotionally complicated characters. Themes and ideas about gender politics, freedom, fate and marital compromise are dredged up during their isolated ordeal, and tangled up in the messy interactions, they need to be untangled.

Catching Dust premieres at the 31st Raindance Film Festival.

Parachute

Posted on by Paul Risker

Aactor-turned-director Brittany Snow, tackles the heavy issues of eating disorders and mental health in her thoughtful feature debut, Parachute (2023).

The New York City set story takes place over seven years, and begins with Riley (Courtney Eaton), sitting outside an eating disorder clinic. Her best friend Casey (Francesca Reale) picks her up and persuades her to go out that night to a karaoke bar, where she meets stranger, Ethan (Thomas Mann). The attraction is immediate, but Riley explains that she shouldn’t enter into a relationship during her first twelve months of recovery. An awkward encounter back at her apartment temporarily extinguishes their lust. However, unable to deny the attraction for long, they decide against a romantic relationship only after sleeping together.

Snow and co-writer Becca Gleason play on our perception that two things are exclusive, or that romance is a deeper bond than friendship. They create the illusion that the platonic offers a boundary to co-dependency. We’re happy Riley finds a connection, but it quickly becomes apparent that this beautiful friendship, in the context of her circumstances, is a perilous one.

Parachute is set up as Riley’s story, but Snow and Gleason expand the focus to include Ethan, who becomes the film’s supporting subject. They refrain from psychoanalysing their characters any more than is necessary, but from the glimpse we’re given into their private lives, it’s unsurprising they are drawn to one another.

Ethan’s alcoholic father, who he drives home from bars, seems the significant nurturing figure. It might, however, be his tolerant mother. Riley is an extension of these two relationships, that sees him drawn to someone who needs help, jeopardising his own wellbeing.

Nor is it surprising given Riley is someone who struggles with self-compassion, and seeks validation from others. In contrast, however, Riley’s mother is absent. A later scene suggests that her mum might have a portion of blame – the daughter’s struggles to know how to love herself are mirrored in a mother uncertain how to love her daughter, compensating instead with financial support Neither of these characters can be so neatly critiqued. Snow and Gleason invite us to consider their protagonists. It’s not particularly audacious, instead it’s thoughtful and assured filmmaking.

We don’t recall the film in its totality, instead, it resembles a series of polaroid images. Like in life, bad memories are easier to remember, but there are pleasant scenes, such as Riley and Ethan’s trips to the hardware store. It becomes a metaphor for Riley needing to take charge of her life, to manage her disorder and to trust herself. The filmmakers take these lighter scenes and transform them into something, if not profound, then meaningful – a collection of scenes that become a microcosm of the film itself.

Parachute is a reminder that someone can appear to be okay, even if they’re not. A person like Riley experiences life as a perpetual rollercoaster of emotions, and there’s an authenticity about what moments of despair and self-loathing look and feel like. For those in the audience that have experienced such emotions, these scenes will provoke uncomfortable feelings, with Riley becoming their warped reflection.

To their credit, Snow and Gleason do not dramatise, patronise or diminish the raw emotions of these moments. They attempt to treat them with dignity, nor do they excuse Riley. There’s a reason why she acts the way she does, and maybe she’s still only capable of hurting others. This is not an attempt to offer excuses, only reasons, and the filmmakers are sympathetic to both Riley and those who are affected by her suffering. As her therapist tells her, there’s no good or bad food, like she’s neither a good nor bad person. This nuance is brought to bear in a film that asks its audience to move beyond simple determinants.

Snow uses the cinematography and editing to communicate Riley’s internal thoughts and point-of-view, specifically the impulsive self-criticism she can’t escape. The camera is always respectful of her dignity, and even in her most vulnerable moments, it’s never exploitative. Yet it draws attention to the toxic nature of comparing ourselves to others, and our own self-critical gaze. The film subtly infers how social media is a means for connection, but also an enabler for the negative behavioural patterns of vulnerable persons. Parachute doesn’t condemn social media, instead it tries to explore how someone like Riley needs to manage stimuli, and to create a balance between an introverted and extraverted lifestyle.

The directing, writing and performances suggest Parachute comes from personal understanding, or intimate research. Either way, it’s an impressive first feature, and Snow and her collaborators should be commended for digging down into its subject. If there is a flaw, it’s the limitations of the narrative structure to tidy up messy life experiences, but that aside, this is an empathetic and thoughtful film.

Parachute premieres at the 31st Raindance Film Festival.

Don’t forget to read our exclusive interview with actor-turned-director Brittany Snow!

The Red Suitcase

Posted on by Paul Risker

Sparse on narrative, Fidel Devkota’s directorial feature debut, The Red Suitcase, follows the two-day journey of a delivery pick-up driver. He’s transporting boxes from Kathmandu airport to a remote village in the mountains. Meanwhile, a man is seen on route to the same village with a small red suitcase.

While on the surface it resembles calm waters, beneath the tranquility are perilous swells. Devkota, whose background is in anthropology, brings a unique eye to the film form, and crafts what is likely to be an acquired taste. It echoes the tradition of arthouse cinema, and yet conveys the individual spiritual culture and traditions of Nepal, that, to the Western eye, gives it a feeling of otherness.

For huge swathes, the film omits any dialogue, engaging the audience through silence. At 85 minutes, it’s a slow-burn movie that merges horror with the political and philosophical. It’s at the 20-minute mark, when he’s parked on the road, that one of the first signs of the horror occurs. It’s something the driver cannot explain, but to the audience it’s an escalation of a strange moment at a petrol station, which reveals an unsettling horror.

Meanwhile, in a later scene, a conversation opens up the film’s political inclinations, that merges with the philosophical, or rather, Nepalese existential crisis. This, however, leans more into political and cultural anxiety, but the seething criticism of the government is laid bare.

Devkota patiently reveals his intentions, and yet The Red Suitcase manages to internalise some of its thoughts, never offering us the impression that the film or its filmmaker have fully bared their souls.

A film that will divide audiences, it needs to be viewed through a specific lens. The anthropological gaze of its director, who places an emphasis on what he describes as, “meticulous ethnographical details that can deepen emotions and drive the narrative forward”, will challenge some Western audiences. The cinematography is traditional, and the long takes recall western arthouse, but beneath the film form’s universal language, the ethnographical details imbue The Red Suitcase with a complexity. We must see and hear, not only look and listen, in order to fully understand the nuanced communication within the imagery.

Despite the one conversation, The Red Suitcase treats death and grief as something that words cannot begin to address. Throughout, one senses the hopelessness of the Nepalese reality, an ongoing cycle where grief and despair spread. Sometimes the response is silent, sometimes it’s spoken, and other times it feels as though people are paralysed by it. To his credit, it’s a way into the film before the director hints at what’s inside the boxes, and by the end, the most apt description for this beguiling work is that it has something to do with death.

Devkota announces himself onto the world cinema stage with a meditative reflection on Nepal – specifically the price a country pays when the young are treated as expendable. His accomplishment is to speak to a diverse global audience, while also speaking about events and cultural traditions that the domestic audience will recognise.

The Red Suitcase has just had screened in the Orizzonti section of the 2023 Venice Film Festival.

Dormitory (Yurt)

Posted on by Paul Risker

QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM VENICE

Director Nehir Tuna’s feature debut, Dormitory, opens in 1996, when tensions between religious and secular Turks were mounting. In the midst of the religious and political friction, fourteen-year-old Ahmet (Doğa Karakaş) has been sent by his father to a Yurt, to learn traditional Muslim values. Unbeknownst to his father (Tansu Biçer), Ahmet sneaks out to attend a secular school, a secret he guards from almost everyone. He even lies to the school bus driver, who drops him off outside a house where he pretends to live. From there, he discreetly returns to his dormitory at the Yurt, negotiating his place between two worlds.

Going into Dormitory, I wasn’t expecting to be skipping, singing and dancing afterwards, like I would if I’d watched Singin’ in the Rain (Gene Kelly/ Stanley Donen, 1952). Nor did I want to. Dormitory’s appeal was that it would plough through the depths of oppressive anxiety, and explore how youth is a precarious, and potentially traumatising period in a person’s life. It’s a film that adequately meets these expectations, and without cynicism surrenders itself to the realisation that life is to be survived, and sometimes we have to either accept, or if we’re lucky, choose the hell we’re living.

This is an idea expressed by Ahmet’s only friend in the Yurt, Hakan (Can Bartu Arslan), who accepts that this might be the best place for him. With street smarts the wealthier Ahmet lacks, there’s a class interplay between the pair, that Tuna suggests more than he acts upon. Throughout the story, it’s a silent antagonist, stalking, waiting until it’s time to strike.

While I’ve offered a dark and oppressive appraisal thus far, Tuna’s film is not without joyous, rebellious and humorous moment, but the objective of this type of story is to oppress the audience with heavier emotions and themes. Despite moments of relief, Dormitory honours the anxiety and pain of one teenager’s yearning. It opens with a catchy albeit intrusive score, that, alongside the text that establishes the political and religious context, sounds an ominous warning of the dramatic storm that’s to come.

Tuna draws on personal experience, who, as a child, spent five years in what he describes as a “religious dormitory”, and this is likely why, throughout the story, we keenly feel the pressure Ahmet experiences. There’s a notable duality that contributes to his internalised and externalised pressure. While he wants to escape the Yurt, he tries to belong, maybe in part to placate his parents, and partly driven by the instinct to find communal belonging, even if it means compromising his identity and values.

Meanwhile, in the secular school, a potential romantic interest, Sevinç (Işıltı Su Alyanak), asserts how unsettling it is to think there’s a student amongst them who lives in a Yurt. The harsh nature of these words is added to by the affection the pair share – swapping presents, walking and talking in the school yard. Dormitory touches upon the idea of conformity, but also the complications in a fractured and adversarial society, where prejudicial hostility is rife.

Ahmet is the archetypal outsider, caught between two worlds – we must consider the question whether he can truly belong to either side, or must he walk his own path? The monochrome cinematography accentuates his experience of being caught in the shadows of religious and secular Turkey. It’s not merely an aesthetic choice, but one that connects with the substance of the story, which appears to be about Ahmet, but is it? The story may be as much about his father, who represents the insecurities and regrets of one generation that shapes the experiences of another generation. As his father says to him, “You are my redemption, my salvation.”

Dormitory is an incisive reflection on generational relationships, and despite being rich in themes and ideas, maybe Tuna missed an opportunity to explore these more thoroughly. However, I’d suggest Dormitory should be appreciated in an experiential context. The director, who is drawing off personal experiences, invites us into Ahmet’s space, to witness and experience the tumultuous society of mid-90s Turkey.

Instead of building a rigorous conversation around themes and ideas, it’s an experiential film. It lets us bear witness to an intimate yearning and anguish, but its strength is to avoid making any critical statements or answering any questions. Instead, Tuna prefers to leave his audience to resolve their feelings about the experience they’ve been privy to.

Dormitory has just had its World Premiere in the Orizzonti section of the 2023 Venice Film Festival.

Lovable (Milulis)

Posted on by Paul Risker

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A pearl of wisdom I’ve often heard is that a story requires a sympathetic character, because without one, who does the audience sympathise with? This is, in my opinion, theoretical poppycock. What motivates the audience is not only sympathy, but interest in both the themes and ideas of the story, as well as the characters. Latvian director Staņislavs Tokalovs, and his co-writer Waldemar Kalinowski’s Lovable (Milulis), which competed in the Baltic Film competition at this year’s PÖFF, toys with both its audience’s interest and sympathy.

The story revolves around Matiss (Kārlis Arnold Avota), a young debt collector who is involved with Agate, an older, single mother. The businesswoman takes him under her wing, helping to steer his professional ambitions amongst a world of cutthroat business types. In the opening scenes, the filmmakers activate our voyeuristic natures – we’re intrigued by the power dynamic between the pair. They play the part of a married couple, but when they interact with her nine-year-old daughter, Paula, there’s something askew about the image. Even in their sexual relations, there’s something off.

We’re ultimately led to conclude the power in their relationship lies with Agate, when she tells an associate at a party that young men like Matiss, are, a better fuck than men his age. Her lover, meanwhile, is crudely advised by another colleague of hers, who she connects him with to discuss potential opportunities, that he’ll be okay so long as he performs well in bed. The feeling that something is off is attributable to the fact that the young man is a predator, or deep down a dominant personality type. One version of the film would have been to see how their relationship unfolds, but Agate’s premature death redirects the narrative.

After her mother’s death, the young girl temporarily remains in Matiss’ care. Tokalovs and Kalinowski begin to orchestrate the conflict that will drive the film. Lovable is a story of a man morally fractured, and Agate’s final words, that Paula adores him, and he should make this his home, reverberate throughout the film. They place an onus on him to do right by Paula, which the audience hold him to. Agate’s words haunt the film, keeping her alive in spirit.

In a move that isn’t surprising, Matiss allows one of the cutthroat business associates to talk him into an illegal scam to deny Paula her inheritance. Later we learn that other shady characters are involved, the type you don’t want to owe money to. The conflict that unfolds is one of competing interests, and the attempt to back out of the proverbial hole he has dug himself.

While Lovable is a simple enough film to describe, it doesn’t do this intriguing work justice. Most films are driven by a dramatic necessity, but here the filmmakers are free of such shackles. Lovable looks like a streamlined mainstream feature, but the creative choices defy this categorisation.

Tokalovs makes the bold choice to predominantly omit a soundtrack. Music is traditionally relied upon to communicate the emotional intent of a scene, and guide the audience’s emotional or intellectual response. Here, there’s little to no accompanying score, but it’s a fitting choice when we consider that Matiss is largely an unsympathetic character. Just as he’s driven by greed, a cold, cruel and indifference towards others, especially his younger lover, who he treats appallingly. She’s an object for his sexual pleasure, and if she should deny or challenge him, she’s reduced to something he can discard and pick up again when it suits him.

The absence of a soundtrack is noticeable, and we quietly yearn for that silent void to be filled – much in the same way as Paula grieves the loss of her mother, and the worry that she’ll be removed from her home by social services. There’s an unspoken sense that both she and Matiss want him to be her guardian, that teases our optimism that this will be a redemptive story. Tokalovs and Kalinowski, however, are not interested in such neat and tidy narrative arcs. Instead, there is a sense that Paula has provoked a change in Matiss, awakening his gentler spirit, but he’s a ways off from undergoing the significant transformation necessary. Paula commands our sympathy, but by the end of the film, we’re left none the wiser about how we feel about Matiss. There’s a semblance of something that we can sympathise with, because he does make difficult moral choices and sacrifices his self-interest, but he’s mostly a character we have to settle finding interesting instead of likeable.

To say Lovable boasts bold filmmaking choices is an indictment against the unoriginality of mainstream cinema, which prioritises a willingness to conform over free expression. Tokalovs and Kalinowski’s film requires patience to fully appreciate it. Remaining true to its willingness to be bold, the story is left incomplete.

It takes courage to make this type of filmmaking, when other films, like Sebastián Lelio’s Wonder (2022), overcooked its ending, and their efforts and commitment deserve our appreciation.

Lovable has just premiered in the Baltic Competition of the 26th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Rebelión

Posted on by Paul Risker

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It has often occurred to me that we’re guilty of romanticising the creative process – enchanted by what is created, that we don’t appreciate the arduous effort that goes into the act. The process is intimately involved with agony, self-doubt, and many creatives are weighed down by imposter syndrome, or so I’ve been led to believe in conversation with filmmakers.

Columbian director José Luis Rugeles and his co-writers Chucky García, Martín Mauregui, craft a captivating biopic about the celebrated Columbian singer and songwriter, Joe Arroyo, played by Jhon Narváez. Known for mixing various styles of Latin American, Caribbean and African music, in the 1970s, he was at the forefront of the “salsa explosion.”

Borrowing the title of their film from one of Arroyo’s most famous songs, Rebelión, the filmmakers enter the realm of fiction to explore the life of this prolific artist. An opening disclaimer reads: “The events, characters and facts shown in this film are fictitious or based on facts of public knowledge. The names of those involved, the stories, details and results of the cases are the work of fiction.”

Here we have one of those films that presents a conundrum for the film critic. Art needs to be discussed to thrive and films are made for a response. However, there’s the occasional film we should discover for ourselves. Here’s an example of one we should approach with the mind as a blank canvas – like you’d enter and be caught up in a dream.

It’s no coincidence that I wound up making the comparison to a dream, when Rebelión’s artistry is so pleasing to the senses. There are moments when the cinematography and the story splice through time and space, effortlessly creating a non-linear exploration of the artist. As if the past and present are parallel, not linear, the film functions on a dream logic, as if this story of a life unfolding is from the point-of-view of a dreamer.

This is not a glamorous portrayal of an artist – instead, Arroyo’s world has the feel of a hellish creative space. We witness a gauntlet of emotions: arrogance and selfishness, love and affection, passion and enthusiasm. We also witness what Freud termed the “death drive”, which makes me wonder whether, as much as creativity and sexuality are linked, is creativity prone to flirting with self-destruction?

Amidst the fever of creation, the film is littered with scenes of agony, anxiety and despair, and in an early scene, it’s mentioned that Arroyo’s pain was the inspiration for some of his music. Rugeles and his collaborators offer us a portrait of the joy and sorrow of creative expression, the extreme highs and lows. Beneath the bravado, there are moments when he or she succumbs to humility, whether consciously or not, which often presents as self-pity or a disposition of being indifferent.

What captivates about Rebelión, is, compared to other biopics, it has an insular energy. We find ourselves isolated within certain spaces and time periods. Instead of following them around, seeing how events in their personal and professional lives became their life story, we spend time with the characters. We’re expected to not just look and listen, but see and hear. The film is a series of impressions, instead of an informative deep dive. Yet through this aesthetic and narrative approach, combined with the fictionalisation, it feels that we get close to the truth of who the man behind the artist was.

Rebelión has just premiered in the Rebels With a Cause Competition of the 26th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

The Coffee Table (La mesita del comedor)

Posted on by Paul Risker

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There’s a pleasure to be had in dark or absurdist comedies – the subversion of the written and unwritten rules of etiquette and decency. Spanish director Caye Casas and his co-writer Cristina Borobia’s The Coffee Table (La mesita del comedor), offers audiences a delightful helping of black Spanish humour. It feels decidedly f***ed up, in the best possible way.

The film opens with the screams of a woman in labour. From there we jump forward to a furniture shop, where first time parents, Jesus (David Pareja) and Maria (Estefanía de los Santos), are caught in the crosshairs of a sales assistant. In one moment, he says, “I guarantee that this table, due to its design and standard, will change your life for the better. It will fill your home with happiness.”

Maria runs him in circles, leading him through a series of instances where he contradicts himself. Jesus is besotted with the item because purchasing it against Maria’s wishes will empower him. It’s a decision that will have consequences beyond his worst nightmares, when the couple host Jesus’ brother Carlos (Josep Riera) and his eighteen-year-old girlfriend Cristina (Claudia Riera), who they disapprove of, for dinner that evening.

The filmmaker delays the inevitable revelation of what happened when Jesus was home alone. They carefully build towards their dramatic finale, by toying with interpersonal relationship dynamics, channeling traditional domestic tensions. They also use a dark and uncomfortable sub-plot, with a neighbour, to complicate an already emotionally explosive situation. The film is constructed around the concept of avoidance. It harks back to Alfred Hitchcock’s idea that the audience’s pleasure is in the threat of the bomb exploding. The filmmakers here understand that the thrill of their story is the anticipation, and wisely tease us until they’re unable to any longer.

A carefully orchestrated dance, the back and forth dialogue perfectly plays on what the audience implicitly knows, flirting with an almost sardonic wit that will alienate some audiences.

The filmmaker and the co-writer Casas and Borobia blur the line between black humour, absurdist comedy, and dramatic suspense. I found myself questioning whether I should perceive moments as comedy or the latter – the comedy and tragedy are interchangeable.

The film has a chameleon nature, shifting between the two depending on the point-of-view of the audience. That said, it’s effectiveness lies in the audience being receptive to the humour, as there are certain beats that are intended for a humorous pay-off. But one cannot ignore the pathos of the tragedy that unfolds, and the pleasure of the film is derived from genre tones complementing one another. Nor the interest in critiquing interpersonal dynamics, that drives the thematic interest in cause and effect.

Jesus and Maria’s marriage juxtaposes derisive and affectionate humour, that’s complicated by the feelings towards Carlos and Cristina. Maria derisively refers to him as a paedo, but at dinner, they appear amicable. It creates social tension and a suspicion of how the characters really feel about one another. While the table is viewed as the antagonist, leaning into shades of horror, the provocation is contentious power dynamics and interpersonal relationships. The Coffee Table is a critique of familial relationships snd how we orchestrate our own misfortune and destruction.

As the audience tries to anticipate how events will unfold, the filmmakers find ways to play on the anticipations in a dark and twisted way, especially in the final act. Even as we’re laughing, we appreciate how f***ed up it all is, but it’s so wickedly funny we can only hope for absolution later.

The Coffee Table has just premiered in the Rebels With a Cause Competition of the 26th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Plastic Symphony (Plastiksümfoonia)

Posted on by Paul Risker

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Trained documentarist Juraj Lehotský, continues to explore his interest in fiction with the striking emotive and meditative drama, Plastic Symphony (Plastiksümfoonia).

The director takes his audience on a journey, one that cannot be appreciated until the final frames. There are moments where the film feels shallow, hampered by the concept of the plot and a filmmaker unwilling to make bolder choices. By its end, however, we’re left with a film that expresses the virtue of simplicity, that doesn’t lack an emotional punch.

The story centres on Matúš Vrba (Bartosz Bielenia), a talented cellist who mysteriously disappeared five years earlier, leaving behind a promising career in music. He unsuccessfully auditions for the first cello in the Slovak Chamber Orchestra, where he’s quizzed about why he left his studies with the Berlin Philharmonic. A man of few words, he succinctly tells them it was because his mother was dying. When he’s asked where he currently plays, he says, “Vienna.” The truth has a touch of quirky romanticism – accompanied by his stepbrother Dávid (Vojtech Zdrazil), he plays Beethoven on the streets of Vienna under a plastic sheet when it’s raining.

By chance, he meets former schoolmate Albert (Sabin Takbrea), a successful violinist and music programmer. It’s a meeting that opens up the world of lucrative performances in high society. Matúš’s life is transformed, but as the fame of Albert’s quartet grows, Matús finds himself unsettled about the choices he has made. Also, the necessity to compromise on performing his own compositions, in favour of playing popular pieces for the pleasure of the elite, quietly suffocates him

I’m forced to conceive the impression that Lehotský is in love with the face of his lead actor. The way he frames Matúš, feels as if we’re being asked, or urged to read his unspoken thoughts – to look and to understand, instead of having the character explain. Yet it’s not only his silence that is captivating, but a hypnotic vibe that he carries throughout the film. There’s an almost ethereal presence, where the silent facial expressions and body language, the movement and the way he handles the cello, or composes, has its own melody and rhythm.

Plastic Symphony aspires in part to forge a communion with musical (non-lyrical) expression by creating a space for the audience to be in the presence of the character – not to listen to him, but sense his aura and read his unspoken thoughts.

One of the film’s intriguing points is its minimalist nature. Before we near the half way point, we learn little about the siblings, other than that Matús left his studies when their mother was dying, and we suppose the two have taken care of one another. Lehotský understands the necessity of patience, and when we finally learn the bare details of their shared history, it’s significantly more impactful.

Structured as a film of two halves, it’s a play on a rags-to-riches tale, albeit it’s not as dramatic in the juxtaposition. We think of creativity as being full of soul and character, which is in abundance in the first half. As Matús enters high society and he finds himself in the orbit of Albert’s musical celebrity, this begins to fade. We also find ourselves lamenting how the struggle, and the film was formerly more interesting.

As our journey with Matúš reaches its conclusion, Lehotský’s modest vision can and rightfully should be appreciated. He’s a filmmaker in command of his craft, supported by Bielenia who learnt to play the cello for the role. If there’s a theme or idea that comes into bloom, it’s how transformative our encounters can be, but also our willingness to be independently minded, and pursue what will offer meaning and purpose. Plastic Symphony is about how some people belong, while others create a place to belong. It’s a simple and powerful idea worth meditating on.

Plastic Symphony has just premiered in the Official Competition of the 26th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Lucky Girl

Posted on by Paul Risker

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Ukrainian director Marysia Nikitiuk lands an impactful blow with Lucky Girl (Я, Ніна). It’s the type of filmmaking that doesn’t so much drag us into the physical world of the character, as into their internal world – not to suggest that the physical world of Nina, played by psychologist, pole dancer and theatre actress Ksenia Khyzhniak, making her film debut, isn’t immersive. The film has an aesthetic and visual presence that effectively submerges the audience into the psyche of a woman plunged into a survival horror.

The spotlight is receding for popular TV talk show host Nina Sokil. When we’re first introduced to her, it’s easy to see why the film might have been given its title. Despite her success, Nina is cutthroat and her lover even tells her she has a “beast” of a personality. She vindicates her unpleasantness through the belief that she’s an agent of truth, using her TV platform and social media to expose the truth, and hold others to account. When she receives a shock diagnosis of bone cancer, her glamorous and celebrity lifestyle crumbles.

Nina is a character that appeals to our interest more than our sympathy. She has an air of authenticity, which isn’t surprising considering the story is inspired by the experiences of producer, Yanina Sokolova, who underwent a similar ordeal, and the nuanced skill of an actress who understands performance and human psychology.

It’s difficult to describe Lucky Girl as an enjoyable or entertaining experience. The film has a grim aura, and like Nina’s lover, who loves her even if his feelings are not reciprocated, we’re repulsed and yet we’re drawn to her. While she’s symbolic of what we dislike about the cult of personality and celebrity culture that are suffocating society, Nikitiuk’s skill is in the subtle art of seduction.

Gradually, we begin to feel sympathy for Nina, not because we’re positioned to identify with her, but to see her as the victim. Her point-of-view, her thoughts and feelings are the emotional heart of the film. If cinema is an empathy machine, we see its power here – Nina’s diagnosis and the fall from her celebrity peak lessens the emotional indifference we feel.

We see her as a part of wider systemic problems in the media and society. Once her colleagues learn of her cancer, Nina quickly sees herself being replaced. The promises of a return to the spotlight once she has recovered are suspiciously disingenuous, framing the media industry as a cannibalistic entity. It makes a statement about how we’re all replaceable, and no matter how high we rise, we simply become these replaceable cogs in the machine. Perhaps worse is when we need to be vulnerable, we need to protect ourselves by hiding our vulnerability – afraid to share it with others.

Lucky Girl echoes the body horror sub-genre as Nina’s physical transformation synchronises with her emotional transformation. There’s something about watching cancer humble this iron lady that inevitably provokes our sympathy, but it could be that we intuitively sense the transformational journey beginning – not necessarily of redemption, but someone finding a new and better version of themselves. It’s here that the story explores the idea that we have to grieve and come to terms with a loss of identity before we can move on. It frames grief in a different context to the traditional way we think about loss.

Nikitiuk has created a deeply humanist film that encourages us to find and express empathy for a challenging character, and to embrace her transformational journey. Cinema is about emotion, and the director offers us the gift of an emotionally impactful and rewarding experience that should be treasured.

Lucky Girl has just premiered in the Official Competition of the 26th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Solastalgia

Posted on by Paul Risker

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM TALLINN

Watching the German hybrid documentary-fiction feature Solastalgia, I found myself thinking about this past summer’s oppressively uncomfortable heat – worryingly the ongoing escalation of the effects of climate change.

It was obviously the roar of mother nature, an unconscious response to the man-made climate crisis. I stress the words “unconscious response” because of how prone humanity is to paranoia. How often have you heard hurricanes or tsunamis spoken of as though they were the actions of a being with free will? If you listen to enough people talk, there’s the belief that nature is out to get us.

Humanity is adept at projecting our own consciousness onto nature. Instead of confronting the crisis that’s accelerating the inevitable catastrophe, that will deny current and future generations a future, we reverse the roles of protagonist and antagonist. We absolve ourselves of our hostility towards the planet, and fail to see the crisis for what it is – a violent act of self-harm. It’s fitting that Munich and Berlin-based freelance director, writer and cinematographer Marina Hufnagel’s film is playing in competition, in the Rebels with a Cause strand at this year’s PÖFF. A vital and urgent film that wears its activist ideology on its sleeve.

The plot sees activist Edda, played by actress Marie Tragousti, seeking refuge on the North Frisian island of Pellworm, the real-life home of Sophie Backsen, a young farmer who is suing the German government for her right to a future. It’s no coincidence that Edda chose this island off the northern coast of Germany. Distressed by the realisation of the inevitable destruction of the planet, she seeks solace or a connection in a place directly under threat from rising sea levels. Archival footage of activist protests, a virtual press conference with Sophie and others are married with Ebba’s fictional presence to create an hybrid and experimental work of documentary and fiction.

Solastalgia is not driven by narrative intentions, instead it’s Hufnagel’s intent to create a space for her audience to enter the film and reflect. The intriguing question that looms over the film is what does Ebba represent? Has she given up? Is seeking refuge on Pellworm a retreat? The answer is that Ebba and Sophie are two sides of the same coin – thought and action. One represents activism through action, the other contemplative and personal activism by initiating change, and honouring one’s ideology.

The narrative threads of these two women seem to disappear and reappear as though we’re watching the tide come in and out over the sand. It’s an impression created by blurring fiction and documentary, where the audience are positioned as a pendulum, in what seems a back and forth motion between reality and fiction. The truth is that throughout it’s a narrative work. Sophie and others sue the German government, and a landmark ruling is a direct result of their efforts. Meanwhile, Ebba’s tense and distanced relationship with her sister offers a familial dramatic arc. Yet the film’s captivating touch is that it transcends an awareness of narrative.

It can be seen as an ethereal experience within the cinematic form, an extension to how reality and narrative are intimately woven together. After all, are activists not the authors of the movement, or the story to protect the rights of a generational future? Hufnagel, herself a former activist, turns to art as a necessary tool to cultivate an informed conversation around the climate crisis. She dredges up uncomfortable truths about the immediate future, reminding us that we’re standing on a precipice. We cannot afford the cost of failure through human ignorance or indifference.

Addressing how the climate package by the German government at the turn of this decade was not enough, and the necessity of an international combined effort with impactful targets, she exposes the irony of the crisis. How can humanity, preoccupied by a fear of death, be so neglectful, and worse still, indifferent?

It’s a question she attempts to answer in Ebba’s voiceover narration, but it’s not so much an answer she offers, as an acknowledgement that compels anguish – a realisation that the planet deserves better than humanity could ever offer.

The heart of the film exposes the detrimental effect of capitalism – the avarice of humanity, and our unwillingness to compromise, to sacrifice the way we’ve lived for a sustainable future. This is emphasised in Ebba’s conversations with and reflections on the relationship with her sister, who symbolises a detachment from the crisis, and the resistance to rethinking how we live to create this sustainable future. In one evocative moment, Ebba is sat against a picturesque backdrop and her voiceover laments, “The 20th century seems like a series of questions to which we have given the wrong answers. We are following “business as usual”, instead of pausing for a moment to figure out what the future could look like. “Business as usual” won’t bring us any solutions. Nobody wants to live like that. At least, I don’t.”

Solastalgia is a treatise on humanity’s orchestration of its tragic demise. A captivating experimental work of art, it’s an equally important warning about the fast expiring choice humanity has to preserve a future. It just premiered in the Official Competition of the 26th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Madame Satã

Posted on by Paul Risker

Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz’s Madame Satã, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. This groundbreaking LGBTQ film is a racially and sexually charged piece of cinema. Raw and intense, it belongs in the present as much as the past. Blessed with a timeless aura, even if the cinematography gives away its age, the film will resonate with today’s audiences, for the hostility it depicts towards the expression of one’s racial and sexual identity.

The story is inspired by the real life figure João Francisco dos Santos, who passed away in 1976. Played by Lázaro Ramos, Aïnouz undoubtedly takes creative licence in the portrait he crafts. Who was this icon of Brazilian culture? The short and simple answer is that he was a groundbreaking gay performer, who shattered accepted conventions, and fulfilled his dream of being a star. In keeping with his aspirations of stardom, his costume designs drew inspiration from Hollywood, including Cecil B. DeMille’s musical comedy, Madam Satan (1930).

João Francisco dos Santos the man, had a dramatic life offstage to rival his onstage character. A convicted reoffender, he was a fierce street-fighter and a father. He gave a home to prostitute Laurita (Marcelia Cartaxo) and her baby daughter, and was friends with Tabu (Flavio Bauraqui), a vibrant hustler and prostitute.

Madame Satã has a contradictory vibe. It’s visually alive with the movements of the bodies, but the emphasis on the spoken word leaves the audience with the feeling that we’re witnessing a flamboyant hybrid of cinema and theatre. It’s an echo of João’s personality, that sees the aesthetic connect with the character. Laurita tells him in one scene, “You’re like a wild animal.” While João only aspired to be a star on the stage, his vibrant persona feels as if it were destined to appear on the screen.

The character captivates, yet there’s a restraint. Aïnouz refuses a critical exploration of dos Santos and Madame Satã. Some audiences will perceive the absence of a deeper character study, and accuse the director of being seduced by the personality of his protagonist. The point, however, is to become lost in the frenetic lifestyle of dos Santos, that allows the quieter and intimate moments, particularly with Laurita and Amador (Emiliano Queiroz) who runs the Blue Danube Club, to take us deeper into his persona.

Aïnouz effectively captures the internal conflict, which emerges gradually, rewarding the patient viewer. It slowly opens itself up to the audience, and by its conclusion, we are rewarded with an interesting insight into a captivating man, far from at peace with himself, and is seen as provocative by others.

The 20th Anniversary celebration of Madame Satã plays at the BFI Flare on March 20th 2022, in a joint screening with DMovies and African Odysseys. Just click here for more information, and secure your ticket as soon as possible!