Tag: Bittersweet

Tailor (Raftis)

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM TALLINN

A sweet and whimsical film with the air of a fairy tale, Tailor reminds us that it’s never too late to reinvent yourself. Cloaking a contemporary Greek issue within an old-school and gentle framework, it’s a slight delight that contains real insights into how economic crises can provoke unorthodox change.

Nikos (Dimitris Imellos) is a middle-aged man with a fine eye for detail. Tailor plunges us into his sewing regime early on with neatly rendered montages of the different processes that go into a perfect suit. He has inherited this fine-suit business from his father, who owes the bank money and is in failing health. Once his father is in the hospital, Nikos is forced to move his business on the road, offering his bespoke services on a street market.

There are great moments of comedy as the old-school tailor explains to people in the street the sheer amount of money and expense that goes into making a personally-fitted suit, making him an incongruous figure among the other sellers offering easy-to-wear, cheap-to-buy clothes right off the rack. Previously a men’s tailor, he suddenly finds himself a new and foreign customer: women. A previously solitary and particular man, there is a sense Nikos has never thought much about the other sex in his life. But thanks to a well-rendered relationship with a young Russian girl and her mother, Nikos starts to entertain and broaden his outlook on life; making Tailor a kind and satisfying feel-good tale.

Taking obvious inspiration from the Greek economic crisis, which devastated countless businesses across Athens, Tailor feels eerily prescient of small business capitalism in 2020. This year we have seen many businesses adapt and go mobile in order to survive. Whether its setting up takeaway service, online shops, or providing virtual options, reinvention has become a necessary reaction to the forces of the pandemic. In this sense Nikos was simply ahead of the curve. And one can’t help but think that, while an oddity in the streets of Athens, his mobile tailor concept would fit perfectly within the busy streets of London.

With shades of Patrice Leconte’s films — especially something sweet and gentle like The Hairdresser’s Husband — Tailor is attuned to the rhythms of work and the way one’s career can intersect with one’s life. Debut feature director Sonia Liza Kenterman’s experience as a production designer comes through in the unique look of the shop, which occupies a huge space in the imaginative power of the film, wearing years of history on its dusty shelves. And naturally, the costume design is pitch-perfect, with gorgeous women’s clothes that actually look like they would fit regular-size women.

Ultimately, while there is a marked lack of genuine conflict that could’ve elevated the material into something a little more profound, this is a modest and heartfelt film perfect for inspirational viewing.

Tailor plays as part of the First Feature competition at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, running from 13th to 29th November.

Madly in Life (Une Vie Démente)

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM TALLINN

Life doesn’t care about your plans. Alex (Jean Le Peltier) and Noemie (Lucie Debay) want a child, but have to put their lives on hold when Alex’s mother Suzanne (a superb Jo Deseure) is diagnosed with dementia. The result is a bittersweet Belgian drama-comedy that provides an unconventional yet refreshing portrait of one of the world’s most heartbreaking diseases.

Madly in Life starts with the small things, a cancelled credit card here, an unfiltered comment about sex there, before rapidly snowballing into a non-stop avalanche of issues. It soon turns out that Suzanne owes the government nearly €30,000, as she continued her job as an artistic director despite filing for a pension two years ago. Furthermore, she finds herself doing bizarre things, like getting into other people’s cars and houses. At first, it seems that she has become simply uncaring in her old age; but a trip to a professional shows that she is suffering from semantic dementia.

Directors Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni understand that dementia need not be expressed in clichés of mere forgetfulness — so often told in American films through unconvincing dream sequences in which people start disappearing — but can manifest itself in strange and unexpected ways.

The French title Une Vie Démente literally means “a mad life”, but functions as a clever pun on the similar word démence, which means “dementia”. This double-meaning of complex madness is not only true for Suzanne, radiantly captured by Desuere, but the young couple as well, who differ dramatically on the ways in which Suzanne should be treated. Putting their hope for a new apartment and baby on the back-burner, Madly in Life navigates a variety of escalating crises that vary from cancelling a trip on the weekend to discussing end-of-life care.

A mostly-realistic approach is complicated and enriched by a few surreal flights of fancy. For example, a repeated non-naturalist motif features the characters wearing matching clothes against a plain background, talking to a professional — whether its a pre-conception counsellor, tax accountant or a doctor — we never see. In these moments we get a sense of order that intentionally seems to jar against the chaotic world of Suzanne’s condition.

Further dislocation comes through the film’s multiple use of jump cuts. Put in places where another film would’ve let the camera roll, they create a difficult environment where resolution is not easily found. But the cast, seemingly improvising within these situations, keep an authentic and touching atmosphere throughout.

Ultimately, the film shows that there are no easy ways to cope with a loved-one losing their mind: only different degrees of less bad ones. By utilising black humour as well as heartfelt drama, Madly in Life neatly catches the highs and the lows of both life and love. An extension of several shorts the two directors have worked on together — many of which combine social reality with elements of the fable — it sees them expertly expand their pallet to a wider feature film.

Madly in LIfe plays as part of the First Feature competition at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, running from 13th to 29th November.