Tag: drama

Arnold Is a Model Student (Arnon pen nakrian tuayang)

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

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Schools are paradoxical places: you learn about the benefits of democracy in a place which is essentially a dictatorship. The virtues of free speech and debate are praised in a world where you have to stick to a strict regimen and follow the rules otherwise you will be suspended or expelled. Additionally, as a young person, you are not even allowed to vote yet, meaning that while you learn about the freedom of the world around you, your impact on it is severely limited.

But in countries with an authoritarian bent, such as Thailand, which is a constitutional monarchy that allows no criticism of the King whatsoever and was ruled by a military junta until 2019, school doesn’t necessarily seem to contrast against the government itself; in fact, it compliments it. Within an authoritarian system, teachers are able to wield strict control over their students while the rot of corruption quickly seeps in.

It’s within this world that we meet the titular Arnold (Korndanai Marc Dautzenberg). Recently returning from an exchange in the USA, he is both a smart student — recently winning a maths olympiad — and a smart-aleck, feeling himself above and beyond the rest of his Thai contemporaries while sometimes toying with the idea of making of a difference. Like many coronavirus-set films recently, his rebellious streak is best complimented by the fact he rarely wears his mask, as well as taking naps in class and talking back to teachers. Think Max Fischer with a bald head and a passive attitude to life.

Director Sorayos Prapapan eases us into the material, giving us a great sense of school life — from the girlish games to the minutiae of classroom lessons to the boys sneaking in drinks in the backyard — before weaving in two distinct plot-lines: the rebellion of the students against corporal punishment in school — inspired by the real Bad Student movement in Thailand — and Arnold’s new job working for an exam-cheating service. Armed with exceptional talent, Model Student asks whether it’s worth trying to make a genuine difference within the system or to try and exploit it for your own ends.

If the two plot-lines don’t intersect as satisfyingly as they should, it suits the distanced, often-resigned tone of the film. Using static, planimetric frames, allowing the angles of the school building to intersect with the camera at 90 and 45 degree angles, the film has an ironic detachment that recalls the work of Aki Kaurismäki and Roy Andersson more than South Asian cinema. But Prapapan isn’t a slave to his own style either, knowing when to move the camera, switch to handheld, or insert some comic sound effects (which shouldn’t work but somehow do). The final result is an easily watchable satire that shows great confidence from a first-time feature director, as well as the kind of raw sincerity that often gets smoothed away by someone’s second and third films. It will be fascinating to see how this style is developed in further features. I hope there will be many.

Arnold is a Model Student runs as part of the Concorso Cineasti del presente section of Locarno Film Festival, running from 3-13th August.

Declaration (Ariyippu)

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

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A naturalist drama that incorporates thriller elements into its slow-burn atmosphere, Declaration shows just how disposable immigrant workers can be. A perceptive work from Malayalam director Mahesh Narayanan, it smartly captures the intersection of class, gender and race-based oppression, showing how an atmosphere of exploitation and corruption hits those at the bottom of the human food chain hardest.

Husband and wife Hareesh (Kunchacko Boban) and Reshmi (Divya Prabha) are from Kerala, in India’s south. They move to the northern state of Uttar Pradesh for a better life. Not only can they find solid work at a disposable glove factory, but they have a better chance of getting their visas approved in order to move abroad. The first images we see are shot on an iPhone, showing Reshmi taking gloves off mechanical hands and putting them in a bucket. This is her skill video, a necessary part of getting her visa application approved. But another, more private video is somehow tacked onto the end of the film, causing a rift between the previously relatively content couple.

The whole film was shot and set during the coronavirus pandemic, which helps to up the sense of paranoia at almost every turn. While no one seems to actually contract the disease, the film makes use of the power dynamics involved with mask-wearing in particularly acute ways: for example, those in charge either choose to forego the mask entirely, wear it under their chin, or have an FFP2 mask instead of the generic blue medical mask. The workers themselves are almost always covered, because they know that the disease would either mean serious health complications or a loss in salary. Coronavirus may seem to infect you no matter who you are or which precautions you take, but the way that you deal with it often depends on your race and class status.

If coronavirus was supposed to be the great leveller, it only really entrenched class privilege all across the world, allowing the rich and powerful to further line their pockets. Marital drama dovetails with the tale of the factory cutting corners, the film slowly accruing details of misplaced and faulty gloves, managers sweeping away inaccuracies and workers blithely uncaring about the quality of the product. Why would they? They’re not even getting paid on time.

If the narrative is relatively straightforward, it’s the way that it’s told that allows complexity to grow in the corners. Narayanan doesn’t necessarily spell out every detail, allowing the camera to linger on certain elements (which I won’t spoil here) to further enrich the hypocrisy that permeates almost every frame. The handheld cinematography and general lack of score immerses the viewer within this realist setting, echoing both the moral dramas of Asghar Farhadi and the class-based consciousness of Ken Loach’s cinema.

While the editing could’ve heightened the stakes in the final act by tightening the tension and removing some fat, the final result is a fascinating drama that makes full use of the coronavirus pandemic — and its attendant measures — as a metaphor for class exploitation.

Declaration plays in the Concorso Internazionale plays as part of the Locarno Film Festival, running from 3-13th August.

Robe of Gems (Manto de Gema)

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The limits of good intentions are sorely tested in Robe of Gems, a moody crime-and-family drama simply too inscrutable for its own good. Despite boasting assured mise-en-scène, fine naturalist performances and a sense of lingering dread, it had me constantly asking all the wrong questions, namely: who, what, when and how?

The where is easy. This is rural Mexico, a place where crime appears to be rife and even the local police are in on the take. Gangsters boast of the ease with which they can buy guns from a show in the USA, disassemble them and then legally transport the parts across the border. The middle-class Isabel (Nailea Norvind) returns to her mother’s villa, where they learn that their long-time domestic servant María’s (Antonia Olivares) sister has gone missing. Isabel, despite warnings to the contrary, goes on a quixotic quest to get to the bottom of this drama, her story intersecting with a policewoman’s son (Juan Daniel Garcia Treviño) working for the local cartel.

This is Natalia López Gallardo’s first feature, having previously worked as an editor on the films of Amat Escalante, Lisandro Alonso and Carlos Reygadas. There is a touch of Reygadas to the start of the film featuring a long take of the sunrise that brings to mind Silent Night (2007). And despite the real-life relevance of the story — considering a shocking 100,000 people are currently missing in Mexico – she takes a similarly slow and atmospheric approach throughout the entire film.

On a purely formal level, it’s very well-made and contemplative: whether it’s shooting at the twilight hour, delving into dream sequences, making use of epic floating takes or turning up the sound of insects to an almost unbearable degree. But it doesn’t proceed story-wise with dream logic, allowing us to find poetic connections between characters, but with a kind of 4D chess approach — making it hard to know who is who, why they are acting in certain ways or why we should care. This approach is most effective when these women brush up against the banality of evil found in the local crime scene, but I don’t know why the film itself had to be so banal at the same time.

In the right hands, this kind of angular drama can be effective, such as Ridley Scott’s The Counsellor (2013), which had a similar sense of tragic inevitability while also needing a roadmap to sort things out. But on top of becoming confused, I was also annoyed: the film more interested in piling moments together than ever throwing in a few clues to help us along. Additionally, the camera often shoots scenes where we only see one character’s face while the other is talking, or with no one’s face at all; simply lingering on the tools they use at work or eating at the family table. While in a drama with a couple of players, this approach makes sense, it proves fatal in an ensemble piece.

By the end, I had one final question to ask myself: why? I definitely can’t answer that one.

Robe of Gems just premiered in competition at the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival, running from 10-20th February!

Blind Love

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

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A blind man and a deaf woman fall for each other in Blind Love, a Kenyan slice-of-life comedy-drama with oodles of oddball charm. Injecting great humour and verve into its depiction of disabled life, it enlivens and surprises the audience right until the final scene.

Brian (Mr. Legacy) is unable to see. His seeing dog has just died, unceremoniously run over by a car. Abel (Jacky Amoh) is deaf, and is tasked with taking him home one day. Despite their disabilities, they find innovative ways to communicate, empathetically and intuitively portrayed by both Legacy and Amoh. Brian then realises that if they drink a magic spirit, they are able to communicate unhindered in their dreams, caught in black-and-white fantasy sequences. But the liquor is as much a gift as a curse, resulting in many unintended consequences.

Director Damian Hauser directs, edits, shoots and composes the music, keeping a close authorial control of the film’s tone; which appears to freewheel along while underpinning the narrative with a much darker narrative pull. As it uses such poppy filmmaking method to tackle serious themes, Blind Love almost runs the risk of trivialising what it wants to portray, but eventually brings it all together in the shocking finale. It’s even more impressive when you realise that Swiss director Hauser was born in 2001.

It shows that violence begets violence, spurred on by ignorance, jealousy, lust and copious amounts of liquor. Neither man (alcoholic, ignorant, unfaithful) or woman (jealous, scornful, scheming) come out of it well, the film even ending with a postscript asking why people continue to have children when there is so much suffering in the world. Sprinkled in with a little black magic, it asks whether people are in control of what they do or if they become possessed by their emotions. This is not the hipster capital Nairobi, as seen in Rafiki (Wanuri Kahiu, 2018), but a place seemingly lost in time, with little government help, as seen when people take justice into their own hands.

It’s not a pretty depiction of rural Kenya, but the filmmaking has a vital feel at odds with its themes, mixing widescreen with academy ratio, long, detached pans with frantic handheld shots. It finds plentiful ways to move between past and present with ease, as well as smartly switching between plot and subplot before finding a truly tragic way to bring these two together. The non-actors and countryside setting keeps an authentic vibe, with Hauser able to coax out great performances that just feel like people living their own lives.

It’s great to see more sub-Saharan African stories making it to major European film festivals and that co-productions with countries like Switzerland are making them happen. Blind Love is the kind of small yet affecting film you want to find at a fest; surprising, unconventional and filled with a fine personal filmmaking touch.

Blind Love plays in the First Feature section of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, running from 12-28th November.

Precious Ivie (Ivie wie Ivie)

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Is Germany finally having a reckoning around race? The classic text Berlin Alexanderplatz (Burhan Qurbani, 2020) was reimagined for the immigrant generation, then Mr Bachmann and His Class (Maria Speth, 2021) sensitively told the story of a German teacher managing a class full of second-generation children in a rural part of the country. Now we have Precious Ivie from Sarah Blaßkewietz, a tender and powered exploration of mixed-racial identity that shows Germany’s difficulty in becoming a truly multikulti society.

I live in Germany myself and notice the awkward ways so-called liberals even in cities such as Berlin talk about racism. While the country’s own anti-semitic past is dealt with frankly, conversations around its Black citizens are still littered with stereotypes and mischaracterisations. Precious Ivie dives straight into it when the titular, mixed-race protagonist (Haley Louise Jones) interviews for a teaching position and shuts down when asked about where’s she’s really from. White Germans might not see the problem with such a question; for Afro-Germans it reinforces their difference from mainstream society.

It’s the kind of topic that’s been explored a lot in British TV — think the brilliant May I Destroy You (Michaela Cole, 2020) or the Small Axe (Steve McQueen, 2020) project — but remains something of a taboo topic in Germany. It’s something Ivie herself, living in the internationally-positioned but provincially-minded city of Leipzig, doesn’t try to think about too much, even brushing off her friend Anne’s (Anne Haug) use of the word “brownie” as a term of endearment. Nothing malicious is meant by it, but it’s the kind of thing that white people might not recognise can be harmful.

Which is all to say that Precious Ivie is an important debut by Blaßkewietz, herself Afro-German, that uses a melodramatic form to explore issues of identity, belonging and sisterhood. The story feels like something out of an Pedro Almodóvar film, Ivie forced to think about her relationship to her Black Senegalese father when her darker-skinned half-sister Naomi (Lorna Ishema) turns up out of the blue from Berlin. Having no idea who her father really was, the two sisters navigate what it means to be Black in a majority-white country.

If it feels like a heavy topic, Blaßkewietz has a great naturalist approach to everyday scene construction, crafting the inner lives of both women. The dialogue flows naturally, often showing characters not being able to say exactly what they mean or changing their minds mid-flow. She has also takes great care to sketch out how Ivie and Naomi’s experiences differ; while the light-skinned Ivie faces more passive-aggressive discrimination, the darker Naomi sees herself as the victim of genuine racist abuse.

But there are also many moments of genuine joy and friendship, as well as the potential for romance. A meet-cute on the bus between Ivie and a handsome white man is especially well handled, as well as Naomi’s burgeoning lesbian side, making me want to see the same director handle an outright romantic comedy. We get a true sense of these characters and want to hang out with them more, many plotlines frustratingly feeling unfulfilled by the time the credits roll around. Because of this emotional connection we have to the characters, once it moves into weepie territory it feels completely hard-earned. Here’s hoping it has a wide release in Germany and can open up fresh conversations about race in the country.

Precious Ivie plays in the First Feature section of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, running from 12-28th November.

Troubled Minds (Nemierīgie prāti)

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Troubled Minds is several things: a story about brotherhood, a serious exploration of the limits of performance art, a satire of that same art-world and a road trip movie. Being able to find the humour within the bustling, over-the-top art world of Latvia while never losing heart of its central conflict, it represents a fine balancing act from the Abele brothers.

Robert (Toms Auniņš) seems to have no idea what his art actually represents, making references to the unconscious and ego death with little explanation regarding its underlying philosophy. His brother Martin (Marcis Lacis) has been living in a black cube — a 2001: A Space Odyssey-like (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) obelisk that could stand for both everything and nothing at the same time — and is the more raucous of the two. Directors Raitis and Lauris Abele, working with their brother other Mārcis behind the camera, make this distinction clear during one boating expedition: while Martin is standing on the top, stretching his arms out to the sky, Robert is sat at the bottom, staring at his phone.

The film raises interesting questions about the types of characters that thrive within artistic spaces. Crossing the line between art and madness, especially if you are a white male, is often more accepted than in other industries. After all, if the ends find a way to justify the means, critics might find it part and parcel of the final result. In one particularly cutting line, someone says that a madness like Vincent Van Gogh’s is OK, but only if people find out after you are already gone.

The Abele brothers are smart not to make the differences between Robert and Martin too pronounced, which would quickly make it cartoonish. While Martin is the more visibly unwell, Robert’s ideas and actions also skirt the bounds of acceptability. Robert is simply smarter at getting the necessary funding for their work, sweet-talking investor Gunnar (Juris Žagars) to part with his cash in exchange for an immersive exhibition that invites the spectator to become an active participant.

Nonetheless, bar a psychedelic finale, the film itself keeps things rather simple in this depiction of brotherly creation and collision, taking no sides as the two of them get into bar fights, smoke and drink copiously, hang out with older Russian sailors and alienate the world around them. This is what initially makes the film intriguing, especially as it departs Latvia to travel beyond the arctic circle, expanding its previous themes into something far richer than initially suggested.

While unable to tie up all its loose ends— a literal Chekhov gun introduced and forgotten about; an impending court date that dissolves into thin air — Troubled Minds never loses sight of its characters, sensitively and intuitively played by Auniņš and Lacis. They’re able to convey artistic slackery, brotherly compassion and self-infatuation with ease, carrying the film’s detours, digressions and detailed depiction of an art scene constantly collapsing on itself.

At a awards ceremony, one winner declares the end of the white straight male in art. When the two brothers are then given the final award, it’s hard to know exactly who is being satirised. It’s in this ambiguous space between satire and sensitivity that Troubled Minds thrives.

Troubled Minds plays in the First Feature section of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, running from 12-28th November.

Dark Heart of the Forest (Le coeur noir des forêts

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Dark Heart of the Forest is a modest Belgian tale, handsomely told, bolstered by two keen performances by veteran child actress Elsa Houben and newcomer Quito Rayon Richter. Playing two young lovers who escape the confines of their care home and run off into the countryside, it explores the full potential of the woods for both rebirth and connection.

Nikolaï (Quito Rayon Richter) has always been an odd duck. Discovered in the forest by social services, he is quickly branded “Mowgli” by the other kids in the home. Meanwhile, Camille (Elsa Houben) appears to be the more put-together one, but she is hiding a second pregnancy that could land her in a lot of trouble. They quickly find each other in the home and decide to run away. Having no real parents themselves, and Camille losing her first baby due to a forced abortion, they want to be the type of good people that their parents never were.

Despite some narrative trickery in the first half— telling essentially the same story twice yet with key variations in both the male and female perspective — there is little in the final story that should surprise, bar the filmmaker choosing to end on either a positive or a tragic note. This is more of a mood and character piece than a conventional tale — for one, the gendarmerie don’t chase them around — taking great detail to capture the awkwardness of teenage love, as well as its elation, contrasted against a world that quickly wants to confine those who don’t fit in.

Living near a forest myself and usually walking there at least once a day with my dog, I have noticed how its entire look can change depending on the time of day, time of year, precipitation level, weather and available sunlight. As the name suggests, cinematographer Virginie Surdej captures the different moods of the forest well, from foreboding light green to malevolent darkness to hope in the form of the sun chinking through the trees. This moody feel is complemented by hazy synths and later, manic violin scales, rising to a crescendo during the film’s pivotal final scenes. Still, by the end it did feel as if the filmmaking team were running out of ways to shoot essentially the same place.

Shooting on handheld widescreen, featuring close-ups of small gestures and facial expressions, director Serge Mirzabekiantz takes great care to pay respect to the teenager’s plight, including teenage sex scenes that don’t come across as exploitative. While the more combative moments between the young and testy couple could’ve been more interestingly rendered, both Houben and Richter bring a fine rawness to their roles and their adolescent difficulties. Together they feel like a believable young couple, with all the attendant naïveté and passion that entails. The woods may be a cold, dank and often miserable place, but with the right person, there appears to be a chance to create something new.

Dark Heart of the Forest plays in the First Feature section of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, running from 12-28th November.

The Radio Amateur (El radioaficionado)

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Nikolas (Falco Cabo) is a simple man with a big dream. Living in an area of Madrid with twice the unemployment level of the city’s average, he is too undemanding to even bother ask to finalise the contract at his job in a parking lot. On the other hand, he wants to fulfil his late mother’s dream by heading out to an island far north of the Basque region. He is obsessed with far-away places and loves nothing more than to sit on his radio, listening to people communicating with sailors.

It’s evident from the beginning that he is on the spectrum, unable to communicate with people in a normal way while wearing large industrial headphones to block out loud noises. It seems that radio language appeals to him because of its simplicity and specificity, tempting him towards the Basque seaside to find his old schoolfriend Ane (Usúe Álvarez) with that particular job. He asks her if she has a boat that can take him out; she does not, but introduces him to a seaside community to help fulfil his aim in exchange for a few days work. While he is talented at his boat-repair work, his mental difficulties come under a huge amount of strain when dealing with his new colleagues.

Told with great compassion, The Radio Amateur expertly portrays the way that hurt people can transmit their pain onto others, showing examples of both wanton and unintentional cruelty. Ane reminds Nikolas that when they were in school, he called her an ugly whore after she wouldn’t let him play with his yo-yo. While this was the outburst of a developmentally challenged child, this insult caught on with the rest of her schoolfriends, causing her lasting damage. Likewise, fellow boat-worker Lupo (Jaime Adalid) is wheelchair-bound but still the cruellest person around.

Cabo embodies Nikolas with a fine sensitivity and physicality. When playing characters with mental difficulties, many actors tend to overplay the physical tics. Cabo keeps it nice and simple, allowing most of his emotions, and especially his wounded nature, to play through on his face. Álvarez plays the only young woman in the film, providing a potential balm for Nikolas’ state with a fine sense of empathy that never feels clichéd or easily won, the film actually testing the limits of how compassion and love can make a difference when those they care for are suffering from severe mental difficulties.

First time director Iker Elorrieta is also the cinematographer behind the project, allowing the gorgeous, sun-dappled, oftentimes twilight-set scenery to do a lot of the heavy lifting. While he often relies a little too much on the surrounding beauty to carry the meaning of several scenes, he is at his most impressive when creating a sense of emotional immediacy through long hand-held takes. The sound design and score blend together nicely in these pivotal moments, knowing when to cut out or add musical emotion to a particular scene. The final result is a touching reverie on mental illness and the need to be respected by others.

The Radio Amateur plays in the First Feature Competition at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, running from 12th – 28th November.

Streams

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There is a great sadness at the core of Streams, as well as a great anger. Depicting a nation in tatters, it constantly surprises and delights despite telling such a dark and difficult tale. The Tunisian system comes across as completely broken and corrupted by a mixture of high hypocrisy and rank misogyny, but the Tunisian people themselves are captured with great resilience and warmth, making for a film that both saddens and inspires. Either way, it announces second-feature Mehdi Hmili as a great talent to watch.

It starts off in a very unassuming fashion, with the young Moumen (Iheb Bouyahya, in a stunning debut) preparing for a football game. He plays in goal and has great dreams of signing for a huge club. His mother Amel (Afef Ben Mahmoud) is incredibly overprotective of her son, going into a minor breakdown when she notices he has pierced his ear. She is right to worry about her son; his father is a full-time resident at the local pub, downing endless beers while hoping that his bets will finally come in. The warning signs are there — all you need is a toxic society and the whole thing can easily fall apart.

It’s really worth knowing as little as possible going in, only that it’s filled with nasty and potentially-triggering moments, taking us on a mother-son odyssey that lays bare the patriarchal, gangster-filled reality of Tunis life. You sense the same post-Arab spring energy that animated the similarly potent Capernaum (Nadine Labaki, 2018). Streams simply fulfils the classic definition of a great film: several great scenes while the rest simply works. It realises that imbuing a film so dark and often depressing with real humanity and joy is not only necessary, but can actually help to deepen the stakes. After all no country, not even the most broken states or brutal dictatorships, is without its joyous moments. In a very strange way, the approach to storytelling actually reminded me of A Star Is Born (Bradley Cooper, 2018) in the way it brings out nuanced acting performances throughout while also bringing real cinematic credentials through fantastic musical sequences.

Veteran actress Mahmoud provides incredible work as a mother constantly making difficult decisions, speaking volumes with just a downward glance or a blink of the eyes. Newcomer Bouyahya is a pretty Timothée Chalamet-type, easily able to hold our attention whether he’s fighting or in the throes of romance. The film cuts between both mother and son at fascinating moments, creating a parallel tension that kept me riveted throughout.

Midway through one dancing scene, the film suddenly changes to widescreen. It’s the kind of move that can come off as pretentious in the hands of a lesser director, but an awesome flex in the hands of someone in command of their work. It’s a bit like watching Ronaldo pull off an extra stopover or Salah — the great hope of North Africa briefly referenced in the film — feinting before bursting into another direction. It’s all the more engaging considering how quietly the film starts. I was expecting a few roman candles and came away dazzled by an immense firework show.

Streams plays in Concorso Cineasti del presente at Locarno Film Festival, running from August 4th to 15th.

All Eyes Off Me (Mishehu Yohav Mishehu)

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Avishag’s (Elisheva Weil) iPhone is cracked. These things happen, but it’s this kind of small detail that immediately invites the viewer to judge her. She sits in a dog park and watches the Israeli X factor on her broken screen; someone singing “Hurt” by Christina Aguilera. The film invites us to watch almost the entire clip along with Avishag, trying to square her love of mainstream television with her fantasies of extremely rough sex.

Her face is also cracked. She likes to be choked and slapped during intercourse. This comes as something as a surprise to her new paramour Max (Leib Lev Levin). He quickly jumps on the idea as he utterly adores Avishag, who has this quality of quickly making men swoon. The miracle of All Eyes Off Me is the way it takes this dirty premise and spins it into something rather profound, a low-key reverie on the unknowability of man.

Max and Avishag might be hitting it off, but Danny (Hadar Katz) is quickly losing touch with her youth. She’s just realised that she’s pregnant with Max’s baby, telling her friends at a party that she will get an abortion as soon as possible. Another girl details in blasé fashion both the terror and the ease of terminating a pregnancy, the camera lingering on Danny’s more-or-less unreadable reaction. Nonetheless, she cannot bring herself to tell Max the news, as he seems so absorbed in his new girlfriend. In a brave move, she disappears for the rest of the film, lingering over both Max’s and Avishag’s choices for the remaining runtime. We are left with an enigma, shafted from the story due to her inability to move forward.

Split into three related yet distinct parts that refract off one another like three interpretations of the same tune, Hadas Ben Aroya’s film is unpredictable, unnerving and quietly exhilarating. This generation of Israelis might be young, sexually liberated and drug-friendly; readily journeying to Paris and Berlin while down for experimentation without the moral baggage, but they can never talk about the future in any depth. Instead they live in an eternal present. Yet, behind this veneer of sexual freedom is something far more intriguing: an investigation into modern relationships that struck me with its precise dialogue, illuminating anecdotes and precisely framed movements. The acting is uniformly great, utilising unforced naturalism to bring conflicts to the fore while never letting them boil over into histrionics.

There is a touch of Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore in this film, both in its unadorned approach to sex and relationships as well as a thorny investigation of the power within those relationships. And just like in The Mother and the Whore, director Hadas Ben Aroya is unafraid to simply allow characters to sit and bask in their feelings, usually while listening to an entire track — Yé-Yé pop and Israeli dad rock — play out from start to finish. This allows us to just sit with the characters and tune into their reality. Without exterior moralising or unnecessary exposition, this ambiguous chamber drama never gives too much away. I was constantly engaged by its fascinating, constantly shape-shifting form.

All Eyes Off Me played in the Panorama section of the 71st Berlinale. It also showed at the 25th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Stars Await Us

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A Chinese man is released from prison in Siberia ahead of the New Year. HIs name is Ma Biao (Liang Jingdong) and he appears to speak not a word of the country’s language. He occupies a strange space: both coming into its own after the collapse of the Soviet Union and bordering neighbouring China, a blend of cultures and ideas yet to realise itself. A song during a concert celebrating the New Year seems to encapsulate the paradoxical nature of society: singing of a better society while praising the great state of the now collapsed Soviet Union.

Stars Await Us, a Chinese film made in Siberia, pays homage to the traditions of both Chinese and Russian national cinema. This is film in a minor key, an endless melancholic reflection of how the choices we make haunt us told in long, slow takes and long, slow movements. While occupying a runtime that recalls trends in recent Chinese cinema while filled with the nostalgia that suffuses post-Soviet cinema, it is a cross-cultural tale of great academic interest but ultimately lacking in spirit.

Liang Jingdong, a regular in the films of Chinese royalty Jia Zhang-ke, plays Ma Biao as a sad, melancholic man, searching for his ex-girlfriend Karinna (Viktoria Ivanova) — seen dancing at a club in happier times. He shares his new apartment with Su (Zakharov Evgenij Sergeevich), a local policeman who cosplays as a clown. He walks around the rapidly changing snow-filled town looking for something, often trying to strike up a conversation with a woman (Hai Qing) who sells bread from a stall. But when he walks into a local bar and sees a Russian woman performing “Blue Train” — made popular in classic Soviet animation Gena the Crocodile — this reignites his quest to find the woman he once loved. In many ways he is like his companion Cheburashka, a foreigner in a foreign place, navigating a strange world.

But don’t expect any closure, or even any explanation of why he is found himself on the wrong side of the border. Traditional narrative structures are elided in favour of panoramic, sweeping takes and elliptical storytelling. Gangsters, often the focus of Chinese cinema, especially Zhang-ke, are giving the classical Chinese treatment. In Russian cinema they would be a little in your face, here they haunt the periphery of the story, threatening violence behind every slow and well-shot corner.

While the film is undoubtedly handsomely-shot, scored by a variety of Soviet disco classics, there doesn’t seem to be much that really brings Chinese and Russian culture together. At one point Ma Biao attends a Kino concert — the famous perestroika-era band who were the face of the changing Russian society — and while watching Viktor Tsoi strut his stuff, he seems to finally let go and enjoy himself. But Viktor Tsoi, perhaps the most prominent Asian-Russian of all time, albeit of Korean descent, would die that same year in a car crash, his loss a symbol of what the new Russia could’ve been. What this means in the context of the story is hard to say, which avoids easy categorisation in favour of severe ambiguity.

These stories exploring post-Soviet legacy while remaining nostalgic for its culture have become popular in recent years, especially in film festivals such as Tallinn. And there is a case to be made for the similarities between the two cultures, which both endured communism and changed towards a capitalist system in radically different ways. But there are more succinct and heart-wrenching examples out there. From this festival alone, we could recommend Goodbye Soviet Union, also referencing Gena the Crocodile and his companion Cheburashka, as a more touching and well-packaged version of seismic post-Communist changes.

Stars Await Us plays as part of the main competition of the Tallinn Film Festival, running from 13th to 29th November.