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.
The most telling moment in Mid90s, Jonah Hill’s foray into directing,comes around halfway through. As fourth-grader Stevie “Sunburn” comes home from a day out skating with his new pals, a bunch of super cool dudes modeled on Poochie from The Simpsons, a man emerges from his single mother’s bedroom, zipping up his fly. It’s Harmony Korine. The enfant terrible of American cinema and writer of Kids (Larry Clark, 1994) appears as a nod to a film to which Mid90s is painfully indebted to.
So we have a set of Cali bros who skate, party, and hang out on the streets soaking up a perfectly Instagrammable time. If only they had smartphones. The production design goes far out of its way to remind you that this could only be the 1990s. Every t-shirt is a graphic tee with a cartoon or rapper from the era. Posters, sneakers, and cars are lingered upon, while any suggestion of the political context is non-existent, because this aesthetic nostalgia informs so many current trends.
Most of the cast are Supreme models, for crying out loud! Hill is too busy having fun with this stuff to worry about the reality behind his low-income characters. He’s putting together his dream soundtrack, a bunch of entry-level hip-hop tracks straight from his Spotify playlist. You can see him nodding along in the editing bay as he matches the beats of Herbie Hancock to each cut around a party scene.
In that extended sequence, when boys finally talk to girls, it’s little more than a set of Q&A moments with the boys as the respondents. Perhaps Hill didn’t want to take the focus away from his central crew, but the women are looked at with the same confused, reverential gaze as the objects, brushed over. They are like artefacts. It feels unclear as to whether Hill is adopting the viewpoint of his characters, or revealing his own inability to craft people unlike himself. In general, one is left wondering what motivates the camera here. What effect does Mid90s have beyond replicating a generic vibe from the titular decade? It’s not that Hill is useless with the camera, but he’s too mannered, inorganic. Removed from the super 16mm aesthetics, it might even resemble the Jude Apatow comedies from which he emerged. Hill leans into production company A24’s aesthetic with such aplomb that the movie even begins with an indent made of skateboards.
Internet Boyfriend Lucas Hedges is a funny tough guy, appearing as Sunburn’s older brother, who can’t quite shake off his softy persona. That’s a large part of his tortured, Trump mask-wearing character, and it largely works to ground us within the A24 universe. The world of coming-of-age movies. But Lady Bird’s (Greta Gerwig, 2018) nostalgia was without affectation. While Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade (2018), still yet to be released in the UK, is an effort to actually get inside a world that’s unfamiliar and understand the psychological motivations of its teens. Hill is satisfied with after-school special preaching, and reconciliations.
Not that it’s entirely without its pleasures. It’s at its best when it’s funny, hanging out with these genuinely charming characters. They have a great group dynamic and the images can be arresting when Hill rests with them. But attempts to tackle serious themes like domestic abuse and masculinity are cringeworthy, especially when Skate Kitchen (Crystal Moselle, 2018)and Minding The Gap (Bing Liu, 2018) deliver pretty much the same goods without the need to gesture towards authenticity.
When movie stars become directors, the results can go either way. Hill has a great comedic voice, and surely a way with these young actors. But he seems like Steve Buscemi walking in with a board on his back, “Hello fellow kids”. If only he’d trust his instincts rather than leaning for the cool factor, he might actually pull it off.
Mid90s is playing as part of the Panorama section at Berlinale in February, when this piece was originally written. It’s out in cinemas on Friday, April 12th. On VoD on Monday, August 26th.
Enjoying its European Premiere in the Panorama Section of the Berlinale last month, Hotel Jugoslavija is latest film from Swiss director Nicolas Wagnières. Telling a personal story about his relationship with the hotel in Belgrade and its symbolic relationship to a country that no longer exists, the film is a mesmerising documentary about identity, nationalism and nostalgia.
Our dirty writer Redmond Bacon attended the event and sat down with the director to discuss why he was drawn to the hotel, why Yugo-nostalgia persists and the current rise of populism in Europe.
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Redmond Bacon – Where did the idea for the film first come about? When were you first inspired to make it.
Nicolas Wagnières – The very first idea was unconscious in a sense. I did a shooting for my diploma film in 2005, for the film school in Geneva, and my inspiration came from [visiting] Belgrade. I did some short fiction in the flat of my grandparents there. And for the film I had to find a hotel for one scene and I found the Hotel Jugoslavija. It was still open and I was [spoke] with the employees. They were very nice and curious about my interest. And I learned that the hotel was about to close, it was privatised, it was about to be transformed into a casino, and I said, I have to do something with this.
RB – The name has not changed. The fact that it’s still called Jugoslavija represents a certain Yugo-Nostalgia. This is very strong for some people. Why is there such a strong nostalgia in countries such as Serbia and Bosnia for Yugoslavia when it was still an authoritarian regime?
NW – That’s a difficult question, and as I say, my particular position is I haven’t lived there. I didn’t experience the regime. As far as I know it was still authoritarian, but it wasn’t like Stalin. Yugoslavia did a split with the very hard-line communists. And without judging the political I was more focusing on the level of it [being] an alternative. There was something like East, West and this country trying to do a third line. I think within the socialist regime, there is something that always goes with the identification to the country that is really stronger. And the country, I mean it ended really badly, but it had a nice golden time.
[Josip Broz] Tito was very charismatic, maybe a bit too extravagant with the film stars, with his way of showing off, so I think that’s building some very strong identification to your country. So when all this falls apart you miss some like Father Figure almost. When you think about a country that only exists because of one man and disappears when this one man leaves, something is wrong. The country should be still going without it.
RB – So, it’s a country based on a flaky myth?
NW – Yeah kind of. The very difficult social economic situation that came after the war, after the corruption, after all these awful things, I can understand that people think of some better times earlier with some nostalgia.
RB – I want to talk about Serbia in general about how it might be viewed by the outer world. You end the film with a shootout scene [from Luc Besson’s Three Days to Kill, 2014]. In traditional Hollywood movies, there’s a stereotype of Serbians that they are petty criminals or gangsters. Why do you think this endures so much?
NW – It wasn’t that much [of an] intention. I’m wondering why they came to Belgrade to shoot this scene. For me, this film goes more in parallel with this other fiction that goes in the film, with the 1970s Black Wave Yugoslavian film. Which is more for me to say how is this building used in its image, and how can we relay it to a moment of the society? In the 1970s movies, I think [its] more of a powerful critique. These anarchist gangsters go partying and have drugs and sex and alcohol in this building. It’s a strong meaning. And today we rent it to some Luc Besson, EuropaCorp massive production that explodes everything. Its more about the value that this building is carrying within its image in a film. And the figure of the Balkan, I don’t know, something is always a bit stereotypical. I mean, there’s strong mafia in Balkans, Montenegro is supposed to be a massive entry for drugs. So it’s not only an image you can have I think.
RB – So about 7% of the population of Switzerland is Balkan, and I wanted to know what the relationship between the two countries was. Why did so many people moved to the country from Yugoslavia?
NW – Switzerland has always been more prosperous than other neighbours. When I was a kid my mum was already a seasonaire — coming to work for one season. At the time they could have [a] work permit for nine months. Before it was the Italians who came to Switzerland, then Yugoslavians. My grandfather did his studies at the polytechnic school in Zurich. As people from Yugoslavia were not completely stuck in their country, not all the family but part of the family could move and study abroad and come back. Exchanges were made, and Switzerland has always needed a stranger population for its economy.
RB – There’s a lot of archive footage for the film? How did you find it?
NW – Mainly big searches at Television Serbia. And a structure called Filmske Novosti, which is the old news on film. [Typing in] “Novy Belgrade”, “Hotel Jugoslavija” keywords and spending time watching rolls and rolls. I found all the 1940s, 1950s material there. Then I had precise ideas. Because the film took some time, I had time to hear on the internet there was some footage just after the bombing by Nato. The Interior Minister came to shoot the thing, so I knew it existed. I tried to find out about this footage.
If I had to find out everything in two months it wouldn’t be so interesting. But because of the time, somebody told me about this 1970s movieYoung and Healthy as a Rose (Jovan Jovanovic, 1971) – it’s amazing, everything happens in the hotel. And then you find out on the internet there’s a film shooting with Luc Besson, because people post pictures and you see it and think it looks funny. Finding image[s] where the hotel was used— it could be advertising, it could be [a] video clip or whatever —was not just illustration but it would support a real subplot narration for the film.
RB – The film is only 78 minutes. But how much did you shoot in total?
NW – The shooting was organised at three different moments. The first moment was in 16mm, so with this material we don’t shoot gigabytes — you just shoot rolls. We had an hour for the first images. And the other one we shot on digital so we had a lot of material. Only 5% is used, I couldn’t tell exactly. We went all throughout the building without any real intention apart from filming the state of this place. [There] was a very big work on the editing table to find how to construct this — there’s basically three moments where we see the building in this different state. But yeah we used a small amount then.
RB – Did you have the narration in your head before it started or did it come later?
NW – No. It all came in editing.
RB – Coming back to the idea of nostalgia and looking back towards the past. Do you think there’s an inherent danger in that, because in Europe populism is on the rise? So countries are harking back to this idea to push their populist ideas. Do you think this is a dangerous thing and could occur in Serbia?
NW – I think the populists [are] pretty strong in Switzerland as well. The right party has a lot of power in the election, and Switzerland is against Europe. Well I think that we are at a moment that politically, socially, economically, we didn’t find out the right way to really understand what’s happening with the immigration question. What is it exactly, what is it[s] meaning after colonialism and all the wars and the Western world there? And we are at the start of understanding the new implication of all of that. It won’t be the solution to close border[s]. This will just go to civil wars or massive violence. I don’t have the answer.
RB – I wanted to ask about older buildings in general. Do you think it’s important to keep older buildings in order to remind people in the past? For example, here in Berlin, they keep buildings that were built by Nazis and Communists. They are repurposed for different uses. Do you think it’s important, especially in places like Serbia to keep buildings like Hotel Jugoslavija so people always remember the past?
NW – I don’t think it’s important to keep. It’s my first time in Berlin and I haven’t seen much. I’m sure Germany is still not that clear about its past and its own history and I’m sure they are kind of in between two ways of wanting to erase something and wanting to keep [it] at the same time. Serbia still has big work to do. They still don’t recognise the concept of genocide, so they could make a memorial for what happened in Bosnia. It’s not so much keeping the building in a museum[-like] ideal, but respecting history somehow and where you come from. I don’t know whether it’s better to keep the thing, but just to destroy [it] completely and have no respect for architecture or cultural value – that may be a problem.
