Tag: PÖFF 22

Lovable (Milulis)

Posted on by Paul Risker

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM TALLINN

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.

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.