Tag: Tallinn Black Nights

The Quiet Maid (Calladita)

Posted on by Paul Risker

QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN

The soothing sound of water precedes the first image in Spanish director Miguel Faus’, The Quiet Maid. Then, appears the Spanish coast bathed in sunshine, the turquoise sea with trees in the foreground, forming a type of proscenium frame. Then, the sound of someone climbing a ladder and a maid appearing to attend to one of her many chores. It turns out the view is through a window.

Away from the British tourist hotspot of the Costa Brava, Ana (Paula Grimaldo), a newly employed Columbian maid, arrives at the luxurious vacation home of her employers, Pedro (Luis Bermejo) and Andrea (Ariadna Gil). She inconspicuously goes about her work as instructed, sending her wages home to her mother, to pay for her younger sister to study medicine. Befriending Gisela (Nany Tovar), a servant for a neighbouring family, her hopes are dashed that her employers will be able to sort her contract and papers once her probation is up. Frustrated by their empty promises and the shitty wages, Gisela lures Ana into sneaking out to parties at night, where they risk drinking too much. Gradually, she becomes mischievous, finding ways to enjoy her lavish surroundings, while feeding the cats that annoy Pedro, who complains they ruin his garden vegetables.

The pre-title image is unnecessary, unless it’s making a point. The next image of Ana, in the backseat of a car, arriving at the summer home is an appropriate beginning. However, watching Ana against a paradisal background, reminds us that for some life is pleasure, for others it’s a toil. The opening image lays the groundwork for the film’s themes of inequality and privilege.

Walking around the house, running her fingers along the paintings, Ana’s filled with wide-eyed wonder. There’s a fluidity to The Quiet Maid’s early scenes, where Ana puts herself to the grindstone. Unlike Pedro and Andrea, and their daughter Claudia (Violeta Rodríguez) and son Jacobo (Pol Hermoso), who can move at a casual pace, whether it’s cleaning, cooking or ironing, it feels as if there’s a pressure for Ana to be in perpetual motion.

In one scene, Ana speaks to her mother on the phone while ironing. This is juxtaposed with Claudia on her phone, idly sunbathing and tickling her stomach. At dinner Ana waits on the family, jumping to attention to clear the plates when the bell rings. In another scene, when Jacobo catches her smoking, she acts as though she has done something wrong. Faus returns to this initial idea of pleasure versus toil, and the fruits of absent labour Claudia and Jacobo enjoy.

The drama is playful, as the conflict between Ana and her employers takes some interesting and subtle turns. The conversation with Gisela is when the seeds of discontent are sown. Ana’s ignorant bliss or belief in her employers, who she describes as “good people”, begins to fade. She’s aware of how far off she is from covering her sister’s tuition fees. Again, the director is drawing comparisons between those that have and those that don’t, and the glaring inequality of opportunity to rise above one’s station in life. However, he doesn’t exclusively condemn people in positions of privilege, through a little twist in this narrative thread.

There’s a foreignness to the film in which Ana’s relationship with her employers is purely transactional. She serves at their pleasure and should she fall out of favour, she’ll be replaced. Any genuine acts of kindness are fleeting. Claudia is sympathetic when she notices Ana is upset, while Pedro even insists she join them on the boat. Yet, in other scenes, she makes up their beds and scrubs their toilets. The power dynamic is blatantly prejudicial, evidenced when Andrea demands or firmly instructs, instead of asking. Even the boat trip is motivated by an ulterior motive. It’s a means to placate Ana’s inevitable disappointment when her employers realise that they can’t get her papers, by making her feel a part of the family. This is after Andrea is condescending about Gisela, and she spoke like it was in her and Pedro’s power to circumvent Spanish laws. It conveys the casualness towards what’s important to others, that plays on the employer and employee, master and servant dichotomy.

At a glance, The Quiet Maid is a film about class, however, we should see it as an interpersonal war story. True to its title, the contentious relationship between Ana and the family develops quietly. Faus teases us as to what will happen, and even when relations fall apart, the drama is quietened.

The conflict emerges out of the perception of ownership by Ana’s employers, who see her as an asset. When a guilty Ana is told that Gisela was fired for being caught intoxicated, she’s forced to lie to keep her job. Unlike Claudia and Jacobo’s hedonistic lifestyle, who enjoy being young and carefree, Ana is a young, yet mature character with responsibility, who is provoked into rebelliously acting out. She lures a male friend of Claudia’s to the house when it’s vacant under false pretences and has sex on the inflatable flamingo. With a cigarette, she drinks out of a mug that reads, “Breakfast of Champions.” There’s a flippant presence to her that’s a response to the way she has been dehumanised by Andrea and Pedro.

What’s particularly noticeable is the sexual repression. Ana has agreed to work every day in August and feels she can’t leave the premises without permission. When Gisela introduces her to Tinder, her sexual desires are stirred. In an early scene, she signals to Claudia who is sneaking around with a boy, helping her to avoid her parents. She even witnesses Jacobo having sex in the pool, and yet she is condemned, described as a dirty pig by Andrea for having sex when everyone was away from the house for the night.

Andrea’s rhetoric recalls the gradual dehumanising thought process by which we have historically arrived at justifying non-consensual sterilisation of specific groups of people, through unethical government-sanctioned programmes. Faus isn’t so bold as to go there, but how the film flirts with power dynamics, teasing whether Ana can empower herself, especially against Jacobo and his friends, displays not only toxic masculinity, but the toxicity of privilege that empowers patriarchy and dehumanisation and objectification.

Aside from at least one odd bit of plotting, The Quiet Maid is an effective story about Ana’s quiet, almost silent struggle. She’s a compelling character whose internal and quiet self we catch glimpses of. We only see her break out of her timid self-consciousness in moments, like when she embraces her sexuality or stands up to Jacobo and his friends. In these fleeting moments, however, we fall in love with a character who is both a rebel and a responsibly thoughtful person.

Faus plays to the drama, when need be, but downplays it to sustain Ana’s quiet and subtle retaliation, even omitting music for much of the film, which is refreshing. Not only another observation of the class system, and the inequality of the wealth gap that cannot change anything, The Quiet Maid is a playfully entertaining film about one woman’s empowering journey, exploiting the arrogant shortcomings of the upper class.

The Quiet Maid just premiered in the First Feature Competition of the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

The Writer (Kirjanik)

Posted on by Paul Risker

QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN

Some films are like the quiet whisper of a gentle breeze. It’s an appropriate way to describe Lithuanian director Romas Zabarauskas’ beautifully reflective fourth feature, The Writer, or at least that’s how it feels. While it might lack the umph of bigger storytelling, the conversation between two lovers reunited, hits upon themes and ideas that land with a weighty delivery.

Thirty years ago, Russian born Kostas (Bruce Ross) emigrated from Lithuania to America, leaving behind his lover, Dima (Jamie Day), who he met during their mandatory service in the Soviet army. Following the publication of Kosta’s new book, 1990, Dima arrives in New York under the pretence of a job interview. The real reason he’s travelled to America is to discuss Kostas’ latest work.

The film is predominantly two characters talking in an apartment. Zabarauskas and his co-writers, Marc David Jacobs, Anastasia Sosunova and Artūras Tereškinas, invite the audience to eavesdrop on their private and intimate conversation, first in public, then in private, when Kostas invites Dima back to his place for dinner. The nature of the set-up contextualises The Writer as a voyeuristic work, but the director’s playfulness with the film’s aesthetic makes it more interesting than the label suggests.

Kostas and Dima don’t talk like people in a film talk – there’s a noticeable rhythm to the dialogue, and inflection on the words that sounds like a stage play. The staging may be partly responsible for this impression, but it nonetheless feels deliberate, as if Zabarauskas is merging the film and theatrical forms. In one playful scene, Kostas and Dima dance. Suddenly, as in a staged production, the lighting scheme is changed by the lighting technician off stage. The subtlety of film to mask its contrivance momentarily disappears, and here, the voyeuristic context changes.

The Writer is a play within a film, and whereas cinema creates an illusion of reality, theatre requires the audience to use their imagination to in order suspend their disbelief. The moment the film’s contrivance fades, it becomes less voyeuristic and more exhibitionist. The jazz score is like an intermittent whisper or a third voice. It’s sometimes unnoticeable, but there are other times the music emphasises the emotions of the moment. Zabarauskas approaches the soundtrack as a complement to the diegetic sounds. The dialogue and sound of Kostas and Dima’s voices are able to breathe, liberated from musical accompaniment. As the film progresses, we recognise the texture of their voices, while the sounds of their movement and the wine glasses being placed down on the table, comprise a noticeably engaging audio landscape.

Admittedly, the conversation becomes heavily academic at times, which could put off some audiences. Their intelligence, however, feels true to their characters, and the appeal of the film is the provocative and thoughtful back-and-forth dialogue. Not always easy going, Zabarauskas and his co-writers tease what feels like an escalation towards, if not explosive moments, then a dredging up of contentious differences of opinions and memories that could see their reunion end bitterly.

They talk about two of the three things we’re told we should never discuss: politics and religion. Their discussion has that prickly energy of two people that can provoke one another, in a way only friends can, exposing the adversarial side of friendship.

Kostas and Dima’s intellectual musings are intimate details of lives lived. They can speak about the violence of living under Soviet occupation and the xenophobia towards homosexuality. One of the enthralling disagreements the pair engage in is the disagreement over the legitimacy of choice. Kostas argues that living under tough circumstances strips away the person having a choice, whereas Dima challenges this supposition. It’s a thread that will run throughout the film, revealing a meticulous attention to detail.

The film also asks about whether our nationality makes us morally responsible for our country’s actions, but it’s Kosta and Dima’s different point-of-views on this and the other subjects, such as capitalism and socialism, stigma about one’s sexuality that energises the discourse. Zabarauskas and his co-writers home in how ideas are malleable, and how they are filtered through the subjective gazes, and the messy, non-linear nature of relationships. Throughout the concise 85-minute running time, they discuss immigration, sex and work, their nationalities, families, and relationship. This infuses the film with an insightful and introspective energy. The film’s driving interest is the idea of how we’re defined by our choices, for better or worse, but it’s effectively supported by a broad themes and ideas.

What’s striking is how Kostas has filled his apartment with nice things. His shelves are lined with books and he tells Dima that if he wants to know who he is, to read the books he has read, not the books he has written. Beneath his pleasant apartment is the soul of the man, who’s present and future is built atop of the catacombs of his memories. The story is a reflection of how we carry our pasts with us, even as we build our future, and to understand our own story requires us to understand the story of those dearest to us.

The Writer plays in the Baltic Film Competition of the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. Read our dirty review of the Lithuanian filmmaker’s previous feature film The Lawyer that premiered at BFI Flare.

Feature Film About Life (Ilgo metro filmas apie gyvenimą)

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM TALLINN

When Dovilė (Agnė Misiūnaitė) finds out her father has died, she heads onto the rooftop of her workspace. The camera slowly zooms out like in a paranoid 70s thriller, until her tiny form is finally contrasted against a huge apartment block, each open window containing its own microcosmic world. Where many directors may have chosen a teary close-up, Lithuanian director Dovilė Šarutytė opts for alienation, expanding the auto-fictional form in fascinating ways.

A camera move repeated throughout Feature Film About Life, it’s an illustrative way of the angular approach this director takes to grief, growing-up and the relationship between daughters and fathers. While the metafictional title might suggest a whimsical exploration of life and death, and one woman’s witty way of navigating it, the actual form of the film is a far more nuanced and smart take on Dovilė’s sudden thrust into adulthood.

In a bittersweet prelude, Dovilė starts the film in Paris. One of her first trips as an adult, she reflects with her friends on the irony of spending the day sightseeing. Beloved by her parents, this was the type of activity she assumed she would never do when travelling by herself. It’s a neat reflection of the ways one can grow into adulthood without even knowing it.

An even bigger challenge awaits: organising her father’s funeral. They seem to have been invented not just to process grief, but to defer it. When caught up in the bureaucracy of organising parlours and flowers, receptions and priests, cremation or burial, it’s impossible to take a step back and remember your loved one for who they truly are. A Feature Film About Life takes us on a journey through shabby restaurants, grim offices and bleak graveyards, showing how the business of navigating death can be its own coming-of-age story.

Šarutytė intersperses the matter-of-fact story with home-footage taken by her own father in the 90s. Not only do they show that the era was a seemingly universal mood — big glasses, bad hair, multi-colour puffer jackets — but create an intimate conversation between past and present. The director finds associative ways to bring boxy home video and full-screen digital together — like match cutting between symbols or allowing one scene to comment on the other — showing us in real time Dovilė reflecting on the past. It always makes me wonder how these types of films will look twenty years from now, iPhone images containing little of the immediate nostalgia young adults of my generation will associate with home video.

This metafictional approach also allows the film to sidestep the usual hallmarks of the genre — featuring several impassioned speeches reminiscing about traits of the deceased— in favour of a more subtle and tactile experience. When the waterworks finally flow, it is through a remarkably simple yet devastating gesture, all the more so thanks to the film’s earlier restraint. Sad without being depressing, funny while avoiding whimsy, compassionate but not cloying, its careful modulation of mood shows a fine command of tone from first-time feature director Dovilė Šarutytė.

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

Herd Immunity

Posted on by Paul Risker

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM TALLINN

Every artist creates for a response, but discussing some films seems pointless, unless sharing one’s critique with those that have seen it. With Kazakh director Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s Herd Immunity (Karjaimmuunsus), you don’t want to know too much about it beforehand. It’s a film to experience blind, because whatever information you glean, it still has the uniqueness to surprise its audience.

Yerzhanov has crafted an absurdist crime-comedy set in the corrupt town of Karatas, that will not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for those seduced by its charm, it’s a difficult film to forget. The story centres on local detective Selkeu (Daniyar Al Shinov) who adores bribes and supports the local criminal network, but his real dream is to choreograph a dance routine, funded by Bola, the local gangster. When Gurbeken (Erzhan Dzhamankulov) a military official turns up to expose the corruption, Selkeu finds himself at risk of being exposed.

Selkeu and his partner, ex-officer Zhamzhysh (Nurbek Mukushev) are as absurd as they are corrupt, and yet the director positions his audience to identify with them. The town is a moral vacuum that we are sucked into, as Yerzhanov feeds off our anti-authority feelings, or perhaps we just know the town’s soul is forever lost, a haven for corruption.

In Herd Immunity, we see the director and his cast not only exploit cinemas moral playground, but discover their inner child. The absurdity performances are enabled by Yerzhanov’s cinematography and approach to the story. The film should be contextualised as a bridge between childhood and adulthood – the silliness of a childlike imagination, set to an adult narrative involving themes of corruption and politics.

The film wears its heart on its sleeve, particularly with its references to French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville, who infused his films with a coolness. Yerzhanov not only acknowledges Melville, he exaggerates beyond what Melville ever dared to do with a charismatic air.

Herd Immunity is its own film, reinvigorating the gangster picture with its established tropes and traditions. More recently, Jordanian director Bassel Ghandour’s The Alleys (2021), used a change of cultural setting to his native country, to breathe fresh life into the gangster and crime story, in his thriller about the themes of control and its consequences. The two, although different in tone form a complementary double feature, showing how the artists voice can bring to bear an individualism or uniqueness on a genre.

Heavily leaning towards comedy, the director even laces the tragedy of the piece with a comical dimension. To appreciate Herd Immunity, one should look at it as a single string in the directors bow. Accompanying it to this year’s Tallinn Black Nights, the director also presents the biographical drama Mukagali(2021), about the Kazakh poet Mukagali Makataev, that takes on a more serious tone. Together they showcase Yerzhanov’s nuanced approach to storytelling.

Herd Immunity plays in the Official Competition section of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, running from 12-28th November.

The Cloud & The Man (Manikbabur Megh)

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM TALLINN

A whimsical Georgian film asked viewers earlier this year: What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (Aleksandre Koberidze, 2021). Now from India, we have a more literal answer, no less whimsical in its approach. When Manik (Chandan Sen) finds himself drawn away from the day-to-day doldrums of his mundane life — work, family duties, more work, hearing the complaints of his neighbours — he looks up and sees a cloud in the sky. The only problem is, no one else seems to see it.

At first I assumed Manik takes an umbrella with him everywhere because he wants to keep out of the sun. Kolkata is suffering from record temperature highs, piling on the stress he feels in his everyday work. It turns out the umbrella is actually in case of rain, as he sees an equally lonely cloud in the sky, following his every move. The final result is a small dose of magical realism, a medium dose of attentive city portraiture and a large dose of fanciful character study.

There is a touch of Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1989) to this story, but where the angels wanted to descend to earth to be with mortals, this mortal wants to shake off his coil and be with the clouds. The black-and-white aesthetic is not just a stylistic approach, but crucial to the way that Manik sees the world. Widescreen images and surround sound immerse us in Manik’s world, allowing him to stay in the foreground amidst endless hustle and bustle surrounding him. Colour would be overwhelming, while black-and-white keeps its cool distance.

It’s a contrast in temperament. While the world around Manik seems to be constantly in a state of flux, nothing can change his approach to life. He feels like a throwback: he carries no mobile phone, his job (unspecified) sees him sitting in front of an endless stack of papers, and he likes nothing better than tending to his rooftop garden. One image in particular sticks out: a television with nothing inside; used to frame his flowers and view them in a different light. It invites you to visit this world alongside Manik, expertly downplayed by Sen, all the more effective in his performance for the few times he allows joy to finally crack his otherwise deadpan visage.

Abhinandan Banerjee takes a symphonic, rhythmic approach to narrative, repeating images in the way composers repeat key motifs, building upon them differently each time, paying back a slow start by cleverly rewarding our attention. The music itself grows and changes with the film, starting with simple melodies before adding complexity in instrumentation and exploration. Occasional changes from black-and-white to colour again flip Wim Wenders’ script by seeing the world from the cloud’s perspective, creating a cruel contrast between the world of imagination and the world of reality.

It could be easy to take fun of Manik; to see his perspective as a truly blinkered one. He’s prone to being hoodwinked by fast-talking men and barely resists the harsh reproaches of the women in his life; whether it’s his landlady or even his own mother. But with the cloud, he allows himself to feel different. Filled with possibilities. There’s something rather beautiful in all that, even if it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why. I guess we all look at the sky differently.

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

A film miracle in the Baltics!

Posted on by victorfraga

Between November 13th and 29th, the Estonian capital saw the latest edition of PÖFF Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. The event occurred at full capacity, with all scheduled screenings taking place inside very real cinemas inhabited with very real people. All industry events and also many films were available online, making this a truly hybrid film festival.

That the event could take place as planned and two DMovies journalists could fly to Tallinn in order to follow the action live is nothing short of miraculous. It took three PCR tests, 24 hours of self-isolation and abundant masks. Estonia takes the virus very seriously, despite the very low infection rate. Cinemas, restaurants and even some nightclubs were open. Coming from the UK in full lockdown mode, it felt like being in a different galaxy. Livelihoods were rather intact. Estonians and PÖFF made everyone feel extremely welcome.

This is my third year at the event. DMovies and PÖFF have now become established partners. The two organisations have a huge affinity. We both believe in thought-provoking, innovative and diverse cinema made in every corner of the planet.

Redmond Bacon and myself (pictured below) were the journalists at the coalface. Plus we had a little helping hand from Paul Risker working remotely in the UK. We covered from the opening ceremony (with the Fassbinder biopic Enfant Terrible, by Oskar Roehler) to the very last film in Competition (Dalibor Matanic’s The Dawn). In total, we published 57 pieces during the course of 17 days. This includes every single one of the 26 films in the Official Competition, 18 in the First Feature Competition, and much more.

This being my third year in Tallinn, I was very impressed with the selection – the best one I have come across so far. Below is just the tip of the iceberg. You can check all the reviews in chronological order in our review archive, and you can read the articles in our article archive.

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The winners

The Best Picture Prize this year went to Bulgaria’s Fear (directed by Ivaylo Hristov; pictured below) a slap in the face of xenophobia and intolerance (yet not a movie without imperfections), while Best Director went to Turkish drug addiction drama When I’m Done Dying (by 33-year-old female director Nisan Dag, who travelled to Tallinn to receive the prize).

The Best Actor Award went to Danish veteran Ulrich Thomsen in the very peculiar war drama Erna at War (Henrik Ruben Genz), while Best Actress went to the outstanding Marie Leuenberger in Swiss-German co-production Caged Birds (Oliver Rihs). Best Script went more than deservingly to Portuguese courtroom drama Submission (Leonardo Antonio), with one of the most vivid descriptions of rape ever (it literally gave me nightmares at night). The Cinematography prize went to the quiet French drama Beasts (Nael Marandin), also dealing with the topic of sexual abuse. Spanish movie Armugan (Jo Sol; pictured at the top) won Best Music.

The top prize in First Feature Competition went to the Chinese “epic of the human heart filled with bittersweet wisdom” Great Happiness (Wang Yiao). The two Jury prizes went to Polish 25 years of Innocence (Jan Holoubek) and Armenian Should the Wind Drop (Nora Martirosyan). You can click click here in order to read Redmond Bacon’s full verdict on the First Feature Competition.

Interestingly, there were no English-language movies in either competition. A welcome break from the anglophone hegemony? Last year, two British movies won top prizes: Muscle (Gerard Johnson) and Looted (Rene von Pannevis). Let’s hope Britain returns at full throttle in 2021!

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Our dirty picks

Our personal favourites were largely amongst the awarded films. Caged Birds is a delectable blend of crime thriller and philosophical essay on the meaning of freedom (and one likely to reach the British market soon). Submission dissects the structures of domestic abuse, with a dazzling performance by Iolanda Laranjeiro. Redmond Bacon’s dirty pick is Great Happiness, the film that won the First Feature Competition. What a great synergy with the jury!

Sadly, the Filipino drama Fan Girl (Antoinette Jadaone) left empty-handed. The movie deals with a teenager obsessed with her idol, ending up in his residence in a very awkward position. A lot of fun and a lot of depth.

We already miss Tallinn and look forward to 2021!