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Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi: 5 BROKEN CAMERAS (2012)--ND/NF
Llike Julia Bacha's 2009 Budrus this is a year-by-year account of a Palestinian village struggle to protest against Israeli settlements and encroachment on agricultural land. But this is a more personal and DIY account by a farmer who began shooting videos to record his fourth and youngest son Gibreel at his birth and then began shooting the action out by the wall, will still following the development of Gibreel in his first five years of life. Violence caused one camera after another to be wrecked, but he went on shooting. Fine editing by Europeans and a limpidly clear and direct narration by Burnat himself make this a strong film.
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Jason Cortland, Julie Halperin: NOW, FORAGER (2012)--ND/NF
A foodie couple who split up because he'd rather live off the grid selling foraged mushrooms and she'd rather get security working in or managing a restaurant. But the real interest in this precise, sometimes witty and richly detailed indie debut film (Cortland wrote, edited, and stars) is a couple of spot-on and hilarious scenes. For mycophiles, this will be a cult film, because there is much exact and loving talk about mushroom species and beautiful photography of them.
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Song Chuan: HUAN HUAN (2010)--ND/NF
This film about rural blackmailing and adultery must have been chosen for its raw, revealiong picture of life in China today rather than for its cinematic technique, which is lacking. Best avoided.
ND/NF pubic screening times:
Tuesday, March 27th | 9 PM | FSLC
Wednesday, March 28th | 6 PM | MoMA
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Joachim von Trier: OSLO, AUGUST 31ST--ND/NF
Sometimes when a depressing theme is treated brilliantly and artistically enough in a film you walk our feeling exhilerated and happy rather than depressed. Such is the case with this second film by the Norwegian director of the 2006 Reprise (SFIFF 2007). That one was brilliant; this is being called a masterpiece and a work of genius.
Not to be missed. ND/NF screenings:
Wednesday, March 28th | 8:30 PM | MoMA
Thursday, March 29th | 6 PM | FSLC
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(Two great ones in a row.)
Karl Markovics: BREATHING (2011)--ND/NF
Markovics is the well-known Austrian actor who starred in the 2008 Best Foreign Oscar winner, The Couinterfeiters. This is his writing and directing debut, a beautifully made film about a 19-year-old in a prison-like juvenile correctional facility who takes a job at the Vienna municipal mortuary, hoping that finally he will be able to make good at a day-release job and gain parole. Limpid widescreen cinematography by Martin Gschlacht shows close collaboration and the performance of newcomer Thomas Schubert in the main role is a sympathetic study in slow opening up as the youth, who has known only an orphanage and prison, gains hope and self-respect and faces his past. A grim but nonetheless beautiful and hopeful film.
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Anka, Wilhelm Sasnal: IT LOOKS PRETTY FROM A DISTANCE (2011)--ND/NF
For rough rural Polish rustics, neighbors' property is fair game. Wilhelm Sasnal is a well-known painter (he has a New York gallery), and Anka is his wife. He has produced Super 8 shorts and a comic strip, and this is his second short feature, which won the best new Polish film award and New Horizons, Wrocław, Poland's biggest film festival, New Horizons (covered in 2009 on Filmleaf by Borys 'michuk' Musielak). It was a Tiger competition film at Rotterdam. It is 16mm transferred to 35 and has that intense colored look this formatting can give. The paucity of dialogue makes the plot a bit hard to follow.
Up close, it's not pretty.
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Mads Metthiesen: TEDDY BEAR (2012)--ND/NF
This Danish writer-director's first feature is based on a short, which it does not expand quite fully enough. The focus is on an internationally competitive body builder who has never been in a relationship and still, at 38, lives with his tiny, insanely controlling mother. He hopes to find love by going to Thailand, inspired by an uncle who found a bride there. The film debuted at Sundance.
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Las Acacias was my favorite of about 20 films I watched at the Miami fest. I wish you had liked it too. I also wish Film Movement would distribute. It is a perfect fit for this small distributor.
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I knew that you liked it and I understand its having its fans. It is well done in its way but is too bland an exemplar of "slow film" for my taste. Einbecke is an altogether much more droll and enjoyable example, perhaps (who I think you conversely do not so much admire). I have responded a great deal to certain recent Latin American films as you know, such as Silent Light, Los Muertos, Distant News, and Scherson's Play. Those are some of my finest festival experiences. I also like the low-keyed work of Carlos Sorin and admired the ND/NF film Neighboring Sounds.
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Vincent Ginzburg: GENERATION P (2011)--ND/NF
This witty and inventive adaptation of a novel about Russia in the Nineties, particularly focused on absurd satirical advertising campaigns and political manipulation, may have some cult following in the West; it's been a a big success in Russia. It's been repeatedly compared to Terry Gilliam's Brazil. But it doesn't quite have Brazil's imaginative flair and it lacks that film's narrative unity. Some serious rubles went into the elaborate mise-en-scène, however, and there are sequences worth watching.
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P.s. Oscar did you see Found Memories? You did, didn't you? I can see it't good in its way too but I found it ultimately underwhelming because it seems a contrived use of a "found" setting, more of a talented student's film. Reygadas' Silent Light might be seen as an altogether brilliiant and powerful use of a "found' world..
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I know you appreciate films from Latin America. No I haven't seen Found Memories but I know about it. I will see it when I get a chance. Carlos Sorin has a new movie that it is totally unlike anything he's done before. A kind of Hitchcock homage: THE CAT VANISHES (after Hitch's The Lady Vanishes...). Sly, subtle exercise in suspense. I think it will get distribution but no idea when. I watched it at the MIFF last week. Have you seen the French film 17 Filles? I'm in the middle of watching it.
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Djinn Carrénard: DONOMA (2011)--ND/NF
A choral film about the youthful battleground of war in the banlieue staged, mostly improvising, by a talented group of young and attractive actors directed (and mostly shot) by the Haitian-born 30-something filmmaker with zero budget, this has been heralded as a breath of fresh air and the birth of an auteur by French critics. It's rough, and too long, but contains a wealth of interesting, fresh, and lively material.
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Angelina Nikonova: TWILIGHT PORTRAIT (2011)--ND/NF
A woman social worker from an upper crust family gets raped, and then shacks up for a while with her rapist, a cop, in this Russian film set in the south of Russia. Certainly an original story, and some of the scenes are memorable, though the joint script writers (Nikonova and the actress who plays the woman) seem to want to spell out everything too much.
