The 22nd Miami International Film Festival

[oscar jubis]

Modigliani (USA/France/Germany/Italy/UK, 2005)

Amedeo Modigliani was an Italian Jew born in 1884, who became one of the greatest portrait artists of the 20th century. This new film written and directed by Mick Davis concentrates on the last years of his life, immediately after the end of World War I, when the artist was living in Paris. There he came into close contact with many of the greatest artists and thinkers of the time. Modigliani (Andy Garcia) moved through this bohemian world with a boastful, self-destructive swagger that inspired both admiration and scorn. Modigliani proposes that his poverty forced him to reluctantly enter the city's annual art competition, and that his most intense rival was Pablo Picasso (Omid Djalili). The other narrative thread advanced in the film involves Modigliani's muse, Jeanne Hebuterne, a Catholic art student who became his wife and gave birth to his only child.
I don't know whether the art competition was as significant to Amedeo Modigliani as it is to this film. It seems, on the surface, to be a commercial calculation on the part of the filmmakers. British stand-up comedian Djalili is an odd choice to play Picasso but he grows into the role. On the other hand, the underexposed French actress Elsa Zylberstein is perfectly cast as Jeanne, whose battles against her father's anti-semitism and her husband's vices are dramatized with great skill. The role of Modigliani is within Garcia's range, but perhaps what's best about Modigliani is its set decoration and, befitting an artist biopic, cinematographer Emmanuel Kadosh's colorful palette.

[Chris Knipp]

The Jewish Museum had a very big retrospective of Modigliani in NYC last summer which I attended. In quantity one could see the great beauty of his stronger portraits, but also a certain repetitiousness and lack of depth. In the end there seemed to be too many of them. But his work has great elegance and style and he did his very nude nudes with the lush smooth textures and the handsome earth colors, the elongated faces and bodies wonderfully. One trouble is that he has been so much copied in every kind of conventional imagery that he no longer looks original, which he of course was, as was his use of imagery from African sculpture, though he was not alone in that, since Braque, Picasso and others were of course also collecting African carvings and masks and being influenced by them during the same period.

I assume this was a theatrical showing; you forgot to mention where you saw it. Not yet announced in the Bay Area, I think. I wish you'd said a bit more about the look of the movie, its authenticity, its beauty, though you do suggest as others have that it's good looking. Another review suggests Garcia's strong performance is the main point of interest; that the focus on the competition with Picasso (which I don't remember from Richardson's bio of Picasso) is narrow and excessive; and a Toronto Festival review calls the movie a "paint by the numbers biopic." Other comments: Garcia good at being drunk but appears drunk when not supposed to be; his Italian awful and ungrammatical; at times he overacts; cameos of Gertrude Stein, FRieda Kahlo, William Randolf Hearst, and Renoir are fun. (What about Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Derain--also associates of his?) I am not excited, but artist biopics rarely do excite me. Watching an artist slap paint on a canvas lacks the charm of watching Ray Charles sing a song. There was plenty of music and high kicking chorus girls in John Huston's evocative and visually lush (1952) Toulouse Lautrec biopic, Moulin Rouge. A couple of fine recent ones, though are Schnabel's Basquiat (1996) and John Maybury's Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998). Also perhaps good a couple of Van Gogh pictures that I haven't yet seen. I wasn't as taken with Ed Harris' earnest and Academy Awarded (2000) Pollock, which tried too hard -- or Selma Hayek's also earnest and visually attractive Frieda. It was its looseness and élan that made Schnabel's Basquiat so good, plus the amazing Jeffrey Wright. I wonder why an American plays Modigliani in English in this movie, instead of Italians or French filmmakers making it in French?

[oscar jubis]

Modigliani opened the festival. It's scheduled for theatrical release in May. It has commercial aspirations. Films in English get better worldwide distribution than films in any other language. I loved the production design and Elsa Zylberstein's performance. She really looks like Jeanne Hebuterne too. You might have seen her in Farinelli and Time Regained. Some people will like Garcia as Modigliani, others won't. I think he's fine. The Toronto Eye review called his perf "fearless". As a commercial project, it's probably more along the lines of Frida. Some will find it over-familiar: genius artist is poor, unrecognized, sick, temperamental, abuses substances... The project's focus on the art competition is its major drawback, and the script lacks distinction. I would call it "worth watching" but not a "must see".

[Chris Knipp]

I'm confused that you described Modigliani only yesterday and it began the Miami Film Festival a month ago. The Italian festival also began and ended with lackluster items.I was wondering why French and Italians didn't make this film, I don't see exactly why the fact of better Eng. Lang. distribution means it must be made in English; do Americans prefer biopics?

[oscar jubis]

English language films get into more theatres worldwide. It's a fact. A movie in English with a known actor will likely make more money than a French and Italian film. Depardieu and Auteuil are too old to play Modigliani. Younger French or Italian actors are not well known by the world's masses.
I felt no compulsion to review festival films in the order they were shown. I only wanted to make sure I reviewed Whisky, Nobody Knows and Gunner Palace quick because their US release dates were fast approaching. All three are currently in theatres.

[oscar jubis]

Inconscientes (Spain/Germany/Portugal/Italy, 2004)

Barcelona, 1913. Free-spirited and pregnant Alma enlists the help of her uptight brother-in-law Salvador in searching for her missing husband, a Freudian psychiatrist. The investigation is guided by a manuscript on women and hysteria the missing man was writing, based on four of his patients. Director Joaquin Oristrell shapes this material into an amusing comedy with satirical tones. As Alma and Salvador dig for clues that may lead to Alma's husband, they encounter a world of forbidden pleasures hiding beneath the pretensions of polite society. The lovely Leonor Watling (Bad Education, Talk to Her) and Luis Tosar (Mondays in the Sun) have the required chemistry to propel the film past some plot holes and uninspired parts. Production values are top-notch. Unconscious has secured North American distribution.

[Chris Knipp]

At the festival, when shown?

[oscar jubis]

Closing Night film at the fest will be distributed here by Regent Releasing. Scheduled for this year but no specific dates announced. The type of crowd-pleaser that's typically picked for opening or closing night.

[oscar jubis]

Saraband (Sweden, 2004)

It's a privilege for an old master to grow old with dignity, in full control of the creative faculties that brought him recognition and fame. Two decades after Fanny and Alexander, presented as a final work at the time, a summation of his filmmaking career, Ingmar Bergman has come out of retirement to create this tough-minded, searing chamber piece, shot in Digital Video.

Bergman summons Johan (Erland Josephson) and Marianne (Liv Ullmann), the couple from his Scenes From a Marriage, not to create a sequel per se, but something altogether richer and multi-layered. Saraband is bookended by an epilogue, in which Ullmann introduces the story aided by photos and discusses her impulse to visit Johan, and an epilogue. In between, ten dramatic "dances" for two, only one used to revisit the issues that led to Johan and Marianne's divorce three decades earlier. Johan has inherited a large estate from his aunt and lives comfortably in the main house. Henrik, Johan's son from his first marriage, has moved to the estate's lakeside cottage with his 19 year old daughter Karin, after the death of his wife Anna two years ago. Both Henrik and Karin are cellists. The father is helping the talented youngest prepare for an audition for entrace into a renowned music school. The troubled Henrik is perhaps Saraband's central character. The hostile relationship he has with Johan is complicated by his financial dependency on him, and the huge void left by his wife's death is impinging on his relationship with Karin. The girl is pulled in one direction by her need for individuation and pulled in another by guilt over abandoning her grief-stricken father. Marianne is practically forced to intervene in these intense parental conflicts, which cause her to re-examine her feelings towards the two daughters born to her marriage with Johan.

Mr. Bergman has not lost one bit of his ability to write incisive, revealing dialogue, provide fresh insight into the human condition, create indelible images, and guide actors toward perfectly calibrated performances. Saraband is a reminder of what film can accomplish and an unexpected gift to movie lovers worldwide.

[oscar jubis]

Saraband was originally shown on Swedish television, and later had a limited commercial run in Europe. The film opens in the USA on July 8th, 2005 courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. I look forward to the discussion this film event will generate this summer. The purpose of my review was simply to give an idea about the structure and content of the film, and to provide some reasons why I think it's so good. There's a lot more to be said regarding the film's autobiographical aspects, the movie in relation to Bergman's entire filmography, his use of new technology, the use of music, etc.

[oscar jubis]

DRAMATIC

World Cinema Competition
Grand Jury Prize to A WAY OF LIFE (UK)

Ibero-American Competition
Grand Jury Prize to DAYS OF SANTIAGO (Peru)
The story of a former soldier adjusting to civilian life in Lima's slums.

DOCUMENTARY

Grand Jury Prize to LA SIERRA (Colombia)
Documents a Medellin barrio on the front lines of Colombia's ongoing civil war.


FIPRESCI AWARD

A WAY OF LIFE (UK)


AUDIENCE AWARDS

Documentary:
THE UNTOLD STORY OF EMMETT LOUIS TILL (USA)

Dramatic (3-way tie):
RED DUST (South Africa/UK)
THE EDUKATORS (Germany)
THE OVERTURE (Thailand)