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Thread: The 2008 Miami International Film Festival

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    The 2008 Miami International Film Festival

    The Miami International Film Festival turns 25 this year. The 2008 edition will take place from February 28th to March 9th at seven venues throughout the city. The majestic 1400-seat Gusman Theatre, located in the downtown area, is the site where the opening and closing films are shown. The Awards Ceremony and a special 25th Anniversary homage will also be held at the Gusman, as well as a number of Red Carpet events and screenings. Dramatic and Documentary features competing for awards usually receive three screenings at smaller venues located in Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Little Havana, and North Miami.

    The Festival will show well over 100 feature films from throughout the world, with a continued concentration on films from Iberoamerica. The Miami festival has been hailed as the premiere showcase for Iberoamerican cinema in North America. The Festival's Film Exchange Program focuses on a different Latin American country each year with exhibition of films, panel discussions and events. This year, films from emerging Mexican filmmakers will be shown, and the festival will bring to Mexico a group of film industry advisors to share experience and knowledge with local film students and filmmakers.

    In 2008, the Festival's World Issues sidebar concentrates on "children without a childhood", the environment, and war. There will be 27 short films competing for cash awards, and a Preservation Screening Program that will include the U.S. premiere of the restored print of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West and a collection of highly influential avant-garde shorts by the Kuchar brothers.

    Festival director Patrick de Bokay makes his debut this year. There are a number of apparent changes. The festival now opens on a thursday so that there is one more full day of screenings available. The three films that receive Grand Jury prizes will have an additional screening at the large Gusman venue on closing day. A program called Reel Music Scene has been added to showcase music documentaries and videos. The Miami festival has historically served, like the New York Film Festival, as a launching pad for U.S. distributors to showcase upcoming releases. There are less of them in this year's program. Perhaps the most important development is that the MIFF, in its 25th edition, is placing even more emphasis on discovering new talent and introducing films that have not secured distribution.

    Let the films begin!

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    BODY OF WAR (USA)

    The great Roman historian, Titus Livius, said, "All things will be clear and distinct to the man who does not hurry; haste is blind and improvident."
    "Blind and improvident," Mr. President. Congress would be wise to heed those words today, for as sure as the sun rises in the east, we are embarking on a course of action with regard to Iraq that, in its haste, is both blind and improvident. We are rushing into war without fully discussing why, without thoroughly considering the consequences, or without making any attempt to explore what steps we might take to avert conflict.


    That is an excerpt from the remarks made by Robert Byrd, the Democratic Senator from West Virgina, during the debate leading to the passing of the Iraq War Resolution in October of 2002. This documentary co-directed by TV icon Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro intercuts between the debate and vote count that sanctioned the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq and the daily activities of Tomas Young. Mr. Young joined the Army two days after 9/11 hoping to search and capture those responsible for the terrorist attacks. Instead, he was deployed to Iraq. He was shot on his fifth day there, resulting in permanent spinal cord injury.

    Body of War depicts with absolute frankness the ensuing physical and mental challenges involved. The daily care he receives from his wife Brie, from his mother Cathy, and from medical staff from the Veteran's Administration (which is found to be insufficient and second-rate). The film documents Young's activism as a member of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, and his mother's political involvement in anti-war causes. Body of War doesn't dwell deeply into the fact that Young has an enlisted younger brother and a conservative, hawkish father. How the Youngs seemingly maintain familial cohesion and harmony in the face of marked disparity of opinion about the War, and politics in general, would be interesting documentary material. Perhaps exploring this issue would have detracted from the film's unwavering focus on the "blind and improvident" decision to invade Iraq and the price being paid. Yet some attention to it would have made for more compelling viewing.

    Body of War ends on a perfect note as the two narrative strands are neatly brought together. Young pays a visit to the longest-serving member in the history of the Senate. As they walk down the hall after a nice chat, the wheelchair-bound Young and the 90 year-old Byrd jokingly compare their "mobility issues".

    *Body of War received an award as Best Documentary of 2007 by the National Board of Review (based on festival screenings). It will be released theatrically in four major markets in April 2008.

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    IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA (Spain/France)

    "He" is a young man with tousled hair, stubble under a prominent jaw, and intense light eyes. He wears clothes a size too large and loves to sketch. He has checked into a one-star hotel in the city's old quarter. Sylvie is a girl he met at a nearby club six years ago. He hasn't seen her since, but continues to search for her. He thinks he spots her while sitting at a cafe. When "she" leaves, he tails her and spies on her for what will be the film's longest sequence. He seems to delay approaching her, perhaps to extend the illusion that "she" is Sylvie or to postpone being disappointed. "She" is played by Pilar Lopez de Ayala, the beautiful actress who won a Goya for her performance as Juana, the Spanish queen who went crazy in Mad Love. "He" is played by the lesser-known Xavier Lafitte.

    The city of Sylvie is Strasbourg, here playing a role as protagonic as his. And the city is mostly bathed in warm sunlight even though the film is divided into three "nights". In the City of Sylvia is, among other things, a people-watching film. There are some recurring supporting players like an African man peddling wallets and belts and a rose seller with a pronounced limp. Director Jose Luis Guerin sometimes digresses briefly from "him" and his quest. At one point, he aims the camera discreetly at an obese, disheveled streetwoman, who sits on the sidewalk as she tosses an empty beer bottle across the street. The city comes alive in every sense via a combination of long takes, precise framing and a magnificently detailed, naturalistic sound design. The music we hear intermittently is not part of a composed score; it comes out of club speakers, car radios, and actual instruments being played live.

    Graffiti signs around town proclaiming "Laure Je t'aime" are impossible to miss. The mystery messenger might be another forlorn lover who makes explicit the sentiments "he" can't express. Hard to say. I think the film is a testament to the power of a chance meeting or a fleeting moment on a person's life. The dialogue in the film is very sparse, by the way. This is fill-in-the-blanks storytelling. The mode is contemplative and observational, not unlike several films by directors from Barcelona such as Albert Serra's Honor de Cavalleria, Marc Recha's August Days and, to a lesser extent, Cesc Gay's Fiction. The experience they provide is rich and sensual. Detractors might claim that "nothing really happens". "Nothing", I'd reply, "except life".

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    PERSONAL BELONGINGS (CUBA)

    Independent Cuban films like Personal Belongings have more freedom to deal with controversial issues than those produced under the auspices of the government's organization for film production (ICAIC). This directing debut of Alejandro Brugues frankly dramatizes a primordial dilemma for Cubans: do I stay or do I attempt to leave? The handsome, former medical student Ernesto spends substantial time visiting consulates and reviewing visa requirements. Those who've decided to leave exist in a type of "purgatory", he says, made apparent by the fact he lives in the Lada he inherited when his mother passed away. The title refers to the contents of a small suitcase he plans to take abroad, most notably a memento his father gave him years before their estrangement. While assisting an injured person, Ernesto meets Ana, a young doctor who wouldn't want to leave the island. Personal Belongings adroitly charts the course of their relationship from the initial attraction and mutual affinity into a tentative romance with set limits imposed to avoid the pain of separation. A shortcut to exile appears when Ernesto meets a Spanish party-girl. She's just found out she's pregnant and needs a "husband" to placate her family in Spain.

    All is well with Personal Belongings for about the first hour. It certainly presents a fair and balanced treatment of a delicate theme for Cubans home and abroad. It engages the viewer effortlessly, anchored by two dimensional and likable central characters. What devalues it has nothing to do with the restrictions of a low budget or directorial inexperience. It's the terrible third act of the script by Brugues, who has a writing background, that damns the film. It contains a number of improbable twists and awkward last-minute revelations designed, I imagine, to surprise, thrill, and amuse audiences. The unanimous opinion after the press screening was that Brugues lost his nerve, failed to trust the characters, "sold out". I am curious as to how a general audience will react to this disappointing film competing for the Festival's Ibero-American Feature Jury Prize.

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    THE POPE'S TOILET (URUGUAY)

    The titular toilet is not for John Paul II, it's for the tens of thousands expected to descend upon the small Uruguayan town of Melo during his visit. News of the Pope's visit have stimulated a flurry of activity. Struggling locals save and borrow to buy large quantities of food, drink and souvenirs to sell to throngs of pilgrims_news reports predict as many as 80 thousand. Beto (Cesar Troncoso) figures they will need bathroom facilities. He decides to build a modern bathroom in his frontyard and charge for usage.

    By the time Beto starts collecting the necessary bricks we're rooting for him. He belongs to a friendly pack of men who make a living smuggling contraband, to be sold by local grocers, by bicycle across the Brazilian border. Beto lives with his loyal wife Carmen (Virginia Mendez) and their teenage daughter Silvia. They protest when they discover Beto is secretly smuggling goods for a corrupt customs official, but he needs quick money for a door and a toilet bowl "like the ones the rich use". Perhaps he'll raise enough money to buy the motorcycle of his dreams. The one that would allow him to rest his bum knee.

    The Pope's Toilet was written and directed by Enrique Fernandez and Cesar Charlone_the cinematographer who lensed City of God and The Constant Gardener. The images found in this directing debut are every bit as accomplished. From the early tracking shots of the smugglers attempting to out-pedal the authorities to long shots of the town at dusk following the fabled event, The Pope's Toilet is a testament to the rich visual imagination and filmmaking chops of Fernandez and Charlone. Yet one is never distracted from the deep humanistic core of the narrative. Almost imperceptibly, the script weaves in Silvia's coming-of-age story. Mom wants her to go to sewing school, dad wants her to pedal next to him, but Silvia hopes to broadcast news on radio, perhaps even television. By film's end, a wiser, more aware Sylvia comes to a decision.

    The Pope's Toilet is based on John Paul II's visit to Melo in 1988. Some plot elements reminded me of Fuse, a superb 2005 film about a Serbian town preparing for a visit from President Clinton. Despite potential expectations raised by its title, The Pope's Toilet doesn't aim for the satiric comedy found in Fuse. It's not devoid of humor though, and it achieves the type of rare, earned pathos found in Vittorio de Sica's The Bicycle Thief.

    *The Pope's Toilet has won multiple awards af film festivals in Spain and Brazil, including Best Latin-American Film at the prestigious San Sebastian Film Festival. In Miami, the film will receive "red carpet treatment" as a "Gusman Gala", thus showing out of competition.

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    AND ALONG CAME TOURISTS (GERMANY)

    The second film directed by Robert Thalheim is partly based on his experiences at the International Youth Meeting Center of Auschwitz. Like Sven, the protagonist of And Along Came Tourists, Thalheim opted to to complete one year of civil service rather than the two years of military service required of Germans. He was assigned to the hostel/memorial/museum complex located at the former concentration camp next to the Polish town of Oswiecism. Sven is assigned to provide transportation and assistance to Stanislaw, the Center's octogenarian survivor-in-residence. The rough-mannered, former political prisoner educates youth groups visiting the camp and helps prepare victims' suitcases for display at the museum.

    The amiable Sven must from the start contend with the barely repressed anti-German attitudes of the locals and Stanislaw's bad temper. Then, he sublets a room from Ania, a multilingual Polish girl who works as a museum guide and a casual romance develops between them. Sven patiently manages to get along with the old man, who's having conflict with museum curators who insist the suitcases need to be preserved not restored. When Ania quits her job to attend University abroad, Sven wonders if he'd be happier elsewhere and considers requesting a transfer.

    And Along Came Tourists benefits from a good cast and a thougthful script. But the drama simmers at a low boil. One watches the film with interest for 85 minutes but I doubt I'll remember much about it in a couple of months. Well, I won't forget the scene in which Sven protests after a businesswoman interrupts Stanislaw's remarks at the unveiling of a Holocaust memorial at a new German-owned factory. It's a rare compelling moment in a film that's earnest and well-meaning but merely competent.

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    SLINGSHOT (PHILIPPINES)

    Brillante Mendoza toiled as a production designer under the psudonymn Dante for a long time before he directed his debut at age 45. He is furiously making up for lost time with 6 films released since 2005, and quickly establishing quite a reputation in his native Philippines and abroad. Mendoza's latest is nothing less than a feat of filmmaking prowess. A comprehensive, fictionalized snapshot of Manila slum life that could easily pass for a fly-on-the-wall documentary. Now imagine the fly being able to move across space at will thanks to those handy, lightweight Hi-Def DV cameras. Mendoza takes you into the cramped rooms, narrow alleyways, and crowded streets with unparalleled urgency and immediacy.

    Slingshot is bookended by a vertiginous police raid and a political rally, the only event not staged for the camera. The hard work, skill and time required to make the rest look absolutely real can't be overlooked. That Mendoza is a great director of actors, a brilliant performance shaper, will be obvious to any viewer who realizes Slingshot is not a documentary. The shooting of the film was scheduled to coincide with Holy Week and the campaign leading to council elections. Slingshot consists of a number of vignettes involving multiple characters, none of whom takes center stage. A girl kneels to beg not to be turned in to police after caught shoplifting a dvd player. Another girl, who's missing front teeth, wails after accidentally dropping her dentures down the drain. The youngest among a gang of thieving schoolboys, the only one who gets caught, gets beat up at the police station. A toddler plays with his feces while dad gets high with his friends. A basketball game devolves into a knife fight. Believers pray devoutly to Jesus and Allah. Two women compete for a handsome casanova. Residents make a long line to collect cash in exchange for votes. Scaming, hustling, borrowing, bartering, pawning, begging, stealing. Whatever it takes to survive in the oppressive environment. It has such an impact on the lives of slum residents that Mendoza's sociological, rather than psychological, approach is not only valid but entirely appropriate.

    Slingshot ends with a sequence of unmitigated power and poignancy. At the rally, a candidate's empty speechifying is followed by the singing of "How Great is Our God" as a bystander gets his pocket picked.

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    BLUE EYELIDS (MEXICO)

    Characters like Marina (Cecilia Suarez) and Victor (Enrique Arreola) are common in real life but rare in movies. At best, they are supporting characters subjected to violence, derision, or ridicule. Marina sells work uniforms at a store and Victor is in charge of the photocopier at an insurance company. They are both 30-something, single, isolated, humble, and guarded. What propells the plot of Blue Eyelids is Marina's winning an all-expenses-paid vacation for two at a beach resort. She thinks of inviting a girlfriend she hasn't seen for a while but she seems to have changed phone mumbers. Her selfish sister tries to get Marina to give up both tickets so she can take her husband and hopefully save their marriage. Desperate, Marina calls Victor. They had met at the cafe about a month earlier. He claimed to have been in her graduating class but Marina doesn't remember him at all. Blue Eyelids tracks their growing relationship over a series of encounters and dates prior to the vacation. It's a sometimes awkward, tentative getting-to-know-you between two who don't feel passion but perceive they just might make a good match. Marina and Victor recognize their suitability and common decency. They also seem well aware of the risks of getting close.

    This film, directed by Ernesto Contreras and written by his brother Carlos, assumes the personality of the protagonists. Just like Marina and Victor wouldn't know how to tell a joke, Blue Eyelids doesn't exploit the obvious comedic potential of certain situations. They are also not melodrama characters so the script avoids large emotions or overly explicit displays of feeling in favor of nuance and sublety. A somewhat undercooked but brief narrative thread involving the old, lonesome owner of the shop where Marina works barely detracts from the overall effect. Blue Eyelids bucks convention in ways that could displease audiences who demand comic relief or who like their romances torrid. Discerning audiences will likely appreciate Blue Eyelids as a thoughtful, fairly unpredictable, breath-of-fresh-air. It was a Cannes selection in 2007 and winner of Best Film and Best Screenplay awards at Mexico's premiere film festival, the one that takes place in Guadalajara every spring.

    The outstanding performances by US-educated Ms. Suarez (Sex, Shame & Tears, A Wonderful World) and Mr. Arreola (the pizza delivery man in Duck Season) are critical to the success of Blue Eyelids. They are both nominated for Mexican Academy awards. In Miami, Blue Eyelids is competing for Best Ibero-American Film.

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    THE TREE OF GHIBET (CAMEROON-ITALY-USA)

    This activist DV feature is simply not good enough to recommend. It is a project of The Traveling Film School, a non-profit organization that provides free film and theater training to children from underdeveloped regions. The school was created by New Yorker and Columbia grad Amedeo D'Adamo and Milanese documentarian Nevina Satta. The filmmakers describe The Tree of Ghibet as "an experiment in filmmaking without a screenplay to bring attention to the billion children living in poverty".

    An 8 year-old named DJ is rejected and abandoned by his aunt because she thinks he is possessed by an evil spirit. The boy joins a group of kids living in the streets of Douala, Cameroon under the less than ideal leadership of a quarrelsome woman named Ghibet, and Divine, a teenage prostitute. A few vignettes illustrate the dangers faced by homeless, third-world kids. One involves the popularity of glue as a means of escape for youths living under these conditions. Another one features an American sexual predator. Then Divine gets killed by one of her johns.

    The issues raised are neither explored nor convincingly dramatized, they are simply brought up. The edification one would derive from immersion in an alien environment and the enjoyment of watching the street kids play themselves is diminished by rudimentary production values and mediocre lensing. As perhaps should be expected of a film without a screenplay, there are serious pacing problems and a general narrative slackness.

    Text prior to final credits provides interesting and important information about the world's 200 million homeless minors. In many African countries, for instance, there are no laws against child neglect and abandonment. In others, the laws are not enforced. I wished I could give a good review to this well-meaning film meant to raise awareness about their plight.

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    TRICKS (POLAND)

    Summer in a Polish provincial town from three distinct points of view. Elka is a tall blonde in her late teens assiduously trying to master the Italian language so she can apply for a job with an Italian firm with offices in Poland. She even carries two-sided conversations in Italian while washing mugs at the beer garden where she works. Elka's brother Stefek, an inquisitive, force-of-nature of about 9 years of age, wanders the streets observing and trying to make sense of the adult world. Elka and Stefek live with their shopkeeper mother, who is relegated to a secondary role in the narrative. The train station is Stefek's favorite hangout. He becomes curious about a well-dressed man who changes trains at the station. Elka explains that father left because "another woman trapped him with her tricks". Her willful avoidance of the man at the station signals to Stefek that this man could be the father who left when he was very little. So Stefek decides to engage him in conversation to learn more about him. The third major character in Tricks is Jerzy, a young car enthusiast and mechanic contemplating what he can do to make Elka fall in love with him.

    This sophomore effort by writer/director Andrzej Jakimowski (Squint Your Eyes) feels freshly imagined from beginning to end. Jakimowski gives us three likable, well-defined characters with specific goals and creates a great deal of suspense and anticipation around whether or not they will achieve them. Tricks presents a view of reality as an interplay between what people can do to get what they want and intervening forces outside their control. Handsome lensing by Adam Bajersky makes even nondescript, drab locations exude hope but the denounment is realistically ambiguous and a tad inconclusive. Cast is uniformly good, but it was little Damian Ul who winning the Best Actor prize at the Tokyo Film Festival. Tricks also won two prizes at Venice and captured Best Film and Best Cinematography at the Polish Film Festival.

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    STRANDED: I HAVE COME FROM A PLANE THAT CRASHED ON THE MOUNTAINS (URUGUAY-ARGENTINA-CHILE-FRANCE)

    "The tenth day arrived, the day when we hear on the radio, that the search has been called off, the day when we had no more food at all… Then, we said to ourselves: if Christ could offer His flesh and His blood to His Apostles during the Last Supper, then surely He had shown us the way and we must do the same: take His blood and His flesh as incarnated in our friends who had died in the crash… So that this became an intimate Communion for all of us… and this is what helped us to survive."
    (A survivor of the flight that crashed on the Andes mountains in 1972)

    The tale of how a group of Uruguayan rugby players survived for 72 days after their plane crashed on the Andes cordillera at over 13,000 ft. altitude has been called "the most extraordinary survival story ever". A film adaptation made in Mexico in 1976 was dubbed into English and released in the States as Survive! even though it wasn't any good. It was based on one of several books about the ordeal. Probably the best among them, written by Piers Paul Read, was adapted by John Patrick Shanley for the US-made Alive (1993). While it was clearly better than the quickly put together Mexican film and included an outstanding crash sequence, Alive somehow failed to get under one's skin. As Roger Ebert put it: "what would it really be like to huddle in a wrecked aircraft for 10 weeks in freezing weather, eating human flesh? I cannot imagine, and frankly this film doesn't much help me."

    Stranded: I Have Come From A Plane That Crashed on the Mountains, a documentary by Uruguayan director Gonzalo Arijon, is the definitive movie about the crash and survival. For the first time since the press conferences immediately after rescue, all the survivors have spoken openly and frankly in front of the camera about this amazing event. One gets a very clear idea of what it took, physically, mentally, spiritually, to survive for 72 days in this most inhospitable environment. Content from face-to-face interviews with the 16 survivors, families, and rescuers is fleshed out via photographs and footage of the rescue and press conference. Most importantly, Stranded includes brief, expressionistic reenactments in Super 16mm shot by Cesar Charlone_the award-winning cinematographer whose directing debut, The Pope's Toilet, is one of the best films at this year's festival. These scenes with their grainy texture, variable focus, and overexposure stir the imagination and add vividness to the survivor statements without competing with them. The film also explores the effects on the lives of the survivors and their families. A few of the then-young men are shown back at the crash site more than three decades later accompanied by wives or children.

    It's very satisfying to finally have a really good film about this story that captivated the world during the 70s and continues to awe and inspire those who learn about it today. Stranded: I Have Come From A Plane That Crashed on the Mountains as been contracted for broadcast by PBS as part of their Independent Lens series during the 2008-2009 season. No specific dates announced yet.

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    THE DRUMMER (HONG KONG-TAIWAN)

    Kenneth Bi's widely and universally appealing The Drummer is certainly not a "festival film"_a low profile, film-as-art production with little or no box office potential. It's a genre hybrid starring Jackie Chan's son Jaycee and Hong Kong star Tony Leung Ka Fai (The Lover, Ashes of Time, Election). Jaycee plays Sid, the loquacious, egotistic, rock drummer son of triad boss Kwan (Leung). Sid is caught having sex with the mistress of one Kwan's powerful rivals, the ruthless Stephen Ma. When confronted, Sid insolently humiliates Ma in front of his posse. Kwan orders Sid to hide in rural Taiwan to protect him from Ma's wrath. Once exiled, Sid catches a performance by a group of Zen drummers called U Theater and becomes fascinated. The drummers live in a mountaintop retreat where they lead a simple, disciplined lifestyle that includes the practice of martial arts and meditation. Sid is eventually allowed to join and undergoes a spiritual and emotional transformation over the course of many months. Fate will force Sid to abandon Taiwan and a romantic interest there and become embroiled in Hong Kong's triad wars.

    The Drummer is equal parts gangster flick and redemptive, fish-out-of-water tale with comedic and romantic overtones. It skillfully combines admittedly familiar elements of both genres. The film is a study of contrasts between urban and rural, materialism and spirituality, violence and peace. At the conclusion, Sid faces a dilemma between family obligations and a new sense of self that would wilt in Hong Kong's mean streets. Production values are top-notch, particularly the excellent sound design by Tu Duu-chih (a favorite of directors Hou and Tsai) and debutant Sam Koa's photography. The film's crucial element is the ability of the charismatic Jaycee Chan to make Sid's transformation believable. He manages to do that while remaining charming throughout. The Drummer doesn't break new ground but it's very well-made and consistently fun to watch.

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    DEFICIT (MEXICO)

    Perhaps Latin American is the world region with the widest economic disparity between the rich and the poor. Increasingly, Latin American cinema is reflecting this reality. Prominent examples include Live-in Maid from Argentina, and the Mexican films Battle in Heaven and Amores Perros. The latter is the breakthrough film for Gael Garcia Bernal, who proceeded to appear in films by A-list directors Pedro Almodovar, Michel Gondry, Walter Salles and Alfonso Cuaron. No doubt, a good education for any actor with helmer aspirations. And here it is, Deficit, Garcia Bernal's directing debut.

    He also assumes the protagonist role, Cristobal, a 23 year-old from an affluent family who has been refused admission to Harvard and is afraid to tell his parents. Not that he has any motivation to enter graduate school or any ambition beyond girls and partying with his friends. To that effect, he has invited a group of friends to his family's sprawling country estate, not realizing his younger and wilder sister Elisa had exactly the same idea. However, her group includes Dolores, a charming and cute girl from Argentina. Cris gives his girlfriend the wrong directions to allow for enough time to woo Dolores. Meanwhile, Adan, the gardener's son who practically grew up with Cris, is crossing the class line and also showing interest in Dolores. Cris must also contend with Elisa's older boyfriend who Cris holds responsible for Elisa's growing drug use. Moreover, there's a potential conflict brewing among the servants, one of whom covets the wife of the other.

    What we have here is a simpler, young-set, modern version of Jean Renoir's masterpiece The Rules of the Game. I don't mean to imply that Deficit begins to approach the subtle, sophisticated perfection of that French classic but it shares a narrative blueprint and aims for the same type of social commentary. Deficit's major virtue is that none of the dialogue feels written. One gets the impression the script by Kyzza Terrazas is fairly short and that a lot of the slang-rich exchanges were improvised during the shoot. The script tends to telegraph narrative twists prematurely and undersells the servants' romantic triangle. A nice detail is that Cristobal's parents are away in Zurich, apparently trying to hide money obtained as a result of Mexico's systemic corruption. The acting by the entire cast is quite convincing, not that any of the roles would be much of a stretch for the actors. Film's highly appropriate title refers to both Cristobal's personality deficiencies and the disadvantages of the servants in comparison with their masters. Deficit exposes a prevalent mindset, a culture of entitlement, among affluent Latin Americans. It's an encouraging, auspicious directorial debut for Gael Garcia Bernal.

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    YOU, THE LIVING (SWEDEN)

    Be pleased then, you living one
    in your delightfully warm bed
    before Lethe's ice-cold wave
    will lick your escaping foot

    F.W. Goethe

    Goethe's exhortation to enjoy life when it's good because it won't remain so is the inspiration behind Roy Andersson's fourth feature. Like Songs From the Second Floor, his Cannes Jury Prize winner, You, the Living links a series of vignettes involving a cross-section of Swedish society. The new film has a wider emotional range and tone. A number of sequences are like snapshots from an absurdist play by Eugene Ionesco. Many are serio-comic, mixing humor with social commentary in differing proportions. There are a couple of unabashedly sweet moments that might surprise Andersson aficionados.

    A chubby couple dressed in leather and animal print walk their dog Bobbo in the park. The woman sits on a bench loudly lamenting how nobody loves or understands her. Her patient husband replies that he and Bobbo love her. She retorts that they're both faking it and belts out a funny, miserablist song accompanied by a brass band heard on the soundtrack. A bit later, at a bar, the woman waits for a beer while ignoring her husband's plea to call it a night. The bartender rings a bell. The woman screams: "Last chance to get plastered, you bums!

    An old-money family's dinner guest attempts to impress by performing the old trick of removing the tablecloth without disturbing what's resting on it. It's absurd to try because the table is impossibly long. But he proceeds anyway and breaks an expensive, antique china set. The bare wooden table is revealed to have inlaid swastikas. The room is full of anger, laughter, disbelief, embarrasment.

    A cute girl infatuated with a rock guitarrist faces the camera to relate a dream she had. In it, she marries the guy of her dreams and they're inside their small house still wearing tux and white wedding dress. Then the house begins to move about town and you realize it's traveling along train tracks. The house comes to a stop and the whole town comes to their window to congratulate them and wish them well. They break into song as the smiling couple wave goodbye and the house begins to move again.

    A skinny old man lays naked on his back discussing his money woes while his curvy wife, wearing nothing but a viking helmet, straddles him and moans with pleasure.
    A woman enjoying a bubble bath sweetly sings a song about a town where there's no strife. Her husband observes from another room.

    You get the idea, I hope. Andersson keeps his camera static most of the time and favors muted pastel colors. His staging is painterly composed, with dynamic interplay between what's on the background and the foreground. In You, the Living, Andersson looks at the struggles and fleeting joys of living with an attitude of bemusement that's both delightful and substantive.

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    IRON LADIES OF LIBERIA (USA)

    The first elected female president of an African country, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is known as "the Iron Lady" because of her strong convictions and willful determination to confront the seemingly insurmountable problems that besiege her nation. She won a tough election against the well-connected son-in-law of the dictatorial, corrupt former president Charles Taylor. Some of the most important members of her cabinet are strong women cut from the same mold as the president. Iron Ladies of Liberia was directed by Daniel Junge, a documentarian from Wyoming, and Siatta Scott Johnson, a Liberian single mother and journalist who's an "iron lady" herself. She introduces us to her country, founded in 1847 by freed American slaves and just emerging from a devastating civil war that lasted 14 years. The co-director shares her hopes that her children will inherit a better Liberia. Her on-going dispute with a Taylor supporter over a lot she purchased is integrated into the film, but its central focus is the Iron Lady's tremendously challenging first year in office.

    When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf takes power the economy is in shambles, systemic corruption is rampant, the judicial system is a joke, chaos and lawlessness reign and the police don't have weapons. Over the course of one year, she convinces street vendors to vacate the streets and move to a market she had built so car traffic is not impeded, she manages to attract a visit from the President of China to promote foreign investment, she travels to Washington and gets the US to cancel Liberia's $391 million debt, and she craftily handles threats by soldiers from the disbanded army. She also proposes a series of measures to battle corruption. A particularly intense moment involves the Iron Lady's reaction to a fire ignited at the presidential mansion. The filmmakers were evidently given free access to the president and her cabinet. When the police chief finally gets arms for her department, she grabs a high-caliber gun and says: "Now I feel like a real woman" before bursting into laughter.

    Iron Ladies of Liberia serves as a counter-balance to a number of recent documentaries about African atrocities that stem from conditions similar to those found in Liberia. This documentary provides an example of what is happening in Africa that is constructive and encouraging.

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