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EDINBURGH
2003
brief
notes on movies shown at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, 2003
by
Neil Young
PART
ONE : After Life to EvenHand
(For Part Two or Part
Three click here)
AFTER
LIFE
6/10
[The
Trilogy : 7/10]
Apres
la vie aka The Trilogy : Three [La Trilogie - Apres la Vie]
: Belgium/France
2003 : Lucas BELVAUX : 123 mins
Slow-burning
tale of relationship in crisis. Pascal is a cop (Gilbert Melki), Agnes
is a teacher (Dominique Blanc) and a drug addict. This sets up painful
intersections of the professional and personal, cf Al Pacino and Diane
Venora in Heat, except
here we're prowling the not-so-mean streets of Grenoble on the scenic
Franco-Swiss border. Mountainside city to which Melki gracefully and slowly
descends via cable-car in the opening sequence easily most striking visual
sequence in mostly hand-held, gritty-looking picture (cinematographer:
Pierre Milon.)
Direction
mostly functional not surprising, given complexity of this ambitious Trilogy'
project (movie slots alongside An Amazing Couple [see below] and
On the Run three intersecting movies set in same place and time,
with same group of characters, told in different genre styles). Effective
split-focus alternation between Pascal and Agnes. Arrival of enigmatic
terrorist LeRoux (the red) in town distracts Pascal, indirectly brings
Agnes's situation to extremis.
Much
discussed, LeRoux finally turns up halfway through as white knight figure
to save teacher from vicious drug-dealer. Played by director Belvaux,
he's principled survivor from early-80s radical movement (cf The
State I Am In), has been in jail. Ghost of the past turns up to
haunt old colleagues, who have since settled into cosy bourgeois lives
(except in private 'Mort aux vaches!' is a drinking toast: i.e. 'death
to pigs!').
Movie
is the kind of low-key, intense drama that's usually labelled 'adult'
Riccardo Del Fra's musique is tres, tres serieux. Pace flags a bit from
time to time, but movie propelled along by performances by Melki (Pascal
becoming increasingly end-of-tether and violent) and, especially, Blanc:
dominates proceedings as saucer-eyed Agnes. Her suffering all too convincing
in her strung-out cold-turkey agonies. Resolution somewhat abrupt, given
somewhat leisurely pace of preceding two hours.
Well-played,
coolly told and nicely edited by Valerie Loiseleux. Absorbing, even if
it does become somewhat overcomplex and frustratingly oblique on the margins
peripheral characters who will take centre stage in the other segments
of the trilogy. Nagging feeling that there's something missing here and
of course there is. Doesn't quite manage to stand alone, but, with Belvaux's
trilogy, the whole is weirdly much greater than the sum of the parts.
ALL
TOMORROW'S PARTIES
5/10
China
2003 : YU Lik Wai : 95 mins
One
of the year's most remarkable-looking films. If you can keep your eyes
op en, that is. 'All Tomorrow's Parties' will be very grim affairs if
this peek into the mid-21st century is any kind of accurate
guide. A desolate China where 'western values have been swept away' replaced
by faith in 'Orbit' movement, a kind of Buddhist-tinged fascism with elements
of Falun Gong, Taliban and Aum. And what a mess it all is, though electricity
still works. Director Yu makes most of several 'found' dystopias (which
would have cost a fortune to build/destroy just for the movie) in China's
post-industrial areas (chronicled in Wang Bing's epic documentary Tie
Xi Qu aka West of the Tracks). Spectacular rust-belt backdrops
at times suggest this could be China's answer to Stalker,
with echoes of Kiyoshi Kurosa wa's ecstatic apocalypses at the end of
movies like Pulse.
Except
this time the story isn't so strong. Various folk 'on the run' from the
authorities, escape a prison-camp type area, make their way cross country.
Their mishaps related in fragmentary, elusive scenes. Interspersed with
footage supposedly taken from Orbit's bizarre North Korea-style sepia-tinged
retro-futuristic propaganda. These brief interpolations are exotic and
visually impressive likewise many images captured by cinematographer Lai
Yiu Fai, often to accompaniment of stately strings score. Emphasis isn't
on specific human 'stories' as such, but on their interactions with their
(dramatic) environments. This is the real 'story': poetic accumulation
of moods and details. Dialogue (probably very deliberately) stilted and
stylised. A typical exchange:
Q
- You're leaving Orbit. Don't you want a career.
A - You're my
demon.
Results,
while often striking, are dramatically too inert to sustain interest,
even over such a relatively brief running-time. Only partially redeemed
by control of imagery too often succumbs to gratuitous tedium. Stay awake
for the kind-of-great last shot, though.
AN
AMAZING COUPLE
6/10
[The
Trilogy : 7/10]
Un
Couple Epatant aka The Trilogy : Two [La Trilogie Un Couple
Epatant] : Belgium/France 2003 : Lucas BELVAUX : 123 mins
Slots
alongside After Life [see above] and On the Run as part
of Belvaux's wildly ambitious trilogy, in which the three movies work
OK individually, but add up to something surprisingly effective and memorable
when seen in conjunction with each other. According to Belvaux, the films
can be seen in any order and stand on their own. Impossible to say on
the former, but latter is only partly true.
An
Amazing Couple is the only comic picture in the trilogy other two
are much more dour affairs. Light, very 'French' French farce of marital
paranoia, with darker edges where it rubs up against the other two movies.
Husband (Francois Morel) and wife (Ornella Muti) keep getting the 'wrong
end of t he stick' and presumptions of infidelity multiply into absurdity.
Film is all about the dangers of making presumptions based on partial
information: very ironic, that, given the judicious parcelling-out of
information which constitutes Belvaux's storytelling style over the course
of the trilogy.
As
with After Life, competent and absorbing/entertaining, thanks in
no small part to central performance though Morel's turn as the hapless
Alain is much less gruelling than Dominique Blanc's drug-addict Agnes
from the other picture. Also shares with After Life problem of
slightly disappointing finale doesn't build to the major farce climax
we'd been expecting, and, as someone remarks at a pivotal moment, 'It's
arbitrary'. Slight tailing off, with 'to be continued' air hanging over
things.
After
having seen two episodes, this reviewer is very keen to complete the Trilogy
with On the Run but is this project really worth six hours' running
time? And this translates to a much greater commitment from audiences
as they'll be expected to spread the Trilogy over three different trips
to the theatre. Faced with this kind of format-stretching originality,
critics instinctively over-react the Trilogy isn't a masterpiece, but
the structure of the whole gives each movie a particular atmosphere: part-game,
part-puzzle, part grand artistic folly.
AMERICAN
SPLENDOR
7/10
Shari
Springer BERMAN & Robert PULCINI : USA 2003 : 100 mins
After
Crumb and Ghost World
comes another journey into the counter-cultural world of the American
adult-oriented comic-book. Ambitious and entertaining fictional/documentary
hybrid examining Harvey Pekar, resident of Cleveland, Ohio, who came to
prominence in the mid-70s as author of American Splendor comic
book about his daily life, drawn (initially) by Robert Crumb. From very
first scene (during Pekar's childhood, he goes trick-or-treating and,
while his pals are decked out as superheroes, he's just Harvey Pekar)
artifice is avoided at every step. Film post-modern in acknowledgement
of its own status deconstruction of the format in vein of Party Monster
(see Edinburgh3) and 24
Hour Party People.
A
world away from such decadent showbiz excesses, however and fascinating
to see technique applied to very different, much more explicitly political
subject-matter. Pekar as chronicler of upper-working/lower-middle class
life, somewhere between blue and white collar (UK description 'semi-skilled'
perhaps closest to mark he's a filing clerk at a hospital). 'Ordinary
life is pretty complex stuff' could be movie's mantra he's 'the blue-collar
Mark Twain'. David Letterman, on whose show Pekar often guested, describes
him (not entirely ironically) as 'the embodiment of the American Dream.'
Brilliant,
perennially-underused Paul Giamatti seizes rare lead role as Pekar: permanent
desperation in his bug eyes, weight of world heaped on his round shoulders.
Tragic elements (Pekar gets cancer) but often very funny: 'Poor dishwashing
has always been my Achilles heel'. Oddball, Annie Hall-ish 'nervous
romance' with Joyce Brabner (Hope Davis).
Pekar's
financial imperatives clear from the outset: grumbles that he doesn't
make enough money, despite success of American Splendor comics.
'Sunshine and flowers don't sell.' Paradox : will fame (via the movie)
spoil Harvey Pekar? He says he hopes 'this movie' will improve his fiscal
situation. But wary of being 'co-opted by huge corporations' odd, then,
that movie is made by HBO, a subsidiary of megacorporation AOL-Time-Warner!
Comics-come-to-life
visuals intriguing, but far from original (not that dissimilar from The
Hulk at times) and Unbreakable
remains the most effective movie about the whole comic-book subculture.
Jazzy score here almost ever-present, and directorial style relatively
conventional, not immune to cliché.
Impossible
to dislike, nevertheless, even though it does fall prey to slight cuddly/cuteness
on occasion (which the real Pekar probably wouldn't be too keen on). Also,
as with Ghost World, a little too conscious of its own cu lty,
counter-culture, preaching-to-converted neo-bohemian appeal.
For
a more pictorial account of the film click here.
BLIND
SHAFT
6/10
Mang
Jing : Hong Kong (HK/China/Germany) 2003 : LI Yang
Winner of the Silver Bear at this year's Berlin Film Festival, Blind Shaft
is what The Independent called the 'stunning debut' of 43-year-old
writer-director Li, a German-educated film-maker from China's often surprisingly
radical 'sixth generation' . Shot undercover and documentary-style among
the deathtrap coalmines of the nation's post-industrial hinterland, the
film is so-so as a con-artist thriller, OK as a character-study morality-tale,
but is most effective as a depressing expose of a society that seems to
combine the very worst aspects of capitalism among communism's shattered
remnants.
The
opening scene is familiar from all mining dramas on an icy morning, workers
share a last cigarette before descending in their 'cage' to the stygian
seam below. But just as we're getting our bearings, Li pulls the first
of several audacious twists which it would be unfair to reveal here. Suffice
to say that we then follow the exploits of two miners, Tang (Wang Shuangbao)
and Song (Li Yixiang) as they travel from mine to mine exploiting the
weaknesses in a hopelessly under-regulated industry by pulling off murderous
insurance scams. Their next 'mark' is a fresh-faced, innocent teenager,
Yuan (Wang Baoqiang) so innocent, in fact, that even these heartless killers
begin to feel the gnawing pangs of conscience.
Given
the circumstances of the shooting, the finished product is surprisingly
polished all credit to cinematographer Liu Yonghong and sound-man Wang
Yu. The performances are strong and believable, and the dialogue convincingly
rough-hewn. As in All Tomorrow's Parties (see above), we're a world
away from the gleaming metropolises of modern China seen in films like
Shanghai Panic
there's no shortage of 'found dystopias' among the unseen hinterlands
of this vast country, and Blind Shaft works well as an absorbing
social-document critique-cum-snapshot of a particularly dark period. While
the basic story is timeless (could be applied to any under-regulated,
hazardous profession), the picture presented of modern China is piercingly
specific: a dystopian free-for-all where only the toughest and most venal
prosper. And you suspect what we're shown is probably only the tip of
the iceberg.
There's
certainly very little evidence of communism here, or even socialism the
ethos is strictly survival-of-the-fittest in the towns we see: grim cousins
of the ruined Montana settlements chronicled in the documentary An
Injury To One. No union, no safety standards, pitifully low wages,
no law given such an environment, it perhaps isn't a surprise that the
worst aspects of humanity rise to the surface: at times, Blind Shaft
feels like an eastern variant on The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Li's film is easier to admire than actually like, however: the set-up
is intriguing enough, but the movie sags during the middle, only to pick
up as Yuan comes more to the forefront even if, as soon as he appears,
many viewers will be able to predict the climactic, not-so-shocking twist
CAPTURING
THE FRIEDMANS
8/10
[upgraded
to 9/10 after second viewing, Jan.04]
USA
2003 : Andrew JARECKI : 107 mins
By
a clear margin the best film this reviewer saw at Edinburgh 2003: a complex,
genuinely thought-provoking documentary that probes the limitations of
memory, justice and even the documentary form itself. The starting-point
is a sensational trial that rocked a well-heeled suburb of Long Island
in the mid-to-late eighties after Arnold Friedman, an award-winning teacher,
and his teenage son Jesse were arrested on child-abuse charges.
Debutant
director Jarecki confidently switches between TV news reports from the
time, recent interviews with the surviving principals and, most remarkably,
the copious footage shot by the Friedmans themselves over the course of
several decades: audio tape, scratchy 8mm and, finally, home-video. The
assemblage would be remarkable in itself, but what elevates Capturing
The Friedmans is the way it causes the viewer to repeatedly re-evaluate
what we're shown: reliable, solid-seeming witnesses give contradictory
accounts of crucial events, and the ground shifts beneath us in seismic
upheavals.
Objective
assessments of guilt and blame are impossible in such a quagmire what's
certain is that the basic principles of 'presumed innocent' and 'beyond
reasonable doubt' were rapidly discarded as the case snowballed into a
hysterical saga of recrimination and suspicion worthy of 17th
century Salem. In an age of worldwide media panic over paedophiles, and
with American justice firmly under the spotlight thanks to the events
at Guantanamo Bay, Capturing The Friedmans (a terrific title!)
is an urgent and humane contribution to a pressing debate.
And
even if Jarecki's means of relating this story occasionally veer towards
cliché especially in some of his more muzak-ish soundtrack selections,
and use of 'rushing clouds' to denote the passage of time these are minor
quibbles in a sobering and intelligent film that deserves the widest possible
exposure.
CHRISTMAS
6/10
New
Zealand 2003 : Gregory KING : 87 mins
An
engagingly rough-arsed Kiwi cross between Denmark's Festen
and Australia's The Boys greater emphasis on comic aspects than
both, though lacks scope of former and intensity and complex plotting
of latter. A dysfunctional family comes together in a small suburban house
over an arduous holiday period - as always in films, such gatherings,
especially at Christmas, are recipes for disaster and New Zealand proves
to be no exception. Filmed on DV appropriate, as much television is watched
throughout. As in British sitcom The Royle Family, the living-room
TV is the house's main focus: stasis is the order of the day, and even
cars prove to be more vehicles of inertia than escape.
Downside
of DV format is scratchy sound: added to strong NZ accent, and tendency
of discussions to degenerate into shouting matches, this makes certain
sections less than perfectly audible. But we get the gist, even if some
crucial deta ils get lost along the way (reading the press notes afterwards,
the mention of one key character's homosexuality came as a surprise to
this reviewer). Subtitles might even be handy way to navigate expletive-laden
local dialect and accents ('Fuck, mate!' is one woman's main form of self-expression).
Film
strongest on tiny details of domestic life though of course their accuracy
leaves movie open to charge of making us pay to see stuff we get for nothing
at home (arse-wiping, etc toilet is rare haven of calm amid endless arguments).
But King has a good eye: it's all very skilfully framed (cinematographer:
Virginia Loane) and edited (Campbell Walker), and has the benefit that
we can walk away at the end - escaping our own families isn't quite so
easy.
Other
pluses: total absence of a score, relying only on ambient sounds of the
house. Camera sometimes on tripod, sometimes shakily hand-held. Writer-director
King has unfussy approach and works well with performers especially the
actress who plays the put-upon mother. Things only go awry at the very
end suicide attempt, what looks like an accidental death, then the Christmas
message fr om the Queen on TV (they presumably couldn't get the rights
to use an actual broadcast, so an actress playing what's described in
the credits as 'Royal Woman' reads it out) talking about the importance
of the family. A rather too predictably ironic note on which to end. But
not as bad as what looks very much like the on-camera killing of an actual
snail earlier on. Let's hope the budget stretched to a special effect.
EVENHAND
7/10
USA 2002
(first shown 2003) : Joseph PIERSON : 93 mins
Effective,
low-key, well-observed variant on the tired buddy/cop genres. Accomplished
script by Mike Jones focuses on diametrically opposed policemen working
as partners in Texas city ‘San Lovisa’ (actually San Antonio): nice-guy
Francis (Bill Dawes) and larger-than-life maverick Morning (Bill Sage,
in a radical departure from his usual hyper-sensitive roles for the likes
of Hal Hartley). Bits of story and character float along, gradually come
together to form loose dramatic structure around the two strong central
performances.
Two-cop format
now tired (Dark Blue, Training
Day, Narc, Hollywood
Homicide, etc) but this one scores by chronicling day-to-day existence
of small-city cops, and by avoiding melodrama. Instead, it’s a little
bit like John C Reilly’s lovelorn officer from Magnolia
getting a whole movie to himself – Francis is struggling to cope with
the aftermath of a divorce. But never quite so whimsical in its view of
cops as, say, Fargo: Morning capable of borderline brutality when
in wrong mood.
The two men’s
personalities emerge – and the relationship between them develops – through
conversations (running jokes and catch-phrases: “Fat cop” etc”). Loose
feels, like much footage was shot and edited into shape. Standard score,
enlivened by a few suitably offbeat songs by Mike Doughty. Plot comes
into focus via interactions with supporting characters: Jessica (Ruth
Osuna), an attractive shop clerk who catches Francis’s eye; Mathers, the
local loose-can hot-head thug; Toby (Io Tillet Wright), a teenager in
danger of stepping line into delinquency (these folk keep cropping up,
as if it’s a very small town, but San Lovisa is supposed to be a city.)
Inevitable violent climax – but even then, it’s all justifiable in terms
of character. Biggest mis-step is (prissily-capitalised) title:
EvenHand never mentioned or explained, so we have to deduce film
is aiming for ‘evenhanded’ study of cop life. Succeeds, but they really
should have called it something else.
For the full
list of every Jigsaw Lounge reviewed film at this 2003 Edinburgh Film
Festival click here
by Neil
Young
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