| Edinburgh Film Festival pt.VI (Tue 23 Aug) incl. Jannik Johansen’s ‘Murk’ [8/10] |
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| Wednesday, 24 August 2005 | |
 John Lvoff's NOW AND THEN [5/10] Jannik Johansen's MURK [8/10] Carsten Gebhardt's WEEKDAYS [6/10] Jan Hrebejk's UP AND DOWN [6/10] --------------------------------------------------------- Blandly-monikered Now and Then is a lukewarm anti-drama about of considerable pretentiousness - the French title translates as The Eye and the Other - set in a remote, ever-so-slightly sinister village surrounded by rolling farmland. This is where a shyly beautiful mademoiselle in her mid-20s (Julie Depardieu, daughter of G.) is sent as part of a government project to record the changing landscape. She's taking over from a revered British photographer, Peter Holm, who has disappeared in vaguely mysterious circumstances... The set-up is a bit Blow Up, a bit The Tenant - not a bad pair of antecedents. But it doesn't (ahem) develop: not much happens, slooooowwwwwwly, though there is one bolt-from-the-blue jolt when we're shown a snap of the mysterious Holm and see he's being "played" by veteran Georgian/French director Otar Ioseliani (Monday Morning etc). There are one or two touches of deadpan comedy that could perhaps be (charitably) construed as Ioseliani-esque, but the comparison isn't at all to Now and Then's advantage: Ioseliani is some kind of genius; Lvoff, on this evidence, isn't. Film-festival fodder, I'm afraid: UK distribution would seem unlikely but, as this is a French film, on ne sait jamais. --------------------------------------------------------- It's taken seven days and nearly 20 films, but Edinburgh '05 has finally yielded an outstanding discovery in the cracking Danish thriller Murk. A claustrophobic psychological thriller of genuinely gripping tension, the less you know about it beforehand the better: and audiences are thus advised to avoid reading the EIFF 05 catalogue which, in an absolutely unforgivable gaffe, gives away the ending (shame on you, catalogue 'editor' Rod White). This is especially unfortunate as Murk is likely to keep even the most seasoned guessing until the final reel - the audience at the near-full evening screening at CineWorld seemed enthralled (and cough-free) from beginning to end. Nikolaj Lie Kaas is Jacob, an ex-journalist whose investigation into his handicapped sister's wedding-night "suicide" leads him to the tiny hamlet of Morke (= "murk"). He soon finds that his problems may only be just beginning, the mystery revolving around the guilt or innocence of his sister's porky widower Anker - a phenomenal, quiet performance from Nicolas Bro. Hollywood surely won't drag its heels snapping up remake rights to this outstanding "suspenser" - Mark Wahlberg and Philip Seymour Hoffman* could plausibly fill the two main roles. Although refreshingly original in style and content, there are echoes of Ira Levin's terrific novel A Kiss Before Dying. The script - by the tireless Anders Thomas Jensen (Brothers, Wilbur, Mifune, The King is Alive) and Johansen - boasts a delicate ambiguity recalls peak-form Christian Petzold and the novels of Patricia Highsmith, while the transference-of-guilt themes are so well handled that this is arguably the first European release since Harry, He's Here To Help which warrants the much-abused adjective "Hitchcockian". The master surely would have loved it, and not just because there's a ‘cool blonde' on hand in the latter stages. Johansen isn't a director I'd heard of before this, but he does such a first-rate job tightening the screws that you soon forget that the picture is in Danish - and not long after you may also forget that you aren't Jacob... --------------------------------------------------------- Weekdays isn't quite the right translation - ‘Days of the Week' is closer to the content, the film being seven vignettes in the life of a German lass (Zoe Naumann) in her early 20s (or perhaps late teens). Forbidding anomie is the order of pretty much every day: bleak lighting and seedy surroundings abound. Inconsequential happenings. Dialogue is at a minimum: rough sex, drugs, a lifeless disco. Even an abrupt detour to what looks like North Africa (unexplained, naturellement) does little to alter the monotone. Far from easy viewing, and there were (predictably) several walkouts at the afternoon showing I attended. But the electronic score (by Frank Bretschneider and Alva Noto) holds it together in hypnotic fashion, and the cumulative effect proves perversely compelling. Weekdays is expanded from two shorts ('Tuesday' and 'Wednesday'), and it shows - picture has the distinct feel of a student project at times. There's undeniably some talent here, even if it does manifest itself in a rather autistic manner this time around. --------------------------------------------------------- Up and Down is a crowdpleaser in the ever-popular urban-intersections genre: the central-European setting and immigration/family themes recalling Cristian Mungiu's outstanding Occident from Romania. Hrebejk's ambitious comedy-drama isn't quite at that level - some of the cinematography and music are a bit unsubtle andor ill-advised - but it does definitely have its moments. Performances are strong, the pick of which is a nicely modulated turn from beefy Jiri Machacek as Franta, a security guard whose wife is desperate for a child. Trouble is, she can't conceive - and his criminal record (he was a violent Sparta-Prague-loving football hooligan in previous years) means they can't adopt. Their prayers seem to be answered when a pair of people-traffickers accidentally end up with an illegal-immigrant family's baby - but the authorities are closing in... Hrebejk mixes the comic and tragic into a bittersweet brew that, while by now rather familiar, is undeniably effective. Crucially, the final tying-together of the various plot-strands is nimbly and convincingly achieved. Even better is the end-credits sequence, with a backdrop of amazingly kitsch mechanical toys and a very appropriate soundtrack selection, is something of a minor wonder that had everybody delaying their exits until it was over. -------------------------------------------------- Neil Young 24th/29th August, 2005 * NOW AND THEN : [5/10] : L'oeil de l'autre : France 2004 : John LVOFF : 90 mins * MURK : [8/10] : Morke : Denmark (Den-UK) 2005 : Jannik JOHANSEN : 124 mins * WEEKDAYS : [6/10] : Wochentage : Germany 2005 : Carsten GEBHARDT : 90 mins * UP AND DOWN : [6/10] : Horem padem : Czech Republic 2004 : Jan HREBEJK : 108 mins Press show: Now and Then seen at Filmhouse. Public shows : Murk and Up and Down seen at Cineworld; Weekdays seen at FilmHouse. Edinburgh International Film Festival CLICK HERE FOR COVERAGE OF THE NEXT DAY'S FILMS, WED AUG 24TH or HERE for A-Z and rankings of all films seen at Edinburgh ‘05
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