FILM OF THE DAY



Eugenio Polgovsky's Tropic of Cancer



All films seen on Tuesday 25th October in Vienna during the Viennale (Vienna International Film Festival)


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Tropic of Cancer : [8/10]
Tropico de Cancer : Mexico 2004 : Eugenio POLGOVSKY : 52m (documentary) : seen at Stadtkino cinema

   Exceptional (and commendably economic) mid-length documentary chronicling a dirt-poor family eking out a living in the countryside near the Mexican town of San Luis Potosi - not far from the latitudinal meridian of the title. With minimal dialogue and zero narration (or explanatory context of any kind) we see them trapping and catching a wide variety of animals and birds - in brushy, arid areas only a few hundred yards from a major highway thunderously traversed by eighteen-wheelers. The purpose of the family's activities is only revealed in the closing minutes - a payoff which is as unexpected as it is satisfying, giving a whole new socio-economic dimension to what has already been an unusually enthralling viewing experience.
   Though very much a one-off, Tropic of Cancer isn't a million miles away from Lisandro Alonso's two slice-of-life Argentinian features, La Libertad and Los Muertos: Polgovsky's subject-matter indeed encompasses both 'freedom' and 'the dead.' And while it hasn't attracted the same kind of noisy critical fervour that has greeted Alonso's tour of the world's film festivals, on reflection it's perhaps preferable to both - and leagues above, say, Carlos Reygadad's Mexican variant Japon - as there's much less of an arty/poetic feel, not to mention a rather faster pace.  Polgovsky even gets away with brief interludes scored to the classical (and mournfully Tarkovsky-ish) organ music of Cesar Franck, in start contrast to the way Reygadas came such a cropper with his pseuds-corner interpolation of Arvo Part.
   There's also, most refreshingly, absolutely no ambiguity about the clear-eyed documentary nature of Polgovsky's enterprise: in refreshing contrast to those directors (such as Shape of the Moon's Leonard Helmrich - see yesterday's Viennale report) who coyly pretend avoid any acknowledgement of their own cameras, Polgovsky isn't even bothered if we catch some brief (and amusing) glimpses of his sound-man's fluffy grey boom. As the saying goes, this film is small but beautifully formed: Polgovsky has an instinctive knack for putting his camera in the right place at the right time; for knowing when to show us the full sweep of the mountain-fringed landscape and when to zero in on a particularly dramatic incident.
   We note a headline in a newspaper that reads "Eliminate your myopia!" - and Polgovsky ensures that we obtain a 20/20 view of these "hunters'" lives. He's with them every step of the way, though the film doesn't try to condone or condemn what it shows: sequences in which animals are killed on-camera will be distressing for some viewers, but they are justified as an honest depiction of these people's everyday struggle for survival. "It's rough work to live," as one leather-faced oldster notes, surveying his dusty domain from the shadow of a porch chair.

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The Novena : [5/10]
La neuvaine :  Canada 2005 : Bernard EMOND : 97 mins (feature) : seen at Metro cinema

   Chilly, forbiddingly sombre, downbeat and slow, this French-Canadian drama is an adult-oriented, adult-themed story of grief, guilt, redemption, faith, and the need to 'let go': in short, a right downer. There are redeeming features, however: the consistently strong central performance from north-of-the-border TV veteran Elise Guilbault is the main element keeping the tamped-down picture watchable throughout its schematic longueurs.
   She commands the screen as Jeanne, a middle-aged doctor whose attempts to help a battered wife (Isabelle Roy) yield unforeseen, tragic consequences. Stunned into trauma, she later forms a tentative friendship with Francois (Patrick Drolet) - a chubby, perhaps slightly educationally-subnormal young man whose grandmother (Denise Gagnon) lies close to death. Having lost his parents in a car crash during childhood, he was raised by the grandmother and can't deal with the prospect of her demise. Possessed of strong religious beliefs, he embarks on a "novena" (a nine-day prayer cycle) which he hopes will effect a miracle cure. Agnostic Jeanne can't hide her skepticism...
Though clearly heartfelt and well-intended, the film is a little too austere, too monotonously serieux, for the audience to fully sympathise with Jeanne and Francois's soul-racking problems. You may recall Danny Peary's comments about Woody Allen's Interiors: "we saw before us a humorless Bergmanesque drama... and felt too inhibited in quiet ... theaters to even clear our throats - it seemed possible that the ... super-serious characters might turn heads and point fingers at us."
   The slightly gimmicky time-hopping structure of Emond's script is also more of a hindrance than a help, as if he was aware how static his picture was becoming and so felt the need to 'jiggle things up' a bit. Casting directors should very much take note of Guilbault, however - and not just because she'd make an excellent screen-mother for Jake Gyllenhaal, should such a need arise in future.
    

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Tale of Cinema : [5/10]
Keuk Jang Jeon : (South) Korea (SK/Fr) 2005 : HONG Sangsoo : 90m : seen at Metro cinema

   Not entirely sure what the fuss is about here. Hong has steadily built up quite a reputation as one of the most interesting and ambitious members of what might be called Koran cinema's "new wave". But on the basis of this particular little histoire du cinema it's not so easy to see why. Noodling, self-indulgent, self-referential, inconsequential plot is split into two halves. First up: former schoolfriends meet by chance on the street, and after a drunken evening out agree on a suicide pact; things don't work out as planned.
   We then realise what we've been watching is a short film, being screened in a cinema as part of a retrospective dedicated to its director - the latter now lying gravely ill in a hospital bed. The second half of Tale is set in the "real" world among the director's colleagues and contemporaries. After watching the short in the same auditorium as each other, the film's lead actress (Uhm Jiwon) is romantically pursued by a young man who reckons what they've seen has been directly based on his own experiences.
   Lukewarm complications ensue as we see that many details in "part two" correspond directly or indirectly to what we've seen in "part one". Among many visual and thematic echoes and rhymes, Hong's use of the zoom is clearly supposed to be enormously significant, but comes across more as a rather hamfisted, patronising deployment of a discredited cinematographic technique. The engaging, emotionally nuanced dual performance by Jiwon is the most noteworthy feature of an otherwise so-whattish, navelgazing, dead-end enterprise - but Mulholland Dr this most certainly ain't.

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Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine : [SHORT : 8/10]
Austria 2005 : Peter TSCHERKASSKY : 17 mins : seen at Stadtkino cinema

   Eyepopping black-and-white short (from a Viennese director!) deconstructs the Western in particular, and eventually the whole of cinema in general, in thrillingly kinetic, viciously visceral style. Eli Wallach-heavy footage from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is shredded, diced and distorted until the results veer towards the abstract and, then, beyond. Not suitable for anyone suffering from epilepsy, but audiences untroubled by prolonged strobe effects may find this one of the most stimulating and jaw-dropping things they'll experience in a cinema all year.

          screened before...

Black Dragon Canyon : [5/10]
USA 2005 : Jay KEITEL : 52 mins : seen at Stadtkino cinema

   One of the few world-premieres at V'05, BDC is the debut feature - or rather mid-length film - from Keitel, a former student of James Benning and Thom Andersen at Calarts. The Benning influence is evident from the extended takes and static camera which constitute Keitel's basic film-making syntax. But this technique is much trickier than it looks, and Keitel isn't yet up to pulling it off - or rather, using to to tell a narrative story.
   There are perhaps four or five incidents in the whole film - Keitel operating on the basis that if you slow any story down enough (BDC makes Radiant look like Armageddon; makes Twentynine Palms look like True Romance) and have actors speak in sufficiently quiet voices, then the result somehow becomes Art. Installation art, perhaps, but it's brain-numbingly hard work on a cinema screen.
   An air of pretentiousness abounds  from the moment we see a prefatory quote from 'Dante Alghieri'. And while the opening titles are beautifully composed, Keitel is too worried about perfecting the icing to pay enough attention to the cake: amid the cursive calligraphy of the credits, the eagle-eyed may spot a jarring reference to an "assitant" (sic).
   What follows is a minimalist, lifeless deconstruction of familar dawn-o-cinema Western tropes, with an intriguing, barely-hinted-at post-apocalptic backdrop: a wanderer kills a woman; the latter's daughter (Amy Seimetz, promising) sets out to wreak revenge. That's basically it, told at two speeds: dead slow and stop (not for nothing is the first thing we hear the word "Whoa!").   
   Serving as his own cinematographer, Keitel comes up with some great-looking monochrome digital-video cinematography: Ansel Adams type landscapes; cloudy skies streaked with vapour trails; a slow sunset; ominous silhouettes of lone riders ('comes a horseman,' indeed; a grainy sunset. Trouble is, too many of his viewers may not stay awake long enough to marvel at their their stark, primeval beauty. Dramatic pauses are one thing, but surely even Beckett and Pinter would politely suggest Keitel, ahem, gets on with it...                   

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Neil Young
reviews originally written October 26th; revised and expanded October 30th

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or HERE for full A-Z of all films seen and Jigsaw Lounge's Vienna/Viennale overview