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10.00 | Weltspiegel Feature Film Competition
THE THIRD | TRZECI | [6/10]
Jan Hryniak | Poland 2004 | 96 min (timed)
Beguilingly enigmatic if ultimately somewhat over-ambitious cross between Knife in the Water and Harry, He's Here To Help (both of which are directly "hommaged") - with perhaps a touch of Boudu Saved From Drowning. Yuppie couple (Jacek Poniedzalek, Magdalena Cielecka), whose relationship isn't going too well, are yachting off the Polish coast when they collide with a smaller craft, thus almost drowning its sole occupant - a bulky middle-aged chap (Marek Kondrat) in the Brian Cox / Oliver Reed / Nikita Mikhalkov mould, who turns out to be, in contrast to the buttoned-down thirtysomethings, a hedonistic, free-spirited loose cannon.
This collision of personalities leads, via various flukes of chance and circumstance, to a somewhat wild ride for the couple. Is their new "friend" (a) an escaped-convict mafia boss (described on a radio bulletin as "the third" of a three-strong gang? (b) God? (c) a harmless tramp? or (d) all of the above? Wojciech Ziminski's script gets a bit too headscratchingly metaphysical in the final reel, but the picture works a slyly comic, nicely shot, accessible affair - with suitably ominous twingly-twangly folky guitar for the score. And Hryniak's sure touch holds our attention even as the increasingly nightmarish plot spirals beyond implausibility into socio-economic/psychological/theological fable.
As with Harry, He's Here To Help and, indeed, Michael Mann's Collateral, The Third occupies a tiny sug-genre of films in which folks in dire straits have their situations improved by the timely arrival of external figures who, although at times seemingly hostile and/or dangerous, ultimately prove beneficial influences. Though ostensibly "real", these external figures are invariably "conjured up" unwittingly by those they end up helping. And a motto for the genre may be found in T.S.Eliot's The Waste Land:
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
-But who is that on the other side of you?
In his notes to the poem, Eliot explained
The ... lines were stimulated by the account of one
of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which one, but
I think one of Shackleton's): it was related that
the party of explorers, at the extremity of their
strength, had the constant delusion that there was
one more member than could actually be counted
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12.00 | Weltspiegel Feature Film Competition
GRAVEHOPPING | ODGROBADOGROBA | [7/10]
Jan Cvitkovic |Slovenia, Croatia 2005 | 99 min (timed)
All human life is here - kind of - in this skilfully-textured rural chronicle of love, family, mortality and shattering violence, its cumulative appeal as dark, warm and enticing as a Slovenian summer's night.
The main focus is on Pero (Gregor Bakovic), a slightly sadsack mid-thirties bloke who makes his living as a funeral orator somewhere out in the sticks. But almost as much screentime is given to his mute sister Ida (Sonja Savic), her besotted car-mechanic boyfriend Shuki (Drago Milinovic); their suicidal widower father Dedo (Brane Gruber); and various other relatives, onlookers and passers-by.
I saw Gravehopping in a post-midnight semi-secret screening at Izola back in May, which I was embargoed from reviewing by the festival director himself. I was a bit disappointed that night, having been an admirer of the director's fine mid-length debut Bread and Milk. Second time around I enjoyed it much better (sobriety probably helped), knowing the twists and turns that lay ahead and having more time to appreciate Cvitkovic's smooth transition between comic and tragic moods.
The more serious elements kick in before halfway, abd gradually elevate what had previously been something of a raucous-Balkan-comedy-by-numbers to a higher plane. Simon Tansek's limpid widescreen cinematography is, meanwhile, a constant source of delight.
The picture does nevertheless walks a very narrow line between acute observation and cutesy tweeness (for much of the running time not one but two characters are unable to speak) and I still think Cvitkovic should have ended the movie with the penultimate shot inside the grave - I'm not sure what that above-ground coda really adds. In the midst of death, we are in life, et cetera?
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14.00 | Stadthalle Spectrum
A TRIP TO KARABAKH | PROGULKA V KARABACH | MOZGAUROBA KARABAGSHI[W/O]
Levan Tutberidze | Georgia 2005 | 115 min - walkout after 1hr
Laborious, confusingly-structured dramatisation of border-tensions between Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Prior knowledge of the southern Caucasus's messy recent history is pretty much a must if you're going to get the most out of this clunky tale.
A drug run goes wrong, stranding our two heroes (Levan Dobordshinidse a good-looking Heath Ledger lookalike, Mischa Meschi a comic-relief 'character' with a passing Vincent Gallo resemblance) not far from the Nagorno-Karabakh warzone.
Narrative jumps back and forth, as 'Ledger' reminisces about his relationship with a doe-eyed, deep-voiced, gamine young hooker (Nutsa Kutshianidse, from The Good Thief). At about the hour stage Ledger is captured by one faction, liberated by another, then dons camo gear and sunglasses as he starts to fancy the idea of playing commando: "I am the unknown soldier," he proclaims.
Ongoing superfluous muzak on the soundtrack, uninspired firefights and appearance of a second love-interest in the form of a 'Russian' photographer stretched my patience. Panpipey burbling on the soundtrack proved the final straw. 'A Trip to the exit' followed soon after.
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16.30 | Obenkino Spectrum
SHARK IN THE HEAD | RALOK V HLAVĔ | [5/10]
Maria Procházková | Czech Republic 2005* |73 min (timed)
Imagine Amelie relocated to downtown Prague, and with a mildly schizophrenic sixtyish bloke (looking like a gone-to-seed cross between Viggo Mortensen and Jose Mourinho) instead of Audrey Tautou, and you'll have a pretty solid idea of what to expect from Shark in the Head. Whimsical, episodic vignettes revolve around our bemused/tormented hero Mr Seman (Oldrich Kaiser), whose daily routine consists of leaning out of his ground-floor bedroom window and engaging passers-by in conversation.
Possessed of an unusually vivid imagination, Mr Seman finds beauty and wonder in the most unlikely of places - like his Montmartre cousine, these include animals and birds in the clouds. But seventy-odd minutes proves a rather long stay in his offbeat company.
While writer-director Prochazka clearly has talent, and a solid working knowledge of Czech surrealism/animation history, she doesn't yet know how to structure these gifts into a cinematic narrative. Result plays like a ragbag compendium of similarly-themed shorts, or perhaps a glorified student movie in which opticke triky (as they're charmingly described in the credits) abound.
Intriguing and even delightful in patches, but by the end somewhat grating on the nerves. 'We all have a shark in the head' reads an end-title after the startlingly abrupt finale. I requin not.
* catalogue says 2005; IMDb says 2004
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19.00 | Stadthalle Feature Film Competition
NEEDING A NANNY | TREBUJETSA NJANJA| [5/10]
Larisa Sadilova | Russia 2005 | 110 min
Trouble with the help, Russian style: Jude Law is most unlikely to seek remake rights for this fable of how a nanny causes all manner of trouble for an upwardly-mobile couple in their fancy suburban house. Employed to look after their stroppy little madam of a daughter, meek-seeming Galia (Maria Subanowa) gradually disrupts the already-rocky marriage - ending up in bed with the husband after the latter gets royally plastered at a barbecue. She turns this awkward situation to her advantage...
I kept expecting/wanting the picture to become more of a full-blown thriller in the Hand That Rocks the Cradle tradition, but instead the script heads down a mildly melodramatic soap-operatic route, albeit with a fair ration of sly humour along the way. Topical stuff for the new Russian bourgeoisie, but a bit too flaccid-paced and diffuse to travel far overseas: uninspired muzak-ish score and drab lighting are turn-offs over what becomes a taxing two hours. Nanny McPhee looks even better in retrospect.
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Neil Young
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