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official site
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seen Sunday 20th November at Cankarjev Dom cultural centre
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DALLAS AMONG US [6/10] Dallas pashamende : Hungary/Romania (Hun/Rom/Aut/Ger) : Robert Adrian PEJO : 93 mins (timed)
Raucous, rough-edged, ultimately-beguiling melodrama in the Kusturica style - one of whose major plus points is its very unusual setting. 'Dallas' is the ironic name for a shanty town located in a scruffy valley next door to a huge Bucharest-outskirts rubbish dump. This chaotic little community is a mishmash of Hungarians, Romanians and Romany, where the default mode of discourse is loud argument.
Into this hectic - but surprisingly rather good-natured - cauldron of humanity steps our hero Radoomir (Zsolt Bogdan), who was brought up in the 'town' but escaped to become a schoolteacher. Returning to bury his abusive, alcoholic father, he finds himself slowly shedding the clothes and ways of the big city - and rekindling his adolescent romance with sultry beauty Oana (Dorka Gryllus), now married to the boorish Janku (Oszkar Nyari).
The film's boisterous energy occasionally gets out of hand - plotting is a little tricky to follow, and editor Reka Lemhenyi occasionally seems to be wielding a chainsaw rather than a scalpel. But Vivi Dragan Vasile's sepia-toned colour cinematography is a constant plus, performances are suitably full-blooded, and though Dallas (which should be twinned with Takashi Miike's Shangri-La) takes a bit of getting used to, before too long you find yourself sucked into the Western-inflected story (baddy 'J.R.' even sports a big black Stetson) and sharing Dragomir's reluctance to leave its earthy embrace.
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KUKUMI [6/10] aka Kosovo 1999 - Kukumi aka The Kukum : Kosovo* 2005 : Isa QOSJA : 106 mins (timed)
The first film from Kosovo since it was declared a UN-protected "mission" is a suitably enigmatic, mournful, darkly comic affair in which landscape is almost as important as character. And the landscape we see - all close-cropped hills, rolling green fields, underpopulated roads, crumbling farmhouses - looks strikingly like rural Ireland: a suitable backdrop for Kukumi (Luan Jaha), a wild-haired middle-aged chap in a monklike brown coat, who looks like he might have strayed in from a Spike Milligan sketch, or a particularly wild episode of Father Ted (or, indeed, an Alejandro Jodorowsky outtake).
Along with his two friends Mara (Anisa Ismaili) and Hasan (Donat Qosja), Kukumi is "liberated" from the mental hospital that's been his home for decades when political circumstances cause the guards to up sticks. This is Kosovo, 1999, when the area was in the process of being protected from Serbian attacks by the forces of NATO. Ambling through the scarred but starkly beautiful landscape, the trio make their way to the house of Hasan's brother. But their welcome isn't exactly a warm one...
'Western' audiences may not be entirely comfortable at what they may see as an out-dated, R D Laingian presentation of what in the UK are now referred to as "learning difficulties": Kukumi, Hasan and Mara are alternately sources of childlike wonder, holy-goof oddity and even slapstick comedy, and it's perhaps regrettable that there is more in the way of narration (by Kukumi) than actual spoken dialogue by the three.
But on the whole Kukumi proceeds with sufficient tact, intelligence and sensitivity to ensure viewers will probably give it the benefit of the doubt. After a poetic, intense opening that recalls the Tarkovsky of Andrei Rublev and Stalker, Kukumi gradually reveals itself as a low-key, slow-paced charmer which approaches the political circumstances of the time at a bemused, oblique angle.
This is done with sufficient skill that Kukumi is able to transcend its curio status as the first film from a "new" country, and provide an intriguing insight into how Kosovo views itself and the world - Naim Krasniqi's ethereal pipes-heavy score a major plus in unifying the vision into a coherent whole. Of course, it's impossible to say whether the minimalist aesthetic on display here is "Kosovan" or "Qosjan" - but further productions under this particular flag will hopefully allow us to make such a distinction sooner rather than later.
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BUFFALO BOY [6?/10] Mua len trau aka Gardien des buffles : Vietnam (Viet/Fr/Bel) 2004 : MINH Nguyen-Vo : 102 mins (walkout after 40min)
Due to alternative commitments on this, my final night in Ljubljana, I was only able to watch two reels of this slow-paced ethnographic tale - set in a picturesque green world of big skies, big waters and very big (but sweet-natured) buffalo. Not ideal circumstances by any means, but I saw enough to suggest the film is probably worth seeking out at a future festival.
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Neil Young
Ljubljana (Slovenia), November 20th/21st , 2005
Sunderland, November 22nd
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
further Ljubljana coverage:
part one (Friday) : Willenbrock; Divided States of America; Mirage
part two (Saturday) : South by Southeast; Heading South
part four (Monday) : Adam and Paul
* click here for the details on the current legal status of Kosovo
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