RETRIEVAL           [7/10]
Z Odzysku : Slawomir FABICKI : Poland 2006 (copyright-dated 2005) : 103m : seen 26th April at City-Kino cinema
   Though his screen time is limited, it's Jacek Braciak's superlative supporting performance which proves the most impressive aspect in the bracingly downbeat, grittily dour urban drama Retrieval - mostly shot hand-held in uber-realistic style and with a bare minimum of score accompaniment.
   Braciak - who resembles a shorter, slightly svelter Peter Sarsgaard - is a compelling presence in the tricky role of Gazda, an unassuming-looking, respectable-seeming family man - boss of a "security agency" - who's actually a Machiavellian gangster at the centre of a sordid underworld web.
    Into Gazda's orbit comes the film's hapless, protagonist Wojtek (top-billed Antoni Pawlicki), a 19-year-old semi-pro boxer struggling via a series of hazardous and/or unpleasant jobs (in a subtle not to Andrzej Wajda, his nom de ring is 'the Cement Man') to support his older, Ukrainian girlfriend Katia (perpetually-frowining, careworn Natalya Vdovina, in a somewhat thankless part) and her urchin-like child.
   Though seemingly a decent sort of young lad (he has a bit of a pugilist's swagger about him, but never seems entirely comfortable with the requisite "bruiser" persona) the restlessly energetic, hollow-eyed Wojtek finds himself in decidedly tricky ethical territory when he becomes an enforcer for loan-shark Gazda.
   Despite initial financial gains, he (very predictably) ends up much worse off than the most famous character who combined such activities with a ring career, Philadelphia's very own Rocky Balboa.
   Fabicki (along with co-writers Denijal Hasanovic and Marek Pruchniewksi) doesn't manage to entirely avoid either cliche or corniness as he relates Wojtek's education at life's "academy of hard knocks", nor his eventual downfall. And many may wonder why on earth we should give a damn about a protagonist who could easily be dismissed as a worthless louse. Then again, that's what some people said about Raging Bull.
   On balance, however, Fabicki deserves much credit for transcending the potential pitfalls of his material to craft a tough, resonant little parable which pulls no punches - and features some kinetic, convincing bursts of brutality - about how easy it is these days for a man to lose his moral compass - and, by extension, a whole nation. 
   Special mention should be made, incidentally, of Paul Handley's English subtitles, which successfully translate the original Polish into a rough-edged, contemporary, colourful argot ("You've lost the plot, mate!") This is really outstanding work in a field which is so often, and so easily, overlooked.

AS THE SHADOW           [7/10]
Come l'ombra : Marina SPADA : Italy 2006 : 87m : seen 26th April at City-Kino cinema
   Milan, the present. Claudia (Anita Kravos) is a travel agent in her early thirties who has grown accustomed to life as a single woman. But when she embarks on a Russian-language course, she finds herself attracted to her tutor Boris (Paolo Pierobon). Boris - who's apparently forty, but looks rather older is quick to reciprocate - perhaps too quick.
   And when he asks Claudia if she wouldn't mind helping him out by providing lodgings for his cousin Olga (Karolina Dafne Porcari), who is about to arrive from Moscow, we start to wonder if this genial pedagogue is entirely to be trusted. When Olga turns up, however, she proves genial company for the pleasantly-surprised Claudia. But then, suddenly, Olga disappears...
   Muddily-photographed (by no fewer than three cinematographers) to cast Milan in the most unappealing light, As the Shadow is a mood-piece-cum-character-study which wrongfoots the viewer at more than one juncture of a plot which becomes increasingly elusive and enigmatic as it steadily unfolds. Shades of Antonioni are discernible (the 'action' is punctuated with various moody shots of underpopulated streets, often with a rumbling susurration on the soundtrack), though this is much more than some kind of derivative omaggio to the maestro of detached anomie/ennui.
   As the Shadow (the title is, appropriately for a film which adopts such a literate approach to its characters, taken from a poem) is a slow-burning, contemplative, melancholic drama which won't appeal to everyone, but taken in toto reveals itself as a mature, intelligent and well-observed work, one which consistently refuses to provide easy answers and steadily improves as it goes along.
   Indeed, the early stretches aren't too promising: the fuzzy visuals, combined with an "arty" selection of camera-angles and a tinkly-piano soundtrack, make for an aesthetically rather off-putting experience. And when the whole Boris/Olga plot raises fears that we're in for some kind of lazy, all-eastern-Europeans-are-dodgy stereotyping. Thankfully, these worries prove wide of the mark - and once we get used to the slightly mannered stylisation, it seems an acceptable fit for Claudia's story.
   Director Spada and scriptwriter Daniele Maggioni economically - and with a subtle undercurrent of wry humour - put us right in the shoes of a woman whose situation is becoming increasingly prevalent in the west: a case material affluence undermined by the sense that something is missing. Spirituality? Meaning? Romance? Identity?
   By pursuing Olga's trail, Claudia belatedly gives herself a raison d'etre - ironically, given her profession, this involves embarking on a journey without maps or secure destination. A journey of self-realisation which, indeed, takes her out of the very film itself - in a subdued finale which resonates long after the credits have rolled. And the very last shot is something of a cracker.

7 YEARS           [6/10]
7 ans : Jean-Pascal HATTU : France 2006 : 86m : seen 27th April at City-Kino cinema
   A decidedly unusual (yes, perhaps even bizarre) love-triangle develops between a prison-inmate serving some way into a seven-year sentence (Bruno Todeschini as Vincent), his guard (Cyril Troley as Jean) and his wife (Valerie Donzelli as Maïté) in this reasonably well-observed, strongly-acted, character-based drama in the Dardennes mould.
   Though the basic idea in theory has one foot in Breaking the Waves territory - Vincent approves of Maïté's dalliance with the Jean, so long as he's told the full details ("She needs warming up," he tells Jean, "Do it as if you were me") - the film develops into more of a deadpan, absurdist, low-key kind of comedy as the situation slowly gets out of hand. Events taken an unexpectedly spicy turn when we realise that both the Jean (who's apparently bisexual) and Maïté are equally fixated on the Byronically charismatic, but "unavailable" Vincent. Their liaison is thus a proxy affair of projection and sublimation, forced upon them by harsh circumstances, and the only feasible realese for their emotional frustrations.
   7 Ans is undeniably well done, in a low-key, uninflected style (significant looks prove more eloquent than dialogue) - Hattu's restraint proves paradoxically well-suited to chronicling characters whose problems are exacerbated by an inability to listen to their own better judgements, or to follow the diktats of faceless authority (as when Maïté has a minor car accident after ignoring a 'stop' sign.) And the audience will undoubtedly learn much about the conditions and practices of the current French penal system (while they seem to wear their own clothes 'inside' - which means an awful lot of ironing for the long-suffering Maïté - conjugal visits are evidently a no-no).
   But in the end this repetitive, slightly monotonous effort lacks that spark or skilful handling to make it particularly distinctive or memorable: technical contributions, from cinematography to editing and score (the music, mainly strings and horns, comes and goes to little noticeable effect), are competent but distinctly conventional and even hand-me-down. 
   The Vincent/Maïté/Jean love-triangle, though undeniably intriguing and sometimes piercingly sharp-edged in its raw emotion, gradually feels more like a scriptwriting contrivance than something which would emerge organically from the initial set-up. The latter stages, in which a couple major plot developments occasionally occur off-screen, have something of a glumly laborious air - as if material (possibly inspired by Beatrice Dalle's January 2005 jail-house marriage?) that would be ideally suited to an hour-long TV slot, has instead been stretched to feature-length. And thus, rather like the hapless Maïté, some way beyond breaking-point.

WHILE YOU ARE HERE          [5/10]
Solange du Hier bist aka So lange du Hier bist : Stefan WESTERWELLE : Germany 2006 : 77m : seen 27th April at City-Kino cinema
   This acclaimed, intense chamber-piece two hander chronicles, in tenebrous gloom and claustrophobic confinement, the passionate romance between elderly Georg (Michael Gempart, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Derek Jarman regular Karl Johnson) and Sebastian (Leander Lichti), the young buck he pays for sex. It's an unlikely May-December relationship (Georg is around 70, Sebastian 24 or so) which eventually moves beyond the purely financial, as the pair start to open up to each other about their troubled pasts, and their insecurities. Even in his mid-twenties, the volatile, self-hating Sebastian is still very much a "big kid"; Georg, meanwhile, is consumed by an amour fou - which may or may not be reciprocated...
   The meticulous production-design is the most obviously striking feature here: Georg's apartment is an oppressively cluttered - and convincingly codgerish - collection of mementos and nick-nacks, its fabrics, carpets and walls seemingly coloured a uniform, deep, dunnish brown. And with the thick curtains are almost invariably tightly closed against dawn, daylight and dusk, there haven't been so many underlit interiors since the heyday of The X Files.
   Georg's fondness for recording his thoughts onto dictaphone reels and later replaying them, meanwhile, nods heavily in the direction of Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape - an dapart from one jarring excursion to the shops, the film is otherwise a gnomic two-hander in the Beckett tradition, where plotting is nebulous at best and the drama advances through repetitive dialogue and the delineation of character by the most minimal and sparing of means.
   The brisk running-time of While You Are Here (that title perhaps addressed at least partly to the viewer) indicates that it's clearly intended as a tightly-packed miniature where every nuance and detail is weighted for maximum effect. And at times writer-director Westerwelle's execution lives up to his lofty ambitions - there's a lovely scene where Georg's eye drifts across a series of photographs and he informs Sebastian that, thanks to the memories these images evoke, "I'm almost never alone."
   Ultimately, however, his script feels perhaps one or two rewrites shy of coming into proper focus. The result is a film which is more of an over-deliberate, excessively slow-paced exercise in restriction and limitation (for Westerwelle, his cinematographer and actors) than a living, breathing, organic whole. And it's disappointing that, in a film which makes much of the physicality of the relationship between these two men, so little of their bodies is ever shown - an old-fashioned restraint, perhaps, a reluctance to dwell on the practical, messy realities of carnal attraction.
   The finale is a particular disappointment - somehow simultaneously over-subtle and too contrived, trying a little too hard for an elliptical arthouse bafflement, whereas a more simple and down-to-earth conclusion would have been more appopriate given the atmosphere of intense intimacy and honesty which Westerwelle has so painstakingly created and attempted to maintain.
      



in competition, and previously reviewed elsewhere on this site
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London To Brighton    [8/10]   Paul Andrew Williams, UK

Red Road     [4/10]   Andrea Arnold, UK/Denmark

The Unpolished (Die Unerzogenen)     [7/10]      Pia Marais, Germany    
   Like April In Love (see above), The Unpolished is the story of a young woman who discovers that the grass really is much greener on the opposite side of the fence. Teenager Stevie (Ceci Schmitz-Chuh) has tired of her chaotic, perpetually on-the-run lifestyle, being yanked around Europe by her medium-time gangster parents.
   Stevie hankers for the kind of dull adolescence most girls of her age would give their left arm to escape, just one of the ironies in this closely-observed character-based drama which is elevated considerably by Schmitz-Chuh's pitch-perfect central performance.
   [winner of the festival's feature-film prize]

Neil Young
April-June 2007


NB: all timings are taken from the festival catalogue; all films seen at Crossing Europe film festival in Linz, Austria, at public screenings.

click HERE for the Jigsaw Lounge index of reviews from Linz 2007

click here for the Crossing Europe 'CrossBlog' entries 
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