| Viennale roundup : ongoing : rough reviews all now online : rewrites imminent |
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| Monday, 12 November 2007 | |
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V'07 : pt4 : Poto and Cabengo' (1979); Stage Legislature ('07); At Sea ('07); etc POTO AND CABENGO (1979) [7/10] The first American film by French expat - and sometime Jean-Luc Godard collaborator - Jean-Pierre Gorin, and the first of what would become an informal trilogy of documentaries (though that's only a loose description of Gorin's format) about closed Californian "communities" which are largely defined by "private" forms of language. Or rather, semi-closed, as Gorin in each instance is able - in his deceptively bumbling, vaguely Nick-Broomfieldish manner - to obtain entry and acceptance. Here the focus is on two young sisters in California who - according to the news reports which made worldwide headlines in the late seventies - communicate by using a dialect unknown to linguists. The truth is rather more prosaic but, in Gorin's genial telling, no less absorbingly bizarre. Occasionally his "gee whizz!" style gets a little out of hand (as when he repeatedly sends a subtitle zipping across the screen asking "What are they saying?"), but as he quizzically uses the girls' case to explore much wider issues - about families, America, Americanisation, language, fame, exploitation, and much else besides - it's very hard to avoid being drawn in. The real question being, we quickly realise: "What is he saying?" STATE LEGISLATURE [7/10] Epic in length but intimate in tone, this 3 1/2 hour fly-on-the-wall documentary shows the inner workings of that much-discussed, never-more-topical activity: American democracy. In a series of committee-rooms and offices, Wiseman's cameras unobtrusively record the quotidian business of Idaho's local government, allowing time for a wide variety of "characters" and issues to occupy our attention. Perhaps predictably, it's the driest-sounding stuff which actually proves the spiciest, in a picture which only very occasionally bogs down into insider-talk and jargonese. Educational and informative in a rock-steady, old-fashioned style, but perhaps of most particular interest as a keen-eyed observation of taken-for-granted anthropological phenomena: this a world of time-smoothed interpersonal relationships and long-established traditions (rituals, even) within which the 'business of government' slowly takes place. And don't be put off by the length: State Legislature (projected in two halves in Vienna, with a 15-minute toilet/coffee-break) feels no longer than your typical Hollywood action-movie, although that doesn't mean Wiseman couldn't perhaps have achieved similar effects within a more conventional sort of running-time. AT SEA [6+/10] Sixty silent minutes in which, through a variety of what looks like 'found' 16mm and 8mm footage from numerous sources, the "biography" of a typical container-ship is related. There are some truly remarkable images here (the film really should be seen on a cinema-screen rather than TV) at every stage of the ship's "life" - and the lack of sound means we can give them our full attention, as well as endowing many of them with an unexpectedly alien, eerie quality. But there's something fundamentally troubling about the film's structure: it's divided into three sections of equal length, one detailing the ship's creation, one its working life, one its destruction in a breaker's yard (a post-apocalyptic coastal workplace which looks rather like the one shown in Michael Glawogger's Working Man's Death). But in reality the "middle" period would have lasted many times longer than either the beginning or the end - Hutton therefore seems much less interested in the ship's purpose and function than he is in the details of how it came into and out of existence. A deliberate artistic decision, needless to say - the choice of title is evidently ironic - but, on balance, decidedly debatable. GIBELLINA - THE EARTHQUAKE [6/10] Gibellina was an ordinary Italian town, until it was almost entirely destroyed by a terrible earthquake that left many residents dead and the rest homeless. A new Gibellina was built nearby, along modernistic lines - and including all manner of modernistic sculptures which were intended to make the town a tourist attraction and thus boost the local economy. But things didn't quite work out, as chronicled in this easy-going, TV-style documentary, most of which alternates between static shots of the sculptures in their spookinly-quiet environment, and interviews with various bigwigs (nearly all of them men, as it happens: mayors past and present, a churchless priest). The ordinary folk of Gibellina, while much mentioned, are seen but - for the most part - not heard, especially the younger inhabitants with whom the area's future, if it has one, rests. In fact, the residents are not that much seen either, as the director seems fond of making Gibellina look as deserted as possible - all the better to examine those outsized sculptures. He's clearly seen too many Antonioni movies for his own good - not to mention De Chirico paintings - and the results, while an undeniably engaging treatment of an offbeat subject, suffer in comparison with Mercedes Alvares's stately Spanish equivalent, The Sky Turns (2003). And it's especially regrettable that, on the rare instance that we come across some "ordinary" workmen - as they toil over some large, fast-decaying artwork - their conversation goes conspicuously unsubtitled. THAMES FILM (1986) [5/10] While predating Patrick Keiller's essay-films London and Robinson In Space by around a decade, Raban's journey down London's mighty river feels very small beer in comparison. We learn a few surprising historical tidbits along the way, and John Hurt's narration ensures that the viewing experience is never exactly dull. But Raban doesn't have much of an eye for visuals (composition and editing feel arbitrary, even slap dash) and his choice of secondary texts and images to accompany his footage (most of it shot from the river itself) is distinctly variable. A tone of poetic portentousness prevails - the picture bobs torpidly along to the extent that it feels padded-out even at 66 minutes. This makes Raban's omissions all the more baffling: his focus on the waterway downriver of Tower Bridge ,eans there's nothing about the Thames' many islands, nothing about the 'city centre' and its relation to the river. But where is there also no mention of the great Thames-estuary novel, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, nothing - and this is 1984-86, don't forget - about Thatcher or the GLC or the government's ambitious plans for Canary Wharf (you'll actually get more about that side of things in The Long Good Friday). Instead Raban, fixated on the past to the exclusion of the present, returns again and again and again to a minute examination of Brueghel's painting The Triumph of Death (a work whose relationship to the Thames is tangential at best) in a manner that has more than a slight marshy whiff of high-falutin' pretentiousness about it. Not a disaster by any means - it would be exceedingly hard to make a dull study of such a multi-faceted subject. But Raban comes mighty close: his is an essay in search of a focus and a thesis, and as such very much a missed opportunity. Neil Young 13th/18th November, 2007 Poto and Cabengo : [7/10] : Jean-Pierre GORIN : US 1979 : 76m : seen 24th Oct, Austrian Filmmuseum (Essayistische Kino programme) State Legislature : [7/10] : Frederick WISEMAN : US 2007 : 207m : seen 26th Oct, Stadtkino At Sea : [6+/10] : Peter HUTTON : US 2007 : 60m : seen 26th Oct, video-room Gibellina - The Earthquake : [6/10] : Gibellina - Il terremoto : Joerg BURGER : Austria/Italy 2007 : 72m : seen 25th Oct, Urania cinema Thames Film : [5/10] : William RABAN : UK 1986 : 66m : seen 27th Oct, Austrian Filmmuseum (all - except At Sea - complimentary press-delegate tickets) JIGSAW LOUNGE : VIENNALE 2007 : INDEX PAGE V'07 : pt5 : Diary of the Dead; No Country For Old Men; Shotgun Stories; etc GEORGE A ROMERO'S DIARY OF THE DEAD [6/10] Fine film though it was, Romero's Land of the Dead (2005) was generally regarded as a financial flop: hence the director's return to lower-budget film-making for the latest of his trademark combinations of gore, dark comedy and media/political satire. Here he takes a Blair Witch-ish, "found" footage approach to the modern zombie genre (which Romero, it should by now be needless to repeat, himself created), mixing in some rather old-hat Scream-style post-modernism/self-referentiality for good measure. Results are frustratingly uneven, especially as Romero is clearly still capable of hitting the bullseye when he really puts his mind to it: opening scene (a zombie attack caught by TV news-cameras) is terrific; last shot is astonishing and unexpectedly resonant and moving; but what comes between shows distinctly variable levels of inspiration and wit (even if the stomach-churning set-pieces nimbly transcend any budgetary limitations). Romero is essentially treading water here, making his points about the ills of modern society and culture in a much more overt and heavy-handed manner than last time out. LA FRANCE [6/10] A disarmingly fresh, if ultimately not entirely successful take on WW1 themes: a rather lukewarm and hand-me-down plot (a gamine, spirited young woman who poses as a boy so she can head to the front line in search of her M.I.A lover) is given an audacious twist by having the characters perform four anachronistic musical-numbers (which have a breezy, sixtiesish folkiness) at various key junctures. These slightly-dreamlike moments (each of the songs bears the name of a country participating the war; the film itself is therefore clearly intended as the fifth "song") punctuate an otherwise dourly-realistic narrative. The overall feel is a little bit like a cross between A Very Long Engagement and Moulin Rouge!, perhaps, though much more subdued and wistful than either, taking its tone from the steely cobalts of the characters' (distractingly spotless) uniforms. Director clearly has talent, but misses a major trick by not making more use of Cecile Reigher, who plays the protagonist's sister: a dotty, bespectacled dead ringer for Isabelle Adjani in L'Histoire d'Adele H, she's by some way the liveliest thing about the picture, but is restricted to just a single scene right at the start. She nevertheless makes much more impact than the eleventh-hour cameo from 'marquee name' Guillaume Depardieu as the bland object of our heroine's surging amour fou. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN [6/10] The Coens' first official collaboration as directors, their crazily audacious and inventive remake of The Ladykillers, was cruelly underappreciated on its 2004 release (all of the pair's previous films were formally credited to Joel Coen as director and Ethan Coenm as producer). Now the critics have been going a bundle over this inferior follow-up, which adapts Cormac McCarthy's surprise bestseller - a tale of stolen money, ruthless criminals, and a psychopathic hitman set in 1980 Texas - but can't overcome the book's fundamental structural inadequacies. Early and middle sections strike a bold and largely successful mix of dark comedy and existential drama, but the final act sees plot and mood unravel with the exit (perversely, offscreen) of its main protagonist, an opportunistic semi-redneck played by Josh Brolin. Something of a leading-man manque for a decade or so, Brolin is overdue such a meaty role and he rises to the challenge. He's overshadowed, however, by an outstandingly sinister/odd/amusing turn from Javier Bardem (as the psychopathic hitman) just a shame the picture has no idea how to end his character's story. On balance, not a bad movie as such - but nor is it any valid heir to Blood Simple, the Coens' first film and a much more successful example of 80s Texas noir. It certainly doesn't help that, as the end credits reveal, the whole of No Country For Old Men was shot in New Mexico - or that cinematographer Roger Deakins, who's done such great work with the Coens in the past (The Man Who Wasn't There) and whose other 2007 film (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) is a masterclass in the cinematographer's art, should be on relatively uninspired form here. SHOTGUN STORIES [6/10] Promising debut from writer-director Nichols: a slow-burning, atmospherically shot and scored tale of a fractured, feuding family in a dustily rural, unassumingly-idyllic Arkansas. Mood and tone (now wryly comic, now unsettlingly ominous) are established and nicely maintained through the early and middle sections - a "shitstorm" is, we realise, gradually brewing towards violent foment - Nichols sensibly placing most of the narrative burden on the imposingly square shoulders of his staringly-intense leading man Michael Shannon (a rare but welcome spell in the limelight for an enormously talented performer more usually found in Hollywood supporting roles). As the feud between estranged kinsmen escalates, however, a certain tipping-point of credibility is reached and exceeded - from there on in, the characters' motivations seem more a matter of scriptwriting contrivance than organic believability, although things (thankfully) don't spiral into the kind of bloody melodrama we're led at certain stages to expect. On the downside, one or two of the dramatis personae seem to have wandered in from another film entirely (specifically, the kind of jokey-quirky rural-indie ensembler of which Todd Rohal's The Guatemalan Handshake is the most archetypal recent example). At its best, however, Shotgun Stories has some of the doomy intensity of, say, At Close Range: this is clearly a filmmaker who knows how to evoke place and to dramatise the way environment affects (dictates?) action. Neil Young 18th November, 2007 George A Romero's Diary of the Dead : [6/10] : aka Diary of the Dead : George A. ROMERO : US 2007 : 97m : seen 29th Oct, Stadtkino La France : [6/10] : Serge BOZON : France 2007 : 102m : seen 29th Oct, Gartenbaukino No Country For Old Men : [6/10] : Ethan COEN & Joel COEN : USA 2007 : 122m : seen 27th Oct, Gartenbaukino Shotgun Stories : [6/10] : Jeff NICHOLS : USA 2007 : 90m : seen 26th Oct, Kunstlerhaus (all : complimentary press-delegate tickets) JIGSAW LOUNGE : VIENNALE 2007 : INDEX PAGE V'07 : pt6 : Hotel Very Welcome, The Rebirth, Paranoid Park, etc HOTEL VERY WELCOME [5+/10] Adventures and misadventures of European tourists in Asia. Film jumps between various sets of characters in their 20s and 30s, whose paths may or may not intersect by the end. Takes situations more familiar from drama/thrillers (The Beach, Gone)and uses them to make some fairly obvious points about foolishness/insensitivity of affluent young western tourists (without anything like the bonkers elan of current bigger-budget US equivalent, The Darjeeling Limited). Decent hit-rate of gags (a pair of bickering, sensation-hungry British blokes are especially good value), but overall a little too formless and casual to really sustain interest or linger long in the memory. Actress from The Forest For the Trees pops up another mousily-repressed plain-jane, socially-awkward role: she's fine, but her presence in this kind of part stirs memories of her previous film which emphatically aren't to Hotel Very Welcome's advantage. THE OTHER [5/10] Torpid, supposedly "existential" Argentinian drama about a fortyish urbanite who endures a mid-life crisis and wanders around a sleepy provincial town, working his way through various adopted identities (distant, opportunistic echoes of The Passenger here?) and the affections of various local women. This kind of stuff has been done too often before - picture feels like a remix of another film of similar genre from same country from a couple of years back, Strange (better known under its Spanish-language title, Extrano), which starred the same Kevin-Spacey-lookalike actor in the leading role (and he's not on top form here by any means). Intermittently snags our attention - but only intermittently: of all the characters we're introduced to, the least interesting is the one who forms the focus of the narrative and is seldom off-screen from start to finish. No surprise to learn that writer-director is considerably more youthful than his grizzled, life-battered protagionist: picture feels very much like a young man's hazy concept of middle age (plot begins with an eye-test which reveals he now needs glasses.) Still waters which, on closer inspection, run somewhat shallow. THE REBIRTH [5/10] From the director of Bashing, and the tone is strikingly similar: "warped Japanese society" is examined in a bleak, depopulated suburban/industrial setting. Here the focus is on two individuals united - a man and a woman, both in their forties - by their personal connection to a tragic incident Tokyo (and brought together in a distant location some time after, by the capriciousness of coincidence and fate). Grief, guilt, repressed emotion: minimal dialogue, much repetition of quotidian ritual. Themes are unspoken until the end credits, set to an incongruously raucous ballad (penned and performed by the writer-director, who also plays the male lead, giving himself plenty of closeups in the process) which spells them out in bald, strident terms. Slow, poised, deliberate, Dardennesish style intrigues, then alienates, then ultimately grates: that closing song reveals the existence of passions hidden so far beneath these glum surfaces that not even their broadest outlines are discernible. BEHAVE [5?/10] I'm afraid I didn't last long with this docu/fiction hybrid which examines the juvenile penal system of Rio de Janeiro. An early warning-sign: a title card informing us that, because Brazilian law forbids the identification of young offenders, their parts in the re-enactments of actual cases will be taken by other favela residents of similar ages and backgrounds. This serves makes all that follows feel like an elaborate form of amateur-dramatics, with the adult participants (including an extremely garrulous young magistrate) "playing" versions of themselves. Intentions seemingly honourable - monotonous excution makes it all seem rather pointless. Audiences would be better off seeking out Bus 174, a relatively "straight" documentary which touches on similar subject-matter. HULANG BALYAN NG BUHI, OR THE WOVEN STORIES OF THE OTHER [4?/10] Muddy-looking, digitally-shot, thematically-fuzzy examination of the plight of rural Filipinos. The nation, we're told, has been historically blighted by three main ills: imperialism, bureaucratic capitalism, and feudalism. The solution to this may lie in the activities of roving Marxist guerillas; in a return to the 'old ways' represented by a community's witch-like "high priestess"; or in something else entirely. The film is a collage of elements which may or may not be intended to cohere, some documentary-realistic, some dreamily hallucinatory: figures are tracked across inhospitable landscapes - hills, swamps, forests - with a similarly variable pacing that too often slows down into a sapping slog. Pseudo-poetic speechifying punctuates the fragmentary narrative: "The stories of the heart cannot be told with justice" Long songs dominate the soundtrack - but, since only spoken dialogue is subtitled, their meaning remains opaque, and they function solely in terms of mood. Trouble is, the film's emphasis is on pressing problems and drastic solutions: this kind of elliptical, stylised, enigmatic obfuscation feels like am artsy, opportunistic cop-out. Torpid, tepid, heavy going - for very little evident reward. PARANOID PARK [1/10] Gus Van Sant's is current cinema's most haphazardly unpredictable career: and perhaps it was inevitable that one day (and only a couple of years after his masterpiece Elephant) he'd hit the kind of rock-bottom nadir which Paranoid Park - a modish "skateboard-noir" about a blank-faced teenager who semi-accidentally causes the death of a security guard, then mopes around Portland like a baggy-panted descendant of Camus's Meursault - represents. But it's still depressing to see such an extreme example of cinematic mauvaise foi, as Van Sant revisits - and in the process mindlessly trashes - various key moments in his own filmography. What was, first time around, emotionally resonant, sometimes even beautiful, now comes across as a noxiously sour self-travesty. His use of the late Elliot Smith's haunting track 'Angeles' - such a powerful element of Good Will Hunting - to accompany Paranoid Park's woefully limp, clever-clever 'climax' is especially unbearable. It's a mystifying experience: rather like realising that your favourite band's greatest-hits compilation is, somehow, by far their worst LP. Neil Young 18th November, 2007 Hotel Very Welcome : [5/10] : Sonja HEISS : Austria 2007 : Germany 2007 : 90m : seen 25th Oct, Kunstlerhaus The Other : [5/10] : El otro : Ariel ROTTER : Argentina 2007 : 83m : seen 24th Oct, Metro cinema The Rebirth : [5/10] : Ai no yokan : KOBAYASHI Masahiro : Japan 2007 : 102m : seen 27th Oct, Kunstlerhaus Behave : [5?/10] : Juizo : Maria RAMOS : Brazil 2007 : 90m : seen 26th Oct, Metro cinema (walkout after 35m) Huling balyan ng buhi.. or the Woven Stories of the Other : [4?/10] : Huling balyan ng buhi, o Ang sinalirap nga asoy nila : Sherad Anthony SANCHEZ : Philippines 2006 : 97m : seen 25th Oct, Stadtkino (walkout after 60m) Paranoid Park : [1/10] : Gus VAN SANT : US 2007 : 85m : seen 23rd Oct, Gartenbaukino (all complimentary press-delegate tickets, except Paranoid Park - paid €7.50) JIGSAW LOUNGE : VIENNALE 2007 : INDEX PAGE
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