| GOTHENBURG FILM FESTIVAL 2008 : The 'Nordic Competition' |
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 An Extraordinary Study in Human Degradation (En enastående studie i mänsklig förnedring) : 2/10 Sweden 2008 : Patrik Eriksson : 83m : seen 24.Jan, Haga cinema The romantic problems of a 36-year-old Gothenburg filmmaker are chronicled via images and sounds - all recorded on a series of mobile phones. This isn't by any means the first film shot via such a medium, but it's still very much a form in its infancy. One day, some masterpiece or other will no doubt be made this way. Unfortunately An Extraordinary Study is by no means that masterpiece. Tedious, structureless, self-indulgent and awful to look at and listen to, the "film" (if we can call it that) feels interminable even at a theoretically brisk 83 minutes. At no point do we much care about the travails of director-star Eriksson, a whining, solipsistic sort whose diary-style dispatches are clearly intended to make us wonder whether what we're seeing is documentary or fiction - a question that's been asked countless times before in cinema, in countless more interesting and productive ways. Eriksson (or rather "Eriksson") films nearly aspect of his comfortably affluent middle-class lifestyle (he's what the boys from Reprise might grow up to become, if they're not careful) from waking to sleeping, from w*nking to f*cking. But the more "raw" such scenes are supposed to be, they more contrived embarrassing they seem (especially in comparison with Gunnar Hall Jensen's blisteringly self-lacerating movie-memoir from 2003, Gunnar Goes Comfortable.) The masturbation scene in particular comes across as especially cringeworthy and meretricious, not to mention a rather huge hostage to critical fortune. If Eriksson/"Eriksson" wants to jerk off, that's his business: if he expects the public to pay to watch, he'd better come up with something a bit more worthwhile than this globby digital splurge. Battery low. Reception weak. No signal. Fighter : 5/10 Denmark 2007 : Natasha Arthy : 90m : seen 25.Jan, Capitol cinema The culture-clash tale of a spirited Muslim teenager who pursues kung-fu against stern parental opposition, Fighter is essentially Ae Fond Kiss... meets Girlfight on the not-so-mean streets of northern Copenhagen. Not so much Bend It Like Beckham as Bash It Like Bruce (Lee), if you like. Writer-director Arthy leaves no cliche unturned as she chronicles how 16-year-old Aicha (Semra Turan) defies convention in pursuit of her dreams. Melodramatic and contrived at pretty much everyjuncture, the film would be in big trouble were it not for the spirited and empathetic central performance from the deceptively demure-looking Turan. She ensures that, even if the picture's moves are invariably old, clunky and thuddingly predictable, they're executed with sufficient conviction and brio to keep proceedings relatively watchable. Arthy, meanwhile, amps up the flashy visuals (slo-mo, rapid-fire editing, kinetic camerawork) and soundtrack (modern urban beats giving way middle-eastern style wailing at particularly tense moments) - all the while strenuously attempting to distract us from the plot's numerous deficiencies. Such ploys, while diverting, can't do much to conceal the fundamental staleness of the script: Fighter might play reasonably well to an audience close to its heroine's youthful demographic, but anyone older - and who's seen more than a handful of inspirational sports-related triumph-over-adversity movies - will surely have difficulty swallowing quite so much overcooked corn. Gone with the Woman (Tatt av kvinnen) : 5/10 Norway 2007 : Petter Naess : 92 mins : seen 24.Jan, Haga cinema So-so romantic comedy, a kind of Bridget Jones for blokes. Our nebbishy, nameless hero (Trond Fausa Aurvåg) proves implausibly irresistible to the ladies, having to choose between two Mariannes: the one his harpy-like "free spirit" girlfriend (Marian Saastad Ottesen), the other a doe-eyed Parisian babe (Therese Brunnander) - the latter an Amelie type who virtually throws herself at him when they "meet cute" in the street. It's hard to say what's more implausible - mademoiselle fancying the unprepossessing protagonist, or the latter dithering over whether to accept her advances or stick with his frizzy-flamehaired shrew of a partner. It's all rather whimsically cutesy and bittersweet - more romantic than comic, a series of mildly farcical episodes held together via the main character's near-incessant narration (just one of several clues that Johan Bogaeus's script is based on a book [by Erlend Loe]). A little bit of our protagonist's musings goes rather a long way, however - this is one of those films where the least interesting characters get the most screen-time, and the most vivid individuals (such as Glenn, the advice-dispensing sauna-goer and taxi-driver played by the ever-reliable Peter Stormare) are frustratingly relegated to the sidelines. The action is mainly presented in a realistic fashion, shot in a blandly professional manner, but there are occasional flights of CGI-enhanced fancy: what we're seeing is evidently the story as filtered through the protagonist's not-entirely-reliable memory/imagination. But the latter conceit isn't much developed (the title's similarity to Gone with the Wind remains a mystery, for instance) and we're left with a pleasant but forgettable little picture which simmers along without really threatening to come to the boil. Go with Peace, Jamil (Ma salama, Jamil aka Go In Peace, Jamil aka Gå med fred Jamil) : 7/10 Denmark 2008 : Omar Shargawi : 90m : seen 26.Jan, Haga cinema Pummellingly intense study of masculinity, revenge and violence among Copenhagen's Muslim community. Director Shargawi favours very close close-ups, making us focus on the characters rather than their environment. Indeed, the film is very careful to avoid geographical signifiers of any kind: there's no mention of Copenhagen, Denmark or even Europe; Arabic is the predominant language (though it's clearly no accident that the youngest participant, a kid of around five, mainly speaks - and is spoken to - in Danish). These characters are clearly living within a kind of cultural bubble: they aren't shown interacting with any "outsiders" at all. Indeed, the early sections might as well be taking place in Lebanon, Syria or Iraq: it comes as a bit of a surprise when, twenty minutes or so into the picture, the protagonist runs into what's clearly a European street. This is a bold, fresh and authentic-feeling take on the "immigrant" experience - a bit of a pity, then, that the plot itself should skirt melodrama, predictability and heavy-handedness at several key stages as the grim cycle of vengeance unfolds. A major plus: the central performance of convincingly bullish physicality by Dar Salim (as Jamil) - the actor resembles a cross between Vin Diesel and LL Cool J, quite appropriate which ambitiously (and successfully) brings some of the techniques of the Hollywood thriller to bear on a topical, serious European subject. NB: FOR AN ESSAY-LENGTH REVIEW OF THIS FILM, CLICK HERE Just Another Love Story (Kaerlighed på film) : 6/10 Denmark 2007 : Ole Bornedal : 90m : seen 25.Jan, Capitol cinema The opening and closing credits of Just Another Love Story trumpet that this is "a film by Bornedal" - a pompous touch which suggests that his choice of title is an example of falsely self-deprecating modesty (although the original Danish, which translates as Love On Film, is unambiguously bland). And the movie does conduct itself with a certain swaggering self-consciousness - all the better to sock over a plot which consists of one melodramatic twist after another. Indeed, so convoluted and unlikely is this moody, darkly-comic thriller that it soon becomes apparent that we're in a very post-modern kind of neo-noir. Taken on those terms, there's quite a lot to enjoy here - not least Dan Lautsten's gritty-glossy cinematography (he shot Brotherhood of the Wolf, Silent Hill and Wind Chill) and the nifty editing by Anders Villadsen, who juggles what amounts to three separate time-lines with significant aplomb. In addition, the schlubby protagonist, crime-scene photographer Jonas (Anders W Berthelsen) is such a weak-willed patsy it's amusing to see how quickly and hopelessly he gets himself ensnared in a web of deceit and false identity. A family-man who's clearly fed up with his lot, Jonas spots a possible escape-route after he's involved in a (spectacular) car-crash. Visiting one of the injured parties - Julia (Rebecka Hemse), an attractive but neurotic young woman who, as the audience knows, has a rather colourful past - in hospital, Jonas pretends to be her boyfriend, Sebastian. When Julia comes to, she's conveniently near-blind and amnesiac. Wildly implausible complications rapidly ensue - a crescendo which peaks with the semi-unexpected arrival on the scene of the real Sebastian (Nikolaj Lie Kaas, a fine performer, albeit one who's reaching Depardieu-like levels of ubiquity within the Danish film industry.) By this stage the audience is either with Bornedal or they're not: suspension of disbelief is a key factor in Just Another Love Story's effectiveness, because as soon as the plot (which resembles Christian Petzold's Wolfsburg as rewritten by Tim Krabbe) is exposed to rational scrutiny the whole thing quickly disintegrates. Indeed, any attempt at genuine emotion is instantly undercut by the fundamental ludicrousness of what befalls the hapless Jonas. Better to just sit back and appreciate the whole thing as an elaborate, knowingly nudge-nudge-wink-wink riff on genre conventions: a bumpy ride indeed, but one that indulgent and patient passengers will ultimately regard as worthwhile. The King of Ping Pong (Pingpong-kingen aka The Ping Pong King) : 4/10 Sweden 2008 : Jens Jonsson : 107m : seen 25.Jan, Haga cinema Oddly inert story of sibling rivalry, familial dysfunction and teenage bullying set in a small Swedish town on the edge of a snowbound wilderness. Focus is on outsize, morose, chubby 16-year-old Rickard, nicknamed 'Rille' (Jerry Johansson) and his younger, smaller, livelier brother Erik (Hampus Johansson). Rille is an introverted sort whose main source of self-esteem is in his capacity as controller of the PE department's table-tennis cupboard (hence the title). Rille and Erik's awkward adolescence is complicated by the fact that, after their parents split up a few years back, their indolent mother (Ann-Sofie Nurmi) now going out with a buffoonish local sports-store proprietor (Frederik Nilsson). Their dad (Georgi Staykov), meanwhile, is a blokeish, hard-drinking no-good-nik with some unconventional ideas about parental responsibility... The picture ambles rather ponderously and deliberately along without ever really threatening to break out of its even stride or build much momentum - as if directed by Rille, rather than his sparkier sibling. The climactic 20 minutes do see the focus shift from character-study to plot-development - via the dire event which the earlier sections' calm ominousness had been gently hinting at. But by then most audiences may well have lost patience with a picture whose visuals, especially during interior shots, are often distractingly fuzzy, pastel-shaded and milky. Indeed, the whole picture has a blanded-out, indistinct feel. If Jonsson was seeking to capture the soul-sapping ennui of the mid-teenage years, he's succeeded - all too well. Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in aka Let Me In) : 6/10 Sweden 2008 : Tomas Alfredson : 114 mins : seen 26.Jan, Haga cinema With so many filmmakers so content to play it safe these days, hats off to Alfredson for coming up with such an ambitiously offbeat enterprise - one that mixes up genres and tones to a degree that shouldn't really work at all, but which narrowly manages to come off. It's a tale of teenage bullying set in suburban Sweden in 1982 - but it's also much else besides. For one thing, there's a throat-slitting killer on the loose: an ordinary-looking middle-aged man who, in one of the early scenes, is shown rather incompetently going about his bloody business. Then there's the unusual friendship which develops between the killer's 12-year-old ward - a long-haired kid of ambiguous gender - and his next-door neighbour, who is being mercilessly picked-on by a gang of schoolmates. Our weakling hero dreams of fighting back - and his new pal turns out to have supernatural abilities which might well cause this to happen. It wouldn't be fair to be too specific about those abilities here - suffice it to say that director Alfredson and Jon Ajvide Lindqvist, adapting the latter's well-regarded novel (its title obliquely borrowed from that of Morrissey's song 'Let the Right One Slip In'), manages to ring some new changes on long-established horror-genre tropes. In the process, they don't seem to have quite thought through the political subtext of their film: the contrast between the milky-white skin of the protagonist and the swarthy features and black hair of his "newcomer" neighbour is clearly far from accidental; likewise the chronological setting of the film just as Sweden was starting to take in significant numbers of Muslim refugees; then there's the way the throat-slitting murders share common features with the way halal animal-slaughter is performed... is this all intended to be some kind of parable of immigration? Who knows. What we end up with, then, isn't by any means a children's film: it's an intermittently gory affair featuring some impressively stomach-churning special effects. But, with its concentration on such youthful characters, isn't exactly aimed at adults either. Alfredson (who includes various subtle nods to genre forerunners such as Salem's Lot, Damien : Omen II, Carrie and The Brood, among others) also wrongfoots us by at times adopting a larkish, blackly-comic approach, then at other times opting for a more reflective, poetic kind of mood. The latter tendency does serve to bog things down every now and again, however - a little trimming here and there wouldn't go amiss. But the climax, when it finally arrives, proves worth the wait: witty, spooky, bloodthirsty, satisfying and, in a sly coda, unexpectedly poignant. Quiet Storm (Veðramót aka The Quiet Storm) : 5/10 Iceland 2007 : Guðný Halldórsdóttir : 102m : seen 26.Jan, Haga cinema 1970s-style communal living never really caught on in Europe outside Scandinavia and certain parts of Germany - and, judging by the films that have been made on the subject over the past decade or so (which almost invariably result in misfortune and/or disaster for the commune residents) perhaps it's not hard to see why. Torpid drama Quiet Storm is a case in point. Apart from a (woefully clunky) framing-story set in the present day, the film is set in a northern corner of Iceland sometime around 1975. It's here that young offenders are sent to learn responsibility - and reflect on the error of their ways - while working on an isolated farm. The adults in charge, predictably, prove ill-suited to the task in hand: well-meaning but not exactly models of maturity themselves, they increasingly struggle to cope with their wayward, wilful charges. And when savvy-beyond-her-years teenager Disa (Hera Hilmarsdóttir) turns up, all hell quickly breaks loose. Over-complicated but predictable in its plotting, the picture is also let down by some uneven performances and a tendency towards histrionic melodrama at pivotal moments. On the plus side, the period detail is notably convincing and Svein Krøvel's cinematography is consistently impressive (though it shouldn't be hard to make the ruggedly picturesque Icelandic countryside look striking). The trump card, however, is Hilmarsdóttir: in what's effectively her big-screen debut she's rather splendid as ultra-manipulative bad-seed Disa, a character whose tragic backstory ultimately makes her more victim than villain. Neil Young January 24th-27th, 2008. Revised February 7th-8th. Roundup article for Tribune magazine (mainly covering Go With Peace, Jamil) Göteborg International Film Festival official site |
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