Rotterdam 2006 : part two (including Alain Cavalier's 'Filmman' [aka 'Le Filmeur'])

The Dog Pound, Dogs (1998), Early in the Morning, Figner - The End of a Silent Century, Filmman

THE DOG POUND [6/10] aka La Perrera
A feckless slacker is slowly goaded towards productivity in The Dog Pound, the slow-burning, overlong, but ultimately quietly rewarding feature debut by Uruguayan writer-director Nieto Zas.
   Nieto Zas has previously worked with Lisandro Alonso (on Freedom) and with Pablo Stoll and Juan Pablo Rebella (on 25 Watts, the pair's precursor to Whisky). Nieto Zas's own style predictably lies somewhere in-between: The Dog Pound often deploys Alonso's subdued (occasionally torpid) rhythms and his fondess for rural silences, while Nieto Zas's dialogue and character-development have some of the observational accuracy which gave which Whisky such salty verisimilitude.
   Though the subject-matter has wide, socio-political implications - lazy youth being a decadent byproduct of prosperous economies worldwide - The Dog Pound is primarily a character-study of its 'hero'. David (Pablo Riera Alexandre) is a scruffily handsome, model-lean 25-year-old, seemingly equally fond of sleep, drugs and masturbation. A perpetual student, he loafs around out of term-time in his family's cosy holiday home near a sleepy seaside resort - the latter something of a a one-horse town sin caballol.
   Eventually his lackadaisical ways exhaust the patience of his dad Ruben (Martin Adjemian), an old-school grafter who puts him to work building his own house on a nearby plot of land. As the house sloooowly takes shape (and not since TV's Petrocelli has a self-build taken so long), David comes to see the wisdom of dad's dictum trabajo e salud ('work is healthy.')
   The film takes its pacing from David's halting alternation between lassitude to activity: when he goes into a druggy slump, so does the movie. In this way we find ourselves willing the lad - not a dynamically compelling personality, it must be said - into regaining (or rather 'gaining') his oomph: otherwise we fear the script may peter out into an inconsequential, bathetic series of low-key episodes. In the end, The Dog Pound is rather like David's house: a sluggishly-assembled, slightly rickety construction which just about manages to hold together and fulfil its purpose.

DOGS [5/10] (1998)
A potentially-dynamite classic noir plot gets frustratingly half-baked treatment in Dogs, described as a "hard boiled love story" by director/writer Nagasaki.
   Nagasaki co-wrote the screenplay with Nakajima Goro, and in the right hands this story could make for a cracking romantic/absurd crime-thriller. The noir genre specialises in characters who fall in love with the wrong person - the latter very often a femme fatale who leads them into dangerously transgressive territory. The twist here is that the one being led astray is an enigmatic woman rather than a hapless bloke.
   Policewoman Miki (Mizushima Kaori) - who reveals in her (impassive) voice-over that she only joined the force to overcome her "TV addiction" - experiences amour fou when she sees Koichi (Endo Kenichi) trying to kill himself and his fellow-passenger after a car smash. Rather than arresting him, Miki becomes enmeshed in Koichi's complicated private and business life - resulting in further deaths...
   The way in which Nagasaki and Goro gradually pile the bodies up is undeniably nifty - and strongly suggests the presence of several David Goodis and Jim Thompson novels on their shelves. But Nagasaki can't quite bring the picture to life: it seems infected and becalmed by Miki's own chronic inertia, so that we lurch uninvolvingly from set-piece to episodic set-piece rather than building up to what should and could have been a killer finale.
   The (arbitrary?) decision to film on video doesn't help matters: it's often tricky to see what's going on (not in a good way), and Honda Shigeru's cinematography favours the kind of juddery, jolty hand-held camerawork that gave the medium such a bad name in its early years. As it is, Dogs (the title presumably referring to the fuck-first-think-later-if-at-all 'animal attraction' between the central couple) feels like a rough sketch for a later, more fully-realised celluloid work: the LA Takedown to some future Heat, perhaps. Although here one would ideally bring in a different creative team to bring these promising ideas to full fruition.

EARLY IN THE MORNING [5/10] aka Un matin bonne heure
"God doesn't like Africa or Africans." This could stand as the dispiriting motto for Early in the Morning, a perfect example of the kind of well-intentioned, worthily dull project which gains funding and film-festival exposure because of its tragic, topical and guilt-inducing subject-matter rather than any intrinsic cinematic or dramatic merit.
   Yaguine (Mamoudou Camara) and Fode (Sekou Kouyate) are best-pal teenage boys living in Conakry, capital of Guinea on Africa's west coast. They become increasingly dispirited during their long summer holiday, and, as they reflect upon the problems facing millions of African children, concoct a desperate plan. Their activities are sympathetically observed by Khesso (Amy Boiro), a girl of similar age who spends her days - and most of the evening hours - selling peanuts at a roadside kiosk.
   Fofana and co-writer Marion Triponey structure Early in the Morning as a memoir narrated by Khesso following her friends' death. We learn of their demise in the film's opening seconds, this news casting a pall over even the few joyous moments which ensue. The script is over-reliant on Khesso's (nicely-delivered) voiceover - this feels like a story told/dictated rather than experienced/shown.
   The spoken dialogue is functional at best: "I can't wait to leave this country," "There's nothing for poor people here, even if we're the majority," "Life is cheap," "All they want to do is leave." And though we get the message very early on, Fofana recaps it at every possible opportunity. Despite this, he never really conveys the dire extremis of Yaguine and Foda's situation.
   His film instead works best in its wordless stretches: when Benoit Chamillard's train-mounted camera glides through a panorama of Conakry's factories, slums and backwaters; when the plangent tones of the kora (a guitar-like instrument) are heard as light fades quickly over the incoming tide. As mood-piece, Early in the Morning has moments of charm and power. But as a (sub-Abouna) narrative, it's a lukewarm at best - and the hectic climax is quite unforgivably botched.

FIGNER, THE END OF A SILENT CENTURY [2/10]
After decades providing sound-effects for Soviet and Russian films, it was a nice idea to make Edgar Figner the 'star' of his very own movie. More's the pity, then, that the resulting documentary/drama should be such a pretentious, ultimately offensive misfire - and a particularly frustrating misuse of some outstanding raw-material.
   In the early stretches we see Figner (and son) in action providing what Hollywood calls 'Foley work' - from the mundane (footsteps) to the eyebrow-raising (cabbage-leaves simulate the crunch of a neck-break). The nature of his profession means Figner has seen more films in his lifetime than many critics - and dozens of clips from Soviet/Russian classics are strewn throughout his story.
   Juxtaposing your own (sophomore) efforts with those of acknowledged masters is a dangerous hostage to fortune - and, as Figner progresses, it becomes painfully apparent that the comparison isn't to Alonso Casale's advantage. The Figner-at-work material is fascinating; the archive footage striking - a film simply combining both would probably have been a delight.
   But Alonso Casale adds a series of gratingly pretentious 'dramatised' sequences as Figner (whose family played a key role in early Soviet history) is forced out of his Moscow tenement then takes a long train-ride. Reality, memory and fiction blur in the most clodhopping fashion, freighted with unbearably sophomorically poetic/philosophical dialogue.
   As if this wasn't bad enough, in the latter stretches Alonso Casale mistreats a tortoise which (ever-so-symbolically) ambles on at several points. Dropping light bric-a-brac on the creature's tough shell is perhaps forgiveable - but near the end there's a shocking sequence in which said turtle wriggles on its back in distress before (apparently) expiring.
   The lengthy English-language end credits (which scrupulously identify the extracted films) unspool without a 'no animals were harmed...' disclaimer, leaving the viewed to presume the (unacceptable) worst. Even if Figner lived up to the peerless artistic heights of Tarkovsky's great masterpiece Mirror - clearly Alonso Casale's artistic template ('the-past-is-myself') here, there'd be no excusing such crass cruelty.


FILMMAN [6/10] aka Le filmeur
"Life through a lens" is the subject-matter - and modus operandi - of veteran director Alain Cavalier in Filmman, a consistently watchable, if ultimately somewhat inconsequential, video-diary spanning a hectic decade in his private and professional life.
   If Dziga Vertov gave us Man with a Movie Camera back in 1929, Cavalier is here the modern equivalent: 'man with a video camera,' perhaps. Filmman - an awkward translation for a title understandably better known worldwide as Le filmeur - takes as its format the semi-journal/daybook-of-jottings technique which is more usually associated with literature than cinema.
   The best recent example of this is probably Peter Handke's The Weight of the World - which like Filmman, was compiled when its 'maker' was resident in Paris. Cavalier, however, travels quite widely in the company of his camera(s) - and his remarkably patient wife.
   Very little, if anything, is off-limits for his domestic surveillance - indeed, Filmman would be an intriguing future double-bill accompaniment for Hidden, Michael Haneke's paean to Parisian paranoia. Cavalier even shows us the results of traumatic nose-surgery after he's diagnosed with skin-cancer. It's here that the therapeutic nature of his instinctive, obsessive filming becomes clearest - the cancer is clearly bad news, but has the silver-lining of providing Filmman with meaty drama (cf American Splendor). As someone remarks about a less life-threatening matter: "Good for the film, and good for him too."
   We're granted all-areas access to Cavalier's life, and form a rounded impression of his good-humoured personality: "I wouldn't dare show this to just anybody, would I?", he confides. That said, there's no real sense that years are passing, never mind a whole decade (9/11 provides one of the few external, progress-marking date-stamps). And Filmman functions as a string of charming/amusing/thought-provoking episodes, rather than building into anything more substantial. The fun of 'real' diaries is dipping in and out at will; here Cavalier the filmeur is also montageur, turning the pages for the benefit of us, his captive, unseen voyeurs.

Neil Young
8th/9th February, 2005

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THE DOG POUND [6/10] : La perrera : Uruguay (Uru/Arg/San/Spn) 2006 : Manuel NIETO ZAS (1972) : 109m (timed) feature (35mm)
seen at De Doelen, 27.1.06 (press show; section Tiger Awards Competition; world premiere; winner of Tiger Award [with Old Joy and Walking on the Wild Side])

DOGS [5/10] : Doggusu : Japan 1998 : NAGASAKI Shinichi (1956) : c78m feature (video)
seen at Pathe, 28.1.06 (public; section Film Maker in Focus - Nagasaki Shunichi)

EARLY IN THE MORNING [5/10] : Un matin bonne heure : Guinea (Gui/Fr) 2006 : Gahite FOFANA (1965) : 73m (timed) feature (35mm)
seen at De Doelen, 31.1.06 (press show; section Tiger Awards Competition; world premiere)

FIGNER, THE END OF A SILENT CENTURY [2/10] : Netherlands (Neth/Fr/UK/Rus) 2006 : Nathalie ALONSO CASALE (1970) : 89m (timed) feature/documentary (video)
seen at Cinerama, 3.2.06 (press show; section Vita Brevis; world premiere)

FILMMAN [6/10] : Le Filmeur aka The Filmman : France 2005 : Alain CAVALIER (1931) : 100m (timed) documentary (35mm)
seen at Venster, 29.1.06 (press show; section Kings & Aces)

More details on these titles - and all others shown at the 2006 Rotterdam Film Festival - can be found at the IFFR official site

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A full alphabetical index of all films seen at IFFR 2006 can be found HERE

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