#5.1
Saturday 20th, 3.40pm
Seen since last update
Sin Nombre … 7/10
Jerichow … 6/10
The Architect … 5/10
The Maid … 7/10
The Intruder … 7/10
comment to follow
#5.2 (6pm)
also
No puedo vivir sin ti … 5/10
#5.3 (8.30pm)
Last film seen : A Boy Called Dad … 4/10
A typical festival day, in that earlier I had hardly any time to write anything at all – hence the gnomic dispatches above – and how I have an hour to kill before my sixth and final screening of the day, Kicks (or rather, as my ticket has it, K I C K S) round the corner at the Cineworld. I have found an internet cafe where I can catch up on the six pending "reviews", though "elliptical reactions/commentaries" would be nearer the mark. Shall I cover them chronologically, alphabetically, or in "order of merit"? The latter appeals, just in case I get carried away and run out of time.
Pick of the half-dozen is either Sin Nombre which I saw last night, or The Maid which I saw around lunchtime today. Narrow verdict gives it to the latter, a smart dark comedy from Chile about a 41-year-old "domestic" who's been in service with the same upper-middle-class family for over two decades. Now she's experiencing physical and mental problems, with resulting frictions and mishaps that would in most circumstances result in dismissal. But Raquel's position as a semi-official member of the family renders her unsackable from the perspective of the lady of the house – a bit of a soft touch whose solution is to bring in some additional help to help the help. Raquel sees off two such newcomers, but surprisingly manages to strike a friendship with the third.
I'd heard rave reports of The Maid when I was in Rotterdam back in January – I didn't manage to catch it there, but have kept an eye out for it ever since. I can see why the picture has elicited such enthusiastic responses: shot on hand-held digital video, it has an engaging immediacy and evokes the chaotic atmosphere of the family residence with a pleasingly light touch. Crucially, we always feel sympathy – even pity – for Raquel even when her behaviour strays from eccentric to erratic and beyond. South American cinema has an ongoing fascination with the relationship between maids and their employers – see also Argentina's Live-In Maid and A Week Alone – and this Chilean variation, while not quite the dazzling delight I'd been led to expect, is a very solid addition to the sub-genre.
Moving further north, Sin Nombre also ploughs what have become two quite familiar cinematic furrows: (1) the plight of central Americans desperate to find a new life over the border in the USA, and (2) children and teenagers becoming enmeshed in the violent world of gun-toting gangs. A page-turning narrative – one that is, if anything, a little too packed with incident – combines these two strands in compellingly watchable style as a gang-member flees north after slaying his mob's brutal leader (the latter having semi-accidentally killed the former's girlfriend during a botched rape attempt).
On the way his path crosses that of a girl who has a tragic back-story of her own, and an against-the-odds romance gradually flickers into life. Debutant writer-director Cary Joji Fukunaga handles proceedings with brio and aplomb - it's a low-budget, "indie" flavoured project, but he shows a real commercial sensibility that will surely attract the attention of Hollywood studios sooner rather than later. His script isn't without plausibility-stretching contrivances and touches of excessive melodrama, but these aren't too much of a distraction in what is such a full-blooded, Jacobean/Shakespearean brew of heightened passions, conflicted loyalties and brutal revenge.
I'm starting to run out of time a little, so will squeeze in a few words on The Intruder before heading off - I'll cover Jerichow, The Architect, No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti and A Boy Called Dad, plus Kicks, when I get home tomorrow. The Intruder is the first archive/retrospective picture I've seen here, part of the Roger Corman tribute that is, naturally, dominated by his horror fare. The Intruder is, of course, at least as disturbing as any of his more grand guignol enterprises, dealing as it does with horrors that were, in 1962, all too real.
A pulpy but rousingly effective parable of small-town racism in Missouri, it stars a pre-Trek William Shatner as a silver-tongued, trouble-stirring extreme-right-wing demagogue from Los Angeles who arrives just as the white locals are reluctantly adapting to the idea of their schools being forced to accept black pupils. Bravely topical stuff more than four decades ago, to say the least, even if certain aspects of the script haven't dated too well.
It's unfortunate that Shatner's character, for example, is such an eminently hissable villain from the off, while the redneck townsfolk are little more than a gallery of brutes, uglies and thickos. Then again, it's likely that such provocateurs were the kind of slimy, hammy, sweaty firebrands as depicted here, and that many of their influencees did look like inbreds straight from Central Casting.
Corman deserves credit for tackling the prejudice and ignorance of his era in such a head-on, no-nonsense fashion – even if he can't resist "B-movie-ing" things up every once in a while with plot turns that strain credulity. He elicits a cracking performance from Leo Gordon, however: this beefy, sweaty character-actor steals the show – in most amusing fashion - as Shatner's unlikely ultimate nemesis.
Now for Kicks. After A Boy Called Dad (more of which anon) I'm a bit wary of British cinema just now - but the description of this one as a "thriller" gives me cautious grounds for optimism.
THE INTRUDER : [7/10] : USA 1962 : Roger CORMAN : 84m : seen Filmhouse, 20th June (public show – complimentary ticket)
THE MAID : [7/10] : La Nana : Chile 2009 : Sebastian SILVA : 96m : seen Filmhouse, 20th June (press show)
SIN NOMBRE : [7/10] : USA 2009 : Cary Joji FUKUNAGA : 96m : seen Filmhouse, 19th June (public show – complimentary ticket)
Jigsaw Lounge Edinburgh 2009 index page
