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51st
SAN SEBASTIAN FILM FESTIVAL
Nazioarteko
Zinemaldia DONOSTIA-SAN SEBASTIAN Festival Internacional de Cine
report
by Neil Young
official
website : San
Sebastian Film Festival
Section
one : Day 1, Day 2, Day 3
Section two : Day 4, Day 5
Section three : Day 6, Day 7
Section four : Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Awards
comment
format
of reviews:
Title
/ rating / original title(s) : country(s) of origin : year : director(s)
: length : section of festival
synopsis
in italics taken directly from official festival brochure
SECTION
ONE
Day
1 (18th Sept) : We Hereby Sign
Day
2 (19th Sept) : The Station Agent, Havana Suite, The Bulgarian
Brides
Day
3 (20th Sept) : Inheritance, The Iguassu Effect, Memories
of Murder, Eager Bodies, Godforsaken
Day
1 : Thursday 18th September
WE
HEREBY SIGN
7/10
Los
Abajo Firmantes : Spain 2003 : Joaquin ORISTRELL : 95 mins
: Zabaltegi (special screenings)
When
the leading actor of a theatre company performing Federico Garcia Lorca’s
“Comedia sin titulo” in different provinces dies, he is substituted by
a young actor who does everything he can to convince his companions to
take a stance against the government’s decision to take part in the war
against Iraq
Could
hardly be much more topical – looming shadow of Iraq war, Feb/Mar 2003.
Dates shown on screen – documentary footage of Pedro Almodovar, Javier
Bardem, Leonor Watling, Marisa Paredes marching against war. Paredes shown
presenting Goya awards on TV: “Let us fear war.” Goyas watched on TV
by troupe’s actors – much lower down the food chain of the profession,
and they know it, but proud to bring Lorca to the provinces. Upheaval
after death of original leading man – replacement Jorge (Juan Diego Botto,
from The Dancer Upstairs)
is famous as teen heart-throb star of TV, but also very politically committed.
Behind-the-scenes of a play, but a world away from Jacques Rivette heaviness
(Va Savoir etc). Light,
antic, Bullets Over Broadway-ish feel, closer to Belgian satire
Strass. Backstage tensions an easy target, and technique doesn’t
help in early stages: handheld cameras, gratuitous jerky editing. Jaunty,
clumsily applied muzak score. Scenes feel improvised – inevitable uneven
results. Planned-out scenes work much better: highlight is Jorge’s stage
debut – embarrassed (but pleased) to be greeted by crowds of teenage girls
in the audience chanting “Hot stuff!” Improves from this point on (as
audience gets used to style?) – aided by ever-reliable Javier Camara as
Mario, who overcomes initial antagonism against Jorge. Elvira Minguez
also good value as older, more world-weary, less politicised actress (cf
Paredes in All About My Mother).
Botto’s sister Maria as local girl returning home completes main foursome
around whom action revolves. Establishes genial tone, but comedy threatens
to outstay welcome. Saved by more serious turn half-hour from end as consequences
of Jorge’s actions have direct impact on safety of the troupe. Violent
reactions from pro-war elements of audience. Four main characters (coward,
victim, self-seeker, egotist) stuck inside theatre: their moral choices.
Ends on a (cautious) high.
Day
2 : Friday 19th September
THE
STATION AGENT
7/10
USA
2003 : Tom McCARTHY : 88 mins : Official Section (in competition)
The
tale of three lonely beings. And different. Fin, the train-loving dwarf
and Olivia, the artist who has lost a son. But loneliness is impossible
if the neighbours of the old station in which you live include an amusing,
extroverted Cuban who doesn’t give until having succeeded in creating
a sort of new family. The message is clear : isolation is better shared.
From
first seconds, clear where we are: US indieland. Plangent, spare guitar;
slightly grainy look of low-budget American independent features. Bittersweet
is the word: comedy with tragic undertones. Quirky characters and situations.
Miniature of small lives in quiet desperation. All the boxes ticked off.
Talk of miniature/small is dangerous, given that main protagonist Finbar
(and actor Peter Dinklage) is a dwarf. Shouldn’t matter, but does become
pivotal to story – something of a tall tale. Weird inheritance – he receives
the Station as a bequest. Air of fable: Station is located in “Newfoundland”.
Such symbolism not exactly subtle. Contrivances and coincidences along
the way, but also surprising preponderance of belly-laughs. Parable of
tolerance: most reactions to ‘Fin’ are negative. Realistic? Inevitable
darkening of third act – bittersweet finale, cautiously upbeat. Music
never lets up, though. Easy to forgive such lapses: Dinklage / Patricia
Clarkson / puppyish Bobby Cannavale all do solid work. Hard to dislike
gentle, elegaic tone of nostalgia for older, quieter America. Cars = trouble.
Better to walk or take the train: he’s in effect a trainspotter! Self-confessed
“boring” individual – tale of a man suffering from an excess of attention,
both positive and negative. Just wants to be left alone.Bartleby figure
of extreme reticence before (predictable) softening-up.
HAVANA
SUITE
2/10
Suite
Habana aka Suite Havana : Cuba (Cub/Spn) 2003 : Fernando
PEREZ : 84 mins : Official Section (in competition)
This
year’s most successful Cuban movie is neither documentary nor fiction.
It is a mixture of the two, moreover collectively portraying a city and
its people. Suite Habana narrates a regular day in the life of
ten ordinary Cubans, with nothing special about them. Ten real people
who become actors without stopping being themselves and without ever losing
sight of reality in this fictional operation.
One
day in the life of a city “Where life is lived at a unique pace.” Uniquely
fast? Uniquely slow? Alternating between the two? It’s never explained.
Cityscape shots, then focus on residents of the city. Mostly wordless,
cut to the music. We get their ages and names then, right at the end,
more details. Including their “dreams.” One old woman “Dreams no longer”
we’re told. 84 minutes of interminable pseudo-humanistic bullshit. Nice
cinematography (Raul Perez Ureta) but shamelessly sentimental visuals
and music. Exploits subjects by rendering them artificially mute!
Pawns in the director’s hands. Kid – ah! Old women – ah! 97-year-old woman
stuck in front of the television, apparently immobile. Why? Artificial
wordlessness inflicted upon them as part of directorial conceit – even
during meals! Why? So he can make his maddeningly trite ‘points’ about
life. False poses they’re made to strike owe nothing to life, and everything
to bad feature-films. This, of course, is neither fiction nor documentary
– it’s a different category, much worse than either. Pretentious. Pernicious.
Warning: contains clown.
For
other films rated 1/10 and 2/10 check out our Diorama
of Dishonour.
THE
BULGARIAN BRIDES
5/10
Los
novios bulgaros aka Bulgarian Lovers : Spain 2003 :
Eloy DE LA IGLESIA : 95 mins : Horizontes Latinos
Eloy
de la Iglesia has returned to directing with a film that includes the
best of his style filtered by the experience that comes with age. Screened
at the Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama section, it tells the story
of the romantic unbridled passion of Daniel (Fernando Guillen Cuervo),
a wealthy bourgeois lawyer, for Kyrill (Dritran Biba), a young Bulgarian
who takes advantage of him. Prepared to sacrifice absolutely anything
to win his love, Daniel even begins to run real risks.
Slim,
gay twist on Birthday Girl:
nondescript western-European white-collar worker finds adventure, danger
and liberation in relationship with dodgy eastern-European(s) – inevitable
Mafia connections. But this is a more inconsequential kind of culture-clash
comedy: when he goes to Bulgaria for Kyrill’s wedding it has shades of
My Russia. Doesn’t develop much
beyond basic set-up – Kyrill’s shadiness never in any real doubt. Doesn’t
help that directorial contributions are mostly bland and/or affected and/or
cliched. Exception: bizarre Kiss Me, Deadly development late on
involving suitcase containing radioactive materials. Daniel’s fantasies
feature effective but jarringly incongruous and gruesome special-effects.
Seem to have sneaked in from another movie – perhaps derived from his
moviegoing. Pal is ‘golden years’ fan – this innocuous timepasser no chance
of qualifying for such a description.
Day
3 : Saturday 20th September
INHERITANCE
7/10
Arven
: Denmark (Den/Swe/Nor/UK) 2003 : Per FLY : 115 mins : Official
Section (in competition)
The
second part of Per Fly’s trilogy on Danish society. While in the first
part Baenken (The Bench) he concentrated on the destitute, on this
occasion the subject at hand is high-flying industry and the lack of scruples
shown by entrepreneurs when struggling to stay in power. The tale centres
on Christoffer, heir of a powerful family business who has to give up
the things he loves most to become harsh and implacable.
Mogens
Rukov co-wrote the script for Thomas Vinterberg’s peerless Festen,
and now he’s also credited among the four writers of ‘Inheritance’ – another
DV-shot chronicle of an upper-middle-class Danish clan in crisis, with
Thomsen again in the central role of the tormented, Oedipal ‘black sheep.’
This time Thomsen is Christoffer, who very reluctantly takes over the
running of his family firm – a vast steel business – after the suicide
of his father, only to find that his ‘inheritance’ exacts a terrible price
on his marriage and personality. Dour, chilly, controlled and austere
in the stereotypical Scandinavian style (until a startling third-act surprise)
Inheritance makes familiar points about family tensions and modern
big-business, but does so in an arrestingly assured and compelling style,
right up to its bracingly bleak finale.
[review
written for Time Out].
THE
IGUASSU EFFECT
6/10
El
efecto Iguazu : Spain 2003 : Pere Joan VENTURA : 90 mins :
Horizontes Latinos
Winner
of the Goya for Best Documentary, this is more of a vital experience than
a film. For four months a film crew followed the developments in the conflict
of the Sintel workers and the construction of the famous Camp of Hope
right in the middle of Madrid. The filmmakers gradually became part of
the people camped out there, and a curiously beautiful symbiosis took
place between observers and observed.
Solid,
committed, heartfelt piece of unapologetic – proud, even – agit-prop.
Documentary on striking workers who set up ‘Camp of Hope’ for six months
in 2001. Details sketched in via testimony from strikers. Does what it
sets out to do just fine – even trip to Genoa for protests at globalisation
are neatly interpolated, giving wider context to specific local issue
(thus emphasising the ‘Iguassu Effect’ – workers drift happily along on
calm waters of river, before suddenly they’re cascading helplessly down
a steep waterfall). However… this is proudly one-sided – perhaps inevitably
so, but surely a few neutral voices might have helped. Lays it on a bit
thick at times – certainly viewer will be minded to ‘shoot the piano player’
whose tinklings are ladelled so generously over the soundtrack. Tearful
victory-celebrations montage moving, but somnewhat overdone: sentiment
overpowering judgement (also – unconvincing idyllic 8mm footage of Sintel
workers connecting rural areas to phone system: job seemed to consist
of dancing and larking about.) But this is a serious and valuable contribution
to a major worldwide issue – as a use of film, very hard to fault.
MEMORIES
OF MURDER
7/10
Sa-lin-eui
chu-eok : South Korea 2003 : BOON Joon-Ho : 127 mins : Official
Section (in competition)
 1986:
South Korea is a military-dictatorship police state, where crime is rare
and serious crime almost unheard of. But when the bodies of young women
are found raped and murdered in remote Gyunggi Province, the authorities
realise their first ever serial killer is on the loose. The increasingly
exasperated local cops Park (Song Kang-Ho) and Yo (Kim Roh-Ha) turn to
desperate and bizarre means of cracking the case - with zero results.
So their superiors draft in a Detective Suh (Kim Sang-Kyung) from Seoul,
whose arrival on the scene shifts the murder-hunt into a much higher gear...
The second
film by 34-year-old Bong (Koreans place the surname first), Memories
of Murder is a strikingly original, boldly audacious - and mostly
successful - attempt to breathe new life into the jaded police-procedural/serial-killer
genre. As anyone who has ever worked in or with the emergency services
will know, many cops (like medics) privately deploy very dark humour to
insulate themselves against the more horrific aspects of their job - humour
that may seem jarringly insensitive to outsiders.
Thus Bong
adopts a startingly light touch, injecting some surprising strains of
comedy - even slapstick, on occasion - into what is essentially a serious
and thought-provoking film about a grim period of recent Korean history.
The tone is often quirkily oddball, and it's hard not to laugh at some
of the cops' antics - but the laughter rings very hollow when we remember
that what we're watching is life in a police state. And nearly everything
we see on screen is a true dramatisation of actual events - Bong's script
is based on the detectives' own accounts.
Adhering to
the facts isn't without its risks: the case's ambiguous resolution may
be as frustrating and disappointing for the audience as it is for the
cops themselves. After two hours of careful build-up, the finale (and
brief coda set several years later) may strike many as anti-climactic
- but Bong deserves credit for challenging our expectations, rather than
bending his nation's history to suit them. He's emphatically a name to
watch.
EAGER
BODIES
6/10
Les
corps impatients : France 2003 : Xavier GIANNOLI : 94 mins
: Zabaltegi
A plain,
simple love story. But perhaps not quite so plain and simple. Charlotte
and Paul are in love. But she’s sick – very sick. Ninon, her cousin, appears
on the scene. Completing the triangle. A triangle of pain, made of renunciation
and desire, a movie making not even the slightest of concessions to sentimentalism
or romanticism.
Giannoli’s
outstanding 1998 short L’Interview – the story of an exasperated
journalist’s attempts to parlez with Ava Gardner – boded well for a feature-film
career. Eager Bodies, based on Christian de Montella’s novel, turns
out to be an effective but extremely low-key, DV-shot story of young love
imperilled by illness and suspicion. Students Charlotte (Laura Smet) and
Paul (Nicolas Duvauchelle*), both twenty, struggle to cope when she’s
diagnosed with cancer. The arrival on the scene of her sensual cousin
Ninon (Marie Denarnaud) only complicates matters further. Firmly avoiding
the ‘weepie’ trap, Giannoli crafts a commendably unsentimental depiction
of a thoroughly convincing personal crisis. Though often slow, and punctuated
with silences and stillness, there’s no mistaking the pain and passion
that drives these three desperate people into, and out of, each others’
arms.
[review
written for Time Out].
*Devauchelle
has a tattoo on his back which reads ‘Straight Edge’ – despite this his
character is seen drinking, smoking and having sex during the film, thus
breaking the three basic ‘commandments’ of the ‘straight-edge’ ‘movement.’
GODFORSAKEN
4/10
Van
God Los : Netherlands 2003 : Pieter KUIJPERS : 83 mins : Zabaltegi
Based
on the true story of a young group of murderers which shook Holland in
the mid-90s with an escalation in terrible crimes. Van God Los (Godforsaken)
talks about friendship, love, loyalty and violence. What started out
as a group of small-time crooks activity ends in tragedy when Stan and
Maikel become paid hitmen for the all-powerful Osman. Van God Los
(Godforsaken) is Holland’s biggest box-office hit of recent months.
In
the vein of Wilde Mossels
(feckless Dutch youth drift into violent trouble), with more than a hint
of GoodFellas : on a smaller scale, of course, but bodycount surprisingly
high. Focus on a trio: Stan = Ray Liotta figure. Maikel = De Niro. Sef
= Pesci. Based on true story of 1993 “Venlo gang” in backwater provincial
town (deadly dull atmosphere nicely captured). Minor league young hoodlums
stumble into higher league (Sweet
Sixteen). Seen through Stan’s eyes – his narration. Flashy camerawork,
soppy slomo flashbacks to dad abandoning him. Trite broken-home explanation
for Stan (and Maikel’s) problems. Classic “falling in with bad crowd”
situation – problems passed on to next generation (young kid Yuri learning
bad habits). Of interest mainly to amoral Dutch teens (hence box-office
success). Female audiences will go on basis of good-looking actor playing
Stan – won’t be bothered about his inexpressive performance: three basic
facial modes. Kohl-eyed Maikel and punkish Sef chew the scenery. Not a
subtle movie by any measure: religious aspects of title find correspondence
in numerous crosses lurking in the background of many scenes. Effective
moments, but outstays welcome even at 83 minutes. Interminable and ill-judged
‘comedy costumes’ finale (it’s feast day in Venlo). According to end-credits,
what we’ve witnessed is ‘Neither fact nor fiction.’ A very handy get-out.
Despite touches of ‘bumbling criminals’ humour, this is an ostentatiously
grim, tawdry little tale.
films
seen at cinemas Principe, Principal, Astorias and Kursaal, San Sebastian/Donostia
by Neil
Young
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