Sheila Seacroft’s Cluj film-festival dispatches (5th + final) : ‘Police, Adjective’ and ‘Antichrist’

.   June 5th   .

POLICE, ADJECTIVE    [7/10]
Politist, adjectiv : Romania 2009: Corneliu PORUMBOIU : 115m : seen at UBB Auditorium
   Winner of the Un Certain Regard and the Fipresci prize at Cannes just a few weeks ago, this ostensibly simple tale looks into personal ethics, the kind of moral hair-splitting that can destroy lives, and above all the working of the system, where  'police', while seen as a noun, is also an adjective, a way of being, with the ability to cling like a dead hand to other words – pre-eminently  'state'.
   It's Cornelui Poromboiu's second film, after his hugely successful A fost sau n-a fost  (12.18 East of Bucharest) three years ago. More demanding of its audience, less cinematic, it's a slow build up with little reward for a long time and I have to question whether a slight re-balancing might not have been an improvement. When the reward comes it is well worth the wait, but it may be too much for some audiences.
   We observe a policeman, Cristi (Dragos Bucur), who is set to trail a teenage boy after a tip off that he is dealing in soft drugs. For a long long section of the film all we do is follow his days of shadowing the boy and noting his interactions.  It gradually is dawning on him that the boy is not a dealer in the true sense, and he puts off reporting to his boss for as long as possible, realising that a charge would mean a long prison sentence.
   Insidiously introduced into the film comes its grand theme of words – their usage and their meaning, in his conversations about grammar at home with his wife, with the presentation on screen of his handwritten reports, and finally in the big bravura 3-hander static camera scene, reminiscent of the TV programme in A fost sau n-a fost, when along with his phlegmatic colleague he finally presents the report to his boss, with a plea for mercy.
   Citing dictionary definitions his superior shows that he either has not or will not accept any nuanced concept of moral truth, only a cold, bloodless definition. It's absurd, and chilling, and damning. Eventually Cristi is made to make a moral choice himself, and, having followed him around ourselves in the course of the film, it's left to us to think about the morality of his choice.

.   June 6th   .

My last night of the festival, and I have to make a choice between attending the awards night in the National Theatre and going to one of the most controversial films of the last few years, at the outdoor Cinema Echinox, one of the first screenings outside Cannes, in the venerable courtyard of Babes-Bolyas University. Curiosity and the velvety Transilvanian night win.

ANTICHRIST    [5/10]
Denmark, France, Italy, Sweden , Germany 2009 : Lars VON TRIER : 104m : seen at Cinema Echinox
   No need to recount the debacle at Cannes, when howls of derision, laughter, and walkouts greeted the showing of this potential Palme d'Or winner. So much was written that it's now impossible to see this film truly, with innocent eyes – the sting is gone, every transgressive horror is anticipated, the  'too daft to laugh at' moments impatiently awaited. Everyone knows about the genital mutilation, the penetrative sex, the ludicrous talking fox, so it's almost impossible to see the film as an organic whole, but merely as movement between these anticipated points.
   But for what it's worth, here's what happens. A toddler, fascinated by the falling snow, falls to his death through a window, at the very moment at which his parents are experiencing orgasm. The mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is afterwards so guilt- and grief-ridden that she spends weeks in hospital. The father (Willem Dafoe) is a therapist and eventually takes her home to treat her himself. This involves making her do what she dreads most, which is returning to the forest cabin where she spent time the previous year alone with her son. Ominously it's called Eden. The couple's relationship begins to unravel. On being apparently cured of her guilt, she embarks upon first a ravenous sexuality then a physical assault on it, in him and in herself. The nature around them is revealed as a hostile force ( 'Nature is Satan's church') and Eden becomes Hell.
   Sadly Von Trier's prediliction to epater les bourgeois and les critiques alike has given many of the latter fine reasons to rejoice in a waning of his powers, and the more ludicrous elements of the film have been joyfully scorned. It's the unfortunate fate of the prankster to be ridiculed when he decides for once to be sincere, which I think this time he does. And the presence of a  'misogyny researcher' in the credits, in addition to his reputation for hating and/or fearing women, has led many critics to home in on this as the central flavour of the film.  But for once I think it's a mistake. Rather than condoning misogyny he's looking at it as a subject for investigation, and the film seems to be rather locating sex itself as the root of evil (which is why the mother, seeing the truth of this in her experience, mutilates both her husband and herself).
   This is a hard-line Christian view that sees the pre-lapsarian, exquisitely beautiful prologue torn apart by carnality. (A  'fall', literally.) He's also invoking the old Apollonian/rationality – Dionysian/passion dichotomy, traditionally viewed as a male/female divide. While much has been made, for obvious reasons, of the wife's impassioned descent into madness and evil, the husband's emotional cruelty and devastating inability to recognise his own need for (or lack of) grieving has gone mostly unremarked. Like Pentheus in The Bacchae, arrogantly full of rational wisdom and with an answer for everything, he goes off into the woods full of self-belief and is torn apart by the irrational forces historically and mythically associated with the female. What happens in truth is that the couple both fall apart in their different ways.
   But however much this may be the rationale, the real question is, how well done is it? And the answer has to be, ultimately, not very. I was completely beguiled by the gorgeous black and white prologue, with its lyrical montage of domestic images in perfect counterpoint to Handel's Lascia ch'io pianga  (from his opera RINALDO, whose chief baddy, as it happens, is an enchantress). Dafoe and Gainsbourg's performances are intense and heroic. The cinematography throughout is very fine, with many stunning images. But the film fails to convince on so many fronts – the famous talking fox goes without saying, along with most of the dodgy animal content, there's too much muddle and darkness, and the mood is, despite the extreme images, never truly horrific. Extremely gruesome, certainly, but it's devoid of any real spiritual dread or actual physical feelings of fear that true horror films, even the cheap and nasty ones, deliver. In fact the moment that made me shudder (rather than wince!) most was, surprisingly, the subtle creepiness of shoes on the wrong feet.
   It just isn't enough to show appalling violence, something is missing, and strangely it may be that very male rationality that the film seems to be a critique of that is holding something back – going through the motions without engagement, believing that if you do this, then this, then this, according to the rules, a certain result will happen, a certain effect be made.  Just as the husband's therapy exercises are useless and barren, Von Trier's horror by rote is flat and too cerebral and doesn't touch our core. And so it fails to be potent enough to support the big ideas that he is, presumably, wanting to express. If, as Von Trier has claimed, he is exorcising his own demons here, then he must be at the beginning of a very dark road, which doesn't allow him to take a step back and be creatively critical of his own work.

Sheila Seacroft
15th June, 2009

all films seen in Cluj, Romania, at the 8th Transilvania International Film Festival
public screenings – complimentary press tickets

Jigsaw Lounge CLUJ 2009 INDEX PAGE

Sheila Seacroft's dispatches
1 : Tues.2.June : Everyone Else; Revanche; Quiet Chaos; Thomas
2 : Sat.6.June : About Elly; Fluke; Machan; Tears of April; The Possibility of an Island
3 : Wed.10.June : Apocalypse On Wheels; Australia; Awakening From a Dream; Weddings, Music & Videos – plus report on directors vs homeless football game
4 : Thu.11. June : Constantin and Elena; Hooked; Passo Doble
5 : Mon.15.June : Police, Adjective and Antichrist