Yesterday's announcement of nearly half the line-up for the 21st annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (January 7-17, 2010) (PSIFF10)—including the Opening and Closing Night Galas (Michael Hoffman's The Last Station and Daniel Adams' The Lightkeepers, respectively), three additional Gala Screenings, four Special Representations, ten films selected for the Modern Masters sidebar, and multiple World, North American and U.S. premieres—reveal a pulsing Latinbeat with featured films from Spain, Mexico and South America.
Backyard / El Traspatio (Mexico, 2009, 122 min.)—This chilling thriller from Carlos Carrera, the director of The Crime of Father Amaro (El crimen del Padre Amaro, 2002) dramatizes the tragic true story of border town Juárez, Mexico, where since the mid-90s thousands of women have gone missing or turned up as sun-burnt corpses in the desert. Can new police captain Blanca Bravo (Ana de la Reguera) stop the savagery? Programmed in PSIFF10's Modern Masters sidebar, Backyard is Mexico's submission to the Foreign Language category of the 2010 Academy Awards®. Official Spanish website. IMDb. YouTube trailer.
Bad Day to Go Fishing / Mal día para pescar (Uruguay/Spain, 2009, 110 min.)—A droll dark comedy that plays out like a classic Western crossed with the decidedly modern sensibilities of filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch or Aki Kaurismäki, this quirky tale pits a scamming hustler and his wrestler sidekick against the inhabitants of a small Uruguayan town, circa 1961. Directed by Álvaro Brechner, Bad Day to Go Fishing is Uruguay's submission to the Foreign Language category of the 2010 Academy Awards® and boasts its US Premiere at PSIFF10.
The film secured tepid responses from the three main trades when it participated in the Critics Week at Cannes 2009. At Variety, Jordan Mintzer puns that Bad Day to Go Fishing "casts its line into unusual waters but doesn't yield an entirely convincing catch." Mintzer describes Brechner's debut as "ambitious" but says the film "is something like a retro The Wrestler by way of the Coen brothers or Mexican helmer Arturo Ripstein, with sharp production values and a fair share of pulp fatalism. Yet the cartoonish characters and overstretched running time turn a potentially engaging narrative into a mere curiosity." At Screen, Dan Frainu complains that Brechner's "attempt at deadpan satire … lacks the necessary pace, wit or humor to sustain its lofty ambitions." At The Hollywood Reporter, Jon Frosch states that, though the film is "briskly paced, nicely lensed and engagingly quirky in parts", it "lacks the tonal confidence and sense of purpose it needs to leave a lasting impression" and comes off "vaguely inconsequential and superficial." All three bemoan that this Uruguayan entry did not match up to the originality of its 2003 Un Certain Regard prize-winning predecessor Whisky. IMDb.
Chamaco (Mexico/USA/Canada, 2009, 97 min.)—Abner is trapped in the rough life of Mexico City. His escape? Boxing. Dr. Frank Irwin (Martin Sheen) and his son Jimmy, a pro boxer, come together to teach Abner that the heart fuels the punches we throw in life. Directed by Miguel Necoechea, Chamaco sees its US Premiere at PSIFF10. IMDb.
Dawson, Island 10 / Dawson, Isla 10 (Chile/Brazil/ Venezuela)—After the 1973 coup that deposed Allende and brought Pinochet to power in Chile, the former members of his cabinet are imprisoned on Dawson Island, the world's southern-most concentration camp. Veteran filmmaker Miguel Littin follows the ordeal of these men who are determined to survive and provide history with their testimony. Variety's Boyd von Hoeij gave the film a favorable review when it had its International Premiere at the Rome Film Festival (press notes in PDF format). At Global Post, however, Pascale Bonnefoy criticized that "the movie sometimes consciously sacrifices accuracy to dramatic license, offering viewers a trade-off: exposure to this period of history at the expense of the historical record." Boasting its US premiere in PSIFF10's Modern Masters sidebar, Dawson, Island 10 is Chile's submission to the Foreign Language category of the 2010 Academy Awards®. IMDb.
Dzi Croquettes (Brazil, 2009, 95 min.)—Dzi Croquettes is a revealing documentary about a Brazilian dance and theater group resembling an all-male, 1970s version of the Ziegfeld Follies. Banned by the ruling military dictatorship, they used their empowering sexuality to revolutionize the gay movement worldwide. Winner of the Audience awards for Best Documentary at both the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo International Film Festivals. Co-directed by Tatiana Issa and Raphael Alvarez, Dzi Croquettes will have its North American Premiere at PSIFF10. Official Brazilian website. IMDb. Vimeo trailer.
Huacho (Chile/France, 2009, 90 min.)—Alejandro Fernández Almendras' debut feature Huacho is a poignant but unsentimental look at the harsh life of the rural population in southern Chile. Following a small peasant family through its day, we are privy to the hardships they bear but also to their indomitable resilience and resourcefulness. I wrote this one up for The Evening Class from the Toronto International and am glad to see it now has its US Premiere at PSIFF10.
A Matter of Principles / Cuestión de principios (Argentina, 2009, 110 min.)—A man with seemingly unwavering ethics is challenged by his new boss, who believes everyone has a price and is willing to prove it. In Rodrigo Grande's Capra-esque tale no one leaves unscathed when principles and pragmatism collide. North American Premiere. Official Argentine Website. IMDb.
Paulista (Brazil, 2009, 83 min.)—From award-winning director Roberto Moreira, Paulista is the story of three young people in search of love amid the frantic pace of São Paulo. What will a relationship unearth of their unspoken past, and can they dare hope for a happy future? World Premiere.
Plan B (Argentina, 2009, 103 min.)—When conniving Bruno gets dumped by his girlfriend he decides to win her back by hook or by crook. Since she is happy with new boyfriend Pablo, Bruno devises another plan to get him out of the way in Marco Berger's clever, witty comedy. US Premiere. IMDb.
Rabia (Spain/Colombia, 2009, 89 min.)—Sebastián Cordero's gripping social thriller concerns two immigrants: a short-tempered construction worker and a live-in maid eking out a livelihood in Spain. A few weeks into their passionate relationship a tragic accident forces him to hide in her attic. Unbeknownst to her he becomes a menacing ghost-like dweller in the house. US Premiere. IMDb.
Weekend (Chile, 2009, 85 min.)—Patricio wants time alone with Francisca while she tries to forget her recent heartbreak. Sofia, a sexy hitchhiker, just wants a little distraction on her aimless journey. In a beautiful beach house on the Chilean coast, three twentysomethings are about to get much more than they expected. Director: Joaquín Mora. North American Premiere. Official website. IMDb.
Cross-published on Twitch.
Admitting his pleasure at having been invited by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) to introduce Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack's Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927), Mark Cotta Vaz—author of Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong—extolled the Castro Theatre as "the greatest living movie theater in the world" and the seed of inspiration for his authoring Living Dangerously.
In the Summer of 1991, Vaz sat in the Castro Theater and watched Chang. At that time, Chang had not been screened in some 60 years. Though not a lost film, it had only recently been rediscovered. In his enthusiasm, Vaz saved the Castro program for the screening and clipped out a promotional article in the Chronicle Datebook that introduced him to the two filmmakers responsible for Chang: Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. An odd couple, referred to in the Datebook article as "a Mutt & Jeff team", Vaz explained that Cooper was short and stocky and Schoedsack was nicknamed "Shorty" (even though he was 6'6"). Though Schoedsack was the official camera man of the two, essentially they shared all the responsibilities. As a filmmaking team they had a motto: "Keep it distant, difficult and dangerous."
They weren't completely reckless, however. "Coop" (as he was known)—though practicing a philosophy of living dangerously—was well-aware that when you went into a dangerous situation, you had to know what you were getting into and had to be prepared. By example, Vaz recounted that both men had served in World War I. Cooper was one of the early bomber pilots; Schoedsack a camera man with the U.S. Signal Corps. On a bombing mission during one of the great offensives of WWI, Cooper's plane was suddenly attacked and riddled full of bullets by German fighter planes. Cooper's rear bombardier and mate was shot dead and Cooper's cockpit burst into flames. He was flying a DH-4 Liberty plane, commonly known as "flaming coffins." They also didn't use parachutes in those days. So his plane was on fire, it was going down, and Cooper was slowly burning alive. He stood up on the edge of the cockpit to leap to a mercifully quick death; but, managed to survive. What he got out of the experience was a death certificate signed by General Pershing. Cooper often looked at that death certificate and said that it basically summed up his life and his "bonus years", as he called them.
Cooper and Schoedsack's first movie was Grass (1925), essentially a documentary film wherein they followed a tribe on a nomadic seasonal expedition. Before that, Cooper had been on a seafaring expedition where—among adventures too numerous to detail—at one point Cooper reached Ethiopia and needed a camera man. He cabled Schoedsack and "Shorty" joined him in Ethiopia to film a mass scene of Haile Selassie's warriors on a giant plain. Cooper helped direct the action with Schoedsack on his camera platform. Cooper described this scene of hundreds and hundreds of horse-riding warriors in their battle armament and shields as "fire on the prairie with the bright sun glistening off their accoutrement." It was at that moment that the two of them realized they could make movie magic together. After all, it wasn't any small feat to coordinate the king of a country and his mass of warriors for a camera.
Soon after they left Ethiopia, they were waylaid by pirates when their ship ran aground. Cooper later wrote about the experience as a moment when he felt he was between life and death—an animal valuing its existence—but, also a moment when he knew what friendship meant. He knew he had found not only a filmmaking partner in Schoedsack but a good friend to share his adventures with as well.
In the Summer of 1925—albeit with the backing of Jesse Lasky and Paramount—Cooper and Schoedsack went off by themselves to film Chang, doing everything from scratch, inspired by an idea of creating a "natural drama." One of Cooper's disappointments when they made Grass was that he had wanted to cover the migration through the lives of one family, which didn't quite work out. With Chang, he had the chance to situate the film with one family: the father Kru, his wife Chantui, their two children Nah and Ladah, and their pet gibbon Bimbo. Cooper secured the assistance of the King and Prince of Siam and missionaries helped save Cooper's life on more than one occasion; but, all in all, it was just the two of them on a wild adventure spending a year and a half in Siam, basically now known as Thailand.
They studied animal action so they could replicate it for the camera. There's a scene in Chang where a baby elephant is tied up to Kru's family house and the mother elephant comes to save it. The scene is obviously intercut with Bimbo going crazy as the house is being shaken, but they knew what the mother elephant would do when she came to protect her child. They observed wildlife in a land of wonder and mysticism. The natives believed that the man-eating tigers that were captured and used in Chang were ridden by spirit beings and that to kill these tigers would incur the curse of these demons. Cooper told the tribal leaders, "Hey, let the demons ride me; that's okay. I'll take it. I'll capture and kill the tiger." They had a rule that—while "Shorty" ran the camera—Cooper kept a rifle at hand; but, they didn't kill animals unless it was absolutely necessary. They were committed to protecting the wildlife. They did manage, however, to capture several man-eating tigers that had essentially exercised a reign of terror in the Nan district of Siam and were commended by missionaries in that regard.
The making of Chang involved intense heat, cholera epidemics, and—whereas Cooper nearly died when his plane was shot down during WWI—Schoedsack frequently defied death during filming. In several scenes of Chang a tiger jumps up and fills the frame. Schoedsack was on a platform looking down. The platform was something like 13 feet high because the books had said that tigers didn't leap more than 11 feet; but, in this case, they found out the books were in error. What's so wonderful is that—despite such impending peril—Schoedsack calmly adjusted the focus on his camera even when the tiger was in his face.
Incidentally, the title Chang means "elephant" and, for the scene of the village stampede, the King of Siam and his brother the Prince secured a herd of elephants for Cooper and Schoedsack to use. They built a pit for Schoedsack to film up as the stampede of elephants ran over him. Logs were placed over the pit to ostensibly protect Schoedsack. Further, at this point Schoedsack had malaria and was suffering in the 100°+ heat to film the stampede. They thought the elephants would go around the logs; but, no, they stampeded over the logs. At one point an elephant leg went through the logs. Schoesdsack could have been crushed. Years later, Schoesdsack said he could still smell the elephant feet and the heat of the pit, which nearly became his grave.
An ironic accent to this drama is that—when Cooper went off to film Chang—he wasn't thinking much of it really; he was thinking more of flying an airplane to explore what was called the "Empty Quarter" in Arabia. That was his dream and he kept thinking about that. In letters he sent home, he nearly apologized for being distracted by filming Chang, which he saw as a made-up children's story. After a year and a half of filming in Siam, surviving malaria and ferocious wildlife, and once Chang was finished, Cooper had changed his mind. His letters home were more confident that he had captured something special, which indeed proved the case, as Chang led directly to King Kong. There are scenes in Kong that had—in effect—been rehearsed in Chang, including the elephant stampede, and Kong's rampage of the Skull Island village, right down to the dramatic moment when a mother rescues her threatened child from being crushed to death. What Chang basically meant to Cooper and Schoesdsack as filmmaking partners was that it showed them how to make a movie and how to develop their philosophy of slowly building the action, introducing characters, and then going full force ahead; a philosophy employed to great effect in Kong.
When they returned to New York, Chang was a major success. It debuted with a 60-piece orchestra and the elephant stampede sequence was filmed and projected in "Magnascope" where the curtains parted and this giant stampede enveloped the screen. At the time, Chang was a sensation, considered one of the most lucrative adventure films ever made, possibly even the most successful film ever made. The box office was incredible. But Cooper and Schoesdsack didn't rest on their laurels because a few months after Chang was released, they were off to Africa to work on their next movie The Four Feathers.
For Vaz, it's inexplicable that Chang was out of circulation for nearly 60 years and he had to commend a number of people who managed to keep Cooper and Schoesdsack and Chang alive, including film historians like Rudy Belmer, Kevin Brownlow, James D'Arc at Brigham Young University who collected the Merian C. Cooper papers, and of course Dennis Doros and Amy Heller, the team who started Milestone Films. In 1988, Dennis—with some barmitzvah money he'd saved up—bought the rights to Chang, which was his first major buy on the recommendation of Kevin Brownlow.
Vaz concluded by quoting a 1927 editorial in Asia Magazine, by which time Cooper and Schoesdsack had already secured archetypal iconicity as filmmaker-adventurers. Asia Magazine summed up the duo thus: "We've never heard Cooper and Schoesdsack mention art, beauty, the meaning of existence or utter any similar high-sounding praise. Life is too good for the living; beauty too enthralling in its realization, truth too natural a thing to the lives of both to be talked about. These men would spend their time expressing these things in mountains and jungles, far from drawing room discussion. So they move on with their dream. They steadfastly gaze on life as they live it, and they find it absorbing, dramatic and pictureable."
Here in the 21st Century, Vaz proposed, why should Chang matter to us? "I think it should. In one way this film is a record of a lost world; but, in another way, it really is timeless in the sense that it's about wonder, about adventure, about the spirit of adventure, and that's something that can stay with us always. It captures perfectly the motto of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival: true art transcends time."
Cross-published on Twitch.
A FIPRESCI award-winner, an Oscar® candidate and seven U.S. premieres highlight The Global Film Initiative's upcoming Global Lens 2010 film series. As announced late last week, 10 award-winning narrative feature films from Algeria, China, India, Iran, Mexico, Peru, Serbia, South Africa, Uruguay and Vietnam will headline Global Lens 2010.
"We're very excited about the 2010 series," says Susan Weeks Coulter, Board Chair of the Global Film Initiative. "This year's films are some of our boldest, most visually striking, unique visions to date—each filmmaker is reimagining our world from an entirely fresh viewpoint."
Global Lens 2010 features the U.S. premiere of Bui Thac Chuyen's provocative Vietnamese drama Adrift (FIPRESCI, Venice International Film Festival) and Masquerades (Best Feature, Dubai International Film Festival), Algeria's official submission to the foreign language category of the 2009 Academy Awards. Also featured are critical favorites Ordinary People (Best Film, Sarajevo Film Festival), The Shaft (New Directors/New Films) and South African tour-de-force Shirley Adams (Best Actress, Durban International Film Festival).
In addition, Global Lens 2010 will present the U.S. premiere of Granaz Moussavi's Iranian independent, My Tehran For Sale (Official Selection, Toronto International Film Festival) and the North American premiere of Ocean Of An Old Man (New Currents, Pusan International Film Festival)—the first film ever to be shot on India's Andaman and Nicobar islands.
The upcoming series includes a vibrant showcase of Latin American films from emerging directors, including Josué Méndez's Gods (Best Peruvian Feature, Lima Latin American Film Festival), Alejandro Gerber Bicecci's Becloud (Special Mention, Morelia International Film Festival) and GFI grant-recipient Enrique Buchichio's Leo's Room (Official Selection, San Sebastian International Film Festival).
Global Lens, now in its seventh year, will premiere in January 2010 at the Museum of Modern Art and other locations in New York before embarking on a yearlong tour of over 35 cities across the United States and Canada. The series will also be released throughout the year on Virgin America airlines as part of an ongoing partnership between the Global Film Initiative and Virgin America, and be presented as a special showcase in San Juan, Puerto Rico in February to inaugurate the launch of the newly established Puerto Rico Film Society.
Global Lens 2010 films
Adrift (Choi Voi), dir. Bui Thac Chuyen, Vietnam, 2009—A young wife, ignored by her immature spouse, is caught in a love triangle between her best friend and a handsome stranger during a languorous summer in Hanoi. The first film from Vietnam to officially take part in the Venice International, Adrift was awarded the FIPRESCI Horizons and Critics' Week Prize. Adrift was likewise featured in the Contemporary World Cinema sidebar at the 2009 Toronto International where Raymond Phathanavirangoon observed Director Chuyen's skillful use of "languid takes to highlight the emptiness and solitude of the characters, while slowly expanding the story to encompass a whole cast of fascinating personalities. Even more remarkable are the moments of sheer eroticism—all subtly executed with nary a glimpse of flesh."
Becloud (Vaho), dir. Alejandro Gerber Bicecci, Mexico, 2009—After years of separation, three boyhood friends reunite in Mexico City to overcome a tragedy that scarred their neighborhood, and childhood, years before. José reluctantly works at his father's ice factory in a poor urban district; Felipe works at an Internet café, where he cultivates a voyeuristic crush on a customer; and Andrés spends his free time with a group devoted to a pre-Columbian golden age. Friends since boyhood, the three young men are linked by a defining incident that connects the destinies of their entire neighborhood. Bicecci's enthralling mix of history, memory, guilt, and atonement turns a tangled neighborhood tale into a sly parable about modern Mexico itself.
Gods (Dioses), dir. Josué Méndez, Peru, 2008—Elisa, a wealthy industrialist's young working-class fiancée, plunges into the extravagance of her lavish new life as stepmother to two troubled children—Diego and Andrea—who self-destruct in a series of desperate attempts to escape their privileged upbringing. Diego reluctantly prepares himself for a career at his overbearing father's factory, and his sister Andrea indulges sexual promiscuity as an emotionally aimless party-girl. Backed by excellent performances and stylishly composed images of domestic seaside splendor, the sharp dialogue infuses brittle manners with the promise of destructive mayhem. Ultimately, Méndez's coolly scathing satire of Peru's upper classes conveys the anguished hollowness beneath shallow spirituality and material extravagance. As director Méndez states it: "Diego struggles to find a place in this upper-class society where all characters behave as gods: beyond rules, beyond morality and beyond belief." Winner of the Golden Sun Award at the Biarritz International Festival of Latin American Cinema and Best Sound at the Havana Film Festival.
Leo's Room (El Cuarto de Leo), dir. Enrique Buchichio, Uruguay, 2009—Leo is a handsome but secretly troubled young man who wraps himself in the comfort of his music, hides behind the white lies he tells his family and friends, and treasures the privacy of his small rented room. When his relationship with a woman dissolves due to his impotence, he begins tentatively cruising the Internet for male companionship and undergoing analysis with a sympathetic therapist. But an encounter with an old primary school classmate, a woman with secret troubles of her own, leads to a friendship that slowly reshapes their lives and offers new directions. Neil Young hails "the brief appearances of Rafael Soliwoda as Leo's live-in landlord Felipe—from whom he rents the pokey, underfurnished habitacion of the title—an unflappable couch-potato whose cereal-munching, TV-glued inertia makes the feckless Leo look like a paragon of decisive dynamism."
Masquerades (Mascarades), dir. Lyes Salem, Algeria, 2008—Mounir, a "horticultural engineer" (i.e., part-time gardener) for a wealthy estate owner, dreams of improving his small family's lot and gaining a measure of respect in his dusty Algerian village. He's determined to marry off his narcoleptic sister, Rym, to a "real gentleman," but Rym dreams of marrying Khliffa, his best friend. When Mounir counters village gossip with a fib that he's promised Rym to a wealthy outsider, she embraces the rumor to press Khliffa into action. The town rallies around the fictional nuptials, propelling Mounir to big-shot status by association, and swelling his impressionable ego beyond recognition. This charming romantic comedy suggests that when dreams turn into reality, it's time to wake up.
A narcoleptic sister as a character, writes Film-Forward "would usually be grist for farce. Instead, the gossip, misunderstandings, mistaken identities, and Pyramus-and-Thisbe-like romance her condition sets off are handled with charming humor and affection for village life." At Variety, Ronnie Scheib concurs: "It may not be P.C. to make fun of narcolepsy, but when servicing the slapstick requirements of thoughtful—even socially conscious—comedy, the joke has much less to do with real illness than with classically executed farce." Scheib's rave review adds that as "an accomplished comedy of manners" Masquerades "deftly tosses matrimony, celebrity and narcolepsy into a potent brew with international appeal. A likable cast, a witty star turn by Salem, faultless staging and a neatly inflected pace contribute to a modest but sparkling romp that has racked up several fest prizes."
At Screen, Fionnuala Halligan writes: "Genuinely amusing, if not downright funny at times, Lyes Salem's biggest asset in Masquerades is himself, playing the pop-eyed, misguided, at times quite delusional Mounir…. The score is whimsical, but not obtrusive; Masquerades' script is surprisingly tight, and technically the venture is assured. Undoubtedly, Masquerades marks Salem out as a talent we'll certainly be seeing more of; and if his next work is as genial as this, the pleasure will be all ours."
At The Arts Desk, Sheila Johnston writes that Masquerades is a "battle of the sexes, a comedy of errors and a cutting satire" that succeeds as "a broad, madcap farce." Johnston adds: "Salem, 36, …paints an unvarnished portrait of his mother country as hobbled by poverty, unemployment, corruption and antiquated patriarchal prejudice, but also as a place of spectacular wild beauty and one where sheer humanity compensates for a multitude of sins." Though she qualifies that the French critics who "have invoked the spirits of Moliere, Almodovar, Kusterica" are "over-excited", she concluces that Masquerades "is conceived on an altogether more modest scale and has a much more sentimental streak than those masters; but that should not deter from its unassuming, captivating achievement."
My Tehran For Sale, dir. Granaz Moussavi, Iran, 2009—After two years of detention in Australia, an ailing Iranian asylum seeker wearily relates her story to her by-the-book government handler. Through a series of flashbacks, this riveting look inside Iran's capital city introduces Marzieh, a serious actress unable to perform openly under Iran's oppressive regime, as she develops a doomed relationship with Saman, an Iranian-born Australian citizen with whom she plans to relocate to Adelaide. Poet-turned-filmmaker Moussavi reveals the restive underground culture flourishing beneath Tehran's authoritarian order.
At Screen, Frank Hatherly declares that Moussavi's "cry from the heart" will be "a surefire festival favorite." ABC's Margaret Pomeranz states it is "an ode to a city under cultural siege." Reviews from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are more qualified.
Ocean Of An Old Man, dir. Rajesh Shera, India, 2008—Set in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands off the eastern coast of India in the aftermath of the devastating 2004 tsunami, Shera's debut feature is a delicate meditation on grief and loss amid stunning natural beauty. An elderly British teacher runs a small school serving the children of the neighboring islands, several of whom have disappeared after a catastrophic wave that killed thousands. Reeling from the loss of his own family and haunted by memories and dreams, he guides—and follows—the children as they come to terms with the tragedy.
Ordinary People, dir. Vladimir Perisic, Serbia, 2009—One quiet afternoon, a busload of young soldiers is unexpectedly forced to question the morality of their profession after being enlisted to execute civilian prisoners at a remote facility in the Serbian countryside. Ordinary People screened in the Critics Week at Cannes, where Variety's Jordan Minzer described the "staged hyperrealism" of Perisic's film as a "landmine" in which the director exhibits an "unquestionable talent for finding beauty within bloodshed." At Screen, Howard Feinstein observed that the film's title—which will, invariably, be confused with Redford's 1980 feature—"succinctly sums up its subject: soldiers who violate international law during wartime without self-judgment, viewing their acts as banalities on the same level as smoking a cigarette or brushing their teeth." At The Hollywood Reporter, Jon Frosch emphasized: "Perisic hints at the psychological toll of these acts through a repeated shot of Dzoni staring at his hands, followed by a close-up of the hands themselves, summing up the character's disbelief at how quickly and capably he has learned to kill." At Cineuropa, Fabian Lemercier concluded: "This clinical description of a terrifying reality is explored in a realist style and looks at the symbolic initiation to evil, giving Ordinary People a universal and philosophical resonance."
The Shaft (Dixia De Tiankong), dir. Zhang Chi, China, 2008—In Zhang's wise, visually poetic, and wonderfully acted debut, set in a poor mining town in western China, three distinct stories revolve around a father and his two children. When the attractive daughter is accused of an affair with the mine manager, she loses the respect of the workers and her devoted boyfriend; her brother dreams of being a singer, but after an unforeseen stint in prison he reluctantly heads into the mines like his father before him; and their father finally reaches retirement, only to spend it looking for the longlost first love who left him many years before. Like the industry that plunges deep below the delicate but scarred countryside, The Shaft plumbs its characters' seemingly stoic surfaces to unveil the turmoil of emotions and desires beneath.
Featured in the Lincoln Center's 2009 New Directors / New Films series, The Shaft impressed Brandon Harris for delving deeply into notions of filial responsibility and questioning the "subservience of one's desires to that of the state (or its preferred means of ideological control, the patriarchal family)." At Variety, Alissa Simon extolled the film's "gritty power", singling out Luo Deyuan's performance of the aging father Baogen as "shatteringly poignant", and noted how The Shaft's "visuals continually stress geography as destiny, with train tracks overhead and upwardly winding roads contrasting with the miners' descent into the shaft. Motif of the mine's elevator cage slamming shut also serves as a metaphor for their feelings of being trapped."
Shirley Adams, dir. Oliver Hermanus, South Africa, 2009—In the depressed Cape Town neighborhood of Cape Flats, a single mother contemplates her fate and cautiously accepts the help of an overeager social worker as she struggles to care for her paraplegic and suicidal son. Winner of Best South African Film, Best Actress, and Best First Feature Film at the Durban International Film Festival (where it was hailed by the Festival Jurors as "a South African masterpiece"), Denise Newman's titular performance in Shirley Adams has received stunning accolades throughout its festival trajectory. At The Hollywood Reporter, Ray Bennett exclaims that Newman's "extraordinary" performance sets the bar for best actress awards this year. Variety's Jay Weissberg describes her performance as "wrenching" and notes that the "inherent power of the story makes it practically impossible not to get an emotional rise out of the audience." In his capsule for the 2009 Toronto International, Cameron Bailey praises Newman's "authentic, fully realized" performance along with the film's overall intimacy and restraint.
Global Lens 2010 will also present the award-winning film The Night of Truth (dir. Fanta Regina Nacro, Burkina Faso) as part of the Initiative's retrospective program, Chairman's Choice, which was established in 2009 to re-introduce exceptional films from the Global Lens Collection for theatrical exhibition. The Night of Truth originally appeared in Global Lens 2006.
The Global Film Initiative is a U.S.-based, 501(c)3 organization specializing in the acquisition, distribution and support of independent film from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Founded in 2002 with the mission of promoting cross-cultural understanding through the universal language of cinema, each year the Initiative awards numerous grants to deserving filmmakers from around the world, and supports a touring film series entitled Global Lens. For more information about the Global Lens film series and Global Film Initiative programs, please visit: http://www.globalfilm.org.
Cross-published on Twitch.
San Francisco's Berlin & Beyond Film Festival would have been the venue where I imagine San Franciscans might have had the opportunity to catch Matthias Emcke's debut feature Phantomschmerz (Phantom pain, 2009); but as that film festival is still reeling from internal upset and has shifted from its January timeslot to (God forbid!) an October one, chances are that Phantom Pain will be one of those movies that will slip through the cracks and recede into memory faster than you can say, "das Naeschsten!" Such are the hazards of international film distribution in a cautious American landscape. (Hopefully, the same will not be said about the Berlin and Beyond Film Festival.)
Phantom Pain premiered in Berlin, and then had its international premiere at the Toronto International where it was given the full gala treatment. Though the critical response was decidedly mixed, weighing in on this side or that of whether one appreciates sentiment swirled into their stories of human triumph, there was no question that the film was experiencing its specific moment in the spotlight, boasting "a potent star vehicle for a European actor now gaining recognition in North America." Phantom Pain shows Til Schweiger at the top of his game—virile, passionate and nuanced in his portrayal of a man fighting back from disaster—and fresh off his notoriety from Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Hands-down, Schweiger is acknowledged as Germany's biggest movie star and I appreciated the chance to sample more of his work, much of which has never been made available in the U.S.
Inspired by the true story of passionate Canadian cyclist Steven Sumner whose life was drastically changed one night on a dark road, Phantom Pain monitors one man's struggle to turn his life around. With fine supporting turns by Schweiger's own daughter Luna and Jana Pallaske as Schweiger's inspirational muse Nika, first-time director Matthias Emcke has forcefully delivered a comrade's tribute to his personal friend Steven Sumner. Matthias Emcke was born in Wiesbaden, Germany, and received a bachelor in architecture from the Parsons School of Design in New York. He has produced the films Mädchen Mädchen (2001), Slap Her… She's French (2002) and Till Human Voices Wake Us (2002), and directed the short film Ich Sehe Was, Was Du Nicht Siehst (2005). Phantom Pain is his feature directorial debut.
I'm grateful to Stephen Lan for arranging an introduction to both Emcke and Schweiger, and for inviting me to the film's release party later that night where I had the welcome fortune to meet and share drinks with actress Pallaske, as well as the inspiring source of the narrative: Steven Sumner himself. While Emcke wrapped up a video interview, Schweiger and I started off our conversation, which is not for the spoiler-wary.
* * *
Michael Guillén: Well, Til, this has been a good year for you. You delivered an iconic performance as Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz, the Nazi-killing German in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds; and have followed through with the challenge of portraying Marc Sumner in Phantom Pain.
Til Schweiger: Thank you.
Guillén: What was it like working with Luna, your daughter? Is this the first time you've worked with her?
Schweiger: It's the first time I've had scenes with her. The year before I directed her in a film [Keinohrhasen (2007)] but didn't have scenes with her. Playing with her for the first time, I think I was more nervous than she was. She was completely cool and naïve. She played with her PSP station the whole time. At one point they called her in and she played. All she did was learn her lines. She's a natural and I've told her that; but, I've also told her that being a natural doesn't make her special. "Just be happy that you have it and maybe one day—if you don't know what else to do—you can still try to become an actress."
Guillén: Did you work with Steven Sumner—on whom Phantom Pain is based—to develop your characterization?
Schweiger: We talked and he showed me videos. Matthias filmed him enacting his attacks of pain. Steven showed me how to walk and what the process is when you first get an artificial limb, how long it takes to get used to it, and how to take it off. So, yes, we worked together.
Guillén: Are you a cyclist yourself?
Schweiger: Yes, but never a sport cyclist. I'm more a mountain biker. Sport cycling is a completely different thing and, for the film, I trained with a former world champion. It was exhausting but fun.
Guillén: In that final shot of you cycling up the hill, I thought, "He would have to have trained for that shot."
Schweiger: For those wide helicopter shots, I have doubles. So that wasn't actually me cycling in that scene; but, I can tell you that one of my doubles also only had one leg and he cycled up that hill like a rocket, pushing and pulling the pedal with one leg. It was unbelievable.
Guillén: How did the role come to you?
Schweiger: Matthias is a longtime friend. He used to be a producer and at one point he said that he'd had enough with producing and that he was writing a script. He eventually gave it to me and asked me to read it. I read it and it made me cry. Not many scripts achieve that. He asked me to play the character and I told him that I would rather play the friend; but, then he got so pushy that I ended up playing the main character. I thought there was another actor in Germany who would have fit the part much better than me and that I would have been perfect for the friend; but, Matthias wouldn't let go so I had to play it.
Guillén: The CGI was seamless in this film. Those scenes where you are moving around with an amputated leg and prosthetic, how were those accomplished?
Schweiger: It's a mix. Some effects were done the old-fashioned way where it looks like you're sitting in a wheelchair but you're standing on one leg, or having a leg go through a hole in the bed when I'm lying down. Sometimes we used a prosthetic and sometimes we used CGI. I wore this blue sock with the tracking points and I have to say the CGI came off looking really good.
Guillén: What were the particular challenges of this role for you?
Schweiger: Every movie is challenging, unless it's a movie you're just doing for the paycheck. What was challenging about this film is that we didn't shoot it chronologically. That was due to the lack of money. We shot the beginning and the end and then part of the end of day two and then the middle piece on day three and the beginning on day four. Matthias really had to help me keep track of what state the character was in to maintain the arc. It's not like a theater play where you go in and you play it and then it's finished. We shot this movie completely upside down. The challenge is to bring it together so that the character has an arc.
Guillén: Is Quentin's film the most exposure you've received in the US?
Schweiger: Absolutely. Box office wise, it just broke through the $100,000,000 mark. It's going to be his most successful movie ever and it's certainly the film I've participated in with the biggest box office.
Guillén: And among the Basterds, Quentin singled you out quite nicely, didn't he?
Schweiger: Yeah! That was beautiful. We all saw the film for the first time at Cannes and he had a get-together just before the screening. I asked him, "How did it turn out?" and he said, "You're gonna like it! I'm not telling you why but you're going to like it. Sit back and enjoy," he said.
Guillén: Though having increased visibility in America isn't the be-all and end-all of an actor's existence, do you want to do more studio films in America?
Schweiger: I want to do more films that I like. In Germany I can do my own films. I can direct. I can write. I can do my own stuff. It's way more fulfilling to me than to be in an American studio picture. I had some bad experiences with American films so I told myself, "The next time I do it, it will have to be a brilliant film. It has to be the Coen Brothers or Ridley Scott or somebody like this." And then I met Quentin.
Guillén: What projects are coming up for you?
Schweiger: One is a German ensemble comedy, which I think will be fairly successful—it tested good—and the other one opens in December; it's Zweiohrkuken, the sequel to Keinohrhasen, which I wrote and directed. All my four children were in it and it became one of the biggest films in Germany that year.
Guillén: Talk to me about the difference between acting and directing for you?
Schweiger: It's very simple. I feel way more comfortable as a director. I love being a director and creating my own team, picking the people I work with.
[At this juncture Matthias Emcke joined us.]
Guillén: Til, do you mind if I shift my questions over to Matthias now?
Schweiger: Not at all! [Laughs.]
Guillén: Matthias, could you tell me how you developed this script? Was it based on an autobiography?
Matthias Emcke: No, Steven Sumner is one of my oldest friends. I've known him over 25 years. He's Canadian; born and raised in Toronto. Basically, I took episodes of our friendship that had occurred over those 25 years, in Canada, in the States, in Munich where I used to live and where I met him for the first time, and in Italy where the accident actually happened. I comprised them into a one-year time frame and set the story in Germany; but, in reality, the accident happened in Siena, Italy. A lot of the episodes that you see in the film happened at one point but not necessarily in Germany.
Guillén: Steven's accident was a hit and run?
Emcke: Yes.
Guillén: Have you ever fantasized that the guy who did it is going to see Phantom Pain?
Emcke: You know what? At one point Steven decided basically himself that he wasn't going to think much about what would have happened if the guy had actually called an ambulance? Or the police? What if they had found him earlier? There was no investigation after the accident. There was no effort made to find this person. So, basically, because Steven felt that way—because he said, "Listen, life goes on. Nothing's going to change"—I adopted his attitude and haven't thought about it much either. However, having said that, it would be kind of amazing if that guy would see the film and identify what he'd done.
Guillén: The film's title refers to the phenomenon of the pain felt from a phantom limb; but, I also read it as the pain felt from the failed relationship with the character's father. Am I reading too much into this?
Emcke: No, I think you can. When we first came up with a title, it was different. Then we changed it to Phantom Pain. Of course, once you think about it, it is very much related to the emotional pain he experiences, not only the actual physical pain.
Guillén: The epistolary approach to the narrative, the usage of the letters as they're being written, was this something your friend Steven proposed to you? How did you come up with that structure?
Emcke: No, what happened was that, for me the key to this character was his relationship to his father. If you want to understand this guy, you have to understand what his relationship was to his father. Just as you hear in the voiceover, the father did fall into the water in a drunken stupor and drowned. I asked Steven to write something about his father and tell me what their relationship was and he wrote me a three-page letter, which I edited, and which became the voiceover. The voiceover that you hear is actually Steven writing about his father. I did change things here and there to adapt it to Germany; but, essentially, it's intact.
Guillén: Now, I hope this doesn't come off as a stupid question but I'm not the smartest person in the world….
Schweiger: Neither am I!!
Guillén: [Laughs.] But I was curious about why most of the soundtrack for this German film is in English? Is that a European thing?
Emcke: I don't know if it's a European thing and I'm not even so sure that the music is American, even though it's in English. There were just no German songs that came to mind.
Guillén: I was wondering if it was a strategy to market it in English-speaking countries?
Emcke: No. I wasn't thinking that way at all. I was literally just buying the music of the composer. He made suggestions and I did some stuff and, honestly, it was just about trying to find music that fit the emotions for me. The music could have been French for all I know, or Italian.
Schweiger: The problem with German songs with German lyrics is that—if you're German and you're listening to the song—your thoughts drift away from the movie.
Guillén: Well, here's an add-on stupid question: if all of the music is in English, when you're screening the film in Germany does everyone understand the English?
Schweiger: They're not listening to the lyrics. Maybe they do later when they buy the soundtrack. The music is mainly there to color the feeling.
Emcke: I grew up exactly like that. I grew up basically listening to American music but I never never understood a goddamn word anybody was saying. It never really mattered. Even now that I do understand English, I still don't listen to the lyrics because that's how I'm trained. I basically just listen to the music. Somebody would ask me, "What is this song about that you've been listening to 200 times?" and I wouldn't be able to tell you because I don't listen to lyrics.
Guillén: Is the music temporal in any way, intending to convey the time period when Steven had his accident?
Emcke: No. It's a mixture of new and older songs; but, they have a tonality that meshes. In the beginning I thought about doing music that Steven likes; but, I don't really like the music that he likes. He likes rockabilly and Johnny Cash.
Guillén: The final coda of the film—that documentary moment of Steven—why did you decide to actually break the fiction and show footage of Steven?
Emcke: I decided that really only when the movie was finished. I didn't have that in mind before when I started the film. I wanted to have a dedication—"For Steven Sumner"—as the first credit and then once I had that, I thought, "Why not put one picture of him?" But then all these other pictures I had of him were great. And I also had this video. So it kind of emerged as I was playing around with it and all of a sudden I thought, "This is actually powerful." It turned out very powerful. I don't like movies that start "based on a true story"—that's never really done anything for me—I never see a film differently when I see "based on a true story" placed at the front of a film. I forget that within two seconds after reading it. That's why I didn't put anything in the front.
Cross-published on Twitch.
Yesterday's announcement of nearly half the line-up for the 21st annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (January 7-17, 2010) (PSIFF10)—including the Opening and Closing Night Galas (Michael Hoffman's The Last Station and Daniel Adams' The Lightkeepers, respectively), three additional Gala Screenings, four Special Representations, ten films selected for the Modern Masters sidebar, and multiple World, North American and U.S. premieres—reveal a pulsing Latinbeat with featured films from Spain, Mexico and South America.
Backyard / El Traspatio (Mexico, 2009, 122 min.)—This chilling thriller from Carlos Carrera, the director of The Crime of Father Amaro (El crimen del Padre Amaro, 2002) dramatizes the tragic true story of border town Juárez, Mexico, where since the mid-90s thousands of women have gone missing or turned up as sun-burnt corpses in the desert. Can new police captain Blanca Bravo (Ana de la Reguera) stop the savagery? Programmed in PSIFF10's Modern Masters sidebar, Backyard is Mexico's submission to the Foreign Language category of the 2010 Academy Awards®. Official Spanish website. IMDb. YouTube trailer.
Bad Day to Go Fishing / Mal día para pescar (Uruguay/Spain, 2009, 110 min.)—A droll dark comedy that plays out like a classic Western crossed with the decidedly modern sensibilities of filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch or Aki Kaurismäki, this quirky tale pits a scamming hustler and his wrestler sidekick against the inhabitants of a small Uruguayan town, circa 1961. Directed by Álvaro Brechner, Bad Day to Go Fishing is Uruguay's submission to the Foreign Language category of the 2010 Academy Awards® and boasts its US Premiere at PSIFF10.
Dawson, Island 10 / Dawson, Isla 10 (Chile/Brazil/ Venezuela)—After the 1973 coup that deposed Allende and brought Pinochet to power in Chile, the former members of his cabinet are imprisoned on Dawson Island, the world's southern-most concentration camp. Veteran filmmaker Miguel Littin follows the ordeal of these men who are determined to survive and provide history with their testimony. Variety's Boyd von Hoeij gave the film a favorable review when it had its International Premiere at the Rome Film Festival (press notes in PDF format). At Global Post, however, Pascale Bonnefoy criticized that "the movie sometimes consciously sacrifices accuracy to dramatic license, offering viewers a trade-off: exposure to this period of history at the expense of the historical record." Boasting its US premiere in PSIFF10's Modern Masters sidebar, Dawson, Island 10 is Chile's submission to the Foreign Language category of the 2010 Academy Awards®. IMDb.
Dzi Croquettes (Brazil, 2009, 95 min.)—Dzi Croquettes is a revealing documentary about a Brazilian dance and theater group resembling an all-male, 1970s version of the Ziegfeld Follies. Banned by the ruling military dictatorship, they used their empowering sexuality to revolutionize the gay movement worldwide. Winner of the Audience awards for Best Documentary at both the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo International Film Festivals. Co-directed by Tatiana Issa and Raphael Alvarez, Dzi Croquettes will have its North American Premiere at PSIFF10. Official Brazilian website. IMDb. Vimeo trailer.
Huacho (Chile/France, 2009, 90 min.)—Alejandro Fernández Almendras' debut feature Huacho is a poignant but unsentimental look at the harsh life of the rural population in southern Chile. Following a small peasant family through its day, we are privy to the hardships they bear but also to their indomitable resilience and resourcefulness. I wrote this one up for The Evening Class from the Toronto International and am glad to see it now has its US Premiere at PSIFF10.
A Matter of Principles / Cuestión de principios (Argentina, 2009, 110 min.)—A man with seemingly unwavering ethics is challenged by his new boss, who believes everyone has a price and is willing to prove it. In Rodrigo Grande's Capra-esque tale no one leaves unscathed when principles and pragmatism collide. North American Premiere. Official Argentine Website. IMDb.
Rabia (Spain/Colombia, 2009, 89 min.)—Sebastián Cordero's gripping social thriller concerns two immigrants: a short-tempered construction worker and a live-in maid eking out a livelihood in Spain. A few weeks into their passionate relationship a tragic accident forces him to hide in her attic. Unbeknownst to her he becomes a menacing ghost-like dweller in the house. US Premiere. IMDb.
