Hey folks, Harry here... Unfortunately I get the idea that this article will be skipped over most, of all the articles I'll post today, which is just sad, because this is a list of films that you should go out of your way to seek out... Either in theaters or on DVD. The films in this list would most likely affect your whole year in terms of the quality your year would have... for the better. I really and truly envy Capone for getting to see them. There's several films here that I've been looking forward to, from various Euro reports and festivals. Those of you that care about world cinema... Enjoy, this is a heaping handful of goodness...
Hey, Harry. Capone in Chicago here with the promised second part to my
wrap-up of the European Union Film Festival that finished up late in March.
Many of these films will be opening in the U.S. sometime in 2003; others
will probably never screen in this nation again. It’s been a while since
I’ve seen some of these so forgive my occasional poor recall, but I do
remember that nearly all of these films are top-notch productions worth
catching when or if they make it to your town.
GEBIRTIG (GEBÃœRTIG), Austria
This was Austria’s submission for 2002 Oscar consideration, and what a
thought-provoking and beautifully acted and honest film it is. With lots of
dark humor and well-earned bitterness, this film focuses on three men: an
aging Holocaust survivor who has left Austria for New York where he became a
hugely successful composer; a Jewish cabaret artist still living in Austria;
and a German journalist who discovers that his father was a high-ranking SS
officer at a concentration camp. The lives of these three men intersect in
strange and fascinating ways. Some of the finest scenes involve the
Holocaust survivor returning to Austria to testify against a suspected war
criminal. He has to reintroduce himself to the city he grew up
inand it’s an emotional experience to say the least. I wasn’t
particularly moved by the story of the cabaret singer, but I was
surprisingly touched by the journalist’s plight. He’s clearly a good man,
but as the memories of his father’s deeds come back to him, his life begins
to fall apart. It’s a wonderfully written character because he’s clearly the
nicest guy in the film but you not exactly rooting for him to feel better
about his past. Dubbed the Austrian Coen brothers, directors Robert Schindel
and Lukas Stepanik have crafted three unique aspects of the era surrounding
the Holocaust that I’ve never seen put on film.
THE TWILIGHT HOUR: VISIONS OF IRELAND’S HAUNTED PAST, Ireland
Blurring the lines of what is real and what is not in a supernatural setting,
THE TWILIGHT HOUR. What starts out appearing to be a straight documentary
about documented ghosts in various castles and run-down structures
throughout Ireland, filmmaker Jason Figgis and author/narrator Sir Simon
Marsden travel the countryside not so much looking to capture ghosts on film
(which they never do), but providing us with settings and telling us really
creepy ghost stories and letting our minds do the rest. Okay, that’s not
entirely true. The filmmakers “reconstruct” some of the tales into short and
extremely scary vignettes, but they never try to pass these off as the real
deal (like, say, BLAIR WITCH), which doesn’t make them any less scary.
TWILIGHT HOUR is far from a great film, but John Hurt lends his voice to a
few readings and Marsden enthusiasm for the material is infectious.
VILLA DES ROSES, Belgium
A run-down British-run hotel in Paris circa 1913 is the setting of the darkly
perverse story of grotesque seduction, sleazy Germans, and a beautiful and
fragile young chamber maid played with convincing innocence and frailty by
Julie Delpy in her finest work since THREE COLORS: WHITE. Delpy’s Louise
arrives at the hotel run by greedy and unscrupulous British couple who
sadistically control most of the residents just to get their money.
Instantly all of the male guests start plotting ways to seduce the young
lass with a mysterious past, but it is a womanizing young German man who
finally wins her heart. Apparently she is the only one who doesn’t realize
he will break her heart as quickly as he obtained it. The film takes a
decidedly dark turn when Louise gets pregnant and is forced into having a
very painful and messy abortion. Made in 2001, VILLA DES ROSES doesn’t offer
much hope for the pure at heart or for love in general, but that doesn’t
keep it from being a tumultuous triumph, especially for Delpy, who I’ve been
dying to see in a meaty part like this for quite some time. She’s not
supposed to be some kind of radiant beauty here; she’s going for plain, and
it makes her pain more believable somehow. The film is good; Delpy is
magnificent.
MONDAYS IN THE SUN (LOS LUNES AL SOL), Spain
Javier Bardem (BEFORE NIGHT FALLS) can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned.
He is not one of Spain’s finest actors; he is one of the world’s. I saw
Bardem in THE DANCER UPSTAIRS late last year and neglected to review it, but
the guy is so friggin’ good in it. And his work in MONDAY IN THE SUN tops
it. In fact, this film was Spain’s entry for Oscar consideration in 2002,
beating out TALK TO HER. According to my notes, the film was inspired by
massive shipyard layoffs in northern Spain. The men in this film are led by
the poster child for bitterness, Santa (Bardem), clearly a man of great
intelligence and possessing impressive leadership skills, but he drinks too
much and lets his passion get the bets of him. His comrades both love and
hate him, but they have their own problems, all of which are explored in
great detail here. Part male-bonding exercise, part socialist manifesto,
MONDAYS IN THE SUN explores the Spanish masculine mentality in way I’ve
never seen done. And much of the observations are done by the 15-year-old,
wise-beyond-her-years daughter of the owner of a bar where the men spend
most of their evenings. She may be the smartest one of the bunch. There are
no two-dimensional characters here, each one is richly drawn and performed
by an incredible cast of familiar faces to fans of Spanish cinema. MONDAYS
IN THE SUN is quite often aggravating and tense, but never dull. And
Bardem’s acting is something to behold.
THE GIRL FROM PARIS (UNE HIRONDELLE A FAIT LE PRINTEMPS), France
One of the real surprises of the festival, THE GIRL FROM PARIS is an
extremely touching tale of a woman (WITH A FRIEND LIKE HARRY’s Mathilde
Seigner) in her late 20s who moves to the French countryside to escape the
urban rat race and convert a farm into a bed and breakfast-type place for
other city dwellers to escape to. Whether the guests show up or not, she
still must attend to the farm duties using her somewhat limited knowledge
learned in agriculture school. She purchases the farm from the crotchety old
former owner (BEAU TRAVAIL’s Michel Serrault), whose only stipulation in
selling to her is that he gets to live in a small home on the property. At
first he seems to resent her even being there, but her charming manner wins
him over...sort of. During the dead of winter, he sabotages her electricity,
which forces her to seek shelter in his house. This is not some obvious
May-December romance thing here. Instead it’s the story of two people who
want to shut themselves out from the rest of the world and end up connecting
anyway. The more we learn about the two, the more similar their lives
become. THE GIRL FROM PARIS has a lot of humor, some very moving moments,
and believable performances form the two leads. This is a feel-good film
that doesn’t rely on any of the old tricks to win us over.
SWEET SIXTEEN, Great Britain
Winner of the Best Screenplay Award at Cannes last year, SWEET SIXTEEN is
something of a return to form for the great Ken Loach and his frequently
used writer Paul Laverty. Loach hasn’t looked at the lost generation of
Scottish youth in quite a while, but this film more than makes up for it.
Set in the hopelessly impoverished seaside town of Greenock, the story
centers on 15-year-old Liam (a mind-blowing performance by Martin Compston)
who wants nothing more than to celebrate his mother’s release from prison
and his sixteenth birthday, both of which are scheduled to occur back to
back. He tries to arrange to make arrangements for him, his mother, his
older sister, and her child to move into a place together away from the very
dangerous hands of the mother’s boyfriend. Liam and his best friend,
Pinball, find out where some local drug dealers have hidden their stash, and
they snatch it up (covering their tracks brilliantly) and sell it for the
cash to by a caravan (mobile home). Liam is so good and profitable at
selling drugs that he attracts the attention of a local drug kingpin who
takes Liam under his wing and into his organization, piling cash on him, and
even setting him and his family up in a brand new apartment in a much nicer
part of town. Being incredibly jealous at Liam’s success, Pinball begins
engaging in some seriously self-destructive behavior that puts Liam in an
awful position and sees the beginning of a downward spiral that comes to a
head on the day he turns 16. At this point in his career, I think it’s safe
to say that Loach can do no wrong. Even his less interesting films--like the
recent BREAD AND ROSES--are still more interesting and passionate than 95
percent of the films I see in a given year. But what truly separates SWEET
SIXTEEN from Loach’s other films is the amazing performance by Compston, an
actual Greenock resident in his first acting role. You get the sense that he
isn’t acting so much as reenacting things he’s seen everyday where he grew
up. His is one of the breakthrough performances of the year. And considering
that SWEET SIXTEEN is just one of two Loach films making the rounds right
now (the other being THE NAVIGATORS, which I haven’t seen yet), this is a
great time to be a Loach fan.
MAPMAKER, Ireland
Even though it deals with the IRA, dead bodies, and adulterous affairs,
MAPMAKER is a relatively fluffy piece from director Johnny Gogan (who made
THE LAST BUS HOME a few years back). Brian F. O’Byrne (who recently appeared
on HBO’s “Oz” as an Irish prisoner) stars as Richie Markey, a cartographer
who has been hired by a county board to accurately map out the towns in the
region. It just so happens that this county rests on the border between
northern and southern Ireland. Although Ireland is in the early stages of
peace time, the county still has many unsolved mysteries and old hatreds to
keep things jumping. As he is mapping out the area, he stumbles across the
body of a missing man once rumored to be an IRA informer. The film’s
structure is probably more interesting than the story. As Richie gets closer
to finishing his map, he also gets closer to unraveling the mystery of the
dead man, whose family desperately wants to clear his name. WAKING NED
DEVINE’s Susan Lynch is also on hand as a possible married love interest who
complicates things considerably for our hero. MAPMAKER isn’t much more than
a second-rate mystery with a few cheap thrills thrown in, but its serene
settings and likeable actors kept me engaged and awake. I guess that’s
saying something.
DON’T TEMPT ME (SIN NOTICIAS DE DIOS), Spain
I hope to God this movie gets a U.S. release because it’s a blast. With a
superb international cast, a whacked-out heaven vs. hell story, and truck
loads of sick humor, DON’T TEMPT ME is a powerhouse, kick-ass work that
combines theology and ass kicking fun. Watching Penelope Cruz waste her time
in American film productions has been frustrating for fans of hers who know
she’s capable of much better work, as she’s proven many times over in
European films for years. I remember seeing her ten years ago in great films
like JAMON, JAMON and BELLE EPOQUE. More recently, she’s really impressed me
in films like TWICE UPON A YESTERDAY, OPEN YOUR EYES, and ALL ABOUT MY
MOTHER. In DON’T TEMPT ME, Cruz portrays a low-ranking demon trying to work
her way up the corporate ladder of hell. She is an absolute fireball here,
swearing, swaggering, hitting on women, all in the name of swinging the
balance of power between good and evil in the direction of hell. Her
devilish boss (played with great gusto my Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN’s Gael Garcia
Bernal) has determined that the soul of an injured boxer is at the center of
this conflict. Representing Heaven in this battle is angel and part-time
torch singer Victoria Abril and her supervisor played by French goddess
Fanny Ardant. Accents and languages fly every which way in this film. I
believe the angels and devils converse in Latin! The film has exciting gun
fights, a double-crossing devil, and Cruz and Abril being as sexy as can be.
Occasionally the banter gets tedious and long-winded, but this is a minor
criticism. The film is fun, decadent, and more fun.
THE STONE RAFT (HET STENEN VLOT), The Netherlands
One of my all-time favorite films is George Sluizer’s Dutch masterpiece THE
VANISHING (not the U.S. remake that Sluizer also directed). So when I saw
that his latest film was part of this festival, I bought my tickets early.
Set mostly in an area of Spain near the French border, THE STONE RAFT opens
with a crack forming right along said border. The crack soon becomes a rift,
and eventually the Iberian peninsula drifts out into the Atlantic Ocean. At
the moment the first crack appears, some very strange shit starts to happen
to certain Spanish and Portuguese people. A man throws a huge rock hundreds
of yards across the water, a woman draws a line in the dirt and the earth
caves in where she stands, a flock of birds won’t stop following a teacher,
a pharmacist can feel the earth shake when no one else can, and a woman
unravels the yarn in a sock and ends up with enough yarn to make it to the
moon and back. These individuals eventually find each other and travel
across the land mass in search of answer about why this is happening and
where the land mass is headed. I’m pretty certain that THE STONE RAFT is a
metaphor, but for what, I have no idea. The film doesn’t feel like science
fiction or fantasy, but I guess it it. There’s something slightly political
about the way the French are portrayed as reacting to the phenomenon, but I
wouldn’t call this satire. There’s a certain magical quality to the
proceedings, but mostly it just seems weird for the sake of being weird. I
couldn’t find the point of this film at all. The first half of the film kept
me interested because I had assumed questions brought up would be answered,
but as the end neared, I could tell this was not a movie about answering
questions. And that, I did not like. THE STONE RAFT starts out as intriguing
and ends as pointless and frustrating.
Capone
If you would like to screen me MATRIX RELOADED, X2, FINDING NEMO, HULK, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN & RETURN OF THE KING this week, then email me here!
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