Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Even more reviews, even more films that I’m curious to see now, and even more for you guys to read this morning. Dig in!
Hey Harry and crew,
Love your site, and decided it was time to try and add to the the glory of it all myself. I’m an ex-Film Science student (well, a drop-out, actually...) now attending the festival strictly for pleasure. This years fest is looking to be a great one again, with a new director and an updated and revitalised program. I have a few reviews, but first I want to say a little about a film that will not be shown in Rotterdam.
The opening of the festival was somewhat blemished by a controversy surrounding the screening of SUBMISSION by Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was assassinated last November by an islamic radical fundamentalist, an event which has caused much tension in Dutch society. The short film, which was made last year in collaboration with the Somalian-born politician Ayan Hirsi Ali, is about oppression of women in islamic culture and shows quotes from the Koran written on naked female bodies, with a voice-over by Ali recounting stories of abused women. Fundamentalist islamic beliefs see this as a severe desecration of the holy scripture, and the film was an important factor in the reason Van Gogh was murdered. Ali has been receiving serious death-threats and has spent much time in hiding.
The film was to be shown at the festival, in a closed screening with a scheduled discussion afterwards, and this was proudly announced by festival director Sandra den Hamer. A few days before the festival opened however, the producer of the film withdrew his permission to screen the film, stating security concerns as the reason. While there was no direct threat or information that indicated an increased danger the producer said he couldn’t risk the safety of his employers and colleages. While some accepted the arguments, in the general the reaction has been somewhat negative and the decision was seen as a cave-in to fundamentalists, especially since the festival has the paradoxical reputation of showing films that are banned by censors in countries like China, Russia or Iran, and the affair has led to questions being asked in parliament. Certainly the public debate taking place in the Netherlands about freedom of speech for artists, civilians and politicians alike and about security and terrorrism-related issues (and let’s not forget the paranoia) has been refuled for the months to come.
On Thursday, my first screening that did take place was ILLUMINATION, a French film from first-time director Pascale Breton. The film follows Ildut, played by Clet Beyer, a young twenty-something guy who is on the border of sanity and psychosis. Living in a small town on the coast of Normandy, in the north-west of France, he works as a fisherman and lives with his parents. He seems to have no goal in life, and spends his days coping with his mental state. All this changes when he meets Christine, a local girl who volunteers helping Ildut’s grandmother. He falls for her, and decides this is a reason to try and become sane, and normal. This leads him on a journey past doctors, a new-age guru with some bizarre advice, and a party with Christine and her friends. While the end remains somewhat open and ambiguous, one lesson Breton wants to give us is that ‘rock and roll and love can save the world’, as she told the audience in a Q&A after the screening. While Christine is the catalyst for his journey, Ildut remains the centerpiece, and probably the best ingredient, of the movie. So no romantic suspense, but a French neo-realist slow study of a character trying to improve himself. The landscape plays a part in the film, as a backdrop for Ildut’s state of mind, and is filmed nicely in 35mm.
Next film was DETOUR, a film-noir by “the thinking man’s Ed Wood” Edward G. Ulmer (1934’s THE BLACK CAT) from 1945, playing in the Cinema Regained program. It took a little trouble getting the screening going, since the antiquated copy of the film required a different lens which didn’t fit the projector. After a few out-of-focus attempts they finally got it right, although the solution used resulted in a cropped 1:1.85 version of the Acadamy format print. The story is told in flash-back with voice-over by a coasting-the-bottom type character named Al Roberts, a great role by Tom Neal. At the beginng of the story he is a barpianist from New York with a sweetheart in Los Angeles, trying to make it as an actress. Having little money, he decides to hitch-hike his way across the US to be with her and get married. When one of his rides dies accidentally his trouble begins. He is forced to hide the body and take the car, as he would most certainly be arrested for murder if he was found. He poses as Charles Haskell, the dead man, but his troubles only get worse when he picks up hitchhiking femme fatale Vera. The movie is low-budget, was shot in six days but still plays perfect as a film-noir. It has a great story, simple yet surprising, good music and some great noir-dialogues: “I was a healthy young man. She was a healthy young girl. You put the two of ‘em together, you get a healthy relationship.” Great to watch, and the kind of unexpected film that helps make this festival great.
Friday started with me oversleeping and missing LES REVENANTS, a french film about what the hell you’re gonna do when the dead start walking the earth. Never mind the eating and horror, but what the hell are you actually gonna do with all these people? Where are they gonna live? Do you give them a job? Who’s going to pay for it?
I did get to see SURVIVE STYLE 5+, which was already reviewed on your site. While it certainly isn’t a “great movie” it is most undeniably hilarious and highly entertaining. Greatly stylised and with the appropriate amount of tongue-in-cheek humour, violence and a great cameo role by Vinnie Jones it is a fast, loud and over-the-top sugar-rush without which Rotterdam just wouldn’t be Rotterdam…
Next was THE MASTER SPEARMAN, a Japanese classic by director Uchida Tomu from 1960, also in the Cinema Regained program. A beautiful film about a samurai who is forced to perform a ritual suicide to save his clans honour, but is forbidden to do so by the emperor. He abandons his samurai life in shame, and tries to build a happy life with a kabuki actress, untill the politics of the country catch up to him. The film is great to watch for the depiction of 16th century Japanese feudal culture.
From Germany comes the film EGOSHOOTER a somewhat experimental video-diary style movie about a nineteen year old boy from Köln. He films himself, his sister and her boyfriend and his friends. We follow him and his doubts about himself, other people, discovering sexuality and all the things adolescents from his environment do. He is not a bad person in any way, but doesn’t seem to be especially likeable either. Which could be said for the film as well. Not terrible as such, but certainly not great or even very good either. The film was made by two young directors, one of whom produces real-life video-diaries for German television, handing out cameras to teenagers and editing the material into 45-minute programs. The movie expands on that, and has apart from footage shot by Jakob himself also material shot by an ‘invisible’ camera, operated by one of the directors. Unfortunately these scenes don’t really add anything to the movie, except that it shows events that weren’t filmed by Jakob himself. And this seems to make the movie ultimately quite pointless. Formally it’s not a video-diary, which might have been interesting to construct as a fictional narrative, and as a fictional film about young people, or young people and their video-diaries, or about video-diaries it also fails since the movie is really nothing more that fragments from Jakob his life. The audience was quite critical and asked a few questions about these matters to the filmmakers, but they didn’t seem to have great answers at their disposal. In the end, maybe it would have been more interesting if the filmmakers had searched for an interesting real-life Jakob, given him a camera and edited that material into a feature-length film or documentary.
The last film of Friday was FORGIVENESS, a South-African drama by Ian Gabriel about the country after Apartheid, and the Truth Commision hearings. The story is about white ex-police officer Coetzee, played by Arnold ‘The Mummy’ Vosloo, who was given amnesty by the commision for his role in the death of a young black freedom-fighter. He looks up the surviving family, searching for forgiveness. The daughter of the family immediately calls up old friends of her brother, who head out their way for revenge. As they slowly get closer, the family has to deal with facing a free and seemingly changed Coetzee and their grief, and Coetzee has to face a life where has received amnesty from the law, but not for his guilt. The movie is about the unique and sometimes bizarre situation in South-Africa, where the Truth Commision, headed by Bishop Desmond Tutu, has given amnesty to many former members and participants of the former Apartheids-regime, not in an attempt to forget, but to put the past and it’s difficulties behind them and face the future with a positive outlook. The film is somewhat ambiguous in it’s ending and it’s apparent view of the situation, but is still nice and interesting to look at. While the acting isn’t exceptional, and especially Vosloo’s character gets little depth and diversity in expression (he walks around the entire time with a certain ‘stunned guilt’ look) in general the cast as an ensemble works well. Too bad about the soundtrack, which wasn’t of great technical quality.
Well, that’s six out of thirty films on my list… I’m still looking forward to EL CIELO GIRA, SPYING CAM, MYSTERIOUS SKIN, ABSOLUT, SIXTY-NINE, 3EXTREMES, VITAL and a whole bunch of other titels that mean absolutely nothing to me at the present but are certain to surprise and entertain me in the coming week…
greetings,
dapascha
Excellent work, man. Thanks for contributing, and we’ll look forward to more!
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