Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with an interesting sounding flick outta Brazil. Like I mention in the headline, it sounds some sort of fucked up mix between MAY (shy girl with no social grace at all) and ONE CRAZY SUMMER (with the bizarro drawings from the main character making little animated segments that usually involve blood... Don't know if there are any bunnies in NINA, though...) Count me curious.
Fair greetings to you, oh fantabulous one...
A brief word from a traveller in far distant Korea...a travelling fool who just popped in to "Pifan", or the 8th Puchon international film festival, an event held in one of the satellite cities of Seoul. Twas a cool and curious time, and I thought I'd share with you my experience of a Brazilian film I caught called "Nina".
The Director's name is Heitor Dhalia, who I am unfamiliar with. The film may or may not have been based on Poe's "The Telltale heart" (didn't see any credit mentioned though - and while the stories do share some similarites, "Nina" is far from a direct adaption. Feh.) and concerns itself concerned the trials of a young woman called, as chance would have it, Nina - a late-twentysomething rave girl (with a strong dash of goth) who seems to brought the angst of her teenage years with her into her mature life, and honed it to a slick and disturbing thing. She rents a room from a despicable old hag of a landlady, barely holds down a job as a waitress, hangs out to the cold whites of dawn at rave dances, grinds with women and guys with smurf tattoos, and obsessively scrawls intense comic-book style scenes on whatever surface happens to be legible. They are her life, her passion...and as things heat up they intrude ever more vividly into her reality as vicious, stylishly animated fantasies.
As might be expected, things start going downhill...Nina has horrendous troubles dealing with other people around her, adjusting...'conforming' if you will...and tends to make trouble for herself...like freaking out at work and walking out of the job, for instance. The prompts the landlady, whose kicks include trapping flies in jars and keenly observing their slow deaths from exhaustion, into beginning a gleefull harrasment campaign against Nina in pursuit of the rent...Nina, already a bit twitchy to begin with, starts to crack...and those bloody, satisfying fantasies draw ever closer to realisation...
I must admit, I connected with the film, though I'll be the first to admit it has some serious flaws. It's an examination of a human being who, for various reasons (some of which are hinted at in the film), finds it nigh impossible to relate to others of her species. She despises them - the sight of a man eating drives her to revulsion. All that matters is her art, and her private fantasy world...which offers precious little defense against the realities of impending hunger. Pros of the film: some fine acting from all quaters -the actress who plays the titular character is wonderful - capturing a character who careens between defiant, vivacious, murderous and sexually explosive, often in the same scene. Mention must also be made of the Old Hag - ah, to find an actress who can portray such a being of such delicious, petty-minded cruelty! SHe looks the part too - all sagging skin, yellow teeth, perpetual sneer and crooked eyes. The film looks great, has some fine animation sequeces (not up to the comparable sequence of Kill Bill, mind you, but they are will designed and creepy...though sparingly used), a lovely melancholic soundtrack (reminded me a bit of the dripping sadness inherent in the Ginger Snaps theme) and well...on a personal level, I could relate to tale. Let us leave it at that.
The cons. The films has a number of scenes that are either very difficult to figure, or seem utterly disconnected with the story. An extended sequence where Nina meets and seduces a blind man, although sexy as hell and very well directed, seems to have no significance in terms of character or plot development (Though a beautiful woman does disrobe...ah, shamefull me!) Later scenes, when reality begins to break down, are not as potent as the first half of the film, based as it was on the gritty experiences of Nina in the harsh city, with it's denizens of druggies and losers. It seems anything can happen in the last half, with visions and delusions becoming indistinguishable from 'real' life...while this depicts the inner life of the character quite nicely, it seems as though the stakes are not so high...perhaps if the visions were stronger (a la the best parts of Jacob's Ladder, or some of Lynch's films)...it's just hard to sympathise with another person! s paranoia, I suppose. I also would have appreciated a better understanding of where Nina came from...although we do have some important flashes from her childhood, the state of her family, how she ended up in this ugly position, and how she began making her art is all left in the air...a pity, as the actress was good enough and the character was strong enough that I wanted more development...perhaps this is a hidden compliment? Hmm.
All said and done, a film that might have benefited from a bit more work in the script, but still delivers strong in terms of acting and atmosphere. And the lead actress is a find...check it out, if you have a chance.
yours sincerely,
Rudolfus the Sage
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