Finally, after having been postponed endlessly, the horror masterpiece It Follows, written and directed by David Gordon Michell, has been released locally. It was screened at Berlin and the Critics’ Week in Cannes to rave reviews, many Argentines saw it at last year’s Mar del Plata Film Festival, where all three screenings were sold out. The same thing happened at this year’s BAFICI. And it makes sense: It Follows is the best horror film in over a decade. It is, in fact, as many claim, the cinematic proof that there’s still hope within a genre that surely knew better times. To describe It Follows, it’s best to first say what it is not about. It’s not about gushes of blood, torn flesh, graphic violence or gore of any kind. Forget all that. However, there’s something equally frightening lurking around the corner and ready to sneak up on you any minute. It’s a film that’s disturbing rather than horrifying, creepy rather than shocking. Suspense prevails although surprise is to be found too. In short: there’s little to be seen, but much to be felt. The initial premise is quite simple: girl meets guy, they date for a short time and then have sex. She falls asleep, only to wake up later and find herself tied up to a wheelchair. And the guy explains he’s passed on to her an entity through sex. That is, an entity which will follow her everywhere until it kills her — for no reason. The only way to stop is to pass it to somebody else, like he’s done with her. And even that may not always work. And if it catches you and kills you, then it will go back to the person who passed it to you. It Follows is set in Detroit, first in the once idyllic suburbia which is still somewhat economically prosperous yet emotionally moribund, and then in the lower class, crumbling downtown areas of the city which long ago were thriving with business. Crossing the border that divides these two zones may prove to be dangerous — the guy who passed the entity to Jay (Maika Monroe), the film’s protagonist, comes from an impoverished area, a place he was ashamed of. And just like he’s ashamed, Jay is disappointed with her teenage years and perhaps melancholic about her future too. What has gone wrong in the American Dream to result in such an infection? Like in many recent horror films such as Contracted (Eric England, 2013), venereal-disease allegory provides much of the film’s subtext. As I watched the paranoia and desperation Jay endures throughout the entire movie, I couldn’t stop thinking of the way things were during the first stages of the AIDS epidemic. Who infected you? Who might infect you? Who might you infect? Worst of all: is there a way not to die? Talk about dreams of a happy and healthy sexuality shattered to pieces. In the same way, the sort of nurturing sentimental liaison Jay longs for seems to be hard to find — or perhaps she’s looking for a connection with the wrong guy and so fails to let the right one in. It Follows is also an unusual love story between two people who have to go through too much until they acknowledge they are right for one another. A film that excels at achieving a disturbing mix of realism and supernatural so it plays both as a drama and a horror movie. And while the run-down sectors of Detroit suggest the drama takes place today, the suburbia is anchored in an indefinite time with diverse icons from the 1950’s to the 1980’s — retro is alive and well here. And from the horror cinema masters — John Carpenter heading the list — David Gordon Mitchell suitably takes more than a few cues and gives new meaning to them in a different context. Take the faultless use of the widescreen to find the follower, the menacing electronic sound design that conveys unspeakable dread, the smooth dolly shots and long takes that capture the characters’ movements in real time, but also the brisk, precise editing that makes a great use of off-screen space as well. Because that’s what stunning cinematography is all about — forgetting unnecessary visual gimmicks or flashy tricks. The streets with neat houses and rows of trees that are also the scenario of Wes Craven’s superb Nightmare On Elm Street (1981) and other Carpenter films are to be found here once again — only this time there’s an overall ambiance of agonizing splendour. The entity that follows you can take any possible shape, including that of a loved one so that you won’t be even recognize it at first sight — enter The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. One more thing: those who expect an explanation about why the entity exists, what it is and why it attacks these teens in suburbia, will be disappointed. But those fond of unexplained horror, whose nature is hinted at, and who care more for subtext and symbolic readings, will be rewarded and mesmerized by the film’s artistry. It follows is the kind of horror film that asks you to go with the flow and imagine yourself as another victim of whatever it is that follows you at all times. You can run, but you can’t hide. Production notes: It Follows (US, 2014) Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell. With Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto, Jake Weary, Olivia Luccardi, Lili Sepe. Cinematography: Michael Gioulakis. Editing: Julio C. Perez IV. Running time: 107 minutes.
Remember Agnes Varda's Vagabond? That 1985 French drama, one of Varda's best, told the story of a woman about whom little or nothing could be known. With a documentary edge to it, Varda built a series of flashbacks to some given days in the last months of a vagabond girl. Although many people spoke to the young woman, gave her food, drink and cigarettes, sheltered her and even had sex with her, truth is none of them could say they actually knew her. The young woman in question was played by Sandrine Bonnaire, who delivered a striking performance. You can surely say that an equally striking performance is that of seasoned Argentine thespian Verónica Llinás in La mujer de los perros, directed by herself and Laura Citarella, and a proud winner of the Best Actress Award at this year's BAFICI's international competition. Like Bonnaire, Llinás also draws a very convincing portrayal of a vagabond with a hermetic personality. The vagabond shows no feelings whatsoever, follows an erratic routine in her everyday life and goes here and there with a bunch of dogs as her sole company. Unlike Varda's character, the vagabond dog lady in Llinás’ and Citarella’s film doesn't utter a single word throughout the entire movie. But Llinás doesn’t need words to flesh up such an unusual character for she’s an accomplished actress who has mastered the art of facial expression and body language. Even if you don’t have any way to actually know what her character is thinking or planning to do, you still have a very concrete feeling that something is going on both in her head and in her soul. Vagabond and La mujer de los perros have different queries in mind and inhabit different worlds, but they certainly share certain existential concerns and a desire to transcend their nominal stories. The problem with the Argentine feature is that it lacks the constant pathos and profundity of the French one. There's no doubt that La mujer de los perros is technically well-crafted and its tone is appropriately meditative, but for the most part it’s merely descriptive without being insightful. It shows lots of things, but it doesn’t say much about them. It may be argued that the directors wanted viewers to simply observe and reflect on the path the dog lady walks along but, even so, the near total absence of significant drama — other than what you see at first sight — turns Llinás’ and Citarella’s film into a somewhat tedious exercise in style. Granted, there are some special moments with a weight of their own, but for the most part La mujer de los perros is a quasi-mechanic film that doesn't prompt much analysis and feels too aloof to elicit an emotional response. It wouldn't be surprising to see that, after scratching the surface, there's not that much to be found. Production notes: La mujer de los perros (Dog Lady). Directed by Laura Citarella, Verónica Llinás. With Verónica Llinás, Juliana Muras, Germán de Silva, Juana Zalazar. Original story: Verónica and Mariano Llinás. Cinematography: Soledad Rodriguez. Art direction: Laura and Florencia Caligiuri. Costumes: Carolina Sosa Loyola. Editing: Ignacio Masllorens. Sound: Marcos Canosa. Music: Juana Molina. Produced by El Pampero Cine. Running time: 98 minutes. Limited release: Sala Lugones Teatro San Martín, from Thursday 3 to Wednesday 9 at 230pm, 5pm, 7.30pm and 10pm.
Hollywood glamorizes saga of Chilean miners in sanitized version which doesn’t ring true On August 5, 2010, the San José copper-gold mine partly collapsed in Chile’s northern Atacama Desert and left 33 miners trapped 700 metres underground for 69 days. For a story that captivated the whole world, the Hollywood film didn’t bother with real flesh-and-blood characters here. What you have, instead, are heroic figures who only occasionally weaken; families and relatives who are nothing but sketchy figures with no personal traits of any kind; and one-dimensional public officials who have incredible willpower and strength. Several unsuccessful rescue efforts followed until on the 17th day rescuers found a note attached on a drill head that had reached the depths of the mine, which read: “The 33 of us in the shelter are well”. So the Chilean administration implemented a US$20-million large scale plan which included international drilling rig teams and the know-how of NASA to rescue the miners. After 69 days, the 33 men were brought to the surface safely on 13 October 2010 with a TV and internet audience of over one billion viewers worldwide. Those were the facts the world learned about then. But then other facts stained such a triumph. For starters, a further investigation into the Copiapó mining accident said that the owners of the obsolete mine shouldn’t be criminally charged, and so Alejandro Bohn and Marcelo Kemeny were never put on trial. Needless to say, that ruling met public criticism. “Most mine owners are afraid to hire us because they think that if there’s ever a problem everyone will immediately find out about it since we get a lot press. We’re well known,” Omar Reygadas, one one of the 33 miners, told reporters. Of course they are well known. They were the stuff media operations are made of back then and now they are the protagonists of Los 33 (The 33), a movie version of their story, or better said a romanticized Hollywood tale directed by Mexican Patricia Riggen and starring Antonio Banderas, Juliette Binoche, Gabriel Byrne, Rodrigo Santoro and James Brolin. And Los 33 also comes with its own share of controversy. Because while still trapped in the mine, the 33 miners had collectively signed a contract with Héctor Tobar, a Pulitzer Prize winning writer at the Los Angeles Times, to write an authorized version of their story. That, and the movie. But according to miner Víctor Zamora, they were cheated because the lawyers pressed them to sign the contracts to waive the rights to their story to make a movie right after they left the mine while being heavily medicated and not fully aware of what they were agreeing to. Six other miners also said they didn’t understand what the contracts meant. Another case of censorship took place with film critic Leopoldo Muñoz, who on August 6 quit his position as leading film critic of the daily Las Últimas Noticias because his editors published his film review of Los 33 with his by line, but also with changes he was unaware of. According to Muñoz, Los 33 is a propaganda vehicle connected with former president Sebastián Piñera, and he also stressed the role of the main local producer of the film, businessman Carlos Eugenio Lavín, who’s currently accused of having illegally financed the candidacies of several politicians during the last presidential elections in Chile. So there you have a nice social and political backdrop. Of course, the movie only comprises the story of the mining accident and nothing but. As such, it basically tells three stories at once: that of the miners trapped in the mine, that of their loved ones in the makeshift camp by the mine, and that of the public officials in charge of the rescue. Most of the screen time goes to the miners, then to the rescuers, and last to the families. And all three stories run into the same huge, unsolvable problems. Not a single character is developed in a realistic vein, not a single line of dialogue comes across as something you’d hear out of any of these individual’s lips in this angst-ridden context, and not a single performance feels real. So you have an obstacle twice the size of the megatonne boulder beneath which the miners are buried alive — which, in turn, is twice the size of the Empire State Building. Los 33 was shot in real working mines in Colombia and Chile, and you’d think that being trapped in a mine would make you feel claustrophobic, but that doesn’t happen here either. It’s as if you were inside any somewhat small space, but not particularly trapped, not particularly fearful, and definitely not particularly dangerous. Come to think of it, maybe the idea was not to make viewers feel fear, which would explain the meaning of the moronic scene of the last supper where the miners imagine their loved ones coming with fresh meals to comfort them. Maybe viewers are not meant to be anguished. It’s very clear that, in stark contrast with reality, Los 33 is a naïve, romanticized Hollywood version of a traumatic event that on the big screen is simplified and sanitized. It’s very clear too that there’s a notion of a country to be hammered into viewers’ heads: Chile as a brave warrior that won’t succumb to any tragedy, an administration that will do the right thing, and miners who will be free and happy at last — as the images of the smiling real life miners in the ending intend to prove. That would explain the abuse of the incidental music, the vignettes of the campers who never give up hope — a relative at the camp Esperanza (Hope) singing Gracias a la vida, que me ha dado tanto (I give thanks to life, which has given me so much), seems a bit of an excess, the miners who may at times confront one another but soon enough are the best of friends again, the lack of genuine dramatic situations, of pain, of a feeling of impending doom. And, of course, there are also the clichés of what Latin Americans are like, but don’t get me started on that. You’d expect all of this coming from Hollywood. But you’d expect in the shape of a great epic, a monumental ordeal, a tale of huge proportions, if you will. With splendour, out-of-this-world visual effects, a majestic and larger than life mise-en-scene. It has none of that. Los 33 doesn’t even get close to be a great Hollywood epic. And it’s certainly not a realistic drama. It rings too false. Production notes Los 33 (Chile/US, 2015). Directed by Patricia Riggen. Based on the novel Deep Down Dark, by Héctor Tobar. Written by Mikko Alanne, Michael Thomas, Craig Borten, José Rivera. With Antonio Banderas, Juliette Binoche, Gabriel Byrne, Rodrigo Santoro, James Brolin, Bob Gunton. Cinematography: Checco Varese. Editing: Michael Tronick. Running time: 122 minutes.
Oscar-nominated feature shows honest take on the conflict from the weaker side Like his previous film, the award-winning Paradise Now (2006), Hany Abu-Assad’s riveting new work Omar is about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It takes place in the West Bank but, unlike most films dealing with this never-ending conflict, Omar is a powerful thriller, a tragic love story about a Palestinian militant caught by the Israelis and suspected by his own people of being a collaborator. Like Paradise Now, the tale of two childhood friends recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, Omar was also nominated for an Oscar in the Foreign Language category in 2013. This time the story focuses on three friends who are militants affiliated with the Aksa Martyrs Brigades. Each of them comes across as an archetype of a different facet of war. There’s Tarek, (Eyad Hourani) the leader who starts the war, then there’s Omar, the soldier who fights the war, and finally there’s Amjad (Samer Bisharat), the opportunist who profits from the war. In a sense, you could say that these three characters represent the three factors in almost all types of war. And for many reasons, Omar, the film, is bigger than the conflict itself for it transcends its matter-of-fact aspects and instead goes for a more existential approach. Omar and Amjad are both in love with Tarek’s sister Nadia (Leem Lubany), but neither of them will propose until the time is right, meaning after the proper courtship comes to an end. In the meantime, Omar and Nadia spend as much time together as possible. One night, the three friends conduct a sniper attack on an Israeli military outpost and kill an Israeli soldier. Soon after, Omar is arrested and imprisoned, and Rami (Waleed Zuaiter), the Israeli officer handling his case, tricks him into an admission of guilt. So now Omar faces a very difficult choice: he can become a snitch and rat out his friends or otherwise he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison. Therefore, he tells Rami that he will collaborate, but deep down he knows he won’t. He will just pretend he is a traitor. Yet once he’s set free, and thanks to a series of Israeli interventions, all his friends and neighbours believe he really is a collaborator. Omar is as much a terrific thriller as a doomed love story. It’s briskly edited and keeps a rapid pace when necessary — the foot chases across the narrow streets of the urban West Bank are superbly shot — and it goes for a more leisured, reflexive mood when it’s the love story that prevails. It’s a film than can be poetic in its depiction of love blossoming and at the same time quite crude in its portrayal of the brutalities of the Israeli occupation. Likewise, the maddening state of mind of the Palestinians takes it toll: in this vicious war, all parties see their dreams vanish and their lives cut off short. And then there are the treasons, the mistrust, the paranoia. All deeply ingrained in the everyday life of Palestinians. Many viewers could be tempted to say that Omar is a biased take on the conflict, but I don’t think so. Instead, I’d say it’s an honest and daring take on how the conflict is lived and suffered on the other side, the less powerful one. It’s a matter of point of view, not of who the guilty party is. Above all, you could say that Omar is a character study of an individual at the end of his rope, also a metaphor for an entire population that doesn’t have many choices to stay alive. And talking about metaphors, compare the way Omar climbs up quite a tall wall at the very beginning and how the same wall proves to be too tall at the very end, when he’s already running on empty. Production notes: Omar (Palestine, 2013). Written and directed by Hany Abu-Assad. With Adam Bakri, Leem Lubany, Mr. Zuaiter, Samer Bisharat, Eyad Hourani. Cinematography: Ehab Assal. Editing: Martin Brinkler, Eyas Salman. Running time: 98 minutes.
I have this inkling that She’s Funny That Way may not get the attention it deserves. To many, it may feel like an early Woody Allen film, when he was at his best, which should actually draw viewers into the movie theatres. But then again, too many people have seen too many Woody Allen films and may feel they’ve had enough. On the other hand, for fans of Hollywood screwball comedies, this one will surely remind them of good old classics by Ernst Lubitsch — think Cluny Brown and you’ll get part of the picture. Featured in Venice last year, She’s Funny That Way is a fine romantic charade that marks the return of comedy master Peter Bogdanovich after a 13-year hiatus. It’s produced by no less than Wes Anderson and Noah Bumbach, and has a cameo appearance by Quentin Tarantino. So, you see, it really is the kind of film that deserves all the attention it can get — even if it’s not nearly perfect and it doesn’t rank among Bogdanovich’s best. The story goes pretty much like this: Arnold Albertson (Owen Wilson) is a Los Angeles-based theatre director who’s staging a new play, A Grecian Evening, which stars his actress wife Delta (Kathryn Hahn) and her ex-lover and now famous star Seth (Rhys Ifans), and is written by Josh (Will Forte), a mellow and nice fellow. Incidentally, Arnold goes by “Derek” when having extramarital affairs, such as when he meets Isabella (Imogen Poots), a gold-hearted Brooklyn call girl whom Arnold gives US$ 30,000 the night he meets her so she can start a new life as an actress. See, he gets his own personal high every time he does this with different girls ever since … who knows? Unaware of the identity of the director, Isabella auditions for A Grecian Evening, much to Arnold’s surprise. And what do you know? Josh falls for her almost instantly. Now you have a situation going here — remember Arnold’s wife is watching the audition as well. And there’s more: Jane (Jennifer Aniston), is a psychopathic therapist and Josh’s girlfriend, old Judge Pendergast (Austin Pendleton) is a patient of Jane’s who’s obsessed with Isabella (he used to be a regular client of hers), and there’s also an old detective (George Morfogen), who’s hired by Judge Pendergast to follow Isabella everywhere, and who also happens to be Josh’s dad. Nice web of desire, isn’t it? So now you have everything you need for mayhem to explode in every single way. With snappy and witty one-liners, perfectly tuned physical comedy, and nervous rhythm, She’s Funny That Way advances in a precise and cohesive manner. Bogdanovich shows, once again, how gifted he is at coaching his actors who, despite shortcomings in the script — for instance, there’s not much of a development of their personalities other than what the stereotypes mandate — do wonders to give nuances to their characters. In this regard, kudos to Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, and Austin Pendleton are in order. In fact, this is probably Aniston’s best comic role and performance ever since… Friends? As for Wilson, well he’ll surely remind you of his character in Midnight in Paris, which is not necessarily a bad thing considering how effective his performance was in that Allen film. You could also argue that in comedy terms there’s much of a build-up and perhaps not enough of a pay off. And it may be true. You have an addition of funny and very funny circumstances and situations that in the end never get to have a grand climax — the final rehearsal where everybody is gathered is meant to be it, but it doesn’t function quite that well as doesn’t feel that fresh and surprising. Then again, considering the shape of today’s contemporary comedy, She’s Funny That Way is more than a decent throwback to the golden days. It’s honestly amusing. That calls for some kind of celebration. Production notes She’s Funny That Way (US, 2014). Directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Written by Peter Bogdanovich, Louise Stratten. With Imogen Poots, Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, Will Forte, Illeana Douglas, Austin Pendleton, Quentin Tarantino. Cinematography: Yaron Orbach. Editing: Nick Moore, Pax Wasserman. Running time: 93 minutes.
First of all, forget Pennywise, the world-famous scary clown from Stephen King’s It, as portrayed in Tommy Lee Wallace’ miniseries of the same name. Then forget the demented clowns from Victor Salva’s legendary Clownhouse. And Stephen Chiodo’s campy Killer Clowns from Outer Space as well. Not to mention the tragic comic clown from Conor McMahon’s Stitches. Let alone the sinister clown from American Horror Story Freakshow. Because in Jon Watts’ clown slasher, inventively titled no less than … Clown, you won’t find any of the horror, fear, and fun of the above. To be fair, there’s nothing wrong with the title. And neither with the premise: a caring father (Andy Powers) jumps into a clown suit for his son’s birthday party only to later find out that this suit does not come off — it fuses with his skin and his hair, and then a cannibal demon with a penchant for kids begins to possess him. The problem, or better said the problems, are in the development of the premise. And we’re talking about huge problems, starting with the film’s tone. It begins as a nightmarish descent into the realm of the absurd, as the father tries to take off the suit by all means and fails pitifully. So you have to wonder: is it a comedy? Is it a tragedy? Is it a tragic comedy? The film is very indecisive about it, so it’s played both ways but misses the mark almost always. It’s not funny when it’s meant to, it’s just dumb. It’s not tragic when it should be, it’s just pathetic. Then, after a very long while, I’d say 45 minutes into the film, the “real horror” begins — so to speak. Clown is presented and produced by Eli Roth, who also plays the demonic clown and who, in my book, only deserves some credit for Hostel I and Hostel II, so you would expect the horror to come with plenty of gore and splatter. Or, at least, with some really shocking scenes. Forget all about it. The jump scares are formulaic and lame, the kills are very unimpressive, the gore is risible, and graphic imagery is basically child’s play. Clown is rated R, but it’s definitely a mild PG-13. By the way, the performances range from poor to mediocre, and so do the camerawork, the cinematography, the editing and the sound design. There’s no sense of aesthetics, or at least, an effective mise-en-scene. And to think the premise held a good deal of potential. So in the end you have a clown that won’t make you laugh, won’t terrify you and won’t seduce. What kind of a clown is it? A stupid clown you can forget all about, if you ask me. Production notes Clown (US/Canada, 2014). Directed by Jon Watts. Written by Christopher D. Ford, John Watts. With Eli Roth, Peter Stormare, Laura Allen, Andy Powers, Christian Distefano. Cinematography: Matthew Santo. Editing: Robert Ryang. Running time: 100 minutes.
People stuck in the rat race provide realistic show of humanity’s standoff with itself Paolo Virzi’s Il capitale umano (The Human Capital) was Italy’s entry for Best Foreign Film last year and also the winner of seven David di Donatello awards, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay — among other prizes in several festivals. And whereas it’s not a groundbreaking feature in aesthetic or narrative terms by any means, it’s equally true that it manages to tell a compelling story in a very effective manner, with no missteps and a handful of good performances. Adapted from US writer Stephen Amidon’s novel Human Capital, Il capitale umano tells the story of two very different families — one rich one and one middle-class — whose destinies are dramatically intertwined after a cyclist is hit off the road by a person driving a SUV the night before Christmas. Divided into three chapters plus a round-up epilogue, the film tells three stories from different point of views, all of them with the hit-and-run as a common element. In the first chapter, we meet Dino Ossola (Fabrizio Bentivoglio), a middle-aged real estate agent married to Roberta (Valeria Golino), a psychologist who works in public institutions. Dino’s daughter Serena (Matilde Gioli) is in a relationship with Massimiliano Bernaschi (Guglielmo Pinelli), a well-to-do young man whose father, Giovanni Bernaschi (Fabrizio Gifuni), is a dubious business man into hedge funds. Seeking to make easy money, Dino invests some 700,000 euros loaned from a bank plus his own savings in a hedge fund. But in the times of an unstable economy, pipe dreams can only be pipe dreams. And Dino is about to find that out sooner rather than later. The second chapter follows Carla Bernaschi (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), Giovanni’s wife, whose going through some sort of crisis as she finds nothing that can make her feel useful and alive. That is until she’s given the chance to renovate an old theatre (many years ago, she was a passionate amateur actress) and so it seems her life will now take a new turn. Yet, pipe dreams are nothing but pipe dreams. And the third chapter concerns Serena and her crush on Luca Ambrosini (Giovanni Anzaldo), a young man with a notorious criminal record who nonetheless deep down seems to be a kind, caring person. But Serena is already in a relationship with Massimiliano, so what is she to do now? It’s best not to disclose how each story will unfold, or how the three are more specifically connected, since the script asks viewers to connect the dots on their own. That’s where the intrigue of this whodunit lies in, even when Il capitale umano is not just a thriller. It does take on quite a few of the conventions of a thriller, but it does so in order to speak about something else, something far more profound and unsettling. I’d say that above Paolo Virzi’s feature is a fierce indictment of the wickedness of rampant capitalism and how the human factor is always put in a second, third, or fourth place. A large fortune can turn a man into a cynic, but what’s even worse is that it can make him become indifferent to the pain of others. Wealth and justice — or the deliberate absence of it — can surely be the best of friends, especially as the financial realm often hides an illegal circle where money makes the world go round, and even if sooner or later someone is bound to bite the dust, the prevailing idea still is to keep moving as much as possible. That’s where Il capitale humano stands out: in portraying how people, their feelings and their moral values can be irreparably destroyed because of wanting and needing to be the first in the rat race. It’s not a pretty sight, but it certainly is a realistic one. Production notes Il capitale umano/ Human Capital (Italy, 2014). Written by Paolo Virzì, Francesco Bruni, Francesco Piccolo. With: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Valeria Golino, Fabrizio Gifuni, Luigi Lo Cascio, Giovanni Anzaldo, Matilde Gioli. Cinematography: Jérôme Alméras, Simon Beaufils. Editing: Cecilia Zanuso. Running time: 109 minutes.
El clan, one of the most anticipated Argentine releases of the year, is a study in vileness One of the most anticipated local releases of the year, El Clan is based on the story of the Puccios, a peculiar family that may surely have a next-door feel while harbouring unspeakable secrets of the sinister kind. And that’s an understatement. The film is proudly running in the official competition of the upcoming Venice Film Festival, alongside the new films by Marco Bellochio, Atom Egoyan, Alexander Sokurov, and Amos Gitai, among others. Both a layered character study and a precise crime chronicle, El Clan (The Clan) explores the actions of a family of human monsters, set against the background of the last military dictatorship. “El Clan focuses on a nefarious family against the backdrop of a military dictatorship. It’s hell within hell itself. Perfect material for a dark and original thriller,” said Agustín Almodóvar, co-producer with his brother Pedro and their company El deseo — and alongside Argentine companies K&S and La Matanza Cine — of the latest film by renowned filmmaker Pablo Trapero. This well-to-do family from the posh suburbs of San Isidro during the 1980s ran a very lucrative and brutal business. On the one hand, the Puccios were good all Catholics who went to mass on Sunday, won the approval of their friends and neighbours, and lead a seemingly normal life. Alejandro Puccio, the eldest son, was a remarkable rugby player and a handsome charmer. All in all, they were a respected family that everyone held dear. At the same time, the Puccios would kidnap wealthy businessman or their relatives — sometimes even Alejandro’s own friends — hold them in their house for ransom and then murder them instead of letting them go after their ransoms were paid. Talk about duality. This is the first time in 17 years that an Argentine film is featured in the Golden Lion competition — the last one was Fernando “Pino” Solanas’s La nube. It’s not the first time for Trapero, who, back in 1999, presented his debut feature Mundo grúa (Crane World) and won the Critics’ Week Prize. In 2004, his Familia rodante (Rolling Family) was featured in the Orizzonti section. Trapero also sat on the jury in 2012. In a really striking performance filled with nuances, with a masterful command of the subtlest gestures, popular TV, theatre and cinema actor Guillermo Francella plays the lead as patriarch Arquímedes Puccio, an icy man with a hell of a temper, almost completely unaffectionate and very stern. A man who felt neither guilt nor remorse for his crimes and, in fact, not once admitted to having killed any of his victims. This is the type of man who would constantly wash his home’s sidewalk in a seemingly casual manner, but with a hidden agenda: he’d do it to find out if the yelling of the kidnapped victims coming from his house — he would lock them in a bathroom — could in fact be heard by passers-by. And Francella embodies his traits just as well, if not better, as when he played an alcoholic assistant in a police investigation in Juan José Campanella’s Oscar winning film El secreto de sus ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes). Young singer and actor Peter Lanzani makes his film debut as Alejandro, the eldest son of the clan, and delivers a performance that may not be as nuanced as Francella’s but is yet convincing and well-tuned enough to deliver a character with a dark soul, a good looking façade, and a perverse relationship with a heinous father. Although father and son were the actual perpetrators of the crimes, the mother, two daughters and two other brothers were, to some extent, accomplices — just like the retired colonel Rodolfo Victoriano Franco and two other men. First, during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, Arquímedes Puccio was a member of the SIDE, the Triple A, and provided “room and board” for those disappeared by the military. But when the military left the government and democracy returned, Puccio could no longer claim the immunity he had enjoyed before. So he started “working on his own” and targeted his future victims, that is to say, rugby player Ricardo Manoukian, engineer Eduardo Aulet, businessman Emilio Naum, and businesswoman Nélida Bollini de Prado. The woman was the only survivor. El Clan accomplishes several things at once. First, it’s an accurate metaphor for the evil of those obscure years, with one family and their demons closely connected to those of the infamous military dictatorship. Just like the Puccios held their victims in a bathroom and passers-by didn’t know what was going on — or at least pretended they didn’t, or most likely both — the military held illegally detained prisoners in clandestine centres and society at large didn’t know what was going on — or didn’t want to know, or most likely both. In many ways, it’s impossible to think of the Puccios without thinking of the military dictatorship. Secondly, Trapero casts a very comprehensive gaze upon the duality of this family. It would have been very easy to portray them as out-of-these-world monsters, but it wouldn’t have been true. The nature of the Puccios was far more complex that what could be seen at first sight, and the switching between their family life and their criminal one is meticulously expressed in seemingly minor signs. You have to remember that the evil is in the details. And thirdly, while El Clan is a solid thriller, you can also see it as a horror feature, one where the monster lurks behind a familiar and friendly façade. A study in what sinister is all about, if you will. El Clan (Argentina, 2015). Written and directed by Pablo Trapero. With Guillermo Francella, Peter Lanzani, Lili Popovich, Gastón Cocchiarale, Franco Masini, Giselle Motta. Cinematography: Julián Apezteguía. Editing: Pablo Trapero, Alejandro Carrillo Penovi (SAE). Running time: 108 minutes.
A true gem of filmmaking, My Mother shows a profoundly touching study of love and loss Back in 2001, Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti released La stanza del figlio / The Son’s Room, the devastating story of a psychoanalyst and his family undergoing deep emotional trauma as a result of their teenage son dying in a scuba diving accident. It deservedly won the Palme d’or at Cannes and it surely is one of the best films of Morettti’s career. Now, 14 years later, his new film Mia madre (My Mother), also a deep study of grief and loss, proves to be another most accomplished feature, as good as La stanza del figlio. It is one of those films that can restore your faith in contemporary cinema, which more often than not is flooded by formulaic features with neither much insight nor enough aesthetic merits. Mia madre tells the story of Margherita (Margherita Buy) a female director facing several crises at once: Barry Huggins (John Turturro), the American lead actor of the film she’s making, is friendly and cares about the project, yet he keeps forgetting his lines and can’t stop talking about the time he worked for Stanley Kubrick (which, by the way, doesn’t seem to be true). Let alone the episodes where he loses his temper and threatens to abandon the film despite how important it is for him. Then there are the usual problems parents have when raising teenage children, in this case a girl who would rather avoid talking to her mother about the issues that ail her — among them having fallen in love with a classmate who doesn’t love her back. But what matters the most, what is at the core of Margherita’s tribulations, is the forthcoming death of her mother, an old woman facing very difficult health problems. At first, Margherita chooses to ignore the harsh reality, hoping that her mother would leave the hospital to come back home. But as the events unfold, her brother Giovanni (Nanni Moretti) makes sure she understands the full panorama and does his best to make it easier and as painless as possible for everybody, including the daughter who’s terribly sad about her grandmother’s condition. Unlike so many other films dealing with the loss of a loved one, and just like La stanza del figlio, Mia madre doesn’t go for shock value or melodrama. On the contrary: it downplays the drama and delicately examines it in all its complexity. Which is not to say it’s not an emotional feature, but one where sentiments and feelings are elicited in a reflexive manner with no blows below the belt. It’s very, very hard to convey the many stages people go through when death surrounds them, but Moretti has a restrained sensibility that makes everything feel authentic and familiar. With a balanced mix of sadness and pain, but also with some detachment when necessary, Mia madre asks viewers to accompany the characters on their path rather than merely bear witness to their drama. Likewise, with commendable simplicity, the depiction of the events results in a strong emotional impact and assured audience involvement. In addition, all the performances deliver beautifully nuanced characters. As an example, in the hands of less talented filmmakers, the US actor played by Turturro might have been a boring stereotype. But here, he is an off-beat individual with a singular personality that often gives way for comic relief. There are some particular scenes — such as the one where Margherita almost breaks and starts confessing her pains to Barry in the middle of the shoot — that may be a bit self-explanatory and yet they are likely to still move you to tears. There’s something marvellously elusive about how Moretti can tackle a large part of what happens and how it happens when you are about to lose someone you love. Production notes Mia madre (Italy, France, Germany, 2015). Directed by Nanni Moretti. Written by Nanni Moretti, Francesco Piccolo, Valia Santella. With Margherita Buy, John Turturro, Giulia Lazzarini, Nanni Moretti, Beatrice Mancini, Stefano Abbati, Enrico Ianniello, Anna Bellato. Cinematography: Arnaldo Catinari. Editing: Clelio Benevento. Running time: 102 minutes.
“Bearing in mind the chaos theory and its butterfly effect, which means that the flapping of the wings of a butterfly could generate chaos on the other side of the planet, I thought of making a film where I would tell two versions of the same story. In this case, how a woman who’s about to abandon her daughter could change her mind,” Argentine filmmaker Marco Berger says about his latest feature. Mariposa (Butterfly) is the name of the film, and at its very beginning we see a woman abandon her daughter in the forest. Then, in the following scene and because she is distracted by a butterfly, she decides not to abandon her child. This way, the woman’s daughter, Romina (Ailín Salas) sees her universe divided into two parallel and simultaneous realities. In the first one, after being abandoned by her biological mother, Romina is raised by a loving family with a young man, Germán (Javier De Pietro) as her brother. Here fate determines that the two youngsters will build a relationship of love with a strong dose of forbidden sexual desire. In the alternate reality, Romina and German get to know each other as friends and develop an uncommon friendship instead of becoming romantically involved. In these two worlds — one in the realm of comedy and the other in that of drama — new relationships will be formed as other players enter the arena with their own sexual desires, which will result in homoerotic bonds as well as heterosexual ones. Considering this multilayered scenario, it’s easy to see why Mariposa can be engaging almost instantly. The script is well written and detailed, it deftly deals with both worlds, has a right balance between naturalism and fantastique, and is executed quite meticulously. And as it plays out, Berger’s camera closely follows the characters and by focusing on details and small gestures, both in the dialogue and body language, characters are gradually developed and efficiently rendered thanks to correct performances. But only to a certain extent. Because after the maze-like script is unveiled and you pretty much know how upcoming events will unfold, you may feel that most of the film’s appeal starts to vanish. The script is smart,granted, and yet the characters lack substance. They act and react according to the script’s requirements, but they also often come across as chess pieces that follow a pattern dictated by a player’s given logic. It’s hard to picture them as real individuals affected and transformed by their conflicts. It’s hard to relate to them for they are narrative devices more than anything else. Therefore, Mariposa is what you may call an exercise in style, and certainly not a feature with flesh and blood. Plus it lacks tension from beginning to end — no matter how well-filmed it is. Production notes Mariposa (Argentina, 2015) Written and directed by Marco Berger. With Ailín Salas, Javier De Pietro, Julián Infantino, Malena Villa, Justo Calabria, Jorge Diez, María Laura Cali. Cinematography: Tomás Pérez Silva, Jerónimo Torres. Editing: Marco Berger. Running time: 97 minutes.