A ten-year-old boy learns to take flight Jojo (Rick Lens) is a sparkling, vivacious 10-year-old boy with a far from easy home life: his father (Loek Peters) is sometimes kind of violent and very moody, and his mother is downright absent, which hurts him very much. It hurts the father too, but he won’t let his feelings surface. One day, Jojo finds a baby jackdaw that fell from his nest. His father won’t let him keep it, he says animals belong out in the open and he doesn’t want Jojo to get attached to it (and here’s a clue regarding the strained family situation). Nonetheless, the kid keeps the jackdaw in strict secrecy, feeds him daily, watches him grow, and also teaches him how to fly. Most important: the bird becomes his closest friend, and in time it may help to bring down the wall that separates father and son. Kauwboy is shot in a naturalistic fashion, but not so much because of its aesthetics (the atmospheric, alluring cinematography is not that realistic but subtly stylized), but rather because of how it captures the everyday moments in Jojo’s life with no sense of spectacle at all. The narrative is well paced, detailed, and meticulous as to give viewers not only an overall view of the scenario, but also of its fragments. So, in this way you get to accompany and empathize with Jojo along his road toward a more satisfying life, and in the meantime you share some special moments. From a formal point of view, the camera, often hand-held, may be the greatest asset along with the photography. It’s not that easy to be so close to a kid and have him perform as naturally as he does here. As for the father, it’s good to see that he’s been depicted as neither a bad guy nor a good one. Basically, he’s a man in pain for the absence of his wife and at odds when trying to relate to his son. However, both Jojo and the father could have been more developed characters, with some shades that would add depth and complexity. For the most part, they move forward the story, but even with its new incidents they don’t acquire new layers. Neither does the film. Some scenes are clichéd and too cute. And while the editing is fine, a stronger dramatic drive would have turned Kauwboy into a gripping film. All in all, it’s enjoyable, affable and it has a somewhat surprising ending that metaphorically says that in order to start over, you first have to bury the past once and for all, and only then get ready for a brighter today. PRODUCTION NOTES Kauwboy (Netherlands, 2012). Directed by Boudewijn Koole. Written by: Jolein Laarman, Boudewijn Koole. With: Rick Lens, Loek Peters, Susan Radder, Cahit Ölmez, Ricky Koole. Music by: Helge Slikker. Cinematography by: Daniël Bouquet. Produced by: Waterland Film & TV / NTR. Running time: 74 minutes.
Before watching Begin Again, I have to admit I was afraid of finding yet another cheaply sentimental film about starting over in your life thanks to the sound of music. I haven’t seen any of John Carney’s films, the poster and the title came across as too generic, and the alternative title, Can a Song Save Your Life?, sounded even worse. But I do find Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, and Catherine Keener to be accomplished and very likable actors. So there was hope. A few minutes into the film, something struck me right away: Begin Again felt like a very honest, true-to-life story narrated with a very balanced tone that alternates comic moments with dramatic ones seamlessly. And the music, which I feared was going to be a gimmick or mere filler, was actually a narrative pillar that moved the story forward and translated the characters’ sentimental and emotional predicaments, their anguish, pleasures and joys in a very emotive, but never corny manner. Perhaps this was only a good beginning, but the story unfolded and it went along the same auspicious road to the very end, including a handful of outstanding scenes. Begin again takes off with a chance encounter between Dan (Mark Ruffalo) a down-and-out music-business executive and Gretta (Keira Knightley) a young singer-songwriter who’s just arrived in Manhattan. He wants to sign her to a studio to make an album, and so be once again a big-time producer. She doesn’t want anybody to mess with her music, let alone remix it or suggest changes. But since they would honestly die for their music, they decide to team up and see what happens. Of course, there are also their love lives: she’s recently had a painful break-up, and he’s been separated for some time now. Yet one way or another, neither of them can let the past go. So it’s actually perfect for both to begin again. At least with music, for the time being. Don’t expect an incredibly intricate story of love, betrayal, love again, more betrayal, success and failure, hits and losses because that’s not how Begin Again is built. In fact, it never goes for big meanings, enlightening messages, Deus ex machina, crucial endings, or melodramatic confrontations. Wisely enough, John Carney opts for a more naturalistic, down-to-earth approach, with the necessary stylization and a welcome layer of romance. Moreover, the performances from the entire cast are both convincing and enticing, even if a bit clichéd when it comes to the producer down on his luck or the successful singer who abandons his girlfriend. Begin Again is a rare film for it has many elements that could have easily turned it into a forgettable product, and instead it is a gentle, delicate and amusing take on how two people, and perhaps those surrounding them, can actually start their lives over provided they just do the right thing. Which is to follow their hearts. Production notes: Begin Again / Can a Song Save Your Life? (USA, 2013). Written and directed by John Carney. With Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, Hailee Steinfeld, Adam Levine, James Corden, CeeLo Green, Catherine Keener, Mos Def. Music: Gregg Alexander. Cinematography: Yaron Orbach. Runnig time: 104 minutes.
Winner of five César Awards feels honest and tender without ever being patronizing Comédie Française member Guillaume Gallienne’s Les garçons et Guillaume, à table! is a uniquely smart French dramatic comedy and the proud winner of five of this year’s César Awards, including Best Actor, Best Film, and Best Adapted Screenplay. The bourgeois life of the effeminate Guillaume (Guillaume Gallienne) is far from easy: he’s not accepted by his two brothers, he’s largely ignored by his icy father (André Marcon), and is almost constantly disturbed and criticized by his narcissistic, dominant mother (Guillaume Gallienne again, in a mesmerizing performance). Ever since he was a little kid, he has felt he’s a girl: he likes women’s clothes, gestures, behaviour and almost everything they do. He wishes he could dress like a woman, but his mother holds him back because his father won’t allow it. You’d think that Guillaume doesn’t like his family, but in fact he does. Above all, he adores his mother, who treats him like a girl. Not surprisingly, he wants and needs his mother to love him back more than anything else. Such a set-up in a story about queers and their families is pretty common, so far there’s nothing new. Considering Les garçons et Guillaume, à table! is a dramatic comedy, then the use of stereotypes and clichés is deliberate and legitimate. For the most part, they are recycled in different contexts: Guillaume being bullied at his boarding school, Guillaume treated by a series of ruthless psychoanalysts for his phobias and melancholy, Guillaume falling in unrequited love, Guillaume dancing Sevillanas, etc. Though the timing is successful, and the dialogue is well-written and witty, not all the episodic skits are effective or amusing. Sometimes the performances go over the board, even for the histrionic nature of the film. That being said, it’s equally true that when things do work — which is most of the time — they can’t possibly get any better. But what’s most important is that the film always feels honest and tender without ever being patronizing. So after Les garçons et Guillaume, à table! carefully goes over the established clichés on a funny note — plainly hilarious at times — and delivers more than a handful of emphatic dramatic scenes, it begins to show there’s more under the ostensibly formulaic façade while it leads viewers into a big surprise. This is when you truly apprehend what the filmmaker wants to convey and share. Suffice it to say that one of the ideas — if not the main one — is to determine how society at large, including microcosms such as families, has an enormous pull in shaping who you are, what you should desire, and how you should feel. That’s precisely what Guillaume ends up learning after a tour de force which begins with a live premiere of a monologue play he’s written. Which is, in fact, the fictionalized real life story of Guillaume Gallienne.
During the German occupation of Norway in WWII, many Norwegian women ended up having children with German soldiers, be it willingly or by force. Set in the Norwegian countryside in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German feature Two Lives (Zwei Leben), directed by Georg Maas, tells the story of one of the so-called Lebensborn children, Katrine (Juliane Kohler), miraculously reunited with her mother, Åse (Liv Ulllmann) in Norway after fleeing Nazi Germany when she was a teenager. Now she has a family of her own and enjoys a satisfying life. But when a young lawyer, Sven (Ken Duken), starts pressing the family to testify against the Norwegian state for reparations, Katrine firmly refuses to cooperate. She won’t tell anyone she’s afraid that the picture perfect world she has built her life around could collapse. After all, perhaps she is not who she says she is. It’s easy to see that the storyline is appealing enough for both a thriller and a domestic drama, precisely the two genres helmer Georg Mass goes for. The bad news is that he doesn’t do it very well. For a thriller, Two Lives runs into two problems at once: at first, it’s involuntarily confusing as it provides too many bits and pieces in too fragmented a manner. And during the last two thirds of the story, it’s over-explanatory and redundant. In both cases, the many flashbacks shot in grainy footage interrupt the flow of the story and are poor substitutes for a more creative way to provide the necessary information. For a drama, it lacks insight and a complex approach to the characters, which are roughly sketched and have few scenes where their most profound aspects can surface. Katrine is the most developed character, which makes sense, but the truth is that it could have been richer — the same goes for the others. So more often than not, they are action figures. Yet the huge problem is that the overall directing is so by-the-book, so unimaginative and mechanic that you never get to be engaged with either the conflict itself or with those in it. Based on a true story, Two Lives discloses little-known historical facts, but never in a gripping manner.
Ricardo Bär is a 22 year-old young man who lives with his family in a small farm in Misiones, at the border between Brazil and Argentina. Like many settlers there, he’s a descendant of German immigrants. Unlike most of them, he has a very personal calling: he wants to become a pastor instead of merely inheriting his father’s land. His is a project that speaks of growing up, rather than following in the footsteps of somebody else. At the same time, a film crew headed by directors Gerardo Naumann and Nele Wohlatz is making a documentary about Ricardo and the community at large, which was born out of the curiosity of Wohlatz — herself born in Germany and about to move to Argentina — to find out how these German settlers had adapted to the area. At first, the filmmakers have a hard time gaining peoples’ trust to both let them shoot the film and take part in it. Slowly things seem to change and the film is underway. But sooner rather than later, the townspeople change their minds and ask the German crew to stop shooting and leave the place at once. They say the filmmakers have been invasive, they have worn inappropriate clothing when attending church, have disrespected their rules and lifestyle. So Naumann and Wohlatz pack up and leave. Yet they keep on thinking of ways to go back and keep shooting. And they come up with a great idea: considering how badly Ricardo wants to become a pastor, wouldn’t it be great if he had a scholarship to study Theology at a well-known official institution in Buenos Aires? Once they’ve gotten the scholarship with said institution, they contact Ricardo and the townspeople to negotiate a new permit to make the documentary in exchange for the scholarship. That’s their pitch — and also the fact that the film will be of great use for them to show outsiders what the mission and values of the community are. The people accept and the film is in progress once again. That’s pretty much the general outline of the striking Argentine documentary Ricardo Bär, written and directed by Gerardo Naumann and Nele Wohlatz, and previously screened at the BAFICI and other major international film festivals as well. It’s quite a singular film not only because of the virtually unknown territory it unveils, with all its gripping characters with atypical traits, but mostly because of how it represents the very process and difficulties of documentary making. Not only the logistic problems, which sometimes are indeed hard to solve, but mostly the ones related to the thin frontier that divides reality from fiction, and true-to-life situations from reenactments. Ricardo’s life, as well as that of the community, is both captured as is and staged for the camera. Not that you can always tell the difference because Ricardo Bär, the film, deliberately toys with the respective zones of indetermination. Moreover, it accounts for the fully alive nature of documentary making, since this is a film which is constantly reshaped according to the changes that reality exposes the filmmakers to. So it’s not just a matter of choosing what to depict within this vast scenario, but how to depict a scenario that’s in constant transformation. A film in-the-making per definition. To make the entire matter all the more appealing, the story is not told in chronological order. It teases viewers, leading them to believe they are watching a straight story, but halfway through the film viewers learn they are in view of a zigzagging story that moves back and forth in time. You could even say there are two films in one, at least. The best thing is that this is no empty exercise in modern narrative, but instead it’s the finest way to narrate everything that took place in the character study of one peculiar young man, as well as the portrayal of a religious culture of German origins but with Argentine roots, with folks that speak portuñol (a mix of Spanish and Portuguese), and yet in many cases they feel they belong to Argentina as much as they belong to Germany.
A 30-something slick city man wearing an impeccable black suit with a starched white shirt and a briefcase gets stranded in a God-forsaken town in the desert of San Juan when his car runs out of gas. He seeks help among the townspeople, a group of mysterious old men who hide some dark secrets (by the way, so does the slick city man). But there’s no gas available — maybe later on, or tomorrow. There’s also a young, good looking woman and her daughter, who wait for the return of the family man who vanished into thin air. As the city man anxiously waits for his ticket out of this dying place, some strange natural (or supernatural?) phenomena start taking place. It doesn’t take him long to realize that once he entered this place, he’d never get to leave. He’s now trapped and in danger. That would be a succinct synopsis of El manto de hiel, the new film by Argentine filmmaker Gustavo Corrado, arguably one of the worst local releases so far this year. Not so much because the way its plot unfolds is contrived and far-fetched — whimsical love affair included — but mainly because, in formal terms, almost everything has gone awry: the dialogue, which lacks as much verisimilitude as the characters do, the lousy editing that fails to provide the film with the right tempo, or the almost nonexistent dramatic crescendo that turns the movie-watching experience into an exercise in overcoming tedium. But the worst part are the wooden performances from the entire cast, with William Prociuk heading the list. Lines are uttered as though they were being recited, with no pulse or soul. Forget all about a broad emotional range as well. Had this been just a problem with a couple of performances, then it might have turned somewhat bearable. As it is, it’s impossible to get involved in the film. You just see actors, so to speak, trying to act, and it’s not a pretty sight. If there’s an asset in this entire mess, that’s the photography. From a technical point of view, it’s well accomplished. Yes, it’s formulaic, but well-done. Which is not nearly enough to redeem the film from its many other outstanding flaws.
In 2010, after some ten years working as an assistant director for established filmmakers such as Lucrecia Martel and Pablo Trapero, Natalia Smirnoff made her filmmaking debut with the remarkable Rompecabezas (Puzzle), which ran in the Berlinale’s official competition. The film dealt with the road to self-fulfilment undertaken by an ordinary, yet neglected housewife who discovers she has a knack for solving puzzles. Subtly moving and truly smart, Rompecabezas also showed Smirnoff’s talent for eliciting a most alluring performance from her leading actress, María Onetto. Now Smirnoff has released her second film, El cerrajero (Lock Charmer), which corroborates her expertise at creating notable character studies and getting the most out of her actors, Esteban Lamothe and Erica Rivas, who are indeed absorbing. Yet plot-wise it represents a slip-up, as the narrative doesn’t evolve as effortlessly as it did in her debut film. Taken separately, a good number of scenes are quite involving and authentic. But as a whole, the film does not glue together very well. It feels it’s been articulated in too episodic and arbitrary a manner. Sebastián is a locksmith who could care less for long-term relationships or social commitments. He’s more into free love, if you will. So when his “not-girlfriend” tells him she’s pregnant and he may be the father, he dismisses the idea of fatherhood right away. Which is not to say he doesn’t care about her. The truth is he cares for her more than he would like to acknowledge. At the same time, he learns he has acquired a rare gift out of the blue: when he fixes someone’s lock, he gets to see something hidden about their lives. He sees deceit, treason, and lies. In due time, he’ll get a vision about himself, his love life, and his unresolved issues, of course. And all of this takes place in Buenos Aires back in 2008 when an ash cloud from a Chilean volcano blanketed the city. You’re lead to think that it is precisely the weird eruption of the volcano which prompted Sebastián to have his visions. I found the narrative gimmick of opening locks (doors) and having visions (going through the doors) to be overly metaphorical for its own good. It’s also mechanically repetitive. Once you know how it works, the element of surprise disappears, and each opened door resembles the one before. The episodes make sense in themselves, but the characters that come out of each door are either underdeveloped or clichéd — Sebastián’s mother and father are two unfortunate examples. That’s why these glimpses into the lives of others never prove to be as significant as they are intended to be. But if you stick to a handful of isolated scenes and allow yourself to be enveloped by their emotional nature, El cerrajero will be moderately rewarding. If you focus on the leading actors, it would be even more rewarding.
“They say they changed the river’s course toward Paraguay in order to water the land, and that’s why there’s almost no fish left. They say they are clearing the forest toward the north, and that’s why there are no hemp plants nearby. And the area floods as there are no trees to stop the water. They say the mines in Bolivia throw poison in the river. They say that children have to pray to someone else’s god. They say, everyone says,” calmly yet wearily says in Wichí the narrator of Tunteyh o el rumor de las piedras, the recently released documentary by Argentine filmmaker Marina Rubio about how the Nop ok wet Wichí community in Salta copes with pollution, the raiding of farmland, and our Western notion of progress. An in-depth exploration of the current situation is what the documentary mainly proposes, and that’s exactly what it delivers. It first goes for a more general approach, and as it unfolds, it gradually completes the panorama with plenty of details, observations, appraisals and, of course, sound conclusions. More than anything else, it’s a respectful inside look rather than a mere description of situations and facts. That’s where the commitment of the filmmaker lies. So there’s not a single hint of exoticism or the usual commonplace found in many features which, regardless of their best intentions, end up depicting native communities as little children in need for help from the white man. On the minus side, it’s too leisurely paced, so from time to time it does drag. Its sense of narrative does need a stronger drive that can truly move the story forward in an organic manner. As it is, sometimes you feel as though you were watching vignettes rather than scenes from an articulated feature. On the plus side, the subtle cinematography — be it the composition, the use of textures and colours, the framing — is indeed alluring and does convey the vitality of the community it portrays. Not once is it an artifice for embellishment. And yes, you will get to learn a lot about how the Nop ok wet wichí community in Salta exists, lives, and survives in an environment that often becomes hostile and unwelcoming.
Some three years ago, Argentine filmmaker Gustavo Taretto released his début film Medianeras, a low key, quite personal dramatic comedy about finding your other half in an overcrowded city such as Buenos Aires. Smart and biting, Medianeras was a refreshing surprise amid so much uninspired indie cinema. Now it’s time for Taretto’s second film, Las insoladas, which features six popular comedy actresses from the television arena. It intends to be funnier, cool, and still more surprising than Taretto’s début. The bad news is that it is not. In spite of good intentions, Las insoladas looks, sounds and feels like a prolonged television episode from a series that could have been titled Six Women in Search of Paradise. Or something like that. The story in a nutshell: on December 30, in the early 90’s, six middle-class young women spend an entire day sunbathing on the rooftop of a building in downtown BA. These longtime friends share a dream: to spend a vacation in the Caribbean, more precisely on the sunny beaches of Cuba. Not that they can afford it, but they can always think of ways of making and saving money. And perhaps they can even win the salsa contest that night, which has a cash prize of U$5,000 and for which they have been rehearsing for six months. The general idea of the film is, I guess, to confront the real, prosaic lives of these girls with their fantasies and to draw a portrait of a sector of society in times of neoconservative policies, cheap dollars and daydreams. Cuba would be heaven on earth for them, as opposed to their daily routines as hairdressers, employees, psychologists, or manicures. That, and also an examination of the longings, wishes, thoughts and behaviour of these glamour-less Sex and the City-style girls. And that’s it. And though Taretto has a good ear for dialogue and a keen eye for body language, which provides the film with a fair number of amusing verbal exchanges and insights, the overall result is too flimsy and underdeveloped for a feature film. There’s a series of loosely interconnected anecdotes that never escalate into full comedy or character study. In spite of the actresses’ engaging performances, their characters never reach full status. It all looks pretty good on the surface, but then again the surface is all there is to see. Too smart for a dumb chick flick and too superficial for a smart comedy, Las insoladas is a film that will have a hard time finding an audience.
Despite how conventional it is in its film form, Malka remains an unusual documentary as regards its content: the title character, Malka Abraham, was a 20-year-old Jewish woman who arrived in Argentina from Europe in the 1920s under the false promise of a bright future. Instead, she was forced into prostitution by the Zwi Migdal, a Jewish organization involved in the trafficking and sexual slavery of Jewish women from Eastern Europe. Primarily based in Buenos Aires, but with branches in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, New York, and Warsaw, the Zwi Migdal operated from the 1920s to the late 1930s, with yearly proceeds of 50 million dollars. In the 1920s, it already had over 400 pimps and 2,000 brothels with 30,000 women in Argentina alone. Like many other women, Malka also suffered the humiliation of being a forced sex worker. But unlike many others, she managed to flee the organization in the 1930s and went to reside in Tucumán, where she kept on doing the only thing she knew how to do: prostitution, yet this time out of her free will. “How could this be possible? The Jews, those of my religion and my family’s religion, who had to escape Europe to avoid being victims of humiliation and under the risk of being assassinated, these Jews were exploiting women of their own religion,” wondered in astonishment Walter Tejblum, who wrote and directed Malka with the hope of finding out the many facets of such a disgraceful phenomenon. The story of Malka didn’t end when she arrived in Tucumán. Instead of being reinserted into a normal life, she was criticized and ostracized by the people of Tucumán at large — including the Jewish community. She was disliked to the point of almost not being buried in the Jewish cemetery when she was murdered in her late 50s (the identity of the killer remains unknown). And even when she stated in her will that she wanted her fortune to go to her own community, there was a debate as to whether to accept it or not for it was “dirty money.” Of course, in the end the money went somewhere (though perhaps not all of it to where it was destined to). From a journalistic and exploratory point of view, Walter Tejblum’s documentary is very valuable in its careful and detailed exposition of the facts, events, episodes around Malka’s story. It does what many of the best documentaries do: it unveils and exposes what has been hidden. Against all odds, the filmmaker interrogates and raises uneasy questions that most interviewees opt not to answer — which nevertheless means answering the issue is not up for debate. Against the oblivion Malka had been sentenced to, the filmmaker forces her figure to surface. And in so doing, he also draws a portrayal of how hypocrisy, prejudice and discrimination are deeply ingrained in any order of society. In his quest for finding out the truth, Tejblum finds some unexpected allies who give him essential information as well as honest, heartfelt testimonies. And unlike those who condemned Malka, Tejblum doesn’t really judge them. Better yet: he leaves them exposed to their own. Most important, he vindicates Malka, the black sheep of the family who had been long forgotten. Until now.