Submarine [Wales, 2010]

This is perhaps one of those times where I’ve stretched the definition of a movie belonging to a certain place. The director is English as are most of the actors, but it’s set in Wales and the main character is Welsh (as is the actor who portrays him) so I’m going to count it. I picked this movie solely because of its soundtrack. There is some scoring, but I’m referring to the songs written by Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys. I’m a huge fan of the band and I heard the soundtrack way before seeing the film and after listening to the songs for quite some time, I figured I might as well watch the movie they’re associated with.

Submarine is a quirky, coming of age comedy that gives more than a passing nod to Wes Anderson. Oliver Tate, the 15 year old protagonist strikes me as somewhere between Holden Caufield and Rushmore’s Max Fischer, but is mostly more sympathetic than either of those characters. Oliver is incredibly self-aware and fancies himself as much more clever and aware of the ways of the world than his cruder, more immature classmates. Most people can probably see their teenage selves in Oliver.

Oliver’s world is turned upside down by what appears to be his parents’ crumbling marriage and his desire to lose his virginity before his sixteenth birthday. He thinks he’s got it all figured out when it comes to helping his parents mend their marriage, but it’s almost cringe-worthy at times the way he frankly approaches both of them. He also envisions himself as incredibly suave when wooing his girlfriend, but he’s really just a naive, well-meaning but ultimately clueless goofball

It’s well above average as far as coming of age films go, but it’s by no means essential cinema (the soundtrack is great though.) There are some incredibly funny moments though and one of my favorites was just after the opening credits right before the film started. This appeared on the screen in print:

My Dear Americans, The film you are about to see is a biopic of my life. The events take place, not so long ago, in a proud land called Wales. Wales is next to England, a country you pretend to treat as an equal. My homeland has produced Catherine Zeta-Jones, Tom Jones and some other people. You have not yet invaded my country and for this I thank you. Submarine is an important film. Watch it with respect. Fond regards from your protagonist, Oliver Tate.

Worth watching, but nothing life changing by any stretch of the imagination.

TRAILER: Submarine

Animal Kingdom [Australia, 2010]

For whatever reason, choosing movies in my native language has been difficult. I assume this is partially due to the fact that the amount of movies readily available to me from the United States, Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, etc. are infinitely greater than just about everywhere else combined. I read a couple of reviews of Animal Kingdom that looked pretty good and it had Guy Pearce in it, who I really liked in The Proposition, so I decided to give it a try.

The basic setup is that the mother of 17-year old Joshua (or “J” as he’s referred to most commonly in the film) has just overdosed on heroin. J’s mother was estranged from the rest of her family, but not having anyone else to turn to, J. gets in touch with his grandmother. J’s extended family agrees to take him in, but they’re anything but ordinary. They are, in fact, the Codys, a Melbourne crime family. At the point J moves in with them, the family’s business is crumbling and they’re exploring moving into legitimate ventures and leaving the life of crime. Baz, the criminal’s voice of reason, is murdered by the police though and this is when all hell breaks loose. Pope, the family’s most unstable member asserts his strong personality and things just go from bad to worse under his leadership. Before Pope took over, J was mostly a bystander or passive observer of the family’s activities, but Pope draws him into the action. As the police crack down on them even harder, Sgt. Leckie (Guy Pearce) believes he can rescue J from the life of crime and get him to testify against the family in court.

I won’t reveal any more details about it, but suffice it to say the film is full of unpredictable twists. One review I read described the film as one that “repulses you even as it draws you in” and I’d say that’s a pretty apt description. Some of the behavior of these guys is so reprehensible that it nearly defies description, but the story’s so compelling that you couldn’t possibly look away. This was the first full-length feature by writer/director David Michôd and if Animal Kingdom is any indication, we have much to look forward to with his future films.

TRAILER: Animal Kingdom

Illégal [Belgium, 2010]

Tania and her son Ivan are illegal Russian immigrants in Belgium. Tania, a former French teacher, is adamant that Ivan only speak French in public in order to help blend in better. On Ivan’s birthday, they’re riding on the bus and he begins speaking to his mother in Russian. She quickly censures him, but he pushes back saying she’s too paranoid and can’t they please just relax and speak Russian on his birthday. The disembark from the bus and are having a laugh and a chat in Russian when they’re stopped by the police to “check her papers.” They try to make a run for it but the police apprehend her while Ivan manages to escape.

She’s put in a detention center for illegal immigrants where she can be held up to five months. The time begins to wear on her rather quickly though and she makes some less than ideal decisions that rapidly make her dilemma incredibly more difficult than it already is. I don’t want to give too much about the movie away, but it’s pretty heartbreaking because it’s not hard to imagine that this kind of stuff goes on all the time in Europe, the United States, Canada, etc.

I’m certainly not naive enough to think we can have completely open borders, but it’s hard to watch someone who’s just trying to make a decent living for their family turned away and treated like an animal (or worse) merely because of where they were born (in this film, Tania and other immigrants work cleaning hotels.) Definitely not easy to watch at times because of what goes on, but it was an above average film, thought provoking and definitely worth watching.

TRAILER: Illégal

The Pope’s Toilet [Uruguay, 2007]

In 1988, Pope John Paul II visited the small Uruguayan town of Melo during a 48 hour visit to the country. It was his first ever visit to the country and given Melo’s close proximity to Brazil, the townspeople viewed the visit as an opportunity to make a lot of money from visiting pilgrims by selling them food, drink, commemorative trinkets, etc. One enterprising citizen, Beto, decides that all of the pilgrims will need somewhere to go to the bathroom considering an estimated 50,000 people or more are expected to flood into the city and will overwhelm its lack of infrastructure.

Beto, his wife and daughter are impoverished, but he considers this his opportunity to better the life of the family and he spends all of their savings constructing a nice pay toilet for the pilgrims. Beto is a petty smuggler of goods that illegally crosses into Brazil and brings things back to shopkeepers in Mela on a near daily basis. He’s aging though and the long trip is wearing on his body. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to get ahead.

The townspeople set to preparing for the influx of visitors that never materializes. It’s a heartbreaking tale of people trying to put themselves ahead only to fall further in debt. The film is a subtle critique of organized religion in that the pope comes to bless the town, but in the end, they’re all worse off after his visit than before.

The film isn’t based on a specific person but is described in the following way just after the opening credits:

“The events of this story are in essence true and it’s only by chance they didn’t occur the way they’re told here.”

It was obvious the plans of the townspeople were doomed from the start, but it was hard to not feel terrible for them anyway as it became painfully clear that only a handful of pilgrims would arrive (the postscript of the film claims only about 400 Brazilians showed up, but that the town erected 387 vendor stalls.) This is definitely one worth watching.

Trailer: The Pope’s Toilet

Feel Free to Make Film Suggestions

I’m going to try to keep the meta-blogging to a minimum, but it occurred to me that I should ask you all for suggestions about what to watch from a particular country…especially if it’s a country that doesn’t boast a large film industry. I’m still going to do my own research, but I’m always more than happy to hear suggestions for a particular place.

I’ve only watched films from Palestine and Japan so far, but I do have my films picked out for Mexico, England, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Colombia, Burkina Faso, Romania, South Korea and Belgium. I have strong candidates for a host of other countries including Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Canada, Uruguay and Australia. I realized I recently watched a film from Chad and can’t imagine their film industry is huge, so I might have to include that one (I’m trying to make it all films I haven’t seen before.)

I plan on watching my Romanian film tonight and another tomorrow (probably Belgian), so actual updates are coming soon. I had kind of a hectic week this week and it made film watching/reviewing not particularly feasible.

Hospitalité [Japan, 2010]

Writer/Director Koji Fukada has constructed a bizarre, dark, farcical comedy in Hospitalité. Four people live in the workshop/apartment combo of the Kobayashi printing company. One day, Kagawa shows up claiming to be the son of a man that financially invested in Kobayashi’s father’s printing company that he’s inherited. Kobayashi, though a combination of a sense of duty and Kagawa’s incredibly dynamic personality agrees to take him on as a part-time employee. Kagawa is masterful in taking a mile when given an inch and before long he’s wormed his way into Kobayashi’s spare bedroom. Without telling the Kobayashi’s he’s even married, his Brazilian wife moves into the house and the new international couple sets to completely upending the seeming normalcy of the Kobayashi household.

Kagawa, played expertly by Kanji Furutachi, begins to manipulate the various members of the Kobayashi family…exposing their pasts and shortcomings and using their secrets against each other for his own benefit. The film takes swipes at xenophobia in Japan and “polite society” in general. It’s absurdist humor and over the top delivery are perhaps just what was needed to deal with themes that would be difficult to bring up in a more straight ahead fashion. I felt like it kind of took a dip at the end and dragged a little bit, but was overall a fun little film.

The Time That Remains [Palestine, 2009]

Elia Suleiman’s The Time That Remains is drastically different than any other film I’ve seen dealing with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. There’s no overt vitriol nor is there a sentimental “we can all be one big shiny, happy family” tone. Furthermore, Suleiman offers no simple solutions to the problem. There is, however, a cool sense of detachment in the storytelling and a deadpan sense of humor that makes the message of the film more powerful than if it had relied on more dramatic emotions.

Primarily set in Nazareth, the film begins in 1948 with the city surrendering to Israeli forces. The primary character in the early part of the film is Suleiman’s father, Fuad, played wonderfully by Saleh Bakri. Fuad is detained, beaten and left for dead by the Israeli army and that really kind of sets the tone for the film. Fuad was initially quite defiant but eventually becomes more resigned to his fate and that of his family and the Palestinians in general. It shows the little hassles of life, like Fuad and his friend repeatedly getting harassed by the Israeli army for simply going fishing. The focus eventually shifts to Fuad’s son, Elia (the filmmaker.) I’m not familiar with Suleiman’s life story, but the film is based upon Fuad’s diaries and the letters of his mother (there are quite a few scenes of her writing letters) as well as his personal experiences living in Israel as a Palestinian.

The film comes off as powerful meditation on Palestinian life in Israel. It deals with heavy themes and gives the viewer much to ponder, but it doesn’t do it in a way that’s preachy or heavy-handed. It is the first of Suleiman’s films that I’ve seen, but it definitely won’t be the last.

A few years ago…

A few years ago, I started hosting a monthly film night that almost exclusively focused on foreign language film. I’m seldom interested in the latest Hollywood “shoot-em-ups” on offer at the local multiplex and while there is a semi-decent amount of independent film screened where I live, there is virtually no outlet for those of us interested in world cinema that’s not in English. Having to read subtitles has never inhibited my enjoyment of a film and I find it incredibly stifling to limit my cinematic intake to films in English, the only language I speak fluently.

During those film nights (which still continue), I began to explore well outside of the cinematic hotbeds of France, Spain, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, etc. While I love many of the genius directors and films produced by those countries with a rich film history, I also was interested about what kind of films are produced in Albania, Thailand, Georgia, Chile, Iran, Lebanon, Serbia, Kenya, Romania, etc. In constantly scouring for movies to show on my “film nights” (usually attended by 5-10 people) I started realizing there is so much out there worth exploring from places we don’t consider cinematic epicenters.

That’s how this idea was born. I have no set time limit on this project, but this blog exists to chronicle my attempt to see at least one film produced in every country on earth. I imagine it’ll be difficult and at times I’m sure I’ll have to stretch the interpretation of what attaches a film to a certain country as I don’t imagine there are a lot of films produced by some of the smaller countries in Oceania or the Caribbean or in some of the more remote corners of the planet. I’m sure the films are produced, but they’re probably not widely available. I imagine it’ll take a combination of Netflix, the library, YouTube, etc. to achieve this…if I ever do. It should be and entertaining and enlightening attempt at the very least.

One additional note: I don’t pretend to be an expert or a film critic. I simply like what I like.