Hollow City [Angola, 2004]

 

N’Dala is a homeless young man forced out of his native town of Bie into the big city of Luanda by civil war. He was taken in by a Catholic orphanage, but he wanted no part of it and ran away to fend for himself on the streets (why he makes this decision is puzzling and it’s never really explored.) His first day is spent meandering and he sneaks into the beach tent of an old fisherman who later discovers him, feeds him and becomes a friend to him. N’Dala also meets Ze, a kid a few years older than him who shows him the ropes in the big city. They sneak into movies, they smoke cigarettes, they do chores for prostitutes and swindlers in exchange for food and shelter. N’Dala badly wants to go back to Bie, but it’s not an option and his hanging around with the bad guys eventually catches up with him. It is remarkable how good of a job non-professional actors that are children do in the film. That being said, it didn’t do a lot for me as a film. I understand that it’s important that films like this be made, but this one didn’t grab me at any time as there was no real narrative or character development. You kind of feel like you’re just peeking in on brief segments of someone’s actual life.

A Separation [Iran, 2011]

To those uninitiated into global cinema, it may come as a surprise that Iran consistently cranks out great art films. I’ve probably seen a dozen or so and now find myself constantly on the lookout for the latest cinematic offerings from Iran. I heard about A Separation before it was even  nominated for the Academy Award because of a good friend of mine that’s Iranian. His family had told him to keep an eye out for it and knowing what a film buff I am he suggested it to me too. Needless to say, the film did not come to Birmingham in a theatrical release and after it won the Best Foreign Picture Oscar it was just a waiting game for when it would eventually come out on DVD. And what it wait it was. Well over a year after it’s release it finally made it to DVD in the US a few weeks ago.

A Separation, as you might guess from the title, is about a married couple parting ways. Samin’s spent countless time and a lot of money on visas to get the family to be able to live abroad. Nader’s father now has Alzheimer’s and he’s not budging. Sounds simple enough right? But they have a daughter that complicates matters. Simin wants the daughter to go abroad with her as they’re very close, so the daughter stays with her dad because she knows her mom won’t leave without her. Bold move for a kid, but she was correct. Samin did not travel abroad.

Nader must now find someone to care for his elderly father while he’s at work and the daughter is at school and he chooses a lower income woman who comes to work around the house with her small daughter. This is when the trouble arrives. The newly arrived help has a miscarriage shortly after she is fired (after 2 or 3 days when Nader discovered she was leaving his father at home unattended) and goes to the police to blame it on her former employer. That’s the setup for the incredible amount of problem it causes both families. The film explores the dynamics of both families and how they come together to deal with this unforeseen tragedy. Needless to say, it’s incredibly heavy, but it’s almost like a suspenseful thriller in that you have no idea how things are going to play out for everyone involved. The Oscars are generally a waste of time to me, but they often do a great job with Best Foreign Picture category and 2011 is no exception. This was definitely a film that deserved all of the lavish praise heaped upon it.

TRAILER:

Headhunters [Norway, 2011]

…and The Oscar for best trailer editing goes to…HEADHUNTERS!

I’d been looking forward to the release of this on DVD for a couple of months now after reading so much good about it and seeing the trailer. After viewing it, I have to say I’m pretty let down. What was billed as a smart, sexy, thriller came up decidedly short on both the smart and sexy fronts…though there’s no shortage of thrills. The plot had a lot promise: big time corporate headhunter leads incredibly lavish lifestyle and steals his clients’ high end art on the side to finance his hefty spending. Said headhunter’s art gallery owner wife introduces him to an out of work CEO who just so happens to have a believed-to-be-lost Rubens painting lying around. Needless to say, he plans to steal it (oh and his wife is ignorant of his moonlighting as a thief.) Turns out that said out of work CEO is a former paramilitary with a short fuse. The thief becomes the hunted. Sure, it’s far fetched, but it sounds fun on paper at least (kind of Bond-esque.) I can suspend disbelief to a point, but this one kind of goes beyond what I can ignore. A small in stature businessman who dislikes guns is all of a sudden a crack shot when called upon to use a gun? He’s virtually indestructible and survives multiple vehicle crashes, being attacked by a pitbull the size of a small horse and other over the top stuff. The trailer is incredibly well edited and it looks like a lot of fun, but unfortunately is has plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. I’ve certainly seen worse movies and this one isn’t unwatchable or anything, I just don’t feel like it’s lived up to the hype it’s gotten.

TRAILER:

The Turin Horse [Hungary, 2011]

In 1889, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche witnessed the whipping of a horse in Turin, Italy. He hurled his arms around the neck of the horse to protect it and collapsed soon after. In less than a month, he was diagnosed with a mental illness that would leave him speechless until his death eleven years later. While we know what happened to Nietzsche after the incident, nothing is known of what happened to the horse. This film is a fictionalized account of what happened…

To say this film is stark is an understatement, to say it is bleak is an understatement. It is spectacular though. An old man and his middle aged daughter live in a remote area in a simple house. They own a horse and a cart and both are essential to their livelihood. The old man has a bad arm. She helps him get dressed, she cooks for him, she helps him harness and feed the horse. It’s close to twenty minutes before the first bit of dialogue is spoken…and then it’s just a word or two. The movie is spread over six days and the condition of the horse gets worse and worse. It’s winter time and the wind is howling furiously. A neighbor drops by to borrow some brandy. A band of gypsies steals water from their well. Things move at a glacial pace. Life is hard out here.

Words can’t really do this justice because it’s unlike most anything else you’ve seen. In trying to describe it to someone, I said “It’s like Andrei Rublev with Hildur Guðnadóttir doing the soundtrack.” That won’t mean much to a lot of people, but rest assured, that’s powerful and the two people that got both references agreed it was a good starting point of description. It was Hungary’s submission to the Academy Awards for “Best Foreign Picture” in 2011, but it was (somehow) not nominated. This is the first film I’ve seen by Bela Tarr, but it certainly won’t be the last of his that I view. Interestingly enough though, he has proclaimed that The Turin Horse will be his last film.