The Forgiveness of Blood [Albania, 2011]

The Forgiveness of Blood deals with the little known practice of, gjakmarrja (blood feuds) in Albania. Basically, if someone is killed or otherwise severely dishonored, the only way for things to rectified between families is for someone in the family of the killer to be killed by someone in the family of the dishonored. There are, however, strict rules governing how this retaliation can be carried out (“kanun.”) That’s your necessary background info for The Forgiveness of Blood.

Nik, a teenager, leads your normal teenage life: he hangs out with his friends, he goes to parties, he flirts with girls, etc. Nik’s life becomes incredibly “unnormal” when his father and uncle accidentally(?) kill a man and go into hiding. This leaves Nik as a susceptible and acceptable target for revenge under the kanun. Nik basically has to go into self-imposed house arrest to help atone for his father’s and uncle’s sins. It is there that the boredom sets in…and then the anger…and then the resentment for being punished for a crime he didn’t commit. Nik becomes more isolated and estranged from his family as the ordeal drags on. Not only that, but he becomes frustrated at how he doesn’t even have a voice in the decisions to be made despite it being him that is suffering.  His middle-school aged sister, Rudina, is forced to work to help support the family instead of going to school. The family’s youngest son refuses to speak to anyone. The pressure ratchets up significantly on everyone and the house boils over with anger despite the fact that everyone loves each other very much. It’s a fascinating film about a peculiar cultural practice, but what a film it is. Definitely worth watching.

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.

 

Attenberg [Greece, 2010]

Greek new wave cinema is weird…and I mean that in a good way. A year or so ago I saw the “WTF-inducing” film by Yorgos Lanthimos called Dogtooth. I mistakenly read than Lanthimos was the director of Attenberg, but it turns out he is co-producer of it and acts in it as well. Regardless, it was my pick for Greece, a country I love dearly.

I’ve always had a fascination with the place. I played soccer with a lot of Greeks. I’d go to the Greek food festival in town and a few years ago, I finally had a chance to travel there. A few incredible weeks bouncing around the place by myself and the place cemented itself in my heart forever. I went from the bustling metropolis of Athens to the ancient monasteries of Meteora to the wild beaches of Halkidiki and the arty metropolis of Thessaloniki. Despite her current economic troubles, I’d go back in a heartbeat given the chance. It’s the only place I’ve ever traveled where I’ve had the thought, “I need to go back there instead of traveling somewhere new.” Anyway, it was a spectacular experience and I absorb as much Greek stuff as I can now.

Attenberg is the story of Marina, an insular 23 year old that avoids most people save her terminally ill father and her promiscuous best friend Bella. Marina’s never been with a man, so she goes to her more experienced friend and asks for advice. Bella proceeds to show her how to kiss and we’re treated to what is probably the most awkward kissing scene ever put on film and a really peculiar opening sequence. That really sets the tone for this offbeat film: Bella and Marina have an entire arsenal of Monty Python-esque silly walks that they do, Marina delivers commentary and play by play while making out with the first guy she’s ever been with and Marina has bizarre, detailed sexual discussions with her dying father. It’s at once bizarre and charming as well as serious and hilarious. Definitely not for everyone, but it takes some of life’s heavier moments (the death of a parent, losing one’s virginity) and filters them through a bizarrely abstract lens that somehow humanizes the moments more by stylizing them.

Free Men [France, 2011]

World War II movies have been done to death. That’s not to say that good ones don’t exist or that the subject has been exhausted, but there’s really not much to most of them that we haven’t seen before. This is not the case with Free Men. The film is set in Paris and focuses on North African contributions to the resistance against Nazi occupation. There’s an angle you don’t hear everyday. I’m into this already.

I found out during the closing credits that much of the film is based on real people and real events, which severely ratcheted up the awesomeness. Younes is a petty black market pedlar during wartime Paris and has no real opinions or political leanings. When his cousin, Ali, and other North African immigrants are going to meetings and organizing for labor unions and the French resistance (in the hopes that the liberation of Algeria will soon follow), Younes answers their invitation with “I’m just here to make a lot of money and get out.” Younes is concerned with his family, not the bigger picture. He eventually gets hauled in by the French police in order to rat out Ali and they basically offer him substantial sums of money to hang around the Paris mosque and inform on the comings and goings at the mosque. Younes, apolitical as ever, agrees since there’s money to be made and because he’s threatened with jail time unless he agrees.

The mosque director, Si Kaddour Benghabrit, is helping and sheltering all sorts of people at the mosque regardless of their ethnicity or faith. In particular, he’s providing Muslim religious ID cards to North African jews and harboring them. The Nazis get wind of this and start cracking down on activity at the mosque. Younes, begins to waver on his informing to the French police as he realizes what a raw deal it is for him and others once the authorities start investigating his friends and family and reveals to the mosque director that he’s an informer. The shrewd Benghabrit tells Younes he knows this already and helps guide Younes into protecting his friends, namely the famed singer Algerian Jewish singer Salim Halili.

As the film progresses, Younes becomes more politicized (though I would definitely not say radicalized), and gets quite involved helping defend his fellow Algerians from the Nazis in Paris (even to the point of armed resistance.) While many of the characters in the film are real people,  Younes’ character is likely a composite, but his story is certainly not an unbelievable one. Younes is the main character, but Benghabrit could be viewed as such too. Everything goes through Benghabrit: plans, fake documents, official meetings, etc. Halili’s inclusion in the film is great. It adds another true historical element to the film and it opened to door to including a bunch of incredible music. There’s even a scene where Halili is going to perform a duet with the famed Egyptian singer Mohammed Abdel Wahab (there’s a great recording of Wahab’s music by Simon Shaheen that you should check out here.)

This is one I really enjoyed and would heartily recommend.

TRAILER: Free Men

Distant [Turkey, 2002]

I’m not going to pretend to know a ton about Turkish film, but I have enjoyed the small handful that I’ve seen. Turkey is a place I’m infinitely fascinated by (especially Istanbul.) I fully intend to delve deeply into Turkish cinema at some point after I complete this project. I figured Distant would be stark given the title and the bleak, wintery landscape on the poster, but I didn’t know it’d be beyond bleak.

Yusuf, a young factory worker from the countryside loses his job in a layoff as a result of a major, nationwide recession. His older cousin, Mahmut, lives in Istanbul and leads a comfortable life as a corporate photographer (he mainly photographs tile for a manufacturer.) Mahmut enjoys artistic photography, but it doesn’t pay the bills so he engages in mundane work but is paid well for it. He has a large apartment in the city with a huge study, a studio, a scenic view, etc. Yusuf, like so many before him, flees to the city in hopes of economic fortunes (he wants to become a ship worker.) Mahmut agrees to put Yusuf up for a while until he can get on his feet. It become apparent very quickly though that Mahmut has no real prospects. It’s the middle of winter and there’s no hiring in the shipping industry. Yusuf meanders about aimlessly and appears content to stay at Mahmut’s apartment in his spare bedroom.

Mahmut, an independent man, grows weary of Yusuf’s presence shortly after his arrival and the two begin to annoy each other rather quickly. They try taking a trip together to bond, but it doesn’t work at all. Family obligation wins out though and the two tolerate each other’s existence. The longer this drags on, the more Mahmut becomes irritated and his solitary existence is somehow heightened by the presence of another person. He seemed lonely before, but his loneliness is unbearable in the presence of another person. The gorgeous, but stark winter landscapes of Istanbul highlight the isolation even more.

I was quite into the film at first despite the long silences (it is probably 7-8 minutes before the first word is spoken in the film), but after a while it became tiresome. If the filmmakers objective was to draw you into the awkward and uncomfortable tensions in the apartment, then he did a masterful job. The actors all did a superb job (the two leads both split the best actor award at Cannes) and it’s beautifully filmed, but I simply lost interest in the unsympathetic characters after a while. It did a bang up job of showing the loneliness and mundane nature of much of modern life. I liked it okay. I didn’t hate it by any means, but didn’t enjoy it enough to recommend. It had a powerful overall message, but I don’t feel like it really delivered on it well. Kind of surprised to see that it picked up so many accolades, but hey, to each his own I suppose.

TRAILER: Distant

How I Ended This Summer [Russia, 2010]

We always hear about things being “more than the sum of their parts.”  Occasionally, things are less than the sum of their parts as well and unfortunately How I Ended This Summer is one of those things for me. This bleak Russian film is the tale of two men working on an island meteorological station in a remote part of the Russian northeast. It’s beautifully shot and it’s impeccably acted (the two leads shared the “Silver Bear” best actor award at the Berlin Film Festival the year this screened), but there wasn’t a whole lot of story there. I certainly take no issue with slow films or with films with seemingly no narratives, but this just didn’t excite me at all.

Pavel, the younger of the two is a product of his age: headphones, video games, a bit flippant, etc. Sergei, the much older man is stern, speaks little and is utterly serious about his work despite it appearing to have no real purpose. Sergei goes fishing one afternoon and when Pavel is relaying the weather readings via radio to some sort of home base/office, he’s instructed to put Sergei on the radio. Pavel, at Sergei’s instruction, fudges on Sergei’s whereabouts. Pavel is then instructed to take down a radiogram informing Sergei that there’s been a serious accident and both his wife and child are dead.

That’s a pretty dramatic and not at all unbelievable set-up. For whatever reason though, Pavel refuses to give the radiogram to Sergei upon his return and it makes Pavel have to constantly cover it up to the radio operators on the other end. Eventually, Pavel gives Sergei the news when it’s unavoidable to hold off any longer and Sergei just freaks out. That’s not a surprising reaction at all, but it basically turns into Sergei trying to kill Pavel and Pavel being on the run. The withholding of the info and the incredible overreaction just don’t make sense to me. I’ve seen some film reviewers suggest this entire film is an allegory for the new Russia vs. the old Russia, but that doesn’t really work for me as an explanation. If that was the intent, then there’s something I’m missing. Like I said, it’s incredibly well acted and well shot. The story just didn’t make any sense and had too many inexplicable big leaps for me. I was really looking forward to this one from the trailer, but it just didn’t work for me. I do, however, want to track down some other films with the actors though and I’d even give the director’s other films a shot as this seemed so promising.

TRAILER: How I Ended This Summer

The Trap [Serbia, 2007]

Serbia  is economically reeling after the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević. Communism has collapsed, privatization is the order of the day, nouveau-riche kleptocrats are getting wealthy and foreign capital is exploiting a bad economy of unemployed and underemployed Serbs.

Mladen Pavlović is a construction engineer at a state owned company undergoing privatization. The future is uncertain, money is tight for Mladen and his wife Marija, an English teach at a primary school. They have an eight year old son Nemanja. Despite lean times, the Pavlovićs make ends meet and rent a simple apartment and own an early 80s Renault. Not wealthy by any means, but still better off than a lot of folks. And then disaster strikes.

Nemanja collapses during gym class and after a thorough examination it’s determined he has a heart condition that requires immediate surgery. No hospital in Serbia can perform the operation and their nearest option is Berlin. The operation costs 26,000 Euros and it is not covered by their health insurance. Needless to say, 26,000 Euros in post-war Serbia is a gargantuan sum of money.

Against Mladen’s wishes, Marija places ads in several newspapers asking for help as the family figures out ways to raise the money needed. Mladen gets a call one day from a man saying he can help, but that he wants to discuss the matter in person at a hotel cafe. Mladen has no idea what to expect and is shocked when the man offers him 30,000 Euros for the surgery and travel expenses. But there’s a catch. Mladen must assassinate a wealthy businessman and he can’t even mention it to his wife. The man gives Mladen 48 hours to make his decision.

Mladen hopes against hope that the man never calls back, but he does. He leaves Mladen a pistol and a 3,000 Euro deposit at a drop and tells him to await further instructions. Mladen reluctantly makes the pick-up. His instructions arrive a few days later and the target is the father of one of Nemanja’s classmates. Mladen doesn’t know the man, but he does know his wife Jelena from times their children have played together on a local playground.

This sets up a nightmare scenario for Mladen. He has the means to save his son, but it comes at an astronomical cost with incredible risks attached. Reluctantly, Mladen proceeds with the hit. This is where the real action starts, the man that hired Mladen stiffs him on the remaining 27,000 Euros and Mladen’s transformation from mild-mannered engineer to revenge seeking killing machine is complete. Understandably, the stress Mladen is silently enduring tears at his marriage as well as his sanity. Needless to say, this is an incredibly heavy film that asks some incredibly dark questions about humanity. Believe it or not, despite all I’ve said, I still haven’t spoiled the ending. There are quite a few more surprises for the viewer. I definitely want to check out some more of director Srdan Golubović’s films. The film is based on a novel of the same name by Nenad Teofilović.

TRAILER: The Trap

Fish Tank [England, 2009]

I’ve not come up with any solid methodology for picking films for this project. Some of it’s been as simple as “The library has this movie from Uruguay” or “I like Arctic Monkeys and Alex Turnder did the soundtrack to Submarine so I’ll watch it.” Regarding Fish Tank, I literally knew nothing about it. I saw the case at the library and said to myself, “Criterion Collection? Made in England? Done.” I didn’t even bother reading the synopsis because I’ve only ever been disappointed by a handful of Criterion Collection movies. I didn’t bother reading the synopsis before I started watching it either. This was a particularly interesting movie to go into blindly.

It’s pretty obvious from the get-go that the film focuses on the life of Mia, a teenager in estate housing in England. As the film unfolds you discover she’s temperamental, prone to violent outbursts and has absolutely zero guidance from her layabout mother. It’s chaotic home life personified: kids run amok, no father in sight and a mother with a pissy attitude about everything who’s more interested in having her fun than she is in the welfare of her children. Dance seems to be the only thing Mia finds any solace in and she frequently breaks into an empty apartment in her housing block to dance and/or drink by herself with her headphones.

Enter Connor (played by Michael Fassbender), mom’s new love interest. He’s good looking, affable, serene and employed. Despite it being her mom’s new man, Mia instantly develops a crush on him and it’s easy enough to dismiss as a schoolgirl crush. Before too long though, it become apparent the crush is mutual despite the age difference and there we have the central conflict of the movie. He’s good for Mia and encourages her to pursue her dreams, but then things go too far and the household turns chaotic again. The chaos extends well beyond the household actually and all hell kind of breaks loose in everyone’s lives. The more the movie goes along the more you can tell it’s going to get more and more messed up. That being said, it was compelling and impossible to look away from and it’s not hard to imagine why this film picked up a ton of awards at various festivals and ceremonies. Definitely one to watch.

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