artistic vision of the festival
Koma opens on a man and woman sitting on a park bench quietly staring ahead. then it cuts to a bathroom with a camera shooting at a mirror and in the reflection we see a woman in a bathrobe sitting on the edge of the tub while a man holds up a piece of wood with a nail through it.
he then proceeds to saw off the end with the nail as the women drops her robe to reveal huge bruises all
over her back. she then turns over onto all fours in the tub, tells the man she loves him as he raises the wood and brings it down towards her back…
cut to present day and hanz heading off to work on his 50th birthday (but not before preparing a hook in the basement from which he appears to be planning to hang himself at some point). his wife and son and friends prepare for his party, but hanz doesn’t show up till everyone has left, having spent the whole day alone, in quiet reflection and thought.
what’s wrong? Well, given the little bit of disturbing video we saw earlier (video Hanz’s son happens to watch online with his buddy as well) it is pretty obvious what is on hanz’s mind.
the film is a very slow and deliberate story of hanz’s search for the women and… i want to say redemption, but I don’t know. we are told nothing about hanz or his life up to that point. our only point of reference is the disturbing video and hanz’s zombie like state throughout the film.
the story is a very simple one. one that can be easily pitched in a sentence or two. but there is a lot going on under the surface. the problem is that we are never taken under the surface or given any tools to get there.
instead the film is just slow, simple and empty beyond what we as the audience provide it from our own interpretations of what we think it is all about. you cal tell that the film wants to be “saying” a lot and thinks it is delving deep into the psychology of cruelty and violence. but, really it is a film that had me initially interested in the promise and potential. but ultimately disappointed in the lack of exactly that.
Skidlove definitely ain’t your typical boy meets girl movie. this is more of a boy meets girl, boy likes girl, girl likes boy, boy tries to get girl to open up, girl has a secret about what she is doing to get out of debt (no she isn’t a prostitute and she isn’t making porn films), boy finds out, boy supports girl he loves, things get out of hand, bad things happen…
while that could be interesting or a bit melodramatic on its own, for me what stood out about this film was the way it was shot and edited.
as the story plays out the film does a lot of jumping back and forth. not in the way that you might expect though. the story isn’t being told out of sequence, but rather the sequential story telling is intercut with images and moments from the “post-bad things happen” part of the story.
it might take a few moments to acclimate yourself to exactly what is happening in those moments (they are all just visual with music – no dialogue), but as the story moves forward it is pretty obvious that there is not going to be a happy ending. this use of imagery and sound really elevated this film for me to something beyond the generic and expected.
my one issue with the film, besides the performances (overall they were quite good, but ryan Arnold who wrote, produced, edited and directed the film also took the lead role and when it comes to moments of depth and emotion he isn’t up to par with his female counterpart. however, not so much so that it is detrimental to the piece).
as for my one issue: i did find that the bad thing that happens was maybe a bit overly gruesome and felt a bit forced – in that the film maker needed a climactic event and worked backwards from there as opposed to making the story work towards the event – it just felt like things got out of control when they didn’t need to. still, this is a good film that has the mark of a director with a vision and an idea to tell a story not in the same way it has been told before.
where Koma felt like a film that thought it was much smarter and more interesting than it was, Double Take is a film that also thinks those things… but, lives up to them.
what a fascinating film this is. and i honestly have no idea how to describe it. Imdb’s synopsis goes like this: Director Johan Grimonprez casts Alfred Hitchcock as a paranoid history professor, unwittingly caught up in a double take on the cold war period. Subverting a meticulous array of TV footage and using 'The Birds' as an essential metaphor, DOUBLE TAKE traces catastrophe culture's relentless assault on the home, from moving images' inception to the present day.
is that accurate? well, i guess it could be. but this film is so different from anything you have ever seen and yet so completely engaging even when it isn’t making sense that a simple synopsis isn’t really important.
can I tell you that I got all the intricacies of the political and social commentary that the film was positing? of course not. but can I say that the film had me engaged and interested as a student of film and history and lead to some really interesting discussions afterwards? definitely.
Double Take is so well conceived and created and put together. It is a piece of art that will mean different things to different people. Some will “get it”. Some won’t, but don’t let that stop you from watching it.
I Am Not Your Friend was the best film I saw at this years festival. to describe it would be to call it one of those ensemble films in which characters and plot lines intertwine and cross paths. some characters come 
and go and others are more prevalent throughout. some story lines provide some sort of conclusion, while others just end or are left in limbo. and i loved it.
the director, györgy pálfi, discribes the film like this on imdb: I AM NOT YOUR FRIEND is a film of improvisations - not only from the part of the nine amateur actors, but from the D.O.P, the director and the scriptwriters as well. The story unfolded itself instantly by the reactions and ideas of actors during the 20 days of shooting and developed into what is presented to the audience. But the story perhaps is less important than the world which opens up in front of us, a taste of Budapest in January 2008.
this meandering/improv style needs to be pulled off really well or else the problems with it become the audiences focus. well, i can tell you that I Am Not Your Friend pulls it off really well. add to that the great hand-held (almost meandering - but very well done) camera work and the city of budapest as the backdrop and you got yourself an interesting and entertaining 100 minutes.
not to make this out as the feel good movie of the year though. in fact, most of the plot lines are anything but "feel good" lets just say that the goodness of the human spirit isn't on display here. rather, it is selfishness that stands out. for such a simple film it has moments and characters that will linger with you well after having left the theatre.
based on urban legends from pre-1989 romania, Tales From The Golden Age is a wonderful film made up of 5 shorts - each one dealing with a different "tale" from the coucescu era. you might be thinking, "what is there to laugh about?"
well, if you have ever known anyone that grew up - or if you yourself did - in a country under a repressive regime of any kind, you will know that there is usually quite an undercurrent of humour that the people
have - maybe it isn't what the outside world sees or would even understand, but the idea of a little protest via humor is something that i think is very much of part of the human condition.
the five films are all quite funny yet very poignant as well, as they take their often tongue-in-cheek approach to the situations and the "legends" they are discussing. now, the humor might not resonate with everyone, but anyone who grew up in romania during that time or the eastern communist block will probably find it hitting very close to home. and those of us with a strong political and historical interest and understanding will also appreciate and find yourself laughing.
while i did enjoy some of the shorts more than others, for me there wasn't a dud in the bunch - which is not often the case with these films made up of shorts. Tales From The Golden Age was another stand out from this years festival.
Guts is a story of drug trafficking in spain. our main character is just out of jail and is sent away by his uncle (guess some stuff went down before he was sent to prison). on his way to his new destination, he changes his plans and works/cons his way into the workings of some big time drug trafficking operation.
the film is supposed to be this kind of fun, hip film with some cool visual touches, and it kind of is i guess.
but, it also isn't as much fun or as hip and cool as i think it wants to be.
where the film got the most interesting was at the end when the film seemed to take on a completely different light. it became a con film with a big twist ending that really, for me, came out of nowhere - which i guess is a good thing for a twist ending to do right? but, whereas the film had felt like a standard drama - all of a sudden near the end we get characters killed off and surprise twists.
the problem was there was no real sense of cohesion to it all - and once it started happening it was all typical to the genre. so that, although the twists at the end were really a big surprise, they weren't that exciting. rather then making me say "oh wow, i didn't see that coming. that was awesome" i was more like, "oh. ok. i didn't see that coming, but i've seen it all before."
also... haven't we all seen enough movies to know that if someone is giving you a briefcase full of cash that you have to grab a few of the stacks of bills and flip through them to make sure that they are all bills and not just one bill on top of pieces of paper? i mean, come on!