Nisimazine Cannes 2009 #6

#6

WEDNESDAY 20 MAY 2009

NisiMazine Cannes

from Tulum, Daribor Matanic © KINORAMA

A Magazine Published By NISI MASA, European Network Of Young Cinema

Broken Embraces Dardenne Brothers’ Legacy Ciro Guerra

NISIMAZINE CANNES

Wednesday 20 May 2009 / #6

J

ane Campion’s film? “It’s The Piano without sex”. The violence in Mendoza’s Kinatay? “Good luck for those who intend to have barbecue later”. As for the Asian films on vampires, they are “total freak products, but with style”. And the great amount of political content makes Cannes the “UN of cinema”.

In our office, we get new newspapers and magazines every day. As the profession demands, we sometimes have to give up screenings to focus on writing; and the only opinions we have for many titles are the ones mentioned above. Our amusement is definitely guaranteed, but one could wonder

with the support of the ‘Youth in Action’ programme of the EU

by Bruno Carmelo

what image of the film the public gets from such reviews.

Criticizing the critics is a tempting exercise. We can say they didn’t have enough time to reflect on what they’ve seen, we can call them traditionalists, we can say they’ll probably defend films from their own countries, or the ideology of the medias they work for.

And why should their opinion count more than the public’s, anyway?

Maybe the tons of pages on the festival written by journalists and critics are meant neither to provide us with a different point of view on the films nor make us want to rush to the

EDITORIAL STAFF Director of Publication Matthieu Darras

movies later. Maybe reviews are a genre in themselves; a kind of writing that bases itself on cinema only to better take a distance from it. It’s like a joyful exercise in rhetoric, just like the caricatures in newspapers: an artistic piece of its own, limited in ambition and influence. And who can blame funny drawings for not providing a deep analysis on society or politics?

Maartje Alders Jude Lister Layout Maartje Alders

Editors-in-Chief

Contributors to this issue

Natalia Ames, Bruno Carmelo Eftihia Chatzistefanidi, Andrea Franco Luis Sens, Enrique Vivar Coordinators Joanna Gallardo Maximilien van Aertryck, Gulçin Sahin

NISI MASA 10 rue de l’Echiquier, 75010, Paris, France. + 33 (0)6 32 61 70 26

When you read one of the many magazines distributed in Cannes, just keep this in mind: reviews on films never talk about cinema; they talk, above all, about themselves.

europe@nisimasa.com www.nisimasa.com

Enjoy them.

www.nisimazine.eu

,

all the articles can be read online at

BY LUIS SENS

editorial

A magazine published by NISI MASA

picture of the day

© EL DESEO D.A., S.L.U.

film of the day

Los Abrazos Rotos / Broken Embraces Pedro Almodóvar (Spain)

robably the most polemic film of his whole filmography.

Broken Embraces, the latest work of Almodóvar, arrives surrounded of controversy. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it the worst? One thing is clear. His author loves it. This new movie, Los abrazos rotos, in its original title, isn’t only a showcase of style, where the master puts on the table all he has learnt along the years, but also, a “humble” tribute to his own particular career. I say “humble” because this film is full of references to his previous works – for example the movie shot by the main character in the film, emulates the funniest moments of

review

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (o.t. Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios)-, and besides that because of the rather vain beginning credits, where there’s only said “written and directed

by Pedro Almodóvar”. In view of this introduction, one can’t think nothing but the director is really proud of the result.

And rightly so, in my opinion, because the truth is that it is a very brilliant film; this movie is a constant demonstration of the art with which Almodóvar handles the camera, in a continuous coming and going of impeccable

movements, not always with foundation, but correct, after all. We are faced with one of those stories which condenses the special universe of its author. A story where there’s place for jealousy, guilt, passion, envy, resignation and especially love. All of that constructed around several genres, from the most intense melodrama, to the purest noir. And all performed by an unbeatable cast, helped by great supporting actors.

This story tells through many flashbacks how the life of the main character –a filmmaker who became a writer due to an accident

Kynodontas / Dogtooth

which left him blind-, has changed since his first meeting with a debutant actress. Finally, things start to unwind. A script sometimes dramatic, and sometimes hilarious, with no moment of resting for the viewer, who witnesses, engrossed, to an avalanche of dialogues which leave him absorbed during the two hours and a half that lengths the film. Color and dynamism in an ambitious and complex movie which covers almost every genre, and which seems that relaunches our feeble Spanish cinema.

by Andrea Franco

Yorgos Lanthimos (Greece) QR

by Eftihia Chatzistefanidi to the house, serves as a sexual toy for their pleasure.

Giorgos Lathimos’ second feature is not exactly what you would call a standard Greek movie experience. Perhaps the strangeness of the film’s milieu makes the levels of sex and violence more acceptable, but aggression comes out in the form of psychological disturbance. The experiment eventually challenges the foundations of human behaviour; a micro-society of people who have become clockwork, with animalistic manners. With very few tangible time references, this Adam’s Family meets Truman Show tale makes us

uneasy and alarmed. The frames are composed with a scrupulous symmetry, but once the abnormal is aesthetically stylized, it becomes painterly and emotionless.

Although this does not affect the strong performances, which are deliberately mechanical but still have an emotional power.

Dogtooth’s sharp study of a dysfunctional education is not easy to absorb, but if you get used to this fictionalized oddity, real life can seem extremely boring.

As long as this is the game you want to play.

©Baobab Films

elcome to the twilight zone.

Forget all the things you took for granted in life: norms, rules, logic and language. Shot almost entirely within the limits of a villa, Dogtooth’s secluded and uncanny world consists of a family of five that educates their children in an extremely peculiar way. Even their language is unusual: “salt” now means «phone» and «zombies» are, apparently, «little yellow flowers». The family members are not only banned from crossing the fence to reach the real world but also trained to play various bizarre games and collect points, overseen by the father. Christina, the only visitor

© Jeonwonsa

W

© BOO PRODUCTIONS

P

© Madrugada Films

review I

n a recent seminar on cinematography I attended, some big names of the Spanish movie scene explained that filmmakers who come from the advertising or music video industries handle the camera at the same time as they’re viewing through it.

Apparently, this leads to them missing the actors’ expressions while they’re trying to shoot in-focus or pay attention to the light.

Gabe Ibañez, who is making his debut - after several music

Hierro

Gabe Ibañez (Spain) SIC

videos, spots and short films - with a feature film called Hierro, is probably one of those few who have had the great idea of signing up a cameraman. This means that in this case the light doesn’t outshine the characters, even if some imagery has clear similarities with previous works.

This thriller, chosen by the Godfathers of the Critics’ Week - Juan Antonio Bayona and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, tells the story of a young mother who loses her son during

a ferry journey on their way to the island of Hierro. Alone in an unknown and deserted place, she fights against the odds to find her lost child, not wanting to admit the harsh truth - a point which has a lot in common with the main character of Bayona’s film The Orphanage. Many frightening moments plus a splendid performance from the main actress certify that, in Spain, the thriller is one of the genres on the rise.

by Andrea Franco

critics’ week shorts

©Kinorama

by Enrique Vivar

Tulum

Dalibor Matanic (Croatia)

L

iving with the burden of a recent war is a challenge. The landscape, the memories, the suffering, and especially the ghosts in our mind keep haunting us with their omniscient presence. In Tulum, Dalibor Matanic explores this situation in an atmosphere that combines dreams, imagination and the cruelest reality.

idfa

l At iO N A iN t E r N N t A r y E D O c u m t iv A l S E f m f il DA m A m St E r

www.id

A group of young people decides to throw a party next to a river. Their amusements are simple: beer, some drugs, and a lot of kisses.

They are happy, even though they know they have to go back to real life soon. Nevertheless, this joyful mood shifts to a painful one when the lead character wakes up in the middle of a cemetery, only to find the tombs of the friends she saw only a minute ago.

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Application deadline: 1 June 2009

Although the recent war is present in the narration (through the shots of destroyed buildings), it only appears with all its strength in the cemetery scene. The change of mood is one of the best qualities in this short film, because the happy and relaxed atmosphere of the first part is replaced by a melancholic environment, reinforced by the skilled use of cinematography and music.

The circular narration of the film contrasts the two situations - the fantasy and the reality. Yet it also shows with the actress’ smile that, even though her ghosts are still part of her present life, there is hope to build something new.

by Natalia Ames

HO

BY LUIS SENS

PHOTO by Luis Sens

TZ

U

NYEN

Director of HERE, QR

interview O

riginally a student of Mass Communications in Singapore, Ho Tzu Nyen’s taste for cinema came rather gradually. Dissatisfied with his academic studies, he built his own education through the history of art, especially the avant-gardes and the work of Marcel Duchamp. One thing led to another: soon he would be renting videos, discovering Godard, Antonioni, Fellini, and the shocking Theorem by Pasolini. He would then major in sculpture and shoot his first short film in 2003, Every Name in History is I, set in an installation with 20 paintings, about a pre-colonial founder of Singapore.

The success of this project on the international art scene led him to experiment with more shorts, such as The Bohemian Rhapsody Project and Reflections. In the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, he presents his first feature film, HERE, set in a psychiatric hospital and inspired by painting, music and the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche.

How do you think your experience in visual arts influences your work as a filmmaker?

My work with the moving image is definitely affected by my relationship with other arts, mainly painting and music, but also my engagement in reading artistic, historical and theoretical texts.

In any case, my obsessions over the last few years have been with pre-20th century Dutch, French and Italian paintings, and maybe something of this went into HERE. In your previous projects, you worked a lot with non-professional actors. Did you keep this

choice for HERE? I worked with a cast of about 30 actors, mainly amateurs, retirees, as well as a couple of professionals who are just starting out (and not terribly well-known or overused at the moment). What I look for in a cast member is physiognomy, presence and a certain passion for adventure. I don’t believe in discriminating against either professional actors or nonactors. For me, a film’s “realism” is largely defined by the moment of encounter between the camera and the world, and the world is made up of all kinds of people who act and react differently to the camera.

You say HERE is about the characters “being here” in the film and for the public “being here” in the cinema. But aren’t all films about being here?

In this film, I think of all the characters as pretty much trapped behind the screen, just as they are incarcerated in a mental asylum.

I would almost even call it a kind of purgatorial space. As for the public, I was interested in making them feel that they are really ‘here’ in the cinema, enclosed in this darkened room, losing track of time. But perhaps most of all, I try to make the public so conscious of their ‘perceptual activity’ that they become aware of their own bodies, through the use of extremely low frequencies and a strategic use of the 5.1 surround sound system.

Your previous short films contain a particular kind of humour which opposes the meaning of both the narration and the image it comments on.

Commentary, or self-reflexivity, is an important ethical and aesthetic principle for my work, though I am always hoping to find new ways to prevent [this] from becoming a kind of didactic totalization. This is already achieved in some of

the most magnificent paintings of the past - in Caravaggio, in Courbet, in Manet - in different ways, of course. I believe HERE to be a continuation of this project.

Both Reflections and The Bohemian Rhapsody Project are low-budget productions that use imagination and creativity to deal with complex sceneries and actions. Did you make use of the same kind of procedure in HERE? HERE is set in a mental asylum, and the primary location for our shoot was a ‘real’ disused mental hospital. This conflation of the past and the present was evoked in some senses, when many of my crew and cast claimed to have had rather spooky encounters. It gave us all the creeps being on location making our film. A large number of my works so far seem to be composed in relation to a dichotomy of space: studio/ real, inside/outside; but my intention was always to keep this dialectic going, so that it is always reversing, inversing, etc., like an infinity of Plato’s caves within caves...

by Bruno Carmelo

Dardenne Brothers

in f o cus from Días de Santiago © Chullachaki Producciones

The Dardennian legacy in Latin American cinema The Dardenne brothers’ filmography has imprinted a powerful influence on directors around the world. But admirers can especially be found amongst young filmmakers from Latin America, where the search for a new kind of realism has found inspiration in this Belgian duet’s choice of themes and style of expression.

T

from El asaltante © Magma Cine

his year the masters themselves are giving a class in Cannes, but their teachings have already been put into practice by “students” who follow their approach to reality. For example, in Días de Santiago, Peruvian director Josué Méndez films the story of a former soldier who has to adapt to life in the city after having fought in civil and international conflicts. Repeatedly during the movie, Santiago walks around the streets with his permanently distrustful and alert expression, and the camera joins him, capturing his discomfort and every-

thing he sees. Méndez films Santiago attentively, and the long shots of his trajectory show an influence of the close observational style that the Dardennes display in their work. The handheld camera in the middle of the city accompanying an urban, marginal character reminds us of the style and the themes of Rosetta, and especially The Son. The Argentinean Pablo Fendrik shows the most frenetic side of the brothers’ influence, with dramatic pursuits and agile camera movements. The long walks

of the thief in El asaltante are patiently filmed by a camera that focuses on the back of the actor’s head, and the final persecution and aggressive fight involving the father and son in La sangre brota bears strong similarities with some Dardennian scenes. Fendrik’s cinematographic approach is evidently inspired by the Belgians, who have reinvented realism in order to portray the situation of the European underclass.

And talking about the forgotten people who live in backwardness and confront a hard life everyday, we find this year at the Semaine de la Critique a story that depicts these kinds of characters, except that it doesn’t happen in a poor Belgian neighborhood, but in the Chilean countryside.

In Huacho, by Alejandro Fernández Almendras, the social reality portrayed is strongly reminiscent of the Dardennes’ cinema: the careful observation of the family routines seeks the same naturalistic approach,

and the characters chosen are treated in a complex and respectful way, giving depth to their personalities in order to go beyond the stereotype.

These are lessons that Fernández Almendras learned from the Dardennes during his days as a critic, when he wrote passionate reviews about them, and now he adapts their aesthetic to the reality of Latin America.

These examples show that the legacy of the Dardennes’ filmography is helping to achieve the ideals of these politically engaged brothers, who believe in the potential of cinema to change society and call the attention of audiences to the problems of people like Rosetta, Santiago and the families of La sangre brota and Huacho. Visually powerful and socially committed, the films by the Dardennes’ followers in Latin America are the new face of realism in a continent where injustice needs to be denounced.

by Natalia Ames

© CIUDAD LUNAR PRODUCCIONES

encounter Director of Los viajes del viento, UCR

Ciro Guerra

portrait

by Enrique Vivar What was the starting point of your project? Why did you have the need to tell this particular story?

I’m from the region where this film takes place, and I was raised in contact with the oral tradition of my country, its myths and legends, with its music in the purest form. First of all there was the image of the wandering minstrel, who went from place to place carrying songs with his accordion. I thought about him as a mythical character, he always fascinated me. I really have to say this is the movie I always wanted to do.

There is an important gap between La sombra del caminante and this new feature. What do you think are the constant features (if any) that you have kept from your fist experience as a filmmaker?

I think both films are opposite but only in the superficial aspects: One is 100% urban, the other is 100% rural, one is black and white, the other in colour, one was shot in video, the other in Super

35mm, the first one was done without a penny, the new one had a large budget ... But in what really matters, the two films have much in common. It’s the same voice that tells the story.

Where could you place Los viajes del viento in the context of recent film projects in Colombia? And if we talk about the rest of the region, do you think it is possible to imagine a new wave of Latin American cinema?

I think films in Colombia are at a crossroads, in which you have only two options: to make light comedies or to talk about the national tragedy. We envisioned this movie as a search for another option, an option that allows us to explore this country in a deeper way, and all the extraordinary things that you can find there. I think it’s terrible that this is the first movie to be filmed in the Alta Guajira. It will be great if in the future other filmmakers could film La Guajira, Chocó or the Amazon river, the Orinoco river… This is an undiscovered country,

there are thousands stories to tell and I do not mean only the geographical landscape, but a spiritual landscape, a human landscape.

And I think that’s one way to enrich Colombian cinema. It is something that has occurred in many Latin American countries, but in Colombia is just starting.

Your film has strong visual qualities, which is rare in Latin American cinema.

How was your work in terms of photography and art direction?

90% of the film was shot with natural daylight. Only the night scenes had artificial lighting, for obvious reasons.

We wanted to be faithful to how we perceived the light from the Caribbean area, which is beautiful, alive and full of nuances that could be lost by including artificial lighting. So Paulo Perez, the director of photography, used very complex assemblies made with mirrors to gain all the natural light we could.

From the beginning we knew that the movie would be filmed in widescreen 2.35:1.

The visual concept of the film

was to capture music as an expression of man’s relationship with nature. We did not want to do a tourist postcard, and we worked a lot on the script to give more poignancy to the human drama.

What were your references (in literature and film) for Los Viajes del Viento?

I was inspired a lot by John Ford’s films, I wanted this movie to look like a crepuscular western, but with Caribbean light. I took a lot of references from Terrence Malick films, his way of filming the relationship between man and nature was my inspiration. Also Kurosawa, particularly Dersu Uzala and Ran, his use of widescreen is fascinating.

What shall we expect from you in the future?

It all depends on how Los Viajes del Viento goes down with people. For Latin American filmmakers, to make a picture is a matter of life and N I S I We M risk A S everything A death. in our projects, although we know, the future is uncertain. I make each film as if it were the last one.

European Network of Young Cinema

NISI MASA European Network of Young Cinema

presents:

MATTER OF TASTE Food & Film in Europe

A programme of shorts, documentaries and fictions about food & culture.

In partnership with the Lago Film Fest (Italy), from 24th – 31st July 2009.

www.matteroftaste.eu