July 2012
East of the West 47th Karlovy Vary IFF
Nisimazine special
EAST OF THE WEST Pages 6-7 Pages 8-9 Pages 10-11 Pages 12-13 Pages 14-15 Pages 16-17 Pages 18-19 Pages 20-21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24
Interview with Karel Och, Artistic director of KVIFF Flower Buds The Exam Practical Guide to Belgrade with Singing and Dancing Made in Aš Shameless Dear Betrayed Freinds Photo impressions by Josef Rabara House with a Turret Vanishing Waves (Aurora) Yuma Mushrooming People Out There Somewhere in Palilula
END OF THE WEST Pages 28-29
Boy Eating the Bird’s Food
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE EAST Pages 34-35 Pages 36-37
The Firemen’s Ball Reha Erdem retrospective
“To me there never was much of a difference: under Communism my films were subjected to political censorship, after, to economic censorship” - Věra Chytilová In spite of having started less than a year ago in Venice, Nisimazine Special is already establishing itself as an innovative venture on the festival circuit. After Venice and Rotterdam, we went to the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival to explore and cover the East of the West Competition. Born from the need to involve participants from our previous workshops to provide a sense of meaningful continuity, our Special series is also proving to be a powerful critical tool. While festival reports usually span over different sections to highlight the best offerings in each, our coverage include all the films present in the section we decide to cover (Orizzonti in Venice, Shorts in Rotterdam and EoW in Karlovy Vary). To have a comprehensive overview of the whole section grants us an insight into the curatorial policy and can sometimes motivate the presence of a “bad” film, without justifying its shortcomings. In the case of the East of the West Competition at KVIFF then, an all-inclusive coverage unveiled a discursive consistency traversing the whole section that titles alone would have never revealed. Originally conceived in the early 90s to showcase films coming from the former Soviet Block, the East of the West Competition came to epitomize the kind of regional expertise Karlovy Vary is associated with. To watch all the films in this year’s selection opened a wide window on a region coming to terms with its totalitarian past while facing new liberal fractures. Despite the colourful promises of Consumer Democracy, the powerless seem to have remained such and the spectre of Communism is still haunting (Eastern) Europe. In fact, a consistent majority of the films we watched deal, directly or indirectly, with the trauma of Real Socialism and the unexpected bleakness of Abstract Capitalism. Exceptions notwithstanding, the image of Eastern Europe emerging from these films was as cinematically diverse as it was thematically unequivocal: the transition from the failed dream of communism to the successful nightmare of capitalism lays unresolved. We feel that to reflect upon the cultural significance of the tired dichotomy “East & West” in this particular historical moment is vital not only to the cinematic discourse. That is why we decided to ‘expand’ the Eastern frontiers of our coverage to include the Greek debut Boy Eating the Bird’s Food as well as the retrospective dedicated to the Turkish director Reha Erdem.
editorial
As we ventured into a new generation of East European cinema we could not help but notice how universal some of the concerns featured in these films were. We encountered a young generation struggling to imagine a (im) possible future, living under the shadow of an encumbering past and the light of a deceitful present. We attentively watched their visions, fears and failures to bring them to you in the firm conviction that the current sociopolitical predicament is a shared one, belonging to neither East nor West but to us all.
Giovanni Vimercati, Head of Nisimazine
east
of the west
interview interview
Karel Och Artistic director of Karlovy Vary IFF
Can you tell us something about the history of the East of the West Competition and how it has changed throughout the years?
Do you detect in East European cinema a certain disillusionment with what were the initial promises of democracy and how it actually turned out to be?
The “East of the West” has always been the secondary section of KVIFF, initially it wasn’t even a competition actually; then we figured that if we wanted to stand out and be distinguishable we should focus on what we’re known for [East European cinema]. That is why we now dedicate a great deal of attention to this section. In its original formulation the competition had a more political definition, they were films coming from the former Soviet Block. We’re now trying to shift the focus from political to geographical as we feel that this political definition no longer applies. From time to time we also thought of including countries from south-eastern Europe but I don’t think this competition is ready yet for this change.
It is one of the feelings you have in contemporary Eastern cinema; I wouldn’t say it’s the only one. Of course you cannot ignore what is going on at the moment: people loosing their jobs six months before retirement or for example the growing of ultranationalist movements like we see in the Polish film Shameless. So yes, there definitely is some sort of disillusionment but I don’t think it’s pessimistic, I feel that young filmmakers are somehow facing it without being overwhelmed by it.
Do you think it is a case that most of the films in competition are, directly or indirectly, concerned with the trauma of Communism? And also, has the way in which filmmakers deal with the communist past changed from the early 90s to now?
I wouldn’t say the current state of affairs is criticized directly; filmmakers tend to use personal and intimate stories to address aspects of contemporary society they dislike or disapprove of. Generally speaking there is no censorship nowadays, so it’s easier for them to deal with contemporary issues.
I think it’s a good point since the films in competition are either first or second features, which means they represent a new perspective on past issues that some of the directors have not even lived through. It is significant that young filmmakers are willing to explore their national past, I thing it signals a willingness to participate in the development of their own countries. And yes, in regard to your second question, I’m sure it has changed. New generations have the possibility to travel abroad so they can see their own respective countries through different lenses, their range of experiences is wider and their point of view more mature and articulated I would say.
Where do you see Eastern European cinema going? Any interesting trends or names?
Do you think that because of the traumatic totalitarian past it is easier to criticize and dissect the errors and horrors of Communism than those of Democratic Capitalism?
I’m particularly excited about Polish cinema these days, we got a lot of interesting submissions coming from there and not only for the East of the West competition. I’m also very happy to see that in spite of its economic problems Hungarian cinema is growing and developing. But what I’m most interested in is to see a variety of formal approaches being adopted, different takes, experimentation with film genres. I feel there is a vibrant stylistic research going one, and that is definitely a positive aspect of contemporary Eastern European cinema.
interview by giovanni vimercati // photo by josef rabara // nisimazine karlovy vary 2012 // 7
Flower Buds (Poupata)
by Zdeněk Jiráský // Czech Republic You juxtapose a few positive metaphors in Poupata against its depressing nature, can you talk a bit about that? The title is a hopeful metaphor that contrasts with the actual topic that is very depressing, I wanted to give the film an ironic overtone. The trains that constantly pass by also have a lot of symbolism; they represent a possibility to escape. All the characters are linked to the them, but none
of them has the courage to leave, except for the stripper, who is considered an outsider. Every 30 minutes a train leaves, with the potential to take them to a better world, but they do not dare to step on it. The film examines social realism through emotionally raw actions and reactions - how were you able to bring these emotions to life? First of all, through the screenplay: I always try to find the train of thoughts that are gradually expressed emotionally or physically. The other level emerged later, unexpectedly, through improvisation – always on the first take. The credibility and authenticity mostly come from the very careful selection of actors - we tried to find very natural people who are believable in their roles, which is why we also like to work with fairly unknown actors. The lead character, Jarda, is very strong yet contradictory. In contrast to the clichéd self-destructive, depressive, working-class father who turns to alcohol, he comes across as well-composed and meticulous in his craftsmanship. His weakness, however, is gambling. Why did you characterise him in this way?
Agata (the disheartened daughter) grapples with an unpleasant reality that she wishes to escape from, even at the cost of lying to her lover. Honza (the idealistic son) becomes infatuated with a woman seemingly out of his league, and goes to radical lengths to attain the unattainable. Kamila, (the ever-optimistic wife and mother) tries to stay hopeful while well-aware that the cracks growing in her family life wont diminish any time soon. Jarda (the despondent father and husband, on all fronts) immerses himself in meticulous, time-consuming and mind-numbing tasks by day while spending his family’s non-existent fortune on slot machines by night. Each individual story is inextricably interwoven with the other to portray a full account of one family’s struggle to survive.
I decided to focus on gambling because of my own personal experience of how destructive this problem can be. My best friend from primary school became a gambler and lost everything: his money, his house, his family; it all ended very badly. I don’t know what has become of him, whether he is even still alive. I based the character of Jarda on him. In post-Soviet society, audiences might be more interested in comic relief and escapism, not in socially-engaged, serious films. How has Poupata been received in the Czech Republic? On one hand, we have had over 15,000 viewers at our screenings, which is a great success. It has also had a very warm reception from press, festivals and experts, and we got the Czech Lion award, which means a lot to us. On the other hand, the anonymous comments from mainstream viewers is that now is not the time for such films. Perhaps they don’t want to think too much and prefer lighter comedies. The reality is that the festival audiences here are mainly young backpackers, not the upper-classes, so they either live in an environment like the one in the film or know someone who does. They are very familiar with issues like gambling and yet they come here to watch these types of films. People still want to learn more and many of them can relate.
The tired monotony of life is strongly felt in this vivid depiction of working-class life, and the complexity of existential dissatisfaction is alive in every scene. Unconditional love is repeatedly displayed through acts of ultimate betrayal, a narrative that underpins the entire film, leaving you deeply moved and equally perturbed at the paradox that is the very nature of human life and relationships. By the end, one cannot help but sympathize with the characters while simultaneously faulting them for their masochistic compulsions and selfdefeating habits.
review
The horizons enveloping the desolate setting through which the tracks run hint at the possibility of a better life, not to mention an omnipresent means to get there, but do so with an almost certain reluctance to deliver. The reality for those living in the midst of the tracks, including Jarda and his family, contrast sharply with such hopeful symbolism. Unlike the unstoppable trains that charge relentlessly towards their destination throughout the film, evoking a monstrous terror with the incessant sound of rattling and metal grinding against metal, Jarda and his family are stuck in the melancholic rut that is their lives.
Poupata draws a portrait of a family fraught to overcome their individual trials and tribulations, but fail miserably at every turn. Each member of Jarda’s family struggles to overcome the respective constrains of their dismal existence through varying desperate measures.
interview
As one of this years ’East of the West’ competing films, Zdeněk Jiráský’s Czech drama Poupata (Flower Buds) stands in good stead, complimented with the impeccable cinematography of Vladimír Smutný and the lyrical performances of its cast. In this film, Jiráský offers a poignant yet sincere glimpse into the lives of one family which revolve around railway tracks ominously outstretched across a small, bleak and wintery town.
review & interview by sara ishaq // photo by josef rabara // nisimazine karlovy vary 2012 // 9
The Exam (A vizsga)
by Péter Bergendy // Hungary
In the troubled late fifties, Hungarian secret police agents’ loyalty had to be put to test in The Exam: with perfectly constructed characters and suspense, this is a must see for any fan of high-class spy films like The Lives of Others or Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy.
‘The Exam’ is a psychological drama, a historical piece and an action film at the same time, which one interested you the most? All three! Originally I’m a psychologist, I have always been interested in human relationships and in history as well. The Exam is like an action film, but without any car chases. I feel it’s very important to speak about history in film, so that people can understand it better; you can use this understandable film language to discuss very important historical issues. And human issues as well. How hard was it to do research on the communist secret police? Our scriptwriter Norbert Köbli investigated this matter. The agent lists are not public, we still have problems about it. However, we had access to educational films that were used for training agents, so our film is based on them. Is the general public interested in the history of the communist secret police? Is it a big issue in society? We don’t reallly know much about the activity of the secret police after the 1956 revolution. I think anybody who is interested in this matter can find documentary information in the film – this situation could have happened. Nothing is based on real facts, but everything could have happened.
What impresses you first in The Exam is the visual style: Bergendy knows exactly what details to show to let the Christmas frenzy sneak in, or to cast the spell of doubt on a character, and director of photography Zsolt Tóth fits them all within a coherent film noir style, all in a captivating reconstruction of the fifties that will leave any retro nostalgic longing for more. Perhaps the background music is a bit too much at times, but that is merely a detail. Despite its stylistical merits, The Exam’s greatest accomplishment lays somewhere else: Péter Bergendy has the ability to send out a clever statement in a mainstream-friendly way and
Your characters are people who are hiding many things, it’s their job and they do it really well; how did you work with the actors on that? We agreed to shoot everything as if it happened that very moment, we didn’t want any backstory. For example, when András and Eva love eachother, it’s a fake love of course, it was their task, but we agreed that they would act it as if they were really in love. There are so many twists and turns in the film, and before shooting we were wondering wether to tell the actors how the story ends, but we decided it would be better if they know. How did the reconstruction of the fifties go? I have been working with the same professional crew for more that 20 years, and they have experience with it because a lot of films about the fifties were made in Hungary. At the same time, I like to examine everything, for example I even examined the cobbler stones from those times in photos. There are also a few computer tricks; this is a low budget film and we didn’t always have money to reconstruct everything, but we tried to do as much as we could.
show how Communism has taught people to never trust their peers. A legacy that former Communist countries will only be able to let go of after a couple of generations.
review
In late 1956, Budapest was boiling with turmoil after a student demonstration inspired a wider uprising against the Soviet policies imposed by then-ruling Communist Party, only to be crushed in less than a month. After these events, you would assume that the Secret Police had loads of work on their hands keeping an eye on antiCommunists, but Bergendy’s The Exam plays with the idea that the organisation needed to test their own people’s loyalty as well.
As Christmas 1957 approaches, one man seems untouched by the warm and fuzzy holiday mood. András Jung is a young agent posing as a lonely teacher who gives private language lessons in his small appartment: the perfect cover-up for receiving all sorts of visitors all day. What he doesn’t know is that his mentor, superior and only friend Markó Pál and a small team follow his every move. However, this film has a lot of surprises for us, and no random act of kindness or innocent glance is what it seems.
interview
There are spy films that make the latest productions from the neverending James Bond franchise look like a kid with a toy gun next to a classy gentleman in a tuxedo: films that manage to capture the thrills of one the trickiest professions in the world without resorting to car chases, tons of bullets or high-tech special effects, relying on complex characters instead and drawing suspense from sophisticated scriptwriting that puts your mind to work. After a long career in TV commercials and the successful debut feature Stop Mom Teresa! (Állítsátok meg Terézanyut!), director Péter Bergendy turns his eye to Hungarian history, creating an intimate piece where the espionage plot is only a pretext for a more complex story of trust and betrayal.
review & interview by andreea dobre // photo by josef rabara // nisimazine karlovy vary 2012 // 11
Practical Guide to Belgrade with Singing and Dancing (Praktičan vodič kroz Beograd sa pevanjem i plakanjem) by Bojan Vuletić // Serbia, Germany, France, Hungary, Croatia A comedy where characters cry and a drama that involves joyful singing, Practical Guide to Belgrade portrays a city and its inhabitants on their way towards the European Union, while still holding on to their passionate selves.
Is your story more about the characters, or are they just a pretext to say something about the city and the country? Honestly, in the first stages of writing there was one main idea: Serbia’s transition towards the EU. After that, we gave our best to make these characters seem alive, you can feel all the problems they face in Belgrade and Serbia nowadays. We always go from one extreme to the other, trying to show that we are better than anyone, exaggerating everything. It’s a very local thing, characteristic for the Balkans. There is this fascination we have now with the European Union and with the people coming here. It seemed like not only the couples have love stories, but that there is also a love story between you and the city. It’s true. It’s like a marriage, you know both their qualities and their flaws. I tried to show this ironic opposition through cinematography with my DOP, Jelena Stankovic. We wanted to show nice aspects of Belgrade, but the things we are picturing are mostly falling apart, precisely because of the transition. This collision between the old town and the new, the European one, was meant to look like some sort of a post-card, but a very ironic one. It seems like it’s the women that pull the strings in all the couples in the film. Is it like that in real life in Serbia?
A love story between the characters as much one of the director and his own city and country, Practical Guide to Belgrade puts social, economic and cultural transition (quite literally) in lyrics to the music of the city. Bojan Vuletić casts a critical but loving glance at a nation that has strong feelings about everything and always feels it has something to prove.
they confess their own missteps. They carry on as mothers and working women with the same intensity they have are lovers, and men have no choice but to subdue to their domination.
Regardless of nationality, it is the women that drive men around, pulling the strings and dictating the direction they should go (one of the female characters is actually a dominatrix). Women drive men crazy, they get them drunk, they make them obey, they forgive them for cheating and only afterwards
The images capture almost postcardlike glimpses of the city as a background to couples kissing and impromptu choirs (flight attendants, police intervention troops, road workers, prisoners). As they work to modernize the city and the society, the Serbs’ passion and way of life is still deeply
Absolutely ! It’s still an old, patriarchal society, but women are stronger. The ain character is always a woman in everything I write: I feel more connected to women, I think that they are more complex, there are a lot of feelings that a female character is capable of. Could you talk a bit about how the film’s structure revolves around songs? My intention was to make a musical, with serious dancing and singing all the time, but we didn’t have enough money for that. We tried not to drift completely away from the idea, but keep the costs low at the same time. So we figured out this device with the choir and I think in the end it works better than singing and dancing all the way. We needed songs that didn’t require us to pay for copyright, and my composer suggested that we could use folk songs about love, which also provide some sort of ironic commentary for the four stories. What about the fact that characters continued on from one story to the other? I wanted to underline the fact that we are very connected in Belgrade, despite all the differences. Somehow we are very similar, with these extremes and exaggerations, and the four chapters come together like a puzzle to show the bigger picture. Sometimes in a schizophrenic manner.
interview
review
The story follows four couples, one at a time, each of them in a different stage of a romantic relationship: falling in love, the crisis, the adultery and the marriage. One of the two is always a foreigner that gets caught in the passion the Serbs exude in everything they do.
The leaders and the followers exaggerate in their feelings, as well as in their actions. They are prone to quickly changing states of heart and of mind, characterizing the Serbs as eager to prove themselves as Europeans to the bone, while at the same time holding on nostalgically to their music, their places, their traditions. They are geographically “East of the West”, but their ambition is to not just match, but surpass the Westerners in being Western.
rooted in the folk songs about love that these choirs sing. The openness of Belgrade, their progress in economy or infrastructure are proudly stated, and they have an “out with the old, in with the new” philosophy. But the way they fall in love and conduct themselves in romantic relationships seems to follow an age-old code that applies equally to locals and foreigners; the more some things change, the more others stay the same.
review & interview by mirona nicola // nisimazine karlovy vary 2012 // 13
Made in Aš
(Až do mesta Aš)
By Iveta Grófová // Slovak Republic, Czech Republic Your film deals with a very big social issue, how did you do the research? I started this film as a documentary, 5 years ago when I was a student and I went to the city of Aš to do research, to find authentic surroundings and talk to locals. It is very usual for Slovaks to come work in the Czech
Republic, but the factories have been closed down, especially in the nineties. It is a very common story. Many Slovaks live in a bubble, they don’t know why anbody would leave the country to work abroad. Since it started out as a documentary project, how much of the film is documentary and how much was staged? Some scenes are authentic and the cast is made of non-professionals, but the story is a written script. I knew many of them before, I was in school when I started the film, and they never believed I will actually finish it. Silvia Halušicová was a great help, even though she is not an actress she always knew what to do. Sometimes I felt like an observer, she initiated everything. Despite the social realism of the story, there is also a little bit of a magic touch, with many light effects, reflexions and animation parts. Can you tell me more about them? Iveta: I first shot all the live acting scenes and then used animation. One of the reasons was that I wanted to capture the inner life of the characters. They are hand drawings. I studied animation before, the first drawings are mine, but then I worked with an animator, Josef Elsik, who finished my drafts.
whole family back home becomes unemployed, unable to find a new job? The storyline is simple and anyone could picture her grim future, but a few stylistical choices make this film more than a social commentary. Probably the biggest quality of Made in Aš is its ability to capture the degradation of femininity, the loss of that inner mix of dreams, delicacy and naivity that most eighteen-year-old girls have the luxury of maintaining for a while. Apart from the scarce conditions, Dorotka’s roommate Silvia casts a strange influence on her, fully-loaded by her energic and spontaneous performance, and the two girls’ friendship flows very naturally as they sink into some sort of kitschy promiscuity: even more impressive when you think about the fact that both of them are non-professional actresses.
It’s no secret that many Slovaks come to the Czech Republic looking for work, and Made in Aš puts the spotlight on this phenomenon through an individual story: what happens when everything goes wrong and that one person who was supposed to provide for the
Last but not least, Viera Bačíková’s mesmerizing camera work and a series of animation sequences are able to dig out the lost innocence underneath the grey reality, completely transforming a modest apartment or a desperate sex scene.
This is not a perfect film, but it accomplishes its goals – quite more than its initial goals actually. Slow-paced and quite depressing, Made in Aš may not become an audience darling, but it accurately displays some harsh truths of our days, and also sets off Iveta Grófová’s career on the right path, stirring a well-deserved interest in her future work.
As for the camera effects, I wanted to combine the points of view of both the characters and the public, that is why I used all the reflexes, and why sometimes it is blurry or unsharp. Why I like to work with Viera is that her way of working is very humble, she never tries to point at her camera work, and the form is never more important than the content. Viera Bačíková, D.O.P.: In the beginning we used a steadycam, but then we decided not to: we wanted to keep the documentary style, we needed a small camera so we can keep it a little bit hidden on set. Dorotka, what was it like to play this character who goes through so many rough experiences? Dorotka Bílá: At first, I was very worried of what my parents will say when they see this film. I was only seventeen and very shy in the beginning. However, it was very easy compared to the second half, but I survived. I am from a Roma comunity in Slovakia and I am afraid of how the Slovak Roma people will receive this film: I hope they will understand that it’s just a film, and this is not me.
interview
review
With unemploment and poverty on the rise in many parts of Europe, it somehow feels natural that austerity invades arthouse filmmaking as well: I’m not talking about shoestring budgets, but about a certain stylistical austerity and economy of means that adecquately shapes form for its content when films delve into social dramas, aiming to speak about our financially troubled times. However, Slovak film Made in Aš opened this year’s East of the West competition with a dream-like approach on a naturalistic subject, shying away from deadpan long takes and still managing to fit the package to the narrative. Iveta Grófová’s debut feature follows young Dorotka on the road to perdition and misery, as the promising high-school graduate slowly becomes a wreckage willing to trade dignity for survival, all while tackling a big social issue.
review & interview by andreea dobre // nisimazine karlovy vary 2012 // 15
Shameless
(Bez wstydu)
by Filip Marczewski // Poland This film seems to be an adaptation or a continuation of a short you did, it deals with the same issue... Yes, but we changed almost everything, except for one: it’s a story of a brother and a sister. In Prague Short Film Festival, director Jan Sverak said to me “If I were you, I would make a longer version of it”. And I had
so much stuff leftover from the script, that when scriptwriter Grzegorz Łoszewski contacted me and proposed me to work on the story, I knew I had to do it. In the short the incest subject matter is more augmented, the boy’s obsessions are less cleaned up. Why did you decide to tone it down in the feature film? This boy was much younger, he was just 14. At that age people are dominated by obsessions. Some of that passion is still there in the feature, but in a different way. The boy’s restlessness is one of the most striking aspects of the film: he struggles to be loved, but he’s totally blinded by it, so he can’t see that someone else has fallen for him. Didn’t you feel like investigating more into this egoistical love? It’s very common to be dreaming of someone and not seeing that someone else is by your side. It could be a perfect match with that Romany girl, but the timing is not right. Anyway the final is pretty open: some viewers just tell me “It’s obvious they’re going to be together”.
This painful coming of age story is settled in a conflictive social environment - where a neo-nazi group repeatedly attacks a gypsy settlement - and here you have a possible reason of interest for this film: the attempt to merge sentimental drama, the controversial passion of the protagonist, with social drama, the clash of communities. It’s not common to give such melodramatic plots a social scope, maybe Todd Haynes is one of
Interestingly, the subject matter comes from a previous short film by the same director, multi-awarded Melodramat, picturing the scandalous love of a young boy for his elder sister. Even compared with the trailer of that short film (to be found here), in Shameless the forbidden passion and its emotional consequences are kind of cleaned up: no deep investigation of the protagonist’s obsession, no attempt to visualize his inner projections and conflicts. Marczewski opts for a naturalistic representation, which helps in keeping narrative tension strong throughout the
Was it difficult to convince the Roma community to participate and use their place? Were they concerned with how their community was going to be depicted? Actually we sort of became friends, during 2 years I went there and talked to them. And the script was ok for them. They also suggested some changes for it to be more true to reality (i.e. the wedding scene). While your film comes across as a melodrama, you also tackle social matters: is it just for the film to be more realistic or were you trying to point out some political issues? The main story is kind of a melodrama, but for me it’s very important to put it in a concrete world: those gypsies really exist, those neo-nazis exist as well, close to each other. And such issues prompts the viewers to think about their own lives. Had I made the film only about the incest, this wouldn’t have happened. There’s also a parallel there: when we see the brothers together, we think they’re “sick”; same with the gypsies, we assume that they are dirty, that they steal... but actually we don’t know much about both issues. These two aspects raise more or less the same questions. This film is about tolerance.
80 minutes, along with a solid dramaturgy and powerful acting, but maybe sacrifices the exploration of his characters’ ultimate emotional consequences on the altar of realism. The protagonist restless search for loving in the “wrong” direction, this blinding addiction that keeps him from seeing his Romany friend’s love, is a very genuine, yet very little shown, human experience: it’s a shame this film isn’t pushing a bit forward in the disclosure of such universal, tragic feeling.
review
The plot revolves around restless 18-yearold Tadzik, intensely played by Mateusz Kościukiewicz, and his two summer relationships: on one side a turbulent attraction for his elder half-sister Anka, a beautiful, emotionally unsettled Agnieszka Grochowska, and on the other side a newly born friendship with local Romany girl Irmina, débutante Anna Próchniak, who falls in love with him.
the few successfully walking this path (Far from Heaven and HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce). In Shameless, the parallel between the “sick” brother-sister relationship and the anger against the gypsy settlement is surely fascinating. Incest and gypsies are both “dirty”, socially unaccepted in our bourgeois commonsense. But the film doesn’t explore these prejudices too deeply. The ethnic clash setting is fair but not surprising whatsoever, so it threatens to remain an exotic backdrop.
interview
Sex is confined to one not-so-explicit scene, and the whole film is much less torrid than you could expect. Sorry you voyeurs reading this, but that’s what film posters, titles and press agents are for…
review & interview by sebastiano pucciarelli // photo by josef rabara // nisimazine karlovy vary 2012 // 17
Dear Betrayed Friends (Drága besúgott barátaim)
by Sára Cserhalmi // Hungary, Germany Luckily for both the director and the audience at KVIFF, Dear Betrayed Friends made it back to the East of the West competition. Hungarian director Sára Cserhalmi talks about her powerful feature debut.
I know your film was close to not being screened at the festival because it was not completed. Could you talk a bit about that? This is a degree film and we didn’t get any money from the government in Hungary. Well, not the government, but the Hungarian Film Fund. They usually give all the money for film production, but they didn’t give us any so we didn’t have enough funds to complete post-production. In the end, an American company came on board. They called me and offered to help us complete the project by making a digital print, and thanks to them we were finally able to be part of the East of the West competition. The characters constantly switch between good and bad. There is also no clear main character. Why is that? I wanted it to be this way because I don’t intend to judge anyone. The nature of the subject would have given us the opportunity to judge one character or the other, but I didn’t want to be the one to point out who was right and who was wrong. In fact I think nobody is entitled to do that. You can never know what reasons drive a person to take such decisions.
With impressive strength for a young female director, Cserhalmi captures us with a tense story that delves into a present strongly influenced by the past. In order to have access to the archives, Andor has to offer information on the period in which he suspects he was under surveillance. A simple enumeration of the professions he had durring this time (ranging from street sweeper to writer and teacher) is a skilfully chosen situation that tells a great deal about how intellectuals were repressed by the former regime. Moments like these are the film’s strong assets: mundane events and discussions manage to express, in a
With a great deal of subtlety, the director puts the two men into focus alternatively and manages to bring across that a strict good/bad dichotomy is not applicable in such a complex situation. The tension between Andor and Janos is constantly piled up as they interact by all channels except face to face. When the imminent encounter does take place, there is nothing more to be said. But taking into account the way things develop, had this occured earlier, the situation wouldn’t have been a lot different. While Andor might lack the courage, Janos lacks the will. As he puts it himself, his exposure as an informat is more of a relief than a burden. The expectation of an angerfilled confrontation is not met, but putting the whole puzzle together, it is clear that it would have been completely unnatural for characters like these.
We can see some imperfections of Hungarian society (such as bribing doctors in the hospital) in the background. To what extent are these influenced by the country’s past? Was it your intention to emphasize them in any way? They do come from the past, but I was concentrating mainly on the present, on the relationship between the two men and how they both react to the discovery that one reported on the other, what they think and what they do. You leave them quite a lot of time to think, because the moment when they actually confront eachother is constantly postponed. And when this happens, there is no real confrontation as one might have expected. I would say that they do have a proper confrontation when Andor writes the article and Janos responds by appearing on the TV show. It is true that they never speak face to face, but there is always another way, some sort of intermediary. In the end, both of them are lonely men and I think that it shows very well in the fact that even when they actually come face to face, at the door, neither of them is able to speak to the other.
Janos‘ fake eye-ball is the only thing he leaves behind and this unusual yet simple object can be a constant reminder of his reporting on his friends, but also of how his reports probably left out parts of what he was witnessing. Ironically, Andor gets to do some reporting of his own: in order to have Janos‘ corpse released from the morgue, he provides information to fill in the necessary documents.
review
In Sára Cserhalmi’s feature debut, time does not heal, it waits patiently for an opportunity to turn old friends into enemies. When Andor gets to see his file and discovers that Janos was an informer, he is set to seek revenge against his friend, a gifted writer, but a terrible failure in social life.
nutshell, both the past and the present. Nevertheless, certain parts of the story are tangled in loose ends: it’s never very clear why and how Andor and Janos were close in the past or why they drifted apart.
interview
Whoever said “time heals all wounds“ has probably never seen what was reported on them to the secret police.
review & interview by mirona nicola // photo by josef rabara // nisimazine karlovy vary 2012 // 19
House with a Turret by Eva Neymann // Ukrayne
Eva Neymann’s film House with a Turret is a visual journey into a country covered in snow and left poor by war. This is a place of beautiful, deserted landscapes and people overcome by need and greed.
characters has a name stresses how they solely concentrate on themselves, not even bothering to make acquaintance with each other. But this also contributes to a stereotypical depiction of the characters.
A child and his mother are travelling to his grandfather, but their journey comes to an end when the young woman dies of typhus in an unknown town, just as poor and ruined as any other on the way. However, the boy is determined to go on, towards a destination he will probably never reach.
There’s not much complexity: the good ones are good to the bone and the bad ones are plain vicious: they don’t care much, not even for an orphan boy travelling on his own.
The film is truly striking visually: shot in black and white, it shows picturesque depictions of snowy fields as well as dark hospital corridors. A lot of attention has been paid to costumes and choreography too. On the other hand, story-wise the film is in many ways like the train the little boy is on: crammed with people and never sure when or if any of them will make it to their destination. The fact that none of the
House With a Turret can be described more as a visual essay than as a film since its basis is not a narrative trail, but rather a sum of states and feelings that are triggered in the spectators. They all convey the idea of lack of humanity in the harsh years of the war; but they do so in a straightforward manner, lacking subtlety and the refinement of the photography. by Mirona Nicola (Romania)
Vanishing Waves
by Kristina Buožytė // Lithuania In an exploration of the capricious passion, love and the human psyche, Vanishing Waves (Aurora) tells the story of a young scientist, Lukas, who participates in a surreptitious experiment to try to mentally connect with of a coma patient. In a nondescript “contemporary-future”, Lukas becomes sucked into a luciddream-like world, not only mentally connecting with the brain-waves of a female coma patient, but also eliciting a romantic relationship with her: a surreal relationship that interferes with his personal (real) life. The deeper he becomes immersed in this world of fantasy, lust and fulfilment – which he keeps a secret from all around him in violation of the experiment’s regulations - the harder it becomes for him to find gratification in reality. Although visually attractive and interesting (albeit not entirely original) as an abstract conjecture as to what goes on in the mysterious
depths of a comatose mind as well as the unconscious, the story quickly turns into a two-hour tirade of fetishist sci-fi clichés in a weary endeavour to be inventively risqué. The film pushes the viewers (and sometimes their stomachs) to their limits with graphic and repetitive surreal (occasionally grotesque) erotic encounters. However, it succeeds in inducing both the claustrophobia and agoraphobia commonly associated with bad dreams, by setting scenes within small, confined and strangely geometric spaces, or in the middle of expansive oceans and fields. The film ends leaving a number of narrative questions unanswered and we come away having understood only that the experiment succeeded in mentally (and emotionally) connecting Lukas with a coma patient: a piece of knowledge gained in the first 15 minutes of the film! by Sara Ishaq (UK)
Yuma
by Piotr Mularuk // Poland, Czech Republic
Yuma encapsulates the rise and fall of the film’s protagonist, Zyga whose character shifts from an innocent young man (initially only concerned with an aloof love-interest and an intact pair of shoes to walk in) to a rich and formidable gang-leader - a position he is inadvertently catapulted into as a result of the crime-ridden circumstances in which he lived. Unlike the anticipated narrative that sees the lead character of the film rise above and fight the prevailing lawlessness around him, Yuma pays homage to the archetypal Robin Hood story whereby Zyga and his deadbeat friends fully embrace the situation to break free from personal demons and all-engulfing poverty - albeit temporarily – and inject colour, fashion and life back into their hometown by stealing from Germany (Yuma) - the long-standing enemy. Unlike Robin Hood, however, this modern-day outlaw fails repeatedly to capture the heart of his Maid Marion and the reality of his loss sends him rapidly down a spiralling self-destructive
path. After a whirlwind of almost farfetched happenings, peace is inevitably restored once justice is carried out against all involved, with varying degrees of severity. Among the many undeniable quirky references to Spaghetti Westerns and the Godfather, Mularuk also references Delmer Daves’ renowned 1957 American Western, 3:10 to Yuma, which Zyga watches in awe at his local theatre. All set against a tremendously effective whimsical backdrop - without which the film would have blandly presented a bleak and wretched reality - Mularuk manages to intelligently captivate the attention of the viewer with this action-packed comical illustration of post-communist life in Poland. Although Mularuk borders on apologetic in tone at times, he does not shy away from highlighting the imminence of reprisal for malevolence, whether committed by the ‘heroes’ or the ‘villains’. by Sara Ishaq (UK)
Mushrooming by Toomas Husser // Estonia
Inscrutable politician Aadu and his wife leave the city to go picking mushrooms in the woods just as corruption allegations against him start to rise. The couple stumbles into weary local rockstar, Zäk, and the three of them face an unexpected struggle to survive as they get lost in the forest. Half thriller, half tragicomedy with social satire ambition, Estonian writer and director Toomas Husser’s debut feature film combines some pleasurable comic moments, especially when the three personalities clash, with less convincing thriller atmospheres. At times, especially in action scenes, the music is so conspicuous and the camera work so nervous, that the viewer may even think of a parody, being so striking the contrast with the general tone of the story, otherwise quietly paced and dryly depicting human conduct. If you can handle these little incongruities, then you will find yourself in front of an enjoyable and universal, character-
driven moral tale – where the survival setting detonates the most ridiculous and finally atrocious behaviours. It’s certainly no lesser point that the protagonists are two opposite, still similar, public figures: an enigmatic politician and a bored singer. They both appear extremely self-confident but actually pretty awkward when dealing with practical matters. And that’s precisely where the film’s “moral view” is headed for: even when they seem totally unfit for the situation (finding their way back home, sleeping and feeding themselves in the forest, resisting the attacks of a mysterious man) they somehow sort it out. They don’t show any particular ability, but the one to adjust to critical conditions and even reverse reality with their words. Just as apparently inoffensive as mushrooms pickers, these public figures have an unexpected capacity to adapt. Beware, you viewers/ citizens… by Sebastiano Pucciarelli (Italy)
nisimazine karlovy vary 2012 // 23
People Out There
Somewhere in Palilula
People Out There by young Latvian (of Armenian origin) Aik Karapetian can be taken as a good specimen to measure the state of health of Eastern European cinema, and is in accordance with this KVIFF’s section devoted to first and second feature films from the former socialist block. This gloomy suburban drama about idle twenty-year-old Jan, his restless friend Cracker, and their small (and not so small) daily thefts and beatings, convey the highs and lows of this East of the West film parade.
You watch the first scene and you say to yourself “Finally some imaginative filmmaking!”. A man caught in a snowstorm and the lights of a steam locomotive appear: he gets in and he finds himself in a magical hall with Oleanders, musicians playing, a bearded woman handing him a bottle…
by Aik Karapetian // Latvia
The post-Soviet material and human remains are the backdrop of this story (7 out of 12 films presented in this festival’s section are set in or feature strong references to the socialist era). Our protagonist is a dropout orphan living with his grandfather - a former USSR scientist - in a depressed Soviet tower-block area. A highly naturalistic mise-en-scene consisting of hand-held documentarylike camera and cold realistic lighting and photography presides over the film. A little twist in the story comes as a
surprise: the random encounter of the protagonist with a Christian group lead by a charismatic scholar. This unexpected narrative line (and the powerful scene where Jan is driven by the religious leader onto a theatre stage dominated by a gigantic lit cross) proves that there is some originality in depicting the range of social consequences in the twilight of socialism. Not only is religion back but, like the new goods at the supermarket, the choice is wider. This represents a good point of view on the Westernization of the East. Besides representing the harsh, disconnected and often-violent happenings of the post-soviet period, why can’t new Eastern realistic cinema also struggle for some additional perspective in storytelling? Either this new cinema will be able to follow such a path or it won’t be able to fulfil its most relevant task of showing the directions our world is heading in. by Sebastiano Pucciarelli (Italy)
by Silviu Purcărete // Romania
That’s how young pediatrician Serafim lands in Palilula - a village somewhere on the map of 60s’ Romania - only to discover that the maternity ward is everything but a place for babies: an occasional brothel, a football court for drunkards, even a spa. The town is not different, a wild bunch of grotesque characters devoted to booze, lazing all day, except when they rally for world peace at fixed times, as the Party demands. One scene is truly evoking: at one demonstration an official statement is read, when a sonorous flatulence is heard. Every participant turns to the following row and finally only Ceaşescu and his wife’s gigantic
portraits are left to blame. After loads of naturalistic dramas, are we finally witnessing the (re) birth of Eastern magic realism? Is this depiction of Romania as a drunk madhouse what Kusturica’s Underground was for Yugoslavia? Not really, unfortunately, because the 141 minute-long fresco basically consists of an exhausting juxtaposition of sketches, a random parade of surrealistic anecdotes, with its characters reduced to lifeless puppets. And it’s a real pity, because 62-years-old acclaimed theatre director Silviu Purcărete shows true visual talent and a Fellinian taste for choreographing and lighting mass scenes. He wrote the script himself, and this could be the matter, given such problems in the plot structure. So Silviu, let me be insolent as I have resisted two hours in Palilula: why don’t we meet again in five years, once you have found a good enough writer? By Sebastiano Pucciarelli (Italy)
end of the west
Boy Eating The Bird’s Food
(To agori troei to fagito tou pouliou) by Ektoras Lygizos // Greece
They already called it the “Greek New Wave”, “Greek Weird Wave” or even “Greek Absurdism”; it more realistically is a bunch of movies coming from the Hellenic peninsula sharing certain thematic traits. It is not the intent of this article to dispute whether Ektoras Lygizos’ film Boy Eating the Bird’s Food (which closed the 47th KVIFF Official Competition) is part or not of the aforementioned trend. “I understand that critics are trying to define and name tendencies” Lygizos concedes, “but what I like most about the films coming out of Greece recently is that each one of us is forming his/her own unique voice and style”. Regardless what one’s own critical position towards these films might be there are recurring aspects amongst several films worthy of consideration. The loss of logical concatenation, a spastic physicality, convulsive sexuality, sparse and marred relationships, are some amongst the meaningful excrescences characterizing recent Greek cinema. That the country which gave birth to logics, whose Aristotelian model remained pretty much valid and unchallenged until the 20th century, is now churning out works of feverish unreason represent an interesting fact. Whether we are about to be gushed out by a Greek seaquake or not is a matter of secondary importance, even because this film feels more like optical thalassemia. Lygizos’ film, it must be said, veers away from the outward oddity of his compatriots’ films (Dogtooth, L, Alpis, Attenberg) to penetrate the disturbed intimacy of a young Greek man stripped of any social role and thus reduced to his most basic bio(il)logical functions. The quest for food, to feed himself and his yellow canary, is the sole stream of life reanimating his existential anaemia made of compulsive and solipsistic gestures. Obsessively shadowing the main character while negating any view of the surrounding world, the director’s camera performs a psychosomatic inspection of the young futureless man. “That is partly why the film is without a plot” the director points out when
asked why the audience never sees the world surrounding the character, “when you have no prospects you cannot build anything, you lack confidence and have no hopes”. Deprived of any expectation, project or plan our hero is caught in a downward spiral where even the search for food seems to be a compulsive instinct whose purpose is now lost. The remnants of social life are as feeble as his attempts to give his existence a meaning, a direction. Even the attraction for a girl gets tangled in an aimless chase with no drives, emotional, sexual or otherwise. Is this a political film detailing the effects the economic crisis is having on Greek youth? “Of course it is” Lygizos confirms, “but it is more a behavioural report on the affective and psychological damages that the crisis caused: the total lack of hope”. The film conveys the tangible feeling of mental isolation induced by a sense of inadequacy and uselessness triggered by the exclusion from the cycle of capitalist accumulation. The impossibility to give meaning to human life outside the bestiality of production and consumption leaves us with this desolate and mute cry of a film. Where there once was a community, now there is a human desert; where there was passion, a livid emotional void reigns undisputed. It would be easier and more reassuring to think of this individualist and fragile film as “generational” or maybe “national”, but its discomforting denial of any prospect epitomizes the collapse of certainty the vast majority of (Western) youths are facing. The quiet and fastidious desperation of this film is the clear symptom of a collective malaise, colourful singing birds notwithstanding. After having blindly believed in the illusory promises of capitalist democracy and having greedily swallowed the poison of consumerism we are now left with no answers as to what a post-capitalist civilization would look like. By Giovanni Vimercati (Italy)
nisimazine karlovy vary 2012 // 29
KINO BEZ BARIÉR (Cinema Without Barriers) Very often ignored even by the liberal benefactors of world cinema and their charitable hypocrisy, disabled people are an infrequent sight in movie theatres, let alone at film festivals. Karlovy Vary is a welcomed exception; here visitors on wheelchairs have access to all screenings, restaurants and other festival facilities thanks to the association Kino Bez Bariér (Cinema Without Barriers). Born during the 2001 edition of KVIFF, Kino Bez Bariér is a much-needed endeavour in a world where good intentions and feelings are often relegated to the silver screen and reluctantly implemented in real life.
RADOTÍN BIKE RENTALS Somehow it happend that everyone in our Nisimazine team rides a bike in his or her normal life, so we were all thrilled to find out that Karlovy Vary has an ‘official festival bike’. Two of the main locations, Hotel Thermal and Grandhotel Pupp, had a rental center each, and judging by the number of people queuing to get their two wheels, one can tell it was a great idea.
IFF Rotterdam has a bike rental service for years and fancy ladies riding bikes in evening gowns on their way to galas are a common sight in Venice, so it seems like Karlovy Vary is the next one on the list: the Czech Republic must be a very bike-friendly place since its most important festival takes it so seriously. Is it? “I guess so, people are used to people riding bikes”, says Tomáš.
The centers had very efficient and modern Specialized bikes in store, each equipped with a small bag, a helmet, a lock and a map of the festival venues, and the first hour was free for accreditated visitors. However, one hour was more than enough if you wanted to get to the next screening or blow off some steam after frying up your brains over a Word document in the press center. This is the second time that the festival teams up with Radotín, a sport equipment rental center from Prague. There are also awards for customers who can guess the number of daily rentals: “last year, the record was 800!” says Tomáš, who works at the rental desk from Thermal.
You ride by the river from Pupp to Thermal, among all the groups of tourists, festival people, festival cars, buses bringing in more tourists, locals walking their dogs or children, television vans, horse carriages and other bikes, and you stare in awe, wondering how can all these folks get along on the same narrow streets, then one big yes pops into your head when you think about the aforementioned question. And it’s probably the attitude behind initiatives like this one that made it so, promoting the most fun and enviromentalfriendly way to get around and making it safer at the same time: the more people on bikes, the more tolerant and careful the other traffic participants become.
once time in t
e upon a the east
SABOTAGING SOCIALIST REALISM As part of its Out of the Past sidebar section, the 47th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has presented a digitally restored copy of Nová Vlna milestone The Firemen’s Ball by Milos Forman. Restored classics often come with an intimidating dose of self-importance and grandeur; Milos Forman’s 1967 feature on the contrary stands out for its unassuming genius and timely spirit. Without holding forth grand theories on freedom and democracy the film exposes the encumbering rigidity of Real Socialism by exasperating its absurd and farcical aspects. The annual ball of a provincial fire station becomes a surrealist canvas where the director affectionately observes social tics and amusing conducts. Forman deconstructs the inner workings of socialist rule through a behavioural diagnosis of its ossified procedures, undermining the grotesque staging of communality. A clumsy crew of fire-fighters tries to orchestrate the annual ball but every single detail escapes their awkward attempt to enforce the brutal mockery of communist orthodoxy. Graceless uniforms chasing the spell of feminine Eros trying to bridle its uncontrollable attraction into a pathetic beauty contest, that will in fact degenerate in joyful mayhem. The ideological institution of marriage betrayed under a table, lottery prizes disappearing as the elderly chief of the firehouse, in whose honour the ball is held, waits in vain for his turn to get under the spotlight. Not even the call of duty ignited by a fire next door manages to coalesce the mutinous ball around an ordered semblance; people leave without paying as the situation grows funnier and more ungovernable. The beauty contest turns into a wild race of desire and confusion, the honorary prize to be awarded to the senior fire fighter gets lost; chaos seduces order.
34 // nisimazine karlovy vary 2012
Parading on the screen is the unruly authenticity of life exceeding its planned course; it is the hilarity of a spontaneous humanity colliding with the existential austerity of Five-Year plans. The heartfelt proximity between the director and its subjects conveys the vivid sense of life under an obtuse regime and the incompatibility of impulses with social control. Completely devoid of any patronizing or didactic tone, the film turns the bigotry of censors into a narrative asset by omitting literal criticism and making way to subversive parody. The work with non-professional actors is impressive insofar as it seamlessly combine the spontaneity of real life characters with a refined and subtle script. Forman’s eye captures a universal condition and its anarchic essence transcends geographical borders and historical conditions; The Firemen’s Ball celebrates in fact the unrehearsed drifts of daily situations. It is the intrinsic comicality of indoctrination that denounces the stern regime rather than verbose declarations about freedom of speech and other democratic illusions. Against the grey homologation of a failed utopia, the film rescues the glimmering of refusal from the dark waters of compliance and reclaims the inalienable right to imagination. It is though significant that Forman’s work in the US will rarely boast quite the same creative irreverence, as if the awareness of unfreedom was more stimulating than the statuary illusion of liberty. One wonder how, if ever, will the equivalent of this artistic line of fire blaze up in the colourful world of consumer fundamentalism. By Giovanni Vimercati (Italy)
The Firemen’s Ball (Hoří, má panenko) by Miloš Forman // Czechoslovakia, Italy // 1967
Times and Winds, dir. Reha Erdem, Turkey
Reha Erdem
a director “in between”
Over the last twenty years new Turkish film directors put their unique style on screen so much so that we can now talk about different waves in young Turkish cinema. First, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Zeki Demirkurbuz laid the foundations for a new independent Turkish cinema. In the meantime production companies started to produce mainstream films. In this modern era new directors like Özcan Alper, Seyfi Teoman and Hüseyin Karabey started a second wave, they were giving a political context to their stories. In between, Reha Erdem kept on making films as he tried to create a unique form of storytelling on screen. As far as I am concerned he is the most exciting director working in Turkey today. Reha Erdem can be called a deconstructive filmmaker. His films are a rebellion against both conventional and independent filmmaking. He tries to find a new path in cinematic narration and his biggest influences are Tsai Ming Liang and Gus Van Sant, as he himself has admitted. He is looking for the magical cinematic moments that do not need to be narrative-driven. As he declared in many interviews, he wants audiences to be as imaginative as possible. In his first film A Ay (1990), he already worked on a new experimental cinematic narration through which he created an expressionist visual poetics. Afterwards, the director came up with Kaç Para Kaç (1998), which involved more conventional filmmaking style compared to his debut film. It is one of the rare films that used the city of Istanbul as a functional background in cinematic storytelling. Because of his French film education, early in his work one could already detect two different stylistic approaches converging in his unique filmmaking. In Beş Vakit (2006) the director tells of the traumas of three teenagers growing up in a village on the outskirts of a mountain on the Aegean coast of Turkey. This slow-paced film combines hypnotic visuals with Arvo Part’s haunting music creating an uncanny and sometimes disturbing atmosphere.
Estonian Orthodox music in a film set in the Turkish countryside could be the last thing you would expect to hear, but are precisely these choices that grant his movies a sense indefinable time and space. The same thing is also valid for his last film Kosmos (2010). Even though the film is set in Kars, a small city in Eastern Turkey, it is impossible to locate the time and space where the film takes place. This timelessness is also referenced in the film with the repetitive image of a tower clock that always shows the same hour in different parts of the story. Like in Kosmos (2010), in Hayat Var (My Only Sunshine, 2008) he created a totally nonexistent space, a nonexistent Istanbul. He deconstructed classical storytelling in this film by using a fragmented narrative structure that directly reflects the shattered state of the teenage girl’s mind and body. Hayat Var might be the only film in Turkish cinema history that used the Bosphorus as something that mattered cinematically. Like the Aegean village in Beş Vakit, the Bosphorus became here the location representing the “in-between” situation of a teenager’s mind that was stuck between a woman’s body and a little girl’s dreams. Erdem uses eastern locations and fills them with a western mental approach. That’s why he is sometimes criticised as an “orientalist” in an oriental land. However, I don’t agree with this criticism. He just uses the advantage of being a part of an “in-between” culture and fuses the cultural deposits of east and west. He creates a world of his own that belongs to nowhere. He creates an alternative reality with his cinema, that’s why we can’t talk about an absolute reality in his films. Audiences’ expectations are always subverted, which gives no realistic visions for the audience to connect with the characters or the stories being told. He just wants you to experience the dream world he created and wants you to join the characters, like birds flying without a reason in Kosmos or lay down on the edge of a cliff like the teenagers of Beş Vakit. By Ali Deniz Şensöz (Turkey)
nisimazine karlovy vary 2012 // 37
This Nisimazine Special East of the West KV was conceived and realized, with the generous support of the KVIFF, by: Andreea Dobre Mirona Nicola Sara Ishaq Sebastiano Pucciarelli Giovanni Vimercati
Credits
In general, the term credit in the artistic or intellectual sense refers to an acknowledgement of those who contributed to a work, whether through ideas or in a more direct sense.
Nisimazine is a publication of
Original photography by Josef Rabara. Graphic design by Maartje Alders Film stills courtesy of Film Servis Festival Karlovy Vary. Project supported by Special thanks to: Pavel Bednarik for his courteous and helpful assistance throughout the festival Ali Deniz Şensöz Karel Och Mikhail Kuzmiak Katka Nguyen Cover photo: still from Flower Buds by Zdeněk Jiráský Back cover photo: by Josef Rabara
You can find all our coverage, extended interviews and photo galleries at
www.nisimazine.eu if you are interested to participate in Nisimazine, please drop us a line at giovanni@nisimasa.com