AWCH Film Reviews -- 2003 Hamburg Film Festival

(Mary W) by Abolfazl Jalili, Iran

Sixteen year-old Emkan (Mehdi Morady) lives in the deeply religious town of Saveh, two hours from Tehran. He sings at the mosque and attends religious school but he longs to play music, read literature and sketch the people around him. None of these activities are permitted by their strict interpretation of the Koran and when Emkan brings a violin to the mosque, he is banned. His father burns the forbidden books that Emkan found at a bus stop. Then Emkan falls in love with a Jewish girl. When the girl and her family are forced to leave town, Emkan follows with catastrophic consequences. This semi-autobiographical film by Abolfzl Jalili contrasts strict Islamic family life with a more western culture.

(Becky T) by Sylvain Chomet, France/Canada/Belgium

French artist Chomet has created a gem of an animated film for adults. Each scene is exquisite; the characters are more likeable than some real people; and the story is worth telling. Grandma Souza pleases her grandchild with his wish: a tricycle. He grows up and becomes a first-class Tour de France cyclist. Grandma is his manager/trainer with the help of the dog, Bruno who is full of personality. There is a kidnapping, a forced trip under unusual circumstances to Belleville (a parody of New York) and a rescue with the help of three Andrew Sister look-alikes. Although it is in French without subtitles, it is perfectly understandable to anyone. Anyone interested in art should see this film.

(Becky T) by Edoardo Ponti, Canada/Italy/USA

This will draw a crowd simply because the director is the son of Sophia Loren, who plays one of the three women who star in this film. All three suffer grief at the hands of a man. One faces her father after he leaves prison; one has an over-ambitious father, the third (Loren) cares for her husband in a wheel-chair. All three are touched in some way by a girl. The plot is too contrived. My audience laughed when it should have been crying. The cast is high carat: Mira Sorvino, Deborah Kara Unger, Gerard Depardieu and Klaus Maria Brandauer.

(Becky T) by Nigel Cole, Great Britain

The Women’s Institute meets regularly to hear speakers drone on about broccoli and rugs. It competes in baked goods at the fair. It produces a boring calendar once a year – boring until a renegade member decides to make the next calendar be one of pin up girls and the “girls” are members of the Women’s Institute. This must be approved by the home office. The AWC Hamburg is there in every frame: the husband who feels neglected; the members who wish to block the project; the woman who gains enough self-confidence to leave her husband; the member with the unique idea; the other one who reassess her values, etc. Actress Julie Walters came for the opening in Hamburg, the first night of the festival. Two of the original calendar girls (yes, this is based on a true story) also came and said, while walking up the red carpet to Cinemaxx, that so far they have earned 600,000 British pounds with this project.

(Becky T) by Hector Babenco, Brazil

Carandiru is a Brazilian prison which once held 7000 men before it was torn down. Inside the men are mostly left to their own devices and they have organized rules. hierarchies and businesses. In the form of flashbacks we learn the history of violence, drugs, and disappointments which led to the prison sentences. On visiting day, the women from their past come with a glimpse of the outside world. The story is told from the view of the resident physician who introduces a gay couple, a cook, a drug dealer, a young boy, etc. The film is worthwhile, considering how many people are behind bars at the present time, many under much worse conditions than Carandiru. However, unnecessary repetitions make the film too long.

(Adele R) by Lukasz Barczyk, Poland

This is a film about sex, well about couplings – one that happened, one that won’t and two that will. It is also about dysfunctional relationships and secrets and lies. Three beautiful sisters, a dominating mother, a child, and two men: one is a loser who has already caused great damage; the other is the catalyst for all that follows. The film, director Lukasz Barczyk’s first feature, is erotic and spell-binding, and the acting is superb, particularly Maja Ostaszewska as Marta and Jacek Poniedzialek as Adrian Snaut. Changes has been chosen as the closing film for the Hamburg Film Festival.

(Becky T) by Parviz Shahbazi, Iran

In any other country a story about two young men who drop out of college, steal mobile phones and a car, sleep in youth hostels, and generally scorn normal society would attract little attention. The same goes for a girl who lives in a dorm, although her family has a house in the same city, and who walks alone at night, picking up a boy friend along the way. You wouldn’t know you were in Iran except for the women covered from head to toe, the references to family ties, and the beautiful brown eyes of the good looking men. The film begins with the corpse of one of these young men being pulled out of the lake. It’s obviously a sign that another poor little rich, cynical kid has come to a bad end. How did director Shahbazi get this realistic presentation past the censors of Iran? The same afternoon Abaton cinema was full of expat Iranians from Hamburg eagerly awaiting the start of another Iranian film called Abjad (see the review by Mary W).

(Mary W) by Lars von Trier, Denmark/France/Sweden/United Kingdom/Germany/ Netherlands

Director Lars von Trier tries to depict small town life during the Depression in the Rocky Mountains through the use of a studio set with minimum props and lots of famous actors. Nicole Kidman plays Grace who appears bedraggled on the only street through town shortly after gunshots were heard. Grace is allowed refuge but only after agreeing to a two week trial period. At first, all goes well and Grace has wheedled her way into the town’s good graces by offering her services as a cleaning lady, conversation partner, fruit picker and whatnot. But before long, the townspeople begin to take advantage and their own twisted version of charity turns to outright cruelty. The townspeople’s road to perdition is excruciatingly slow and full of potholes. There is enough preaching for a southern Baptist revival. The mob mentality of the townspeople is full of more holes than a mobster’s Cadillac. There is no Rocky Mountain high from breathtaking shots of the mountains since there is no landscape, only a simple black stage. With such a boring, nonsensical script and dull set, not even the star power of Kidman, Lauren Bacall and Stellan Skarsgård can make this dog hunt.

(Adele R) by Tamas Sas, Hungary

Director Tamas Sas gives us a provocative, engrossing psychodrama about a young woman caught in a love affair with her foster father, who seduced her at 13. The film is shot in Eva’s apartment, inherited as a child when her family was killed in an accident, and the only actor seen fully on the screen is the mesmerizing Patricia Kovacs as Eva. The audio flashbacks, confused dreams, letters read aloud, telephone conversations and other conventions, reveal the whole fascinating story, little by little. The ending is a stunner.

(Adele R) by Jean Becker, France

A teenage boy, Lucien (Damien Jouillerot), has great difficulty accepting the antics of his father, Jacques (Jacques Villeret), a school teacher who appears at local fairs on weekends as a clown. Jacques' best friend, André (André Dussollier) takes the boy aside and tells him a story about the Second World War. Jacques and André are prisoners of the Germans and being held awaiting the surrender of a saboteur from the area. Should the resistance fighter not surrender, Jacques and Andre are to be executed in his place. Their fear is lightened by the kindness and good spirits of a German guard who feeds them, makes jokes and helps them to forget their situation. The film, directed by Jean Becker, is based on a book by Michel Quint, Schreckliche Gärten, which tells the true story of a German clown in WWII.

Unfortunately, the film begins so slowly and with so little charm that I lost patience halfway through and left. I did hear from Film Festival colleagues that the second half was a great improvement.

(Adele R) by Pjer Zalica, Bosnia and Herzegovina

The story in a nutshell: a small town in the Bosnian section of former Yugoslavia tries to airbrush all of its blemishes and ghosts to attract a visit by American President Bill Clinton. The machinations are very funny, but the underlying sadness and ever-present history of the recent war are what gives this film its power. Lightly but clearly, we are shown the traumatic effects of grief and the consuming strains of hatreds set on fire by Milosevic in a world which is seeking to bring back the tolerance once part of the world.

(Adele R) by Jean-François Pouliot, Canada

A tiny, isolated Canadian fishing village, Sante-Marie-la-Mauderne, has had it. The fishing is gone, the men have been on the dole for eight years, the population of the little village is shrinking daily. The only hope is the promise of a plastics factory. But the requirements necessary to land the factory are difficult indeed. They include bribery (money they do not have), doubling the village population, and the presence of a full-time doctor. Led by the enthusiastic determination of the Mayor, Germain (played with delicious humor and presence by Raymond Boudard), the seduction of Dr. Christopher Lewis (David Boutin) begins.

The machinations involved in high-jacking the doctor to their shores and then keeping him, as with the efforts to bamboozle the factory owner, are inventive and very funny. Director Jean-François Pouliot has fashioned a charming, witty film – entertainment for the whole family. I enjoyed it immensely.

(Becky T) by Anders Thomas Jensen, Denmark

Bjarne (Denmark’s young star Nikolaj Lie Kass) and Svend (Mads Mikkelsen) are two butchers who attract no customers until they add an extra spice. People disappear as quickly as the lines in front of the shop grow. Bjarne’s twin brother (also played by Kass) leaves the asylum after wakening from a coma and the confusion is complete. The text (in Danish with English subtitles) is concise as both butchers are not prolific talkers. This is one of the funniest films at the festival, real black humor. You’ll die laughing at the corpses hanging from hooks in the walk-in freezer, at the comments from a competitive butcher, at Svend as he puts his real estate agent and girl friend through the bone crusher. All this happens just because Svend forgot that the electrician was working in the freezer and finds him stiff the next morning. I was amazed that Grindel cinema was full of young people watching this film on a Sunday night at 10 pm, but that seems to be par for the festival: full theaters everywhere.

(Adele R) by Alejandro Chomski, Argentina

Paula, a beautiful young girl (Antonella Costa) from Argentina’s middle class, is on the edge of financial ruin. Currently starring in an avant-garde play with no theater for the premiere, she is late again for her waitressing job and gets fired. She’s four months behind in her rent, her bank account’s overdrawn, and the gas gets cut off—she is having a bad day.

She pleads with her friends for a loan, makes a fruitless visit to her father at his office, and tears through the streets on her moped trying to find the cash she needs. (She then gives the moped to the landlord for security promising the rent the next morning). Finally, after being propositioned (for money) by the director of her play -- a bid she turns down with regal disdain -- she revs up her courage to cross the line into prostitution. (Huh?) It’s hardly a surprise that she’s not immediately street smart in her new job, though her youth and beauty attract the men. The camera follows her as she turns tricks, gets money, loses money, takes on another guy, gets more money, gets ripped off, gets beaten…

A German critic, clambering over me to leave the theater at the (predictable) end of the film, commented wryly, “Life is hard.” Today and Tomorrow was an official selection of the Cannes Film Festival 2003 in the “Un Certain Regard” category and the director, Alesandro Chomski, received a lot of hype. This is his first feature, except for a documentary about himself.

(Becky T) by Jim Sheridan, Ireland/Great Britain/USA

Coming to us from the Toronto Film Festival where it got standing ovations, this film is about an Irish family which immigrates to New York City. The two daughters are sisters in real life and both are precious. The mother works in a restaurant; the father wishes to succeed as an actor, but spends more time driving a taxi. They live in a rickety building full of strange people, one of whom is a big, dark mysterious man, dying of AIDS, but mostly of loneliness, whom the girls meet while trick or treating. You will laugh and cry, and relate to the plight of the expat. I highly recommend it.

(Becky T) by Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, Israel

Take a chance on a wild card and you may be rewarded with a winner as is the case with this film. James is a young African who is arrested while trying to get to Jersusalem. He ends up working for an Israeli who has a whole building full of illegal foreign workers without rights. Watch as James evolves from a shy, good Christian boy to a hard-nosed business man who lets others work for him. As Mary said, “It’s great to watch his facial expression change as he learns the ropes of the sophisticated world.” The grandfather, who is sitting on the family money, is often hilarious in inventing new ways to cheat friends at Backgammon. It is nice to see Israel in a normal context without exploding bombs and smoke for a change.

(Becky T) by Marco Petry, Germany

Felix returns to his family to begin training as a policeman. He meets several former classmates who graduated with him three years earlier. They are still hanging around or worse, transporting drugs over the border. He realizes that he has changed, but they have stagnated, and they have nothing in common any more. Director Petry gave it a try, but we are used to more sophisticated stories. This one doesn’t create a spark.

(Becky T) by Josef Fares, Sweden and Denmark

Several policemen and one policewoman stand to lose their jobs because there is no crime in their small town. A young woman comes with orders to close them down. Suddenly, graffiti appears on the walls, the local hot dog stands burns to the ground, and there is a kidnapping. Nobody is surprised at the culprits, although their final solution is unique. This director is known for his other funny film Jalla Jalla. If you liked Fargo, you will appreciate this dry Swedish humor.

(Becky T) by Diego Arsuaga, Argentina/Spain/Uruguay

Three old men, all members of a local train club, kidnap an antique train meant to be shipped to Hollywood for a film. They believe that they are protecting the national heritage from being spirited from the country. The police and the young owner are hot on their heels. Their deed comes to the attention of the press and soon there are sympathizers along the tracks, along with the police. This is a heart-warming film in Spanish with German subtitles. The success is due to the wonderful three lead actors, who spend their time in the train weaving tales about the war, their families, and the debilities of old age to impress each other and also the young boy who came along for the ride.

(Becky T.) Unni Straume, Norway

This slow film, which takes place in a bare modern house on a lake, is what I would call typically Scandinavian. An architect shoots himself in the house that he had designed for himself and Sara, his former wife, a writer. This event forces Sara to confront the new wife and the mistress. They share memories and opinions about the deceased. (Never could I imagine three men sitting around and talking about their relationship to one dead woman.) A fourth woman seeks safety from her violent husband and moves in with two small children. In the basement lives a musician from Serbia. How practical that his band plays music for weddings and funerals, since a funeral is definitely on the agenda. There is an interesting contrast of grey northern mentality and the colorful Eastern European one. This film comes to us via film festivals in Toronto and Sundance.

(Adele R) by Paul Goldman, Australia

It starts with a bad idea: let’s make a comedy about a young Australian hunk, we’ll call him Rod Blue (Joel Edgerton). He’s down on his luck as a music promoter, but lands Frank Sinatra to do a comeback tour Down Under. Frankie blows his first concert in Sydney with off-the-cuff “jokes” on stage in which he insults the Australian working class, and among other no no’s, calls the local star journalist a 2 dollar whore. The press takes after him, the unions boycott his concerts, the hotel staff refuses to serve him… you get the picture. There is a love interest for Rod Blue—no blond bombshell, that’s the star journalist—just a “nice” girl who is the kid sister of his childhood buddy and in love with him since she was four and a half (Rose Byrne)…It goes downhill from there.

Dennis Hopper, as Frankie, almost carries it off but seems rather stiff. Of course that may have been just his embarrassment at the script. Stephen O’Rourke as Frank’s sidekick, bouncer and ever-loyal friend, Jilly Rizzo, has it right and Melanie Griffith as Barbara Marx, Frank’s girlfriend, is fine. It would be kinder not to mention the rest of the cast.

What else can I say? Oh yes, the singing is not Frank Sinatra. His songs are sung by Tom Burlinson, who is actually pretty good (even Nancy Sinatra and the Sinatra estate approved of him). I used to think Frank Sinatra’s music could save anything. But I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think even Ol’ Blue Eyes himself, “live and in person”, could save this one.

(Becky T) by Natasha Arthy, Denmark

This is my favorite festival film so far. Two days before the wedding, Katrine tries on her wedding dress with her girl friends. Her mother in law, loaded with lists for the wedding, asks her to make name cards for the guests. Katrine visits the asylum to tell her schizophrenic sister Mette of the upcoming wedding, but can’t get the news across. All seems normal until Thomas shows up at the apartment of the soon-to-be-newlyweds. He disappeared to Africa two years earlier, causing Mette to break down and see visions of a rock group singing at inappropriate times and places. Katrine and Thomas roam the town looking for customary wedding things: old, new, borrowed, and blue. Hilarious events happen which land them in jail; the groom celebrates his bachelor party and wakes up dressed in the bride’s dress; Mette escapes from the hospital. There is total confusion with everyone contributing witty quips about the situation which had the audience in stitches. There is a serious undertone, as the main characters must work through a sickness and the meaning of relationships. This is one film where I would have loved to have met everyone in it – not the actors, but the people they played. It’s in Danish with German subtitles, which might be a problem for some viewers.

(Becky T) by Christoffer Boe, Demnark

A man and a woman meet and go back to the woman’s hotel, which has just been vacated by her husband. The man loses his memory and suspects that his girl friend has tricked him into believing that he has amnesia. Maybe he does or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe the girl doesn’t really exist. Maybe the man is just a figment of the husband’s imagination as he writes a novel. (We saw this option already in Swimming Pool.) Although this film has already won a prize (best first film in Cannes, 2003), the slow plot and grainy film quality soon grated on my nerves. The film is wide open for multiple interpretations, but I was too bored to investigate any of them.

(Becky T) by Jens Huckeriede, Germany

This documentary is running under the category of films made in Hamburg. It tells the true story of the Wolf brothers who were variety show stars in the early 1900s in Hamburg at the old Flora Theater for example. It tells the story through the eyes of their real great grandson, rap singer Dan Wolff, who visits Hamburg from California. He retraces the steps of his relatives through clubs at the Reeperbahn, the port, the Jewish synagogue, a war bunker, etc. This is most interesting for anyone interested in Hamburg history. The Tudelband refers to their most famous song, which is repeated many times in the film, even in rap style.

(Adele R) by Abdelkrim Bahloul, France

Algiers, ten years after Independence. Charles Berling is Jean Sénac, a poet and playwright carrying a French passport, although born in Algiers, and a homosexual and Catholic, making him an enemy to the Muslim fundamentalists who control the country. Sénac loves Algiers and inspires young people to strive for the freedom of ideas. He becomes a hero to a group of young men, aspiring actors and a writer (Hamid, played beautifully by Medhi Dehbi), but Sénac will lose his life for his openly-held beliefs. The script is flawed, but the movie is saved by the fragile, handsome Dehbi.

(Adele R) by Kim Ki-Duk, South Korea

This is an exquisite film: lyrical, touching, spiritual, and incredibly beautiful. The story, and there is one, includes faith, discipline, lust, love, and death in many forms. Thankfully, because of the involvement of the Hamburg film production company, Pandora, the film has been marketed here and will be shown in Germany. If you cannot see it during the Film Festival, do not miss it when it opens here later this year.

(Adele R) by Alexey Uchitel, Russia

We hear a couple arguing, but we don’t quite understand what it is about. Then there is a pretty young woman, Olya (Iran Pegova) walking on the street in St. Petersberg. She is picked up by a young man, Alyosha (Pavel Barshak). They banter, flirt, fight, he proposes marriage, she tells him details of her past, inventing stories as she goes, all while strolling through St. Petersberg. She convinces Alyosha to get his friend, Petya (Yevgeny Tsyganov), to join them Then both young men are in love with her. The ending is a surprise but 90 minutes of strolling around St. Petersberg, which you never see because the camera is focused in close-ups on the three young people while they engage in boring, silly dialog, is way too much to sit through for it. My recommendation? Skip this one.

(Adele R) by Michael Haneke, France/Germany/Austria

The film opens with a French family arriving at their vacation house in a modern car and clothes, so we can assume it is happening in the present. In fact I spent the next hour and a quarter making assumptions because nothing was ever explained. Apparently, for no reason at all, there appears to be a total breakdown of society at least in the countryside. There are hints that things are better in the cities. But here, in any case, there is no food, no water and people, as you would expect, have been reduced to behaving cruelly to one another. Isabelle Huppert, as Anne, manages to be teary and suitably distraught for most of her appearance on the screen, which is thankfully not a lot. The film is directed by Michael Haneke who brought us that really weird exposé of perversity called The Piano Teacher, also starring Mme. Huppert. Your intrepid film reviewer sat through all 113 minutes of this very, very slow and boring film so that you won’t have to.

(Mary W) by Peter Greenaway, United Kingdom/Netherlands/Germany/Russia/ Luxembourg

If you are a really big fan of Peter Greenaway, see this film to cut him a break. Set up to be much more than just a movie, this is only one of three parts of Greenaway’s multi-media project. This must be Greenaway’s retirement plan. He will be using films, a TV series, books, the internet and 92 DVDs (92!!!), each filled with the contents of one of the suitcases packed by his adventurer Tulse Luper (JJ Feild). The film opens with the screen splitting into different squares of people auditioning for the same parts and eventually you see some of those who won their auditions in their respective roles. There are bits of other films, drawings, more audition tapes, rival commentaries, scenes enacted on a studio set, just about something for anyone if anyone could figure out what to watch. After an hour I really had no idea what the story was about but JJ Feild is gorgeous! And you get to see him naked – full frontal! A lot! What was that about a suitcase filled with coal? Lots of drawings of coal flash on the screen. The pieces of coal resemble mountains! Then there is more of that gorgeous Feild, what a magnificent…physique. The screen turns black and it took a moment to realize the film split – then so did I!

(Mary W) by Emmanuel Bourdieu, France

Lucas, Isabelle and Simon grew up in a picturesque country village outside of Paris. Isabelle fled to Paris when she believed her marriage to Simon would not happen. Simon worked the family farm and Lucas left the village to become a writer. Lucas returns to the village to write about singles that remain in the countryside. He mistakenly believes that Isabelle and Simon are still in love, not realizing that Isabelle is in love with him even though she is married to someone else. You can listen in on numerous intimate conversations where everyone misunderstands one another. As the closing credits flashed on the screen, one critic exclaimed “thank god!” (it’s over!), followed by “the French!” That pretty much sums up the film!

(Adele R) by David Anspaugh, USA

Mariah Carey, Mira Sorvino and Melora Walters must have been well-paid to star in this grade B nonsense. Supposedly a film about “women against the Mob”, it is a sloppy, tedious story of three waitresses defying the local Mafia who frequent the Italian restaurant where they work. Defiance is mostly a lot of tears until the violent ending when shooting erupts and Kate (Melora Walters) and Meg (that’s Mira) get shot, but in true Hollywood fashion, survive their hideous wounds. (Rachel (Mariah Carey) hides under the bar, but gets arrested for drug dealing). Just before that scene, Meg, once a med student, is forced to dissect the body of her boss, and then Kate is revealed to be an undercover cop. Don’t ask. And I would suggest — don’t go, it’s sure to end up on cable.