Director Alexander Vartanov (Elena) sees the stray beauty in repugnant situations and manages to bring off a rare prison drama in the process. His young hero with a mop of blonde curls and a hurt, vacant look wouldn't be out of place in a Gus Vant Sant film. Through a series of events he is catapulted from his abusive home life into a juvenile prison cum Russian labour camp. The regime here is so brutal it makes One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich seem like a Sunday picnic. The only way to survive this is to be even more brutal than the guards and fellow young crims; a path our put-upon hero soon excels at. There are moments when Vartanov lets his obvious love for realising kinetic violence overtake sense and logic, but there is also some fine film making and acting on display. He has an eye for poetic detail amongst the ravages of camp life and he takes risks to put these details in. The artful use of black and white also puts it in a direct line from Russian cinema of the 1970's. For example, the combination of insane brutality and wide eyed youthful incomprehension is reminiscent of Tarkovsky classics such as Ivan's Childhood.
Reviews
6 Reviews
Knuckle
(2011)
raw but riveting documentary about bare knuckle fighting
10 August 2011
Director Ian Palmer had a contact with Irish 'traveller' families and he became interested in their ways. In particular he sought out the semi-ritualized bare knuckle fights which solve (and re-kindle) their feuds. This feature-length documentary has been gestating for over a decade. Palmer's film partly appeals because of the secret nature of the age-old practice and the raw brutality of some of the moments caught on film. It grabs the same part of the psyche that responds when the ugly cage fighting is on (Cable) TV. Of course bare knuckle fighting isn't the invention of the 'tinkers' – it was common throughout England in the 19th century – it just looks weird now as an atavistic survival amongst these sprawling, huge, feud-locked families. Some of Palmer's subjects are great documentary material, especially his lead character who keeps fighting (and winning) but who has begun to felt heart-sick at the whole thing. You can also see the well springs of renewal in the adoring faces of the little boys who shadow box and dance around him as he comes home victorious. This is what it means to be a real man in this community. The old men are involved too, usually as referees (there are rules as we discover when young aspirant loses the plot and is disqualified for a bit of the old Mike Tyson face-biting). Away from the blood lust and excitement of the back lots and lanes, the members of the various feuding families – the Quinns and the Joyces – pontificate on what the point of it all is. "It's not just wars", says one man, "it means something." But the remark hangs in the air precisely because, as Palmer's haunting doco shows, this might no longer be true, if it ever was. There is individual heroism here but increasingly the sad idea takes hold that this dying form is just a huge cannibalistic waste of community energies.
Saigon Electric
(2011)
vibrant dance movie cum drama about Vietnamese youth
2 April 2011
It is fairly unusual to see contemporary urban Vietnamese movies that are commercial and not art-house social realism. This is a youth love story cum dance film and it is enjoyably upbeat. The young cast are attractive especially two female leads who represent the various aspects of a rapidly-modernizing Vietnam. The story line - with the evil developers threatening the youth club - is a little underdeveloped but it doesn't matter too much. The film is still good to look at. The Ho Chi Minh City locations are well used. An extra point of interest is to see how the Vietnamese kids have taken up hip-hop/break dancing (now the ubiquitous vector of a globalised youth culture) and produced an authentic Asian take on it. Not a major film but refreshing and watchable in its way.
The Savages
(2007)
two middle aged children deal with their dad's illness
3 March 2008
Julian Wood Sydney Australia
The Savages (plot synopsis)
Wendy Savage (Laura Linney) is a young middle aged east coast-living single woman. She is trying to be a playwright and currently lives on rejection slips and hope. She is having a desultory affair with opportunistic married neighbor Larry (Peter Friedman). When Wendy's dad Lenny (Philip Bosco) goes into a dementia decline she contacts her more successful brother Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and expects him to help with the arrangements. Jon is also slightly weary and beaten down but wise and literate with it. He teaches college on the west coast and writing an interminable book on the drama of Bertold Brecht. Jon comes over and between the two of them they finally chose a satisfactory home and face up to the inevitable farewell with their terminally ill dad.
The Savages (plot synopsis)
Wendy Savage (Laura Linney) is a young middle aged east coast-living single woman. She is trying to be a playwright and currently lives on rejection slips and hope. She is having a desultory affair with opportunistic married neighbor Larry (Peter Friedman). When Wendy's dad Lenny (Philip Bosco) goes into a dementia decline she contacts her more successful brother Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and expects him to help with the arrangements. Jon is also slightly weary and beaten down but wise and literate with it. He teaches college on the west coast and writing an interminable book on the drama of Bertold Brecht. Jon comes over and between the two of them they finally chose a satisfactory home and face up to the inevitable farewell with their terminally ill dad.
Dogora - Ouvrons les yeux
(2004)
Patrice Leconte takes his camera to Asia
25 April 2006
Patrice Leconte is a major mid-career French director and so anything he puts out will be of interest to Cinephiles. This is something of a departure however as it is a non-narrative, music only feature. It comprises a stream of images from Cambodia - people crowding onto motorbikes, fields of crops, villages, temples - with a driving musical score. It is only just saved from being a tourist travelogue and the total lack of editorializing or other context may annoy some. The point of reference is presumably Baraka and, in another vein, Koyaanisqatsi. It is beautifully shot and occasionally hypnotic but overall an acquired taste.
Fukurô
(2003)
enjoyably twisted tale of female predation
14 October 2003
The Owl
It is often said that comedy is the most untranslatable element from culture to culture. This is perhaps even more the case with surreal mixed genre films like this. In Shindo Kaneto's film (his 101st!) the old sensei has given us a strange meditation on male lusts and women's struggle for independence. It is like a play in that the action takes place almost exclusively in a small cabin in a deserted region of Western Japan. A mother and daughter are stranded in a ghost town and are starving to death. They hit on a plan to get them out of their plight which involves exploiting the few men who stray into their cabin. They offer sexual services and then bump off the happy customers. All goes well until a local cop shows up and, then, a relation of theirs from way back.
The first part of the film may seem a little repetitive. Audiences may feel a little trapped - perhaps intentionally so - in this cabin with the two crazy leads (both well known actresses in Japan who throw themselves into their roles). Basically this is sly satire on how easily men are duped when sex is promised. At times it plays almost like an Ealing Comedy, at other times like a violent farce. The film does pay off in the end but, in a way, one is still left with the feeling that this film would be even funnier for those really inside Japanese culture.
It is often said that comedy is the most untranslatable element from culture to culture. This is perhaps even more the case with surreal mixed genre films like this. In Shindo Kaneto's film (his 101st!) the old sensei has given us a strange meditation on male lusts and women's struggle for independence. It is like a play in that the action takes place almost exclusively in a small cabin in a deserted region of Western Japan. A mother and daughter are stranded in a ghost town and are starving to death. They hit on a plan to get them out of their plight which involves exploiting the few men who stray into their cabin. They offer sexual services and then bump off the happy customers. All goes well until a local cop shows up and, then, a relation of theirs from way back.
The first part of the film may seem a little repetitive. Audiences may feel a little trapped - perhaps intentionally so - in this cabin with the two crazy leads (both well known actresses in Japan who throw themselves into their roles). Basically this is sly satire on how easily men are duped when sex is promised. At times it plays almost like an Ealing Comedy, at other times like a violent farce. The film does pay off in the end but, in a way, one is still left with the feeling that this film would be even funnier for those really inside Japanese culture.
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