SIN LA HABANA, directed
by Kaveh Nabatian****
Leonardo and Sara hatch a plan. As Cubans, they both
want to go to Canada. She wants to practice law, and he wants to get a job in Montreal
ballet company. That’s because he got
fired from the company in Cuba for his arrogance and disrespect – even though
he is the best dancer there. Nassim, an Iranian Jew, is visiting Cuba and Leo
pretends to love her. She sponsors him to come to Montreal. Sara is okay with
this as it will be her ticket to come as well. Leo find a guy to marry Sara and
bring her to Montreal. But things turn badly for all three. The ending is
ambiguous. It’s a great film that could very well be true.
THE DROWSY
CITY, directed by Dung Luong Dinh ****
Set in the Vietnamese
slums of a city, the film brings us sweet-faced Tao, who slaughters chickens in
sadistic ways, pouring boiling water on them, and defeathering them alive and more.
He sleeps in the rubber vat he slaughters them in. one days he peeps in on
three thugs who are physically abusive to a prostitute they are holding against
her will. These violent thugs capture him and torture him, even making him
dance like a chicken, and feed them.
He is let go, and in his makeshift hovel, he
makes them a big chicken soup but melts sleeping pills inside. The tables trunk
on these men and Tao turns them into chickens by sticking feathers in them.
Revenge, evil survival tactics, misery and lawlessness in this film graphically
reflect the state of affairs in the slums of Vietnam.
The Tremor, directed by Balaji
Vembu Chell bomb
So dull that even this
tremor will put you to sleep. A photojournalist plays Tamil music in his car as
he drives to a site reported to have had an earthquake of sorts. He walks
paths, goes to villages, and is once or twice told that years ago there was such a thing.
He never really discovers proof of a present-day tremor.
Siberia, directed by Abel
Ferarra **
Not even Willem Dafoe can
save this surreal film that pits a loner living in a shack in Siberia who makes
love to a native woman to find her bleeding to death with her mother She was
pregnant. He travels to different area with his husky dog mashing his way into
caves, where he meets his dead dad, to his ex-wife and his son and travels so
far into hallucinogenic settings that one wonders if his is more than a lost
soul. Beautiful cinematography. In the
end after his long journey into haunting places, he returns only to find his
entire shack has been destroyed along with his husky cage. Life is pretty scary
in this hypnotic but obtuse film.
MY SALINGER
YEAR (Directed by Philippe Falardeau)***
Joanna Rakoff is an aspiring writer. She moves to
New York, leaving her boyfriend karl behind to start her literary journey. She
gets a job at an agency whose main task is to shred letters to J.D. Salinger
from all fans, but she ends up writing to some. She is given strict
instructions by Margaret (Sigourney Weaver) who heads the agency, never to talk
to “Jerry” when he calls. In short, she takes up with Don, a no-good boyfriend
who also writes, but in the end follows her real passion and it’s not him. There are some absurd surreal moments but all
in all, I would say this film is flatly delivered. all the film really falls flat.
Based on a book by, one wonders it had a better read than watching this film. An
FNC Sreening
THALASSO,
directed by Guillaume Nicloux ***
It started
out with understated brilliant acting. The narrative teams up to ageing men
(Michel Houellebecq and Gerald Depardieu taking cures in a French spa.
They discus death, sex and family issues that leads to a shocking disruptive
ending that totally does not fit into the film at all. It is a documentary of
sorts in intent that talks about the kidnapping of Michel. Confusing at the
end, the film falters dramatically as it can’t make up its mind if its about
kidnapping or fighting getting old. Great acting.
La Hija de un Ladron, directed by Belen Funes ****
Remember this title and watch this film! Greta Fernandez as Sara is outstanding. She has a baby
to care for and really no hone. She gets a job in a cafeteria kitchen but
struggles constantly to make ends meet and care for her baby. The father comes
and goes and helps her but doesn’t want any intimacy with her. Sara is
abandoned by her lying father who waffles between handing her a baguette and
crumbs, literally and figuratively. mean to her. She files for custody of her
little lame brother Martin. Hoping to take him from her irresponsible father. In
the final scene isn’t court, she breaks down, and mutters, “Will I be alone?”
That is her fear, and that is what she lives every day. A amazing performance
by the lead actor. The ensemble cast is superb. The film makes a intense
comment on the working class in Barcelona, and that each day is a struggle to
get through it and meet the next one with bravery and vigor – as Sara does
RED POST ON ESCHER STREET, directed by Sion Sono*
Despite the director’s vision to create the
chaos and manipulations that happen when making a feature film, he ended up
creating a massive mayhem collage of would-be nobodies who wish to be a part of a movie
directed by their idol. It is totally absurd in presentation and plot. Taken to
the realm of impossibilities, the exaggerated approach in content fails to resonate
or convey his message. Instead, we are delivered a hodgepodge of scenes that
show the obsession to be in a film and one that has a famous director. There
was one funny episode when an old man who has made a career out of being an extra
plays his video to some of the kids that show his moment of glory. This rings
true as so many extras strive to be more than that a human backdrop. In his
case, he is proud of his long career as an extra.
APPLES, directed by Christos Nikou **
A mans is found
one a bus with amnesia. He is put into a program to reinvent himself. He is tasked
with taking pictures with his polaroid camera of him on a bike, dancing, having
a lap dancer on his lap, fishing and more. He even has to find a sick person in
the hospital to care for before the dying man dies which happens within days.
He befriends a girl also in the program and she is more open than he is. His
one constant are the apples he eats. W keep waiting for something to happen but
it doesn’t. Perhaps this movie is a metaphor for our disenfranchised society –
Greek drama modernized and stuck in the confusing world we all live in where
memories are a blur and present-day life is a place in time we wish not to remember.
Il n' y a pas de faux metier (directed by Olivier Godin) bomb
A runaway actress who manically wishes to learn English; a screenwriter who has a poet defusing bombs, a priest who is into smell-based sermons, and is crazy for Denzel Washington - this is the madhouse cast of characters who are helplessly lost. Using Greek chorus techniques and monologues, this terrible film is a mess fo a burlesque/comedia del art creations that showcases the worst of Quebec cinema - theatrical silliness passing for art.
KHAMSIN, directed
by Gregoire Couvert **
A documentary that features musicians,
installation arts and more as they tackle war-torn Lebanon using their art to reflect
the ongoing devastation of this country. The Golden age of Lebanon is finished, and wars have turned the county into shattered buildings. Black and white clips show
it all. Many of the artists left, but returned to their homeland,
specifically Beirut.
THE REPUBLICS **, directed by Huw Wahl
From the Isle of Dogs and the Western Isles through to northern Italy, this grainy black and white documentary shows poet. Stephen Watts reading form his texts with backdrops of city lines and nature that visually reflect his poems. They are full of images and scorn at the way things have been ruined, but there are also poems about the miraculous world of nature. His cerebral poems reflect intellect,insight and though sometimes bitter in image, his thoughts collide magnificently inside his genius mind.
