Our Japanese picks were pretty poor this year...and we skipped a few that seemed not even that good. Oh well, some years it's good, some it's not..all part of the annual festival thing.
We did see films that digested well with the juries:
Special Grand Prix of the jury :
NOODLE by Ayelet Menahemi (Israël)
Golden Zenith for the Best First Fiction Feature Film :
LA CAJA (THE WOODEN BOX) by Juan Carlos Falcón (Spain)
Bronze Zenith for the First Fiction Feature Film :
DONG SUN (BAMBOO SHOOTS) by Jian Yi (China)
Special Mention in the First Feature Film Category:
WIND MAN by Khuat Akhmetov (Russie)
Jonathan’s lineup and ranking, with my comments in brackets, is as follows:
Buy the DVD:
01- Galilee Eskimos (Israel)
01- Noodle (Israel)
03- Wind Man (Russia) (I’d put Wind Man first, but let’s not quibble).
Rent the DVD:
04- Flying Lesson (Italy, UK, France, India)
05- The Wooden Box (Spain, Portugal)
06- Dong Sun (China)
07- Where Are You Going Moshe? (Morocco, Canada) (Not for me, thanks).
Watch on TV:
08- All the Days Before Tomorrow (United States, Canada)
09- 53 Winter Days (Spain)
10- L's Revolt (Bulgaria)
Watch on TV and don't worry about missing a few minutes because you were channel-surfing:
11- The Mamiya Brothers (Japan)
12- Oh-Oku, The Women of the Inner Palace (Japan)
13- Mein Führer (Germany)
14- Dark Corners of the Shelves (Japan)
15- Kuro-Obi (Japan)
16- Férfiakt (Hungary)
Keep channel-surfing:
None
Shorts:
Rewind is the one that stood out for me.
Documentaries (in no particular order):
In the Shadow of the Moon (United States) (YES! I’ll probably buy this one)
Meat Loaf: Search for Paradise (United States) (rent!)
Running With Arnold (United States) (see it one way or another, really!)
The Quest for the Missing Piece (Israel) cute…especially if you’re from a group that practices male circumcision, and/or are LGBT-minded.
That’s it, folks! We had fun – we’re tired and glad it’s over, but sad that we’ll have to wait until August, 2008 for the next batch of International films. Thanks to my dear husband Jonathan for sharing the festival with me, and for Cinemoo for introducing it to me all those years ago!
Monday, September 3, 2007
Day Eleven - September 3
Oh-Oku (Oh-oku, The Women of the Inner Palace). Director: Toru Hayashi (this is his first feature). Japan (2007) 128 min, Japanese with English subtitles.
Ok, I guess holding this up to Kurasowa’s Ran as a gold standard might be a bit harsh, but we both found this brilliantly coloured, but impossibly slow drama too soap opera-ish, and just too long. With two hours to play with, surely we could have had a bit more court intrigue? Set in the Tokugawa Ietsugu period (1709-1716 (one of many Tokugawa shoguns) in Edo, the Japanese city later renamed Tokyo), it’s the usual suspects of love, betrayal, jealousy, court machinations between rival groups jostling for control, running along in slow motion so you know it to be very authentic. No, actually, most Japanese films are two hours long – must be some sort of theatre programming thing. Anyway, a child shogun is advised by a former Noh actor in this version (taking some liberties with historical fact), placing his mother (a non-noble concubine) and mother’s protector in direct opposition to the late shogun’s widow and mother. I’d say mediocre TV fare – so sorry. Pretty pictures, though.
Ok, I guess holding this up to Kurasowa’s Ran as a gold standard might be a bit harsh, but we both found this brilliantly coloured, but impossibly slow drama too soap opera-ish, and just too long. With two hours to play with, surely we could have had a bit more court intrigue? Set in the Tokugawa Ietsugu period (1709-1716 (one of many Tokugawa shoguns) in Edo, the Japanese city later renamed Tokyo), it’s the usual suspects of love, betrayal, jealousy, court machinations between rival groups jostling for control, running along in slow motion so you know it to be very authentic. No, actually, most Japanese films are two hours long – must be some sort of theatre programming thing. Anyway, a child shogun is advised by a former Noh actor in this version (taking some liberties with historical fact), placing his mother (a non-noble concubine) and mother’s protector in direct opposition to the late shogun’s widow and mother. I’d say mediocre TV fare – so sorry. Pretty pictures, though.
Day Ten - Sunday, September 2
La Caja (The Wooden Box). Director: Juan Carlos Falcón. Spain—Portugal (2006). 113 min, Spanish with English subtitles.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0772892/
Brings new meaning to “I spit on your grave.” What seems to be a somber film about revenge is actually a hilarious, dark comedic farce about revenge. Shot in the Canary islands, under an unflinching sun and camera, the story takes place in a poor seaside fishing community in the 1960’s. A new widow, hidden away for most of her life by her husband, who was a corrupt market inspector, suddenly needs her neighbours to help with the wake and funeral. Everyone seems to have been hurt by her late husband, and they all want revenge on his corpse, or some of the money he stole from them. The widow’s blameless, and gradually begins to realize that he was a far larger monster than the horrible husband she knew. The characterizations are priceless – just one example the prostitute cousin of the downstairs neighbour. You’d swear she’s a transvestite or a transsexual – I cracked up when a personal quote from Antonia San Juan, the actress who played the part, actually addresses this question. A definite must-see.
Mamiya Kyoudai (The Mamiya Brothers). Director: Yoshimitsu Morita. Japan (2006) 119 min, Japanese with English subtitles.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0777932/
An very, very light comedy about adult brothers who share a Tokyo apartment and have average jobs, but are so impossibly geeky that they are still single (no, they’re not gay). Akinubo’s a school janitor, and Tetsunobu is a beer taster at a brewery. They vow to have a curry party and invite young ladies from their respective jobs, in the hopes of finding someone to marry. I was expecting light comedy, but this was positively helium.
Almost two hours of excruciatingly light comedy with just a dash of drama. Will our two good guys find heterosexual bliss by the end? I’d be channel surfing for something else and not worrying about what I missed while doing so with this one, as Jonathan said. I concur.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0772892/
Brings new meaning to “I spit on your grave.” What seems to be a somber film about revenge is actually a hilarious, dark comedic farce about revenge. Shot in the Canary islands, under an unflinching sun and camera, the story takes place in a poor seaside fishing community in the 1960’s. A new widow, hidden away for most of her life by her husband, who was a corrupt market inspector, suddenly needs her neighbours to help with the wake and funeral. Everyone seems to have been hurt by her late husband, and they all want revenge on his corpse, or some of the money he stole from them. The widow’s blameless, and gradually begins to realize that he was a far larger monster than the horrible husband she knew. The characterizations are priceless – just one example the prostitute cousin of the downstairs neighbour. You’d swear she’s a transvestite or a transsexual – I cracked up when a personal quote from Antonia San Juan, the actress who played the part, actually addresses this question. A definite must-see.
Mamiya Kyoudai (The Mamiya Brothers). Director: Yoshimitsu Morita. Japan (2006) 119 min, Japanese with English subtitles.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0777932/
An very, very light comedy about adult brothers who share a Tokyo apartment and have average jobs, but are so impossibly geeky that they are still single (no, they’re not gay). Akinubo’s a school janitor, and Tetsunobu is a beer taster at a brewery. They vow to have a curry party and invite young ladies from their respective jobs, in the hopes of finding someone to marry. I was expecting light comedy, but this was positively helium.
Almost two hours of excruciatingly light comedy with just a dash of drama. Will our two good guys find heterosexual bliss by the end? I’d be channel surfing for something else and not worrying about what I missed while doing so with this one, as Jonathan said. I concur.
Day Nine - Saturday, September 1
The Interior Monologue of Gill the Goldfish (short film). Director: Jim Goodall. Canada (2007) 7 min, English.
A goldfish with a very bitter existence and a very foul mouth tries to end it all...and discovers his desire to live too late. Nothing outstanding to say about the animation or the story.
Noodle. Director: Ayelet Menahemi. Israel (2007). 95 min, Hebrew and Mandarin with English subtitles.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0892332/
I won’t be surprised if this one wins the popular vote, if not some other prize. Menahemi’s seamlessly directed story of a twice-widowed 38 yr-old Israeli flight attendant Mili, still grieving and bitter, who discovers that her cleaning lady was an illegal Chinese immigrant who’s been deported by the authorities. Only problem? Her six year old son, who can only say “I am a Chinese boy” in Hebrew, is sitting in Mili’s apartment. Mili’s sarcastic and ironic sister Gila, who has the most hilarious lines in the film with her sharp tongue, but warm heart, is hardly hiding her own hurt, going through the breakup of her marriage to Mili’s co-worker Izzy. Mili’s good friends with her brother-in-law and doesn’t see the attraction Izzy has for her. Told by a friend that their “Noodle”, as the boy’s nicknamed, is stateless, with no papers and born in Israel, and that it would take years to have him repatriated to China, Mili, who is childless herself, surprises everyone, herself most of all, with a dangerous plan to get the boy back to his mother in Beijing. The back story with Mati, a former childhood neighbour, now well-known author, who happens to speak Chinese, completes the attraction-confusion requirement for the plot. Films about abandonment, especially of children or pets, play right to the heart. Noodle delivers, with the requisite happy ending.
L’Oro rosso (short film). Director: Cesare Fragnelli. Italy (2007). 13 min, Italian with English subtitles.
A little girl’s bedtime story about the farmer and the tomatoes haunts the mother with her memories of forced sexual favours in return for getting her husband a job with the local farmer. No rotten tomatoes in this one.
53 días de invierno (53 Winter Days). Director: Judith Colell. Spain (2006). 91min, Spanish with English subtitles.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0778596/
The long, dark night of the soul. three people at a bus shelter, when a man abandons a dog in front of them. Winter in Madrid with three very different stories. A single middle-aged teacher, just returning to work after being attacked by students in the high school where she teaches, tries to deal with her panic attacks. She helps out an old woman in her building when the abandoned dogs that the lady cares for are taken away from her. A young woman, a celloist just selected for a quartet, is in a relationship with her teacher, who, unbeknownst to her is married. She lives with her mother, who is still inconsolable after her husband left her for a younger woman. And a poor man, the one who took home the dog for his son, has a wife expecting twins. His job as a security guard in a store barely covers what he needs. When he loses his job (over a stupid act that he tried in order to give his wife something as a gesture of love), he’s unable to overcome his shame and takes to living on the street, while secretly watching his family. Another film themed on learning to look outside of one’s grief and see another’s, and forgiveness. Very dark, very depressing, but after the long, dark night of the soul, as spring comes around, there is hope. Jonathan found this one very difficult to take, but I found it meaty...satisfying in its range of emotional tension, but perhaps with a slightly overly facile resolution. Still, in all, very good.
A goldfish with a very bitter existence and a very foul mouth tries to end it all...and discovers his desire to live too late. Nothing outstanding to say about the animation or the story.
Noodle. Director: Ayelet Menahemi. Israel (2007). 95 min, Hebrew and Mandarin with English subtitles.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0892332/
I won’t be surprised if this one wins the popular vote, if not some other prize. Menahemi’s seamlessly directed story of a twice-widowed 38 yr-old Israeli flight attendant Mili, still grieving and bitter, who discovers that her cleaning lady was an illegal Chinese immigrant who’s been deported by the authorities. Only problem? Her six year old son, who can only say “I am a Chinese boy” in Hebrew, is sitting in Mili’s apartment. Mili’s sarcastic and ironic sister Gila, who has the most hilarious lines in the film with her sharp tongue, but warm heart, is hardly hiding her own hurt, going through the breakup of her marriage to Mili’s co-worker Izzy. Mili’s good friends with her brother-in-law and doesn’t see the attraction Izzy has for her. Told by a friend that their “Noodle”, as the boy’s nicknamed, is stateless, with no papers and born in Israel, and that it would take years to have him repatriated to China, Mili, who is childless herself, surprises everyone, herself most of all, with a dangerous plan to get the boy back to his mother in Beijing. The back story with Mati, a former childhood neighbour, now well-known author, who happens to speak Chinese, completes the attraction-confusion requirement for the plot. Films about abandonment, especially of children or pets, play right to the heart. Noodle delivers, with the requisite happy ending.
L’Oro rosso (short film). Director: Cesare Fragnelli. Italy (2007). 13 min, Italian with English subtitles.
A little girl’s bedtime story about the farmer and the tomatoes haunts the mother with her memories of forced sexual favours in return for getting her husband a job with the local farmer. No rotten tomatoes in this one.
53 días de invierno (53 Winter Days). Director: Judith Colell. Spain (2006). 91min, Spanish with English subtitles.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0778596/
The long, dark night of the soul. three people at a bus shelter, when a man abandons a dog in front of them. Winter in Madrid with three very different stories. A single middle-aged teacher, just returning to work after being attacked by students in the high school where she teaches, tries to deal with her panic attacks. She helps out an old woman in her building when the abandoned dogs that the lady cares for are taken away from her. A young woman, a celloist just selected for a quartet, is in a relationship with her teacher, who, unbeknownst to her is married. She lives with her mother, who is still inconsolable after her husband left her for a younger woman. And a poor man, the one who took home the dog for his son, has a wife expecting twins. His job as a security guard in a store barely covers what he needs. When he loses his job (over a stupid act that he tried in order to give his wife something as a gesture of love), he’s unable to overcome his shame and takes to living on the street, while secretly watching his family. Another film themed on learning to look outside of one’s grief and see another’s, and forgiveness. Very dark, very depressing, but after the long, dark night of the soul, as spring comes around, there is hope. Jonathan found this one very difficult to take, but I found it meaty...satisfying in its range of emotional tension, but perhaps with a slightly overly facile resolution. Still, in all, very good.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Day Eight - Friday, August 31
Rewind (short film). Director: Atul Taishet. India (2007) 9 min, English.
This entire film is shown in reverse, with the narrative running forwards. A blind safecracker agrees to a deadly game of Russian roulette with his two fellow robbers, after a job nets them a huge haul in diamonds. After all, what advantage can a blind man have? A one-trick pony that succeeds completely. I’d say it’s the best short I’ve seen so far.
Lezioni Di Volo (Flying Lessons). Director: Francesca Archibugi. Italy—United Kingdom—India—France (2007). 106 min, Italian with English subtitles.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0447659/
Two spoiled, disaffected 18 year old Roman friends, both having failed their high school final exams, are given a chance to go find themselves. “Pollo” (diminutive for Apollonio, but a reference to "chicken") is Jewish, although completely secular, and his closest friend “Curry” is an adopted Indian boy. Their rich parents agree to send them both on a trip to India so Curry can find his roots (he was adopted from an orphanage, when his birth mother couldn’t care for him). The trip takes an unexpected turn due to their naiveté and becomes something that no one planned. Poyo falls in love with a 35(ish) yr old doctor working for World Aid in a desert region, who is still romantically attached to her absent doctor husband. Curry starts to discover his Indian roots. Back home, Poyo’s father is ill, and both sets of parents wrestle with relationship difficulties. This coming-of-age story has nice cinematography, competent acting, and almost believable serendipitous happenstance.
Meat Loaf: In Search of Paradise. Director: Bruce David Klein. United States (2007)
90 min, English.
www.imdb.com/title/tt1034080/
If you like documentaries about bigger-than-life rock stars, this one will deliver. Meat Loaf has been roaring out the songs for forty years now (!) with his brand of theatrical rock songs - not many people haven’t heard his major ranked songs “I can see Paradise by the Dashboard Light” “Two out of Three Ain’t Bad”, and “I would do anything for Love (But I won’t do that)”. He’s has sold over 35 million albums, and finally, at 59, let a film maker follow him around for a few weeks at the start of his 2007 World Tour. We see Meat and his hard working band and production group (some whom have been with him for between 15 to 30 years), through the pre-tour rehearsals on a L.A. soundstage, to the Canadian portion of the tour. While a bit of biographical information is included to place things historically, it’s really about where Meat Loaf is today, and his creative, collaborative process. A very good portrait of an artist who’s very perfectionism to deliver the best show he can for his audience constantly wears him out. I’m not a huge Meat Loaf fan, but have enjoyed his big hits since the first ones hit the charts in 1976, and I totally enjoyed this film. Scheduled for a U.S. theatrical release in January, 2008. Note: shot in HD, and probably the clearest "print" of any film we've seen so far!
This entire film is shown in reverse, with the narrative running forwards. A blind safecracker agrees to a deadly game of Russian roulette with his two fellow robbers, after a job nets them a huge haul in diamonds. After all, what advantage can a blind man have? A one-trick pony that succeeds completely. I’d say it’s the best short I’ve seen so far.
Lezioni Di Volo (Flying Lessons). Director: Francesca Archibugi. Italy—United Kingdom—India—France (2007). 106 min, Italian with English subtitles.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0447659/
Two spoiled, disaffected 18 year old Roman friends, both having failed their high school final exams, are given a chance to go find themselves. “Pollo” (diminutive for Apollonio, but a reference to "chicken") is Jewish, although completely secular, and his closest friend “Curry” is an adopted Indian boy. Their rich parents agree to send them both on a trip to India so Curry can find his roots (he was adopted from an orphanage, when his birth mother couldn’t care for him). The trip takes an unexpected turn due to their naiveté and becomes something that no one planned. Poyo falls in love with a 35(ish) yr old doctor working for World Aid in a desert region, who is still romantically attached to her absent doctor husband. Curry starts to discover his Indian roots. Back home, Poyo’s father is ill, and both sets of parents wrestle with relationship difficulties. This coming-of-age story has nice cinematography, competent acting, and almost believable serendipitous happenstance.
Meat Loaf: In Search of Paradise. Director: Bruce David Klein. United States (2007)
90 min, English.
www.imdb.com/title/tt1034080/
If you like documentaries about bigger-than-life rock stars, this one will deliver. Meat Loaf has been roaring out the songs for forty years now (!) with his brand of theatrical rock songs - not many people haven’t heard his major ranked songs “I can see Paradise by the Dashboard Light” “Two out of Three Ain’t Bad”, and “I would do anything for Love (But I won’t do that)”. He’s has sold over 35 million albums, and finally, at 59, let a film maker follow him around for a few weeks at the start of his 2007 World Tour. We see Meat and his hard working band and production group (some whom have been with him for between 15 to 30 years), through the pre-tour rehearsals on a L.A. soundstage, to the Canadian portion of the tour. While a bit of biographical information is included to place things historically, it’s really about where Meat Loaf is today, and his creative, collaborative process. A very good portrait of an artist who’s very perfectionism to deliver the best show he can for his audience constantly wears him out. I’m not a huge Meat Loaf fan, but have enjoyed his big hits since the first ones hit the charts in 1976, and I totally enjoyed this film. Scheduled for a U.S. theatrical release in January, 2008. Note: shot in HD, and probably the clearest "print" of any film we've seen so far!
Day Seven - Thursday, August 30
Les Intestins de la terre (The Intestines of the Earth). Director: Olivier Barbier.. France (2006) 13 min, French with English subtitles.
Macrophotography is used to explore the earthworm’s vital part in the cycle of soil regeneration. A rather slimy and er..tasty film – since an earthworm’s defecation is shown several times. Not for the sensitive stomach, particularly just after a meal. Interestingly, soil over-use has resulted in a reduction of the number of earthworms, from 250 per cubic meter of soil, down to 50. Floods in Europe have been attributed to fields that no longer are as porous with the lack of earthworms – one worm tunnels about 15 or 17 lengths in a day. And vineyards use copper, a metal additive that is toxic to earthworms. Now you know.
Technical note: sadly, this year, the Festival seems to have decided that for non-HD video productions, the video projector is set to “stretch” mode for films with a 4:3 ratio (traditional TV format). This results in really bad distortion in the left and right thirds of the screen…it’s as if you’re watching the film through a prism when there’s a pan, or an object moves from one side to the other. It can be vertigo inducing at times...
Mein Führer – Die Wirklich Wahrste Wahrheit Über Adolf Hitler (My Führer – The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler). Director: Dani Levy. Germany (2007) 95 min, German with English subtitles.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0780568/
Jonathan wanted to see this satire, and initially I didn’t, but eventually went along. I didn’t have to walk out (something I promised if I found the Holocaust diminished in any way). Well, I didn’t have to worry. Other reviewers have already talked about how this is sort of first for German cinema, where sensitivity about the Holocaust and a fear of still being taken for Nazis, has so far kept German directors from treating the Holocaust as satire or comedy (think of Life is Beautiful). Dani Levy, purportedly himself from a Jewish (Swiss) family, weaves a fantastic, improbable tale of a Jewish actor who had helped Hilter in the 1930’s with his speeches, who has now been forcefully relocated to a concentration camp. He's brought back to try to help Hitler regain his confidence for a big speech in the last days of the European war. Levy sets up several hilarious scenarios between Professor Adolf Israel Grünbaum and Hitler, and Hitler with Eva Braun, but downplay the Nazi’s Final Solution, whatever Hitler might be doing with “this filthy Jew”. However, the incredulous “Sorry about the Final Solution, Grünbaum, don’t take it personally…” is funny once, but seems to be an apology for the satire after a few times. There’s a bit of a whiff of the TV series Hogan’s Heroes, but much darker, and without the happy endings.
Finemachiya Moché (Where Are You Going Moshe?). Director: Hassan Benjelloun.
Morocco—Canada (2007) 90 min, Arabic with English subtitles.
A nice little story that purports to be an example of the Jewish (Sephardic) exodus from Morocco to Israel, France, and Canada in the early 1960’s. The best propoganda films tell a compelling story and slide in the message in a palatable form.
Mustapha, the manager (and soon to be owner) of the only bar in the town of Bejjad, has a problem. Most of the Jews are leaving, with Morocco’s independence and recent death of their King, "who was a protector of Jews". The town council, under the urging of the local Imam, will have the bar closed unless one non-Muslim remains in town, since the bar license is conditional on this point. Never mind that many local Muslims frequent the bar, and could care less what the Imam wants. Mustapha concocts a plan (at the suggestion of his son Hassan) to convince Shlomo, the local musician, to stay.
Without talking to some of my Sephardic connections about their families' emigration, I can’t say how accurate is he portrait of Jews being fully part of the community, not only being tolerated, but accepted, since I'm not Sephardic. But it seems to fly in the face with why the majority of Moroccan Jews left, with only 3000 left there today. The film’s reality is that Bejjad was a Moroccan “Mayberry” village, with everyone (well, almost everyone) having no bad feelings about the Jews. Mustapha’s son is even dating Shlomo’s daughter (although on the sly, since it wouldn’t really be accepted). So while the “portrait” of life there seems all happy, it seems the reasons for the majority of Jews leaving is placed on their unease about the political situation, counsel from their rabbi about returning to their biblical "home", and external pressure from “Zionists” to emigrate to Israel. Many of them don't want to go, since it means leaving their Muslim friends.
This seems to go against the prevailing evidence, which is Jews were leaving because of increasing and often government sanctioned discrimination, which rose significantly after the formation of Israel in 1948. This “it’s the Zionists fault” subtext is carried off mostly with subtlety, but some stand out as obvious editorializing, such as when some of the town businessmen talking about the exodus say Israel is facilitating emigration of Moroccan Jews to help “fill the country”. This is placed in the context of gossip, with more and more outlandish statements, like “…the Europeans are trading Jews like money”. These statements are shown to be a minority view, as is the feeling on the part of one of the Muslim Moroccan town councilmen that the Jews “. . .aren’t really Moroccan, so if they go, we’ll have more jobs for Moroccans.”
So the Moroccan Jews are shown making a perilous journey to Israel. Through Shlomo’s daughter’s letters, we learn that “…it’s always too hot, I’m always looking for shade. We prefer to speak in Arabic, but we have to learn Hebrew. We don’t get hired in Israel unless there’s no Ashkenazi (European) Jews available” [although this discrimination was and still is to some extent true]. Israel is said to be “a trap”, most of the Moroccans would prefer to go on to France and also Canada – Moshe’s daughter ultimately marries David, one of the emigration “facilitators” that accompanied her group of émigrés, and then they in turn emigrate to Marseilles. Hassan ultimately tells this information, hidden from Shlomo by Mustapha, since he fears Shlomo leaving. Hassan could care less, since Rachel is lost to him now.
Even the “happy ending”, where Shlomo eventually leaves for Marseilles to live with his family, seems to have a subtext. In Casablanca, he runs across the village idiot Berbeq’ha being taunted by kids in the streets and beaten. He wasn’t able to emigrate on to Israel with the others, and was despondent that that he wouldn’t be allowed to go fight in the Army and that “they’d lose the war” without him. The film’s closing scene is in Mustapha’s bar in Bejjad, with the required one Jew to keep the bar open, the happy “General” Berbeq’ha, in a fake uniform, seated in the bar, with an eye patch over his now blind left eye. A subtle parody of the late Moshe Dayan, perhaps? However, in the film’s reality, he’s happy, the remaining (Muslim) patrons of the bar and its owner are all happy, despite the best attempts by the pleasure-denying Imam.
The political rhetoric at the very end of the film then nicely outs the apparent agenda behind it. In mentioning about Israel’s 2006 incursion into Lebanon, where “some of the attackers where originally from Morocco, the film asks ‘what would have happened if the Arab world hadn’t let go of its children? How might have things gone then?’” If it weren't for this rather blatant editorializing, one might have discounted all of the other signs as just as part of the narrative, but it contextualizes everything before.
My guess is the film’s final political statement represents a form of the more benign pan-Arabic feeling about Jews that one can find today, which is that as long as Jews were a powerless minority within Arab culture, with no ambitions towards statehood, there was no quarrel, and they were a (mostly integrated) part of the Arabic world. This sort of echoes the less virulent anti-Israel sentiments which typically go along the lines of “A united Palestine, with Arabs naturally as a majority, with Jews as a protected minority within it, would be perfectly acceptable to the Arab world.”
Macrophotography is used to explore the earthworm’s vital part in the cycle of soil regeneration. A rather slimy and er..tasty film – since an earthworm’s defecation is shown several times. Not for the sensitive stomach, particularly just after a meal. Interestingly, soil over-use has resulted in a reduction of the number of earthworms, from 250 per cubic meter of soil, down to 50. Floods in Europe have been attributed to fields that no longer are as porous with the lack of earthworms – one worm tunnels about 15 or 17 lengths in a day. And vineyards use copper, a metal additive that is toxic to earthworms. Now you know.
Technical note: sadly, this year, the Festival seems to have decided that for non-HD video productions, the video projector is set to “stretch” mode for films with a 4:3 ratio (traditional TV format). This results in really bad distortion in the left and right thirds of the screen…it’s as if you’re watching the film through a prism when there’s a pan, or an object moves from one side to the other. It can be vertigo inducing at times...
Mein Führer – Die Wirklich Wahrste Wahrheit Über Adolf Hitler (My Führer – The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler). Director: Dani Levy. Germany (2007) 95 min, German with English subtitles.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0780568/
Jonathan wanted to see this satire, and initially I didn’t, but eventually went along. I didn’t have to walk out (something I promised if I found the Holocaust diminished in any way). Well, I didn’t have to worry. Other reviewers have already talked about how this is sort of first for German cinema, where sensitivity about the Holocaust and a fear of still being taken for Nazis, has so far kept German directors from treating the Holocaust as satire or comedy (think of Life is Beautiful). Dani Levy, purportedly himself from a Jewish (Swiss) family, weaves a fantastic, improbable tale of a Jewish actor who had helped Hilter in the 1930’s with his speeches, who has now been forcefully relocated to a concentration camp. He's brought back to try to help Hitler regain his confidence for a big speech in the last days of the European war. Levy sets up several hilarious scenarios between Professor Adolf Israel Grünbaum and Hitler, and Hitler with Eva Braun, but downplay the Nazi’s Final Solution, whatever Hitler might be doing with “this filthy Jew”. However, the incredulous “Sorry about the Final Solution, Grünbaum, don’t take it personally…” is funny once, but seems to be an apology for the satire after a few times. There’s a bit of a whiff of the TV series Hogan’s Heroes, but much darker, and without the happy endings.
Finemachiya Moché (Where Are You Going Moshe?). Director: Hassan Benjelloun.
Morocco—Canada (2007) 90 min, Arabic with English subtitles.
A nice little story that purports to be an example of the Jewish (Sephardic) exodus from Morocco to Israel, France, and Canada in the early 1960’s. The best propoganda films tell a compelling story and slide in the message in a palatable form.
Mustapha, the manager (and soon to be owner) of the only bar in the town of Bejjad, has a problem. Most of the Jews are leaving, with Morocco’s independence and recent death of their King, "who was a protector of Jews". The town council, under the urging of the local Imam, will have the bar closed unless one non-Muslim remains in town, since the bar license is conditional on this point. Never mind that many local Muslims frequent the bar, and could care less what the Imam wants. Mustapha concocts a plan (at the suggestion of his son Hassan) to convince Shlomo, the local musician, to stay.
Without talking to some of my Sephardic connections about their families' emigration, I can’t say how accurate is he portrait of Jews being fully part of the community, not only being tolerated, but accepted, since I'm not Sephardic. But it seems to fly in the face with why the majority of Moroccan Jews left, with only 3000 left there today. The film’s reality is that Bejjad was a Moroccan “Mayberry” village, with everyone (well, almost everyone) having no bad feelings about the Jews. Mustapha’s son is even dating Shlomo’s daughter (although on the sly, since it wouldn’t really be accepted). So while the “portrait” of life there seems all happy, it seems the reasons for the majority of Jews leaving is placed on their unease about the political situation, counsel from their rabbi about returning to their biblical "home", and external pressure from “Zionists” to emigrate to Israel. Many of them don't want to go, since it means leaving their Muslim friends.
This seems to go against the prevailing evidence, which is Jews were leaving because of increasing and often government sanctioned discrimination, which rose significantly after the formation of Israel in 1948. This “it’s the Zionists fault” subtext is carried off mostly with subtlety, but some stand out as obvious editorializing, such as when some of the town businessmen talking about the exodus say Israel is facilitating emigration of Moroccan Jews to help “fill the country”. This is placed in the context of gossip, with more and more outlandish statements, like “…the Europeans are trading Jews like money”. These statements are shown to be a minority view, as is the feeling on the part of one of the Muslim Moroccan town councilmen that the Jews “. . .aren’t really Moroccan, so if they go, we’ll have more jobs for Moroccans.”
So the Moroccan Jews are shown making a perilous journey to Israel. Through Shlomo’s daughter’s letters, we learn that “…it’s always too hot, I’m always looking for shade. We prefer to speak in Arabic, but we have to learn Hebrew. We don’t get hired in Israel unless there’s no Ashkenazi (European) Jews available” [although this discrimination was and still is to some extent true]. Israel is said to be “a trap”, most of the Moroccans would prefer to go on to France and also Canada – Moshe’s daughter ultimately marries David, one of the emigration “facilitators” that accompanied her group of émigrés, and then they in turn emigrate to Marseilles. Hassan ultimately tells this information, hidden from Shlomo by Mustapha, since he fears Shlomo leaving. Hassan could care less, since Rachel is lost to him now.
Even the “happy ending”, where Shlomo eventually leaves for Marseilles to live with his family, seems to have a subtext. In Casablanca, he runs across the village idiot Berbeq’ha being taunted by kids in the streets and beaten. He wasn’t able to emigrate on to Israel with the others, and was despondent that that he wouldn’t be allowed to go fight in the Army and that “they’d lose the war” without him. The film’s closing scene is in Mustapha’s bar in Bejjad, with the required one Jew to keep the bar open, the happy “General” Berbeq’ha, in a fake uniform, seated in the bar, with an eye patch over his now blind left eye. A subtle parody of the late Moshe Dayan, perhaps? However, in the film’s reality, he’s happy, the remaining (Muslim) patrons of the bar and its owner are all happy, despite the best attempts by the pleasure-denying Imam.
The political rhetoric at the very end of the film then nicely outs the apparent agenda behind it. In mentioning about Israel’s 2006 incursion into Lebanon, where “some of the attackers where originally from Morocco, the film asks ‘what would have happened if the Arab world hadn’t let go of its children? How might have things gone then?’” If it weren't for this rather blatant editorializing, one might have discounted all of the other signs as just as part of the narrative, but it contextualizes everything before.
My guess is the film’s final political statement represents a form of the more benign pan-Arabic feeling about Jews that one can find today, which is that as long as Jews were a powerless minority within Arab culture, with no ambitions towards statehood, there was no quarrel, and they were a (mostly integrated) part of the Arabic world. This sort of echoes the less virulent anti-Israel sentiments which typically go along the lines of “A united Palestine, with Arabs naturally as a majority, with Jews as a protected minority within it, would be perfectly acceptable to the Arab world.”
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Day Six - Wednesday, August 29
Sorry about the FFM links for anyone who tried them and found them "broken". The FFM site uses dynamic links for the film description listings, and they "expire" after awhile. I've removed them all, so if you want more information, you'll have to go to here and look it up.
Emilka Placze (Emily Cries) (short film). Director: Rafael Kapelinski. Poland (2007).
33 min, Polish with English subtitles.
Stephen is 18, and it’s the eve of Martial law being declared in 1982 in Poland. He’s in love with Emily, who’s dad is a policeman. Shot in black and white and depressingly somber. Stephen slowly woos Emily with dance lessons, and she breaks off an affair with the high school coach. A depressingly dark character sketch of the period – sad, and without much hope. And one minute of summary narration about what happens to all the principals after Communism in Eastern Europe falls.
Behikvot Hahatiha Hahasera (The Quest for the Missing Piece). Director: Oded Lotan (this is his first feature documentary). Israel (2007) 52 min, Hebrew and German with English subtitles.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0984219/
Lotan’s first person “search” for his missing foreskin is the premise for an often humourous exploration about the practice of male circumcision. Being Jewish and Gay, and very secular (like most Israelis), he wants to know why most still adhere to this custom. Interviews with his mother, sister and brother-in-law (with a newborn son), his German husband (who is uncircumcised) are very personal, but he goes out and interviews others…young Russian émigrés in the Israeli army who opt for the procedure to fit in (they are practicing Jews), a group of people who refuse to circumcise their sons (and meet behind closed doors to avoid confrontations). Discussions with a psychologist explain tribal customs and the act of collective identity, and with a German Christian minister on why Christians don’t circumcise (since Jesus was). Muslims, Jews, a lot of North Americans, South Koreans, and Philipinos do – totaling about 1/5th of males worldwide. Traditional ‘bris’ are shown, along with the hospital procedure, and even more interesting, Arabic friends back in Germany having their version of the ritual with their 7 year old son – sort of a Muslim version of the Bar Mitzvah, where the boy becomes a “man”. It sort of makes the Bar Mitzvah physical task of holding up a Torah for about five minutes at 13 years of age (with the threat of fasting for 40 days and 40 nights if you drop it) seem like, well, child’s play. Jonathan and I both were squeamish and averted our eyes at all the injecting of anesthetic and slicing...the idea of someone willfully cutting a “perfectly good piece” off of one’s body, especially from the penis (it’s the male fear of castration, I suppose) just abhors us both, and this despite only one of us having been "cut". Towards the end, Lotan's search for the Mohel (ritual circumciser) that did the job on him, but he’s long deceased. However, an interesting conversation ensures with the late mohel’s elderly son and daughter-in-law. In all, an interesting sociological study. Probably destined to be on a documentary TV channel near you…
Emilka Placze (Emily Cries) (short film). Director: Rafael Kapelinski. Poland (2007).
33 min, Polish with English subtitles.
Stephen is 18, and it’s the eve of Martial law being declared in 1982 in Poland. He’s in love with Emily, who’s dad is a policeman. Shot in black and white and depressingly somber. Stephen slowly woos Emily with dance lessons, and she breaks off an affair with the high school coach. A depressingly dark character sketch of the period – sad, and without much hope. And one minute of summary narration about what happens to all the principals after Communism in Eastern Europe falls.
Behikvot Hahatiha Hahasera (The Quest for the Missing Piece). Director: Oded Lotan (this is his first feature documentary). Israel (2007) 52 min, Hebrew and German with English subtitles.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0984219/
Lotan’s first person “search” for his missing foreskin is the premise for an often humourous exploration about the practice of male circumcision. Being Jewish and Gay, and very secular (like most Israelis), he wants to know why most still adhere to this custom. Interviews with his mother, sister and brother-in-law (with a newborn son), his German husband (who is uncircumcised) are very personal, but he goes out and interviews others…young Russian émigrés in the Israeli army who opt for the procedure to fit in (they are practicing Jews), a group of people who refuse to circumcise their sons (and meet behind closed doors to avoid confrontations). Discussions with a psychologist explain tribal customs and the act of collective identity, and with a German Christian minister on why Christians don’t circumcise (since Jesus was). Muslims, Jews, a lot of North Americans, South Koreans, and Philipinos do – totaling about 1/5th of males worldwide. Traditional ‘bris’ are shown, along with the hospital procedure, and even more interesting, Arabic friends back in Germany having their version of the ritual with their 7 year old son – sort of a Muslim version of the Bar Mitzvah, where the boy becomes a “man”. It sort of makes the Bar Mitzvah physical task of holding up a Torah for about five minutes at 13 years of age (with the threat of fasting for 40 days and 40 nights if you drop it) seem like, well, child’s play. Jonathan and I both were squeamish and averted our eyes at all the injecting of anesthetic and slicing...the idea of someone willfully cutting a “perfectly good piece” off of one’s body, especially from the penis (it’s the male fear of castration, I suppose) just abhors us both, and this despite only one of us having been "cut". Towards the end, Lotan's search for the Mohel (ritual circumciser) that did the job on him, but he’s long deceased. However, an interesting conversation ensures with the late mohel’s elderly son and daughter-in-law. In all, an interesting sociological study. Probably destined to be on a documentary TV channel near you…
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