Day Three - Sunday, August 26th

Song of Slomon (short film). Director: Emmanuel Shirinian. Canada (2007) 7 min, English.
A hilarious film about an ultra-Orthodox (“frume”) young rabbi, just settling into his new job at a synagogue, who seems to be excessively strict with his congregation as a reaction to finding his own faith weakening. Counseled by his childhood friend, a Catholic priest, to “live a little”, he entertains a fascination with a black female vocalist he’s seen on TV by attending a rave where she’s singing, on a Friday night after Sabbath services. The results are more than he bargained for, but God moves in mysterious ways… Very cute, and well executed. It was funny to all, but a plotzer to any Jews in the audience. Much laughing ensued.

Eskimosim ba Galil (The Galilee Eskimos). Director: Jonathan Paz. Israel (2007)
99 min, Hebrew with English subtitles
www.imdb.com/title/tt0910890/
A bittersweet film about a dozen or so octogenarian Kibbutz founding members, now comfortable in their dotage, who awaken one morning to find that everyone else has left, taking anything they could with them, and left the elders behind. Heavily in debt, the Kibbutz was sold off to the bank in return for writing off the debt, but no one told anyone about the old folk left behind. A big surprise for the bank and the investor buying the property on the Lebanese border for his ambitious casino resort plans. The remaining seniors, all socialist from the founding days of Israel and the Kibbutzim movement, rally to become self-sufficient once again, and stave off the builders intent with destroying their home. There’s even plans to become a commercial success and keep the Kibbutz going. But there is also a sense of impending doom, where the choices are armed rebellion, or acquiescence to the offer of a plush seniors residence when they leave. The last weeks are spent reliving all the sweet and sad moments of their lives. The director’s parents were Kibbutzim, and it’s a loving portrait of the beginnings and eventual decline of the original idea of the Kibbutz, and of society’s casual disregard of its elders. So far, my favourite film, with Wind Man coming in second.

All the Days Before Tomorrow. Director: François Dompierre (his first feature film).
United States—Canada (2007) 100 min, English
www.imdb.com/title/tt0439115/
Wes is quiet, academic. Alison is the opposite, and is the former almost girlfiend. She’s leaving L.A. in the morning to return to her boyfriend in Toyko, but wants to spend the evening. Wes is ambivalent but agrees finally, and the night is spent in reflection of what happened through extended flashbacks. We’re also party to Wes’s dreams, where he’s visited by what he calls his “angel”, who has the “right” but cryptic answer to all of his questions, played by Richard Roundtree. They say “opposites attract”, but I just can’t fathom the interest Wes has in vapid Alison. It seems they’re both lost to each other, and Alison’s moved on to a listless relationship with her Tokyo boyfriend. As for Wes not having made the move at the right time (you know how it is, if you become friends too intimately, it’s rare that things can jump to the sexual like they can when you first meet), I kept wondering if he’s truly just a metrosexual or is a closeted gay guy. But then, he wouldn’t be the first well-groomed geek straight guy who misreads the moment because he’s overanalyzing things. A well-made first feature film by a Montreal raised, L.A. educated (UCLA Film school?) Dompierre, but Wing Man flies circles around it. Beautiful scenery of southern Utah (which is, in truth why Jonathan and I went to see this film, since we had a one-week road trip to the Grand Canyon, and Zion National Park, among other places during our last “west coast” trip in 2006). I also wondered about the funding he raised...there is SO MUCH SMOKING in this film (as much as in Japanese films, where's it's notoriously bad), could it have been Big Tobacco?

Buntat Na L. (L's Revolt). Director: Kiran Kolarov. Bulgaria (2006) 115 min, Bulgarian with English subtitles
On the eve of his graduation from language school, bored with life in Communist Bulgaria, Loris tries to defect to the West and is caught. Imprisoned as a political prisoner, he’s subjected to brutal torture and humiliation, but learns to survive. Given amnesty after 1989, he quickly falls in with ex-prison mates, some criminals, some politicals, and the former deputy warden, now a mobster. Seemingly happy with just being one of the “carrier-pigeons” (driver/gopher) for the mobster, his main job is escorting high-class prostitutes to clients. A Russian woman about his age, reduced to being a whore, befriends him. And things aren’t going to well with his boss starting to require that he and his buddies fetch and bury bodies, or help with the kidnapping of a local girl. When he draws the line at being party to a murder, he revolts yet again, thinking he can fight and flee once more. But you can only kill a few top mobsters before you’re going to get whacked yourself, and Loris has never learned to quell his arrogance.

We really weren’t prepared for this film – the description was sufficiently vague that the film's wholesale nihilist decent into post-Communist criminal anarchy, which had mired a good portion of the former Soviet Eastern Bloc, and of course, Russia itself, was a bit of a surprise for us. It just kept getting darker and darker. The body count isn’t legendary, but the casual brutality got to me. And yet, the story moves along at a pace where you aren’t bored. I almost started rooting for Loris to make it through to the end (no spoilers here), given him being the hero and the anti-hero of sorts. Is Koralov critiquing Bulgarian society’s decent in organized crime (a la Juzo Itami’s famous ‘war’ with the Yakuza?), in depicting Loris as Bulgaria’s modern alienated soul traumatized between the former brutality of the unyielding Party line and the even more brutal mobsters that now have control? Maybe I’m just reading too much into it…