Honour of the Knights
Directors like Rivette, Tarkovsky,
and Tarr are past-masters at long scenes where nothing happens, slowly,
but Albert Serra devotes an entire film to this, confounding moviegoers
who think that modern Spanish cinema begins and ends with Almodovar. Virtually
a two-hander, it portrays Don Quixote and Sancho Panza after their adventures
have finished, waiting around in the countryside in the manner of Beckett’s
tramps. I suspect one needs to be familiar with the celebrated novel to
get all the references. Even if this film managed a release, it could never
be a “blockbuster”. Very contemplative, though.
The Journals of Knud Rasmussen
This second Inuit-language feature,
following Atarnarjuat the Fast Runner, brings to life the writings of the
Danish explorer of the title, who recorded the stories and beliefs of these
people of northern Canada about 90 years ago. The film could be mistaken
for a pure documentary, with hand-held cameras and a cast some of whom
are the direct descendants of the characters featured. The final third
of the film portrays a meeting between one clan (or extended family) which
retains its traditional Shamanist religion and another which has converted
to Christianity. The directors are Zacharius Kunuk and Norman Cohn (a veteran
sociologist and anthropologist). Fascinating stuff, particularly if you
like snow.
The Missing Star
The ever-reliable veteran director
Gianni Amelio is an exponent of what might be called the “humanist road-movie”,
and here the fifty-something Vincenzo spends most of the film travelling
between the cities of the industrial powerhouse that is modern China. As
maintenance manager of a steel mill whose blast furnace is being shipped
there from Italy, and which he knows is flawed and potentially lethal,
he travels there off his own bat hoping to locate the furnace, assisted
by a beautiful Chinese interpreter who is happy to accompany him. Like
the policeman in The Stolen Children, like the father in The Keys to the
House, Vincenzo finds that his real journey is within himself. Lots of
impressive cityscapes and other scenery, but I found the storyline a little
farfetched at times.
The Namesake
Starting in 1974 and covering 30 years,
Mira Nair’s episodic feature is a cross-cultural and inter-generational
story of a family which migrates from Calcutta to the United States but
retains its Indian links. Something of a “feelgood” movie, based on a best-selling
Indian novel, the joys and sorrows of ordinary life are movingly portrayed,
with particularly impressive acting. The central characters are Gogol,
the son of the young couple who move to New York and who is so-named because
of his father’s love for the Russian writer, and his mother Ashima, the
reluctant emigrant who finally returns to her roots. “We all came out of
Gogol’s Overcoat” says one character towards the end, echoing a later Russian
writer. This film, which has a distributor, could prove something of a
crowd-pleaser, especially as it features the Bollywood star Tabu as Ashima.
Son of Man
Following their adaptation of Bizet’s
Carmen, this is the second film by the South African theatre group Dimpho
Di Kopane, again directed by Mark Dornford-May. Here they present the Gospel
story imaginatively updated to a fictional present-day African country
called Judea, caught up in violent political turmoil. The trappings of
modernity comprise not only videos and microwaves, but the replacement
of 3 of the 12 disciples by women. The star of this fast-moving and exuberant
production is Pauline Malefane as Mary, who does most of the powerful solo
singing and co-wrote the screenplay into the bargain.
Syndromes and a Century
The previous film by the Thai director
whose name I could never learn, Tropical Malady, consisted of two halves,
apparently totally unrelated. This new film provides a variation: the second
half begins identically to the first, but with different camera angles,
followed by changes in dialogue, characters, and so on. Set in (probably)
two hospitals, it features two young doctors and a dentist who moonlights
as a singer. Weird but rather wonderful, and certainly beautifully shot.
The director’s name, by the way, is Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
In the “Treasures from the Archives”
section of the Festival, I was sorry to have missed the revival of Terence
Davies’ Distant Voices, Still Lives, one of the best films of the late
1980s. Davies is a delightful man, arguably the finest living British director,
who according to a recent interview is utterly depressed about his inability
to raise funds for more projects. This autobiographical film is to be re-released
in the UK next year.
|
|