The Russian Soul of Gromozeka - International Premiere

Image: Courtesy of International Film Festival Rotterdam

Russian director Vladimir Kott attempted the seemingly impossible. Depicting ‘Russian soul’. A Dutch documentary maker went on an extensive trip to Russia to find an answer to the question what Russian soul actually means. In a journey that took him from Moscow to Vladivostok, he wasn’t able to find a conclusive answer. Russians even tend to say that you can’t understand Russian soul by reason.

‘You can only approach and sense our soul’ Kott tells me when I bring this up in the lobby of the Pathé theatre in Rotterdam. This particular soul comes in many different forms and shapes. Dostoyevski describes one, but Kott was inspired by another great Russian version, Checkov’s.

The film is loosely based on ‘Three Sisters’ by the famous playwright. A play about unhappy sisters desperate for a different life. Gromozeka revolves around three childhood friends who once formed a band as young boys but lost track of each other leading melancholy lives as adults. ‘My characters, like Checkov’s sisters, want to lead another life but are overcome by a form of fatalism and do nothing to obtain that other existence, just like in the play’, said Kott.

The paths of a clumsy policeman, a cabdriver torn apart by family circumstances and a terminally ill surgeon are crossed in a mosaic-like structure. The tragedies befalling them are wrapped in intelligent comedy and the touching fashion in which they try to survive in the harsh concrete jungle of Moscow makes them endearing characters. As if the audience is the fourth friend who left the stage a long time ago looking on.

In relation to the other Tiger nominees the film is rather conventional in its storyline, camera, art direction and acting. It‘s safe to say that the movie is the odd man out considering this year’s selection. Most Tiger projects tend to lean on an experimental approach to cinema whereas this film contains a highly accessibility. Therefore Kott is very pleased that his picture was selected by the International Film Festival Rotterdam to make its world premiere. On questioning him about how he feels the festival audience has responded to his work he reacts positive. ‘The screenings were all early in the morning and each time I was surprised to see very few empty seats. When people left the theatre I saw they were touched and that’s the greatest compliment for me as a director’

The story is touching, aimed to mind and soul. ‘Indeed, my film is different from the others in competition, mind you, there is nothing wrong with cinema appealing more to intellect, but I wanted my film to honor the traditional Russian cinema in which emotions are targeted as well. I think one doesn’t necessarily exclude the other. I like to think my movie reaches a balance. I want my audience to think and feel simultaneously.’

Gromozeka is a famous clumsy Russian cartoon character shown in a short clip, who always arrives late to save the day thus explaining the title. The three men are a mixture of Checkov’s sisters and this cartoon character. Clumsy, tormented and desperate. Gromozeka is to be considered as one of the years best Tigers, even though the jury begs to differ.

During a question and answer session someone from the audience asked the inevitable question ‘What defines Russian soul exactly?’ An extremely serious Kott replied ‘Russian soul is gloomy and moody, while the world’s soul is bright and cheerful.’ But then again Kott’s outlook on the Russian soul is contradictory to what he shows the audience. Gromozeka is not gloomy or moody. It is heartwarming.

Director Lech Majewski (The Mill and the Cross) at the International Film Festival Rotterdam

Image: M. Demir

Review: The Mill and the Cross (2011, Poland / Sweden) - European Premiere

Image: Courtesy of International Film Festival Rotterdam

Don’t expect a conventional biopic about Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Don’t expect a conventional film anyhow. Lech Majewski, Polish artist, poet, writer and director pays a visual tribute to one of his favourite works of art by Bruegel. The procession to Calvary, painted in 1564.

Majewski first saw the works of the Flemish Master in a museum in Vienna where he was confronted with the artist’s Weltanschauung. A view of the world that sucked him right in and transported him to the landscapes of long by gone eras filled with people and their daily routines.

And that is exactly the ambitious layout of The Mill and the Cross. To give the viewer that same sensation, sucking them into the painting. During the big talk before the European premiere of the picture at the International Film Festival Rotterdam Majewski stated he always had the feeling he could live in Bruegel’s landscapes.

Using state of the art technology he succeeds to give the audience the feeling to live for a mere 90 minutes in the landscape of the painting. The images are of a dream like quality, with intense bright colors like the ruby red tunics of the mercenaries to the deep ochres disappearing into the sfumato on the horizon. This picture would no doubt amaze Bruegel on seeing the seamless overlapping moving image and his original painting. Layer after layer achieved this effect, one shot in particular consists of a staggering 143 layers! Real locations to match the landscape in the painting were scouted all over the globe, from the land of the Czech Republic to the clouds of New Zealand. The composition is explained by voice-over of Bruegel himself, portrayed by Rutger Hauer, moving through his own painted arena. Short story lines are used to introduce some essential figures in the painting, like the mother, played by Charlotte Rampling, of the condemned son, while Michael York portrays a wealthy banker and art collector.

The culmination of the film lies in the freeze moment in which all figures are halted by a gesture of Bruegel’s hand followed by another hand gesture performed by the miller high above in his mill on the jagged rock overlooking the spectacle, stopping the vanes in a Bruegelian metaphor of God stopping time. He just makes bread and looks on. Subsequently the camera glides the audience through the painting during a dazzling scene covering multiple points of view of the canvas. The audience was clearly holding its breath in the old Luxor theatre during this piece of bravado.

Majewski makes the painting come to life and what guts to make a feature about it! He goes to great lengths explaining the philosophy of Bruegel in which everyday life is more important than the bigger than life events in the Bible. Jesus is even obscured by Spanish soldiers and Flemish peasants. After the crucifixion life goes on and children playing replace the cruel acts filling the landscape in the painting.

The Mill and the Cross is of invaluable educational importance, even tough too theoretical to get carried away by. A fascinating experiment drenched in love for painting that will inform you better about Pieter Bruegel the Elder than any documentary you’ll ever see.

Rating: ****

Review: Bleak Night (2010, South Korea - International Premiere)

Image: Courtesy of International Film Festival Rotterdam

High school can be very traumatic for boys. This is the case in every nation in the world, but maybe even more so in South Korea. Bleak Night by debuting Korean director Yoon Sung-hyun starts out as a classic whodunit. The saddened father of a boy whose death is shrouded in mystery goes looking for the deceased boy’s best friends searching for some answers. One of them had suddenly moved prior to the death and the other had not attended the funeral. Shady circumstances causing the father to suspect foul play.

The ingenious flashforward-structure used in the film confuses the audience. The film doesn’t start out with the death of Gi-Tae, a marvelous performance of Lee-Je-hoon, but we see him as the school bully whose only ambition in life is to terrorize his classmates and his best friends in particular. A classic interpretation of ‘we hurt the ones we love the most’. Especially kind-hearted Becky portrayed by Park Jeong-min-I is a favorite and easy prey for Gi-Tae.

The only one who has the guts to stand up to this near borderline case is the third member of the trio, Dong-yoon, played by Seo Joon-yeong. The three of them also have their good times. To illustrate their fragile friendship the director shows us beautiful dreamy shots of late afternoon sun filled baseball games on the railroad tracks alongside the grey suburbs of the big city. The unbearable lightness of being a teenager in suburbia is interrupted by sudden violence. Bleak Night deals with the world of boys only. Girls are just extras. In that regard there is even a hint of gay feelings in Gi-Tae’s persistence of harassing Becky. Every time he pleads for forgiveness like a lover does when he’s been unfaithful. The three actors are astonishingly realistic in their approach and are completely credible as a tight knitted tough emotional explosive group of friends. The many hand-held close-ups of the boys give a good impression of the internal conflicts tearing them apart. When I asked the talented young director during the Q&A how he achieved this interplay amongst inexperienced young actors (Park Jeong-min-I debuts as an actor), he answered that he gave them the difficult task of really listening to the other actor during dialogues instead of focusing, like young actors often do, on their own lines and to react instead of recite.

As the structure of the narrative gets closer and closer to the resolution of the question of who and how, the fabric of the film changes from a whodunit in to a social drama in which there are only victims and perpetrators. Everybody is innocent and everybody is guilty.

The emotional warfare in Bleak Night is, according Yoon Sung-hyun, a metaphor for the current state of South Korea, where people hurt each other because like Gi-Tae, they are weak on the inside. Weak, because people don’t live for themselves and are defined by their work. They suffer from peer pressure, just like everybody has experienced at one time or another at school.

The result is a complex, well-crafted, emotional gem of a film. It’s been only the third Tiger feature I’ve seen this year, but I already dare to state that Bleak Night, the winner of the Pusan New Current Award, is a serious contender for winning the Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Rating: ***+

Strongman Sandow is visiting International Film Festival Rotterdam

Review: Balada triste de trompeta (Spain, 2010) - Alex de la Iglesia

Image: Courtesy of Stockholm International Film Festival

Alex de la Iglesia’s intentions are very clear at the start of Balada triste de trompeta. He wants to take the audience for a wild ride. The year is 1937, the place: Madrid in the middle of civil war. A clown gets recruited by a communist rebel leader to fight the Francistas. The following scene is one of the most hilarious scenes ever. A clown with blonde corkscrew curls and a beard, armed with a machete butchering Franco’s fascists like John Rambo in his heyday. When the audience is just catching it’s breath after this openings sequence de la Iglesia rattles them with one of the most powerful opening credits ever. Fascist Franco symbolism is intercut with popular icons from 1937 to 1973, the present time of the movie from this point on, cleverly jumping from one point of the narrative to the next spanning more than three decades. The film sustains this visual bravado till the very end on this rollercoaster ride through the violent recent Spanish history.

Balada triste de trompeta is shot in a way reminding the old master Fellini. Multiple absurd characters and chaotic events happen in rapid succession taking place in a mise en scene set up like a choreography. The art direction is flawless and reflects the period, yet pumped up to surrealistic proportions. Think ‘La Strada’ on acid.

The characters are bigger than life. Carlos Areces convinces as the lovesick Sad Clown (son of the ‘warrior clown’ mentioned before), craving for Natalia, the beautiful acrobat of the circus he just joined, trying to save her from a violent relationship with the Happy Clown, Sergio. Antonio de la Torre as the Happy Clown delivers the best acting performance of this film and one of the best I’ve seen all year round. He plays an irresistibly charming bad guy. He’s a misogynist, he’s cruel and mean, but you can’t stop loving him. Natalia is touched by the kindheartedness of Javier, thus arousing intense jealousy in Sergio. Neither man backs down commencing a bloody battle for Natalia in which both clowns turn into grotesque figures of themselves. It all results in fear of Natalia (read: Spain) for both men (read: Francistas and the communist rebels) and leading up to an exhilarating culmination, in which the admiration of the director for Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang is clearly visible.

Beneath all absurdity there is a malicious undercurrent, represented by the fascist colonel belonging to the inner circle of the Generalissimo. A colonel who seeks vengeance against Javier for something he did to him in the past when he was vindicating his father. An undercurrent reflecting the central theme of this black comedy is the, at times literally, explosive atmosphere of the country de la Iglesia grew up in. Balada triste de trompeta is a highly creative, exciting and well crafted cinematic experience of the very complex history of a torn nation threatening to destroy what they love most.

Rating: ****

Director David Michôd of Animal Kingdom at the Stockholm International Film Festival

Image: M. Demir

Review: Animal Kingdom (Australia, 2010) - Competition Stockholm International Film Festival

Image: Courtesy of Stockholm International Film Festival

It’s a first timer’s dream to make such an intelligent and mature film that works on different levels. Animal Kingdom has depth, is entertaining and consists of images that linger in the mind long after viewing. What really impresses is the fact that David Michôd consistently underplays all aspects of the crime genre. By doing so he sets Animal Kingdom somehow apart from this genre.

This style of underplaying kicks off with file footage of bank robbers in Melbourne banks during the eighties, accompanied by heavy synthesizer music. These are by the way the only images of any bank robbery throughout the film you’ll see. Crime is never romanticized. Instead the criminals are portrayed as lazy, badly dressed inhabitants of suburbia killing time with boozing and fiddling with the barbecue under the Australian sun. The score is minimalistic without crescendos, contrary to the more usual style of bombastic orchestrated music to enhance menace and anxiety. Even production design has a minimalistic approach creating no specific sense of period thus making the movie somewhat timeless.

The story revolves around Josh, a 17-year old boy who after his mother dies from a heroine overdose, get’s taken in by his grandmother nicknamed Smurf. Smurf rules over her three sons who form a bank robbing crew like a real Don. When the armed robbery squad of Melbourne declares war on the bank robbers nobody seems safe, and a struggle for Josh’s loyalty gets underway. Smurf and her oldest son Pope try to maintain Josh on their side while good cop Guy Pearce is the only one who wants to protect him and tries to persuade him to take the stand and testify against his own family.

There is an ominous feel to the film, a major contribution to this feel are the exquisite performances by Ben Mendelsohn and Jacki Weaver. Mendelsohn plays Pope, the leader of the three brothers who as the film progresses slowly shows a side that gets darker and darker. Weaver is equally terrific as the sinister ‘Smurf’ the mother of the family who resembles most of all a snake in her motions and actions. James Frecheville is well cast as the seemingly emotionally numb Josh at the center of the narrative. Star quality is added to the project by the mere presence of Guy Pearce as the detective.

The use of violence is rare, but raw and shocking because it takes place when you least expect it. Michôd never builds the tension towards such a moment in a conventional way. He manages to surprise the audience with his realistic touch. This dazzling debut is hard to label (which is always a good thing) but if I would be forced to do so I would qualify Animal Kingdom as a study of how evil can manifest itself in Australian suburbia disguised as a gangster flick. David Michôd obviously has the maturity to mould the conventions of a genre to his own will to expose a complex and profound theme.

Rating: ****

Director of Winter's Bone Debra Granik at the Stockholm International Film Festival

Image: M. Demir

Review: Winter's Bone (USA, 2010) - Competition at Stockholm International Film Festival

Image: Courtesy of Stockholm International Film Festival

Behind the faces of the crystal meth scarred mugshots of white trash America, lies more than meets the eye. Once these faces belonged to a people establishing new frontiers conquering the vast landscape of mainland America, a people of character and perseverance. Winter’s Bone, Debra Granik’s second feature is a fascinating tale about seventeen-year old Ree’s search for her father. Ree Dolly, a magnificent performance by Jennifer Lawrence, has to find her father, a crystal meth cook, who fails to show up at court, to prevent bounty hunters from seizing the house her remaining family, a confused mother, two younger siblings and herself live in. Ree seems to be the personification of the strength and courage the people in this God forsaken region still posses.

The film takes a while to get underway because Granik really wants to convince the audience that Winter’s Bone takes place in a region immersed in addiction and desperation. The result is lots of shots of run down farms, car wrecks and hillbillies fiddling with their banjos. The film takes a turn for the better when slowly it becomes clear that Dad isn’t somewhere living it up, but has vanished from the face of the earth. Ree’s search for her father gets hazardous when she is confronted with the fact that the very people, most often family since everybody in the film seems related, who she turns for help try to shut her up in menacing tone. Everybody is afraid ‘The Law’ might get wind of the whole thing. A whole community of users/producers unravels along the process. Entire families are hooked on their own supply. Despite the many wide shots of the open spaces a feeling of claustrophobia creeps up by this entanglement of users, cookers and families.

Even though everybody is suspicious, Ree is liked and gets clues about who to turn to concerning her father’s whereabouts. They lead to ominous, dark characters with names like Teardrop and Thump. The tension builds when she’s instructed not to ask the mysterious and powerful Thump anything directly to his face. As if he’s like the Medusa from the Greek myth, which made you turn into stone if you gazed in its eyes too long. This mythical quality of the movie gets enhanced by the many hardships Ree has to endure on her quest (like Odyssey and Hercules for that matter). She deals with them like a true heroin, never losing faith in herself.

This is one of the reasons the film was ultimately well received by the population in the concerning area in the state of Missouri. Many were weary of yet another portrait of a lost people, mainly maid up by criminals, addicts and stupid rednecks who got what they deserved. But Granik won their trust by casting minor roles from the area, Ree’s little sister actually lives in the house the whole story begins with, and using actors who work on the coasts but grew up near the Ozark Mountains to enhance authenticity (Jennifer Lawrence is from the neighboring state of Kentucky). She also gives their music an important role in the movie. But what’s most important is the fact that Ree represents the same values as they do, namely courage, perseverance and willingness to sacrifice. The Ozark people identify with Ree and not with the depressing image the American media paints of them.

This movie has been in the international film festival circuit for a while now. Ten months after winning the Grand Jury Prize of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, Winter’s Bone was well received at the Nordic Premiere of the movie at the Stockholm International Film Festival on November 24. When the credits started rolling and Granik appeared on stage, the Swedes gave her a warm applause. And Granik for sure deserved it. The film is solid, authentic, and - most important - gripping. A perfect example of the, in my humble view, still leading American Cinema.

Rating: ****

COMING SOON TO STOCKHOLM FILM FESTIVAL

Strongman Sandow will be visiting the 21st edition of the Stockholm International Film Festival. Starting from November 23 get ready once again for movie reviews and festival impressions.

Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Final scene

Arthur Penn RIP.

Cold Weather: Sherlock Holmes in Portland

Image courtesy of Festival del Film Locarno

The latest exponent of mumblecom, Cold Weather, by Aaron Katz, had its premiere at the latest Fesival del Film di Locarno. Katz has made another feature in the new genre slowly becoming notorious on the European film festival circuit after conquering its native soil, the United States of America.

The story revolves around Doug, (Cris Lankenau) a twenty-something American guy returning home to Portland, Oregon after dropping out of college not really knowing what to do with his life and not really caring about it either. He lives with his sister Gail (Trieste Kelly Dunn), and starts working at an ice factory. The opening scenes have a soothing, calming effect on the eyes. Aaron Katz, the director, has a real sense of place and knows how to photograph the elements that define a place like Portland. Every shot of landscape reflect the cold and grey this city in the American Northwest has to offer. Doug meets Carlos at the ice factory and invites him over to his sister’s house where his ex-girlfriend Rachel, who popped back in to town, is also there. Carlos and Rachel hit it off and go on a date to a Star Trek convention. Now the story really starts. Rachel suddenly disappears.

Doug’s only passion in life seems to be Sherlock Holmes, and now he gets the chance to become like his hero from the Arthur Conan Doyle stories. Instead of really getting worried about his ex-girlfriend he seems to be excited and happy that a mystery has entered his life, a mystery he hopes to solve with Carlos, who is frantic contrary to the eerie calm of Doug and Gail, who decides to assist her brother in his quest.

It’s a funny film. When Doug reaches a dead end in the investigation, he goes out and buys a pipe in an amusing scene at a local tobacco store. The spirit of Holmes is ever present. Katz manages to build a sense of suspense, which totally disappears after the mystery is solved. The movie goes on for about 45 minutes to an hour after, which is a considerable flaw because the movie loses its edge. But on the other hand that’s not the mojo of this film. It’s more about a brother and his sister, who become little kids again trying to solve a mystery, reminding them what they like about each other. Shutting of the outside world while playing their game like siblings do.

This movie is a perfect example of mumblecom. A genre the indie circuit and bloggers are talking and writing about since 2002 when Funny Ha-Ha, which is generally seen as the first of its kind, was released. It involves low-key naturalism, low-fi production and low volume chatter. The name derives from a soundman, who coined it in a bar at the South to Southwest Film Festival. A lot of people still hate him for that. Other names include Bedhead Cinema and Slackavetes, a twist on Slackers, the grunge film and John Cassevetes, the patron saint of American Indie Cinema. It’s a genre dominated by American filmmakers in their twenties (now approaching, or over thirty). They tend to tell stories set in a mostly white, middle class world, about themselves. Post-college Americans in an existential crisis. A lot of critics subsequently accuse them of navel-gazing. I find it interesting that young Americans pick up a camera to tell their own stories. It’s hardly surprising they have an urge to, in a time American youngsters are portrayed by Hollywood as sex maniacs (American Pie) or crazed teens ready to blow their whole school to oblivion like in Elephant.

Aaron Katz stated in an interview “This is the first time, mostly because of technology, that someone like me can go out and make a film with no money and no connections”. Cold Weather is a loveable film, it reminded me a bit off Manhattan Murder Mystery by Woody Allen. The characters in Cold Weather, just like in Allen’s masterpiece, take you for a ride and feel like distant friends when the credits roll.

Rating: **

Romanian director Bogdan George Apetri and actress Ana Ularu (Periferic) at Festival del Film Locarno

Image: M. Demir

Review: Periferic (Romania, 2010) - Concorso Internazionale

Image courtesy of Festivale del Film Locarno

It took me 6 days to find an astonishing movie here at the Festival del Film Locarno.

Periferic (Outbound), by Romanian director Bogdan George Apetri, shows us the 24 hours of leave Matilda gets from the women prison to attend her mother’s funeral. The film starts at dawn and ends at dawn. These 24 hours are dramatically condensed in a terrific story supported by magnificent performances of literally every actor. One performance stands out though. The one of Ana Ularu, portraying Matilda.

From the opening scenes we see a troubled young woman hardened by prison life who’s planning to escape the country (Romania) while being on leave. The first person she meets is no family. No friend either, but a truckdriver. The husband of one of the other inmates who has agreed (for a considerable fee) to smuggle Matilda out of the country. Matilda rarely speaks; nonetheless her body language and facial expression are so poignant that words are useless. The film is cleverly constructed on visits during this day to three of the most important men in her life.

The first is Andrei, her older brother, another brilliant performance by Andi Vasluianu. Matilda’s past is so compromised that when she visits him straight out of prison he doesn’t know how to react. His wife is very clear and flat out rejects the whole idea of her criminal sister-in-law attending the funeral, and has no problems in sharing this with Matilda in harsh words. The following scenes, including the burial of their mother, show a complicated relationship between brother and sister. Andrei loves his sister but is not man enough to stand up against his dominant wife and let’s her down in a heartbreaking scene. Just one of many to follow. The second man she pays a visit is her former lover Paul, portrayed by Mimi Branescu. A cynical, ruthless playboy-criminal who she took the rap for, ending in prison. He is the father of Matilda’s son Toma, who Paul coldly dumped in an orphanage after the incarceration of Matilda. Toma is the third man. Before going to prison she made a deal with Paul, involving money. Money she desperately needs to get out. The movie deals with a young woman’s struggle for freedom, reclaiming her son and trying to come to terms with her family who’s ashamed of her past. Apetri shows us a strong woman giving everything she has to achieve her goals in just 24 hours in a race against time. It’s set during a summer day, and I felt myself hoping to keep seeing daylight. Daylight meant she had time. Time to succeed, to ultimately change life for herself and her son, Toma, portrayed by the beautiful young actor Timotei Duma.

The film is gritty and well shot. The camera is always following Matilda getting up-close , registering every nuance in her face. The film is action packed and an emotional rollercoaster which compel the audience to root for the anti-hero Matilda. An anti-hero because Apetri clearly shows that Matilda isn’t only a victim, but also someone who made bad decisions in her past.

Bogdan George Apetri is New-York based, he graduated in film directing and cinematography at Columbia University. No stranger to American Cinema, as this movie proves. Apetri, just like Aronofsky, manages to make his protagonist so human, so real, you must care as an audience. You have no choice than to get involved with the protagonist who is his or her own worst enemy, just like Randy the Ram in The Wrestler Apetri and Aronofsky seem to be the new exponents of New Hollywood Cinema . The torch, lit by Scorsese, Coppola, Friedkin and Schrader is being passed on to young directors like Apetri., who rely on strong performances, a no-nonse approach and passion for story. Periferic (which means peripheral) is a film about it’s very title. Not only in it’s surroundings but even more about all the characters, living and operating on the edges of society, each struggling for a better life going against all the odds. Lot’s of movies are made concerning this theme in Europe nowadays. It’s very much in vogue. Most tend to be melodramatic, or the other extreme, too cerebral and politic in it’s approach. They are more or less studies on modern day Europe in decay. Forgetting about character and story. Cinematic essays, not cinematic experiences. Apetri focuses on character and story exposing through the pain of his lead and the clarity and thrusting force of the narrative more than any film or documentary I’ve seen on the Festival de film Locarno.

A work of art has the power to attack the nervous system of a human being, provoking an immediate emotional response, not an intellectual one. Seeing this film amidst all other films at this festival was like walking through a museum you’ve never visited before packed with Social Realism paintings to ultimately discover a Francis Bacon, sending shivers to your spinal chord. And that’s what it ‘s all about.

Keep an eye on Bogdan George Apetri. I know I will!

Rating: ****

Review: L'Avocat (France, 2010) - World Premiere

Image courtesy of Festival del Film Locarno

Before the screening of L’Avocat French director Cédric Anger made it very clear that his inspiration came from the classic American organized crime thrillers. L’Avocat is about the young penal lawyer Leo, portrayed by Benoît Magimel (La Pianiste, Le Roi danse), rising fast in the world of criminal law by signing a deal with the devil, the mob boss Paul Vanoni and the price he eventually pays for that. The director’s fascination of these American films is seen in the very first shot of the movie.

The young penal lawyer Leo lies on a stretcher. He has just been shot and is being raced to the hospital. Not only the same beginning as Carlito’s Way, but also the exact same shot. A close-up from above, adding even voice-over of Leo contemplating where it all went wrong. After this first shot the story goes into flashback. Identical to the masterpiece by De Palma! This was only the first of, not references, but blatant copies of scenes or settings straight out of the much admired American mob movies that we have all seen numerous times.

After this opening, the story of the young lawyer going to the top is edited in the conventional American-style. Wipe-overs to cut to the next scene, and split screens like ones De Palma got famous for. Leo’s voice-over is used reminiscent the way Scorsese uses this narrative in Casino. In Scorsese’s film it is used explaining the audience how the mob controlled Vegas and skimmed the top of the profits the casino has made. In L’Avocat the voice-over is used in a similar way, explaining how the boss he has to defend operates in waste management (where have we seen that before?).

Yes, exactly, in The Sopranos. Director Anger even goes so far, as to steal an entire scene from the television series. Vanoni’s soldiers hijack a truck with the cooperation of the truck driver himself, who asks to be hit by one of them so he won’t be suspected from collaborating. Of course the soldiers can’t contain themselves and beat the guy to a pulp. Astonishing to see that literally everything that makes this scene work was copied from an episode of The Sopranos. It could have been a quote, a nod to David Chase. That is if the entire movie didn’t consist of these homages.

The problems Leo encounters are similar to the ones Dave Kleinfeld (Sean Penn) has to deal with in Carlito’s Way. The lawyer who cannot resist the temptations a counselor of a mob boss is exposed to. Women, money and power. When the French feds close in on him, Anger tries to heighten the sense of suspense in a series of unconvincing scenes in which Leo pulls all sorts of stupid spy-stuff in the presence of hardened criminals. But of course, the lawyer turned James Bond, gets away with everything.

The film finishes with another imitation. Leo doesn’t actually say, “I am an average nobody…get to live the rest of my life like a schnook”, the way the Henry Hill-character does in Goodfellas, he just says the same thing using different words, like school kids do when plucking information of the Internet to write essays for homework.

Was I entertained? Yes, but the problem was that I was entertained by participating in a sort of film quiz, almost hitting an imaginary buzzer giving my answer to the question “From which movie was this scene?” I kept waiting for the scene in which Leo would wake up to discover a horse’s head in his bed. Maybe Anger didn’t see that one.

Rating: **

Actor John C. Reilly in Locarno

Image: M. Demir

The 63rd edition of the Festival del Film Locarno pays tribute to American actor John C. Reilly with the screening of five movies he's starring in (Boogie Nights, Walk Hard, Hard Eight, Stepbrothers and the European premiere of his latest movie Cyrus). Yesterday John C. Reilly treated a small audience at the Spazio Cinema to entertaining stories about his collaboration with some of Hollywood’s most legendary directors such as Martin Scorsese, Terrence Mallick and Robert Altman.

Review: Pietro (Italy, 2010) - Concorso Internazionale

Image courtesy of Festival del Film Locarno

Pietro is an Italian 28 year old man, born on the night Italy won the world cup, living with his junkie brother Francesco, in a run-down apartment his parents left them on the outskirts of Italy's industrial centre, Turin. Pietro has all the odds against him in life. He appears to have some mental inability, which is never clarified in the film. But it is so over-acted by Pietro Casella, the lead, that I was waiting for a box of matches to fall and having Pietro saying “265 matches on the floor, 265 matches on the floor”.

The movie, directed by Daniel Gaglianone starts with the following title: 1. Emporio Armani, only to see that a group of kids bullying a tramp in the subway steal a Emporio Armani bag of the guy. A useless title. To my disappointment the whole movie is constructed by this kind of obvious titles, which do not add anything valuable to the narrative. Pietro looks in disgust at the violence the kids inflict on the tramp, and flees the scene because he is powerless in the situation. The film focuses on the moral decay of Italian society, where everybody is against everybody. And the weak, like Pietro, being the first victims of the harshness of contemporary Italian society. Every scene is made to make clear that people nowadays are nasty, but to be frank, the director repeats himself so often, that it actually becomes a farce instead of brutal reality. His brother repeatedly insults him; his brother’s friends treat him like a clown in every single scene; his shady boss, who pays him for leafleting, is always mistreating him. Every character is one-dimensional in this pic. “Normal” people are bad people without a heart and the mentally disabled are automatic saints, like the girl he meets at work.

To distract the audience of the limitations of the script, Gaglianone indulges himself in cinematic tricks which are supposedly there to enhance the cold outside world Pietro is experiencing, but are superfluous. The screen goes black, sound goes off, goes back on, for no apparent reasons. The only time it works in the film is when Pietro takes the girl from his work to a club with his brother and his shady friends. Here he feels so trapped and humiliated by them (everybody touches his girlfriend in ways they shouldn’t) that the music the club is playing gets louder and louder in Pietro’s head to convey his panic.

The scene in the club is the key scene in the film. Something snaps in Pietro. We’ve seen this all before. Remember Sling Blade? Also a film in which a victim, a mentally challenged naive man is at the focal point facing harsh conditions and mean people. But it is a more realistic portrait. Not all “normal” people are bad guys, and Billy Bob Thornton’s character in Sling Blade has got some mean streaks too. Three-dimensional characters and one-dimensional ones are the difference between this good American film and this lousy attempt of Italian cinematic social critique.

One sees the attempt of Gaglianone but there are to many flaws in this movie, and that’s why the director fails to bring across this reality of moral decay in modern-day Italian cities.

Rating: *