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Dailies (Film)—April 2006
A recap of the current best and rest in film. In this installment: Paradise Now, Little Bits of Light, 3-Iron, Machuca, Hidden.
Paradise Now
Palestine's lack of nationhood is exasperated by the struggle Palestinian cinema finds getting international recognition... Out of Palestine's struggle a vital cinema has grown, a cinema that highlights the plight of a people determined to indeterminacy. Paradise Now, directed by Hany Abu-Assad, is perhaps the most gripping example yet, going beyond the stereotyped and demonizing portrayal of terrorism by dramatising the last twenty-four hours of two men, Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman) who willingly choose to become suicide bombers. These men are not irrational fundamentalists but are part of a culture marred by occupancy and impotency. Said drifts through the streets with forlorn eyes witnessing a poverty stricken topography until he and Khaled are revived by the mission to hit Tel Aviv. We watch members of Hamas preparing the two men for their holy act: they bathe and shave them, they dine with them (recreating the final super), and finally they gently strap C4 to them. But the mission goes terribly wrong and the two wannabe martyrs spend the rest of the day criss-crossing the border, aborting the mission, running around in circles, waiting, debating and going nowhere. They're in limbo, and while it's difficult to empathise with their decision to return to Tel Aviv, you can't help understand their desire for purpose and identity. The genuine emptiness many Palestinians feel about their sense of self-identity, and their powerlessness to find a voice on the world stage has paradoxically encouraged a vital cinema to flourish. Paradise Now is a film that had to be made and is a film that has to be watched. In selected theatres now.—AB [Full Review]
Little Bits of Light
With New Zealand filmmaking speeding forward with international co-productions and foreign blockbusters dominating the landscape, it would be easy for a unique New Zealand cinematic voice to get lost, and swept under the push for commercial filmmaking in this country. Thankfully then, the independent spirit is still alive and well in the Aro Street filmmaking community. Walker, a Cassavetes aficionado, brings that independent spirit and integrity to his third feature Little Bits of Light. Every bit a Campbell Walker film, Little Bits of Light focuses on intimate relationships, punctuated with long contemplative pauses, and as he calls it "incremental changes over long periods of time". Alex (Rob Jerram) and Helen (Nia Robyn) decide to take a mental health vacation of sorts in the barren Taranaki countryside. Alex struggles to cope with Helen's incapacitating depression coupled with bouts of self-mutilation and impending suicide. That the story is openly acknowledged to be based on Walker and co-screenwriter Grace C. Russell's relationship makes the portrayal of depression and love all the more potent. Walker also achieves a kind of integrity and truth rarely seen on screens, uncluttered by any sense of artificiality. This is aided by the gorgeous digital video images that would have the Dogma '95 crew drooling in the aisles. But unlike the Dogma crowd, Walker's work has never conformed to any standard or formula, except his own. And for that, he, like his New Zealand contemporaries Gregory King and Florian Habicht are a godsend to our growing filmmaking community. Screens April 22nd as part of a Aro Valley filmmaking mini-retrospective (as well as an appropriate sendoff for Auckland-bound Walker) at the Paramount Theatre.—SD [Full Review]
3-Iron
An existential romance of sorts, Kim Ki-duk's 3-Iron could have been frustratingly self-aware, yet manages to be curiously heartfelt. As a film, 3-Iron exists somewhere on the gamut between Kim Ki-duk’s exploitive The Isle, and his pensive Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring. The mostly dialogue-free feature, which examines a romantic trice between an altruistic intruder and an abused wife, is agreeably unconventional without becoming too demanding. As 3-Iron progresses it slips gradually into the realms of magical realism, as the picture's protagonist, Tae-suk (Jae Hee), masters the enigmatic art of invisibility, or hiding just outside of the camera’s lens. This cinematic device could have been farcical, had it not been handled deftly by Kim Ki-duk. The director also appears realistically attuned to just how far he can push the possibilities of his speechless film; although requiring patience, 3-Iron is ultimately rewarding. In selected theatres now.—CS [Read More]
Machuca
The Chilean coup d'état was a watershed event in the history of Chile and the Cold War. Salvador Allende, who won his presidency with a plurality of just 36.3% of the vote, was opposed by sectors of Chile's society and the United States. On September 11, 1973 the Chilean military overthrew Allende, who died during the coup. A junta led by Augusto Pinochet assumed power. Historians and partisans continue to wrangle over implications of this event. As such, Machuca is a film alive with contemporary resonance. Chilean director Andrés Wood uses a child's moral innocence to investigate the political upheaval; Gonzalo (the cherubic Matia Quer) befriends Pedro (Ariel Mateluna), a poor indigenous child admitted to his exclusive school on a scholarship. Pedro becomes Gonzalo's window into the abyss separating Chile's social strata. Throughout the film we remain aware Chile's military coup lurks on the horizon, which lends a certain sense of dread to goings on. Intimations of the September incident occur casually on television sets and are overheard in conversations, yet Gonzalo remains blissfully unaware of his rapidly changing environment until the film's sudden climax; a brutal adolescent awakening. Wood's script is occasionally forced, and the film's pace reserved. The plot is revived by the fiery Silvana (played magnificently by Manuela Martelli), a sexually frank shantytown girl who entices the boys with a curious combination of kissing and condensed milk. Ernesto Malbran is also excellent as Father MacEnroe, the heroic Catholic priest whose attempts to integrate shantytown boys into his school ultimately seal his fate. In a sense, MacEnroe represents the films redemption – the only character that reacts definitively to his country's attempts to tear itself apart. A sobering examination of a piece of history, not often visited on film. In selected theatres April.—CS [Full Review]
Hidden
Michael Haneke clearly wants to play ball, generating a cloud of tension by carrying ambiguity through with a precision that’s like cutting diamonds, pushing the almost self-parodic aura of cool, intellectual detachment into a space where it becomes menacing: cf. an upper-class Parisian couple receives surveillance video tapes shot from outside their home, the likes of which we only become aware they’re watching when the screen is suddenly invaded by those squiggly lines that appear when you push rewind/fast-forward on a VCR (=persistent fear of audience never knowing exactly when the couple is being watched/self-reflexive acknowledgement of viewer-as-voyeur, etc. etc. etc.)... As various skeletons make their way out of Daniel Auteil’s character’s closet, he tries to harness the abstract threat of terrorism by linking it to an Algerian immigrant he fucked over as a child. In the process, he also manages to cough up some pretty nasty hairballs, mainly re: the paranoia that comes with being a rich white person, and the way, when misdirected, it can send racial animosity breeding like lemmings. The things in Hidden thrive on this constant struggle between self-realised specificity and the possibility of dissolving into metonym: the way the couple’s arguments run laboriously through ‘nothing’ details; the husband almost colliding with a black man on a bicycle; suicide becoming spectacle, etc. We aren’t even offered the comfort of a calculated lack of resolve; these two paths just stop at the point where they’re about to merge. If their relationship says anything, it’s that terrorism is almost impossible to eradicate via headhunting; it’s a machine that will continue to regenerate by absorbing those around it. In theatres from April 6.—DL [Read More]
» Text by Andrew Brettell, Shahir Daud, Caleb Starrenburg and David Levinson.
Paradise NowPalestine's lack of nationhood is exasperated by the struggle Palestinian cinema finds getting international recognition... Out of Palestine's struggle a vital cinema has grown, a cinema that highlights the plight of a people determined to indeterminacy. Paradise Now, directed by Hany Abu-Assad, is perhaps the most gripping example yet, going beyond the stereotyped and demonizing portrayal of terrorism by dramatising the last twenty-four hours of two men, Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman) who willingly choose to become suicide bombers. These men are not irrational fundamentalists but are part of a culture marred by occupancy and impotency. Said drifts through the streets with forlorn eyes witnessing a poverty stricken topography until he and Khaled are revived by the mission to hit Tel Aviv. We watch members of Hamas preparing the two men for their holy act: they bathe and shave them, they dine with them (recreating the final super), and finally they gently strap C4 to them. But the mission goes terribly wrong and the two wannabe martyrs spend the rest of the day criss-crossing the border, aborting the mission, running around in circles, waiting, debating and going nowhere. They're in limbo, and while it's difficult to empathise with their decision to return to Tel Aviv, you can't help understand their desire for purpose and identity. The genuine emptiness many Palestinians feel about their sense of self-identity, and their powerlessness to find a voice on the world stage has paradoxically encouraged a vital cinema to flourish. Paradise Now is a film that had to be made and is a film that has to be watched. In selected theatres now.—AB [Full Review]
Little Bits of LightWith New Zealand filmmaking speeding forward with international co-productions and foreign blockbusters dominating the landscape, it would be easy for a unique New Zealand cinematic voice to get lost, and swept under the push for commercial filmmaking in this country. Thankfully then, the independent spirit is still alive and well in the Aro Street filmmaking community. Walker, a Cassavetes aficionado, brings that independent spirit and integrity to his third feature Little Bits of Light. Every bit a Campbell Walker film, Little Bits of Light focuses on intimate relationships, punctuated with long contemplative pauses, and as he calls it "incremental changes over long periods of time". Alex (Rob Jerram) and Helen (Nia Robyn) decide to take a mental health vacation of sorts in the barren Taranaki countryside. Alex struggles to cope with Helen's incapacitating depression coupled with bouts of self-mutilation and impending suicide. That the story is openly acknowledged to be based on Walker and co-screenwriter Grace C. Russell's relationship makes the portrayal of depression and love all the more potent. Walker also achieves a kind of integrity and truth rarely seen on screens, uncluttered by any sense of artificiality. This is aided by the gorgeous digital video images that would have the Dogma '95 crew drooling in the aisles. But unlike the Dogma crowd, Walker's work has never conformed to any standard or formula, except his own. And for that, he, like his New Zealand contemporaries Gregory King and Florian Habicht are a godsend to our growing filmmaking community. Screens April 22nd as part of a Aro Valley filmmaking mini-retrospective (as well as an appropriate sendoff for Auckland-bound Walker) at the Paramount Theatre.—SD [Full Review]
3-IronAn existential romance of sorts, Kim Ki-duk's 3-Iron could have been frustratingly self-aware, yet manages to be curiously heartfelt. As a film, 3-Iron exists somewhere on the gamut between Kim Ki-duk’s exploitive The Isle, and his pensive Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring. The mostly dialogue-free feature, which examines a romantic trice between an altruistic intruder and an abused wife, is agreeably unconventional without becoming too demanding. As 3-Iron progresses it slips gradually into the realms of magical realism, as the picture's protagonist, Tae-suk (Jae Hee), masters the enigmatic art of invisibility, or hiding just outside of the camera’s lens. This cinematic device could have been farcical, had it not been handled deftly by Kim Ki-duk. The director also appears realistically attuned to just how far he can push the possibilities of his speechless film; although requiring patience, 3-Iron is ultimately rewarding. In selected theatres now.—CS [Read More]
MachucaThe Chilean coup d'état was a watershed event in the history of Chile and the Cold War. Salvador Allende, who won his presidency with a plurality of just 36.3% of the vote, was opposed by sectors of Chile's society and the United States. On September 11, 1973 the Chilean military overthrew Allende, who died during the coup. A junta led by Augusto Pinochet assumed power. Historians and partisans continue to wrangle over implications of this event. As such, Machuca is a film alive with contemporary resonance. Chilean director Andrés Wood uses a child's moral innocence to investigate the political upheaval; Gonzalo (the cherubic Matia Quer) befriends Pedro (Ariel Mateluna), a poor indigenous child admitted to his exclusive school on a scholarship. Pedro becomes Gonzalo's window into the abyss separating Chile's social strata. Throughout the film we remain aware Chile's military coup lurks on the horizon, which lends a certain sense of dread to goings on. Intimations of the September incident occur casually on television sets and are overheard in conversations, yet Gonzalo remains blissfully unaware of his rapidly changing environment until the film's sudden climax; a brutal adolescent awakening. Wood's script is occasionally forced, and the film's pace reserved. The plot is revived by the fiery Silvana (played magnificently by Manuela Martelli), a sexually frank shantytown girl who entices the boys with a curious combination of kissing and condensed milk. Ernesto Malbran is also excellent as Father MacEnroe, the heroic Catholic priest whose attempts to integrate shantytown boys into his school ultimately seal his fate. In a sense, MacEnroe represents the films redemption – the only character that reacts definitively to his country's attempts to tear itself apart. A sobering examination of a piece of history, not often visited on film. In selected theatres April.—CS [Full Review]
HiddenMichael Haneke clearly wants to play ball, generating a cloud of tension by carrying ambiguity through with a precision that’s like cutting diamonds, pushing the almost self-parodic aura of cool, intellectual detachment into a space where it becomes menacing: cf. an upper-class Parisian couple receives surveillance video tapes shot from outside their home, the likes of which we only become aware they’re watching when the screen is suddenly invaded by those squiggly lines that appear when you push rewind/fast-forward on a VCR (=persistent fear of audience never knowing exactly when the couple is being watched/self-reflexive acknowledgement of viewer-as-voyeur, etc. etc. etc.)... As various skeletons make their way out of Daniel Auteil’s character’s closet, he tries to harness the abstract threat of terrorism by linking it to an Algerian immigrant he fucked over as a child. In the process, he also manages to cough up some pretty nasty hairballs, mainly re: the paranoia that comes with being a rich white person, and the way, when misdirected, it can send racial animosity breeding like lemmings. The things in Hidden thrive on this constant struggle between self-realised specificity and the possibility of dissolving into metonym: the way the couple’s arguments run laboriously through ‘nothing’ details; the husband almost colliding with a black man on a bicycle; suicide becoming spectacle, etc. We aren’t even offered the comfort of a calculated lack of resolve; these two paths just stop at the point where they’re about to merge. If their relationship says anything, it’s that terrorism is almost impossible to eradicate via headhunting; it’s a machine that will continue to regenerate by absorbing those around it. In theatres from April 6.—DL [Read More]
» Text by Andrew Brettell, Shahir Daud, Caleb Starrenburg and David Levinson.
