Hey folks, Harry here... At the Sitges International Film Festival last year, as part of the Jury, we awarded the Best Film award to DRACULA: PAGES FROM A VIRGIN'S DIARY, a startlingly audacious super-low-budget film from Canada that shows how creativity can overcome all sorts of problems. The look, style and feel of this film is quite startlingly beautiful and audiences can be very split on the movie due to its highly theatrical and impressionistic look... However, I found it quite refreshing and daring. It seems, so did Elaine... yet another reason why I just adore her and her coverage. Here she is again...
ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
DAY 3
I think I have witnessed the most confronting Q&A in IFFR history. The setting was a screening of gothic dance drama "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary"; the director under attack was Guy Maddin, who, upon asking the audience if there were any questions about the film, was confronted with an irate (and VERY impolite) ballet buff who insisted on knowing why Maddin had worked with such an awful ("and I don't mean just bad, but God-AWFUL!") choreographer - a choreographer who didn't show any big dance sequences, but only the steps leading up to them. Although obviously taken back by the woman's rudeness (which really was quite shocking), Maddin handled the situation well, explaining that he didn't know very much about ballet (and didn't care for it, either), and that he had only picked the parts which best suited the story. Apparently, the choreographer wasn't too happy with the way Maddin screwed up his ballet, either.
Marvellous film, though. One of the most inspired things in the festival, despite the lack of big, jaw-dropping dance numbers.
I have good news for those of you who were intrigued by my review of "Choses secretes" (Secret Things). According to the "Daily Tiger" (the festival paper), the film has been picked up for distribution by First Run Films, a New York-based distributor. Chances are that the film will get a (limited) US release; it should also make its way onto DVD and certain pay channels. Just thought you might like to know...
Next, a few tidbits for the Asian-film buffs amongst you:
- The Pang Brothers' next project is called "Serial Killer." According to a press release, it is not about the capture of a serial killer, but about the birth of one. I don't know about you, but I'm interested.
- Tsai Ming-liang actor Lee Kang-sheng is to direct his first film, "Help Me." Produced by Tsai, "Help Me" is about the unhealthy relationship between a drug addict and a social worker.
Finally, the Audience Award rankings. At this early point in the festival, a Bosnian anti-war film called "Remake" heads the polls. "Etre et avoir" (To Be and To Have), which I reviewed in my day-1 report, is currently second, "Respiro" (an Italian drama starring Valeria Golino) third. "Whale Rider" is currently sixth, but with two more public screenings to follow, I expect it to move up quite a bit.
Anyway, on to the really important stuff now. I've got four reviews for you today, three of which are of films I really, really like: "Lilya 4-ever," "The Magdalene Sisters" and "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary."
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LILYA 4-EVER
(Written and directed by Lukas Moodysson, Sweden)
I love it when you can tell a director's background from his oeuvre. Lukas Moodysson was a poet before he became a film-maker, and it shows in his latest feature, "Lilya 4-ever," which despite its grimly realistic subject matter has a lyrical quality barely hinted at in the director's previous work. The result is one of the most haunting films of the festival, if not of the entire year.
"Lilya 4-ever" is a tale about innocence lost. In it, we meet Lilya, a 16-year-old girl from an unnamed former Soviet republic who, through various mishaps, ends up being forced into prostitution in Sweden. Although the film is far from biographical, it was inspired by the real-life story of a Lithuanian girl found dead in Malmo (the director's hometown), which adds credibility to an already painfully realistic drama. For make no mistake about it: this is realism at its harshest. As bleak and depressing as "Fucking Amal" (Show Me Love) and "Together" were warm and uplifting, Moodysson's latest sees him stray from gentle comedy into the altogether darker territory of abandoned children, child prostitution, illegal immigration and poverty. If it has a message, it is that in this increasingly brutal world, everything is for sale - especially naive 16-year-olds who dream of a better life elsewhere.
Ouch.
Watching "Lilya 4-ever" is a painful experience. From the careless, casual way Lilya is abandoned by her mother (who emigrates to the US at the beginning of the film, never to contact her daughter again) to her harrowing realisation that she herself has abandoned a loved one (her friend Volodya, a 13-year-old runaway who stays behind alone when Lilya heads for Sweden) in the same way, the film paints a picture of humanity that is so bleak it positively hurts. All the warmth that characterised Moodysson's previous films is gone; what remains is a world so calculating, so utterly heartless that naive girls such as Lilya or romantic dreamers such as Volodya have no business being a part of it. It is only fitting, then, that the two end their tale in an otherworldly way - the way of dreams, of hope, of the afterlife. And while there are those who will call it a bombastic ending, it moved me to tears both times I saw it. It is lyricism of a kind of which only poets are capable, and one would have to be seriously jaded to fail to be touched by it.
As the above suggests, "Lilya 4-ever" is quite an about-turn for Moodysson genre-wise. Gone are the laugh-out-loud jokes that characterised "Together"; what replaces them is a subtle humour that elicits smiles of recognition rather than belly laughs. There is considerable humour in the little triumphs Lilya finds amidst her setbacks. Part of the it derives from the script, which expertly moves from shock to relief and back to shock; however, a lot of it can also be attributed to Oksana Akinshina's delivery of the few comedic moments she gets, which combines an acute knowledge of her situation with great, infectious pride. Akinshina is quite a find. First seen on the big screen as the rifle-wielding gangster's stepdaughter in Sergei Bodrov Jr's excellent "Sisters," she here depicts a heroine Christina Ricci would have been proud of - weary but optimistic, bored but caring, and extremely expressive despite her tiny little eyes. Despite the despair, there is so much hope, so much optimism in Lilya that one really feels for her when she descends the steps of doom. For his part, little Artyom Bogucharsky pulls off an equally impressive performance, infusing Volodya with a wisdom and an otherworldliness that make his being the redeeming feature of Lilya's life completely credible. A sage trapped in the body of a child, Bogucharsky's Volodya is at turns philosophical and tragic, and so adds lots of poignancy to an already heart-breaking tale.
It isn't all about great adolescent acting, though. Another thing that marks this as a real Moodysson is the wonderful eye for atmosphere. As he did in his previous films, Moodysson once more perfectly captures the mood of his locations. The difference is that this time around, the setting is not jolly, petit-bourgeois Sweden but a profoundly depressing Baltic republic (the film was shot on location in Tallinn, Estonia) and a slice of Swedish society left unmentioned in tourist brochures, namely that of men who lust after teenage girls. While the empty Swedish flat in which Lilya is locked up inbetween outings is depressing enough, it is Tallinn which really makes the viewer shiver. Drawn in full, colourless dreariness, Lilya's Tallinn is a place where everyone has greasy hair and where you can almost smell the mildew of squalor and decay. It is inhabited by opportunists who, desensitised by years of poverty and repression, have developed a callousness which is painful in real life but downright frightening when depicted, larger than life, on the silver screen. It is no wonder that Lilya seeks an escape from this place. It is no wonder, either, that neither she nor Volodya really succeeds in finding it. When you're young, naive and all alone in the cruel world Moodysson so vividly depicts, your chances of survival are nil.
"Lilya 4-ever" marks a huge leap forward for Moodysson. Although fans of his lighter fare may be disappointed with the indictment of callousness that is his latest film, there can be no doubt that the director deserves praise for following his entertaining but ultimately unadventurous comedies with such a bleak, uncomprimising drama. Indeed, if it weren't for unsubtlety of the script, which is occasionally guilty of spelling things out too much (a fault more apparent on the second viewing than on the first), "Lilya 4-ever" might be called a perfect film, directed by a man who has proven beyond doubt that he is a master of the game. Deftly juggling realism and lyricism, and once again demonstrating the exceptional ear for modern music he showcased in his earlier films (you'll never hear Rammstein's "Mein Herz Brennt" (My Heart Burns) again without feeling profoundly depressed), Moodysson here proves himself a fully-developed director - a master of different styles, genres and themes as well as of different languages. What he does here with his Russian-speaking cast is exceptional, and firmly establishes him as one of Europe's leading directors.
Here's hoping Moodysson will keep his promise not to seek fame in Hollywood. Europe needs people like him, and then some.
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THE MAGDALENE SISTERS
(Written and directed by Peter Mullan, Scotland)
Once upon a time the Catholic church had a good reputation. That was before sex scandals became front-page news, and before Peter Mullan won a Golden Lion with "The Magdalene Sisters."
"The Magdalene Sisters" is a harrowing social drama set in 1960s Ireland, focusing on three reasonably innocent girls who are buried alive in a Magdalene Convent. A prison rather than a convent, a Magdalene Convent is a place where "fallen women" who have been rejected by their families expiate their sins by washing dirty clothes and experiencing all kinds of abuse and exploitation. The film is based on real events, and as such quite shocking. The most shocking thing about it, however, is not what is shown in the film, but the near-casual statement with which the film closes. Apparently, the last Magdalene Convent wasn't closed until 1996.
Three characters stand out in the large, mostly female cast. The first is Margaret, a serious girl who gets raped by a cousin and makes the mistake of telling her family about it. Without sparing a minute to hear Margaret's defence, her father bundles her off to a Magdalene Convent, where she is to be cleansed of her sins through hard, unpaid labour. Arriving at the convent at the same time are Rose, a dreamy girl who has just given birth to a baby born out of wedlock (which she has been forced to give up for adoption), and Bernadette, a saucy orphan whose only sin is that she was too flirtatious in her schoolmaster's eyes. Together, the three of them face the harsh life of those on whom society has turned its back. They meet other girls, many of whom are as innocent as they. They meet older women who have been in the convent for pretty much all of their lives, and have nearly lost their minds in the process. And most of all, they meet nuns, who are not only unbelievably avaricious (they keep the money the girls earn with their labour), but also incredibly cruel, taking their frustration out on the girls in games that are both mentally and physically brutal. Obviously, the girls have to get out of the convent, but how?
Technically, "The Magdalene Sisters" is quite a feat. The quick, minimalist way in which the three protagonists are introduced at the beginning of the film is very effective - much more so than flash-backs later on in the film would have been. Equally effective is the way Mullan sketches the horror of his heroines' situation by surrounding them with examples of what happens to women who try to escape or stay in the convent too long. Through these examples, both the girls themselves and the viewer get an idea of the hopelessness of their situation - the unfairness of it, and the way youth and life will be sucked out of them if they do not get out very quickly. The only thing the girls can do is wait for a miracle to happen, and the viewer waits for it with them, rooting all the while.
Acting-wise, too, "The Magdalene Sisters" is a triumph. All three of the leads (Anne-Marie Duff as Margaret, Nora-Jane Noone as Bernadette and Dorothy Duffy as Rose) make the most of their parts, with Noone (who plays the most complicated character) getting a few good laughs at the end of the film. Where the film really shines, however, is in the supporting acts. As the execrable Sister Bridget, Geraldine McEwan considerably adds to the girls' misery, while Eileen Walsh's poor Crispina is the kind of angelic, innocent presence that nearly redeems the heroines' lives. Other supporting actresses turn in equally impressive performances, making "The Magdalene Sisters" one of the strongest ensemble films of the year.
Ultimately, what makes the film work, though, is its relentless realism. The fact that all this brutality was taking place while elsewhere women were being liberated, and that it went on for another thirty years.
Shame on you, Irish Catholics.
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DRACULA: PAGES FROM A VIRGIN'S DIARY
(Written and directed by Guy Maddin, Canada)
There are films, art films, and films that aren't art films per se but somehow amount to great art. "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary" falls into the latter category. A highly theatrical, silent-film version of the old vampire tale, Guy Maddin's "Dracula" is a registration of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's "Dracula" ballet with 95% of the ballet cut out and lots of other things (such as intertitles) inserted in its place. The result isn't so much a dance movie as a dazzling delirium that just happens to contain some ballet. And while the pirouettes aren't likely to impress ballet buffs (Maddin cut out all the technically good stuff), they do add a romantic flavour to an otherwise deliciously lurid film.
In a way, ballet dancers are the ideal actors for a Maddin film. As stage performers, they are familiar with the kind of mime that Maddin's surrealist films require - the exaggerated facial expressions and grand gestures that take over when speech is not an option. Grand gestures abound in "Dracula," and they tend to be very funny. Just picture the scene: Lucy wakes up from her Dracula-infested dreams. She doesn't greet the dawn of a new day by yawning and getting out of bed, but by majestically raising her arms to the heavens (fingers pointed like a true ballerina) while flashing a smile full of lust and ambition. Or picture Lucy's death: not a quiet passing away, but a lurid, insanely photogenic wringing of hands, of a kind to which only a dancer could do justice. Maddin's film is full of moments like these, and the dancers of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet acquit themselves of them very well, turning "Dracula" into an exhibition of expressionism not seen since the days of W.F. Murnau.
But it isn't all about theatrical overacting. As you would expect from a film this expressionistic, the sets are deliciously gothic, and the black-and-white photography (high contrast and full of long, creepy shadows) goes a long way to create that special vampiric atmosphere. Paired with the intense Mahler music that plays over the dance scenes (who knew Mahler could be used for ballet?), the black-and-white images evoke a 1920s quality that has been missing from cinema since... well, the last Maddin production.
Welcome back to the expressionist era.
Maddin deserves props for the bold but close-to-the-text way he reinvents the well-known story of two women haunted by a blood-sucking Romanian. Taking Bram Stoker's novel rather than the countless film adaptations as his starting-point, he retains the xenophobic overtones of the book as well as the overtly sexual ones. The xenophobic tone (set early in the film by intertitles that read "Immigrants!" and "They came from the East!!!") is nicely complemented by the fact that the dancer playing Dracula, Zhang Weiqiang, is Chinese, while the sexual nature of the women's attraction to Dracula and the men's attraction to the women is depicted by flaming red blushes (very striking in a black-and-white film) and a profoundly memorable blood transfusion. If nothing else, "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary" will convince you that blood transfusions are not the cold, disinterested transactions they are made out to be. Oh, no. Not at all.
As you will have surmised by now, "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary" is one of the most dazzling films in the festival - bold, distinctive and thoroughly entertaining. It may not appeal to those who like realism and natural acting, but then, why would those people want to watch a Guy Maddin film in the first place?
It's Dracula, folks. It deserves this kind of treatment. Begs for it, really.
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NO ONE'S ARK
(Written and directed by Nobuhiro Yamashita, Japan)
Don't ask me to explain the title. I don't understand it, either, although I'll hazard a guess that it has something to do with there not being salvation for any of the characters in the film. That's just speculation, though. I have no idea.
"No One's Ark" is an off-beat comedy set in late-1990s Japan, where things aren't going well economically and people who used to believe their jobs were for life suddenly find themselves unemployed. Amidst this chaos, we find Daisuke and Hisako, a young couple from Tokyo trying to make a living by selling a health drink. It's a good plan in theory, but there is a hitch: the drink smells so revolting that no one wishes to try it. And so Daisuke and Hisako retreat to Daisuke's hometown, thinking it might be easier to launch their drink there. This proves to be an illusion, however, and soon other things start to go wrong, too. For Daisuke has a past, and as Hisako is about to discover, it is as smelly as the health drink they are trying to sell.
"No One's Ark" paints an interesting picture of entrepreneurship in economically troubled Japan, where some initiatives succeed miraculously while others, just as good, fail miserably. By contrasting the honest-but-failing health drink pedlars with the anal-but-independent grocer and the amoral-but-successful prostitute they meet in Daisuke's hometown, Yamashita at first sight seems to pass judgement on the moral bankruptcy of modern-day Japan, but there are a few twists: the prostitute (Daisuke's old friend Madoka) and the nasty grocer (another childhood friend) give hints of being decent people, whereas the seemingly nice-and-traditional Daisuke and Hisako are, well, stubborn as mules. In the end, none of them are perfect citizens, but that might be because they are trapped in a meaningless existence.
"No One's Ark" has some funny moments, mostly at the expense of Daisuke. There is a particularly hilarious scene towards the end where Daisuke, caught doing something quite amoral, literally deflates, shrinking until he resembles a punctured tennis ball. Unfortunately, these moments are few and far between, and what remains is a rather bland film which fails to become either an analysis of What Went Wrong with Japan or a fully realised family drama. It has its moments, certainly, but because it is hard to identify with the protagonists, none of whom are very likeable, one doesn't care about what happens to them. The result is a promising but ultimately uninvolving film, which does, however, make its point - that in modern Japan, hit by economic uncertainty and what have you, it is hard to find one's place.
Point taken, Mr Yamashita.
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Well, that's all for today. Back with more obscure stuff later.
Cheers etc.,
Elaine
