Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
It’s great when we’ve got multiple spies at one fest, because they start competing to see who can see stuff first. The winner? You, the readers!
Hey Harry and Mori,
I’m back for my second day of covering the Rotterdam Film Festival, and I’ve got a nice scoop for you: Samaritan girl, Kim Ki-duk’s new film (I might not have the writing experience of my esteemed colleague Elaine, but I damn well scooped her this time! HA!).
DAY 2 (29 january)
Les revenants (Robin Campillo) (4 out of 5)
This French film involves people rising from the grave, shambling from the cemetery to the city centers, to their former homes, where they completely fail to wreak any sort of havoc. For this is no ordinary zombie film: in Les revenants, all that the formerly dead want is to be accepted into their former lives again. But the revenants suffer from brain damage, a faulty memory and communication problems. The city council of a small town deliberates on the problem, while its members must deal with the phenomenon on a personal level. Les revenants is, for the most part, a very clever metaphor for the immigration problem facing many European countries today. The dead and the living don’t understand each other, even though everyone tries their best to make it work. This leads to the revenants getting low-paying jobs, and a low social standing. However, some of the events this leads to are too extreme; when confronted with this at the Q&A after the screening, the director couldn’t dispel the notion that he hadn’t really thought the metaphor through (I don’t want to spoil the film so I’m keeping this purposefully vague).
The theme of coping with the return of your deceased loved ones is handled very well, too: all the principal characters react very differently, but very realistically to the situation. Especially the subplot about the couple that finds their dead son again is heartbreaking.
The ending is a bit of a cop-out, and not any sort of realistic solution to the problem. But Les revenants is still a good, thinking man’s zombie film.
Le conseguenze dell’amore (Paolo Sorrentino) (4 out of 5)
Le conseguenze dell’amore is the story of Titta di Girolamo, a man who lives out his days in a hotel, spending his time in the bar or playing cards with the former owners. This man is as cool as they come: nothing seems to put him out of countenance, and aloof doesn’t even begin to describe him. He has a lot of secrets, which only gradually come to light. Once he falls in love with the barmaid in the hotel, he has to face the consequences.
What a surprise this film was! It’s a very stylish and underplayed drama/thriller about a man who has been alone for so long that he doesn’t feel he has anything to lose anymore. Le conseguenze... is helped tremendously by its fantastic dialogue, its interesting characters and a brilliant performance by its lead actor, Toni Servillo.
Unfortunately, the film is dragged down by an unrealistic plot contrivance that’s needed to make the ending work. Le conseguenze dell’amore is original enough to be worth your time, though.
Primer (Shane Carruth) (4,5 out of 5)
A lot’s been written about this film already, so I’ll keep this short: Primer is a fantastic puzzle, a tense mindfuck of a film that will take a capable mind to places that it’s never been before. I’ll be thinking about this one for a week, and then I’ll have to track down an import DVD to see it again. And again.
El abrazo partido (Daniel Burman) (3,5 out of 5)
This lighthearted film deals with the life of Ariel, a young man from Argentina with a Jewish background. Ariel spends his days in and around the mall where his mother runs a lingerie store, killing time with his brother and his friends, dreaming of moving to Europe, where his family’s roots lie. Ariel’s father left him and his mother just after he was born to go fight in the Yom Kippur war in Israel, and he remained there after the war. Ariel detests his father because of this.
The film is filled with quirky characters, and the film gets much of its humour from the comic interplay between the principals and their friends and neighbours. El abrazo partido breezes along on the fresh dialogue and its likeable cast; however, the ride is a little too smooth. There’s no serious conflict to speak of, and the film just kind of rolls from one situation into the next. You’ll really like the characters by the end of the film; it’s just all a little too upbeat to really stick in your mind.
Samaritan girl (Samaria) (Kim Ki-duk) (4 out of 5)
Kim’s latest film is a really interesting mix of the raw, powerful drama of his earlier films and the calm, distant and pensive style of last year’s Spring, summer, fall, winter... and spring. Samaritan girl is the story of Yeo-jin and Jae-young, two girls of around fourteen years old who want to run away to Europe together. Because they don’t have the money for the plane tickets, they decide that Jae-young will work as a prostitute to raise the cash. Yeo-jin serves as lookout for the police, but when she gets distracted one day, Jae-young has to escape through the window and falls to her death.
How Yeo-jin deals with the death of her friend I’ll let you discover on your own. Suffice to say it leads to some uncomfortable imagery that call to mind the borderline exploitation of Bad guy, yet Kim seems to have grown up as a filmmaker: he’s more restrained here, and suggests as much as he shows. The third act of the film almost entirely takes place in the beautiful South Korean countryside, and it’s here that Samaritan girl resembles Spring, summer, etc most: the film turns into a quiet meditation on guilt and love, hurt and healing. The final scene is of indescribable, dreamlike beauty and sets the scene for a painful but satisfying conclusion.
In the end, Samaritan girl isn’t as great a masterpiece as Spring, summer, fall, winter... and spring (and by all accounts, Bin-jip) was, because of the slightly unfocused second act, but it’s still unmistakably the work of one of the world’s greatest living filmmakers.
Right, that’s it for day two! Tomorrow I’ll have reports on Three...extremes, the collaborative effort of Miike Takashi, Fruit Chan and Park Chan-wook, and Pusher II, the latest film by Fear X director Nicholas Winding Refn, among others!
The Last Lizard, signing off.
Excellent work. I’ve got SAMARITAN GIRL here on DVD but just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I think I know what’s up for later tonight...
"Moriarty" out.
