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Quo Vadis, Aida? – Helplessness

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“I’m doing everything within my power.”

Quo Vadis, Aida? is a fictionalized story based on true events during the Bosnian War. Directed by Jasmila Žabanić, it has been nominated for an Oscar in the Best International Feature Category. It was submitted by Bosnia and Herzegovina. It recounts the fall of the town of Srebrenica and the resulting genocide carried out by the Serbian army.

Aida Selmanagić (Jasna Đuričić) is a Srebrenica school teacher who is serving as a translator for UN peacekeeping forces. The colonel leading the Dutch military contingent has been assuring the people of the town that they are protected and that the UN is prepared to attack the Serbs if they try to take the city. But when the Serbs come, the UN fails to carry out the threats of their ultimatums. The people evacuate the city, four or five thousand get inside the Dutch compound, but several thousands more are outside the compound seeking safety within. Aida is safe as an employee of the UN, but her husband and sons are outside the walls.

As an insider to the negotiations, Aida has information that the rest of her community does not have. She manages to find a way to get the family inside, but even then, the situation continues to deteriorate as the impotence of the UN forces becomes more and more obvious.

This is a film about helplessness. We especially see it in Aida as she struggles to save her family, but it is also true for the Dutch military leaders. They have been left out to dry by NATO and UN political decisions. When the colonel in charge tries to call up the command chain, he is told no one is available. Many times throughout the film, military people and Aida are pushed to tell people things they know are not true. The colonel admits early on, “I’m just a piano player.” (I.e., he’s only a messenger.) That is often the role that Aida finds herself in as well. Bringing messages that have no real force or meaning.

Aida is stuck in the middle—between her job and her family and the wider community. The Dutch are in the middle, delivering flaccid threats, then having to follow orders and regulations rather than saving lives.

When in school and learning to identify themes in literature, one of those overall themes that frequently recur is “Man’s inhumanity to man”. That phrase seems inadequate to describe genocide. We watch it play out, seeing the faces of so many we know to be doomed, and discovering that even those who care about what is happening are helpless to stop it. The film really doesn’t look at the geopolitical background. That would just be a diversion. The reality is that the world, like Aida, seems to be powerless in the face of the evil of such strife.

Quo Vadis, Aida? is playing in theaters, through virtual cinema, and on Hulu.

In The Earth: Getting Too Close to Mother Nature

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Directed by Ben Wheatley, In the Earth is set during a time when the Earth has been devastated by a horrifying virus. (Sounds familiar?) As they search for a cure, scientist Martin Lowery (Joel Fry) and his park scout, Alma (Ellora Torchia) set out on a trek to deliver equipment. However, as they venture out into the forest, their journey takes a dark turn. Hunted by the damned who roam the night, Martin and Alma must do everything they can to complete their mission and, more importantly, survive their mysterious attackers.

While In The Earth isn’t Ben Wheatley’s best film, it’s certainly an entertaining ride that successfully dives into the psychological and supernatural horror genre with enthusiasm. The director of such wild rides as High-Rise and Free Fire, Wheatley has always had a penchant for leaning into the chaotic. With In the Earth, he mostly contains his impulses in the film’s first half, choosing to build intensity through the team’s isolation with a silent forest. However, as the film goes on, he unleashes the mystical (and violent) elements of his world with increasing madness. (This becomes especially true in the film’s final act when he gives himself freedom to blast the screen with bright, primary colours and over-exposed visuals in ways that feel almost like experimental European cinema.)

Intense and effective, Earth provides little in the way of ‘jump scares’ but does an excellent job of unraveling the psychology of its characters. Without a large cast (the IMDb page only lists six actors and even that feels like a stretch), the film creates a feeling of claustrophobic dread amidst the confines of the trees. In a testament to Wheatley’s ability as a storyteller, Martin and Alma constantly seem like the walls are closing in, despite the fact that they’re moving (relatively) free in the wide wilderness. What’s more, strong performances by Fry and Torchia help make the character’s reactions believable in the midst of unbelievable circumstances.

Though the world may have been ravaged by a disastrous virus, it’s interesting that Wheatley does not allow the pandemic to drive the narrative. Instead, he allows this global crisis to simply operate as a backdrop to the film’s story. (Could it be that this is one of the first examples of a film that has accepted the next phase of our COVID world?) 

For Wheatley, the most important message of In The Earth lies in the relationship between humanity and nature. Although they live in a world of scientific inquiry, Martin and Alma become faced with unraveling the spiritual elements that connect man to the natural world. As they begin to go mad from their exposure to the rock, so too does the experience begin to give them greater clarity about their place in the universe. 

In this way, Earth exposes a deeper spiritual longing at a time of isolation and fear. At a time when mankind finds themselves separated by their own carelessness, this is an opportunity for them to seek out a connection to something greater that they’ve lost. As a result, Wheatley’s inquest points to the fact that there are consequences for man’s recklessness and suggests that the answers lie outside of ourselves. Since mankind has ruined creation, is it possible that they have done greater damage to Mother Nature than they’d realized? (As Jeff Goldblum might say, ‘Mommy’s very angry…’)

Featuring an intensity that continues to build to its grand crescendo, In the Earth is a wild venture into the mind of Ben Wheatley who asks new questions about a pandemic-infected world. Rather than finding ways to defeat the virus, Wheatley’s film seems more interested in how we cope with the new realities that it has created. Nevertheless, at the same time, he also points to questions that extend beyond visible reality and into the unknown spiritual realms.

In The Earth was released in select theatres on Friday, April 16, 2021.

Monday – The Price of Hedonism

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Is passion enough for building a relationship? In Argyris Papadimitropoulos’s anti-romcom Monday, a couple quickly connect on a sexual level, but then struggle to find if there can be more to their time together.

Mickey (Sebastian Stan) and Chloe (Denise Gough) are Americans living in Athens. Mickey is musician and DJ who has been here for seven years. Chloe is an immigration lawyer who has been here eighteen months, but is getting ready to return to a job in Chicago. Chloe has just had a bad breakup. When she and Mickey meet at a large party, the sexual energy drives them. The next morning the police awaken them sleeping naked on the beach. It is only in the back of the police car they exchange names. When it’s time for Chloe to fly back to the US, Mickey makes a mad dash to the airport to convince her to stay.

The film plays out in a series of chapters, each beginning with a new Friday. (Only the last scene is labeled Monday). Each chapter shows a bit of change in their relationship. Each Friday brings something new to their relationship—moving in together, trying to do their work at home, meeting Mickey’s ex to talk about his son, etc. In each chapter they are still sexually bound to each other, but in other ways they seem to grow a bit more apart each time. We can sense that they are having a great deal of pain trying to maintain the relationship that has been built more on their sexual passion than on true love.

I call it an anti-romcom because it begins much like a normal romantic comedy might, but rather than following the story that moves towards sharing lives and loves, this story moves really in the opposite direction. We see selfishness and can expect that this will not bring about a happy ending for either the film or the characters. By structuring the film with a series of “Fridays” we see the characters, in metaphorical weekends—those times without responsibilities. And we can tell that when “Monday” comes there will be an accounting to be made.

The film can be seen as a critique of sensual hedonism. Hedonism is the idea that we find the good through seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. It has found many ways of being applied to life, including as a basis for ethics. The kind of hedonism we see in this film relies on physical pleasure about all else. That seems to be Chloe and Mickey’s answer to all their issues—have sex yet again (and they do it frequently in the film). But we see the paradox inherent in such a hedonism—that seeking pleasure is often self-defeating because there are many other motivations that bring goodness and joy.

As viewers we feel the pain of this relationship that needs a stronger foundation—built not on selfish pleasures, but in learning to give of one’s self, not just one’s body.

Monday is available at select theaters and on VOD.

Photos courtesy of IFC Films.

Beate – Socio-Economic Farce

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Never mind politics, economics is where you may find really strange bedfellows. In the Italian film Beate (which translates to “Blessed”), from Samad Zarmandili, two very different groups of women join forces to try to stave off the greed around them.

The first group of women are the workers at the Veronica lingerie factory. When the owner abruptly closes the factory, planning to open a new one in Serbia with cheaper labor, the women, led by their forewoman Armida at first picket, but then sneak out the equipment and fabric to make their own line.

The other group is the nuns of the “Convent of the Holy Mantle”. The nuns are renown for their embroidery skills that were developed by their founder the Blessed Armida (yes, the Armida in our story was named after her) 700 years ago. City inspectors come and announce that the building must be repaired. The Bishop will not promise funds. He and the mayor (who also owns the factory) plan a new resort in the place of the convent. When the women of the factory propose a joint venture using the nuns’ embroidery to enhance the lingerie, the young, inexperienced, temporary mother superior sees it as the only way to save the convent.

This is a film with a fairly simplistic view of social economics. Both groups of women are seen as dispensable. For those who are running the town, it is all about profits. Whether workers or nuns are displaced is of no importance. Such is unbridled capitalism. It would have made the film more satisfying if the final solution to the issues had been based in the value of the people, rather than finding a new way of making money—especially since in this case it is exploitive of religion.

Comedy is something that often doesn’t travel well. I think that is often true with Italian comedy, which tends towards farce. In this film, the characterization of the nuns seems especially stereotyped. The main contact we have with them is Armida’s aunt, who is something of a fanatic about adoration of the mummified body of the order’s founder. Most of the nuns are just background to what is going on. The interactions between the two groups of women was a possibility for some important themes, but wasn’t developed.

Beate is available on virtual cinema.

Photos courtesy of Corinth Films.

Hope – The Possibility of Light in the Darkness

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“You don’t have to love me just because I’m dying. But I need to know that you’ll help me.”

A diagnosis of terminal cancer inevitably brings upheaval and stress into any family. Hope, Norway’s official Oscar Submission for Best International Feature Film (it made the shortlist, but wasn’t nominated), is an intimate and intense look at the dynamics within a family, and especially between spouses in such a troubling time.

Anja (Andrea Bræin Hovig) and Tomas (Stellan Skarsgård) have been together for many years. They have three children together as well as three from Tomas’s first marriage. They have built very separate lives through the years, but have managed to stay together (although not married). A few days before Christmas, Anja learns that she has a brain tumor, likely a metastasis from her earlier lung cancer. Such tumors are invariably fatal.

The film follows Anja and her family through a very difficult eleven day period. They try to keep the diagnosis secret through the holiday, but with Anja’s reaction to the steroids she’s been put on, it becomes necessary to reveal the truth. She is struggling with thoughts of mortality, but also with concern for her children, especially her teenage daughter. Tomas and Anja also must deal with questions within their relationship and how their lives have evolved over the years. All the while they must deal with holidays with friends and with various medical appointments to determine any steps to be taken if there is to be any hope of survival.

At the very beginning of the film is a note that says. “This is my story as I remember it.” The film is based on director Maria Sødahl’s experience of getting such a diagnosis. (Obviously, she recovered.) That is what makes the film such an intimate portrayal of a very trying time in her life. As Anja struggles through such tumultuous times, trying to deal with holidays, family, drugs side effects, and the frustrations of even a good medical system, we can see something of the reality Sødahl lived.

The setting of the Christmas/New Year holidays is interesting because those are days we associate with hope—whether it involves Christmas presents or the dawning of a new year. But for Anja and Tomas, much of what they are seeing is hopelessness. Doctor after doctor tells them there is no hope—only short-term remedies.

That makes the film’s title stand out. This is a film in which hope, while it seems so elusive, is central to the characters’ lives. Hope, as it plays out in the film, is not just about a possible medical outcome. It applies to the future of Tomas’s and Anja’s children. But the real focus of hope that we see here is on healing the rift in the relationship between Tomas and Anja that has grown through years of distraction and routine. If they have only a little time left together, will it be a time of love or only struggle?

The film leaves all its questions unresolved, and in so doing it challenges us to consider our own level of hope.

Hope is available in theaters and through virtual cinema.

Photos courtesy of KimStim Films.