ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

Chile

Blanco en Blanco: Cold Dark World

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Blanco en Blanco, Chile’s submission for Best Foreign Film Oscar consideration, takes us into the cold, dark, empty environment of Tierra del Fuego at the turn of the 20th century. Director Théo Court creates a world in which the land and the people share a soul-numbing desolation.

The film centers on Pedro, a photographer, who has been hired to come to this remote area to take a wedding photo of the landowner’s soon to be child bride, Miss Sara. Strangely, the land owner, Mr. Porter, is absent throughout the movie, always busy on other business. This area, at the southern tip of South America is very much the end of the earth. As Pedro must wait for the wedding to take place, he is caught up in seeing the world around him. He discovers it is filled with people who are just as cold, dark, and empty as the land around them. He also discovers, and in time participates in, the genocide against the indigenous people of the area.

This languidly paced film is more than anything an example of excellence in cinematography. Whether inside the big house, or in the surrounding countryside, earth tones or stark white and grays fill the screen to show us the emptiness that defines the land and the people. This is a world that even in its violence, lacks any sense of passion. Pedro, especially seems to be nearly emotionless. He just exists. His only real concern is how to stage a photo perfectly (not unlike the centrality of cinematography in this film). Some of the most interesting shots are those that we see through his camera.

Of course, the social commentary of the film is about the colonialism that destroys those who have lived in this land for so many generations. When Pedro is asked to document the work being done, he is told that they are making history here by creating a homeland. (Obviously, a homeland for Europeans. It is already a homeland, but by those not recognized as true people.) Just as Pedro poses Miss Sara to make the young girl look sexually appealing, he later poses the corpses of the murdered people and their hunters to make the scene look noble. It reminds us that there is often much more behind the images we see than we know.

Blanco en Blanco is in limited release.

Photos courtesy of Outsider Pictures.

Day 6 at NBFF

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Why should people go to film festivals? Because it may be the only chance they get to see films like Meerkat Moonship. This South African film by Hanneke Schutte features wonderful cinematography and a story of overcoming fear to be able to embrace life. Young Gideonette de la Rey lives under a curse. All the Gideon de la Reys in her family tree have died young. Her father named her that to show the world the curse wasn’t real. But after his sudden death, Gideonette is more convinced that ever she is doomed. She is sent to live on her grandparent’s farm. She tries to hide from anything dangerous. But then she makes friends with Bubesi, a deaf boy who is training to be an astronaut and fly away in the makeshift rocket Gideonette’s grandfather is building for him. When death once more comes into her life, Gideonette must determine how she will face the curse.

From Italy comes The Laplace’s Demon, directed by Giordano Giulivi. When a group of researchers have perfected the ability to predict exactly the number of pieces there will be when a glass falls to the floor, they are invited to a remote island by a mysterious professor. There they become the subjects of an experiment about human behavior. It becomes a cross of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and the philosophical debate about free will and determinism. This film is shot in black and white and makes excellent use of light and shadows to set the mood for this creepy mystery.

Wednesday was set as the Latino Showcase with films from Brazil, Mexico, and a joint production from Chile and Argentina. The Desert Bride, directed by Cecilia Atari and Valeria Pivato, is the story of Teresa, a middle-aged maid who has been with a family most of her life. When they sell the house, she must take a job in a far off city. But when the bus breaks down in the desert, she loses her bag with all her possessions, and must rely on the help of an affable vender named Gringo to search for it. This area venerates an unofficial Saint Correa, who seems to miraculously bring people together. Teresa seems to have a thoroughly joyless life, but perhaps there will be a miracle for her that will bring some joy into her life. The Desert Bride opens in some theaters on Friday.

Neruda – Poet on the Run

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Pablo Larraín has started to become known to American filmgoers with stories about Chile’s history and social issues such as No and The Club. (He is soon to become much better known here for directing Jackie.) His latest Chilean focused film is Neruda about the famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and how the Cold War played out in Chile.

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Besides being a famous poet, Neruda (Luis Gnecco) was also a politician in post-war Chile. As a Communist member of the Senate, he was disappointed when the president (who came to power with the help of the Communists) made connections with the United States. After denouncing the president, Neruda was impeached and ordered arrested. When he and his wife, painter Deia del Carril (Mercedes Morán) go into hiding, Police Prefect Oscar Peluchonneau (Gael García Bernal) sets off in pursuit. The cat and mouse chase becomes increasingly more dangerous for Neruda, but he toys with Peluchonneau, leaving clues along the way. At the same time, Neruda is seeing the life of the common people and writes much of Canto General, his famed volume of poetry. In Europe his story becomes the focus of people like Picasso who see him as an example of the oppression of the arts.

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Americans often have a monolithic view of Communism. We think of the Soviets and Chinese. But South America has had a long history of Communism that from time to time comes to power in various countries. They have also had right-wing governments that have repressed the Communists. Neruda reminds us that many of the intellectual elite favored Communism, especially during the early years of the Cold War. Neruda was essentially a country club Communist. He was upper class, educated, well known. He may have thought his position would provide him safety, but it did not. The world of workers he saw while avoiding the police and trying to escape Chile was much different that the comfortable life he had led. Yet there is no “aha” moment of transformation either for him or for Peluchonneau.

I expect this film probably plays better in Chile than in America. Chileans would have a much better understanding of the political swings of their history and how this film speaks not only of what happened at that time, but how it may reflect more recent events. But Larraín is a master of connecting us with a given time and social zeitgeist. While I haven’t seen Jackie yet, I expect that will prove the case in that film as well. For those who see that and find his work interesting, Neruda can serve as a good introduction to his broader work.

Neruda is Chile’s official entry for Oscar consideration.

Photos courtesy of The Orchard.

 

The Club – Sin and Penitence

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“Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us. Give us peace.”

A group of aging priests live in a house outside a remote seaside town, looked after by a former nun. They spend their days in recreation and training a greyhound for the local races. They have a regimented life—almost monastic. When a new resident is brought to the house, we begin to learn why these men are here. Controversy arises, followed by a tragedy. In the ensuing investigation, many things come to light.

The Club is Chilean director Pablo Larraín’s look into the sins of the Catholic Church. It does not revel in the sins of the priests or of the hierarchy. Rather it exposes pain that cannot find healing until the sins of the past are confronted.

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This house is, as Sister Monica describes it, “a retreat for priests who can no longer work and must leave their parishes.” That is fairly innocuous as far as it goes. When Father Garcia arrives in the aftermath of the tragedy to investigate, we begin to learn a bit about why each of these people has been sent to live here. Each has made his own mistake—not all of them sexual but all very serious. They are here in theory to do penitence for their sins, but they have settled into a routine that is a pleasant enough life for them all. Fr. Garcia would like to close down the house and have the inhabitants jailed. The controversy that brought on the tragedy continues to fester, and will soon threaten to bring all the issues to light.

While the film touches upon the sins that have plagued the Church (and not only the Catholic Church) and the pain that has been caused by those sins, the important issue that comes to light here is not the sins themselves, but rather the lack of repentance and reconciliation that should be central to the way such problems should be handled. When Fr. Garcia speaks with each of the persons in the house, none is ready to take responsibility for their actions or do what would be necessary to try to make things right. In time, the group orchestrates its own severe penitence, but the road to forgiveness will continue to be hard.

There is a sense in which this story reflects not just what is needed for individuals to find their forgiveness, but also for the Church (again, not just the Catholic Church) and society and the task for bringing healing into places where our own flaws and failures have brought pain. It is easy to look at the sins that have come to light in Catholicism and pretend that it isn’t “our church” so we don’t have to confront our own sins. Like the priests in The Club we stand apart from any sense of responsibility or sin. But how faultless are any of us?

Photos courtesy of Music Box Films