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Thursday at AFIFest 2020

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As AFIFest 2020 Presented by Audi comes to an end, I want to thank the festival for allowing me to cover it again this year. This is always one of the highlights of my cinematic year. It is always an enormous task to put on a festival, especially one like AFIFest. This year has presented festivals with many challenges. AFI has come through with a tremendous event.

The Argentinian film Piedra Sola, from director Alejandro Telémaco Tarraf, is an ethnographic fiction film. In the highlands of Argentina we meet a llama herder as he and his son make a long journey to sell meat and hides. At home his herd is being killed off by a puma he cannot find. Other herders convene to discuss the need to be in harmony with Pachamama (Mother Earth) by sacrificing some llamas to the puma. As he journeys to satisfy the puma and the natural order he also must confront his own mortality. Much of the film is made up of long, meditative scenes. This is the kind of film that takes viewers into a very unfamiliar world. The lives of the people we meet are very different than our own. We often may not understand what they are doing, but we do find a common sense of the human condition.

Rival, from German director Marcus Lenz, is the story of Roman, a Ukrainian boy who is smuggled into Germany to be reunited with his mother Oksuna, who has been serving as a caregiver for the last three years. Now that the woman she has been caring for has died, she has stayed on with the woman’s husband Gert. Oksuna and Gert are in a relationship, and young Roman is not happy about it. He is always sullen when Gert is around. Roman clearly has some Oedipal feelings towards his mother. Roman continues to act out in various ways. But when his mother takes ill and is hospitalized, Gert takes him to a country house to avoid authorities since Oksuna and Gert are not in the country legally. Awaiting Oksuna’s release, Gert and Roman begin to bond a bit, but then Gert too is stricken, leaving Roman on his own not really knowing where he is and not speaking German.

I also took in a few shorts to round out my week.

Blocks (11 minutes), by Bridget Moloney, is the story of a mother of two small children struggling to keep up with it all. And they she begins vomiting Legos. Eventually, those Legos will provide her with a bit of an escape.

In Heading South (13 minutes), by Yuan Yuan, an eight year old Mongolian girl is taken from her home on the grasslands into the city for her father’s birthday. She learns that his father has remarried. She is very much an outsider at the raucous celebration filled with loud voices and drinking. We sense that the only relationship between father and daughter is what is forced upon them.

Dustin (20 minutes), from Naïla Guiguet, follows a young transgendered woman through a night at a nightclub. As she interacts with her friends, we sense her unhappiness as the story moves from hysteria to melancholy. The kindness and love she longs for are hard to find.

The Keeper -Finding Forgiveness

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Based on a true story, The Keeper, from director Marcus H Rosenmüller, is the story of a German POW who in the post-war years becomes one of the most famous football (soccer to Americans) players in England. Along the way the story looks the difficulty of forgiving both our enemies and ourselves. And there’s a love story.

Bert Trautmann (David Kross) is a German paratrooper who fought most of the war in Poland, earning an Iron Cross. Late in the war, he’s captured by the British and placed in a POW camp in Lancashire. Because he volunteered for the German army and was well decorated, he gets some pretty nasty jobs in the camp. After the war, the POWs were kept there for some time until repatriation could happen.

One day when Jack Friar (John Henshaw) and his daughter Margaret (Freya Mavor) deliver goods to the camp, Friar sees Trautmann tending goal as the prisoners play football. He is exceptional. Friar is the manager of a local football club that is in dire need of improvement. He arranges to have Trautmann work for him so he can use him as a goalie in upcoming matches. The team prospers, and just about the time Trautmann is due to return to Germany, the manager of the Manchester City club offers him a tryout. Around this same time, Trautmann and Margaret marry. (The love story takes up most of the first half of the film.)

It is not easy for a former Nazi to be accepted either by teammates or fans. The issue was multiplied when he began playing in Manchester, which had a sizable Jewish population. In time, a rabbi who had fled Germany wrote an open letter saying that we shouldn’t judge on what we presume, but judge each by their merit. That let Trautmann find some acceptance, and his exceptional play led the team to more victories—eventually winning the FA Cup—a match in which Trautmann played the last 15 minutes with a broken neck.

The film, as is often the case with sports stories, deals with adversity, perseverance, and heroics. But it is also a love story, and that adds another dimension. In fact, this is more love story than sports story. But the issues of adversity, perseverance, and heroics are just as important in that part of the story.

Through the first half of the film, the adversity has to do with Trautmann’s past as a German soldier, and the perception others had of him. As one character tells him, “To me and everyone around me, you’re still the enemy.” Margaret was just as set against Trautmann as everyone else. But as she got to know him, and saw within him someone who had dreams and fears like everyone else, she softened to him.

Later in the film, other problems arise that test Trautmann individually, and him and Margaret as a couple. We learn in bits and pieces through the film some of the ghosts and guilt that haunt Trautmann. Just as Margaret, then fans had to come to term with how they viewed Trautmann’s past, so must he. Often it is much more difficult to forgive oneself that to find forgiveness in others.

There is an interesting side note in this film for people familiar with Christian hymnody (at least for non-British people). In the scene leading up to the famous championship game, we hear the crowd singing “Abide with Me”. It turns out that that is a tradition for the FA Cup Finals dating back to 1927. (I’ve yet to find an explanation.) It seems a strange song to sing prior to a sports match, given that it is a song asking for God’s presence at the time of death. The song is sung again at the end of the film. While the song is included mostly for its association to football, it also fits well at the end of the film because death crops up at various times in the film, as it does throughout our lives. It is a nice reminder of our need for God’s presence, not only when “fast falls the eventide”, but always.

The Keeper is opening in theaters (where open) and on virtual cinema through local arthouses.

Photos courtesy of Beta Cinema.

Back to the Fatherland – The Burden of the Past

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How can young Israelis decide to move to Germany or Austria, given the historical issues Jews faced there? Back to the Fatherland gives us a look at a few of those young people—and their grandparents—to try to find some insight into the possibility to finding a future that overcomes history.

The film opens with the words of Yochanan, grandfather of co-director Gil Levanon” “I don’t believe in Germany. They were bad. And they stayed bad and they will always be bad. I’ll also never make friends with a German who’s nice to my granddaughter. I can’t do that.” Yochanan, a Holocaust survivor, reflects how some continue to hold onto the animosity that grew out of their lives. But to Gil, the “third generation”, it seems that perhaps Germans are not as bad as her grandfather believes.

The genesis of this film goes back to when Gil met Kat Rohner, the other director, in college in the U.S. Kat too is “third generation”, but on the other side; her grandfather had been a Nazi officer. They realized that there was a generational disconnect that often made the decision to move more difficult.

The film follows three younger Israelis and their grandparents as they deal with the issue. It isn’t always as negative as Yochanan’s response. One of the grandparents is very supportive because they know the grandson will not be happy in Israel because of the political situation. (The grandson uses the term “apartheid” in reference to the treatment of Palestinians.) For some of the younger generation it represents an attempt to reconnect with their history.

The film doesn’t take a side. It recognizes the pain of the older generation and the animosity that they carry for the way they and their families were treated. Some lost all they knew and loved. They found a security in the state of Israel. But for those of the “third generation” it has created a historical void. They are well aware of the events of the Holocaust, and the personal stories of their grandparents, but they also know that things are different in Germany and Austria. Not perfect, there are nationalist movements arising again, but there has also been much done to create a more diverse atmosphere in those countries.

This film is not so much about creating reconciliation between those who suffered and those who committed the crimes. It is about trying to reconcile the pain of one generation with the new perspectives of another. Such generational gaps are common throughout history, but the divide between the Holocaust survivors and their grandchildren is especially sharp. Making this film gave those involved a chance to work through a bit of the process of coming to terms personally with that division.

Photos courtesy of First Run Features

The Last Suit – Road Trip to Grace

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We often try to bury the past—to forget the pain and suffering. That can be a good thing if we move on with life and find fulfillment. But often that buried past comes to haunt us. It may actually prevent the good life we hope for in the future until it is recognized and addressed.

Abraham Bursztein (Miguel Ángel Solá) is an 88 year old Holocaust survivor who has made a life for himself in Buenos Aires. But his health is failing. His children have sold his home and he is scheduled to move into a retirement home. But he has a secret plan to make one last trip—to return to Poland to take a suit to the Christian friend who saved his life after the War. But this is a trip that is not just about the gratitude he owes that friend; it is also about the resentments he has carried all these years.

The film is a road movie of his trip to find what has been missing from his life. In part the trip is an attempt to be in control of his life. His children have made all the decisions for him. But the trip is also driven by a long-forgotten promise. His life cannot be complete while that promise has not been fulfilled. He sees this as a one-way trip, as though he is doing this as one final task before he is ready for the end.

Abraham is a severe, judgmental, and bitter man who holds grudges forever. His family knows that he considers “Poland” a dirty word. As he makes this trip he refuses to say the word himself. He’ll only show a piece of paper with the word on it. We know that Poland is where terrible things happened to him. He continues to hold on to the anger against Poland, and even more Germany.

This road trip turns into a series of encounters that put his anger in perspective. He keeps meeting people who, in spite of his cheerlessness and even rudeness, seek to help him. Each of these people bring a touch of grace into his life. He begins to connect with them in ways that start to knock down the walls of his anger. When he comes to his final destination, we learn that what he is really trying to return to is the place where he first met grace in the actions of another. This time grace was a chance to return to life after being in the realm of death that was the Holocaust. When those walls are finally destroyed, Abraham is then free to love as he has not done for many years.

Watching the film, I constantly wondered why these people would respond to Abraham with kindness when he was always so mean-spirited. But then that is what makes it grace. Grace reaches out to those who do not deserve it. It is freely offered just because it is needed. The film does not talk about God, but it does show the way God—and God’s people—touch lives and bring new life.

Photos courtesy of Outsider Pictures

 

Day 5 at NBFF

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I began Tuesday by watching Cardinals, a film directed by Grayson Moore and Aidan Shipley that was the Canadian Spotlight film on Friday night, . It is the story of a woman who has returned home after years in prison after being convicted of killing her neighbor in a drunk driving accident. But soon the neighbor’s son shows up with questions that he just won’t let go of. There are dark secrets that are being held at bay, but things begin to unravel in ways that may put her back in prison again. This will likely be one of my faves for the festival.

The festival has a section of environmental films which I dipped into to see Living in The Future’s Past, a documentary by Susan Kucera. This is a film that uses evolution (especially human evolution) and other disciplines to look at the current environmental issues we are facing. Many of the people featured are philosophers or psychologists seeking to shed light on how our very nature affects the world around us. This is at times a bit frenetic and overwhelming. There were times I wanted to say, “Stop, tell me more about that. Can you flesh that out a bit.” But by then the film had moved to more speakers and ideas. Even the excellent visual images seemed to be geared to those with short attention spans.

Tuesday night was the European Showcase with films from Italy, Germany, Sweden, and France. I opted for the German film, My Blind Date with Life, by director Marc Rothemund. A young man who dreams of a career in hotel management suddenly loses his vision. Without noting that, he applies for an internship at a prestigious hotel. There with the help of friends he manages to do far more than we might expect. But it could all come crashing down at any moment. (And “crash” is the word for the potential problems.) He also meets the girl of his dreams, but can their relationship grow if he fails to tell the truth about himself? Nice blend of comedy, romance, and the struggle to overcome adversity.

Bye Bye Germany – Moving to Life

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“If I didn’t embellish life with lies, it would be unbearable.”

In the opening shot of Bye Bye Germany, we watch a three-legged dog happily trotting through a street that turns out to be in a post-war displaced persons camp in Frankfort. While that dog has next to nothing to do with the plot of this light-hearted (yet not quite comic) tale, it makes for an interesting way to understand the characters we meet.

This camp is filled with Jews who have survived the Holocaust. They are awaiting their chance to move on to America or Palestine. But that takes money. David Bermann enlists some others in the camp to take part in a “business opportunity” that will make them all money. He will smuggle in some French linens which they will sell at inflated prices (but convince people they are getting a great deal.) This minor fleecing of the Germans near the camp gives them a small sense of revenge for what Germans did to them. It also gives them a chance to earn the money they will need to have a new life.

However, Bermann may have some skeletons in his closet. He is summoned to the American Army HQ to be asked if he were a German collaborator during the war. Documents show he received special privileges, had some sort of special mission, and even fake travel papers provided by the Germans. As the young American woman officer interrogates him over time, he tells a story of being tasked by the concentration camp commander to teach Hitler how to tell a joke. This story becomes more bizarre each time they meet. Is it the truth or is Bermann just the kind of guy who can tell a tale and make you believe it?

Everyone in this film has their own little story that comes from their experiences during the war. At times they meet someone who harmed them in the camps. Or it may be as simple as a song on the radio that triggers memories. The stories they share may have a poignant humor or show just a touch of the deep pain that each man has suffered.

They also must deal with survivor’s guilt—why they survived while others—some very good people—did not. They each struggle with demons from their past, loss of loved ones, and wondering if they may have done something wrong to save themselves at another’s expense.

They have an uneasy time coming to grips with all that has happened. On the one hand, they can say with just a sense of triumph, “Hitler’s dead, and we’re still alive.” But then at the grave of friend who had a tragic death, as they begin to pray, one says, “How can one pray to a God who makes so many mistakes?” They continue to go between times of joy and yet new suffering.

In a way, they are each like that three-legged dog—they have lost something of great value, but they are intent on moving forward in search of life and happiness. The dog—and these characters—serve to remind us that the trials in our lives are often overcome through continuing to move forward.

Photos courtesy of Film Movement

In the Fade – Justice? Revenge?

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“They’ll get their punishment. I promise you.”

Justice. Revenge. Are they the same? Are they even related? In the Fade from Fatih Akin is the story of a search for justice, and what happens when that justice is denied. In the Fade is Germany’s official Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film.

Katja (Diane Kruger) has a wonderful life with her husband Nuri and young son Rocco. Her world is shattered when Nuri and Rocco are killed in a terrorist bombing. She can barely make it through the funeral, and her life is spiraling downward until two neo-Nazis are charged with the crime. From there on, her only mission is to see justice done.

The film plays out in three acts, entitled “The Family” (meeting the family, the bombing, the grief), “Justice” (the trial), and “The Sea” (Katja’s actions after the trial). Katja’s grief is the driving force through it all. At times her grief leads her to self-destructive behavior. It is only when she has hope that the killers will be punished that she seems to have a reason to live. But what would happen if things didn’t work out in the trial?

In press notes Akin (who was born in Germany to Turkish immigrant parents) notes that the story is inspired by xenophobic killings by members of the National Socialist Underground. But he chose to make a survivor (Katja) the empathetic center of the film. There is no attempt to justify the murderers’ perspective. Rather we remain totally focused on Katja and her emotional struggle before, during and after the trial. It is in that struggle that Akin is able to take us into the darkness of revenge.

How do we differentiate between justice and vengeance? We often think of the two as almost synonymous. However, justice connotes a high ideal—even a biblical ideal. It is a call to bring things back into alignment. Justice should help to create healing and reconciliation. Revenge, on the other hand, may seem like it is making something right, but in fact it only serves to create more pain and suffering. Revenge may seem like an imperfect form of justice, in that it pays back pain for pain. In the end it is only a counterfeit.

The emotional journey we take with Katja eventually takes us to some very dark possibilities as she responds to injustice. Even in this she is driven more by her grief than by the ideal of justice. The combination of grief, anger, and vengeance leads to a result that may seem inevitable, but fails to leave us feeling that justice or healing has been achieved.

Photos courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Frantz – Is It Ever Right to Lie?

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“Don’t be afraid to make us happy.”

François Ozon’s Frantz is set in the aftermath of the First World War. It is a wonderfully visual film. (It won a César Award (the French equivalent of an Oscar) for Best Cinematography. That may surprise some since most of the film is in black and white (but some of the best looking black and white you may see), with portions of the film shifting to color. There is a sense in which this reflects the moods of the film. The heavier black and white reflecting the post-war gloom, and the scenes with color representing a bit of a return to life and joy.

In a village in Germany, Anna (Paula Beer) mourns her fiancé Frantz who died in the trenches. She still lives with his parents who are also in deep mourning. One day she sees a man named Adrien (Pierre Niney) at Frantz’s grave. She discovers that he is French. He tells her that he was Frantz’s friend from before the war. They spent time together in Paris where Frantz studied.

Adrien faces opposition from the townsfolk who are still hurting from having lost the war. As one local put it, “Every Frenchman is my son’s murderer.” But the stories that Adrian shares with Anna and Frantz’s parents begin to bring joy into their lives yet again. It is almost as if Adrien is a substitute for their lost loved one. Perhaps Anna may even find a chance for love again.

The foundation of the story is the devastation that war brings. Everyone in this story suffers from the war. Anna and Frantz’s parents (and many of the townspeople) grieve the loss of the young men killed in the war. (This is a loss felt in France as well when the story moves there.) For the Germans in general, the loss of the war was a terrible blow to their national pride. Adrien has his own sense of pain that comes from the war that eats at his sense of self even though he was on the victorious side.

But at the half way point of the film there is an important revelation that puts everything into a new light. From that point on we begin to think of the lies that have been told, and the new lies yet to be told. In a world in which “alternate facts” seem to be acceptable to some, we may wonder if there might be a place for lies in the world or if only truth is to be considered valuable. When the truth comes out, it then becomes a question of if that truth should be shared or if the lies should be continued—perhaps even built upon—for the happiness of those who have found comfort in those lies.

Can happiness and peace be built upon a lie? Even Frantz’s grave, we learn, is a bit of a lie. His body is actually in a mass grave somewhere. But for his family, this little plot in the cemetery gives them a focus for their grief and a way to honor him.

When Anna discovers the truth about Adrien, she must decide whether to share that truth with Frantz’s parents. The “alternate” truth that Adrien represents has brought joy into Frantz’s family. Anna is placed in the position of knowing the truth, but knowing the consequences if that truth is known. Should she, for the sake of her family, withhold that truth and let the lie that has been spun continue. Should she make that lie even more elaborate in order to bring even more happiness to those who had found peace in the lie? And what is the burden  on Anna of carrying the truth and the lie as she seeks to move on in her own life? It is easy to say that truth always is better than a lie. But is it?

Photos courtesy of Music Box Films

Anthropoid – The Romance and Reality of Heroism

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Heroism. Patriotism. Futility. Is it possible to celebrate the two virtues and still recognize that sometimes the end result may seem a bit tarnished? Anthropoid tells the story (based on actual events) of Czech patriots in World War II who act courageously, yet in the end, as the death tolls grow on both sides, we are left to consider the terrible cost of war—not just the numbers, but the individuals that make up those statistics.

In 1938, the European leaders gave Czechoslovakia to German to try to establish “peace in our time.” Soon Germany had established major factories for armaments and imposed harsh conditions on the country. When resistance began, SS General Reinhard Heydrich (the third ranking official in Nazi Germany and one of the architects of the Final Solution) came to oversee the country and earned the sobriquet “The Butcher of Prague”. In 1941, the Czech government-in-exile sent a group of parachutists to Prague on a mission to assassinate Heydrich. The mission had the code name Operation Anthropoid. The film follows the story of two of those agents, Josef Gabčík (Cillian Murphy) and Jan Kubiš (Jamie Dornan), as they work with locals to set up the assassination.

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Josef and Jan have little intel about the city or their contacts there. The Nazi war machine has been very effective in eliminating the local resistance movement. Those freedom fighters who remain are very leery of Jan and Josef, and especially of their mission. Josef and Jan, in order to fit in to the city, connect with two women of the resistance, Lenka and Marie. There is some love story here, but it is minor. But as a part of those relationships, the film gets to consider some of the various perspectives that one finds in war. As Lenka talks with Josef as they walk around the city, she compares her attitude about the war (pragmatic and grounded in the reality of the situation) with Marie’s (a more romantic view of war).

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The film strives to show both of these views in the portrayal of those involved in Operation Anthropoid. On the one hand, this is a film that relishes the bravery and sacrifice that Josef, Jan, and the others display. (This is the romanticized view.) They all know that any slip could mean death and the failure of the mission. Yet, even though they may have second thoughts, they are devoted to setting their nation free from the scourge that Heydrich oversees. They, like soldiers in any war, are willing to die for their country. But at the same time, the realities and consequences are very plain. When Josef and Jan first tell the locals what their mission is, it is pointed out that if they succeed, the Germans will kill thousands in retaliation. Josef is a bit too easy in saying that any patriotic Czech should be willing to die for this. Indeed, after the attempt, whole towns are killed or sent to death camps. We are left to consider if the plotters bear responsibility for the death of so many innocent people.

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In time, the assassination team is holed up in a local cathedral as hundreds of German soldiers lay siege. The carnage of the shootout in the cathedral is almost worthy of Quentin Tarantino, but less graphic. The plotters nobly go out in a blaze of glory. But we also know that the German soldiers are also doing what they think is their duty to country. The body count that grows through the battle and knowing the doom that is the obvious outcome leaves us feeling a bit gloomy. In no way does this diminish the valor of the Czech fighters, but it does remind us (as Ecclesiastes so often does) of the vanity, meaninglessness, or hollowness of even the great virtues we often espouse.

In tone, the film reminds me of Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan in that it tells the story of heroic actions, but leave us saddened by the terrible costs that those actions carry. The film also reminded me a poem I read long ago in school, “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen. That poem, from World War I, calls the romance of dying for country and “old lie”. The way the reality of war and the romantic view of heroism often both compliment and conflict plays out well in Anthropoid.

Photos courtesy of Bleecker Street

 

 

 

Germans & Jews: Can They Live Together?

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“What did his grandfather do?”

Does it seem odd that the fastest growing Jewish community in Europe is found in Berlin? When filmmaker Tal Recanati (a Jewish American) traveled to Germany and found a vibrant Jewish community that has grown in the seventy years since the Holocaust, she thought there was a story here that needed to be discovered. Germans & Jews is the personal stories of both Jewish and non-Jewish people living in Germany reflecting on the commonalities and differences they face.

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The film includes a brief history of the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust, but for the most part, it is made up of individual interviews of mostly young adults who are two generations separated from those events. A few of the Jews are from families that returned to Germany right after World War II, others have come from Israel or Russia in more recent years. The gentile Germans have had an education that includes much information about the Holocaust as a way of dealing with their national past. With seventy years having passed, can these two groups coexist in their nation? Is seventy years long enough for such deep wounds to heal and trust to be established? Must new generations carry the guilt of their grandparents (regardless of their ancestors’ actual participation or non-participation)? Can there be reconciliation between peoples who have such a violent and oppressive history?

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As an American watching the film, I felt a bit like an outsider. To be sure, the Holocaust is a part of our cultural awareness—but often just as a point in history that continues to have influences in world affairs. But for those we meet in the film, the Holocaust is an ongoing part of their culture whether or not they are Jewish. As more Jews move into Germany (although they still make up only 0.2% of the population) the relationship between Jew and non-Jew will continue to be a growing phenomenon. The key question is to what extent can these peoples find reconciliation and begin to live not just side by side, but actually be in community together? That is the question that seems to be central not just to the film, but may also be a question that the whole world needs to consider in the many ways national, religious, and cultural divides occur.

Photos courtesy of First Run Features