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Spain

The August Virgin – Finding Self

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“How do you become who you truly are?”

Eva (Itasao Aran, who also co-wrote with director Jonás Trueba), the protagonist in The August Virgin, is about to turn 33, but is still a bit unsettled and unfocused in her life. We watch day by day as she tries to discover what her life is or will be.

The film is set in Madrid the first two weeks of August, when most of the residents leave town to avoid the heat. Eva is moving into an acquaintance’s apartment while he’s gone for a couple weeks. Each day and evening she goes out and joins with the others staying in town as they enjoy the nightlife that is sometimes built around various saint’s festivals. She meets old friends, such as a former boyfriend who may still carry a torch for her, a former roommate who Eva’s lost touch with after the roommate became a mother, and the lover she broke up with a few months ago. She makes new friends as well, an upstairs neighbor, a reiki therapist who adjusts Eva’s feminine chakras, a Welch singer who came to Madrid a few years ago and just stayed, and a bartender she meets as he looks into a canal on the wrong side of a suicide barrier.

Eva isn’t exactly a lost soul, but she does seem to be fairly aimless. The setting in a city where most people have left on vacation seems to reflect Eva’s own situation. The city is still there and there is a vibrancy, but it’s not really fully engaged. The city is in a partial pause. So too is Eva as she ponders who she is.

Amidst the partying and dancing, Eva and the others often have conversations about what life is supposed to be. The topic of cynicism comes up frequently, but also the idea of identity—who one truly is. This is very much a dialogue-based film. Philosophy and religion are glimpsed around the edges without ever moving into center stage. Still, they create the atmosphere for Eva to contemplate where her life has brought her to and what it may hold for her.

The revelation that Eva finally has that begins to point to her future may be a reality that she has been avoiding or not allowing herself to recognize. Certainly, there are places along the way that, as we look back, we recognize as important points in her self-understanding. She seems to know where she should be looking, even if she’s not sure what she’s looking for.

The August Virgin is available on virtual cinema through local arthouses.

Photos courtesy of Outsider Pictures.

Oscar-Nominated Live Action Shorts

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When it is time to award the best in films each year, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences include three categories of short films in their Oscar presentations. Most people don’t get to see many shorts. They play at festivals, and occasionally in front of a feature film. But short films are an art form worth attention. Many (probably most) feature filmmakers started out making short film. To tell a story in such a brief format takes skill. All the Oscar-nominated short films will be playing in theaters in special programs. To see where the films will be playing near you, go to https://shorts.tv/theoscarshorts/theatrical-release/

Here is a look at the five Oscar-nominated live action short films.

Detainment (Ireland 30 minutes, directed by Vincent Lambe). The film is reenactments based on the transcript of interviews of two ten year-old boys who in 1993 abducted a toddler from a shopping mall and killed him. The two boys have different personalities that come out in the questioning, one is fearful, the other defiant and aggressive. The two young actors (Ely Solan and Leon Hughes) turn in excellent performances as two boys who have gotten into trouble they never dreamed of.

My Reaction: This is a chilling story. The James Bulger case was world famous, in part because the two boys were tried as adults. It is hard to fathom what would lead two children to such an evil act. There is no psychologizing included. We just slowly get some of the facts. Just as the boys parents are overwhelmed as the truth begins to come out, so too are we the viewers.

Fauve (Canada, 17 minutes, directed by Jeremy Comte). Another film with two ten year-old boys. As they play in fields and in an abandoned plant and quarry, the two of them go back and forth trying to show dominance in their relationship. They eventually get into trouble—trouble that they cannot get out of on their own, but there is no one to help.

My reaction: As you see the tragedy coming, it’s hard to continue watching, but we keep hoping that there will be some help that will arrive in time.

Madre (Spain, 18 minutes, directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen). A mother is in her apartment when she gets a call from her six year-old son who is on a trip to the beach with his father. The father has gone off and has not come back. The boy is unsure even what country he is in. Slowly panic begins to fill the mother as she tries to find a way to get help to her son.

Ry reaction: The film does well to build the sense of fear and helplessness. We identify with the mother’s predicament and powerlessness. A very interesting premise that is well executed.

Marguerite (Canada, 17 minutes, directed by Marianne Farley). The story of an aging woman and the visiting caregiver. After learning that the caregiver is in a same-sex relationship, the woman remembers back to a time in her past when she was in love, but never admitted it. When she confesses to the caregiver, the caregiver’s response is a heartwarming act of compassion and love.

My reaction: There is a great sweetness to this film (as opposed to the darkness and intensity that dominates the other nominees). The tenderness, kindness, and love of the caregiver makes this my favorite of these shortlisted films.

Skin (USA, 20 minutes, directed by Guy Nattiv) is a story of racism, bigotry, violence, and revenge. When a white family goes to a rural grocery store, a black man smiles at the white child and plays with an action figure. The father is outraged and follows the black man to the parking lot and beats him. But later, a group of black men take their revenge in a unique way that sets the stage for tragedy.

My reaction: The whites in the film are stereotypical rednecks. They relish their guns and their hatred. I know that such people are real, but such blatant racism and bigotry are just too easy a target. The curse of racism in our society is far more subtle and systemic. The revenge aspect of the film also is far from redemptive. On the contrary, it become as large of an evil as the original act.

Everybody Knows – Disclosing Open Secrets

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In Everybody Knows, director Asghar Farhadi leaves Iranian stresses behind (cf., A Separation, The Past, and The Salesman) for a more Eurocentric story. His previous films focus on people dealing with the tensions between two cultures. This film is a more conventional story, which although it is adequately done, doesn’t have the same thought-provoking quality of his earlier work.

Laura (Penélope Cruz) has returned to her hometown in Spain from Argentina with her two children for a family wedding. It is a time of joyous reunions. She and her children reacquaint themselves with family and friends. Perhaps her teenage daughter Irene is attracted to one of the local boys, but it’s all seems fairly innocent. It also seems fairly innocent that her former lover Paco (Javier Bardem) is a close family friend and part of the wedding preparations. Both Paco and Laura are both happily married, but their past will never go away.

Penélope Cruz stars as Laura and Javier Bardem as Paco in Asghar Farhadi’s EVERYBODY KNOWS, a Focus Features release.Credit: Teresa Isasi/Focus Features

The film takes its time setting this joyous and celebrative mood. The possibilities of romance hang in the air, but suddenly it all changes. During the wedding reception, Irene doesn’t feel good and goes to her room. When Laura goes to look in on her, the door is locked, and when they finally get it open, she is gone. Soon there is a message from kidnappers warning them not to tell the police. Is this a professional job or has it been done by someone close?

The family struggles to come up with the ransom. It is assumed that Laura’s husband has the money, but they have fallen on hard times. Paco starts rumors that he might sell his wine business, to make it seem that he might pay the ransom. But that brings up old wounds between him and Laura’s family over how he came to own the land. In time more secrets and old grievances will come to light. And often, as the title suggests, these are rather open secrets.

Although it fits into the thriller genre, it’s not the kind of film that gives viewers a bump in adrenaline. Rather the tensions are more personal. It is more about how each person faces the situation. Laura frets and has a hard time coping or making decisions. Paco takes action, but seems to be a bit more invested than one might expect from an old flame. Laura’s husband Alejandro (Ricardo Darín) continues to believe that God will help. That stance of faith seems to be escapist, but it reflects his experience of God’s help in his life. But it may also block him from accepting help that may come from others. (Can’t God help through other people?)

The film never quite fully explores the tensions between characters. That has been Farhadi’s strength in previous films. So what we get may work at a basic level, but doesn’t deliver the kind of experience those who know his work will expect.

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

 

Strangers on the Earth – Along the Camino de Santiago

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Each year many thousands of people walk the 600 mile Camino de Santiago, a route that has been a religious pilgrimage since the middle ages. Not all those who walk the Camino are religious pilgrims, but even those who do it as tourists may well discover spiritual insights along the way. Strangers on the Earth is the most recent documentary to focus on the Camino.

This story of the Camino focuses on Dane Johansen, an American cellist, who walked the Camino with his cello on his back. In the evenings, he arranged to play and record six Bach suites for cello in 36 ancient churches along the way. We see a few of those concerts that he played after a long day of walking. His music often creates a background to accompany the scenery along the pilgrimage route.

Although Johansen’s project was the impetus for the film, the film is really a broader look at experience of walking the Camino. The film shows us bits of the route in different areas of Spain, gives us a chance to meet a few of those who were walking while they were working on this project, and hear the reflections of those who walked for various reasons. As the film progresses, the commentary walkers provide becomes more contemplative. Perhaps that is a natural result of having spent weeks walking day after day.

It is difficult to recreate an experience like walking the Camino. The shear magnitude of the task is overwhelming. But filmmaker Tristan Cook, does well to let us experience the beauty along the way as well as give us a sense of the connection that can be made between people who are sharing this experience. He also provides a good variety of understandings of these pilgrims.

It is inevitable that there will be spiritual insights that find their way into the film. Some of the walkers we meet have found important meanings in completing this task. What is missing is how Johansen’s original idea tied in to any spiritual idea he had going into the project and how that was fulfilled or transformed along the way.

Photos courtesy of First Run Features

Summer 1993 – A Child’s Loss of Innocence

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As Summer 1993 opens, children are playing in the street. One of them looks at six-year-old Frida (Laia Artegas), and asks, “Why aren’t you crying?” Is that part of the game or does Frida have reason to cry? As viewers we don’t yet know why she should cry, but when we find out we may spend much of the film wondering that ourselves.

It is the story of a young girl whose parents have died of AIDS. She is being uprooted from her home in Barcelona to live with an aunt, uncle, and younger cousin in the Catalonian countryside. It is a drastic change in her life. Her family is loving and supportive, but this is not yet her home. In some ways she is a pawn in the family tensions between her religious grandmother and her parent’s generation that has moved away from the church. But even though her family loves her, she frequently presses the limits of acceptable behavior—perhaps acting out what is going on inside her.

The generational divide over religion is one of the forces at work within Frida. Her grandmother encourages her to say the Lord’s Prayer daily and to pray to her mother who is watching over her. But as time passes, she senses that her mother is increasingly absent. Frida faces not just the grief of losing a parent, but is having to deal with the first inkling that the faith her grandparents taught her will not sustain her.

The film is based on writer-director Carla Simón’s own childhood. It is a series of vignettes, as memory often is, but there is a structure that allows us to see Frida’s struggle to come to grips with the grief within her, as well as the new family and cultural world she is in.

The rural setting makes for a beautiful backdrop that emphasizes Frida’s innocence. The sunny and seemingly carefree setting also is a contrast to the pain that Frida holds within.

This is a child’s story of a summer that marks a transition from one life to another. The depth of her loss has not really taken hold. Realizing the reality and finality of death is one of those moments when innocence is chipped away. There are moments of fun, but in much of the film Frida seems quite impassive, as if she refuses to let the emotions within her find the surface. The summer is the setting in which Frida must grow to find her new life and come to grips with the past.

Summer 1993 is Spain’s official submission for Oscar consideration.

Photos courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories

Saturday at AFI Fest 2017

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The first full day for the festival took me on a trip around the world. That’s one of the values of film festivals, we get to see other lands and cultures without the expense and time of travel. (Not that I wouldn’t love being able to go to so many places.) We also get to see through different eyes. Four of the films for today were from women directors. Some have lived in more than one culture and so can compare and contrast. To see such films encourages us to see our own world and culture as others might.

From Spain comes Summer 1993 (New Auteurs section). Director Carla Simón tells a story based on her own childhood. After her mother’s AIDS-related death, young Frida moves into the Catalan countryside to live with her uncle and his family. She is surrounded by loving family members, but she has not yet come to grips with the enormity of the change in her life and discovered how to deal with the grief she holds inside. The beautiful, sunny countryside creates a contrast for the pain that Frida has. Summer 1993 is Spain’s official entry for Best Foreign Language Film.

Joachim Trier’s Thelma (World Cinema) is a nicely creepy film coming out of Norway. Thelma has grown up in a religious family, but has now set off to university, where she finds new ideas and experiences life in new ways. She is strangely attracted to another student, Anja. But when she starts having unexplained seizures strange things begin to happen. There are secrets from her past that come to bear on her life and a chance for her to find happiness. Thelma is Norway’s official entry for Best Foreign Language Film. It is slated to open in theaters on November 24.

Wajib (World Cinema) is a father/son story from director Annemarie Jacir. Shadi, an architect living in Rome, returns to Israel, to help his father Abu Shad hand-deliver wedding invitation for Shadi’s sister’s wedding. As the two men drive around Nazareth and visit friends and relatives, their differences create tensions. For Shadi, a Palestinian living an affluent life abroad, there is a culture clash in returning. The relationship between the two is very complex, at once loving and fractious. Has Shadi abandoned his family and people (as his mother did many years ago)? Has Abu Shadi compromised his principles to advance his career? As a father and a son, I found this a very universal reality of the difficulty in understanding a generational difference, yet being bonded by a lifetime of love. Wajib is the official Palestinian entry for Best Foreign Language Film.

In Iram Haq’s What Will People Say? (New Auteurs) a 1.5 generation Pakistani immigrant lives a dual life: the perfect Pakistani daughter at home, but a normal Norwegian teenager among her friends. But when Misha’s father discovers her with her boyfriend in her room late one night, everything changes. The story is a clash of important values. For the West, where Nisha has grown up, freedom is perhaps the highest value. But for her family, both in their new country and back in Pakistan, honor is paramount. It may seem that her parents are only concerned with how they are perceived, but at the same time it seems they are acting out of love for their daughter, trying to provide her with a life that fits their worldview. Of course, I watched this through western eyes, so some of the responses by her family seem extreme, but at the same time I could empathize with their desire to raise their daughter in what they considered a proper life. Mark this down as one of my favorites of the festival.

I traveled to South Africa with Jenna Bass’s High Fantasy (New Auteurs). Four friends (three women, one white, one colored, two black) go to an isolated farm for a camping trip. But when they wake up in the morning, they have somehow swapped bodies. This is more than Freaky Friday. As they struggle to understand what happened, they must also struggle with the difficulty of what it means to live in a “rainbow nation”. The racial and sexual differences are not something that can be covered up by just “walking a mile in another’s shoes”. The resentments of generations of apartheid and oppression are too deep. South Africa continues to be a country that struggles with racism—as does the U.S. This film is not about finding easy answers for how we live together in racist societies, but rather it raises some questions that need to be addressed if we are ever going to find ways to move forward.

 

AFIFest – More films from around the world

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Yesterday was another day of globetrotting at AFIFest Presented by Audi for me. One of the joys of film festivals is the chance to see the similarities and differences of cultures. That sometimes applies to the subcultures of American life we see as well. But it is especially true in foreign films. It is often very clear that in spite of the differences, we can very easily identify with the stories because the similarities are so strong.

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From Denmark comes a World War II film, Land of Mine. Actually the film is set just after the war. During the German occupation, Germany placed over two million mines along the Danish coast. The Danish army, now back in control, are forcing German POWs to clear the beaches of mines. It is a very dangerous job. (And one that I expect is outside what is permitted by the Geneva Convention.) The film follows about a dozen of these young soldiers who are placed under a Danish sergeant who has no love or compassion for them. As one Danish soldier says of the young soldiers, “If they’re old enough to fight, they’re old enough to clean up the mess.” Certainly the Danes believe that these Germans are expendable and don’t care a bit if they survive or not. But for the sergeant, there is a discovery of the humanity that he shares with the young Germans. Land of Mine opens in theaters in December and is Denmark’s official Oscar entry.

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Canada may not seem like globetrotting, but it is often a bit interesting to see films from Quebec that remind us that even in North America there are places that seem so like us, yet don’t even share our language. The Demons is the story of a ten year old boy growing up in suburban Montreal. Felix is very typical and the film is for the most part a slice of life look at typical preadolescent neuroses—worried about his parent’s marriage, his sexuality, his place in the school pecking order. About two thirds of the way through the film, there is a shift in tone that reminds us that some of the fears that children have may be very real and dangerous.

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Spain’s official Oscar entry is Pedro Almodovar’s Julieta. When we first see Julieta, she is happy. She’s preparing to leave Madrid with her boyfriend and move to Portugal. But a chance meeting on the street brings back memories of her earlier life—a marriage to a fisherman named Xoan, their daughter Antia, and the tragedy that changed her life. Now estranged from her daughter for over a decade, she begins to write a letter to her outlining her story. From the very beginning and the moody music that plays over the opening credits we are assured that this will be a dark and tense story. There is a sense in which Almodovar could be said to be channeling Hitchcock with this film. (And to me that is a very high compliment.) Like a Hitchcock movie, Julieta follows a path of descent in which a character borders on madness. Julieta opens in theaters near Christmas.

Photos provided by AFIFest