Film Movement

Men At Work (Kargaran mashghoole karand)

by Jason Chu on August 1, 2007

in DVD,DVD Clubs,Film Movement

Men At Work (Kargaran mashghoole karand)

Kargaran mashg­hoole karand (Men At Work) (Director: Mani Haghighi, Iran, 2006): Kargaran mashg­hoole karand (Men At Work) begins with four middle-aged men driving home to catch an important foot­ball match on tele­vi­sion. Three of them are talking and joking around while the other naps. He wakes up and bugs them until they finally pull over and allow him to make a pit-stop on the side of the road on the edge of a canyon. While they are stopped, they dis­cover a tall, narrow rock form­a­tion sticking out of the ground. This film is about their attempts at trying to figure out how it got there, but ulti­mately how to knock it down.

It doesn’t sound like a very intriguing story, but somehow it is. And funny. The situ­ation these men impose upon them­selves can surely be a meta­phor for any kind of obstacle that one may face in life, or it could really just be about how dif­fi­cult it is to dis­lodge a big rock from the earth.

Through altern­ating moments of silence, comedic and almost slap-stick antics, emo­tional out­bursts and acts of des­per­a­tion, we learn of these mens’ rela­tion­ships with women (two of whom con­veni­ently show up, join the chal­lenge for a while, and then leave) and each other, but mainly we see how dif­fer­ently they each deal with this “problem.”

Men At Work (Kargaran mashghoole karand)

I have seen a few Iranian films from the past few years, and most of them are about women and their struggles within their cul­ture. This film, how­ever, may focus on the pos­sibly neg­lected point of view of the men, and per­haps this is why the offensive rock is quite, well, phallic. Is this a com­mentary on the dif­ferent atti­tudes that some Iranian men may have about their male-dominated society? If so, then how does one explain the rel­at­ively passive atti­tudes of the women who show up? (One can make a meta­phor of any­thing, I suppose.)

In the end, after periods of working together and then lit­er­ally giving up and leaving someone behind, the four friends learn that some­times prob­lems can solve themselves.

Tagged as: DVD, DVD Clubs, Film Movement, iran

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Viva Cuba

by James McNally on June 11, 2007 · 3 comments

in DVD,DVD Clubs,Film Movement

Viva Cuba

Viva Cuba (Director: Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti, Cuba, 2005): Viva Cuba is a charming fairytale/road movie that sub­merges its polit­ical mes­sage in a very per­sonal story of friend­ship and love. Jorgito and his tomboy friend Malu are on the cusp of adoles­cence, and their close friend­ship seems about to morph into some­thing at once more ser­ious and more fright­ening. It’s evident from the way they can be holding hands one minute and arguing viol­ently the next. To make things worse, their fam­ilies detest each other. Malu lives with her mother, a bitter woman whose family used to wield influ­ence in the days before Castro’s revolu­tion. Jorgito’s par­ents have moved to Havana from the coun­tryside and are firm sup­porters of the gov­ern­ment. Each mother admon­ishes her child for playing with an unsuit­able play­mate, but that only drives the pair closer together.

This Romeo and Juliet story really takes off when Malu’s mother decides to leave Cuba forever, to join her boy­friend in what we assume is America. In order to get per­mis­sion to leave the country with Malu, she must get her estranged ex-husband to sign an exit author­iz­a­tion. Knowing this, Malu and Jorgito hatch a plan to appeal to his paternal love (or guilt) by trav­eling in person to see him. The problem is that Malu hasn’t seen her father since she was six, because he works as a light­house keeper at the other end of the country.

The two young prot­ag­on­ists hit the road by train, bus, and oxcart to reach their des­tin­a­tion, but their con­stant squab­bling threatens to ruin the plan. In the mean­time, their wor­ried fam­ilies have seem­ingly recon­ciled in the des­perate search for their missing children.

First and fore­most, this is a beautifully-shot film, and the use of colour is often striking. The polit­ical mes­sage, such as it is, seems to ignore Castro com­pletely; instead, it’s a shame­lessly pro-Cuba film, high­lighting both the island’s nat­ural beauty as well as the fierce pride of its people in their cul­tural insti­tu­tions. It’s not sur­prising that music plays a big part in the film.

It’s unclear whether the dir­ector was attempting to make a film aimed solely at chil­dren. There is cer­tainly a sense of naïveté in the dia­logue and the basic struc­ture of the film, and there is never any real danger to these two kids on the run, but the ending seemed par­tic­u­larly grown-up and ambiguous, and made me ree­valuate my ini­tial impres­sions. Some critics have seen the film as an allegory depicting two sides to modern Cuban cul­ture, but I don’t believe the inten­tion was that obvious. I think the film gains res­on­ance from refusing to be overt about its polit­ical opin­ions. Instead, it leaves the viewer to untangle his sym­pathies from the inter­sec­tion of con­flicting desires in a country that is chan­ging, just not fast enough for some.

Note: Film Movement fea­tured this film as their Year 5 Film 5.

8/10(8/10)

Tagged as: adolescence, children, cuba, DVD, DVD Clubs, Film Movement, road-movie

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El Bola

by Jason Chu on June 5, 2007

in DVD,DVD Clubs,Film Movement

El Bola (Pellet)

El Bola (Pellet) (Director: Achero Mañas, Spain, 2000): Pablo’s nick­name is Pellet, hence the title of this film. I didn’t know any­thing about this film before pop­ping it in the DVD player, so I had no idea what kind of a ride I was in for.

The ride was great. Performances are authentic and at times, appro­pri­ately subtle. The actual sub­ject matter doesn’t arise until almost halfway through the film; a style that doesn’t always work, but def­in­itely does here.

Pellet loiters around town with some of his misfit, dare­devil peers and befriends the new kid at school, Alfredo. Alfredo provides Pellet with a simple camaraderie that Pellet seems to never have known before, and he is obvi­ously needy for this kind of friend­ship. Still, he ini­tially feels out of place in cer­tain situ­ations, such as spending time in Alfredo’s family envir­on­ment; granted, Alfredo’s family envir­on­ment may not be the most “normal”, but we soon see why Pellet is tentative.

El Bola (Pellet)

The film touches indir­ectly on a lot of themes and situ­ations that are not very developed, but I appre­ciate the real­istic snap­shot of time-and-place that this method provides; they also work to advance char­ac­ters rather than plot. We never really get the story on some of the sup­porting char­ac­ters but it ends up not really mat­tering; somehow the subtle oddities of cer­tain people and events gives the film a “truth is stranger than fic­tion” sort of backdrop.

I was very impressed with the lead actor Juan José Ballesta, who played the title char­acter at only thir­teen years of age. I didn’t recog­nize him at first, but later real­ized that I saw him in person a couple of years ago at TIFF when he was in town to pro­mote the film 7 vírgenes.

El Bola is a powerful film that deserves the many awards and nom­in­a­tions that it received. It is a moving story that is painful at times and heart­warming at others. It authen­tic­ates itself through its pho­to­graphy, char­ac­ters, per­form­ances and sadly, the story itself. I think that Jay would con­sider this to be a “Jason Chu film”, so it’s no sur­prise that many moments of it recall Truffaut’s Les Quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows).

Note: Film Movement fea­tured this film as their Year 1 Film 1. That’s right, it was their very first pick. As an added bonus, the film is on sale right now for half price, making it a bar­gain even for non-subscribers to Film Movement’s service.

Official site for the film (Spanish only)

Tagged as: adolescence, DVD, DVD Clubs, family, Film Movement, spain

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The Bothersome Man

by James McNally on May 21, 2007

in DVD,DVD Clubs,Film Movement

The Bothersome Man (Den Brysomme mannen)

The Bothersome Man (Den Brysomme mannen) (Director: Jens Lien, Norway/Iceland, 2006): “Forty-year-old Andreas arrives in a strange city with no memory of how he got there. He is presented with a job, an apart­ment — even a wife. But before long, Andreas notices that some­thing is wrong. He makes an attempt to escape the city, but he dis­covers there is no way out.” I remember reading this syn­opsis in the pro­gramme guide at TIFF last year and wanting to see this film. Now, thanks to the folks at Film Movement, I can. Well, tech­nic­ally, I can’t, since Film Movement doesn’t offer sub­scrip­tions to Canadians, but they were nice enough to send me some films to review, and I’d encourage any of our American readers to check them out if you haven’t already. A new indie or for­eign film every month for less than the price of two cinema tickets. Now, on to the film:

The Bothersome Man (Den Brysomme mannen)

I’ve always been a fan of Nordic humour; dry and deadpan, as in the films of Aki Kaurismäki. Lien’s film is that, with a touch of Kafka thrown in. You see, Andreas arrives in the strange city after throwing him­self in front of a subway train, and this extremely pleasant after­life turns out to be hell, after all. Food is taste­less, there are no chil­dren, and everyone seems obsessed with dec­or­ating and fur­niture. Even sex is boring, though it seems easily avail­able. In fact, everyone seems to go out of their way to make sure Andreas is happy. Only, he’s not. For all the polite kind­ness he finds, it seems that Andreas can’t find love. There is no real con­nec­tion between anyone in this nether world. No con­flict, granted, but no pas­sion at all. All talk is small talk.

The only glimmer of hope comes when he dis­covers a crack in the wall of a new acquaintance’s apart­ment. Through the crack they hear music, and can smell won­derful scents. Is this a way back to the world of the living?

The clever thing about the film is that seen in a cer­tain way, it could very well be a com­mentary on the real world, espe­cially the Western world of banal social pleas­ant­ries and mind­less con­sumerism, and in par­tic­ular, the well-meaning socialist wel­fare states of Scandinavia. It’s a safe world (one unfor­get­table scene has Andreas trying to repeat his subway sui­cide, to no effect), but one without vitality.

Lien has care­fully wrapped his sharp social cri­ti­cism in a witty and at times absurd film that is equal parts horror and sci­ence fic­tion. Forget 28 Weeks Later. These are the scarier zombies.

Note: Film Movement fea­tured this film as their Year 5 Film 3.

Official site for the film

8/10(8/10)

Tagged as: DVD, DVD Clubs, Film Movement, iceland, norway, suicide

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Ironweed Film Club

by James McNally on September 13, 2006

in DVD,DVD Clubs,Film Movement,Ironweed

Ironweed Film Club

While I’m going on about films, I’d be crazy not to men­tion Ironweed Film Club. This is a monthly ser­vice, a bit sim­ilar to Film Movement (except they’ll actu­ally deliver to Canada!), but the films are mostly doc­u­ment­aries with a pro­gressive view­point. The price is US$14.95/month, and all the films I’ve received so far have been excel­lent and thought-provoking. Here are some of the films they’ve fea­tured over the past few months:

The way I dis­covered them was while searching for a DVD of “The Education of Shelby Knox,” an amazing doc­u­mentary I saw at Hot Docs in 2005. Another bonus is that even when some of these films are avail­able on DVD else­where, Ironweed’s are almost always cheaper and often include bonus films.

FULL DISCLOSURE: If you click the Ironweed link above and sign up with them, I get a free month. But my desire to get lots of free months should tell you how much I really value a ser­vice like this. Please sign up!

Tagged as: DVD, DVD Clubs, Film Movement, Ironweed

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