uruguay

Gigante

by James McNally on September 17, 2009 · 1 comment

in DVD Clubs,Film Festivals,Film Movement,TIFF

Gigante

Gigante (Director: Adrián Biniez): Fabian Jara (Horacio Camandule) is the tit­ular giant, working as an overnight security guard at a large gro­cery store in Montevideo. He spends his evening shifts watching security cam­eras of other night employees doing their jobs, including a crew of female cleaners. He gradu­ally comes to fall in love with one, even though he doesn’t know her name. He begins fol­lowing her from afar in the morn­ings, dis­cov­ering her routines. On the week­ends, he works as a bouncer at a nightclub, though he’s far too gentle a giant to really hurt anyone. Although he loves aggressive heavy-metal music, he’s far too shy to actu­ally approach his crush. Instead, his stalker-like beha­viour increases, although each time the film steers toward darker ter­ritory, Jara’s basic decency sur­faces, pre­serving the light tone. Eventually, he dis­covers her name is Julia, and by the end a work-related crisis throws them together at last.

It’s the slightest of premises, basic­ally a “nerd gets the girl” story, but the per­form­ance of Camandule as the inno­cent “Jarita” (as his co-workers jok­ingly call him) is com­pletely endearing. Leonor Svarcas as Julia is just the right com­bin­a­tion of dorky and alluring to be believ­able as a woman Jara believes he might actu­ally have a chance with. The film has the lan­guid pacing and gentle humour that Uruguayan film is becoming known for, and it was a pleasure to recog­nize Juan Andrés Stoll from Hiroshima (review) in a small role. Though it’s not great cinema, this is a per­fect fest­ival film, a crowd-pleasing slice of life that for me per­son­ally was a wel­come res­pite from the steady diet of abusive fam­ilies, sui­cide, dis­ease and obses­sion I’ve been watching so far at this festival.

Here is the Q&A with dir­ector Adrián Biniez from after the screening:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Duration: 24:40

Here’s a clip from the film, which is avail­able now on DVD in the US through the excel­lent Film Movement sub­scrip­tion service:

7/10(7/10)

Tagged as: #tiff09, uruguay

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Hiroshima

by James McNally on September 16, 2009 · 1 comment

in Film Festivals,TIFF

Hiroshima

Hiroshima (Director: Pablo Stoll): Described as a “silent musical”, Hiroshima fol­lows the director’s brother Juan through a typ­ical day. Though not a doc­u­mentary, the film incor­por­ates many doc­u­mentary ele­ments, including the pres­ence of Stoll’s family star­ring as them­selves. Juan doesn’t talk much, but he loves music, and often has his earphones in. The film begins with a remark­able shot, lasting 7 or 8 minutes, fol­lowing Juan home from his night shift job at a bakery.

We soon dis­cover that all the dia­logue in the film is dis­played on inter­title cards, as in old silent films. This makes the com­mu­nic­a­tion between char­ac­ters in the film rudi­mentary at best, so although Juan inter­acts with many friends during the course of the film, very little of what could be called normal con­ver­sa­tion occurs. Instead, we see him riding his bike, smoking a lot of cigar­ettes, and always, always listening to music. The impres­sion the audi­ence might get is that Juan is a typ­ical twenty-something slacker, living with his par­ents and working odd jobs. He passes the time by smoking and playing in a band. After almost an hour of fol­lowing the nearly word­less Juan around, many in the audi­ence became restive, and there were quite a few walkouts.

After spending some time vis­iting friends in the coun­tryside out­side Montevideo, Juan returns to the city just in time for his band’s gig. The film ends with Juan looking dir­ectly into the camera for the first time and singing a song called Hiroshima. It’s the only time we hear his voice, or any adult human voice in the film.

The film is quite tech­nic­ally accom­plished and has a really strong soundtrack of under­ground Uruguayan punk and rock bands. Though I found Juan him­self quite watch­able, I found the lack of a story or any developed char­ac­ters a bit dis­ap­pointing. It was only during the director’s Q&A that we learn more about the cir­cum­stances behind the film. Pablo Stoll’s brother Juan really is as uncom­mu­nic­ative as he is in the film. I sus­pect he may have some form of Asperger’s Syndrome, since he appears only to be able to com­mu­nicate through or about music. Pablo said he made the film mainly as a way to encourage his brother to be more a part of the world, since he has a tend­ency to with­draw. Though I found this touching, I think if he’d been able to com­mu­nicate a bit more of that to the audi­ence, the film would be stronger. As it is, I’m sure this very per­sonal film has ful­filled all the goals Stoll had for it. I’m just not sure it will have any com­mer­cial potential.

Here is the Q&A with dir­ector Pablo Stoll from after the screening:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Duration: 14:00

6/10(6/10)

Tagged as: #tiff09, uruguay

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TIFF 2009: Preliminaries, Part 3

by James McNally on August 26, 2009

in Film Festivals,TIFF

Today the full schedule was announced and I picked up my TIFF pro­gramme book. There are way more films than I’ll be able to see, but here are a few more that I’m hoping not to miss:

Mr. Nobody

Mr. Nobody (Director: Jaco van Dormael): No recently announced film had me more excited than this one. Jaco van Dormael dir­ected the incred­ible Toto le héros (1991) but has taken a very long sab­bat­ical from film­making. This film, his first in 13 years, seems remin­is­cent of Toto, which makes me very happy indeed. Jared Leto plays Nemo, at 120 the oldest living man in the year 2092. He’s also the last mortal, since advances in stem-cell tech­no­logy means nobody has to die any­more. But Nemo is dying, and coming to terms with a life­time of memories, not all of which can be real. Or can they?

Official site of the film (French)

***

Dogtooth (Kynodontas)

Dogtooth (Kynodontas) (Director: Giorgos Lanthimos): A family where the teen­aged chil­dren are not allowed to leave the house, are taught the wrong words for everything, and are sexu­ally “relieved” occa­sion­ally by one of their father’s employees? This sounds like a social exper­i­ment gone wild, and the reviews from Cannes were puzzled but pos­itive. It’s some kind of satire, prob­ably about the fear of sex as a corrupting/liberating force, but the stills I’ve seen (and that poster!) have me curious just to look at it. Note: The embedded trailer below is not work-safe. There is some brief nudity.

***

Hiroshima

Hiroshima (Director: Pablo Stoll): From the co-director of Whisky (2004) comes a “(mostly) silent musical” about the director’s brother Juan, who is unable to com­mu­nicate except through his music. As lead singer of a band, Juan has oppor­tun­ities to express him­self, but without music, finds him­self cut off from the world and people around him. This prom­ises to be quite moving, since Stoll’s long­time co-director Juan Pablo Rebello took his own life in 2006 and the film is being talked about as a tribute of sorts to him. The descrip­tion doesn’t quite make clear whether Juan Stoll is acting or just playing him­self, which adds another layer of poignancy to the story.

Tagged as: #tiff09, belgium, greece, uruguay

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TIFF 2009: Preliminaries, Part 2

by James McNally on August 10, 2009

in Film Festivals,TIFF

Here’s my next batch of TIFF hope­fuls. I’ll be nar­rowing it all down to some­where around ten films in total, but this at least reminds me what films are on my radar for follow-up should I not be able to see them all (and who could?):

Air Doll (Kûki ningyô)

Air Doll (Kûki ningyô) (Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda): Kore-eda is well-known as the dir­ector of pre­vious TIFF standouts like Still Walking (2008) and Nobody Knows (2004), but to be honest, it’s Korean act­ress Bae Doo-na that makes me want to see this. I’ve loved her work in films like Linda Linda Linda (review) and The Host (review). The pairing of dir­ector and act­ress is prom­ising enough on its own, but the story, about a “love doll” who comes to life, makes this one irresistible.

Official site of the film (Japanese)

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Gigante

Gigante (Director: Adrian Biniez): I admit that I have a soft spot for small, often-overlooked coun­tries. My wife and I vis­ited Uruguay in 2005 and were cap­tiv­ated by its charm. As a small country between two powerful neigh­bours (Brazil and Argentina), Uruguay has developed an inter­esting sense of humour that reminds me very much of our Canadian one. Gigante is a love story about a store security guard who falls in love with a cleaning lady via security camera.

Note: Continuing their win­ning run lately, US distributor/film club Film Movement have already picked this up for American dis­tri­bu­tion.

***

Police, Adjective

Police, Adjective (Director: Corneliu Poromboiu): From the dir­ector of 12:08 East of Bucharest, this one looks to be a talky med­it­a­tion on the law. A policeman refuses to arrest a young man for offering drugs to his friends, and becomes embroiled in a struggle with his superior over the meaning of words such as “con­science,” “law,” and “moral.” Sounds a bit dull on paper but has the poten­tial for some intel­lec­tu­ally stim­u­lating humour. (The embedded trailer below isn’t sub­titled, so it’s hard to know, but the reviews from Cannes have been good.)

Tagged as: #tiff09, japan, romania, uruguay

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