Stalker

Tarkovsky's Stalker may have been based on Arkady & Boris Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic, or on part of it. However, it is not a cinematic adaptation of it. 

Fellini's Amarcord

The marionette like blind accordion player, providing the score for the comedy and tragedy of life in a coastal town in pre-war Italy is, perhaps, one of the most enduring images coming out of Fellini's imagination, an image that lingers in the mind, appearing in my conciousness on the most unexpected moments. Re-watching Amarcord brought that character solidly to the front of my mind, again. 

Fellini, to my mind, had this uncanny skill to mould real people, actors, into a world created out of his imagination, a world where reality and fiction are just one seamless reality, where reality becomes fiction, and fiction reality. The world he creates, or re-creates (does it matter?), in this film falls clearly into this category. 

Even the fascists are portrayed as figures of parody, terrifying, yes, but still parody, like the battle that a fascist uniformed gang had with a gramophone playing the International on the church tower during a visit from a regime dignitary, and the subsequent portrayal of the wheelchair bound fascistic commander, overlooking the comedy like interrogation of the lone socialist in the town. Yet, Fellini's gaze is always humane. 

His films just linger in the mind, even after many years after watching them, the atmospheric scores by Nino Rota being essential ingredients.

Just some thoughts. Many words have been written about his cinema. 

Amarcord at IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071129/

Revisiting David Lynch's TWIN PEAKS

One of the rewards of a spring clean up is re-finding old pearls, such as David Lynch's Twin Peaks, a VHS video tape that seems to be a condensed version of Fire Walk With me:

I just love the creamy soft, painting like, nature of not only Lynch film, but also of the medium, such a rest in this age of 4K video. Still very impressed with the dark unsaturated browns of the colour palette, depicting so well the dreams and nightmares underlying those white fences and well equipped kitchens of American suburbia, the exclamations of fascination by urbanite FBI Special Agent Cooper with those forests, with those majestic Douglas fir trees, adding to a feel of a disjointed place. An exploration of so much of Lynch work, with Fellini likes undertones, such as the dwarf dance.

Laura Palmer, a 17 year old Twin Peaks belle, is found murdered, naked, wrapped in a sheet of plastic. 

Laura Palmer, straights As in every subject, top of her class, the face of the year, the Homecoming Queen, her father being a trusted lieutenant of the local big wig, hints of a feudal like social structure in here, too. of A picture of achievement in every way.

Laura Palmer. Twelve year old girl writing in her brand new diary the dark feelings populating her subconscious, eventually taking hold of her life.

Laura Palmer. 13 year old cocaine addict, who fucks everybody to pay for her habit, including her father's employer.

Laura Palmer. 13 year old star of orgies held in the midst of those forests that fascinated agent Cooper so much.

Laura and Bobbie. Voted as Best Couple by their High School.

Laura Palmer. HHomecoming Queen.

Laura Palmer. 15 year old prostitute.

Laura Palmer. 16 year old beautiful daughter, pride of her parents.

Laura Palmer. 17 year old corpse.

The film hints at the darkness of her story, at the darkness of this small town near the border with Canada. The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, As seen by Jennifer Lynch, is much more explicit of her story. 

David Lynch, a worth exponent of American Gothic in cinema.

Reflections on John Maloof's FINDING VIVIAN MAIER

Spy, nanny, photographer. A John Le Carré thriller? 

"Who are you?"

"I am a spy", was Vivian Maier response, according to a man, a linguist, who knew her, as reported in John Maloof's cinematic quest of the person behind the myth, behind the urban legend that she has become. 

Not long ago, a fellow photographer whom I had not seen for about twenty years, we paced the streets of Hull, sometimes together, during the late 1970s, came to me with

"Vivian Maier was like one of us",

the implication being that we have still to be discovered. I suspect that he is not the only one thinking that. Perhaps that is one of the factors fuelling her popularity. Yet, was she? This man, now retired, was an outreach and lecturer in photography, while I am an amateur with some local notoriety, with a couple of solo and several group and open exhibitions behind me. On our age there is the web, with that myriad of blogs, sites, dedicated to street photography. My eyebrows were raised. 

Maloof's film  is as much as about our reactions to her photography as it is about her, the initial scenes with the camera panning from blank face to blank face, people who mostly knew her as a nanny, or a woman who rented her storage space, getting a V Smith when she pressed her for a name.

Ha.

The linguist did not understand, and looks like that he still cannot understand, why she called herself a spy. Maloof does not elaborate in the subject, perhaps because of his desire to present facts as he managed to uncover, and see, them, letting us to interpret, and judge. Yet she, to my eyes, said as it is. Aren't we, strange creatures trawling the streets day after day with a camera in one hand, a thick skin on the other, spies of our humanity, of our, using that well known expression, human condition?

"A nanny! What is a nanny doing  taking photographs?", was another common response of those interviewed. As if photographers take photographs, nannies take care of children, photographers do not take care of children, nannies do not take photographs, a box like mindset that characterises our increasingly specialized societies. The responses of the cultural establishment approached, such as MoMA and Tate Modern, falls in a similar slot. There is a too mummified view of culture, of the arts, too often. All this continuing debate about is photography an art form, what defines a street photograph, who cares about it? I do not. 

Yet, her work has become a favourite of not only so many fellow photographers, but of the public too. Is that because we see her as seeing the world as we do, from down the excitement, the comedy and tragedy, and, sometimes, the dangers, of the pavement, and not from a pedestal, that pedestal promoted by the art galleries? Matthew D'Ancona, on a completely different subject, mentions in an article for The Guardian that we, human beings, are complex creatures with often contradictory, and conflicting, thoughts, feelings, emotions. Does not her photography reveals that complexity, as the work of so many so called street photographers do? I had had comments on a similar vein about my own work. People such as her went out and made an image of the world as she saw it, as she understood it, as she felt about it. Naive she was not, living in Chicago, or New York, access to galleries, to contemporary photography, was always at her reach. Her mother had a camera, too. She explored under the skin of the world outside, and around, her. 

One of the photographs that Maloof dug out of her as a child lingers, still, on my mind, a child with inquisitive eyes, unflinching in her directness to the camera, to the person behind it, as if she wanted to be that person. It reminds me of my own initial interest in photography, back in the 1970s, not of my fatigued feel of four decades later, of my desire to penetrate under the skin of a society, of lives, of people, who were alien to me, who are still alien to me, who always will be alien to me, yet I still continue in my quest. Is it not what photography, street and documentary photography, is about? 

The picture of Vivian Maier that Maloof paints to us is that of a complex human being, with conflicting emotions, with a compassionate and non judgemental eye, yet with a dark side, a lone person, the daughter of French immigrants (at least, her mother was), who, probably, suffered a traumatic experience in her youth that marked her outlook and mindset, who was not interested in the drapes of success, who looked down on her employers, yet who yearned for some kind of recognition, of acceptance, in spite that she just did not fit in it, as one of her former employers brutally mentioned. A person who had the freedom of an outsider, without the ties and prescribed behavioural, social and cultural moulds of those inside a culture, a society, a person who basked in that position. Her photography has a kind of longing feel, a desire to be in, and out, of what she was photographing. That is what makes it be so endearing for me. 

She was, more or less, of my mother age. The world she portrays has so many similarities with my own family photo albums, to even my own experiences as a kid. 

Why I stopped writing this blog?

Two years ago I just stopped writing on this blog. The trigger was Google's decision to put all their services under one roof, the common factor being Google+. The consequence of that was that images I had posted here, with permission from film studios and distributors, in some cases with the specific request that they should be posted only on this blog, and nowhere else, were showing in my Google+ account under Photos. In one swap, Google put me in breach of copyright. Thanks you very much.

In anger, I just stopped carrying on with the blog.

However, Google's action was the trigger, not the actual reason, or reasons, to stop writing. Not long before that, I already had stopped posting the weekly what's on in British cinemas, as I had been doing since 2009, when Cinema-Architecture was started. I was just tired of spending a good deal of a day, or so, gathering information about the latest releases, some of the distributors' websites are just hopeless, about films, many of which I had not the slightest interest in them. In a way that heralded the end of the blog as it has been conceived: as a mouthpiece to show case the kind of cinema disregarded by the film studios, distributors, and chains, although in hindsight, it was not in the cards then,

I tried to make Cinema-Architecture to be as inclusive as possible in the world of arthouse and world cinema, yet I was receiving little support from many of the independent distributors whom, for understandable reasons, were more interested in well established media and blogs. That was the conundrum. I did not even get the support of the still existing Hull Short Film Festival. I was also involved in a support group for Hull Screen, then this city only independent cinema showing non-mainstream films. In spite of our efforts, audiences continued to dwindle. Talking to people, they seemed to have quite a narrow view of  arthouse cinema, not daring to go out of their comfort  zone. I also had the bitter experience of my views being disregarded (not so much by the support group committee, I hastily add) too often by members of the audience on post performance conversations, the unsaid feel of their belief as myself being quite ignorant, as I am not British.

I was also becoming disillusioned with the kind of films I was supposed to review, mostly Asian comedies and blockbusters, ie, Hollywood mainstream cinema being replaced by Asian ones. One of the Asian distributors stopped sending review DVDs, wanting me to increase my costs by incurring in a heavy use of my broadband connection.

In short, I did not gain enough support from non mainstream film makers and distributors, and plain disillusionment of their output.

I confess that...

I have been out of cinema for nearly two years. As I am closing my hosting space in a couple of months, or so, meaning that the http://framecinema.org.uk/ will disappear (I never really did any new work on it), I decided to revive this blog. Yesterday I spent many hours reformatting and cleaning it out.

However, its nature will change. I no longer intend to conduct regular reviews of new films, either on the silver screen, or DVD format, but I will write about what I gain, what I get out, of a film. I will be revisiting many arthouse and world classic movies, to my eyes. I shortly will be writing some notes on Kieślowski's Ten Commandments, filmed for Polish television in the late 1980s.

I will no longer be posting announcements for the screening of films, either here in Hull, or elsewhere, as I used to do with the old version of it.

Petty Romance reviewed

Kim Jeong-hoon's debut feauture, Petty Romance, is said to be one of South Korea's box office smash hits, and I can understand why this was the case, as it does not only warms the heart, but also increases paper handkerchiefs manufacturers' profits.

The film is a light comedy, its rather mundane story line of boy meets girl, they pretend they do not like each other, when they do, with the expected tear jerking closure, is raised by the quality of its acting, and the integration of Seok Jeong-hyeon's adult Korean comic book style illustrations, used to express the inner thoughts and feelings of the protagonists. Jung-bae (Lee Sun-Kyun), a talented but rather unsuccessful cartoonist, a brilliant illustrator, but not so good at story telling, hires Da-rim (Choi Kang-hee), a cirpy sex columnist who have just been fired from her magazine, to see if he can have a chance of winning a multinational adult cartoon contest. Da-rim's exuberant imagination makes up for her total lack of experience on sex and love, a galore of comical scenes follows, and hinting at the role laying we do every day to get on in life.

The story goes through the usual “will they?”, with the expected highs and lows of their relationship, contained jealously of their lives outside the times they spend together. However, this mundanity is raised by the illustrations interlaced into the plot, produced, and imagined, by both of them, as the comic book gets written.

A heart warming and enjoyable comedy that lays open to our prying eyes the process of producing an adult Manwha, a Korean comic book.

Petty Romance DVD is out for sale in Britain under the Terracotta Distribution label.

A SEX COLUMNIST AND A COMIC BOOK ARTIST TEAM UP TO CREATE THE ULTIMATE FEMALE ACTION MANGA HERO.


Starring: Lee Sun-kyun (Oki's Movie, Paju, Night and Day, Coffee Prince), Choi Kang-hee (My Scary Girl, Whispering Corridors), Oh Jung-se, Ryu Hyun-kyung
Korea / 2010 / 118 Mins / In Korean with English subtitles

One of South Korea’s biggest box office smashes, first-time director Kim Joung-hoon’s PETTY ROMANCE comes to UK on DVD 8th October 2012

Spectacular action and sizzling love scenes from the couple’s imagination were given life through the hand of award winning illustrator Seok Jeong-hyeon.
The movie captures the process of adult animation production and director Kim Jeong-hoon uses a great technique of mixing feature film and adult Manwha (Korean comic books) for erotic & fighting segments when the couple’s inner thoughts come alive into action.

Synopsis
An adult cartoon contest is announced offering a $100,000 prize. Talented cartoonist Jung-bae (Lee Sun-Kyun) is constantly turned down by publishing companies because of his poor story lines. To raise his chances of winning, he hires a sex advice columnist, Da-rim (Choi Kang-hee), a self-claimed expert on relationship and love-making with big imagination and zero experience. For the cartoon competition, Da-rim comes up with the idea of a female assassin, Ma Mi-so, who keeps her male victims captive for erotic kicks.
The two, who seemed perfectly matched, team up for the lucrative prize, bringing out their respective wildest fantasies. Trouble is set to brew: will they be able to complete the task and win the competition?…
Live action interspersed with erotic and action manga scenes.

DVD Special Features
Making of
Interview of lead actor and actress
Korean Teaser Trailer
Stills Gallery

Comedy, 2010
Certificate 15
Country: South Korea.
Language: Korean with English subtitles.
Running time: 118 min

Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, reviewed

What I remembered of Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo: The Iron Man, when I first saw it in the big screen sometime during the 1980s, was the frenzied and high contrast imagery, rather than the story itself, rather minimalist: a man, a lowly pawn in the economic and social order in post-war Japan, becomes an iron cyborg, the voyeuristic camera gazing at his despair as the transformation of his body takes place. A kind of alchemist transmutation of lowly, rusting, and discarded iron, into something else, into a kind of cyber cyclop, a process being guided by an iron fetishist he ran over when going out for a ride with his girlfriend, on what was termed, at the time, cyber-punk.

Undoubtedly, the anarchist anti-establishment ethos of the film, reflected on the visual craziness, is akin to punk in its frenzied imagery, dislocated juxtapositions of extremely short abstract takes piled one of top of the previous one, merging into each other at other times, a frenetic clash of human flesh and scrap metal, the opening scene being dramatically brutal, scenes populated by cyber zombies, a recurrent image of transmuting iron worms acting as a kind of leitmotif across both films being particularly effective in portraying the sensual nature of decaying scrap metal, made alive by this process of transformation. The soundtrack is also rather memorable, adding to this feeling of brutaleroticism with its torrent of industrial sequence of sounds, punctuating the torrent of images invading our eyes.

The fact that it was shot on black and white 16 mm film stock on a low budget, as an afterthought , following the success of an underground theatrical performance, also written and directed by Shinya Tsukamoto, adds to the aura of transgression surrounding it, which made Tetsuo: The Iron Man a cult film residing in the outer regions of cinema, hence this release on DVD and Blu-ray formats under the third window films label, together with Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (which is not, really, its sequel, but a different treatment of the subject), a digitization process done under the careful eyes of Shinya Tsukamoto. While on the interview contained in this release, Tsukamoto does not confronts the political undertones of Tetsuo, implicit in the label of punk, he does, indirectly, refers to it, as he repeatedly mentions of his work at the time in an ads agency, and the nature of the first appearance of Tetsuo as an underground play.

What most impressed me of both films, but particularly on The Iron Man, is the beast-like baroque sensuality and eroticism imbued in this aesthetic of scrap metal and raw flesh, allusions to rusting iron hinting at not only the hardness of a male industrial fetishism, a kind of cyber-porn rather than cyber-punk, the scene of the drilling iron penis sported by the “salaried” man, aimed at his spooked girlfriend, is probably one of the most memorable sequences in cinema in its horrendously erotic bestial beauty, a metaphor for the inner brutality of a certain kind of male psyche; but also to the industrial decay of abandoned warehouses and factories, dark, scary underpasses, the harsh environments of urban railways, and roof tops of faceless skyscrapers (in Body Hammer) that store the countless pawns that make a contemporary industrial society tick.

By acts of obsessed will, on both films, the scrap iron littering this decaying landscape is slowly transformed into cybernetic cyclops, encompassing and absorbing several individuals (particularly in Body Hammer), massive and near pornographic cyborgs in their aggressive maleness, bent on taking on the world, cyborgs of apocalypse unleashed onto the quiet streets of suburbia, and onto the greyness of industry.

Women's roles on both films are subservient to the brutal aggressive and predatory maleness of their partners, of which they are not aware until it is too late to step back, a situation savagely alluded in the scene of the exploding child on a roof top in Body Hammer. In this sense, women prove to be incapable of arresting this transformation of their partners, fuelled by a visceral will of destruction and revenge.

This will is the trait that unify both films. It does not matter if they succeed, what is important is that process of transmuting the materials that litter the edges of a contemporary industrial society, either rusting iron, or lowly cannon fodder, men and women that no one sees, into a powerful force that challenges that society, that established order.

The bestial beauty of destruction...

And, perhaps, of creation...

Both Tetsuo films are part of a tradition of horror/science fiction genre, although with a rather raw DIY quality, acquiring a kind of visceral realism, which differs from the more polished mainstream cinema offerings. I found The Iron Man, the original Tetsuo film, to be the strongest one of the two, precisely because its story line is bare, having been reduced to its essential core. Body Hammer makes too many nods to mainstream cinema in its plot, such as the mad scientist, the criminal underground organization, the gangster-like characters, and the flashbacks to childhood traumas. Déjà vu. I presume the introduction of these elements was to make Tetsuo II a better box office proposition.

Cyber -punk, or cyber-porn, transgressive, and ultimately subversive, both Tetsuo became cult films, yet neutralized by mainstream culture by the act of pushing them into that box.

Tetsuo: Thee Iron Man / Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, are out in a 2 disc DVD and Blu-ray sets in Britain, under the third window films label.

TETSUO: THE IRON MAN
TETSUO II: BODY HAMMER
(cert 18)

A film by Shinya Tsukamoto (Kotoko, Snake of June, Vital)
 

Two of the most talked-about Japanese cult films of all time makes their way onto a double-disc blu-ray set for the first time in the world with a brand new high definition transfer supervised by Shinya Tsukamoto!

This 2 disc blu-ray and DVD set will include a brand new exclusive interview with Shinya Tsukamoto as well as the first English-subtitled release in the world of his 45 minute pre-Tetsuo student film ‘The Adventures of Electric Rod Boy’ which has also been remastered

The release will feature both a slipcase as well as a reversible sleeve so fans can choose whether they’d rather have an image from Tetsuo I or II on the front of their box.

Tetsuo: The Iron Man - Japan / 1989 / 67 Mins / In Japanese with English subtitles / B&W / 16mm

Tetsuo II: Body Hammer – Japan / 1992 / 83 minutes / In Japanese with English subtitles / Colour / 16mm

DVD/BLU-RAY Special Features:

New High Definition Transfer supervised by Shinya Tsukamoto
Exclusive interview with Shinya Tsukamoto
'The Adventures of Electric Rod Boy' - Shinya Tsukamoto's early film
New UK Trailer
Japanese Theatrical Trailers for both Tetsuo I & II

CORPO CELESTE reviewed

Such a pleasure to watch the intelligent, inquisitive, yet restless, Marta, as her gaze takes in the sights, the sounds, the smells, of her new city, her new reality, and attempts not only to comprehend it, but also, more importantly, to carve her own space within it, to sculpt her own identity by doing so.

Marta (Yle Vianello, such a beautiful name), a 13 year old who has grown up in Switzerland, has recently moved to deeply Catholic and conservative Southern Italy (the film was shot in Reggio di Calabria) with her mother and older sister, Rosa. Alice Rohrwacher, director and writer, in this stunning debut feature film, casts a non judgemental eye, and her lens, not only on a young girl's desire to mould herself within this new reality, within this new community, she feels like an outsider, and is constantly reminder of it by Santa, the priest's assistant, who runs the catechism classes she has to assist in order to undergo the Catholic ceremony of the confirmation; but also on her curiosity on her own growing body, as we see her contemplating in a mirror her burgeoning breasts, then for her to appropriate, and wear, her older sister's bra.

The moment where she finds out that she had had her first period, in a restaurant up the mountains having a snack with the priest, Don Mario (Salvatore Cantalupo), is set by Alice Rohrwacher as a matter-of-fact attitude by Marta, part of her process of growing up, of understanding of her reality, of her being. Her subsequent meeting with the old priest in a disused church located in a deserted village up the Calabrian mountains, paradoxically, by unsettling the view of Catholic doctrine as is being imparted on her, leads her to the independent path she is to follow to carve her identity.

The scene where she asks the meaning of the ritual words she has to repeat during the Confirmation ceremony in the catechism class, just to be sharply rebutted by Santa, resonated deeply in me, as it reminded of a experience I had some 40 years ago, in a completely different context, I had when I asked my Mathematics teacher ( I still remember his name) about the meaning of an equation. His rebuttal led me to completely abandon Maths at school, in spite of having been quite good at it. Somewhat, watching this scene, I understood Marta starting to recoil from her Catholicism, or, rather, from this deeply conservative vision of it that her community has, and tries to make her to sign to. Alice Rohrwacher's camera constantly reminds us of this traditional attitude, as when Marta watches from a rooftop a group of old women singing a religious song in a courtyard, or the initial scene, shot in the night, contrasting a pilgrimage against the secular background of passing trains, and the greyness of that no-man land found in our cities between railway lines, motorways, as dawn breaks-in.

The sad episode of the kittens does not only contributes to her increasing independence of her own self, but also exposes the unwitting double standards, perhaps even hypocrisy, of the Catholicism of the local community, when Marta, and her fellow classmates, enjoy themselves with the kittens they found in the store room of the church, just to be sharply rebutted, yet again, by a disgusted Santa, who gets the janitor to “take care” of the kittens. Marta, in despair, follows him, and watches as he beats the plastic bag where the tiny creatures are on the road, before throwing it into the river. After her attempts to save them fails, Marta is found wandering on the autostrada by Don Mario, the priest, who takes her to a political meeting. to which she wanders in, when she was not suppose to do, before climbing the mountains in search of a crucifix in that abandoned church, a crucifix he needs to make the Confirmation ceremony special, in an attempt to arrest the continuous decline of his church, perhaps giving him enough kudos to get a transfer by the bishop to a bigger parish. As Don Mario tells Marta, being a priest is also a job, what you do can make, or break, your career path.

The Italy of Corpo Celeste is not that of postcards, or the tourist office advertising boards, what Alice Rohrwacher constantly shows us is a ravaged landscape which has been altered, used, abused, and even abandoned, as Marta's and Don Mario's personal pilgrimage to that abandoned village in the mountains shows, and leading to epiphany for both of them.

I have read elsewhere users comments, where the tone is: “Who cares about the state of the Catholic Church?” Perhaps it may be so, particularly for British, or American audiences. However, I feel that Alice Rohrwacher may have not made Corpo Celeste for those audiences, in spite of having been distributed both in Britain and in the Sates. Hollywood studio cinema, to which we are getting more and more used due to their relentless marketing campaigns, is, mostly, designed as commercial products to satisfy the craving for entertainment of global audiences. Corpo Celeste belongs to another kind of cinema, a cinema that looks into the dynamic of small communities, of small lives, into their humanity.

Corpo Celeste is not only about the tribulations of a girl growing up, or about the state of the Catholic Church as seen in the context of a small community, but, fundamentally, casts an eye on a sense of identity in a world which is constantly evolving.

Corpo Celeste is released by Artificial Eye in the UK on DVD & Blu-ray on 10 September 2012.

Set deep in the south of Italy, Corpo Celeste is the story of 13 year old Marta who is struggling to resettle after ten years growing up in Switzerland. Bright-eyed and restless, she observes the sights, sounds and smells of the city but feels very much an outsider.

Marta is about to undergo the rite of confirmation. In the convention of the Catholic Church she takes catechism but confronts the morality of the local Catholic community. A series of subtle moments trace her journey as she connects and conflicts with her mother, sister and the Sunday school teacher Santa. From experiencing her period to making a bold decision to cut her hair, Marta begins to shape her own life for the first time since moving back to Italy.

Corpo Celeste heralds the arrival of a young and distinctive voice. Alice Rohrwacher’s writing and directing debut is a sensitive unveiling of the moral and religious layers that can smother adolescence.

EXTRA FEATURES:

Interview with the director Alice Rohrwacher

The Monk reviewed

Dominick Moll's The Monk follows the rise and downfall of Father Ambrosio (Vincent Cassel), a Capucin friar who was raised, and have lived all his life, within the walls of a monastery located just outside 17^th Century Madrid.

The film begins with a voice over a dark night scene, describing how Ambrosio came to the monastery, a baby dumped on its main doors after the servant carrying the tiny bundle that stormy night refused to dump him into the river, as evidently his instructions were, when lighting revealed a figure of the Virgin Mary, as if she was watching him, a kind of ancient Big Sister, or so he felt. Remember, what we are talking about here is deep Catholic Spain, centuries ago.

As the years pass away, Ambrosio's fame as a passionate, fiery and uncompromising preacher grows, the church overflowing with parishioners during his sermons, to the point that at least one of them, a young woman, Antonia (Joséphine Japy), faints the first time she heard him preaching. Obviously, this is the 17^th century equivalent of a modern day rock star, all that adulation...

But the monk is a preacher who lacks the compassion of those who have lived.

A key scene is when Ambrosio heards the confession of an inveterate sinner, and now pedophile (Sergi López), who describes the debauchery of his niece in great detail, whom he felt as if she were her own daughter, a confession which almost felt as if he was taunting the priest, perhaps trying to tempt him to go astray too. This character reappears at the end of the film, in different circumstances and guise, closing the story. About this time, Ambrosio tells Father Miguel (Jordi Dauder), his mentor and the friar who picked him up as a baby from the threshold of the monastery all those years ago, of a recurrent dream he has been having, a dream in which he sees a young woman clad in a red cloak, praying in front of the church, a woman whom he doesn't see her face, and whom he cannot touch.

Another key scene is where Ambrosio confesses a young novice, Sister Agnès (Roxana Duran), a confession that led to her death in the most horrendous circumstances at the hand of the Mother Superior (Geraldine Chaplin makes an appearance here). The same Mother Superior whom we see sternly humping the ground as she marches at the head of her covered novices during a procession of the Virgin Mary, a procession used by Ambrosio as cover to commit the deed that leads to his downfall, and punishment at the hands of the Inquisition, presumably. A deed like the one he himself sent Sister Agnès to her death.

The monk's fame also attracts a mysterious novice, Valerio (Déborah François), to the monastery. A novice who turns to be someone other than what he pretended to be, becoming the tool that led to his downfall, paradoxically after saving his life. Did Valerio do what he did unwittingly?

Meanwhile, Ambrosio grows increasingly obsessed with Antonia, the nature of their real relationship, and the horror that follows, not revealed until the very end, in an scene that ties together all the loose strings.

The Monk brilliantly conveys not only the febrile religiosity of a deeply flawed friar high on rhetoric, and short on compassion, but also the contradictions between an oppressive Catholic Church and the zest for life of the population in 17^th Century Spain.

However, I felt that The Monk hovered indecisively between being a horror film, and one exploring the nature, and the excesses, of extreme religious fervour, as the episode with the myrtle branch, itself an ancient emblem of love, indicates.

The Monk is released in the UK by Metrodome Distribution on 20^th August 2012

Certificate 15 / 101 Minutes

Directed by Dominik Moll (Lemming / Harry He’s Here To Help), THE MONK is a sumptuous adaptation of the eponymous cult classic Gothic novel which follows the rise and fall of a Capuchin Monk in 17th century Madrid.

Abandoned as a baby on the steps of a monastery and raised in strict Capuchin fashion, Ambrosio has become the most famous preacher in the country.

While large crowds from all over the country come to hear his mesmerizing sermons, he’s also bitterly envied for his success by certain fellow monks.

Convinced of his virtue and righteousness, Brother Ambrosio thinks he is immune to temptation until obscure events start terrorizing the monastery.

Could they be connected to the unexpected arrival of Valerio, an apprentice monk who has the miraculous gift to relieve Ambrosio’s splitting headaches and hides his disfigured face under a wax mask?

Starring Vincent Cassel ( Eastern Promises, Mesrine & Black Swan) Déborah François ( L’Enfant, The Page Turner) Sergi López ( Pan’s Labyrinth, Harry He’s Here to Help & Dirty Pretty Things) and Geraldine Chaplin ( Talk to Her, Doctor Zhivago & The Orphanage)

Silent Souls, a meditation on tradition and modernity

The burial of Tanya (Yuliya Aug), the beloved wife of Miron (Yuriy Tsurilo), according to the ancient traditions of the Merya people, gave director Aleksei Fedorchenko, and writer Denis Osokin, the vehicle to produce this visually stunning film, a cinematic poem not only about life and death, but also about the asphyxiating space left for the traditions, rites, ways of life of minorities, such as the Merya people, to culturally survive in the increasingly corporate and globalized space of contemporary life.

Miron, the manager of a rather dilapidated paper mill on post Soviet Union Russia, and Aist (Igor Sergeev), a forty something bachelor, who works as a photographer in the mill, embark on a long road journey for the cremation of Tanya's body, and the burial of her ashes, on the flowing waters of the river, according to their tradition. At one moment, during their travels, we see them wandering through the “stacked to the roof” aisles of a large supermarket in a provincial town, marvelling, to some extent, at the wide variety of goods, toying with some plastic toys. I could not stop having a feeling of nostalgia when I was watching this scene. I decry the increasingly cultural homogeneity and conformity resulting from the advance of modern capitalism.

Silent Souls is more than just a road film, it is a journey as much through a cultural landscape, through a landscape of the mind, as through a physical space. Miron finds out, as he “smokes”, in this road trip with Aist, much more about Tanya than he knew at first. “Smoking” is being defined in the film as a practice of the Merya, where they narrates intimate details of their conjugal relations after the spouse has died, if their interlocutor agrees. I am not sure if “smoking” is the right translation of the Merya word.

Visually, the stunning footage of the camera focussing on Aist's bicycle as he pedals home with the two birds he had just bought, tells us from the very beginning the nature of Silent Souls, not only a journey through the interstices of contemporary Russia, but a cinematic ode to the desire to escape from that confinement, from our confinement, in fact. Indeed, from this point of view, the sexual encounter between Miron and Aist with the two women after the burial is not only a song to life, but also a song to freedom, to be away from the sadness of death, from the ties of life. On this sense, the escape of the two buntings that Aist bought from a rather taciturn street seller, at the beginning of their journey, become inexorably linked to the escape of both Miron and Aist at the end of their road trip, as they return to the river.

What initially began as a journey initiated by Miron to honour his wife in death, as he did in life, through his “smoking” it also becomes Aist's journey, as it became clear that he was not only in love with Tanya, too, but he also brings up his own remembrances of his parents, the ridicule that his father, a poet in the Merya language, suffered. A scene comes up of Aist, as a child, helping his father to bury a typewriter in the river. Then, their encounter with the two women becomes an act of liberation for both of them, as it was their final act, when they return to the river, where a typewriter is waiting for Aist, while Tanya awaits Miron.

Orlando reviewed

Tilda Swinton's performance, in its nuanced directness, was central for Sally Potter to realize her vision, her interpretation, of Virginia Woolf's novel into cinema.

In this masterly classic of British cinema, Tilda Swinton plays the four hundred year old, or so, Orlando. By the end of the story, she has become free of all the encumbrances of gender, class, property, history, particularly depicted in that scene when she returns, with her young daughter, riding a motorcycle with a sidecar, to their ancestral stately home, a rather palatial residence by the Thames, serenely mingling, and watching, the usual throng of tourists, no-one commenting, or even seeing, the uncanny resemblance of the woman standing beside them with the portrait of her as young Orlando on the wall, a painting of her when she was still a young man in the 17^th century. As the character says, talking to us, the viewers: “Same person, different sex. That's all”.

By returning to the nest where her (his) career began, she is now free to fly out of that nest, which is, ultimately, a nest of vipers. Illuminating is the scene where, having recently become a woman, she endures the disdain of a gathering of enlightened 18^th century poets, including Alexander Pope, who all conclude that a woman needs the guiding hand of a father, or a husband, all questioning her presence in the salon on her own.

In Sally Potter's interpretation of the central character of the novel, the film opens with young Orlando reading, and writing poetry under an oak tree, preparing himself to the forthcoming visit of the old Queen Elizabeth I (sublimely portrayed by Quentin Crisp). After, briefly, becoming her lover, the Queen grants Orlando the deeds of the ancestral stately home, on one condition: that he shall not grow old. This is how we get to see him, now a woman, on the same field in the closing scene, daydreaming under that same oak tree, her daughter running around, a video camera replacing the quill that the younger Orlando used to write his poem The Oak Tree, all those centuries past, and recently accepted by a rather obnoxious publisher (upon rewriting it, of course), whilst an angel (Jimmy Sommerville) appears floating above the trees (we see, in the features section of the Blu-ray disc, how this was achieved), falsetto singing, the future shining for them as a tear slowly runs down her face.

She no longer looks directly at the camera, confiding in us, the audience, as she did in the opening scene. There no longer need for that.

The episode where Orlando fells madly in love with Princess Sasha (Charlotte Valandrey), the daughter of the Russian Ambassador (Viktor Stepanov), during the great frost of the beginning of the 18^th century (these scenes were filmed in Russia), much to the chagrin of the aristocratic young lady to whom he is betrothed. This scene sets the pace and the mood for the rest of the story, as we see over and over Orlando defying the social conventions of the time as she follows her own path, her own heart.

The other scene that Sally Potter sets up to show Orlando's nature is when we see him worrying for the fate of a rebel attacking the city in Central Asia, where he has been posted as an ambassador by the king (while in the novel this city is indicated as being Constantinople, in the film the actual location is not specified), taking no notice when he is told that it does not matter, that the fallen soldier is not a man, but the enemy.

Further adventures follow, where, Orlando, becoming a woman after a long sleep, returns to England, taking hold of her ancestral home, and its delights, until it is finally taken away from her as she is legally dead, and, on top of that, by being a woman, she can no longer hold the deeds of the property.

Upon meeting the loquacious and idealist Shelmerdine (Billy Zane), she has a daughter, and but she refuses to go with him to America, where the future lies, by simply asking him “when this future is going to come”.By doing so, she liberates herself, and her daughter, from all the ties entrapping her to the zeitgeist.

“Same person, different sex. That is all”.

This Blu-ray release contains a series of documentaries on how the film was made, plus an interview to Sally Potter, which would be of interest to cinephiles. Particularly enlightening is the section that narrates the ins and outs of filming in Russia, just before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Orlando Blu-ray disc is already on sale in Britain, courtesy of Artificial Eye.

Sally Potter’s dazzling adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s classic novel is the tale of the apparently immortal Orlando, who begins an epic quest for love and freedom in the court of Elizabeth I as a man and completes the search 400 years later as a woman. This journey takes Orlando from the frozen river Thames and central Asia, where he changes sex, through to romantic love and loss in the Victorian age, motherhood and war in the twentieth Century, until finally arriving in the present moment. Tilda Swinton leads an outstanding international cast in this enchanting, witty, visually stunning and brilliantly original story of self-discovery, romance and adventure.

Special Features

• Documentaries ‘Orlando Goes to Russia’, ‘Orlando in Uzbekistan’
• and ‘Jimmy Was An Angel’
• Selected scene commentary by Sally Potter
• Interview with Sally Potter
• Venice Film Festival press conference
• Theatrical trailer
• Stills galleries

Himizu reviewed

An intense and claustrophobic drama, ultimately cathartic, played against the desolate and hellish landscape of Fukushima, post tsunami, where the violence of human relationships resonate in the violence inflicted upon the landscape, and its people, by nature.

Yet, that intense focus is constantly relieved through the film by the often hilarious antics of a group of survivors camped in tents on the land where Yuichi Sumida's family runs a boat hire business, imparting a kind of normality to the destructive lashes of the tsunami, and the seismic nature of the relationships between Sumida (Shôta Sometani) with his family, and then with a young girl, a classmate, Keiko (Fumi Nikaidô), also fifteen.

When I said Sumida's family, that was an overstatement, when you consider that his mother comes every night with a different man, and his father, who is usually drunk, keeps beating him up, and telling that he wants him dead, as he then can claim for the insurance money he thinks he has. On the opening scene, we see the boy walking on this grey and utterly devastated landscape, the photography becoming darker, we then see one of the survivors, an older man who usually behaves like the proverbial buffoon with a heart of gold, still wearing a white shirt, his business having been wiped out. A rather muddy lake near the boat house, with an incongruently and precariously located shed in the middle, acts as a visual leitmotiv which constantly reminds us of the closed and muddy prospects awaiting all of them, a metaphor which I have seen in many recent Japanese films, although more in the context of the brutal economic conditions. In this sense, the boundaries between dreams and reality are eroded, a dream scene opening Himizu resolves the development of the story on a different direction at the end, that initial dream scene having thrown us off the story line, somehow.

Sumida wants only one thing in life, not to have a dream as his teacher keeps indoctrinating the kids at school, but just to be ordinary, like a himizu, a mole. Not a strange request, considering his dysfunctional family. Keiko, a classmate, falls in love with him, much to his embarrassment at the beginning of their relationship. But she persists, particularly when we see her mother lovingly building a gallows for the girl to kill herself, as life would be so much better if Keiko was not around. A gallows painted red.

Keiko does not only falls in love with Sumida, although he is constantly feel annoyed by her, but she sees in him a project to develop, too. A project where she can also develop herself. When the boy's mother finally leaves him for not to come back, Keiko, and the group of survivors, try to help Sumida to run the boat hire business, his only way of being able to subsist, in spite of his rejections. Yet, any attempt by him to try to run just an ordinary life, his dream, gets constantly scuppered by the constant apparitions of his drunken father, demanding money and psychologically torturing him. One night, after suffering another brutal beating by him, one beating too many, something breaks inside Sumida, and in a moment of absolute rage and impotence, he attacks and murders him, to be almost instantly horrified by his action. In despair, he stalks the streets of the nearby town, attempting to get rid of all those violent people, like his father, who also roam those streets.

A tale of two brutalized teenagers not only by the devastating power of nature, but also by their selfish and destructive families, a tale of a journey through hell and, ultimately, redemption, against the backdrop of the hellish landscape of Fukushima (this is the second Japanese film which has been filmed there that I have reviewed), and the darkness offered by their future: emptiness, and the gallows.

I found particularly attractive the manner that director Sono Sion has structured Himizu as a counterpoint between the central tale of Sumida and Keiko searching for their morrow, and a chorus, like those of a Greek tragedy, formed by that group of survivors, who finally leave with the coming of the redemption of the two teenagers, the closing luminous scene alluding to the dark dream like opening scene.

Sono Sion's Himizu is out on selected British cinemas from today, June 1^st, 2012, courtesy of Third Window Films.

Dir: 

Sion Sono

Writer: 

Minoru Furuya (manga), Sion Sono (screenplay)

Cast: 

Shota Sometani, Fumi Nikaido, Tetsu Watanabe, Mitsuru Fukikoshihi, Megumi Kagurazaka, DenDen

Set after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, all 14-year-old Yuichi Sumida (Shota Sometani) wants to become is a regular boy and live a decent life. His environment though repeatedly drags him into the mud. He runs his parent's rental boat business, which is located next to a nondescript lake. His mother frequently comes home with different men and soon she leaves him entirely. His father only comes around looking for money. Whenever Yuichi's father is drunk he tells Yuichi "I wish you were dead."
Keiko Chazawa (Fumi Nikaido) is a classmate of Yuichi Sumida. She harbors a severe crush on Yuichi. Keiko's home life isn't much better than Yuichi's. Her mother builds a gallows with a noose in place for Keiko to take her own life. Her mother believes her life would be better off without Keiko.
Under these circumstances, Keiko pays a visit to Yuichi's home. A group of people are lingering nearyby who live in make shift tents on the property. Keiko tries to befriend Yuichi, but she is berated and even physically assaulted. She doesn't get deterred though and sticks around.
One day, the yakuza come by Yuichi's home. They look for Yuichi's father who is nowhere to be found. The men then tell Yuichi that he has to come up with 6 million Yen by tomorrow to pay off his father's debt. Yuichi already heartbroken by his mother's abandonment and abuse from his father nears a tipping point. A string of incidents then occurs that brings Yuichi's world to a screeching halt. Is there light at the end of the tunnel for Yuichi?

Date of Domestic Cinema Release: 

June 1st, 2012

Events: 

'Himizu' at the ICA Cinema in London

'Himizu' at the Prince Charles Cinema in London

'Himizu' at the Renoir Cinema in London

'Himizu' at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre

'Himizu' at the Irish Film Institute

'Himizu' at the Duke of Yorks in Brighton

'Himizu' at the Riverside Studios in London

'Himizu' at the Glasgow Film Theatre

'Himizu' at the Eden Court Cinema in Inverness

Awards: 

68th Venice Film Festival - Marcello Mastroianni Award, 14th Deauville Asian Film Festival - Critics Prize, 4th Terracotta Film Festival - Audience Award, 30th Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival - Orbit Prize

Festivals: 

68th Venice Film Festival, 36th Toronto International Film Festival, 16th Busan International Film Festival, 44th SITGES International Film Festival, 14th Deauville Asian Film Festival, 8th Hong Kong Asian Film Festival, 21st Oslo International Film Festival, 26th Mar Del Plata International Film Festival, 30th Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival 

Avé reviewed

Avé depicts a journey through the roads of Bulgaria as Kamen (Ovanes Torosian), a rather taciturn art student, hitch-hikes from Sofia to a village, Ruse. To begin with, we do not know why, we only know something extraordinary may have happened, as the previous scene showed a member of staff at the art school wanting to talk to him. However, we soon learn that he is going to a funeral of a close friend, another art student, Victor, who has killed himself. The reasons for this act are never explicitly said, although we may infer those, as the story develops. Kamen is obviously disturbed, and brooding, by the death of his friend. However, what is interesting is that we learn about this fact through Avé (a wonderful Angela Nedialkova), a runaway 17 year old girl who kind of joins him on his journey on a road going out of Sofia.

She has a penchant to fabricate, and tell, stories, herself, and Kamen soon becomes part of this spider web coming out of her imagination, these stories she constructs from the flimsiest treads she finds in every situation that she, and now, Kamen, find themselves embroiled, sometimes potentially violent, with some of those drivers who have picked them up, including a pedophile lorry driver ( Martin Brambach), although I thought that the depiction of this particular character was a bit clichéd. She, having probably spent a longer time hitch-hiking , has become much more street-wise than Kamen, her stories are, in part, a construction of a imaginary character for her to have some street credibility, and protection.

However, I have to stress the words in part, as the narrative progresses, a much darker story emerges. Whilst the film is, apparently, a story about this uneasy couple, Kamen being very hostile to her to begin with, and told, mostly, from his point of view, as the camera is more often than not focussed on him, the girl is, in reality, its centre. Avé is a exploration into her psyche, as one of the stories she tells Kamen, in private, turns to be true, a tread which links her past, her recent journey, and her morrow, a scene that ends the film not with an answer, a closure, but leaves the door open for the mind to further delve into what is to come.

This is the beauty of Avé, the fact that behind what seems to be, on first sight, a simple road movie set in Bulgaria rather than on the wide plains of North America, there are glimpses of a complex and troubled psyche, and the transformation of both characters, his initial hostility to her becoming love. There is a significative scene, near the end of the film, where we see Kamen, now on his own on board of a train, repeating to a stranger those stories he first heard from her lips, a device he not only uses to give him a cover for his actions without exposing his inner feelings to the outside world, but as a way to remember her, to live her own story within himself.

Bruno S., whom we know from Herzog's The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, and Stroszek, plays a part as the grandfather of the dead boy, Victor. An interesting casting, as I consider both films to be road movies, literally in the case of Stroszek, and figuratively in the case of The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser.

Konstantin Bojanov's film is an assured and striking debut feature, exploring not only the complexities and development of both main characters, but also a kind of survey of contemporary Bulgarian society as we see, through their eyes, those people who have picked them up, the places where they have stayed, all those highways, those road side cafés, those bus and railway stations.

Network is pleased to announce the DVD release of this road trip with a twist- AVE (15) is available to buy on DVD on 28th May 2012.

KONSTANTIN BOJANOV DIRECTS THE STARTLING TALE OF TWO TEENAGERS ON A ROADTRIP ACROSS BULGARIA. ONE IS A COMPULSIVE LIAR, THE OTHER IS HAUNTED BY THE TRUTH.

Recalling classic road movies such as The Passenger, Five Easy Pieces and La Vie Revée des Anges, and inspired by haunting real-life events and encounters, Konstantin Bojanov’s debut feature is as spontaneous and freewheeling as the characters’ adventures. Portraying the unfolding of two personal dramas with levity and humour, this remarkable, triple-award winning film explores exceptional moments when time feels suspended, and one’s responsibility is only to the beat of one’s own heart.

While hitchhiking from Sofia to Ruse, Kamen, an alienated art student, meets Avé, a 17-year-old runaway. With each ride they hitch, Avé invents new identities for both of them, her compulsive lies dragging Kamen deeper and deeper into trouble, drawing him into a confusing adventure and ultimately forcing them to confront both death and love in a cathartic and life-changing experience.