Burning (2019)

(original title: Beoning)

Directed by Chang-dong Lee

“You burn down other people’s greenhouses?”

Burning is a 2018 film that unfortunately was only released in Portugal (where we are based) precisely a year after its premiere on the Cannes Film Festival. To worsen things, only a limited number of smaller cinemas decided to screen it. A sad resolution to a challenging and interesting film, a clear difference from the lack of creativity that plagued the commercial circuit in the last month.

Director Chang-dong Lee maintains the caustic and dramatic style that characterized most of his films. Lee tries on his works to access the darkness in the human nature, putting his characters in situations way beyond their comfort zone. Either by turbulent political scenarios like in his directing debut Green Fish (1997), or in Peppermint Candy (2000), a haunting tale of a man’s downward spiral to suicide; or finally and maybe his most well received film Oasis (2002), dealing with father and daughter relations amidst a debilitating disease. This last one ended up receiving the Best Director’s award and the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Leading Actress on the well-respected Venice Film Festival.

This time Lee brings to the screen an adaptation of a small story by the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami (“Barn Burning”, 1982). The film takes place on current day South Korea, having as the lead character Jongsu (Ah-in Yoo). A recent graduate of literary studies he finds it hard to get a job in his field of studies. A well-read young man, quotes William Faulkner as his favorite writer, mostly because of how relatable his writing is to him. During a walk in Seul he suddenly meets a childhood friend named Haemi (Jong-seo Jun). They both are from a countryside village outside of Seul. Haemi is now a grown woman and like most in Korea has done plastic surgery, making her almost unrecognizable to Jongsu. They have a dinner and afterward she invites him to her house, where they end up having sex. There Jongsu acknowledges her decision to go to Africa and accepts feeding her cat while she is gone. While she is away, he decides to take care of his family farm where he spent his childhood, dreaming of Haemi’s return.

This surely one of those films that the less we know coming to the cinema the better, because the second half sure takes an unexpected turn from the romantic drama vibe that characterized the first part (which ironically kind of renders this review a bad tool for the ones who haven’t watched it ). When Haemi returns from Africa, we are introduced to a new friend that she made named Ben (Steven Yeun). A very rich individual, he “steals” Haemi from Jongsu, but despite that she still invites him to hang around them both, acting like an awkward third wheel. Besides that, there’s a delicate class critique around Ben. Jongsu compares him to Gatsby from the famous Fritzgerald’s novel, wondering what his occupation is to grant him this luxurious lifestyle.

“Misterious people who are young and rich but you dont know what they do”

Haemi is this happy and naïve like figure, and doesn’t care for such things as Jongsu does, who from the start feels there is something off with Ben. One day her and Ben appear uninvited in Jongsu’s family farm. In a moment alone Ben confesses his love with burning greenhouses, leaving a sense of imminent danger in the air. Despite that, Haemi is totally clueless to this and Ben’s love for arson. In one beautiful scene (after Ben’s revelation) during dusk, with the North Korean montains in the background, Haemi dances half naked to the sound of Miles Davis soundtrack of Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows (1958). The cinematography by Kyung-pyo Hong is gorgeous and adds a lot to giving a sense of dreamlike state, leaving the viewer more and more uncertain about what is happening.

The haunting Haemi dancing scene

Jongsu is a calm and introverted individual. Throughout the film we get clues about his past and childhood, especially the ones dealing with his mother. He is a lone wolf kind of person and starts to obsess with Haemi. There is a patent and ever-growing rage inside him against Ben, who despite always seeming uninterested in Haemi’s actions, she always tries to please him. This jealousy ends up hurting Jonsu’s relationship with her and leaving him with a lot of guilty caused by his behavior. But when he tries to amend things with her, she’s not there to talk to him. There’s a deep tension in this film but it is always invisible. The answers don’t seem to appear, but the rage grows stronger by the minute. In the end we can’t help but to feel if Jongsu’s obsession with Haemi and attempt to control her actions was part of the motivation for such a rageful and traumatic closure. As if he felt not only rage against Ben but also with himself.

8 out of 10

Knife+Heart (2019)

(original title: Un couteau dans le cœur)

Directed by Yann Gonzalez

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“She saw so many gay flicks, she thought she was a fag.”

Yann Gonzalez is a French director known for his feature film You And The Night (2013) but mostly because of his many other short films. He is especially well regarded in the LGBTQ+ community for his preference on themes regarding sexuality and gender politics. Having won many prizes and nominations in important festivals like Cannes Film Festival, he is one of those directors to be watching out for if you are interested in art-house films of the new era. However, we feel on Camera Coverage that this new feature from Gonzalez is pretty much a mess, it is not without some singular scenes that are incredible, but it is indeed a bit of a mess.

The film follows Anne (Vanessa Paradis), a gay pornography film director, in her quest of filming her new feature that seems to be more bold and adventurous than her previous. This brings us close to the character and her relationship dynamics with her film editor Löis (Kate Moran) and her dealing with alcohol addiction. From the start we know that the film has as a main plot a giallo-esque story, with a serial killer that seems to be targeting the actors from Anne’s films. The connecion between the killer and the actors is left uknown until the end of the film, where we are bombarded with a traditional plot-twist from the great classics of the genre.

Vanessa Paradis as Anne

The film plays along the lines of what we may consider the supernatural giallo, especially in its first two acts. The relationship between Anne’s vision of her new picture and the killings is meant to be perceived, but sadly, with its ending, we are left hanging in the understanding of this relationship. Throughout her journey we are faced with many surrealist images that are traditional in these giallo films and Italian horror films of the 1960s and 1970s, but they seem to add little to the unravel of our characters quest. It is clear that there are many diagetic layers on Knife+Heart, but after seeing it and thought of it for a week I still feel that they are not only disconnected, but they are sadly disconnected, as most of them are individually incredible and contain a lot of contrasting and formally complex ideas working on a deep semiotic level. The insistence on creating a traditional giallo in structure does not work in the film as much as it does visually, and it lefts the viewer confused, frustrated and cheated.

Vanessa Paradis is one of the actors in later years that we feel, as lovers of photography in general, that has one of the most unique faces. The characterization of every character in the film, especially her’s, is incredibly stylized and works well comparing to the other aspects of the film. The whole visual aspect of the film is undeniably great. It works as a cool throwback to the films of the genre, but it works as a singular piece as well, despite its insistence on weird black and white thermal images when depicting dream sequences. However, even at the technical level (image and sound) Knife+Heart is not the best throwback to the giallo, particularly if we consider the incredible films that made reference to the genre we have seen in the last few years (like Berberian Sound Studio (2012) and Amer (2009) ).

One of the dream sequences

Falling short on others to describe the film, it feels disapointing. The director has achieved greatness with some of his short films (notably Les îles (2017) ), but this time he completely misses the target. Despite arguably being one of the films that are a throwback to the afforementioned genres that more truly incorporates not only the visual aesthetics but the structure of the giallo, it fails on creating a compelling experience by being too overwhelming and obtuse with its symbols and parallels. I feel that some of this may be due to how random some of the events in the film are, and the discrepancy of vibes in it. The play of the director regarding the meta aspect of the film (the films inside the film; the dreams inside the film; the dreams that are the film; the relationship between director and editor, etc) is interesting, as are the mirror images it tries to make with its individual scenes. Sadly it does not keep up with its promises (especially its depiction of the theme of obsessive and corrosive love) and mostly is an insatisfying experience, that while being really extreme and poignant in the depiction of a community and a genre of filmmaking that is really underapreciated and not valued as it should, it leaves the spectator feeling that it is a mere exercise in shock value and pretentiousness.

3.5 out of 10

The Ballad of Narayama (1983)

Directed by Shôei Imamura

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“Our ancestors have gone to the summit for hundreds of years as we do now. 25 years from now I will go there too.”

Created by arguably one of Cannes Film Festival favorite directors Shôhei Imamura (with 5 times Palme D’Or nominations and 3 wins, including on this particular film) this work of his moves the viewer with its whimsical characters that can quickly twist the mood of the film from a light family comedy to a shocking, grotesque depiction of the life in a 19th century Japanese village. The socially poignant Japanese director does not miss his selected target with The Ballad of Narayama, but even surpasses his signature social cinema and elevates the story to a state of fable that despite not being as stylized as the 1958 version of the film, is way more cinematic and even accessible to the Western audience.

Imamura created complex dynamics introducing the viewer to really well-developed characters in a warm family environment and juxtapose this familiar warmth with the rough systems and values that guide village life. The film follows the life of a family in which every member has some unsolved problem. The main plot point of the film is that the old matriarch of the family Orin (played delightfully by Sumiko Sakamoto) is getting old, and there is a tradition in the village of ubasute. Being her the main stabilizer of the family, the film follows her solving her family’s problems while preparing, without the family’s approval, her departure to the mountain.

Sumiko Sakamoto

When asked about the story Imamura joked he initially thought about starting the film with a family taking their old grandma to a nursing home up a hill in modern Japan and then showing up the title screen saying The Ballad of Narayama. This says a lot about the intentions of the director when creating the film and presenting yet again this particular story. This work goes a step further than other films that go for this type of commentary. It ends up being way more shocking in, for example, a scene on justice against a family that stole from another family’s house, than in the film’s inevitable ending. It goes beyond its original source material (being it the 1958 film or the novella) and does it in a well accomplished manner, in which apparently scenic shots of animals (rats eating snakes and snakes eating rats, for example) and the environments say a lot more about the plot itself than its charming characters may initially transmit. Having this said, pretty much everything, from the music to the framing, works diagetically in Imamura’s film. And more than that, everything stands individually as a great element to the film. As any of his films, The Ballad of Narayama is visually striking, even more so than something like Vengeance is Mine (1979). It has a visual finesse of some of his most iconic later work like The Eel (1997), another one of our favourites from Imamura that could have easily made the list.

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Despite being better known for his 1960s films, Imamura is a director that we will probably have to revisit another time on Camera Coverage, as for his later work goes above and beyond, in our humble opinions, than what he had previously worked on. In a world where directors like Ken Russell work political cinema and are tremendously poignant in the cinematic conversion of their ideas, we have Shôhei Imamura that is way less known in the West but goes above and beyond any of his political statements and manages to touch much more fundamental problems of the human existence. Even if he was adapting a novella or even adapting the 1958 version of the film, he managed to put as much of his signature social grit and social realism as poetic and lyrical value, all rounded up with an extent use of cinema’s potential. This is how you do an adaptation of a book. This is how you do a remake.

The Wild Pear Tree (2019)

(original title: Ahlat Agaci)

Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan

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“Everyone has their own temperament. The thing is being able to accept and like it.”

The “new” (premiered in 2018’s Cannes Film Festival) film by the critically acclaimed Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan is again a huge work in size. And again, Ceylan presents us a massive picture that feels even more entrancing than his previous film Winter Sleep (2014). The similarities between both films are obvious, as they both tell stories of writers. However, The Wild Pear Tree is way more accessible than Winter Sleep (2014) and more irreverent at the same time. Sadly, it does not quite hold up against the director’s best (most notably Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (2008) and Distant (2002) ), following some of the same small issues present in the 2014 film. This is, however, not a reason to dismiss the film, because even a lesser Nuri Bilge Ceylan film is still a way more interesting experience than most.

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The filmography of the director is notorious for having two specific characteristics: he is one of the big names associated with the so called “Slow Cinema”, and his films are incredibly wordy and verborraic at the same time. In The Wild Pear Tree this last characteristic is even more noticeable, with the “slow” and transcendental aspect feeling that it was put to side, and, when exercised, feeling a bit forced and out of tone. The film follows Sinan (Dogu Demirkol), a young writer that has finished his education to be a primary school teacher like his father. He is also working on publishing a book he wrote, and most of the first part of the film follows his struggle in finding money to be able to do it. This is the main situation we are presented with the main character, but the film, since the beginning, has an intense focus on the relationship between Sinan and his father Idris (Murat Cemcir), who is a man caught in a downward spiral of gambling and unmesurable debt.

Despite the film mainly following Sinan and his interactions with many of the townsfolk, and even a famous writer, it is on the father-son dynamic presented that the film truly shines. The character development of Sinan, while honest and relatable, is never biased in trying to depict him as a truly well-meant individual at all. His father is depicted with some really harsh situations as well. However, their personalities are completely different. The evolution of the story is one that is settled on the idea that both these characters are antagonistic, and ends with the most incredible note of transcendental family bonding energy that completely disrupts all the insistence on creating such opposite characters.

Idris, a truly incredible performance by Murat Cemcir

The problem with The Wild Pear Tree when comparing it with other Ceylan films is that this time Ceylan feels that is touching on much more coloquial and generic themes, and unsuccesfully trying to elevate them all at the same time. It is a weirdly paced film, with scenes that range from the themes of death and religion to relationships and love, sometimes presenting them with no apparent connection to each other. Sadly, it also doesn’t always succeed on being truly poignant in the portrayal of a lot of these themes, with the noticeable exception being the depicted problems regarding family dynamics. The film being dialogue driven does not help it in achieving the poetic intensity of his previous films as well, despite turning the film into a more enjoyable and quickly relatable experience to the viewer. It makes some of its scenes feel like they are too predictable, and some of the “funny moments” in the film feel odd in the overall picture. The idea of quickly cutting scenes that are supposedly happening in the characters minds or in dreams do not always work as well, and do not go well at all with the also stylistic and expected “slow” style of the director.

“Someone once called time a silent saw. You never know what it’ll do to us.”

That said, the conclusion of the film will leave you with unforgiving anxiety. Ceylan shows us with scenes like these why he is one of the most lyrical filmmakers out there, despite sadly going off the rails in The Wild Pear Tree. The odd pacing of the film is distracting and almost unforgivable to a director that already made so many great things. The visual aspect of the film is top notch, especially the scenes in winter time, but even regarding this, sometimes the digital camera seems to not be able to capture as well some of the scenes as it should. The soundtrack is unnexpectedly great and one of the best yet in his filmography. However, while not being as problematic in some of the aforementioned aspects as Winter Sleep (2014) was, The Wild Pear Tree is still not the hyper comeback we were expecting, despite having one of the most cathartic closures in any of Ceylan’s films. It is a frustatingly imperfect film with a lot of incredible singular scenes. But for some of those scenes alone and the incredible depiction of the relationship between Sinan and Idris, The Wild Pear Tree is still a film to look out for.

7 out of 10

Antonio das Mortes (1969)

(original title: O Dragão da Maldade contra o Santo Guerreiro)

Directed by Glauber Rocha

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“Fight with the strength of your ideas. They are more worthy than me.”

Glauber Rocha was the leading figure of Brazil’s Cinema Novo (New Cinema) movement. This period of Brazilian cinema is characterized by it being deeply influenced by the subversive nature of the Nouvelle Vague and the social consciousness of Italian neorrealism. Considering the importance of this movement, and the importance of Glauber Rocha especially, to the cinema that followed it, I decided to pick what is probably one of the most iconic and highly acclaimed films from this period, Antonio das Mortes. This western-ish film is a prime example of all the characteristics of the movement. It displays the deep passion for the art form and a clear and unashamed political statement that, despite being more relevant considering the socio-political situation of Brazil at the time, pushes its universal themes higher. Also, if we consider the current political scenery in the country, we can quickly find some of the more universal statements of the film surprisingly poignant to a public inside and outside of the contemporary realities of Brazil.

The situation presented in the film is the hiring of Antonio das Mortes (Mauricio do Valle) to help some businessman to get rid of the cangaceiro bandits. As a mercenary, and together with his association with the villainized land owners, his quest for cleaning these lands leads him to a revelation of who is in need of real help. The main idea in the film surrounds this realization of Antonio das Mortes’ identity. This translates into a realization of his national identity and his spiritual identity. Glauber’s film is filled to the brim with cultural (especially religious) imagery that is notoriously Brazilian. The path he walks fights the evil tendencies of capitalism in the country and the protectionism that was due to the military dictatorship that was in rule during the film’s release.

The political inclinations of Glauber’s work are easily observed, and Antonio das Mortes is no different than Land in Anguish (1967) for instance. Marxist belief is crystal clear in the film’s presentation. However, having that said, the fundamental questions proposed in Antonio das Mortes show that there was a resistance to the opressive government of the time. One could say that Glauber’s ideology is näive, but the intensity of his imagery regarding cultural identity give the film a surrealist and almost transcendental feeling that go beyond the political statement it was presenting in 1969. Juxstaposing it with an interpretation of the traditional Western film tropes (one could say that the cangaceiros in Brazil are almost like the cowboy mercenaries in the US), the director is creating an incredibly cathartic experience that has a lot more to say regarding the true singularity of Brazil’s cultural life than just overlapping the film’s plot with politics.

The essencial marxist dilemma of this particular film is that there are those who own and those who do not own. Facing this situation, Antonio has to make his decision on who to help, as he does in the film’s remarkably poetic ending. This decision has a lot more implications that it may seem at first, though. By helping the ones in need, Antonio as a mercenary is liberating and delivering to these supposedly “digressive” people what was taken from them, in an almost Robin Hood-esque fashion. By doing so he regards the beautiful exotic distinctiveness and individuality of the ‘real’ Brazil over the bourgeois corruption of the masses represented in the film as the businessmen.

The film’s plastic aspect contributes greatly to its themes. The soundtrack in the film is mainly illustrative, adding an almost Greek chorus-like element to the whole piece. Visually it may be regarded as exotic, hyperbolic and exaggerated. However, the insistence on the Western tropes together with their metamorphosis with Brazilian imagery show how Glauber’s care for the representation of this foundational and almost spiritual Brazil transcends the film’s plot.

If you are into foreign films that feel truly foreign, that feel truly exotic and culturally different, then Antonio das Mortes is a must watch. I tried to make justice to the film, and tried to avoid the possibly distasteful analysis of the film’s politics, but this is a work to be experienced. It is as real and poetic as you can get from a country that is in a dire need for some sort of rehabilitation of tradition and identity in the best possible way, as much as it is in need of a recovery of some of the values that Antonio finds throughout his journey.

[ I am sorry for the bad quality of the still pictures, but I was unable to find a better print of the film. ]

Diamantino (2019)

Directed by Gabriel Abrantes & Daniel Schmidt

“They call me the Michael Angelo of the pitch”

Diamantino marks the debut of Gabriel Abrantes (with the partnership of Daniel Schmidt) into the world of full featured films. Abrantes has a long list of short films in his bag, such as A Brief History of Princess X (2016) or A History of Mutual Respect (2010). In his films he tries to ally a philosophical and critical stance to thematic such as history, gender and sexuality politics and the power of Art. With this long feature, Abrantes and Schmidt try to ally all these themes with an absurdist and at the same time comedic approach to serious and problematic contemporary problems. Almost a year after its Cannes debut, it finally showed up on Portuguese cinemas.

The plot follows Diamantino Matamouros (Carloto Cotta), the biggest football star in the world, who resembles an uncanny similarity to Cristiano Ronaldo. Either by the physical appearance or his narration of the events with a Madeira island accent (subtitled even to Portuguese audiences, although he is speaking Portuguese, something that may only be appreciated by the native speakers of the language) the resemblance is something that clearly pops on the viewer. Despite that, it’s not a direct reference and the character serves mainly as a caricature for nowadays biggest stars. He is a revered figured, almost like a god, astonishingly rich and with a personality ingrained with vanity and at the same time a tremendous ignorance for the events of the world. The very first scene, where we see him play in a sold-out stadium in the World Cup alongside with giant puppies in a pink cloudy haze, marks the surrealistic tone of the film. This scenario created in his head is the mechanism necessary to make him excel in what does best. Diamantino’s vanity and obsession with image and performance is not critiqued but instead he is presented as a deeply naïve and almost childish character. With the unexpected appearance of a refugee boat near his yacht, he completely loses all his ability to enter in that mental state represented by the pink haze and loses all his football skills. He goes from hero to zero, in a statement of the vapid celebratory status that rules our society, where one mistake is enough to fall from grace.

The surreal place that Diamantino goes when he plays

Shocked by the migrant reality, he decides to adopt a Mozambican refugee boy, who is actually a female agent in disguise to discover possible financial frauds. Placed in an alternative timeline, Portugal is a neofascist country. One of the best aspects is the placement of small but very perspicuous clues that evoke the country’s forty-year dictatorship. It compares the creation of a glorious past with its big symbols with the new symbols created by today’s society in order to give a sense of national identity. The plot derives then into an almost espionage type of film. The despotic government convinces our lead character into a cloning process to make an entire football team full of skilful players like him in order to regain the glory lost in the World Cup final. This potentially deadly procedure would end up giving him breasts, something that deeply embarrasses him. The laughs of the audience to this scene maybe are a refection the director wants to make in relation to transphobia but unfortunately fails short to give any deep impact on the viewer.

The film’s first half results in an interesting critique of nowadays culture and politics. The long dictatorship (from 1926 to 1974) marked generations with a propaganda machine that created myths to justify a sense of identity. Despite a few decades passed since 1974, the mindset of the contemporary Portuguese people in some ways still rely in those myths of grandeur in a way of self-identity. Diamantino’s sisters (Anabela Moreira/ Margarida Moreira) also make an interesting point with their greed for their brothers’ money. With their sly personality, they are willing to sacrifice his own brother if needed. Alongside the positive points made before, Cotta’s performance is also a big highlight in the film, creating a deeply interesting character.

Diamantino and his “adoptive son”

The problem with the film relies essentially on pace. Past the first half of the film the repetition of the more poignant (or funny) aspects start to wear off and lose some of the charm. In a way, it reminds me of Capitão Falcão (2015) a Portuguese film that deals with similar political themes with also a comedic approach. The premises are smart and offer new ideas that deserve his praise, especially in dealing with ghosts of the past in a more cheerful that can help more easily engrain the audience in a political reflation without a more acute sense of guilt. The problem is that it is unable to deliver a more powerful second half without recycling most of the content used before. Worst than that, it finishes with a disappointing and cliché ending. Maybe Diamantino would be better if it was a short film, as it would be a more cohesive and well-rounded experience, instead of the constant repetition of tropes.

5 out of 10

Gräns (2019)

(eng: Border)

Directed by Ali Abbasi

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“I don’t see the point of evil.”

Inspired on a novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist (better known for Let The Right One In), Border is one of the films to have a lot of controversy and high regard last year. To it was awarded the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes, and it even managed to swiftly get a nomination to the Oscar for Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling. The controversy is mainly due to the sexual nature of its themes. It is an undeniably shocking film. The usage its shock value is, however, very pertinent. As Let The Right One In (2008), the transformation of Lindqvist’s story into film works brilliantly, combining the already poignant themes present in the words and visually expanding them, something that is even more noticeable in Border, mainly due to the irreverence and shamelessness of the film’s imagery.

The film follows Tina (Eva Melander), a security officer working on border control, and he daily routine. She is not blessed by standards of Western beauty and has a menacing look that works well with her magical power of being able to smell people’s feelings. She lives an unhappy marriage and has no friends other than her mentally-ill father. There are two big changes in her life when she smells a memory card on a passenger’s phone that is full of snuff films and child pornography and on another scene sees a guy that is oddly similar to her and confuses her special sensibilities. These changes lead to two inner plots in the film that consist on one side a detective thriller-like film and on the other a romantic story that leads to Tina’s discovery of her true identity.

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Border is a story of fluid bodies and souls trapped in an ordered world. Tina and Vore (Eero Milonoff) are figurations of chaos inside an organized Western society. However, if we consider the sexual nature of the film we quickly understand that there is a political edge to this chaos. Combined with the ideas of social isolation, foreignness and family issues we understand that the new dynamic presented by these two special characters is an amalgamation of every otherness that exists in our contemporary world. So far so great. The problem with the film is that while presenting brilliant ideas, it overly complicates them and by the end it leaves an undesirable odd feeling to the viewer. Of course this ending can be read as an anarchic solution to the aforementioned themes, or even as a following to the mythology presented half-way into the story, but never does it feel as smooth as expected. Comparing it to something like the ending of Do The Right Thing (1989), for instance, it feels really off considering the way the plot devices work beforehand.

Technically it is a decent film. It never does something that is not expected from an ultra-realist style film. Sometimes the camera seems to be too shaky, and even nauseating at times. In other scenes, the fast movements of the camera and all the shakiness contribute greatly to the inner beauty of the film. The original soundtrack is very enchanting and is really on the same page with the tone of the film. The make-up effects are pristine, as is Melander’s performance. I would say Eero Milonoff’s performance is never up to par with Melander’s, and sometimes is not even really good at all. But then again, that is never a big problem (even if combined with the shaky camera aspect of the film) if we face it with the originality and boldness of all the other decisions surrounding it.

One of the great visual moments in Gräns

The reason I was not a big fan of Let The Right One In (2008) is probably the reason I am actually a big fan of Border. It is a consciously awkward film, one that is aiming specifically at shocking the viewer in order to get its ideas out there. Most of the times this technique does not work, but with Border it does, as it is probably the perfect figurative film of the many lost souls in our monotonous society. Even though it is not perfect, particularly the thrilleresque subplot, Border works a lot better than expected. This review tried to say as little as possible about the singular elements of the film because in order for it to work it is mandatory to watch it with little knowledge about what is so special about it. It released in Portugal last week despite having been distributed in the rest of the world earlier this year. Still, try and watch it on stream or DVD, because if you don’t, you will be missing what is probably the most excruciatingly, cringeworthy and at the same time beautiful sex scene of the last few years (and for that alone it deserves ½ a point).

6.5 out of 10

Le Havre (2011)

Directed by Aki Karusmäki

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“I am ruthless against criminals but I don’t like to see the innocent suffer.”

This week on Camera Coverage we are talking yet again about French Cinema, but this time we are moving fourth in time and talking about Le Havre by the Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki. This is arguably the director’s most accessible film, considering he is known for his absurdist and irreverent style. But nonetheless, I personally select Le Havre as his definite film and as a classic definitely not because of it being accessible, but because of it being an epitome of viewer manipulation, political cinema and Kaurismäki’s technical mastery. When we regard Le Havre as being less absurd and surreal than, for instance, La Vie de Bohème (1992) or The Man Without a Past (2002), we are talking about the narrative interruptions and singular hallucinatory moments in these films. However, Le Havre contains an absurdity that is conceptual to the idyllic grand narrative of its main plot. What is most impressive about this particularity in the film, however, is that when you see what it is really doing, you can never smile the same way at the colourful characters in Normandy as you did before.

The film follows the daily life of Marcel Marx (André Wilms) and his colourful but monotonous routines. He is an old man, a shoe shiner, that while leading a poor life with his wife Arletty (beautifully played by Kati Outinen) we know he had many life experiences that got him the stability he has in this life of his (we assume this mainly due to his relationship with the other characters in town). All of the sudden, the order of Marcel’s usual tasks and routine is all shaken up as he finds a lost black boy that has tried to enter France illegally.

“- Where are you going? – London.”

Kaurismäki unusual style is still present, especially considering the film’s framing and the characterization of its characters. The increased colour saturation and strategic placing of certain objects, combined with a complete vintage look regarding the clothes, hairstyles and makeup of its characters give Le Havre a vibe that is reminiscent of something from a Jacques Tati film. Having this said, the dialogues are much more idiosyncratic, following Kaurismäki usual style (despite, as mentioned before, being toned down in this particular film), that for the ones that are not acquainted with his past work, is something that reminds us of Jim Jarmusch for instance, especially regarding its sometimes obscure humour. This combination of vintage style and contemporary themes gives an edge to the idea of it being very self-conscious about its medium, something that in my opinion, despite not being something new, it is used to an uttermost mastery, elevating every single idea present in the film, even if you do not fully agree with its politics.

The ultimate cinematic miracle

Despite being clear and conscious of its political inclinations, Le Havre goes a step further in its self-awareness, as the film seems to recognize that after all, this is all just a film. What could be seen like a mere whimsical, typically French and caricatured story quickly turns into an attempt to picture the hyperreality of the politics it is defending, and devastatingly twists the language of film into itself, resulting in the film being a product of pure manipulation but unmistakable honesty, even that it is being arguably pessimistic about the reality it is presenting. By the end of Le Havre and after flirting with the idea of clichés, we witness a miracle, a coincidence that is way too improbable to be taken lightly, even in this light-hearted modern fairy-tale. When we experience this beautiful cinematic and purely fantastical scene we should feel happy for our characters. But we can’t. Because the implication of this beautiful coincidence is that the world Le Havre is presenting is not our real world, and all the other picturesque and lovely situations are mere fabrications of cinema.

Idrissa

Manipulation in films such as Forrest Gump (1994) or Schindler’s List (1993) are never welcome and often taint what is most of Hollywood cinema today, especially when it is clearly presenting political themes. But when we experience the technique utilized at its maximum potential in films like this, we seem to see unexpected potentials in the usage of this tool in our self-discovery. Kaurismäki seems to have hit the spot with this film, at least for me. In a French idyllic and polychromatic world he managed to make the black boy really seem like a part of the rainbow. Maybe one day in our real world we will manage to include all the current shunned colours in our own rainbows.