Vitalina Varela (2019)

Directed by Pedro Costa

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“It’s poison!”

[“É veneno!“]

Pedro Costa is in 2019 already a well-established auteur. His work since Casa de Lava (1994) has been consistent theme-wise, and at the same time its progress is clear throughout. With Vitalina Varela the director still manages to stay true to the work he has been developing since Ossos (1997), on elevating the everyday lives of impoverished and endangered people into the realm of cinema. At the same time, there is a sense of evolution, and character development in a way, in this new feature. It is a film about Vitalina Varela, the main actress of the film, and her mostly true story of coming to meet her husband in Portugal after a 40 year waiting call for a ticket, arriving too late, as his funeral had taken place three days before her arrival.

A film well worth noticing for its dark environments, captured as pristine as possible by Costa and his usual collaborator Leonardo Simões

As a standalone feature it is a great new way to introduce a new viewer to the director’s other films. In a way it’s one of the most linear narrative structures of the director, especially if we consider his last film Horse Money (2014) as comparison. In another hand, it is easily the most slow-paced of all of his films, making it the biggest chore to the casual moviegoer that wants to get in touch with his whole filmography. Nonetheless, Vitalina Varela has what is the most positive look towards the future of those depicted Cape Verdeans. It is at the same time, with the help of heavy stylization and immense technical care, a film that is as elevated and astray from reality as it is grounded, by its individual elements (real setting, non-actors, real stories, etc), on the truth surrounding these people’s social and economic lives.

Ventura

If we try and manage to contextualize Vitalina Varela in Costa’s full body of work, we can easily state as a fact that this is, as per usual when there is a new film by the director, the zenith of his career. If we consider the balance stated in the last paragraph, it is nothing new to the director’s other films. What is impressive is the development of the actor Ventura, the main character of his two last films Colossal Youth (2006) and Horse Money. It is the first time Ventura is not playing as himself, this is, as the character of Ventura. He plays a priest. This is the absolute next step on what we can consider as the big politics of Costa’s films. Ventura has now reached a new height, as a normal person being an actor playing himself, and now as a normal person being an actor playing a third-party character. The idea of cinema as proof of human potential in art, and of human potential in something that is transcendental, even transcendental of what may appear only as ethical, economical or political statements. This something is what makes these people worth much more than what the world gives to them, as every single person that suffers from similar conditions. This final goal is beautifully achieved in Vitalina Varela, and it presents us the in-depth story of a character that appeared briefly in Horse Money, a story that is tragic, but essentially true. The real truth, though, is not in these stories, it is not in these real people. The truth is their ability to make something great, a film, to be stars, even though that they were born in the dark side of Jesus’ face.

10 out of 10

Divorce Italian Style (1961)

(original title: Divorzio all’italiana)

Directed by Pietro Germi

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“Have you really got another headache?”

This week we’re heading out to Italy with this film by Sicilian director Pietro Germi. His early work is characterized by a neorealist tone in the likes of Rosselini or Vittorio De Sica (in films such as Il ferroviere (1956). In the sixties his line of work shifted towards the satirical comedy in the likes of Dino Risi or Mario Monicelli. This Italian style of comedy, the so-called commedia all’italiana (comedy Italian style) is characterized by a profound sense of social criticism beside the curtain of apparent lightness of laughter. The film ended up giving Germi the Oscar for Best Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen at the 35th Academy Awards in 1962 and as well the Best Comedy award at the Cannes festival.

In Divorce Italian Style (1961), Germi plays a masterful take on the Sicilian machismo, only possible through an acute sense of comedy. Baron Ferdinando Cefalù (Marcello Mastroianni) is a disgraced nobleman married to Rosalia (Daniela Rocca). He has grown out of love with her and wants desperately to dissolve the marriage. The problem resides in the fact that at the time divorce was prohibited by law, leaving him “trapped” with Rosalia for the rest of his life. The illegality of divorce had its deep roots on the influence that the Catholic Church still had on life in Italy, especially the south. Fefè, as his wife affectionately calls him, draws a devious plan in order to get rid of Rosalia. By bringing her close to affection to another man, making him the cuckold, he could then kill then both, invoking that crime of passion and get away with murder. After this, he could finally make his move on to Angela (Stefania Sandrelli), his 16 years old cousin who he was infatuated with.

“Angela, what an unexpected pleasure”

The comic aspect of the film starts with the contrasts between the physical appearance of the couple. The baron is a cool figure, with a cigarette on the corner of his mouth, dark shades and a stylish moustache. A bon vivant and in a way a figure out of his time. But that is only a cover, shown by the preoccupations with his body (in a funny scene at the mirror where Mastroianni reflects about his belly size), and the way he presents himself at home, with the hair unkempt and rumpled clothes. In a way Mastroianni is creating a satire of the perfect and charming Italian lover, which includes himself in the lot (like in Fellini´s La Dolce Vita (1960). Despite all his flaws, Fefè is still convinced that he´s on top of his game and deserves a better looking and younger wife.

His wife Rosalia is characterized physically by the excessive body hair, especially in her face, with the subtle moustache and unibrow. Fefè is clearly repulsed by her and her constant shows of love make him rather disconformable. To add up, Rosalia has this very high-pitched voice and extravagant poses. The audience, despite knowing that is wrong, almost ends up in a devious way to agree with him. Germi makes the viewer enter in a conflict with themselves and therefore make him in Mastroianni´s shoes. If we analyse deeper though, Rosalia is a naïve kind of person, completely unaware of his husband unhappiness with the relationship.

Through the film we see him fantasizing about how he would kill his wife. Either by stabbing her in the back and throwing her into a soap caldron; or later in the beach by imagining her being swallowed up in quicksand. He finally finds Carmelo (Leopoldo Trieste), a World War II veteran who was deeply in love with Rosalia. The designing of plan was now completed, and when the two finally met again and fell in love, Fefè was now the cuckold. The shame was not only onto him but the entire family, ending a part of it being the reason for his father´s death or the actions against Rosalia and Carmelo.

Baron Ferdinando “Fefè” Cefalù and his wife Rosalia

The end shatters completely with the double standard of the male chauvinism. Now with a clear path to chase and marry the young Angela, she ends up behaving a lot like him. The irony displaced in the final scenes maybe tries to show that the problem is more a societal one than only the mischievous character of the baron. This is not an excuse for the husband´s actions, which are evidentially reprovable. But in the end, it feels like is easier to kill the partner than to lawfully divorce him. In addiction to this, the reaction of his family and the deep sense of shame all around the village display the problems that a post war and now democratic Italy had with machismo and the authority of the old institutions.

Lords of Chaos (2019)

Directed by Jonas Åkerlund

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“I thought you were true Norwegian black metal.”

Jonas Åkerlund is a film director first known for being the original drummer of the Extreme Metal band Bathory and then breaking out of the band to pursue his career on the direction of music videos, beginning with Heavy Metal bands like Candlemass and later with more famous artists like Moby, Robbie Williams, and even Beyoncé. Despite his videography being arguably the most significant part of his work, before (and after) Lords of Chaos Åkerlund made several films like Spun (2002), Small Apartments (2012) and most recently Polar (2019). Being a fan of underground music and even Black Metal music, the sole apparition of a film like Lords of Chaos greatly spited my interest, and being the responsible guy behind the project a legend like Jonas Åkerlund (and despite knowing his work on music videos, at the time of the announcement of the film I had no idea of his other cinema work) I was more than excited to see the film. This was before I started seeing images and clips from the film’s release at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and watching the most recent of his films Polar (2019). After seeing this I was worried, and reasonably so.

Lords of Chaos is based on the book by the same name, a work that is incredibly controversial on its own for problems regarding truth, romantization of facts and political stances it depicts. The book is based on the infamous stories of the Norwegian Black Metal scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and particularly the stories of Euronymous, Varg Vikernes and the so called Black Circle. The film follows the most controversial of these events: the murders, the suicides, the church burnings. It creates a lot of weird scenes that are just there for the sake of it as well. Things like a romantic subplot, sex-related gags and some of the cringe-worthy exaggerated conversations I’ve seen in any representation of an Extreme Metal or Punk scene. As you may well know Euronymous was murdered by Varg Vikernes, and this being the main event of the Black Metal scene in Norway together with the terrorist attacks on churches it created so much controversy that made this extreme genre of music tainted until this very day, being the perfect story to sell at the box-office apparently.

If we step aside from the personal bias with this genre of music and these stories, it does not help the film at all. The final product of Jonas Åkerlund’s work is fundamentally flawed like many of other films that try to depict an event of recent history. There is an obscene sense of disrespect for the dead in the film, more noticeable than the mere disrespect for the story and Black Metal in general. Euronymous is here depicted as a stupid teenager wimp that thinks he is “trve” but is actually a “poser” and Varg is depicted a “poser” that is actually “trve”. In subverting these “scene concepts”, Åkerlund manages to show on which side of the story he is and his criticism in a way that is theoretically interesting. The problem is that he lacks sensitivity with the characters, being way too predictable, and reducing the characters to a Hollywoodesque level of plastic that feels atrocious and offensive even to the ones that are not knowledgeable with the real facts depicted in the film. In the beginning of the film the director puts out a sentence on the screen saying something like “Based on Truth, Lies and What Actually Happened“. He almost used this to an interesting extent when mixing up all the myths in the dream sequences of Euronymous, but he fails, because in actuality what the spectator feels he means with this is that he does not care a single bit about the real story and the Black Metal myths and just wants to poop out a discardable bag of chips.

Technically it is awful as well. Despite not relying on a predictable shot/reverse-shot structure, the music video style he uses instead does not bring anything to the table that feels in any way authentic or aesthetically pleasing. He also goes for this snappy style of directors like Adam McKay, that combined with the fake, “edgelord” kind of stylization only makes the film stink even worse. Maybe I am privileged in the selection I make to the films I watch, but Lords of Chaos is probably the worst film I have watched in months, even worse than the insidious mess that was (his John Wick remake) Polar (2019). Not even the casting looks legitimate and for the most part the actors do not do a good job. Something as simple as the special effects and the depicted violence feels too exaggerated and silly as well, and I will not even comment on what they did with the soundtrack and especially the Mayhem songs. There are no redeeming qualities to Lords of Chaos whatsoever, and being someone with the background of Jonas Åkerlund the man behind this project, it only makes us feel even closer to the post-capitalist cinematic apocalypse.

1.5 out of 10

The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)

(original title: El espíritu de la colmena)

Directed by Victor Erice

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“Why did he kill her?

Children in film are often used as a powerful tool to portray an array of heavy and dark sentiments through the eyes of naivety and without preconceptions. If we take, for instance, the experience of war, this innocence shattering event makes up for a potent art statement. For example, in a film like Elem Klimov’s Come and See (1985) the sheer expressions of horror in the face of the young Florya, during the Nazi’s invasion of the Soviet Union makes up for an image far more lasting than if it was an adult. There is something about the loss of innocence combined with a sense of escapism in a child’s mind to deal with that shocking reality. But it doesn’t need to be as eerie and explicit like that to make a deep impression. In a film like Children of Heaven (Majid Majidi, 1997) the journey for a poor child to get a new pair of shoes for his sister makes up for a simple but not less beautiful and warm experience.

The Spirit of the Beehive is not in anyway as a traumatic experience as the Klimov film mentioned above. The plot takes during the early years of Francisco Franco’s fascist regime in Spain. It is interesting to point out that this film was released during the last years of this dictatorship, marking perhaps, by the themes portrayed in the film, a pending weakness in the regime. The main characters are two young sisters, Ana (Ana Torrent) and Isabel (Isabel Telleria). Their father has a myriad of occupations that go from bookkeeper to beekeeper and poet. Taking place in a small Castillian village in the Spanish Meseta, cinema is a motive for great excitement in this quiet town. The projector is set on an old barn and all the inhabitants, including the small girls watch a dubbed version of James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931). The impact is immense on the younger one Ana, who leaves the cinema traumatized by the famous drowning scene. Obsessed with the monster, she looks for any sign of the monster close to home. The search ends up leading her to an isolated old shed on a large and desolate piece of flat land. Inside there’s a wounded republican soldier, trying to escape death at the hands of the Francoist forces. The small girl, naïve to all the political struggles, steals food from home to feed the desperate soldier. The Republican partisan is found and shot by the Nationalists which leads to the suspicion that Ana’s father was the one helping him. The pressure for the daughter ends up being too much and she escapes next to a lake, making a clear parallel with the Frankenstein plot.

The impact of the film reflected in her eyes

Portraying a Republican this way, like a wounded horse waiting for its demise, is an obvious example of a critique against the then fascist Spanish regime. In the seventies, dictatorships in Europe suffered an enormous amount of pressure by the rest of the western powers that already lived in democracy. Regimes like the Spanish (and as well the Portuguese one) grew more and more isolated. That could explain why films like this one or Viridiana (Buñuel, 1961, a ferocious critique of the catholic church, usual theme in Buñuel) passed the censors, despite the bad image they made of the regime. With general Franco’s death in 1975, Spain would finally make its transition to a democratic regime. Despite this obvious message, this film is much more than a political statement. It deals with the pureness of a child’s imagination, and how the make believes sometimes juxtaposes the sense of what is real. The innocence of Ana makes her completely unaware of the possible troubles she may be getting into by helping the soldier. Ana Torrent (that would end up working also with Carlos Saura in Cría Cuervos (1976)) makes up for an extremely sincere and sweet innocent child, in one of the more perfect roles played by a child that young. Merit has to be given to Erice for being able to blossom such a talent in a little child.

The vastness of the Spanish “Meseta”

On top of the terrific performances, the cinematography is clearly an astonishing feat. The stellar work of Luis Cuadrado (who ironically was losing eyesight during the shoot) is found in creating this sense of emptiness both inside the buildings and in the vast Spanish flat lands. The house where the children live feels old and uninhabited and the small village is surrounded by immense of dry fields to lose sight on. The emptiness feels like a colossal canvas for a young child’s imagination. Together with the somewhat eerie but at the same time comforting soundtrack by Spanish composer Luis de Pablo, The Spirit of the Beehive is a cinematographic experience like any other.

Bibi Andersson || Persona (1966)

[Directed by Ingmar Bergman]

Earlier this week we have been braced with the devastating news of the death of the legendary actress Bibi Andersson. She is best known for her long collaboration with director Ingmar Bergman with whom she had made approximately twelve films. Andersson is responsible to the introduction of Liv Ullmann to Bergman, and therefore responsible for what is one of the most legendary collaborations in the history of cinema. Even though the spotlight is often on Ullmann, Bibi Andersson is the original muse of the director, and works as a strong homogenous figure in Bergman’s early work, only later her figure being noticeable as a “lighthearted” contrast to what was the “severity” of Liv Ullmann, especially on the masterpiece that is Persona.

Every film lover knows Persona. But it is also true that no one can truly deconstruct and interpret the film in what may be considered a “right way”. This is a film that is meant to work on a level that differs from our usual cinematic experiences. Most of this is due to the way both characters interact and the work of metamorphosis between the two. While, as mentioned before, Liv Ullmann plays the patient, an actress that is both austere and troubled, Bibi Andersson plays a deeply humane but also troubled nurse. While both performances are incredibly layered and dynamic, we are mostly guided by the eyes of nurse Alma in her quest to heal Elizabeth Vogler, that quickly turns into a therapy for her own troubles. The humanity and sincerity of Andersson’s performance brings to the film something for the viewer to relate to, something that is essential for Bergman’s work to function correctly in order to not transform into something completely obtuse and abstract. She is the perfect counterpart that bridges the complex states of mind and the complex artistic pretensions of the film into our everyday lives, creating in the end one of the most unheimlich experiences one can have with a film.

Bibi Andersson is the light of our everyday lives fading in the world of Bergman’s cinema. She brought reality and sensibility to films that would feel too cold and distant to be as relevant as they are today. This week we lost one of the big faces of Swedish cinema, and she will surely be remembered as one of the absolute icons of the history of film. We leave a list below of our favourite films she made part of. Bibi Andersson will not be forgotten.

The List:

Sommarnattens leende [Smiles of a Summer Night] (1955)
Det sjunde inseglet [The Seventh Seal] (1957)
Smultronstället [Wild Strawberries] (1957)
Djävulens öga [The Devil's Eye] (1960)
Syskonbädd 1782 [My Sister, My Love] (1966)
Persona (1966)
Flickorna [The Girls] (1968)
En passion [A Passion] (1969)
Scener ur ett äktenskap [Scenes from a Marriage] (1974)
An Enemy of the People (1978)
Quintet (1979)

The Fire Within (1963)

(original title: Le Feu Follett)

Directed by Louis Malle

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“One day I realised I’d spent my life waiting. For women. Money. Action. So I drank myself stupid.”

Louis Malle is a French director that started his career amidst the Nouvelle Vague movement. Despite not being a full front figure like Jean Luc Godard, Alain Resnais or the recently late Agnes Varda, he has a personal style and sensibility that make him, in my opinion, an underrated director in the French scene. His first full feature is Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (1958), a noir masterpiece, displaying a suffocating and almost despairing feel with the brilliance of his night Paris shots. This in alliance with a stellar original soundtrack by the jazz great Miles Davis make for an almost perfect debut as a director. Throughout his career he would tackle difficult and polemic themes like Nazi collaboration (Lacombe Lucien (1974) ) or incestuous relationships (Le souffle au cœur (1971) ). His own World War II experience would serve as the theme for Au revoir les enfants (1987), a powerful film about a catholic school that hides Jewish children from Nazi persecution.

With Le Feu Follett, Malle focuses once again in very sensitive topics, like depression, addiction and especially on suicide. The story follows Alain Leroy (Maurice Ronet), a 30-year-old writer with alcoholic problems as he leaves the rehabilitation clinic in Paris. This service was played by his ex-wife, who now lives away from him in New York. To verify the success of the treatment, she sends one of Alain’s old female acquaintances Lydia (Léna Skerla) to check up on him. His doctor (Jean-Paul Moulinot) assures him that he is completely cured, and all is good now. Despite all the positive feedback from the outside Alain cannot help but feel disenchanted with the prospects of his future. Though the film we see him visit some old friends and catching up with their current lives in the present. For instance, as his comrade Dubourg (Bernard Noël) now dedicates his life to Egyptology and marriage, Eva (Jeanne Moreau) wastes her time with drug users. In another scene we see Alain dine with Solange (Alexandra Stewart) and her wealthy and reactionary friends. There is a feeling of resentment by Alain against his friends as if they are no longer the same as they were in their youth. As if in some way, their juvenile ideals were betrayed and transformed exactly on what was promised to fight against.

“It’s not feelings of anxiety, it’s a single feeling of constant anxiety”

Despite the constant presence of friends and acquaintances, Alain feels more alone than ever. Deep inside he feels truly displaced in this world and questions the bourgeois life that his friends live. In his small room questions the meaning of his existence and if he should just end it. The addiction leaves him with constant questioning of his abilities as a writer and even his notions of manhood, mainly because of the power and dependence that his ex-wife still has on him.

Maurice Ronet, who worked with Malle before in Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (1958) does an astonishing job in this film. With a profound sense of calmness, he wanders through Paris narrating his thoughts in an eloquent manner. Malle use of handheld cameras give a more personal and closer feel as we feel as if we walk along with Alain. Along with the minimalistic notes of piano composed by Erik Satie there is a bittersweet tone to the relation between the viewer and the protagonist. In his head he made up his mind and he is tired of waiting for something that gives meaning to his life. Despite that, what may feel as a self-imposed fatalism is something very hard to understand to those not experienced with depression or addition problems. Alain seems like the kind of men that has nothing against him. With a good figure, intelligent and well-dressed what does he needs more? He has lots of friends and women that want to spend the night with him but regardless of that he is extremely unhappy with his life.

Malle, born into a wealthy industrialist family surely took a lot of his own thoughts and experiences into this work. Inspired by the writter Pierre Drieu la Rochelle (who ended up committing suicide) and his novel Will O’ the Wisp (1931), Malle gives an honest and well needed take on both mental issues and the problematics of contemporary society. Alain is in short, a profoundly alone person mainly because people lack the understanding of his real problems. Depression works not only on sadness and poor mood but especially the lack or misplacement of feelings. The true sadness of the film lies on not the decisions made by Alain but how poorly the others could view his problems. Maybe it was shame or pure hopelessness, but Alain seemed to others like a functional human being. If the viewer did not have access to his thoughts would them also view him as a man in the brink of suicide?

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. ]

Utvandrarna (1971) / Nybyggarna (1972)

(eng:The Emigrants / The New Land)

Directed by Jan Troell

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The construction of the modern United States was a long and laborious process that encompassed many hardships by the countless ethnic groups that help created. Millions of people from all around the world embarked on ships to the American continent with the hope for a better life, incited by the “American Dream” that would bring freedom and economic prosperity, something lacking in their place of origin. Unfortunately, the country was built with more than free labour, with slavery and other racist cruelties being imposed to certain ethnic groups.

“Many slaves have better dwellings, food, clothing and working conditions than most peasants in Europe”

In these films, the focus is given to a Swedish family in the mid-nineteenth-century. Sweden is represented far from the image of prosperity that we relate with today’s Nordic countries. It is primarily an agricultural economy, with an engrained protestant ethos. It’s a difficult life, with years of bad crops creating harsh conditions of life, allied with religious persecutions. The film takes focus on the couple made up of Karl Oskar (Max von Sydow) and Kristina (Liv Ullmann), inhabitants of Smalanda, a small farming town. Despite the economic difficulties their family grows, ending up with four offspring. The idea of emigrating to America is conveyed to Karl Oskar by his brother Robert (Eddie Axberg). Kristina refuses fearing for the safety of her children during a arduous transatlantic voyage. The death of their oldest daughter to overeating unfermented grain finally convinces the wife to abandon her hometown and embark on a perilous trip to United States. After selling everything they have, the trip begins, with some family friends and religious exiles.

One moment that is one of the biggest highlights of the film is without a doubt the farewell to their hometown. The director Jan Troell does a stellar job focusing the faces of the ones leaving that impoverish and grey land. The looks to the ones that stay, whether be family or old friends, are a sight that knows that is almost certain that they will not return to this place. It is a bittersweet feeling that almost makes the viewer a passenger in that old wagon that will take them to the boat. It’s without a doubt a very powerful scene that truly shows the experience of leaving one’s home country and all the contrast of feelings with that situation.

.The ones that stay behind

The boat trip that follows shows, in a unique kind of manner the horrendous way that travelling the Atlantic Ocean was for the lower economical classes. Unlike today, the trip lasted for weeks, in an overcrowded boat, with very few preoccupations with hygiene, food or the comfort of its passengers. This kind of conditions are perfect for the transmission of diseases, and even the death of some of the passengers. It’s a claustrophobic feeling inside the large ship, leaving the viewer almost as anxious for the end of the trip as the travellers.

This kind of hardships and the detail for realism depicted in the films certainly makes the viewer feel a certain compassion with the characters. These moments portrayed are not gratuitous displays of poverty and the horrors of it just to shock the viewer or to take cheap lessons of humbleness from it. They are a part of history that sometimes is either forgotten or romanced by the newer generations. The United States of America were formed by emigrants that went to great lengths to give themselves and their descendants opportunities of life impossible in their countries of origin. It is certainly ironic that some of the people that descended from these impoverish and in need migrants now display fearmongering views against ones in similar situations.

Clocking more than seven hours of time length, both the films show a crude and genuine view during this period. They are sometimes slow movies and that take time to develop. Sydow and Ullman have truly a remarkable and honest performances, marked by a deep complicity with each other, and are accompanied by a cast of interesting and sometimes quirky secondary characters.

Film poster for Nybyggarna (1972)

As a follow up for Utvandrarna we have Nybyggarna (1972) by the same director, where we can follow the journey of the Karl Oskar’s family as they settle in a terrain In Minnesota. Here we are introduced to new problematics that challenge the idea of the so called “American Dream”. The richness of the new land is not enough for his brother Robert so he decides to go West, chasing the California Gold Rush. The war against the Sioux, a Native-American tribe (in the Dakota War of 1862) leaves his family in peril, with some perishing to indigenous warriors. On top of that, his wife has several problems with miscarriages and ends up getting dangerously ill. Like mentioned above it was a very difficult life in Sweden, but the change to America doesn’t seem to make it that much better. It’s a dangerous and lawless land and it would take years to create a stable State and a better growing economy. For ones interested in the knowing how the United States came to be, both the films are unavoidable because they create without a doubt a mental picture of the time that cannot be comprehended only by reading history books. It gives a voice to these people that made the ultimate sacrifice for a better future for them despite terrible adversities.

Alice (1988)

(original title: Něco z Alenky)

Directed by Jan Švankmajer

“Alice thought to herself: ‘Now you will see a film made for children… perhaps. But, I nearly forgot, you must close your eyes, otherwise you won’t see anything.’ “

Jan Švankmajer is one of those directors that is a legend to the lovers of animated films and sadly underappreciated by the general public. In a way it is a disappointing fact, but at the end of the day, stop-motion animation is still a very particular style, and when combined with surrealism and experimental imagery, there is not much left for the casual viewer to incline in its direction. Nevertheless, Švankmajer’s work is an influence to some of the most successful directors in Hollywood, such as Tim Burton for instance. Being a fan of puppeteering and stop-motion, it is hard not to include one of his films in our Classics category, as not only is he a master of the art of puppets and traditional surrealism, but also a great filmmaker that channels his very unique vision with full use of the medium.

If it wasn’t obvious enough, Alice is a film adaptation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the famous novel written by Lewis Carroll. Despite being very faithful to its original material (even comparing it to some other adaptations, that tend to mix up the novel with its sequel Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There), it does not depict all of the episodes in the book. However, every line in the film (not including the quote we selected above, that is at the very beginning of Alice) is taken directly from the novel. That said, it completely re-reads the novel, illustrating it in a creative and new way. Its style must have been described as truly unheimlich if Sigmund Freud had the chance to watch it. This is mostly because of Švankmajer’s obsession with everyday objects and things that are well-known to us, giving them a life that should not be. Dodgson’s novel is the perfect object to be narrated by Švankmajer, as it is an inheritly playful, ambiguous, psychadelic and metamorphic story. Other surrealists have taken a chance at this novel, but only the odd combination of interests in Švankmajer could result in such an interesting piece.

Alice shrinks into a doll.

By the end of the novel Alice wakes up in her sister’s lap, as she shouts (after growing spontaneously) that all those soldiers were just a “pack of cards”. And in fact we suppose by her sister’s description afterwards that all of her adventures in Wonderland were her background setting fantasized. Švankmajer takes these ideas to an absolute extreme, utilizing animation in everyday objects and artifacts instead of focusing on creating polished fantastical creatures. This creates an incredible textural feeling in the film, something that is common in his body of work. It seems that he knows of the many different readings of the story as well, as his semiotic game (combined with smart editing, framing and cinematic techniques that are not strictly related to the effect of the animation) shows knowledge about the different subtexts of Alice in Wonderland, with a special insistence on its sexual and psychoanalytical readings.

Probably the most unsettling scene in the film, the infamous tea party.

As in some of his other works (such as Conspirators of Pleasure (1996) and Little Otik (2000) ) we can observe in this work a presence of sexuality in childhood. It is a very subtle and delicate subject, but the honesty and tactility of the director allows these themes to flow in a poignant yet brutal way. The process of coming of age, clear in Dodgson’s original, is a prominent theme in the film overall. The brutal violence of growing in Švankmajer’s version is less evident than in the book, but it burns at a much more deeper level. This is mostly due to the use of the medium of cinema (images and time) combined with the animation and metamorphosis of inanimate objects (especially regarding things like meat and bones, that are a staple of Švankmajer’s, that when back to life create this uncanny feeling of seeing a sort of in-between of life and death).

“Off with their heads!”

Alice is a film to feel and not just watch. As the main character said, it is a children’s film, with the exception that it isn’t. It is, though, an incredible revisiting of a timeless classic. Focusing on the coming of age aspect of Alice, the cyclic nature of the story, the transformations and the perception of the real in human imagination, the film is definitely not for everyone. It is highly stylized, sometimes cryptic and ambiguous and it does not follow an easy narrative for the ones that are unfamiliar with the story. One can’t deny all these obstacles to the big audiences, but it is making it injustice when saying it is not a unique experience that will probably change the way you look at film as an art form and reconsider an old but dynamic and always fresh animation technique.