Paradise Now (2005)

Paradise Now is a 2005 film directed by Hany Abu-Assad about two Palestinian men preparing for a suicide attack in Israel. It won a Golden Globe for best foreign language film and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category.

"The film is an artistic point of view of that political issue," Abu-Assad said. "The politicians want to see it as black and white, good and evil, and art wants to see it as a human thing."

A movie review by James Berardinelli

It's a risky proposition for any artist (director, author, etc.) to humanize a terrorist. In an era when many things have been reduced to black-and-white, the word "terrorist" has become synonymous with "evil." And evil can only be demonized. Because director Hany Abu-Assad chooses to peel away the stereotypes and look at the people who commit heinous actions, he guarantees two things: (1) his movie will offend a host of people, and (2) its prospects of commercial success are non-existent. Some viewers will see Paradise Now as an apologia for terrorism. Those who do, however, aren't paying attention. Abu-Assad's goal is not to condone terrorist actions (in fact, he goes to great pains to condemn them), but to explain why two seemingly "ordinary" men would be willing to sacrifice their lives in an act of mass carnage. The film offers food for thought, and reminds us that, in any war, one who understands the mindset of his opponent gains an important tactical advantage.

The carrot offered to many suicide bombers is an instant ticket to heaven. Angels will appear to escort the martyr to paradise, where virgins will be awaiting him. But, for the would-be bombers in Paradise Now, gains in the afterlife are not the prime motivation - although they're a pleasant fringe benefit. Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman), long-time friends who work together as mechanics in the West Bank, have precise reasons for their intended action. Khaled views it as a political statement: only in death can Israelis and Arabs be equal. In life, Israel is the oppressor and the Palestinians are the oppressed. Death is the great equalizer. Said has more personal reasons for his actions - a ghost from his past that haunts him.

We aren't given many details about the plan - only that it has taken two years to put into motion and involves the two men undergoing a transformation from scruffy to clean-shaven, strapping bomb packs to their chests under suits, and detonating them 15 minutes apart in crowded sections of Tel Aviv. The man behind the plan is Jamal (Amer Hlehel), although we never learn which terrorist organization he represents. The voice of conscience is Suha (Lubna Azabal), Said's "sort of" girlfriend. Her view is that the bombings are wrong and the only way to achieve peace is by stopping the terror.

The film develops into a thriller when something goes wrong during the early stages of the plan's execution. Said and Khaled become separated and Jamal is convinced that Said may be betraying the cause. It's during this section of the film (roughly the last third) that Paradise Now is at its weakest. As good as Abu-Assad is at setting up the situation, presenting both sides of the issue, and developing the characters, he cannot generate the necessary suspense to make this a top-notch thriller. There are occasional moments of tension, and the final scene, despite being constrained by a sense of inevitability, is effective.

Paradise Now is a tough film because of what it attempts to do. It's a rare thing for a movie to present events of the Arab/Israeli struggle from the Palestinian side, where terrorists are viewed as "martyrs" and "freedom fighters" instead of killers. By making Jamal a sleazy character who is on a power trip (he mouths spiritual platitudes that he obviously does not believe) and by developing Suha as a strong character, Abu-Assad makes sure the movie offers balance while still achieving its aim. Even the most liberal viewers are likely to leave the theater with a deeply rooted sense of disquiet. The movie is not entirely successful - there are times when it is too talky and the "action" portion could have used some tightening. But for those who are willing to take cinematic risks, the experience of viewing Paradise Now is not without its rewards.

Jellyfish

Reviewed by Chris Barsanti on Apr 3 2008

Like figures in a Robert Altman film left too long in the sun, and who possibly never had that much going on upstairs to begin with, the characters of Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen's Jellyfish wander about and go missing in their own lives, eventually washing up on the Tel Aviv beach like the silent hulks of dead jellyfish scattered across the sands. There's action and episode here, but little purpose or necessity, just people trying to find their way in a world that baffles them with its willful obtuseness, and more often than not, gets them lost in the process. Everything comes back to the sea. With the only real connective tissue among them being the grey and somewhat mournful Mediterranean and a certain cluelessness about their lives, the three women whose stories constitute Jellyfish seem specialists in not getting what they want. The most painful to behold is Batya (Sarah Adler), a dizzy-headed and recently-dumped young woman who waitresses at a wedding reception hall and always seems on the verge of getting fired. (And who could blame her? It's the kind of place that requires waitresses to wear bachelorette party-style tiaras while working.) Unable to connect with her father, a clueless old fool with a nervous anorexic of a new girlfriend who's about Batya's age, or her mother, who's too busy organizing charity functions to pay much attention to her child, Batya only seems to focus when she finds herself the unwitting guardian of a nameless and mute young girl (Nikol Leidman) who seemed literally to wash up on the beach.

Similarly at sea is Keren (Noa Knoller), a bride who we see at the reception hall getting in a supremely bad jam. Stuck in a locked bathroom stall, she tries to climb her way out, breaking her leg in the process. This ruins her and her new husband's chance for a dream Caribbean honeymoon, marooning them instead at a lousy hotel where they can't even view the Mediterranean. Keren moons about their cramped room, while her husband Michael (Gera Sandler) tries haplessly to make things better, but ends up becoming enthralled with the single woman writer he keeps passing in the hotel, the one with the smoky voice and intellectual sensuality.

Less willfully clueless is Joy (Ma-nenita De Latorre), a Philippine domestic worker who gets shuttled from one thankless assignment to the next, and who is first also viewed at the wedding reception. Wracked with guilt over having had to leave her son behind in the Philippines, Joy seems competent enough in her own life (unlike Batya and Keren, who can't seem to manage crossing the street) but is just cursed with bad luck. This tendency seems doubly reinforced when she's assigned to be essentially a house nurse for a racist, dyspeptic old woman who can barely stand her own daughter, much less a worker who can't speak Hebrew.

While Keret is best known in the States as a writer of quirky short stories, one of which was the basis for 2007's winning black comedy Wristcutters, here he serves strictly as co-director, leaving the writing to his wife and co-director Shira Geffen. Not surprisingly, though, Keret's knack for conjuring blithely surrealist snippets is on full view here, from the police officer who shruggingly hands over the nameless child to Bayat for a couple days of utterly unlicensed guardianship, since the social workers don't work weekends, to the glimpse we get of a god-awful-seeming, avant-garde Hamlet. The Tel Aviv that Keret and Geffen conjure is also familiar territory from his fiction, a companionably rundown beachside place, looking like a quieter Miami, without the glitz or desperation. In this rundown antithesis of a seaside mecca, Jellyfish conjures up a handful of winsome delights in its brief running time, skipping across the screen with an amiable lack of pretension.

Puzzle (Rompecabezas) 2010

Argentina / France, 2010, 90 min

Director: Natalia Smirnoff

Cast: Maria Onetto, Gabriel Goity, Arturo Goetz, Henny Trailes, Felipe Villanueva

It’s Maria’s fiftieth birthday and her family give her a jigsaw puzzle as a present. She is highly delighted and pleasantly surprised, because Maria has made an astonishing discovery: not only does this patient housewife enjoy doing puzzles – she’s also extremely good at them. Thrilled by her new passion, she goes straight back to the shop where her present was bought to get another puzzle, and comes across an advert on the notice board: “Partner wanted for puzzle tournament”. Maria plucks up all her courage and, ignoring her family’s reservations, decides to respond to the advert.
The man who wrote the note is an elderly bachelor who lives in an impressive mansion in town. He is soon enchanted by Maria’s anarchistic way of solving puzzles. Together they decide to enter for the world Puzzle Tournament in Germany. But first Maria and her partner must qualify in the local heats. Obsessed by her new hobby and, irresistibly attracted to the hitherto unknown world of the wealthy, she tells her family a little white lie so that she can train in peace. She bones up on the rules, immerses herself in the world of jigsaw puzzles and, together with her partner contestant, does everything in her power to make their dream a reality and bring the puzzle championship to Argentina.
Maria’s family has no idea about her new passion since it means nothing to either her husband or her sons. But before long her puzzle mania becomes a serious testing ground, and Maria must decide how much she can expect from her men.

Pa Negre (Black Bread)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pa negre
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Agustí Villaronga
Produced by	Isona Passola
Screenplay by	Agustí Villaronga
Based on	Black Bread by Emili Teixidor
Starring	Francesc Colomer Marina Comas Nora Navas Roger Casamajor Laia Marull Eduard Fernández Sergi López
Cinematography	Antonio Riestra
Studio	Massa d'Or Produccions TVC TVE
Release date(s)	21 September 2010 (San Sebastián) 15 October 2010 (Spain)
Running time	108 minutes
Country	Spain
Language	Catalan
Budget	$6 million

Black Bread (Catalan: Pa negre, IPA: [ˈpa ˈnɛɣɾə]) is a 2010 Catalan-language Spanish drama film written and directed by Agustí Villaronga. The screenplay is based on the same-titled novel by Emili Teixidor, with elements of two other works by him, Retrat d'un assassí d'ocells and Sic transit Gloria Swanson.

The film won nine Goya Awards, including best film, best director and best adapted screenplay.

Plot

In the harsh post-war years' Catalan countryside, Dionís, a bird dealer, is attacked by a man in a hooded cape while leading his horse drawn wagon through a darkened forest. The assailant kills Dionís, leads the blindfolded horse to a cliff's edge then pulls the wagon with Dionís and his son, Culet, off the cliff. Andreu, an 11-year-old boy, discovers the wreckage of the fallen cart. Culet is still alive but manages only to say a word before dying: Pitorliua, the name that villagers have given to a ghost believe to live in a cave. The falangist major of the town suspects that Farriol, Andreu’s father, is involved in the deaths of Dionis and his son. Farriol, who was Dionís’s business partner dealing with birds, is an easy target for incrimination due to his suspicious background as a supportive of the Second Spanish Republic, which was repressed by the Francoist Spain. Years ago the major and Farriol were rivals vying for the love of Florència, Andreu’s mother, who ultimately chose Farriol as her husband cementing the major resentment against both of them. Fearing for his life, Farrol decides to flee and cross the border into France. Florència has to work in a factory in Vic so Andreu is sent to live with his paternal relatives in a house full of women and children. Àvia, Andreu’s old grandmother and Ció, a widower aunt who had a son a few years older than Andreu, work looking after the country home of the richest family of the region, the Manuben. There is also a younger aunt, Enriqueta, who is being pressured into marry an older neighbor she does not love. The grim household is completed with Andreu’s orphan cousin Núria, a maimed but beautiful girl around his age, who lost a hand while playing with a grenade.

Soon Andreu begins to unearth family’s dark secrets. His aunt, Enriqueta, is the talk of the village because she is carrying a secret affair with a civil guard. The precocious and lively Núria is engaging in sexual games with her alcoholic school teacher. Andreu befriends an older boy who he first spots bathing naked in a river in the forest. The boy is a consumptive patience in a nearby monastery, who imagines he has angels' wings. Andreu helps him setting a side some food for him. Farriol, as Andreu’s accidentally discovers, has not really left for France but is hiding in the farm house's attic.

Núria and Andreu become frequent companions roaming the mysterious forest together. She has a crush on him and tries a sex game, but he rejects her sexual advances. When the major orders to search the farmhouse Farriol is found and sent to prison. Farriol furtively tells Andreu to convince Florència to ask for help to the influential Mrs. Manubens. Florència pays her a visit. Because the rich lady is childless and has a weakness for children Florència takes Andreu with her. Mrs. Manubens reluctantly writes a letter to the major interceding for Farriol. However the major tries to take sexual advantage from Florència instead.Andreu slowly discovers that her mother has a secret of her own. In her youth she was a close friend of Pitorliua, the ghost of the legend, who was actually a delicate young man. Visiting his burial place, Andreu and Núria encounter Pauletta, Dionís’s half demented widow. Pauletta tells them that Pitorliua was the homosexual lover of the only brother of Mrs. Manubens and because of this he was castrated implying that Farriol had something to do with it. Exploring the cave where Pitorliua was castrated Andreu and Núria discover the names of the culprits on the wall: Dionís and Farriol. Andreu confronts his mother and Florència confesses that Dionís and Farriol where paid by Mrs. Manubens to scare Pitorliua off, but things went too far.

Farriol is condemned to death. Before he is executed Florència and Andreu visit him in jail to say goodbye. He tells his son not to forget his ideals. After Farriol’s funeral Pauletta spiteful reveals to Florència and Andreu that Farriol was the killer of her husband and son following orders of Mrs. Manubens. Dionís tried to blackmail her and Mrs. Manubens first got rid of Dionís and then of Farriol. The rich lady bought Farriol’s silence in exchange of providing an excellent education for Andreu. Andreu begins to reject his family full of lies and deceptions. Instead of running away with Núria as they originally planned, he ultimately accepts to be educated with expenses paid by Mrs. Manubens. Florència comes to see him at the boarding school, but Andreu has not forgiven his parents. When a classmate asks him who was the woman who came to see him he said it was a woman from his village.

Cast

• Francesc Colomer as Andreu
• Marina Comas as Núria
• Nora Navas as Florència
• Roger Casamajor as Farriol
• Lluïsa Castell as Ció
• Merce Aranega as Sra. Manubens
• Laia Marull as Pauletta
• Marina Gatell as Enriqueta
• Elisa Crehuet as Àvia
• Eduard Fernández as the teacher
• Sergi López as the major

Prizes

Goya Awards (Spain)

• Won: Best Actress– Leading Role (Nora Navas)
• Won: Best Actress – Supporting Role (Laia Marull)
• Won: Best Art Direction (Ana Alvargonzález)
• Won: Best Breakthrough Actor (Francesc Colomer)
• Won: Best Breakthrough Actress (Marina Comas)
• Won: Best Cinematography (Antonio Riestra)
• Won: Best Director (Agustí Villaronga)
• Won: Best Picture
• Won: Best Screenplay – Adapted (Agustí Villaronga)
• Nominated: Best Actor – Supporting Role (Sergi López)
• Nominated: Best Costume Design (Mercè Paloma)
• Nominated: Best Make Up
• Nominated: Best Production Supervisor (Aleix Castellón)
• Nominated: Best Sound

San Sebastián International Film Festival (Spain)

• Won: Best Actress (Nora Navas)

Gaudí Awards (Catalonia, Spain)

• Won: Best Film in Catalan Language
• Won: Best Actress– Leading Role (Nora Navas)
• Won: Best Actress – Supporting Role (Marina Comas)
• Won: Best Actor – Supporting Role (Roger Casamajor)
• Won: Best Director (Agustí Villaronga)
• Won: Best Screenplay (Agustí Villaronga)
• Won: Best Picture (Antonio Riestra)
• Won: Best Art Direction (Ana Alvargonzález)
• Won: Best Production Supervisor (Aleix Castellón)
• Won: Best Sound (Dani Fonrodona, Fernando Novillo and Ricard Casals)
• Won: Best Make Up (Satur Merino i Alma Casal)
• Won: Best Sound (José Manuel Pagán)
• Won: Best Costume Design (Mercè Paloma)
• Won: Best Film Editing (Raúl Román)

Red Psalm

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Red Psalm

(Még kér a nép)

Hungary 1972. Director: Miklós Jancsó
Cast: Lajos Balázsovits, András Bálint, Andrea Drahota, Gyöngyi Bürös, István Bujtor

 

Jancsó won Best Director honours at Cannes for the dizzying, dazzling Red Psalm, one of his pinnacle achievements. The film recounts, in fervid, balletic, bloody fashion, and with much pageantry (and nudity), a farm workers’ rebellion on a large Hungarian estate in the late 19th century. Jancsó’s circling, swirling, incessantly moving camera captures the drama with breathtaking kinetic and metaphoric force; this 88-minute film is composed of a mere 28 shots, each demonstrating the director’s bold, rhythmic command of the expressive extended take. Red Psalm is one of two Jancsó films — The Red and the White, also screening in this series, is the other — featured in 1001 Films You Must See Before You Die. "Jancsó’s awesome fusion of form with content and politics with poetry equals the exciting innovations of the French New Wave...It may well be the greatest Hungarian film of the sixties and seventies" (Jonathan Rosenbaum).  "A stunning symbolic analysis of the revolutionary process...a film of nearly perfect formal beauty, great humanity, and awesome cinematic power" (David Cook). "Jancsó’s cinema does not conform to narrative or psychological conventions, but opens up other areas which are usually only found in the screen musical" (Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide). Colour, 35mm, in Hungarian with English subtitles. 88 mins.

Dancer and the Thief (El baile de la victoria)

Director : Fernando Trueba.

Spain, 2009. 127mins.

Two men unlucky in both love and larceny try to change their fates under unfortunate circumstances in this drama adapted from a novel by Antonio Skarmeta. Following the end of Pinochet's rule in Chile, a large number of prisoners are given amnesty, and after five years behind bars, master safecracker Nico (Ricardo Darin) is allowed to go free. Nico wants little more than to see his family and live a quiet life, and he has no interest in returning to a life of crime. But Nico learns that his wife Teresa (Ariadna Gil) has started a new life and has no interest in seeing him again, leaving him uncertain about his future. Angel (Abel Ayala) is a younger ex-con who served alongside Nico and has plans to steal a cache of loot that was hidden before he was arrested for petty theft; he tries to recruit Nico to help him with the heist, and with no clear future Nico reluctantly agrees. As Nico and Angel map out plans for the robbery, Angel finds himself falling in love with Victoria (Miranda Bodenhofer), a beautiful but troubled former balled dancer who has been left mute by the horrors she saw under Pinochet's dictatorship. Unknown to Angel, his days may be numbered -- he knows some ugly secrets about Santoro (Julio Jung), the prison's warden who has sent a man out to silence him forever. El Baile de la Victoria (aka The Dancer and the Thief) was the first dramatic feature in nine years from director Fernando Trueba, after devoting close to a decade to documentaries about music. 

Review by Mark Deming, Rovi

Silence and Cry

Csend és kiáltás
Hungary, 1967, black and white, 76 mins

• Director: Miklós Jancsó
• Producer: Lajos Kiss
• Screenplay: Gyula Hernádi, Miklós Jancsó
• Photography: János Kende
• Production Design: Tamás Banovich
• Costume Design: Zsuzsa Vicze
• Editor: Zoltán Farkas
• Sound: Zoltán Toldy
• Cast: Mari Törőcsik (Teréz); József Madaras (Károly); Zoltán Latinovits (Kémeri); Andrea Drahota (Anna); András Kozák (István); István Bujtor (Kovács II); Ida Siménfalvy (Teréz’ mother); János Koltai (Peasant); Sándor Siménfalvy (Old peasant); Kornélia Sallay (Auntie Veronika); János Görbe (The shepherd); László Szabó (Detective); Philippe Haudiquet (Photographer); Mari Boga; Károly Eisler; Mária Goór Nagy; Ferenc Kamarás; Miklós Köllő; József Konrád; Zsolt Körtvélyessy; Ila Schütz; Sándor Szili; Tibor Talán; Sándor Vajó

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Both made and set in the same year as The Red and the White (Csillagosok, katonák) - 1967 and 1919 respectively - Silence and Cry returns to the puszta - that great flat Hungarian plain stretching out to infinity - that Miklós Jancsó made such an indelible part of The Round-Up (Szegénylegények, 1965). Although much more of a chamber piece than its two immediate predecessors (there’s just one primary location, and only a handful of characters), it nonetheless pushes Jancsó’s fascination with landscape and long, sustained takes to new extremes, even to the point of replacing his regular cameraman Tamás Somló with János Kende, because the latter was more willing to attempt logistically complex 360-degree pans.

Unlike the spoken or written introductions to The Round-Up and The Red and the White, the only scene-setting here consists of a montage of photographs set to a monophonic melody played on an ancient piano that’s attempting (sarcastically?) to mimic a triumphal brass fanfare. The man featured in most of the photographs (though no indication of this is made in the actual film: Jancsó clearly assumes that a Hungarian audience would recognise him instantly) is Admiral Miklós Horthy, who had just triumphed over the pro-Bolshevik forces led by Béla Kun, setting in train a fascist regime that would remain in place for another two-and-a-half decades.

The opening scene, set on a sand dune, shows Kémeri - played by Zoltán Latinovits, the lead in Cantata (Oldás és kötés, 1963) - disposing of a Kun supporter in a manner not dissimilar to the out-of-the-blue executions in Jancsó’s two previous films, though in this case Kémeri does at least have the decency to dig a grave. He also has the decency to discipline Kanyasi, one of his underlings, for going too far in his treatment of female civilians, something that wouldn’t have happened in the far more dispassionate The Red and the White.

More significantly, he deliberately turns a blind eye to the film’s other male protagonist, fugitive Red soldier István (András Kozak, another familiar Jancsó face), even though he’s nominally in charge of local affairs - he even prevents a search of a haystack from going ahead, as he knows this will betray István’s whereabouts. The reason for this is never explained, though there are hints that the two previously knew each other when Kémeri makes a casual (and rebuffed) offer of a drink. On the other hand, it could be because Kémeri has a psychological need to assert himself over a younger, more attractive man - in a subsequent conversation with István, he emphasises how dependent he is on his goodwill, and that he could have him shot at any point. He also takes a perverse delight in piling regular humiliations on the farmer Károly (Jószef Madaras) for little apparent reason, often with the collaboration of his men.

Most of the film takes place in Károly’s farm on the puszta - it’s not unlike the one in the final scenes of Cantata. Károly’s wife Teréz is played by Mari Törőcsik, the iconic lead in Zoltán Fábri’s Merry-Go-Round (Körhinta, 1955) and, shortly after this film, Károly Makk’s Love (Szerelem, 1971). Her calm demeanour conceals a deadly secret: while openly sharing István’s favours between herself and her sister-in-law Anna (Andrea Drahota), she is slowly poisoning Károly and his mother. When István finds out, he is put in a moral quandary, since it would be impossible to report them to the police without revealing his identity and whereabouts.

But any fleeting impression that this film is a conventional domestic love-triangle melodrama is comprehensively undermined by Jancsó’s treatment. The takes are longer than ever (there are apparently fewer than forty shots in the entire film), the camera perpetually circling around his endlessly pacing characters, constantly reframing them against the landscape with its sparse outcrops of trees and haystacks and thatched white buildings. Dialogue is purely functional, gestures only occasionally revealing - since these are often carried out at a distance from the viewer, it’s not always easy to interpret them at first glance. (Teréz’s mask-like face is particularly inscrutable as she strolls calmly past a violent confrontation between István and her sister-in-law).

On the soundtrack, Jancsó’s characteristic birdsong can still be heard, but it’s often usurped by the harsher sounds of crows and cockerels, and also by a near-ubiquitous wind, which serves to chill even occasional romantic encounters to the marrow - though the word ‘romantic’ seems singularly inappropriate when applied to the scene where István is passed from Teréz to Anna, and finally neglected as the two find greater intimacy with each other. The fact that it takes place in the open air shows their essential contempt for Károly’s opinion.

So for all the apparently smaller, more human scale of this film, Silence and Cry is of a piece with its immediate predecessors in that it’s ultimately an exploration of hierarchies of power, whether national and wide-ranging (Horthy), local and circumscribed (Kémeri) or domestic and subversive (Teréz). These hierarchies are tacitly acknowledged even by their victims: Károly seems unconcerned about his fate, Teréz and Anna regard István’s threat to expose them with sphinx-like equanimity, and István himself accepts that with only one bullet in his gun at the end and several armed witnesses, shooting Kémeri will provide only the most fleeting satisfaction - though Jancsó extends this by means of an enigmatic closing freeze-frame. Incidentally, this is the third of four films to end with András Kozák looking directly at the camera, as if trying to communicate with an audience that he has ignored up to then.

Silence and Cry was the last of Jancsó’s black-and-white Scope films, marking the end of one of the most distinctive lines drawn by anyone in 1960s cinema. His next film, The Confrontation (Fényes szelek, 1968 - only available on an unsubtitled Hungarian DVD at the time of writing) would be his first in colour, and would mark the start of a new phase in his career.