GIFF day 10: Jauja, Exit, Butter on the Latch

Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, Argentina, 2014)

In discussion of film, as in so many artforms, money is often the enemy. Boo on Hollywood, capitalist purveyor of superficial entertainment. Yay on those artists on the fringes, using small crews and cheap practices to make much more daring, personal art. People like Lav Diaz, who can make eight hours of black-and-white film in a year, or Pedro Costa, who portrayed the poor people of Fontainhas with digital camera and a small crew. Or like Lisandro Alonso from Argentina, who's film Los Muertos was just a depiction of a man travelling from jail to where he used to live. That one, the only Alonso I have seen, was great and beautiful, using amateur actors, natural light, nature photography. This one is a bit more professional, with Viggo Mortenson playing the main role, and the film being a historical drama with costumes and guns and stuff. It still retains a sense of the austere, of the amateurish, of the personal and daring. I felt like it spoke to me very personally. Which, at least at times, was awful.

Mortensen portrays Dinesen, a Danish soldier who is emigrating to Argentina with his teenage daughter. Mortensen is a great actor, and carries himself with a natural strenght that fits the role very well, but he's still awful: He simply can't speak Danish. Almost every linereading of his is a pain to get through. And Viillbjørk Malling Agger is pretty awful as his daughter, Ingeborg, as well. She is supposed to be a young dreaming girl who don't know what she's doing, but she always seems like a young actress who don't know what she's doing. It's horrible. Here's the thing though: I'm absolutely certain that they are in no way worse than the Spanish-speaking actors in this film – or the amateaurs filling the screen in films by Diaz or Costa – but it's just so extremely clear to me when they speak Danish, how awful their linereadings are. It's a really interesting experience, because people don't make films like this in Danish, so I've never been subjected to it before.

And then there is the flipside. As with so many of this kind of film, the story in Jauja is skeletal and allusive. And many of these allusions point to Danish history and culture. I don't want to spoil it, but connoisseurs of Danish literary history will know about the famous nineteenth soldier Dinesen, and who his daughter turned out to be. Not that the story matches up with their lives. Ingeborg runs off with a young Argentinian soldier, and Dinesen takes off after her. Into the wilderness everybody goes, the young couple being followed by crazy deserter Zuluanga, Zuluanga in turn followed by Dinesen, and Dinesen being shadowed by the indigenuous people of the Patagonia. The only thing that doesn't move into the wilderness is official Argentina itself, as they all have to go to an official ball... All these elements are portrayed in the most simple way, along with sealions, rocks and streams, ending up like a poem or one of those famous paintings by Brueghel. Or, as I think is the point of the film, like one of the short stories by the famous Danish writer who's father was named Dinesen. In that way, the film becomes about European culture contrasted with what lies outside, the interactions between those places, in a way that is all the more interesting for me as a Dane, knowing the life stories that the film never includes. It was a singular experience, both awful and intriguing at the same time.

Exit (Hsiang Chienn, Taiwan, 2014)

I watched this film because the program claimed that it 'smelled like Tsai Ming-liang'. It made me wonder what on earth that could mean. Because, in a way it's very true. A Taiwanese film about lonely people trying to connect, delivered without much language, and with a focus on the architecture they live in, that seems very much like Tsai's films like The Hole or Vive l'Amour. But the style wasn't Tsai'ian at all. Tsai films with a steady camera, calmly observing. Almost every shot in this film was handheld and slightly shaking, filled with closeups. Here's the thing: Tsai's films are great because his chosen style is amazing to transmit his chosen themes. So working through the same themes in a different style? It means the film says kinda the same things, just in a less effective way.

So the film removes the style from Tsai, which is the most important part of Tsai, then substitutes it with the style most common from American indie, a style that I really don't like. The story for the film is also kinda seen before. A middle aged woman, living alone in an appartment in Taipei, both her husband and her daughter having moved elsewhere to make more money. She dreams of dancing tango, and takes care of her ailing mother, who is in the hospital. In the hospital, she notices a man in the bed across her mother, who has clearly been in a horrible accident, and now can no longer hear, and has bandages over his eyes. The tender way she begins to take care of him is pretty sweet, but also nothing out of the ordinary.

And yet. I didn't think much of the narrative, and I dismissed the style. And yet I kinda like the film? I guess I have to admit it does do something with style – since as the film is pretty close to being plotless, that can't really be what spoke to me. I have to admit, that a film with as little dialogue as this, that manages to keep interest, is doing something right. The architecture IS beautifully used. There is a dream sequence that is beautifully done, perhaps even more effective for how much it stands out from the rest of the film. The ending of the film includes some shots held for a veeeeery long time, which I always like. And even if 'the lonely woman' is a trope in this kind of cinema of modern ennui, I don't think I've ever seen this particular middleaged woman before. This kind of film doesn't normally deal with menopause. And I can't recall another film where maxipads played such a big symbolical role...

Butter on the Latch (Josephine Decker, USA, 2014)

Watch this trailer to the end!

Another Josephine Decker! Thou Wast Mild and Lovely was one of the biggest surprises from the festival, so I was quite excited to see this one, her debut feature. It's not quite as good. In a way, it's the same style, a mix of indie-tropes, visuel poesy, and glimpses of horror, but the indietrope drawn on at the start of Butter on the Latch is one of my most hated of all the tropes. I hate when a young debuting film director, wherever they come from, debuts with a story of how young smart creative people in their own town live. Some of it can be really good – Hi, Lena Dunham! - but no matter how great it is, it loses a couple of points in my book. This film begins in New York, with young smart New Yorkers, yapping and yapping about theater plays and nightlife. Mixed with glimpses of something better, but it still started the film at a disadvantage.

Then the film luckily moves to somewhere more unique. A Balkan-music workshop in the Californian woods. Now, I say that is unique, in a way it's as hipster as can be. But it's still visually and aurally unique. At that point, the film finds the same kind of poetry that it found on a farm in Kentucky in ...Lovely. I don't really like the improvised dialogue scenes, they're good for what they are, they're just too indie once again. And I'm not a big fan of horror-tropes either. But Decker simply has a visual style, that is so extremely promising. She builds up a scary scene with quick cutting and weird angles, and then at it's conclusion switches to calm steady shot >< reverse shot, and the effect is even more unnerving. There's an absolutely fabulous sequence, set to Morton Feldman's Three Voices, of women dancing in the woods, where at one point a woman does something with her eyes which is one of the freakiest things I've ever seen. And again, I like that there is a female perspective on everything, with the relationship between friends Sarah and Isolde being the core of the film.

If you have the time, check out at least the start of this beautiful piece of music. American film is way too bad at drawing on modern American classical composers like Feldman, or Steve Reich or John Adams. It's always Philip Glass.

Most of all: Even if this film is weaker than the other, I'm just really really happy to have a favorite new American filmmaker. I joked some time ago, that my favorite American films of the last few years were Frozen and The LEGO Movie, and even though that isn't entirely true – I like some documentaries – it's not far off either. With American film, it's hard to be neutral. Even among arthouse, the country is so overrepresented in the cinemas and on critics list, that when the country's output only make up like 10-20% of what I consider my favorite films, it seems snobbish, perhaps even radical. I like American film quite a bit. I'm okay with Linklater and Wes Andersson, but I rarely adore what they do. Every now and then I like a weird film like Shane Carruth's Upstream Color, or Andrew Bujalski's Computer Chess. I like old masters like Terrance Malick or James Benning. I don't need to pick favorites among my favorite French films each year, if something great comes along, I take. it. But all over the film-sphere, it's American this, American that. And I frankly like that there is a new American voice, whom I'm invested in, that I really want to see succeed, and is really excited about following through further feature film escapades. Feels good. Firmly on Team Decker.

GIFF day 4-5: Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, Wild Tales, Still the Water

Thou Wast Mild and Lovely (Josephine Decker, USA, 2014)

US filmmaking can feel like a pretty insular world. Lots of different kinds of filmmaking, lots of different kinds of scenes, but many of those can feel a bit closed. There are Hollywood blockbusters, finetuned to make money, there are prestige filmmaking, finetuned to win oscars, there are indie-scenes such as mumblecore, finetuned to... I have no idea what could possibly be of use in mumblecore, but I guess their friends like it? Most American films feel like they are in conversation with other American films, and not trying to discuss that much with films from the rest of the world. Josephine Deckers film definitely speaks with Terrance Malick, first and foremost, but for long stretches it feels more international, like it speaks with Carlos Reygadas' rural Mexico, or with the sensuous images of Argentinian filmmaker Lucretia Martel. Perhaps it just felt Latin American?

It's not that the film isn't connected to American filmmaking. Josephine Decker has acted in mumblecore films, and mumblecore filmmaker Joe Swanberg plays the main character Akin, a hired hand who arrives at a secluded ranch with an old owner Jeremeiah and his lovely daughter Sarah. That part of the film is the oldest story in the book. The growing atraction between Sarah and Akin is depicted with a shocking amount of sensuality. One of those films that make me think, that I know nothing about women. A young female filmmaker making a sensuous film about a girl and a boy longing for each other, begun with voice-over from the girl, that should be filled with lustful images of the male body, right? Why does the camera focus so much on the lips, hands, hair and clothe-covered curves of Sarah? Akin can't stop looking at her, as she is bending over to pick weeds, as she sits and knits with her legs slightly apart, as she walks around in various states of undress, but even when he's not around, when it's just Sarah alone with herself, the camera will glide over her body. I think I got it at the end: It's not really about Sarah discovering Akin's body, as it is about her discovering her own. Discovering how crazy she can drive him with a smile, a posture, small noise. Sarah is so imaginative in her sexuality, as she writhes in grass, dances while sighing, plays with string, even at one point biting the head of a small frog and spits blood out, splashing her blonde hair and lips with glowing red. Which is sexy in action, I promise. Akin furiously masturbates and fantasizes about her in common pin-up positions - but he incorporates the thing with the string - when he finally takes her it's rough, short and to the point. Akin is just a body, when he tries to be playful and flirty it's awful. Jeremiah - who is a weird old man indeed - uses an amazing farmers metaphor: Apparantly horses can be inseminated very easily, while cows need a lot of finesse and a good syringe. He asks Akin: Are you a horseman or a cowman? The film seems to suggest that men are horses and women are cows.

So many good and imaginative things in this film. A short sequence is even shown from the point of view of a cow. The film does become a bit more conventionally American as it goes along. One of the first scenes is a long take of Akin driving up to the farm, getting out of the car and walking, then coming back, taking off his wedding ring, and leaving it in the glove compartment. And fine, mysterious gesture. But that whole wife-thingy is then used to cause drama in the final part. Towards the end, there is a brilliant sex scene, one that fully builds on the great sensual scenes leading up to it. Have never seen a sex-scene quite like it, and I've seen a lot of European films. But the film also takes some surprising twists and turns, which perhaps makes it on the whole more unique, but makes the ending dissapointingly American. Oh, well. Only a second feature. Decker's first is also at the festival, hope to catch that one as well. If it's as good as this one, then Decker is my new favourite American filmmaker.

Wild Tales (Damián Szifrón, Argentina, 2014)

This was sensational! Szifrón was almost unknown when his film was selected to compete at Cannes last year, but his film received a rapturous response. Perhaps not as in people thinking it should have the Palme d'Or, but as in people thoroughly enjoying the film and being happy to see something like it in what can be a pretty serious competition. It's one of the best comedies I've seen in a long time. Six short, unrelated tales, with a common theme of revenge and violence. Most of them depict the indignities of our everyday so perfectly, that we don't know whether to be happy or angry when the characters snap. Road-rage, bureaucracy, parking tickets, unfaithful spouses, traffic (really, quite a lot of the film revolves around cars...) Almost everything begins as relatable, but then quickly spirals out of control. The one section that didn't really work, about two women considering poisoning a mobster who visits their diner, is also the one that is farthest from everyday experience. Though perhaps not in Argentina?

But it's not just what is being shown, the way it's being shown is also uncommonly assured. The first tale is the most outlandish, involving a complicated scheme and massive violence. Then a sudden freeze frame leads into a great, colourful title sequence, with all the names of the many actors matched by clips of animals. At that point, you already know you will have a good time. The best sequences builds and twists and turns, and the filmmaking matches with brilliant tension and release. Camera inside car, inside car, close and claustrophibic -> camera outside, overlooking entire traffic que. Camera inside luggage compartment, or bolted unto revolting doors, mixed with distant longshots. So many good musical interludes. It was the biggest success of the year in Argentina, it has been nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar, it could honestly be a big international success. It really is arthouse cinema at it's most accessible and riveting.

But then you might speculate about the future. Is this perhaps lightning in a bottle? Will Damian Szifron be able to follow up on it? I'm not sure. It's so wellmade, in all ways, but perhaps it doesn't show that much personality. It has the dreaded teal and orange look, even. I watched Roy Andersson's latest, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, today, another film from a maker of weird but sort of funny films from a foreign country, and his films is so uniquely Anderssonian that he still has an audience today, 14 years after Songs From the Second Floor. I don't know if Wild Tales can be repeated and offer the same rewards. But for now, we have a great film.

Still the Water (Naomi Kawase, Japan, 2014)

Why on earth was this film called Still the Water? What does that mean? Why not just Still Water? Or perhaps Still is the Water? There was some kind of very important metaphor about water in this film, about two Japanese teenagers falling in love, and dealing with their families. The girl, Kyoko, loves swimming in it, and think it is envoloping like sex will be. The boy, Kaito, is afraid of the sea, as he does not know what is in it, and thinks that it is 'sticky'. To be perfectly honest, I think this film was badly translated, from the title and all the way through. Kyoko's mother, a shaman in the village, is gravely sick, so her father takes her home so that she can 'flop' on the terrace outside. Que? I did not get this film. Now, the festival didn't make it easy on us presspeople, as there was an overlap of fifteen minutes between the press screenings of Wild Tales and Still the Water, which, since there were only three films showing in the cinema at that point, seemed like weird planning. And I've said once or twice that I might have missed the point of a film due to fatigue. But still, I don't think it was solely my fault for not getting this film. I think it was oblique and muddied.

I'm not sure that, even if it had been perfectly translated, that I would have liked it. I'm not sure I like this style. Naomi Kawase has had several films in competition at Cannes, and won the Grand Prix in 2007 for The Mourning Forest. This was the first one of hers I've seen, so I can't speak to the quality of her films in general. But this seemed like the same kind of films that Hirokazu Kore-eda makes at times, such as Like Father, Like Son, and I run hot and cold on his films as well. All nature imagery, and young people, and piano music. Without some firm grounding, if the dialogue isn't good enough, or the characters superficial, it can become very cloying and sacharine. And in this film, the dialogue was weird, the acting wasn't that great, and the psychology of the characters didn't ring true. So it all fell flat for me.

As mentioned, the dying mother is a shaman. She talks about being one with nature, that death is just transformation. Her philosophy is water at it's stillest. But Kaito is troubled. His parents have divorced, and his mother has taken new lovers. One of them drowns at the beginning of the film. He is water at it's most disturbed, like the typhoon that hits the island. Problem is, every 'typhonic' scene in the film rings false. They slaughter a goat, and the goat just bahs a bit while it bleeds out. Kaito and Kyoko's teenage love seem to be completely devoid of hormones, at least in the way they act. The big death scene, that the film builds to, is sacharine as well, though that seems motivated by the people. Whenever Kaito has to be angry and yell, the limits of the actor are very clear. This did not work for me at all. But some of the images are undeniably beautiful, so beautiful that a short clip rightfully ends the short film running in front of every screening at the festival. A clip of the teenagers diving nude. So before each and every screening at this festival, there is a two-second short clip of the bottoms of two teenagers. That is Sweden for you, I guess.

Also Seen:
Many Scandinavian films, which is why I've only written about three films in two days. But I've seen Winter Buoy, a strong documentary on social workers working with pregnant women to work on their problems with addiction and abusive boyfriends. From the Dragon Award Competition, there was Icelandic comedy Paris of the North, and the darkest film seen this year, Finnish youth road movie They Have Escaped. Two Swedish prize winners from 2014: Rotterdam Tiger Award winner Something Must Break, about two young men struggling with sexual identity; and as mentioned, Roy Andersson's Golden Lion winner A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence. All of those will hopefully be reviewed elsewhere. And finally, I rewatched Tsai Ming-liang's Journey to the West, which I've written about elsewhere, for the third time. On third seethrough, the fiftyfive minutes felt more like fifteen.