source: www.clickthecity.com
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A Guide To Cine Europa 12
posted on Wednesday, September 09, 2009 in Festivals, Movies
Once again, Shangri-La Plaza becomes home to a wide variety of European films in the 12th edition of Cine Europa. It’s a big batch of films this year, and choosing what you want to watch can be a chore. So here’s a quick look at all of the films, along with a few recommendations.
If there is one film to catch this year, it’s probably Kærlighed på film (Just Another Love Story, Ole Bomedal, Denmark 2007). The title is a joke, of course, but one might find similarities in premise to 90s romance While You Were Sleeping, with a man who falls in love with a woman who gets into an accident and is mistaken for her boyfriend when he visits the hospital. The similarities end at the premise, though. First of all, our hero is married, and his accepting of this fantasy is definitely adulterous in nature. Second, the new life he’s bringing himself into is a violent one, and things aren’t likely to end with a montage set to a pop song. Kærlighed på film is beautifully dark and twisted, a neo-noir film set to the beat of the Danish psyche, all at once thrilling and exhausting.
Running an extremely close second is È pericoloso sporgersi (Sundays on Leave, Nae Caranfil, Romania 1993). Set in the late in the Ceausescu regime, the movie tells the story of Cristina, a teenage girl who’s being pressured by her boyfriend to have sex with him before he goes off to join the army, and later gets caught up in the complications of a young actor who might be holding a secret. This is director Nae Caranfil’s first feature. He would later direct Filantropica, largely considered one of Romania’s greatest films. Caranfil’s style is already well established here, blending the lives of young people with a heady mix of drama and satire.
The oldest film in this year’s festival is S certy nejsou zerty (Give the Devil His Due, Hynek Bocan, Czech Republic 1984), a delightful little fairytale based loosely on a story by Czech literary icon Bozena Nemcov. It tells the story of a young man named Peter who gets his inheritance stolen by his wicked stepmother. Peter seems out of luck, but everything changes when he befriends the devil in his travels. Perhaps people here aren’t quite ready for a fairytale where the lead character makes friends with the devil, but the movie is actually quite wonderful, with a wicked sense of humor, amazing production design, and really great performances, particularly from Czech film legend Ondrej Vetchy, who plays the devil. I’m sure that this will become an odd favorite among many of the festival’s patrons.
The festival also plays host to a very different Czech film. Tmavomodry svet (Dark Blue World, Jan Sverak, Czech Republic 2001), also starring the great Ondrej Vetchy, follows the lives of two Czech fighter pilots during World War II as they join the RAF in the struggle against the German advance, all the while fighting among themselves for the affections of a beautiful English woman. Think Pearl Harbor if it wasn’t so loud and stupid. Despite a much smaller budget, the aerial sequences of this film rival anything that Michael Bay could ever produce.
Speaking of Nazi Germany, one of the more interesting films this year is Die Welle (The Wave, Dennis Gansel, Germany 2008). The movie is based loosely on the experience of Ron Jones, a teacher who in 1967, having trouble explaining to his students how the German populace could claim ignorance of the holocaust, decides to show them instead through an experiment. He creates a fascistic environment in his classroom, playing an authoritative figure who enforces strict discipline on all the students. It isn’t long before the effects of the experiment are made clear, and it spirals out of control. Die Welle dramatizes these true events and sets them in Germany, where the history provides a very different context to everything that unfolds.
It might be a little early for Christmas, but those who feel like getting a jump on the spirit might want to check out Alles is Liefde (Love is All, Joram Lursen, Netherlands 2007) and Joulutarina (Christmas Story, Juha Wuolijoki, Finland 2007). Alles is Liefde is a romantic comedy in the vein of Richard Curtis’ Love Actually, following a set of very different relationships, attractions and infatuations, with a mysterious Santa Claus figure playing Cupid to the hapless would-be lovebirds. Joulutarina is a reimagining of the story of Santa Claus, following a little orphan boy named Nikolas who finds joy in making toys for other children.
There’s actually a wealth of family fare in this year’s festival, the best of which is Die Blindgänger (The Blind Flyers, Bernd Sahling, Germany 2004), which tells the story of blind best friends who audition for a school band. Low-key and decidedly unsentimental, this is the rare film about the handicapped that actually treats them as normal people. If you’re looking for something a little more high-energy for the kids, you can check out Mein name ist Eugen (Rascals on the Road, Michael Steiner, Switzerland 2005). Set in the 1960s, the movie follows the exploits of a group of mischievous young boys who go on a quest to look for the “King of the Rascals,” a mythical figure whose pranks have become the stuff of legend. Lastly, there’s Zoop in Zuid Amerika (Zoo Rangers in South America, Johan Nijenhuis, Netherlands, 2007). This is the third film in the popular Dutch franchise (which started out as a youth-oriented soap opera), but you don’t need to know much to follow along. A group of young adults who work at a zoo are tasked to go to South America to look for a rare butterfly. Zoop delivers an environmental message, if you want some social responsibility to go along with your family fun.
The festival features two biopics. The first is I demoni di San Pietroburgo (The Demons of St. Petersburg, Giuliano Montaldo, Italy 2008). This loose biopic picks up on a strange episode in the life of Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, beginning as a friend in a sanitarium confesses that he is part of a terrorist group that plans to assassinate members of the royal family. Dostoevsky is tasked to find the leader of this group and convince her to stop her plan, all while struggling to deliver his next novel and bouts of epilepsy. The movie has its flaws, but it’s always good to see Giuliano Montaldo directing, and an Ennio Morricone score makes everything better.
The Duchess (Saul Dibb, England 2008) has Kiera Knightley playing 18th century aristocrat Georgiana Spencer, duchess of Devonshire. Georgiana was a key political figure of her time, a thoroughly modern woman who argued for freedom above all else. But behind all her flair and machinations lay a domestic life where nothing was ever truly free. The Duchess is the kind of crowd pleasing period costume drama that England has become known for, complete with recognizable period stars in Knightley and Ralph Fiennes.
[Rec] (Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, Spain 2007) would later be remade in the United States as Quarantine, but the original remains the superior version. This incredibly taut horror movie follows the host of a late night television reporter and her cameraman as they follow around a firefighting crew and inadvertently get trapped in an apartment building where a mysterious virus appears to have turned some of the residents violent. The found footage aesthetic lends the film an air of authenticity, and it’s used in some very clever ways to build a profound tension that makes everything that much more terrifying. [Rec] was a revelation two years ago, and it remains great viewing today.
De Laatste Zomer (The Last Summer, Joost Wynant, Belgium 2007) is a coming-of-age film featuring four seventeen year old boys on their last summer together, a summer that gets complicated when one of them decides to help hide a girl from her abusive father. The movie mixes mundane teenage concerns like boredom and pimples and sex with a larger story about friendship and what it means to be young in the face of a world where adulthood seems to be a poor option.
And the rest:
Toi et Moi (You and Me, Julie Lopes Curval, France 2006) is a French chick flick starring Marion Cotillard and Julie Depardieu. Director Curval aims for cute and mostly gets it, though it may get cloying for some. Freigesprochen (Free to Leave, Peter Payer, Austria 2007) is gorgeously shot, but largely directionless, with over the top performances steering the movie straight into the realm of empty melodrama. Grabben I Graven Bredvid (The Guy in the Grave Next Door, Kjell Sundvall, Sweden 2002) is a sweet romantic comedy for the middle aged set. Quite a few nice scenes, but there are better movies in this year’s line up.
Orient Express (Sergiu Nicolaescu, Romania 2004) is one of the strangest films I’ve seen from Romania. Director Nicolaescu is kind of like the Bong Revilla of Romania, an actor and senator who only really shows up in films as the big, invincible hero. Orient Express follows in that train of egomania, resulting in a mostly misguided but utterly fascinating film when watched in the proper context.
Cine Europa Schedule:
SEPTEMBER 11
12 NN Freigesprochen
2:30 PM Kærlighed på film
5 PM S certy nejsou zerty
7:30 PM De Laatste Zomer
9:30 PM Joulutarina
SEPTEMBER 12
12 NN Toi et Moi
2 PM Die Welle
4:30 PM I Demoni di San Pietroburgo
7 PM Alles is Liefde
9:30 PM E pericoloso sporgersi
SEPTEMBER 13
12 NN [Rec]
2 PM Mein name ist Eugen
4:30 PM The Duchess
7 PM Freigesprochen
9:30 PM Tmavomodry svet
SEPTEMBER 14
12 NN Kærlighed på film
2:30 PM Joulutarina
4:30 PM Toi et Moi
6:30 PM Die Blindgänger
8:30 PM I Demoni di San Pietroburgo
SEPTEMBER 15
12 NN Zoop in Zuid Amerika
2:15 PM Orient Express
4:45 PM [Rec]
6:30 PM Grabben I graven bredvid
8:30 PM Mein name ist Eugen
SEPTEMBER 16
12 NN The Duchess
2:30 PM Freigesprochen
4:30 PM S certy nejsou zerty
7 PM Kærlighed på film
9:30 PM Joulutarina
SEPTEMBER 17
12 NN Toi et Moi
2 PM Die Welle
4:30 PM I Demoni di San Pietroburgo
7 PM Alles is Liefde
9:30 PM E pericoloso sporgersi
SEPTEMBER 18
12 NN [Rec]
2 PM Grabben I graven bredvid
4 PM Mein name ist Eugen
6:30 PM The Duchess
9 PM Freigesprochen
SEPTEMBER 19
12 NN S certy nejsou zerty
2:30 PM Kærlighed på film
5 PMJoulutarina
7 PM Toi et Moi
9 PM Die Blindgånger
SEPTEMBER 20
12 NN I Demoni di San Pietroburgo
2:30 PM Zoop in Zuid Amerika
4:45 PM Orient Express
7:30 PM [Rec]
9:30 PM Mein name ist Eugen
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