Fast Film Reviews

Belgium’s submission for Best International Film at the 95th Academy Awards garnered enough votes to be one of the five nominees. This is only the 8th time the country has made it into the category. The last instance was when The Broken Circle Breakdown had a spot at the 2014 awards. Belgium has yet to win, but I’d be delighted if that changed this year. The nine-time Oscar nominee All Quiet on the Western Front from Germany is the most significant competition and the odds-on favorite. However, this award has produced surprises before, so you never know.

Close is the story of a friendship between two boys in their early teens. The narrative boasts a refreshingly simple plot but offers a profoundly deep concept. Léo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav De Waele) are boon companions on the precipice of adulthood. They’re still figuring out who they are and what they will be. The 13-year-old boys live in a rural area in Belgium and have grown up together. They share a relaxed familiarity characterized by casual affection, not unlike brothers. The naive innocence in their demeanor immediately moved me.

Young actors Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele are incredible. The duo has a carefree ease with one another, not as actors but as real children. Their actions are natural, free from the auspices of making a movie. The pair run through the fields, ride bikes, laugh and play. Léo’s parents run a flower farm, so they’re outdoors often. Their life is a veritable Garden of Eden. Many scenes favor the language of visuals over mere words. Frank van den Eeden’s cinematography highlights this. After this idyllic summer, the boys start high school. It’s clear to everyone they are extremely chummy. Inseparable is more like it. A trio of girls notices this and are curious. One of them dares to ask, “Are you two together?” “We’re close because we’re best friends,” Léo says defensively. “Are you sure?” she presses. The question is the beginning of an estrangement.

Close sneaks up on you. Deeper themes percolate beneath the surface. Director Lukas Dhont has attested in interviews that this is a profoundly personal work. He incorporates ideas of intimacy, masculinity, adaptability, and fear with such subtlety. Suspicions are neither confirmed nor denied. Nothing beyond a chaste camaraderie is ever depicted. It simply details how an assumption can change behavior. A portrait of anxiety, marked by depression, matures into a tremendously sad chronicle. The account rarely feels manipulative, save for one critical event. Afterward, the handling of the subject is less graceful. I would have preferred this material be explored without the tragedy. Nevertheless, it is a powerful depiction of how people conform to fit in. Many things are left unspoken, but one thing remains true. Close is a poignant tale about friendship and its disintegration. The subtleties of the saga take hold and gradually overwhelm the emotions.

02-07-23

The expression “the Hand of God” could denote the twists of fate that occur in life, but it’s also a phrase that Argentine footballer Diego Maradona used to describe a goal he made at the 1986 World Cup. 17-year-old Fabietto is a big fan of the athlete. There’s a rumor that Maradona might be moving to Naples. This gets the whole town talking, but it’s just one of many details in this coming-of-age tale.

The autobiographical chronicle is set in the 1980s and concerns a young man. Fabietto (Filippo Scotti) clearly represents the director as a teen. It’s a study of his family. This meandering collection of vignettes takes place while growing up. Fabietto lives with his parents (Toni Servillo, Teresa Saponangelo) in Naples. Mother Maria enjoys playing practical jokes. However, the first person we meet is his Aunt Patrizia (Luisa Ranieri). She’s something of a muse to the young boy. The vibrant woman has enchanted all the men of the town with her exhibitionism. Oh, but before you cast judgment, please note she is deeply troubled. Then we are introduced to various other people. There are some odd developments. One stands out. He has an elderly gray-haired neighbor, Baroness Focale (Betti Pedrazzi). The scene begins with her asking for him to get rid of a bat that flew into her bedroom. It ends with an even more bizarre request. He doesn’t seem traumatized by her behavior, but I was.

The Hand of God is a loosely constructed anecdotal collection of random events. The Italian drama is written, directed, and produced by Paolo Sorrentino. This is Italy’s hope for a nomination at the upcoming Academy Awards next March. Given its pedigree, I’d say its chances are pretty good. Sorrentino is best known for the 2013 film The Great Beauty which won both the Oscar and the BAFTA for Foreign Language Film. The first half is fairly happy and then adversity strikes midway through. The second section is sadder as Fabietto deals with his grief. I hoped the tragedy would provide some focus. Plenty happens but the account remains superficial. The seeds for the future director’s interest in cinema are detailed, but it has little else to say. Some praise or condemnation for what transpires might have instilled this screenplay with a point of view. This rambling saga merely presents a lot of stuff. The story is aimless. Some of it captivated me. Naples is a beautiful city. Daria D’Antonio’s cinematography captures that, but I craved more momentum.

12-17-21

Mustang is set in a remote Turkish village and depicts the life of five young sisters. Our tale concerns them all but is more centered on Lale (Güneş Şensoy). Her teacher at school is leaving for Istanbul. After saying goodbye, she accompanies her sisters on the walk home during a beautiful sunlit day. On the way, they stop off at the beach. They join some of their male classmates in a water game, fully clothed incidentally, where they sit on the boys’ shoulders trying to knock each other off. A neighbor spies the impropriety and the news of their seemingly innocent game reaches their family. The five orphaned teen sisters live with their grandmother in an isolated town on the Black Sea. She along with their overly protective uncle Erol (Ayberk Pekcan) are shocked.  Their harmless goofing around is viewed as licentious behavior. The incident has lasting repercussions on the girls’ life from that moment forward.

Deniz Gamze Ergüven is a Turkish female director born in that country. However she was raised in France and is currently based there.  As such this picture was nominated as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards.  In a broad sense, the chronicle is about freedom. More specifically the accessible subject concerns the unique challenges that girls face growing up in a conservative Muslim society. The narrative does a good job at detailing how their home life transforms after the event. They’re given virginity tests and forbidden to leave the house – even for school.  Soon after their uncle intends to marry every single one of them off as soon as possible. As the 5 sisters band together under the tightening restraints of their domesticity, their sisterly bond is captivating. They exhibit a camaraderie that is touching – a pretty, free-spirited group on the precipice of burgeoning sexuality. However, the group behaves as a unit and that often makes it hard to differentiate one sister from the other. Only the youngest, Lale (Güneş Şensoy) who narrates the story, truly stands out.

Director’s Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s harsh critique of an oppressive patriarchal society is straightforward, but it isn’t subtle. The saga descends from the carefree optimism on the beach into the dark corruption of a community prone to gender bias. The essential “house arrest” of these 5 teen girls approaches the totalitarian conditions of a jail.  The nightmare that is their homelife is clearly evident. Their subjugation is infuriating. As Westerners we are forced into a judgmental corner and are predictably outraged. The cultural portrait is nicely presented. This makes the decision to further stack the narrative by also making the uncle sexually abusive, a bit ham-handed. The focus isn’t just about the tyranny of a culture unjust to women anymore. Now we’re dealing with sexual assault. The approach is unnecessarily embellished. We feel the forcible pull of a screenplay, co-written by the director and Alice Winocour, overstating its case. However as the debut feature from an up-and-coming filmmaker, there’s still a lot to admire here.

01-07-16

The Great Beauty is director Paolo Sorrentino’s ode to finding the beauty in one’s own existence. The production reunites the filmmaker with his frequent lead star (and muse) Toni Servillo in a character study. We’re presented a contemporary version of Rome through the eyes of Jep Gambardella. The aging bon vivant once wrote a masterpiece novel in his twenties. However he hasn’t written anything of note in the 40 years since. Now the well dressed playboy has retired to infrequently writing cultural columns, and is living the good life in an incredible apartment overlooking the Coliseum.

There is a euphoria to the party scenes that is captivating. Rome is a stunning backdrop——the cathedrals, the museums, the amphitheaters. I’d almost defy any filmmaker to make an ugly movie here. These stately monuments of the old world contrast with the vacuous people of the new world. Jep is cultured, intelligent and parties until dawn nearly every night with the country’s well-to-do. Their lives an intoxicating mix of celebration, superficiality and emptiness. We first meet Jep as he’s celebrating his 65th birthday. He experiences reality as an observer lamenting his current situation. He’s searching for that intangible revelation. The script contrasts Jep’s despondency with the enthusiastic zeal of party revelers. The opening soirée is a dazzling mélange of music and merriment. It presents an energy that is palpable.

There’s little substance, only style to this beautiful looking film. I suppose that’s the point. It’s not about narrative thrust, but more of a feeling, a vibe. The plot is just a running account of what Jep sees and says during his often surreal urban wanderings. He surrounds himself with various oddballs: a nun with two crooked teeth, a clever stripper, a self-described “dwarf”. We see a young girl unhappily creating avant-garde paintings by throwing herself at a canvas in front of an audience. Through wisecracks and cynical smirks, Jep breezes through life. “The best people in Rome are the tourists” he offers casually. You’re meant to hang on his every word, but he’s a bit self involved. Occasionally he says something great. He tells a pretentious performance artist exactly what he thinks of her work and it’s refreshingly pragmatic. Unfortunately his lamentations put him in a melancholy state. Of course he doesn’t have any real problems and that lack of conflict tugs at your brain throughout the 142 minutes. For the most part, The Great Beauty is more of an art house feast for the eyes than the mind.