Re:Make - Suspiria

In this blogging series, I am contrasting a classic movie and its remake. This is to showcase that a remake is not always a bad thing. Very rarely do movie remakes attempt to do anything fresh with their concept, but usually just blandly redo every major scene. But sometimes this is not the case. A new director might find some new angles on the established IP and possibly given a totally new twist rather than same-old-same-old. Some great cinematic feats would not have been possible if there wasn't a rogue filmmaker ready to give a shot in redoing something beloved.

Suspiria (1977)
Director: Dario Argento

vs.

Suspiria (2018) 
Director: Luca Guadagnino

How similar do remakes have to be to earn the same name as its predecessor? While this blog maintains that remakes are all right when there is a fresh take on an old material, are some movies so canonized and huge, no one should ever even try them? Is a horror film's purpose to be scary first and work loftier ideas into the script second, or could a throughly political film about Europe in the 1970's be scary? And how much playing with audiences' expectations is allowed?

Luca Guadagnino is certainly one of the most celebrated Italian directors working today, with a unique voice. But his films often feel to me to be mixed bags. there are brilliant ideas and visual touches, yet often the end result doesn't click together in a meaningful way. But there are plenty of people who admire Guadagnino and his brand of filmmaking. I may be on the minority.

Nevertheless, if Dario Argento's 1977 horror classic Suspiria had to be redone, I was glad it was at least by an auteur with such strong visual flourishes. And the resulting movie is at the very least an interesting one, even if one's mileage of the things Guadagnino has done may very. But let's start by talking about the original.

Often branded as a giallo movie, I think Suspiria was actually Dario Argento's major leap out of the giallo genre and the start of his true auteur status. It is a supernatural horror film but other than that, many of Argento's later films are harder to label and brand. The play between light and music and architecture (and a very flimsy excuse for a plot) are something that only one person in the world could have made. Other Italian directors could keep on churning straightforward murder mysteries.

An american student Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) arrives to Germany to go to a esteemed ballet academy. But as soon as the airport's sliding doors close behind her, she is actually in an expressionistic fairy tale world, where a coven of witches plots and the young blood of the young girls is used to revive the ancient evil of Mother Markos back to life. There are plenty of gory demises and unforgettable death images that seemingly are caused by hexes and dark magic. No better explanation is given.

The original's striking architecture was an influence on the remake's poster art and opening and end credits.

But it's easy to criticize the film's plot's lack of coherence or the bad dialogue or silly dubbing. But they seem consequental, of no bigger reason for Argento's nightmare world. If there are bigger flaws in the movie, would one say they revolve around the fact that beyond the expressionism it doesn't seem to have much to say. Certainly not about the time and place it is set in, rather, Argento seems to want to take us to a timeless place untouched by the rational world.

Likewise, the film doesn't dwell too deep in its portrayal of either dance and ballet or the coming of age of a group of girls in a disconnected location far from home.The film has its basic teenage scenes of lessons and bullying and whispering during sleepovers, but mostly these are used to set up the next victim of the unstoppable murder spree rather than to say something about growing into a woman.

Since it would be futile to challenge Argento at his own game, Guadagnino wisely seeks to remedy these sidesteps that the previous movie didn't have concern for. Visually and aesthetically, his film is more similar to the works of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, all cold grey, brown and ugly pastels rather than bright RGB lights. The film switches the focus more on the witches, who are trying to choose a new leader, as well as preparing a spell to do with a dance routine. Dakota Johnson is playing Susie Bannion, the new girl, here, but Chloë Grace Moretz's Patricia is the girl which the film has the most emphasis.

Perhaps the major issue of Guadgnino's film is that it tries to bite more than it can chew. It deals with both blossoming and withering age's issues and traumas as well as Germany's post-war situation, the scars left of the Holocaust, European value system's flimsiness, women's rights, the power of art and the political workings of the witches' coven, all of which bloats the film to more than 2,5 hours long. The characters may be more well-rounded, but they don't feel as comfy to follow (or edgy to see their ultimate fates) since all their scenes are built around a message being delivered. All the time that should be spent on building tensions and delivering shocks, is rather used on building a kind of academic paper with highbrow arthouse filmmaking.


While its good that a film also embraces its weirdness, Guadagnino's experimentations does not always serve the film. Thom York's soundtrack just sounds like vintage Radiohead. Lead actor Tilda Swinton in a dual role works to be majorly distracting, since there is no good bridge between the two (main) characters of the film. The idea falls particularly flat in the climax when her Madame Blanc and Dr Josef Klempener share screen time, as well as a third character that utilizes even more overacting and prosthetic makeup.

The film doesn't feel threatening enough, or even playful enough to deliver on this kind of experiments. Likewise the take on the more body horror-like aspects of the story are a bit hit-or-miss, some striking, some a little half-baked. Though he has certainly seen Hellraiser, the horror side of the movie does not seem to interest Guadagnino as much. He's certainly no Andrzej Zulawski that has the ability to melt both the political and the personal aspects into a great spiral into madness.

While it has good ideas with which to drive these points forward with the story, it is inevitable these its plethora of various ideas will battle each other for the dominance of the movie. At the end it feels like very little conclusions on each is reached. Where the film works wonders is delivering on some dreamlike fast-changing images (one can see the influence of music video filmmaking between these two movies) and its dance school setting, perticularly in its climatic ballet scene that does feel a bit scary and like it could be actual dark magick in the making. In this case, it was smarter to ration the strongest and most colorful visual scenes sparingly.

So, in conclusion, we have to Suspirias that set out to do almost exactly different things, yet also both are horror movies set on a dance school. While Argento's film feels surprisingly effortless even though it keeps upping its visual stylization and shocks, Guadagnino seems to try too hard and looses the playfulness in trying to fit in too many ideas. In the end, I'm still glad we have both of these movies, and Guadagnino's film has plenty to enjoy to warrant multiple viewings as well. But, y'know, it's no classic.

Suspiria (1977) ★★★★ 1/2
Suspiria (2018) ★★★

Espoo Ciné 2011

The festival season began again by me taking a bus (or a couple) to visit the neighboring city of Espoo. The annual Espoo Ciné festival offered once again a solid set of the best cinema from Europe and elsewhere, as well as a couple of fine genre films I'll deal with soon enough. But in the meantime, here's what I gathered from the more "arthouse" wing of the program: 

The Opening Film:
The Tree of Life (USA)
Director: Terrence Malick

The new film by the hermit director Terrence Malick is always a big deal, and this was surely one of the most awaited films of the year among true cinema buffs. It's actually been made relatively fast, as it's only been six years since Malick's last film. Although the film has won the prestigious Palm d'Or award at Cannes film festival, it has still divided audiences. Some critizice Malick from going too far into christian pseudo-philosophies, and having the message of the film fall flat. Others see a vivid film that's bustling with ideas and deep symbolism, and is ambitious enough to explain the entire universe with it. All can agree that this is a one-of-a-kind film that's made with an amazing visual style.

It is a bit hard to summarize the film's plot. Everything in it is connected to an idea that everyone on Earth must follow one of two paths in their life's every decision: either they follow nature and do things from selfish reasons, or they follow mercy and do things out of love. First, we follow the grief in an American family as one of their three boys has died from reasons not explained. From the grief we take off to the beginning of life itself billions of years ago in the sea. One-celled organisms eventually become dinosaurs, which concieve the concept of mercy (!). We come to the modern day where the architect Jack O'Brien (Sean Penn) broods and thinks about his past. Then we're back with the O'Brien family in the 50's or early 60's, before the upcoming tragedy. The eldest son Jack (Hunter McCracken) lives and plays with his two brothers in the nature, often somewhere near water. His strict but loving father (Brad Pitt), and gentle mother (Jessica Chastain) embody the two life paths, and try to get Jack to follow them.

Either way you choose, life may have infinite sadness waiting for you. The reason is never explained to you, as only God knows how it all fits in his Divine plan. But Malick does offer hope with the ending. Everyone will get a chance for redemption. Too bad it's presented so it makes the whole thing a little cheesy and underlines the religious reading of the film. Otherwise one could read the Tree to be whatever one likes.

While Tree of Life might not be the best work from Malick, it is surely his most ambitious. It's no wonder the film has mostly been compared to 2001: A Space Odyssey, that's the only other film that dares to tell the story of the entire human development. But no one else but Malick would have the idea to connect his autobiographical childhood nostalgia to various christian dogmas and multilayered symbolism. When the viewer leaves the theatre, he most likely has his head all blurry from this whole cornucopia of unforgettable images, unique ideas, colorful boyhood nostalgia, great underplayed acting, and, in two words, pure cinema.

★★★★


The Closing Film:

The Kid With A Bike (Le gamin au vélo, France/Belgium/Italy)
Directors: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne

The Belgian Dardenne brothers make engaging films about drifting lower class people. Their films contain no music and are often shot with a hand-held camera. They are among the best portrayers of social realism working today. The brothers are also true Cannes festival darlings, having won the top gong twice, and now picking up the Grand Prix with their last effort. And deservedly so, because their latest film is nothing short of brilliant.

The young Cyril (Thomas Doret) has been abandoned by his father, who has also sold Cyril's beloved bicycle. The kid lives in a learning institution, from which he escapes, and eventually gets his bike back. Cyril gets a chance for happiness when the kindly hairdresser Samantha (Cécile de France) agrees to give him a home during the weekends. But Cyril's having a hard time adjusting, and he's still pining for his father. When Cyril eventually finds him, dad (Jérémie Renier) tells him that he wants to start a new life without his son and thus doesn't want to see him again. The broken Cyril meets the nice-seeming juvenile criminal Wes (Egon di Mateo) and falls to the wrong tracks.

Altough the film's plot as laden out here resembles an after-school special, it is actually played out a lot smarter. There's a good reason Cyril is driven to each bad decision he makes. He's not a pure victim, but actually a pretty admirable character as he's relentless, tenacious, and ready to fight for his own rights. He just doesn't always understand what's best for him. The understanding extends to most other characters as well, who are well fleshed out with the time they are given. They have three-dimensional motifs, and more than a hint of tragedy in them. The film's plot moves steadily forward, and manages to be both exciting, and truly surprising at times. It's neither a moral lesson, nor a feel-good film, but works in so many levels, it can easily pass as either.

★★★★★


Special Screening:
When You're Strange (USA, 2009)
Director: Tom DiCillo

There was an outdoor screening of the Johnny Depp-narrated documentary about the legendary band The Doors. The film's catch is the recently discovered rare footage, that frontman Jim Morrison shot  himself. As one can imagine, the film is much more about Morrison and his persona, than The Doors as an entity or the other members of the band. The over-emphasis of Morrison's importance married to a lack of criticism of his horrible poetry make this a bit kiss-ass to my taste. Some critical voices of Morrison't behaviour towards the other band members are heard, but it is marked as a quirk of a struggling artist, who's having it rough. After 40 years of personal worship, wouldn't it be about time someone took a more critical, or even neutral approach to the whole Morrison persona? But anyway, I knew little about Doors before seeing this documentary and it did manage to spark interest in some of the band's back catalogue. There's nothing wrong at the film's pace and the story itself is interesting, warts and all. The new footage itself is pretty cool, but wouldn't you know it, it's used to build Morrison's legend and to imply that he might've faked his death and still be alive.

★★★

Tales of the Night (Les Contes De La Nuit, France)
Director: Michel Ocelot

Michel Ocelot is a French animator who makes films that don't really resemble any other animations I've seen. Their style is somewhere between silhouette animation and Flash animation. His latest work has been made in 3D, which is a bad decision. Ocelot's style is to have flat characters, and bringing depth into their environment diminishes this style. There are a couple of nice-looking wide shots, such as a tree reflecting from water, but mostly 3D in here is just a waste of everyone's time.

Tales of the Night is about a strange (movie?) theatre during one night. Inside the theatre a boy, a girl, and an elderly animator are working. They come up with several stories during the night, coming from all over the world, and act them out in a stage. All the stories have familiar fairy tale elements, whether they are about werewolves, wizards, talking horses or magic drums. Usually they are about a boy and a girl falling in love and the boy overcoming the obstacles for the pair to be together.

The biggest problem with the film is that the stories feel too familiar, and thus there are too many. Four stories would still be fine, five is pushing it, but the sixth feels boring already. As the stories work well alone, it is no surprise that most of them are actually episodes of a TV series Dragons et princesses. Thus also the scenes in between them start to feel really repetitive. The whole thing would probably work better as a TV series. Nevertheless, the stories, uneven as they are, have big amounts of charm and have cute ideas. My favorite is the one set to Jamaica, where the boy feeds a giant bee, iguana and mongoose in order to gain entrance to a wizard's castle, only to get caught and sentenced to death. The animals then help our hero out to escape and to win the princess's heart. But in the end lurks an actually pretty surprising reveal.

★★★


David Wants to Fly (Germany)
Director: David Sieveking

This German documentary about Transcendental Mediatation is made in the style of Morgan Spurlock, in that the director is the main character in the film. We see what happens to his personal life during his search for answers. That is not a style that works for everyone. It is also the film's biggest downfall, but luckily, the rest of it is from an interesting subject.

I've been wondering about transcendential mediation at one point myself. The meditation seems to do a whole lot of good for one's peace of mind, yet the TM association only allows for you to learn the proper skills by purchasing a preposterously expensive course. The film reveals just to what extent the study branch started out by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is a money-making scheme. The young documentarist David Sieveking starts out by listening to the praise for TM given by director David Lynch. As Sievekind becomes interested, he starts to dig deeper into the subject. Lynch's image as a wise teacher of meditation is soon shattered. He's shown as just a brand, promoting the bigger corporation. And make no mistake, the international TM movement is a multinational corporation, putting up brances all over the world and getting celebrities to sing their praises. The most hilarious parts of the film reveal that they offer courses costing a million dollars, that are claimed to teach flight to the meditators. TM has also built an expensive model village as a so-called centre for their way of thought. It is also proven scientifically that the patented TM is no better way of relaxation than any other way of meditation.

The film is more a story of the nerdy Sieveking's difficult relationship with his girlfriend, than a revelatory document about cashing in on people's search for inner peace. I'm not really that interested on finding out why the couple breaks up and eventually comes together again. But Sieveking does have a nice dry sense of humour, and even dares to make fun of the most emotional scene of the movie. Still, most of the film feels like filler to the real meat. The main message is still that the ways to achieve peace of mind should be given, not sold like any merchandize.

★★★

Aurora (Romania)
Director: Cristi Puiu

Director Cristi Puiu is notorious from making mammoth-length films. It's not that the films' stories are so epic that they need three hours to be told. Quite the contrary, the films have very simple stories, but time is an essential element in how they are told. The audience is constantly lulled into feeling a false security by showing long, ordinary commonplace events. But then the sudden bursts of violence, turning points, or great dialogue comes from out of nowhere. If one is not an ADD case (like me), these are highly reccommended for the long-winded. Of course even I liked this.

Aurora is a story about Viorel (Cristi Puiu himself), an estranged father of two young children in modern Bucharest. We follow him around in his mundane, day-to-day routines. He takes his children to daycare, has sex with the woman next door, and argues with his ex-wife. Somewhere along the way, one gets the feeling that everything is not all right with Viorel. He's loading a big shotgun, and then proceeds to murder two people in a parking carage. And he has plans to do a lot more, too.

The pulsating city of Bucharest is an important character itself. It is portrayed as a seedy and gloomy place, holding in violent thoughts and deep depression. Not even the childlike innocence of little children can redeem the evil that builds inside here. But the resulting film really isn't as dark as you'd imagine. The Romanians seem to have a knack for dry, black humour, which comes through from little things, such as a bath tub flowing over or a policeman trying to symphatize with a criminal. Altough the dialogue is scarce, it is very well written. But I won't lie, there are boring parts, and I even fell asleep for a while, during which nothing happened.

★★★★

Amnesty (Amnistia, Albania/Greece/France)
Director: Bujar Alimani

By contrast to Aurora, the albanian Amnistie is told in the speed of a train. But it requires even more attention from the viewer, as one needs to fill in gaps between some scenes himself. It is a film about passions and love, a bit like In the Mood For Love in that it concerns a lonely man and a woman, who are both married, but their spouses are away. In this case, they are in prison.

So, Elsa (Luli Bitri) and Sheptim (Karafil Shena) meet in a waiting room while going to meet their spouses every month. The monthly meeting allows for marital couples to carry out the carnal part of their union. Yet neither Elsa nor Sheptim are satisfied by this. Sheptim spends his time at his house watching porn and masturbating, while Elsa is a real cold fish in the sack, and rather uses her time caring for her children and doing the laundry. The two lonely souls start to slowly find each other. Yet, fate has an ironic twist to the affair, as the government allows pardon for a large number of prisoners.

The irony of the situation does become apparent pretty soon. However, director Alimani has a wicked storytelling style, that goes in the style of a spiral. So, repeating the same kind of situations, the whole thing seems more and more desperate and ludicrous at the same time. As it happens, such a love story can never work out, and the bitter end leaves one wordless.

★★★★

Route Irish (UK/France/Italy/Belgium/Spain)
Director: Ken Loach

Ken Loach's latest film doesn't represent him at his best. It is still a solid pseudo-thriller, but one gets the feeling someone else could've also directed it. Fergus (Mark Womack) and Frankie (John Bishop) have always been best friends and done everything together. When they served time in Iraq it eventually led to Fergus leaving and Frankie staying. When Frankie is killed during his service, the devastated and angry Fergus refuses to believe the official explanation of his friend's death. He sets to get to the bottom of the things what happened.

Conspiracy thrillers involving soldiers in the war against terrorism are becoming somewhat of a cliché. Loach does carry the familiar story with enough virtuoso skills, and an eye to the local side of the war, to keep things relatively interesting. But the best thing about the film are the way relationships between Fergus and Frankie, and Fergus and Frankie's widow Rachel (Andrea Lowe) are presented. They all border somewhere between utter love and ultimate contempt towards each other, and it's intriguing to see their tides shift back and forth. The backstory of the characters is told in the lines, not in flashbacks, and they colors the entire story in such a way that everything in the films feels more tragic for it. Loach overdoes this in the end, as a little more open ending would've made the thing a lot more devastating.

★★★ 1/2

Sleeping Sickness (Schlafkrankheit, Germany/France)
Director: Ulrich Köhler

 
An idealistic german doctor Ebbo Velten (Pierre Bokma) is recluctant to go home as his command in Cameroon is coming to an end. He wants to cure the entire village of sleeping sickness, whatever the cost. His family doesn't enjoy Africa, and begs him to come home to Germany with them. But Velten quickly finds also multiple other excuses to not return to Europe: humanitarian, financial, natural, etc. He simply likes it too much in the tropic and starts to detest Europe. He even goes so far as to not care whether his family is breaking up as long as he can stay.  Three years later the new doctor Alex Nzila (Jean-Christophe Folly) arrives to the same village, but is finding it hard to adjust. Eventually he finds Velten as well. But being mentally torn between his old and new home has damaged Velten's mind.

The film won a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for best directing. I find the film to be uneven, altough it has a few flashes of brilliance. There is light symbolism, and an unpredictable story arc. The film really doesn't have as strong a humanitarian subtext as one would think. The result is rather a modern version of Heart of Darkness: an European man getting lost inside his head in the Darkest Africa. Nzila is Velten's opposite in every way: black, gay, prissy and French, but his discomfort in Africa helps him keep his head cool. The film raises questions about the European identity, but I feel it could've amounted to a lot more with its running time. All the ingredients for a really multi-layered story are present, after all.

★★★


The Mountain (Fjellet, Norway)
Director: Ole Giæver 

The Mountain is a minimalistic film with only two actors. The story is told bit by bit, never emphasizing anything. I'm telling this in the forehand, because probably the best way to enjoy this film is to know as little as possible before watching it. So, you can skip the next chapter, which deals with the film's plot.



Two women are hiking the mountains in the Norwegian Lapland. Solveig (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) is grumpy, and has disdain towards the entire trip. Nora (Marte Magnusdotter Solem) insists that they go on to reach the mountain they are headed. Bit by bit we learn a little of why the couple are there. They are a lesbian couple who had a small child with them in their previous hiking trip to the same mountain. That trip ended tragically, scarring both. Nora wants them to come to terms with their past and to pick up the pieces of their crumbling relationship. They need to do it, because Nora is pregnant for their second child.



The performances by the women carry this film, and both manage to create convincing multilayered personalities. Small gestures tell a lot about them. The majestetic nature around them turns colder at the same time as the women's feelings towards each other do too. Still, the lofty mountains and the vast landscapes make the grieves of people seem petty. What is one brief human life, when compared to an eternal mountain?



★★★★

Short Films:

Garcia Ibarra: Protoparticulars
A fun and innovative film about a man that has turned to prime matter and is thus confined in a diver's suit. The film has an air of melancholia as death in that form is invevitable, but it's reaffirming to see the main character continue living as he was in the meantime. The film won an Méliés d'Argent award for best short film in the festival.

Wessels: Valdrift 
A cute shortie about an accident that moves a normal office drone's point of gravity. Eventually he starts to become horizontal in stead of vertical. Altough he starts out hopeless from his situation, he finds that even such a desperate situation has its up-sides (or should I say, side-sides? (No.))

Rosenlund: Sudd
A creepy as hell silent black-and-white film that plays like a survival horror film. Only in this case it's not the zombie virus that's destroying the world, it's a sort of pencil-doodle that spreads around. The only way of destroying it is to use an eraser, which are desperately scarce. The weird premise is played suitably straight-faced, and it manages to give the chills. The end scene is still odlly beautiful.

Peter Falk - An Angel Got His Wings

The sad news about the passing of the legendary Peter Falk broke last week. I feel I should remember the great man, but don't have the time to do a larger-scale post mortem post like I did with Leslie Nielsen. So, I'm just going to reminisce two films that are among his most beloved, and happen to be in my recent memory. So here's to Peter Michael Falk, born September 16, 1927, passed away June 23, 2011.

The Princess Bride (1987)
Director: Rob Reiner

 
Generally speaking, good films don't need a narrator, let alone one that's a character narrating the story within the story. But Falk's role as the Grandfather is really essential in this one. It's a story about how stories can make us feel better, and that of course needs its storyteller. And any story is better if the storyteller is sly and smart. The Grandfather here is a dead-on performance at that, mocking his grandson for wanting different solutions than the ones available, but still having the necessary warmth and love in his narration. He also crucially sells a story with "Princess" in the title to a little boy, which is no small feat. There is perhaps a tad too many meta-level gags in the film, but Falk always manages to sell them just as good to us viewers.



The story he tells is filled with the basic ingredients of fairy tales. The titular princess, Buttercup (Robin Wright), is kidnapped by a trio of well-meaning thieves. She is rescued by a dashing masked swashbuckler, who turns out to be her long-lost childhood love Westley (Cary Elwes). But the princess's obnoxious fianceé Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon) needs to have her back. He's plotting to use her death as an excuse to start a war with a neighboring country and Westley stands in the way. Inconcievable!

Altough Reiner is clearly working on a tight budget here (it looks more like a sunday afternoon BBC historical drama than LotR), the wonderful script by William Goldman and the perfect casting more than make up for it. It is one of those films that has a character gallery to die for and one that can be quoted at almost any circumstance ("Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!" being the most favoured one). Even though it uses fairy tale conventions, it rarely feels clichéd and it rolls along nicely for its brief runtime. And even though it is a film of the '80s, it feels like a timeless one, rather than something forever bound to its period. No wonder it is beloved by many adults. Oh, and it's referenced even in Troll 2.

★★★★

Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin, 1987)
Director: Wim Wenders

 
Wow, I never realized that these two movies were actually made on the same year. Falk was on a roll here. To balance the more entertaining values of PB, WoD (or The Heaven Over Berlin as I like to call it) is an art film about the last days of the divided Berlin and the careful optimism and melancholia caused by it. Falk's character (Peter Falk) neatly falls to the optimism side.

The angel Damiel (Bruno Ganz) is a guardian of the city of Berlin. He gives comfort to those that are lonely and helps along their path even if they can't see him or know that he is there. When Damiel sees a beatiful circus trapeze artist (Solveig Dommartin), he immediately falls for her. Now Damiel must decide whether to give up being an angel and turn into a mortal man to meet his beloved one.

The star actor Peter Falk (Peter Falk) surprisingly spots Damiel. Falk reveals that he himself used to be an angel and knows just how Damiel feels. He wanted to experience the world rather than to just watch and thus turned himself into a mortal. Now he's in Berlin to shoot a period film about the city's Nazi past, which he's also writing. He's having a writer's block, with which Damiel helps him. Falk has some world-weariness to him, but he is so damn lovable that the essence of his character shines through. And he takes his Columbo-reminding profile with good humour to boot. It isn't easy to be human but for the chance to live, love and experience, one couldn't want for nothing more. Falk's ex-angel finds particular joy in eating frankenfurters and drawing other people.



Wender's film is a love letter to Berlin, and has gone on to be beloved by friends of the city (myself included of course). It has historical value as well, as it shows the wall still standing and how the country looked just before the fall of Communism. The black-and-white photography for the majority of the film is gorgeously beatiful, but once Damiel earns his humanity, the switches to color. The warm earthly tones emphasize the film's humane message pretty well. The film shares PB's theme of the need for a storyteller, which it seems, angels are particularly good at. As is Falk.

★★★★ 1/2

Image courtesy of http://www.grouchoreviews.com

Oh, and one more thing. We shouldn't of course forget that Falk was also perhaps the essential and the best original TV detective. Lt. Columbo was harmless-seeming crime solver, but actually a razor sharp mind. The structure of the show actually had the villains be the anti-heroes of the show, as we followed how inevitably their antagonist Columbo would catch them for lying or to slip a confession. Columbo was very down-to earth and friendly, the kind of police one wouldn't mind having a beer with. Rest in Peace, Philip (or was it Frank? L.T.?). You may be gone, but your foolproof detectiving style will live on in the works of cheap imitations. We still know that there could only be one such as you.

Berlin, Teil zwei

As interesting as the Berlinale was, there was a great deal of interesting films playing that were not limited to the festival. Berlin has always been a true cinema city. I visited two unique events that were not limited to the festival, so I thought to take the time to tell a little bit about them.

Berlinale has recently been under attack for having a set of rules which ask for independent films to cough up money to even be considered for the festival. This doesn't of course apply for bigger films, such as this year's opener, The Coen Brothers' True Grit. One look at the programme can also tell anyone that not only the best and brightest films get shown at the festival. So there may be a level of corruption involved.

Uwe Boll - not a controversial director as everyone agrees he's not very good.

One of the biggest critics of the festival management has been "director" Uwe Boll, maker of such video game shitfests as BloodRayne, FarCry and Alone in the Dark. Boll has tried to get his films screened at Berlinale multiple times, yet has always failed. This time, with his latest film, Auschwitz he didn't even try. Instead, he held a public press conference and a world premiere for the film. And filed for a lawsuit for the entrance fee of his previous films, which he never got back even though the films were never screened at Berlinale. The event was loads more fun for the Q&A sessions than for the film itself.

I would have thought that Auschwitz the film was just another occasion where Boll attempts to provoce the media's attention to his crap films. Boll's genius is manipulating the media and getting funding to films no one wants to see. But after hearing him talk about Auschwitz it really does seem that he really does have a misled illusion of grandeur. His claims of doing the first concentration camp film that's not an adventure, but rather a representation of what "actually happened" are full of holes themselves, but Boll does say it very convincingly. The only time he breaks his face is when someone from the audience asks how does he dare to shoot the film at the same set as BloodRayne 3. Boll's another recent film apparently takes the holocaust quite lightly and has Joseph Mengele as a nasty vampire. Boll shouts that he could do whatever the other directors do and shoot formulatic crap and walk the red carpet to Berlinale with his skills, but instead he chooses to be a rebel and create his own vision. This vision has never really convinced me before, but I was willing to give Auschwitz the benefit of doubt. After all, apparently some vague jewish organizations had hailed as a masterpiece (according to Boll).

Auschwitz (Germany, 2011)
Director: Uwe Boll

After hearing the über-confident Boll blab about his film for 45 minutes, it is almost funny to see him begin his latest film with him explaining the film to the camera. "Hello, I'm Uwe Boll and I'm responsible for this film." Even Boll admits, that his latest creation can scarcely be called a film - he calls it a "study". He struggles to gather together enough material for 70 minutes through the whole film, which is revealed when he repeats his opening statement in german (no subtitles for ol' Uwe!). After this, we get to see interviews with Germany's most ignorant teenagers, who apparently don't know much about the holocaust. He's edited all the student's right answers to the film's end, so the film works with a TV Shop logic: Once Boll has showed how things were in Auschwitz, everyone will have wide factual knowledge of the subject.

Boll proudly claims that his film is based on facts, and that's thanks to a single BBC documentary he saw. The depiction of Auscwitz, aiming to be naturalistic, itself resembles B-grade documentary filler-material itself. Boll doesn't have a story, he just marches a group of jews into the camp and then to gas chambers or to be shot at the yard. Dialogue is few and Boll concentrates on mundane things and repeating the same horrors over and over again. The germans and nazis themselves are portrayed indifferent to the point of clichés. Boll himself plays an officer that stuffs his face with a roll as the jews take their clothes off to walk into the "showers" where they will be killed with gas.

That being said, Boll has actually evolved as a director. By keeping fhis film focused, he does generate a certain threatening athmosphere and the docudrama portion is easy enough to follow, even though he uses way too much tasteless flash-cuts and cross-editing. By using repetition for shock value (such as when babies are shot to the head in the yard) again and again, he has a functional reminder that these essentially were murder factories. I'll give Boll an extra star for at least trying this time around. Who knows, maybe one day he'll be good enough to make films so bad they're funny. Now they remain just bad.

★★

Another fine experience was to see the composer Max Steiner lead an orchestra to play his film music along with the film "Waltz with Bashir". Unfortunatelly, the electronic and rock instrument portions of the film were not emulated, but nevertheless this kind of film concert was unlike anything I had seen before. The film's score is actually pretty terrific itself. The film was less like a documentary than I remembered, so I removed it from the list of the best documentaries of the 2000s, and paste what I said about it to the end here.

Waltz with Bashir (Vals im Bashir, 2008)
Director: Ari Folman

Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman (as himself) goes to talk to his old war comrades from the Lebanon war. They explain to him the dreams they had regarding the war and the fleeting memories, which have started to vanish in their old age. The film mixes a fictional narrative with some authentic and some acted audio tapes.

Nowadays it is quite rare that one sees something something altogether new in the world of cinema. This film was one of the most original ones I saw during the whole decade. Folman's idea to do an animated documentary  isn't just an artificial trick designed to create interest in the film. As the movie is about dreams and the subconscious, it is simply put the best way to create the imagery for this fact-based film. It is striking and memorable, touching and horrifying. There is a bit too much scenes running idly for it to be a masterpiece. Yet it is still an extremely good film, which looks at the effects of war in the human mind, subconscious and world-view. And does it from an unique point of view. "Pray and shoot!"

★★★★

Berlinale 2011

 
I recently visited one of Europe's biggest film festivals for the first time. I probably should've made a habit of going to Berlinale a little earlier, as I heard a lot of grumbling from veteran festivalgoers that things just weren't as good as they used to anymore. Ticket prices had gone soaring up, and getting the tickets to the screening you wanted proved to be tricky to say the least. Also the programme didn't seem as high-quality as it had been on previous years. But I've got no beef as I got to see the one film I eagerly awaited, and got a lot of information about interesting films which will probably crop up later on in interesting places. Thus, after a few reviews, I also have a MIWS section at the end of this post.

The Devil's Double
Director: Lee Tamahori

Since his most acclaimed film, Once Were Warriors, director Lee Tamahori has made a career in Hollywood directing shitty action films. His latest, The Devil's Double, is at least a little more ambitious, although it's by no means a masterpiece itself. The film tells the story of iraqi Latif Yahia, a man who was forced to act as Uday Hussein's doppelganger. Uday, son of Saddam, was a person who was directed by his impulses. He could brutally murder on a whim, pick up underage schoolgirls from the street for just feeling horny, and generally acted like a threatening lunatic. It's no wonder Latif starts to develop a plan to escape from him in one piece.

The main thing I got from the film was interest in the actual historical facts, upon which the film is based on. I wonder if there really had been so many double-crossings and all-round spy stuff surrounding the court of Saddam. In the case of Uday Hussein, I'm willing to accept any kind of mad ramblings as being actually true. Dominic Cooper does a terrific dual role as both Uday and Latif. The film obviously portrays Uday as a stone-cold psychopath, like he really was. This is balanced by Latif being shown as almost inhumanely virtuous and righteous. I get that the film tries to create the Freudian analogy of Id and Ego running around personified. But I would just feel a little more morally dubious main character would've been more interesting. As the real-life Latif has been closely tied to the filming of the movie and was present at the screening himself, they wouldn't do this to taint his reputation, of course. This is why biographies should be made only after the subject has died, or as thinly-veiled analogies.

★★★

Griff the Invisible
Director: Leon Ford

The director-screenwriter Leon Ford was also present at the screening of this symphatetic drama-comedy. He explained that the idea for the film became from observing a 5-year-old acting out his superhero fantasies. The film itself is a study on what would happen if an adult would never abandon these fantasies, but would go on playing a hero in his everyday life. Griff (Ryan Kwanten) is a timid and shy young man, teased by his co-workers. His friend is worried that he doesn't go out enough, and intoduces him to a young girl, Melody (Maeve Dermody). Melody becomes intrigued by Griff's fantasies and wants to start participating in them. But is it really healthy to live in one's own world or is growing up required for everyone?

Griff the film is a little hard to get a grip on. Parodying the modern superhero films, it has a dark colour pallette and athmosphere, which makes Griff's loneliness seem crushing. But one really can't think of him as a pure victim, as he fights secretly back to his office bullies and creates nasty ways to mess with them. In theory I like that such a silly premise is played so seriously. Yet, the film made me laugh very scarcely, but ponder the relationships adults have on their daydreams and their values all the more. It's a good thing, I suppose, but a whole different kind of film than I was expecting.

★★★

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
Director: Göran Olsson

Sweden, about as white-bread as countries get, had a strange fascination on the Black Panther movement in the USA in the late 60's and early 70's. Many reporters were working in the country shooting the everyday life in Harlem, interviewing movement leaders and of course reporting on the most important events. Director Göran Olsson has recently found these tapes and cut them together as a movie that tells a story about the Civil Rights Movement from a little different perspective than usual.

The material's strength is in the multiple interview tapes of important Civil Rights protesters that were not that well known outside America. As Olsson said in the film's Q&A, the media in the US was more interested in the violence and other concrete acts the Movement was able to do. They never asked too many questions about their ideology, unlike the Swedes. The political viewpoint is nicely formed in the various interviews of the film. Olsson has also peppered his film also with modern interviews with people linked to the movement. As he's out to create an image of the past times, he only uses the modern interviews in audio, letting the contemporary images tell another half of the story. This is a stylish idea and works incredibly well. The only quarrel with the film is that one must know the main details about the American history in those years beforehand. The most important leaders such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X are ever-present in the background, but their basic ideas and means are dealt with only briefly in the film.

★★★★

The Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Director: Werner Herzog

My most awaited film of the festival was somehow also the easiest to get tickets for, too. So, I got to walk the red carpet to my favorite director's latest documentary's world premiere. Herzog has decided to shoot a film about the oldest cave-paintings found on this Earth, at Cave Chauvet in Southern France. This is the cradle of our culture, yet it's not available for just everyone to see nowadays. Thus, it makes sense that Herzog's film has been converted in 3D as the paintings have been made to a certain uneven canvas and make good use of the varying depths. Other mediums wouldn't be able to recreate the paintings as accurately. The paintings themselves are marvelously beautiful, deeply mysterious and they do feed one's imagination quite a bit. I almost dropped from my seat as Herzog revealed a painting of a half-bull half-naked woman - the same kind of themes Pablo Picasso used in his work. The Human Culture certainly carries similar themes along it through the ages. It's miraculous to think how old these paintings are, ranging from 26,000 to 32,000 years.

The only fears I had towards this film beforehand were whether Werner would be able to fill up 1,5 hours of running time by just shooting cave walls. But one needn't worry. Herzog has again found his trademark eccentrics to interview about the subject. There's a computer expert that used to be a circus performer, an ancient weapon-maker who demonstrates ancient spears and a fellow who feels he should dress in the same kind of furs the stone-age people had. Herzog also allows himself to have some poetic monologues of himself. Only at the very last scene does this go a little over the top, but otherwise the questions he raises on the dreams that create culture and whether it is possible to have a relationship with the past are very relevant.

★★★★  1/2

The Advocate For Fagdom
Director: Angélique Bosio

The films of Bruce La Bruce are always fun to see at various film festivals because they at least stir controversy and it's fun to see when other people walk out of the theatre. They like to mix hardcore gay sex with gory subjects, such as zombies and skinheads. At core, they are simple romantic love stories. In the end, his films are not that good, alas. They are made pretty cheaply and keep the fucking around with genres as the most important thing rather than a story or a multi-dimensional message. It's still a lot of fun to see La Bruce talk about his own work and his peers on his merits in this documentary film. Like one would guess, John Waters pops by to praise La Bruce from the earth to the sky. The man should make a truly shocking trash movie after a while himself, instead of always just encouraging others. But mostly the interviews are poignant enough and it's interesting to see La Bruce's orgins as one of the first people to embrace a gay punk scene. It's also respectable that to this day he makes his own kind of films and has never sold out to make more easily distributable films, like so many of his peers.

What I would've hoped for this film would've been to pin La Bruce's part in the American underground filmmaking a bit more precise. For instance, we don't hear a lot from his influences, besides the general American drive-in -culture. I wonder what kind of influence the Kuchar brothers and Kurt McDowell must've had on him, as their earlier work, such as Thundercrack, already has a mixture of horror themes and outrageous hardcore sex, like is evident in La Bruce's films as well.

★★★  1/2

Mishen - Target
Director: Alexandr Zeldovich

I closed my festival with its most difficult film. Mishen is a Russian sci-fi film set in the near future. It uses elements from such Russian classics as Stalker and Anna Karenina to create something entirely different. In its world, the rich are even more priveledged than today. The women use age-constraining masks every morning and stay looking like 19-year-olds long after their prime. But it can't be maintained forever. A group of these snobs travel to a mysterious target that supposedly has the ability to give immortality as well. But of course this comes with a price of one's humanity for good.

Most clearly the film is an attack on the new-found upper class running rampant in Russia. In the satirical film, the rich really have almost no limits, and are able to treat poorer people, especially immigrants, as they please. Yet fortune is not consistent. People are willing to gamble and in weird TV shows they might lose their entire fortune by losing one crucial bet. Hilariously the same logic is applied also to elections which are handled by advocates shouting their policies in the middle of a cooking match. Politics is reduced to nothing, the real value in Mishen's world is found in business.  China is the country to suck up to and a lot of effort is being put to please the Chinese businessmen, because a deal with them can resolve a lot from one's future.

The rich people in the film may have strong passions, but in the end, they have problems coming up with real emotions. When everything is handed to you on a platter for all eternity, it is hard to act humane at the point of defeat. The rich do try to act as if they act by their emotions as hard as possible. Sometimes they must go to extremities to accomplish this. That makes it so chilling when the tables are inevitably turned and all the coldness gets to shine out. Mishen doesn't spell everything out and it's scenes can sometimes feel inconsistant. It is a mammoth of bitterness, a fight against the unfair modern world. And that's what I got from it from a single screening. It would deserve to be seen again as there is so much more going on.

★★★★

Missed, but eagerly awaited:

Like I said, I missed a lot of interesting films in the festival, but would like to list them here so you'll remember where you first heard about these when they come to the cinema near you.

Tropa de Elite 2 - The Elite Squad 2

The sequel to the southamerican drug film that goes a little like The Wire times City of God. The drug business has roots in almost every major part of the society, and thus is almost undefeatable. Familiar characters are put on a surprising bend on the sequel. I haven't seen the first one, so I missed the sequel on purpose. Nearly everyone who saw it hailed is as one of the best of the festival. As soon as I returned home, I put the first one on order and eagerly await a new chance to see this.

Submarine

I hear it's a fantastic romantic drama, like Scott Pilgrim but a little more down to earth. It also won the main award at Sundance earlier this year.

Viva Riva! 

This Congoan thriller reportedly has a strange, upbeat feeling in it. It was a sure hit with the audience, with huge lines flocking to see it.

Khodorowsky

One of the most talked-about films of the festival, this is a documentary about the Russian billionaire, who dared to face up against Vladimir Putin. Sure enough, he's now in prison, but this controversial film tells his story about fighting the Russian windmills.

Pina

Wim Wenders directed a 3D ballet movie about the dancer Pina Bausch. This attracted a lot of older dames that didn't seem to go to the movie often. Oh, well. Even though I was intrigued by the director and the 3D, I wasn't that interested in the subject matter.

Gandu - Asshole

This Indian avantgarde film has cult already written on it. Directed by a fellow named Q, it seems to channel a lot of the nightmarish surrealism like the Tetsuo films. I heard it wasn't that good as a whole, but some strange scenes were definately worth watching.

Kampf die Königinnen (The Fight of the Queens)

Having witnessed the cow-fights in the Lausanne region in western Switzerland, I would've been interested in seeing the documentary made about this brutal sport. Each year, the cows fight to find out who's the Queen that will lead the others to the summer herds. The Swiss have made this into a sport, betting on different cows and having a true festival around the happening. Alas, I wasn't present on the viewing days and I fear my chances of seeing this elsewhere are pretty slim.

Arrietty

I really had no idea that this was even playing at the festival. Yet it is a new Studio Ghibli movie and thus a must-see in my books. This one is a remake of The Borrowers, a story about tiny pixies, who tend come out at night to borrow stuff. Doesn't sound that cool, but I bet the Japanese studio can pull off a charming tale out of that.

Espoo Ciné 2010 report

I got my first accreditation to a film festival to this year's Espoo Ciné. It's the third most important international film festival in Finland, yet I hadn't visited it before. They had renovated their main theatre, Kino Tapiola, which was in its cave-likness perfect for various genre pictures. In fact, uring the festival a jury awarded the Mélies d'Argent award for the best european fantasy movie of the year. The winner this year was Amer, more on which later. I'll do a short review on each of the eight films I saw.

The extraordinary adventures of Adéle Blanc-sec
(Les Aventures Extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec)
Director: Luc Besson

Besson used to be the hope for european genre films, but since The Fifth Element, very few of his films have even sounded interesting enough for me to check them out. According to the reviews, I've been ignoring him rightfully. But his latest film at least sounds good on paper. In early 20th century Paris, a feisty reportress is trying to solve the mystery of a loose Pterodactyl and trying to revive an egyptian mummy to revive her deceased sister. Why she wouldn't just revive her sister straight away isn't exactly clear, but then again this film has plot holes big enough for a giant Pterodactyl to fly through.

French comedies are certainly not my cup of tea, as their sense of humour is second only to the germans in badness. The jokes in Adéle Blanc-sec are particularly cringe-worthy. It also doesn't help that the characters aren't that lovable, but rather selfish types who'll thrive towards their own goal without having any consideration for the others. Particularly bad is Mathieu Almaric's (who is masked to look exactly like a Trash Humper) loony professor, who'll revive a dinosaur just for the hell of it even if it does kill people and run havock. And he's supposed to be a good guy. The film has certain fun ideas, such as the cute revived mummies close to the end of the film. Also nice is to see the 19th century Paris, but I love the city itself more than its depiction in films.

The film is based on a somewhat obscure cartoon (I love european comics but hadn't even heard of it before). I might check them out for the premise.

★★

Centurion
Director: Neil Marshall

If films like 300 had any ambition, this is what sort of historical action films we would get to see more. In the 2nd century, Romans are fighting the picts in Scotland. A group of Romans gets caught behind enemy lines and tries to make their way back home before they are all brutally slaughtered. Essentially, this is a film about a group of uber-machos who get de-masculinated by two strong female characters in two different ways. It's also a metaphor for the Afghanistan-Iraqi wars. I know the latter has been done a few times already, but this at least show both blame and goodness in both sides and in the end, the mighty attacker might be a whole lot worse than the savages they are trying to fight.

Neil Marshall is the same kind of filmmaker as Tarantino and De Palma. This means that he's willing to steal entire scenes from other films, but crucially, can make them work differently on his own context. It's also nice that he has time in the beginning to show the characters happy in introduction. The fact that most of them won't make it will give a bigger emotional punch this way. Of course, showing threatening situations is Marshall's best skill. It's a very gory and violent film, but it doesn't linger on the carnage. It's over as fast as it started, leaving behind only the corpses. Those were violent days and there's no need to sugar-coat it. The despair of the main characters just shows through better. Yes, I'd say this is the best Marshall flick after The Descent. And I like all of his films. I can't wait what he'll come up with next.

★★★★

Toy Story 3
Director: Lee Unkrich

I was wrong to be worried. While TS3 starts off by mirroring some themes and settings of TS2, it soon shifts to its own gear. Yeah, I think it's the best of the three. On Pixar's whole catalogue, it's the third ot fourth-best. Which isn't bad at all. In the story, Andy's toys are divided between staying loyal to their (now grown up) owner and finding a new place to get played with. This has more adult themes than would first appear. In fact, if one would replace "playing" with "having sex", this could be a melodramatic relationship drama. Woody feels guilty by being played with someone else than his owner, even if he likes it. And that's just in the first 30 minutes. The second 30 are a kick-ass prison movie, not unlike Chicken Run, but at least equally funny. And the last 30 minutes are the best part, from a truly scary climax to a heartfelt ending notion. It's good to see that the philosophy of the previous films hasn't changed anywhere, even if the beginning got me a bit worried.

Toy Story 2 lingered a bit too close to the human world. I'm glad they didn't have the toys interact with humans (other than with kids playing). This one peeks more closely to the Toys' secret society in a Kindergarten. The amount of characters is overwhelming, yet the film can concentrate on the ones we care most sufficiently. And it's also funny to boot. I had the misfortne of having some heckling kids in the same screening. Even they were quiet during the last few minutes of life moving on. I didn't cry this time, but got misty-eyed. I also began to wonder that these Pixar films might be too good for children. Oh well, as I'm still not seeing Cars 2 next year, it'll be a long wait for the next animation as good as this.

★★★★

The Door (Die Tür)
Director: Anno Saul

This german sci-fi film has a lot of interesting themes and poses relevant questions. David, played by the always-charismatic Mads Mikkelsen, is screwing around. One afternoon when he's supposed to watch for his daughter, he goes to his next-door neighbour. When he comes back from this booty call, the kid has drowned in his pool. Five years later his life is a wreck and his ex-wife hates him. But he finds a cave that takes him five years back. He can now save his daughter's life. The only problem is that timeline's other David.

The time-reaveling with its paradoxes mixed to the cold, naturalistic and character-driven european film style brings to mind the spanish masterpiece Timecrimes. This isn't quite as good, as it lingers too long in the middle. The end brings up a lot more fucked-up ideas, which is a little too much a little too late. It is still a quite fun little morality tale. Changing the past won't work without victims, you know.

★★★

The Lake (Un lac)
Director: Philippe Grandrieux

I have to be very careful when reviewing art films I don't quite get. Usually I at least find some particularly good part where to build up some good points about the film's quality. Not so with this. At the risk of being ignorant I'll have to say that this was not a very good film. In fact, The Lake feels more like a parody of an art film than one.

This isn't a film about a plot, it barely even has one. The dialogue is minimal and when there is some (every ten minutes), it's just very flat clichés, like "the cold wind goes through my heart". This sentence is then met with a single tear from another person. There isn't any music. The film is shot on either close-up shots or blurry close-up shots. There is a couple of wider shots, but they rarely show any characters, only boring snowy landscapes. Thus, it is often hard to tell who does what.

It's not totally rubbish, as the opening sequence of a lone boy cutting down a tree with the camera shaking with each blow is quite effective. But I would just like to warn people that like movies as an entertainment as well as an art, that this is something pretentious film-buffs will probably bring up in a conversation. It is as bad as many finnish art films.

★★

Vampires
Director: Vincent Lannoo

Vampires are pop right now and I for one am sick of the blood-suckers in media. Both as emo-boys and as CGI-generated video game monsters. This belgian mockymentary shows promise in its depiction of the creatures of the night. The silly opening sequence where vampires trick a couple of fimmaking crews to feed off, is quite hilarious. It's too bad the rest of the film can't follow it too well.

We meet a normal vampire family, who have the mummified corpse of clown in their house (hilariously underplayed "the previous owner of the house"), a refridgerator (a russian prostitute kept alive to get constantly blood to drink) and a childless pariah vampire couple living in their basement. Too bad the films jokes are either stolen (the family's daughter, wearing pink and wanting to kill herself "like humans" is straight from the pages of Terry Pratchett) or flat (vampires order takeaway and get African immigrants delivered to their door). In the mockumentary style jokes should be underplayed, but in this, it's hard to tell there is even supposed to be any jokes at all. The audience in the screening laughed precious little.

★★

Amer
Directors: Héléne Cattet, Bruno Forzani

Ah, good old italian giallo-style. How I've missed thee. Amer makes even the films of Dario Argento and Mario Bava look mundane, so frantic is the mixture of the greatest hits of italian pop-cinema's iconography. As is suitable for these sort of films, it's clearly style-over-substance. Iconography is everything, dialogue is scarce and the characters wafer-thin.

Amer tells the story of a young girl's growth to a sexual being. As it happens, it goes as bad astray as it can. From the strict mother to the death of her grandfather, she connects sex with death and violence early on. The film plays with various sensual situations later on, making the athmosphere almost unbearable. It's a hot and heaving picture with very little actual sex, but some gruesome violence to counter-balance that. The problem is that most of this has been already done before. It's a very good pastiche, and works well enough, so I'm willing to let that pass.

★★★ 1/2

Lebanon
Director: Samuel Moez

Lebanon is also coming to the Helsinki International Film Festival this September so consider this my second recommendation from the programme (the first being Scott Pilgrim vs. the World). The director Samuel Moez was fighting for Israel in the first Lebanese war in 1981. He has had trouble living with the horror of these experiences ever since, so he decided to make a movie out of it. The film takes mostly place in a single tank. A group of Israeli soldiers are sent to an easy search mission to a small town, which turns into total carnage later on.

Moez certainly has a strong mission in his work. In fact the horribleness of war threatens to go overboard from time to time. It is a very melodramatic movie, but luckily it also depends on the dynamic between the men in the tank. They have various views on the war from fear to anger and apathetic. The film doesn't go quite to the depths of the superior Waltz with Bashir, but for fans of Das Boot, this is something definately worth checking out. Even if it does leave a world-weary feeling.

★★★★