TromsoBy.no - Hva skjer i Tromsø

Tore Johansen and Sarah Riedel

Stuart — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:25:57 +0100

What is it that makes something proper art? It’s a tricky question but I think I came across at least one criterion this Friday night.

No-one can entirely escape the tyranny of the everyday. We’re all stuck in tracks or grooves, which aren’t any better for being metaphorical. The day-to-day just churns itself out in such predictable ways, the occasional unexpected domestic accident aside – I’ve had plenty of those actually! All the same the predictability can be mind-numbing.

Art is not spared. It runs on its own special tracks called genres, formats, modes of expression and the like. These are tracks leading nowhere, aesthetic dead ends. Art depends on creativity, and a favourite and vital initiative of the truly creative mind is to find a way to jump tracks. Tore Johansen and Sarah Riedel did just that on Friday night at the Hålogaland theatre cafe.

So here’s the recipe that’s no recipe – because creativity doesn’t work like that. Take one fine Swedish poet – get his permission, of course – and set his words to music. Of course it doesn’t hurt to have a band chock full of great jazz musicians and a singer who is not only Swedish but can sing beautifully. The result? An evening of terrific music and lyrical charm, combining good old fashioned jazz ‘feel’ with some top drawer Scandinavian poetry. The poet, by the way, is only the Nobel-prize winner, Tomas Tranströmer!

First the quartet warmed us up with a few instrumentals, combining infectious rhythms with a pleasing blues register and strafing us with one warmly fluent solo after another, whether trumpet, piano, double-bass or even drums. Then Tore paused to tell us of his quest to make contact with Tranströmer and obtain permission to use his text. Thus the scene was set.

Enter, stage left, Sarah Riedel. From the moment she speaks we know we have a proper Swede to interpret the great Swedish poet, and from the moment she breaks into song we know the concert has really just begun.

For the rest of the evening the words and melodies ran sweet and clear. Johansen’s music, up till then an assemblage of intriguing possibilities, now really seemed to come into focus. Indeed the words of Tranströmer, the melodies of Johansen and the vocal phrasings of Riedel were something so much more than the sum of their parts. This was no contrived juxtaposition of elements but an elemental music somehow true to itself: original, fresh and so very easy on the ear! This music isn’t just jumping. It’s track jumping! In my book it qualifies as art.

Hjerterå record release concert at Driv – with Barrelhouse

Tina Rokni — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 22:04:50 +0100

Av Stuart
‘Søndre Tollbodgate, 50 below, You stay inside and rock and roll!’ Apologies to Randy Bachman and Neil Young

This is what Tromsø’s all about – ‘Portage and Main, 50 below, You stay inside and rock and roll!’ Okay, wrong city and underestimated temperature but you get the idea.
In the bitter, face-scraping cold of mid-winter, the crowds till managed to flock to Driv. They thus prove that Tromsø’s little-big-city spirit isn’t dead yet, however hard the philistines try to snuff it out with their phalanx of soulless shopping-malls. Now, if the punters had just been getting their little jackets on to go and see one more typical international recording artist, there’d be nothing to say, nothing to write. What do you say about modern life? Some things are just too banal to be worthy of comment.
But this Friday night at Driv was more than modern-life-as-usual, with its blinkered imaginations and inane consumables. This was really something to write home about – wherever home may be. In case this obvious fact has somehow passed you by, let me tell you that Tromsø has spawned improbable droves of great bands. Get out and see them, like these people did, the audience for Hjerterå’s record release concert, people inspired by the community around them, and a music scene that means something. I’ve seen ‘city scenes’ like this before, and I’ve seen them come and go. It’s a rare chemistry and there’s really no telling how long it will last. So make hay while the sun shines – sorry, wrong metaphor.
First came the ‘warm-up band’, Barrelhouse – and what a warm-up! They’re actually from Bergen but never mind! There were also guest appearances from such local notables as Marita Isobel Solberg (of Mara and the Inner Strangeness, in case you’ve been living in a cave). Anyway, Barrelhouse open their set, and it’s that awkward moment when questions must be asked about the choice of support: ‘Are they going to blow us off the stage?’
Okay, it’s the blues and it’s a funny old genre, and it can sound, well, just plain old. How many times have we heard the blues or R&B trundled out like a listless jamming-by-numbers dead end? Nevertheless, the tired old blues still retain the power to tap into a raw human feeling. In this respect there is no better music. Sometimes, for reasons hard to explain, it can take us on quite a ride. By some mystical trick, we start to hydroplane on that unlikely 12-bar raft of rock-and-roll lego-blocks. This was one of those times.
The sound is pure blues energy and raw feeling, the voice made in heaven. Yes, Hjerterå must have been worried. Just as well the Barrelhouse set was tantalisingly short! They didn’t blow Hjerterå off the stage – quite. What they did do was set the mood, a mood of irrepressible exuberance. Hjerterå felt it, rose to the occasion and caught the wave, and we just hydroplaned the night away.
Hjerterå are startlingly eclectic. With great virtuosity, they tap into the history of rock and roll. No, they milk it, like a cash cow, and turn out infectious pop energy like so much sweetened butter.
In my day we would have baulked at this sort of eclecticism. We thought of ourselves as the style-makers, the high priests of style. We aspired to a kind of purity, even Puritanism, where nothing is more important than what is prohibited. You know the sort of thing: noodling guitar solos or permed hair. Times have changed. You get everything with Hjerterå (except permed hair), everything and the kitchen sink. Now, it seems, everything is permitted. Or is it?
I don’t remember hearing a word of English, and this conspicuous absence – in today’s Norwegian music scene – was like a breath of fresh air. Maybe I like this because I’m still a child of my punk-rock times. I love a discipline, a commitment, a penance and, above all, a refusal to conform – that Lars-von-Trier type move from left field.
On one level, this is a band without limits. On another, they are stripped down and true, and making a statement in the language of their culture – for their culture. They do it with humour and infectious enthusiasm. Embrace this band, Norway! They’re all yours, and they might just be a national treasure.

Vårprogrammet er i gang!

TFK — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:51:45 +0100

Lørdag 02.02 kl 15 The Proposition
Onsdag 06.02 kl 19 Veiviseren
Lørdag 09.02 kl 15 Django
Onsdag 13.02 kl 19 Vanishing Point
Lørdag 16.02 kl 15 Shogun Assassin
Onsdag 20.02 kl 19 Psycho
Lørdag 23.02 kl 15 Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Onsdag 27.02 kl 19 Veronikas to liv

Lørdag 02.03 kl 15 Richard Pryor - Live on the sunset strip
Onsdag 06.03 kl 19 Ricky Gervais Live IV: Science
Lørdag 09.03 kl 15 Funny People
Onsdag 13.03 kl 19 Whisky Galore
Lørdag 16.03 kl 15 Picnic at Hanging Rock
Onsdag 20.03 kl 19 Cornelis
Lørdag 23.03 kl 15 Don Giovanni

Onsdag 27.03 kl 19 Påske
Lørdag 30.03 kl 15 Påske

Onsdag 03.04 kl 19 The Extraordinary Adventures Of Adèle Blanc- Sec
Lørdag 06.04 kl 15 Star Trek: First Contact
Onsdag 10.04 kl 19 Blazing Saddles
Lørdag 13.04 kl 15 Young Frankenstein
Onsdag 17.04 kl 19 Spaceballs
Lørdag 20.04 kl 15 Falskmyntnerne i Sachsenhausen
Onsdag 24.04 kl 19 The Small One og Banjo the Woodpile cat
Lørdag 27.04 kl 15 The Secret of Nimh

Onsdag 01.05 kl 19 Bernard og Bianca
Lørdag 04.05 kl 15 Superman: The movie

The Subferior - Studenthuset Driv, Monday, 28th February

Stuart — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 19:06:58 +0100

I suppose I am prejudiced, so take what follows with a pinch of salt if you like. The truth is it’s hard for me not to like something that is so retro-1980. Is this down to pure nostalgia or was this genuinely a great moment in popular music history?

Maybe The Subferior can provide part of the answer, for their roots could hardly be more firmly planted in that fertile post-punk soil. Judge for yourself! You can find some of their music, at any rate, on NRK’s Urørt.

It’s not that The Subferior (aka Espen Rueness and Asbjørn Tobiassen) are old hat. They have a modern sound – and an Apple computer! All the same, the debt they owe to a rich yet fleeting seam of techno-pop innovation is unmistakable. The most obvious parallels are to those Teutonic-iconic pioneers, Kraftwerk. But I detect an even heavier influence here of vintage British techno: the half-forgotten early innovations of later pop giants like Ultravox and The Human League, and the less commercial but fabulous Cabaret Voltaire.

I went into this concert with a few reservations. For a start, there was the conspicuous absence of their advertised partners-in-crime, those mysterious, occasionally heard yet rarely seen, Subtractors who – surprise, surprise – cancelled out at the last minute.

Then there’s this whole idea of the ‘synthetic performance’. How can you replace a living, breathing band with a computer, and still create energy and stage presence? Well, The Subferior managed it somehow. A big factor was vocalist Espen Rueness’s formidable stage presence.

Tall and skinny as ‘The Thin White Duke’ himself, he commanded the room in a way that was at once both awkward and graceful. As a physical performer he reminded me of David Byrne, exuding a theatrical, explosive uncertainty but anchored in the rhythmic assurance of a natural dancer. His powerful vocals completed the effect and ensured the audience remained enraptured – and quite indifferent to the conspicuous absence of a conventional band. We had entered the strange – and rather melancholy – world of The Subferior.

The Subferior infuse their synthesised soundscape with a genuine pop-rock intensity. This is alien to much contemporary electronica – but not all. Perhaps Oslo’s 120 Days have exerted some influence on this duo. The approach of 120 Days, with their battery of vintage analogue synthesisers, may be different but the effect is similar, in atmosphere and presence if not in style.

The Subferior are a welcome addition to the Tromsø music ‘scene’. I look forward to seeing and hearing a whole lot more from them in the very near future!

Django Unchained – TIFF13

Stuart — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 18:13:13 +0100

My guarantee: No plot spoilers*, no inflated scores

Outstanding
Very good
DECENT
Acceptable
Poor
Appalling

* Please be advised of a potential plot spoiler coming in the second-to-last paragraph though, chances are, it will tell you nothing you didn’t already know.

Of course this is a good film. How could it be otherwise? It’s a Tarantino! Nobody can doubt his talent. He probably doesn’t have it in him to make a bad film. At the very least his apparently effortless technical accomplishment will always make him watchable – as long as you have a good stomach for violence of course!

In fact, Tarantino is so good he has succeeded in becoming a kind of living icon. He is a sort of cult figure, except his cult happens to be the whole world. To criticise him is a kind of heresy, so...deep breath...

I’m fed up with Tarantino. He’s found a formula and it’s wearing thin. Django Unchained is terribly similar to other recent work, such as Kill Bill and Inglorious Bastards. It pays homage to one of the genres he loves. Just as Inglorious Bastards paid homage to the old-fashioned, Second-World-War movie, this one recalls the old-fashioned Western.

So, as usual, he affectionately recalls the conventions and style of the genre including, in this case, the breathtaking wilderness and the rough-neck frontier town, but he weaves in just enough irony, just a soupcon of ‘look at me, I’m having fun with this’. It is almost satire. Compared to the originals he mimics, the gunslingers are even more preposterously fast, the villains even more outrageously craven, etc., etc.

He also takes anachronistic liberties of course, reconfiguring wild-west values into something more contemporary and politically correct (see title). Finally, there’s that common element to both the earlier and the later works of Tarantino, the loving depiction of violence.

So what’s the problem? For one thing, Tarantino’s films fall into the trap of most action flicks and pretty much all the B-movies with which he most closely identifies: predictability. It’s not to say that Tarantino’s imaginative plots are devoid of surprises, but ultimately the tension is limited by the certainty that the hero will somehow astonish us and, of course, ultimately prevail over even the most hopeless circumstances. Herein lies another problem.

I like a bit more content with my cleverly formed movie, believable characters with whom one can identify and whose fate is of some interest, and where that fate remains, as in real life, always uncertain. Tarantino used to give us this. Only watch films like Resevoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction to see what I mean.

The power of all art, film included, is its capacity to express beautifully what the artist has to say. This of course presupposes that the artist has something to say. This key variable helps explain why Joy Division for instance are great, and Martin Amis or Ian McEwan is not.

Tarantino, on the other hand, is like Joy-Division-turned-New-Order, writing a theme song for the English national football team – albeit with proper postmodern irony. These days his artistic skills are primarily a vehicle for showing off his indubitable talent, not a means for saying anything that, in its substance, will interest or move us.

I may be fed up with Tarantino but I will never doubt his genius. I’m fed up with him for the same reason I got fed up with New Order, because he’s one of the greats and he’s letting us down. I’m fed up because he’s not giving me what he’s capable of; he’s not giving me what I want.

Django Unchained
Year: 2012
Country: USA
Running time: 2h 46m
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Cristoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel Jackson, Walton Goggins

Fill the Void – TIFF13

Stuart — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 15:41:55 +0100

My guarantee: No plot spoilers, no inflated scores

Outstanding
Very good
DECENT
Acceptable
Poor
Appalling

There’s something to be said for the very uniqueness of this work. Has a feature-film ever before offered an insider-view – let alone a sympathetic one – of the most devout of the Orthodox Hasidic Jews? I doubt it. Correct me if I’m wrong!

The story revolves around that apparent mainstay of more traditional cultures, the arranged marriage. But this is an arranged-marriage story with a difference. Youthful resistance to a marriage imposed by misguided elders is such a favourite theme of our liberal culture as to be almost a cliché. Well, get ready for something completely different. The young protagonist is enthused about her marriage. She readily assumes love and duty to conveniently coincide – by the grace of God I suppose. Still there’s a problem, but not the one you were probably expecting… Watch and see!

In almost every respect this is a most unusual film, another festival staple par excellence. It’s the kind that feels like a real experience – maybe even a learning experience. It’s a film whose memory will linger, not because it’s action-packed – on the contrary – maybe because it’s just the reverse!

Fill the Void immerses us in the apparently literally tiny world of the Hasidic community. We join the characters in a succession of cramped rooms dominated by men, decked out in their strange hats, hair plaits and coat-tails, who are invariably singing – loudly and with great gusto. The feeling of total immersion is accentuated by the kind of lingering close-ups that would do Bergman proud.

I came away from this film not knowing quite what to make of it, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. It’s certainly very ‘film festival’. The gently paced, close-up-heavy cinematography was beautiful and atmospheric, but also started to be a bit much! As the action unfolded slowly from one close-up to another, the film aesthetic seemed to verge on self-parody.

All the same, I recommend Fill the Void. You will come away feeling you have seen something strange; you might even say remarkable. This is due in no small part to some fine acting, not least from the male and female leads. They imbue the story with an emotional depth to match the sense of one’s almost physical immersion into what, for most of us, is a very alien world.

The film succeeds in painting a sympathetic portrait of the Hasidic community as it experiences and responds to a family crisis within it. We are offered real insight into the charms of another world, however we may react to what we – as Western liberals – are apt to interpret as onerous restrictions on personal choice. We Westerners are probably too ready to dismiss alternative value-systems as simply too traditional or – implicitly – too backward. For all its claustrophobic atmosphere, Fill the Void really does offer an opportunity to broaden our horizons.

Fill the Void (Lemale et Ha'halal)
Year: 2012
Country: Israel
Running time: 1h 30m
Director: Rama Burshtein
Cast: Hadas Yaron, Irit Sheleg, Yiftach Klein, Renana Raz, Ido Samuel, Yael Tal

Før Snøen Faller (Before Snowfall) – TIFF13

Stuart — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 18:25:24 +0100

My guarantee: No plot spoilers, no inflated scores

Outstanding
Very good
Decent
ACCEPTABLE
Poor
Appalling

The theme is a powerful one, the quest to perform an honour killing, told from the point of view of the killer. This makes for the darkest of road movies, as homicidal little brother chases his big sister – herself only 18 – half way across Europe. She has disgraced the family by fleeing her arranged marriage, and absconding with her lover. The weight of responsibility of the head of that family rests heavily on the young shoulders of her kid brother. He must find her and kill her.

This is a film I want to like. The theme is an important one, the inside view a bold approach. Plus there is some good stuff here along the way. The film has plenty of dark irony, as well as a number of powerful sequences – employing some terrific cinematography – and clever narrative devices and twists, some a little predictable but others with the power to surprise or even astonish. Nevertheless, the film’s overall cohesion and power are surprisingly weak.

What seems to hamper the work above all, and stifle its emotional resonance, is the way the protagonist himself is represented. How we perceive this central character is absolutely critical to the success of the film, given the nature of the theme. Somehow the film must draw us into his world, and give us at least a glimmer of understanding – and even identification – with the avenger, Siyar, however much we might abhor his murderous agenda.

The problem is Siyar floats impassively through the action like a kind of blank slate. We gain no sense of his emotional journey, which might complement and make sense of the physical one.

At times even the logic of the plot is unclear because Siyar’s motivation, whatever the situation, remains perfectly opaque. This may not simply be an acting – or casting – problem. It seems also to reflect the way the central character has been written and directed. The substance of the story has intrinsic power nonetheless. It remains a story worth telling and a film worth seeing. It’s just a shame its full potential – as a cinematic experience – is not delivered.

Før Snøen Faller (Before Snowfall)
Year: 2013
Country: Norway
Running time: 1h 45m
Director: Hisham Zaman
Cast: Taher Abdullah Taher, Suzan Ilir, Bahar Özen, Nazmi Kirik, Ahmed Zirik, Birol Ünel, Billey Demirtas, Mouafaq Rushdie

In the House – TIFF13

Stuart — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 17:44:04 +0100

My guarantee: No plot spoilers, no inflated scores

Outstanding
Very good
DECENT
Acceptable
Poor
Appalling

This is a film that will surely appeal to any writer – not to mention anyone who knows one! It deals with the relationship between life and art, fact and fiction, and – in particular – the conundrum of the dual role played by any author. On the one hand, he’s a narrator but, on the other, he’s an actor or agent, affecting the people around him, in ‘the real world’. How does the writer make use of people as material for his story-telling and what if he goes too far..?

The story of the film revolves around the meeting between a high-school English-teacher and his pupil over his story within a story. It all begins with the classic ‘How I spent my weekend’ creative-writing assignment. The pupil’s effort describes his insinuation into the bourgeois world of his schoolmate’s family home. This impresses yet unnerves the teacher, as well as his wife, with whom he shares the work of his star pupil. They both react to the essay’s dark, almost predatory undertones of contempt for the people he describes. The teacher is at any rate seduced by his pupil’s obvious talent, and private creative-writing tutorials ensue. And so the story – and the story-within-a-story – continue...

I must say the premise is absolutely fascinating. The semi-fictionalised encounter of the writer with the envied yet despised family continues in tandem with the feedback and encouragement of the teacher. The blurring boundary between fact and fiction is increasingly unsettling as the teacher is drawn into a fog of moral ambiguity and events (or the story?) seem to be spiralling out of control. The film, in the end, operates as a kind of offbeat thriller, allowing the subtle tension of where things might lead to work continually in the background of unfolding ‘events’.

I came away with the impression of an exquisitely crafted work of dramatic fiction but one whose full promise as a dark, psychological thriller hadn’t quite been delivered. Too often in literature and drama the shock of the real ends up being softened by the cocoon of fiction. In the House made a valiant effort to avoid this most common pitfall of the performing arts. Even if, ultimately, it was not entirely successful, it is to be commended for the attempt.

In the House (Dans La Maison)
Year: 2012
Country: France
Running time: 1h 47m
Director: François Ozon
Cast: Fabrice Luchini, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emmanuelle Seigner, Denis Ménochet

Stories We Tell – TIFF13

Stuart — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 13:21:46 +0100

My guarantee: No plot spoilers, no inflated scores

Outstanding
VERY GOOD
Decent
Acceptable
Poor
Appalling

I have to admit I gave this film a shot ‘against my better judgement’. So my expectations were pretty low going into the cinema. Coming out, on the other hand, I can only wonder how Stories We Tell was able to exceed those expectations so comprehensively. This is a terrific piece of documentary film-making. Go and see it!

The thing is, I’d already seen Take this Waltz by the same director. You’re probably thinking I couldn’t have liked it. On the contrary, I loved it. Take this Waltz is an unusual story, exquisitely told. Indeed it was Sarah Polley’s previous work that drew me to this latest excursion by the same director. This, however, was surely a project doomed to failure for any director, however talented?

I’ve seen others try and fail to document the lives of their ‘nearest and dearest’ in a way that works on the silver screen. The problem, I think, is lack of perspective. It’s so easy to mistake the banal stuff in your own backyard for something extraordinary. Furthermore, most people lack the courage to confront what they find there that is potentially interesting – but also dangerous!

Here, in the family, lie some of the toughest themes of them all, the bread and butter of one’s own personal existence, what is literally too close to home. The pitfalls, paradoxically, are as obvious as they are unavoidable. Sarah Polley nevertheless jumped nimbly over them all and made herself a great movie. How did she pull it off?

For a start, she focused on a mystery at the heart of her clan. This allowed her to play the levers of our own human curiosity, to draw us into the detective operation. It’s where this takes us that is so extraordinary though. Aided by some profound and yet conflicting insights from the characters she ‘interrogates’, she gets her teeth into some fascinating questions about how we understand our lives and the world around us. These have always been important questions but perhaps never more so than here and now, in these ‘postmodern times’.

What is truth, and do the conditions of truth privilege some perspectives over others? Such questions may remain – as ever – unresolved, but at least Polley addresses them from an original angle and with a refreshing clarity. If you go to see Stories We Tell, you will be told a story (or several, depending on how you look at it), which bristles with well observed characters in all their appealing complexity, and overflows with all their love and all their pain. As touching as it is enlightening, this is a story not soon forgotten.

Stories We Tell
Year: 2012
Country: Canada
Running time: 1h 48m
Director: Sarah Polley

Zaytoun – TIFF13

Stuart — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 23:17:19 +0100

My guarantee: No plot spoilers, no inflated scores

Outstanding
Very good
Decent
ACCEPTABLE
Poor
Appalling

Plot-spoiler advisory: Saying something about the central idea of this film requires me to mention an early but important plot development. Read on at your own risk!

This is one of those rare and challenging beasts, the feel-good-in-a-feel-bad-situation movie. The setting says it all: wartime Lebanon. It remains to be seen when it isn’t wartime in this troubled country, but the events of 1982 probably represent the apex – if that’s the right word – of military hostilities and human devastation. One notorious aspect of this devastation was the tragic fate of many of the Palestinian refugees crammed together in the urban ‘camp’ of Shatila. This forms the initial setting for Zaytoun (which I believe translates as olive).

So how do you make a feel-good movie out of such unpromising materials? The answer director Eran Riklis comes upon is the development of an unlikely relationship between an Israeli fighter-pilot and a 10-year-old boy from the camp. But what can possibly bring these two ‘natural enemies’ closer together? The answer is the road. Somehow circumstance throws them together on the road to Israel-Palestine, both in a way heading home, the boy, faithfully carrying the olive tree he hopes to plant there. Yes, there’s symbolism here and also a kind of road movie!

Therein lies the problem, however. The relationship is unlikely and the cinematic challenge is to make it nonetheless believable. Ultimately, the plot is just a little too contrived and the acting too wooden, for the film to entirely succeed in this regard.

Nevertheless, there is much to admire here. Zaytoun is beautifully filmed. The opening sequences, in particular, are exhilarating, as we follow the young boys at breakneck pace, hustling and fleeing from various hazards through the urban jungle of Beirut. These recall the dynamic cinematography of that contemporary classic, Run Lola Run.

What’s more, the theme is an inherently powerful one, highlighting what drives conflict and violence as well as the much more difficult question of what, if anything, can make reconciliation possible. Zaytoun provides a moving cinematic experience and a tremendously worthy message. I believe in this film and its message, even if its verisimilitude may occasionally falter and threaten that most delicate flower of the performing arts, the suspension of disbelief.

Zaytoun
Year: 2012
Country: UK, Israel, France
Running time: 1h 47m
Director: Eran Riklis
Cast: Stephen Dorff, Abdallah El Akal, Alice Taglioni, Loai Nofi, Ali Suliman, Ashraf Barhom

How to Make Money Selling Drugs – TIFF13

Stuart — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 03:41:28 +0100

My guarantee: No plot spoilers, no inflated scores

Outstanding
Very good
DECENT
Acceptable
Poor
Appalling

As you have probably guessed, the title of this American documentary should be taken ironically. But overcome your disappointment. There is still plenty to be learned here. The writer-director, Matthew Cooke, presents us with a remarkable collection of industry insiders, apparently all reformed and ‘clean’.

What we learn is how and why people make their living – and jeopardise their lives – in the huge narcotics business, from the seedy street-corner of the bottom rung, to the fabulous mansions and private armies of the upper echelons. We also gain a little insight into another, related industry, which has ballooned in the last 40 years: the so called ‘war on drugs’.

The film tells us with some humour a nevertheless increasingly harrowing story of how poverty and desperation fuel the industry at its grass roots, and how the war on drugs has effectively becomes a war on the poor (though certainly not on poverty!) while making a negligible impact on that industry. If you’ve ever wondered if legalisation coupled with targeted help for drug users might be a better option than their criminalisation – and demonization – this film offers some food for thought.

Cooke paints a convincing, insider-informed picture of how this underworld operates. He also presents a convincing critique of the war on drugs: its wasted resources, corruption, impotence and injustice. What the alternative might be to this mess is rather less forthcoming. The film’s reference to the recent liberalisation of drug policy in Portugal is tantalisingly brief and ultimately frustrating.

The ironical ‘how to’ construction of the film lends it some charm and, in fits and starts, some comic moments. In the end, however, it seems to have been difficult to pack all the desired elements into the chosen structure, and some impact and cohesion have been lost. This has been the price of accommodating a rich palette of voices, such as policy advocate, and famous actor, Susan Sarandon, to name one. The film nevertheless offers some terrific moments of dark humour and insight – albeit sporadically – such as the fascinating interview with ‘reformed’ star narcotics officer, Barry Cooper. It is also rich in ‘war veterans’’ own moving stories of the destructive effects of disproportionate policing.

How to Make Money Selling Drugs
Year: 2012
Country: USA
Running time: 2h 9m
Director: Matthew Cooke

Camille Rewinds – TIFF13

Stuart — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 03:34:34 +0100

My guarantee: No plot spoilers, no inflated ‘scores’

Outstanding
Very good
DECENT
Acceptable
Poor
Appalling

Plot-spoiler advisory: This film cannot be meaningfully discussed without revealing its central premise. The following thus contains a mild plot-spoiler pertaining to events from the first few minutes of the action.

This is the story of Camille, a middle-aged woman with some fairly typical middle-age problems. She drinks too much; divorce is looming. So how will she deal with these problems? Apparently by travelling back in time to her own adolescence!

How this happens is far from clear but we see her – to some comic effect – as a 40-something thrown into the typical experiences of a teenager. This unlikely scenario actually works, thanks largely to some very good acting performances, not least from the protagonist herself, played by the multi-talented Noémie Lvovsky. Lovovsky is also the writer and director.

The mature Camille is treated like a normal teenage girl and she behaves just like one too. We quickly accept that only we can see Camille as she ‘really’ is. Among other things, this sets the scene for her to be courted by her childhood sweetheart, her ‘ex-husband-to-be’.

For all its awkwardness of construction, the film does successfully create its own little wonder. This is the wonder of reliving the guileless, idealistic past as a way of gaining perspective on the lost illusions of the present. The film effects a kind of magical reversal of an apparently inevitable and somewhat depressing psychological trajectory, perhaps all too familiar to many of us of advancing years. This is the platitude that age must always ‘correct’ the idealism of youth. Here the idealism of youth presents a refreshing corrective to the cynicism of age.

In the end, the film works because the ‘adolescent story’ is convincingly told. There is a smack of realism, for example, about the boy’s assertion, as they walk down the lane, that he has resolved to kiss her at the next lamppost. At this moment we cannot doubt the reality of the girl’s experience, or her response to his exciting and confusing ultimatum.

This is a flawed film with some bizarre plot twists. It also exploits a kind of moral tension in portraying apparently or genuinely problematic relationships of unequal power or maturity for comic effect. This in itself is problematic. For all its flaws, this is nevertheless a beautifully acted film and tells its story with humour and insight. In its own, quirky way, it succeeds in casting light on the human condition. I therefore encourage you to embrace this film wholeheartedly, middle-age spread and all!

Camille Rewinds (Camille Redouble)
Year: 2012
Country: France
Running time: 1h 55m
Director: Noémie Lvovsky
Cast: Noémie Lvovsky, Samir Guesmi, Judith Chemla, India Hair

Eat Sleep Die – TIFF13

Stuart — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 03:09:21 +0100

My guarantee: No plot spoilers, no inflated ‘scores’

Outstanding
VERY GOOD
Decent
Acceptable
Poor
Appalling

In a small Swedish town, the lives of its ethnically diverse, working people revolve around the food preparation factory on which so many depend for their livelihood. The viewer is immersed – documentary style – into the kind of everyday challenges faced by these ‘bottom feeders’ of the global capitalist economy, through the eyes of Rasa. She is a young Montenagran immigrant, working hard by day, drinking hard by night, doing her best to help her father, who, through his own hard labours, is increasingly hampered by chronic back problems.

It’s a bleak tale, set against the double backdrop of a harsh industrial and natural landscape. The scrawny trees of the semi-tundra serve only to accentuate the dismal functionalism of the factory buildings. It is nevertheless a tale told with humour, and sensitivity to the enduring warmth of human relationships, however hard life may become. Father and daughter face their considerable challenges in efforts, however misguided they may be at times, to support and help one another.

This is an everyday story of everyday people. It’s what in Britain we used to call a ‘kitchen sink drama’, actually an acknowledged movement in film and theatre in the 1960s. Inspired by the realist aesthetic of Italian and French New Wave, British film-makers produced their own wave of gritty, working-class dramas, typically shot in black and white to create a kind of bleak neo-noir style. By comparison ‘Eat Sleep Die’ lacks a sense of the defiance of working-class culture. It may be a sign of the times. The working classes are certainly not as homogonous, united or as strong as they once were.

The film provides an unvarnished snapshot of the contemporary global economy as experienced and endured by the most marginal and disenfranchised. Its ‘new kitchen-sink drama’ artfully exposes the interpersonal and ethnic tensions of a life lived on a knife-edge of socio-economic insecurity. There is also plenty of bitter irony here, reminiscent of ‘kitchen sink’ at its best, as we witness the platitudinous mantras of hope and self-sufficiency of the social service agencies. Their mandate may be to help the unemployed, but they seem curiously ill-fitted to the task.

The stark realism of ‘Eat Sleep Die’ is convincing and illuminating. This is not the easiest film you will see, but there’s much to enjoy here, and a hell of a lot to learn.

Eat, Sleep, Die (Äta Sova Dö)
Year: 2012
Country: Sweden
Running time: 1h 44m
Director: Gabriela Pichler
Cast: Nermina Lukač, Milan Dragisic, Jonathan Lampinen, Peter Fält, Ruzica Pichler