Film Fest Returns

The film festival is well underway and it's about time I said something about it.

It's great.

As usual.

Over the weekend I saw six films, few of which followed conventional lines of development.

The Israeli/Palestinian film Tel Aviv on Fire tells the story of a hapless young Palestinian who's earning money as a dialect consultant—but mostly as a gopher—on the set of a soap opera his uncle is producing. Early on in the film he's unexpectedly thrown into the role of script-writer, and his scripts improve when he starts gathering plot-lines and dialogue from the Israeli officer at the check-point he has to pass every day on his way to work. There is a major bone of contention, however: the officer wants the terrorist femme fatale from Paris to marry the Israeli general she's pumping for military secrets, while most of the Palestinians on the set want her to blow both the general and herself sky-high. Laughs abound. Really.

The Swedish film The Cake General tells the tale of an unsuccessful entrepreneur living in the town that's been dubbed in the Stockholm news as "the most boring in Sweden." He comes up with the idea of baking the longest sandwich cake in the world, thus putting his town in the Guinness Book of World Records.  He wins the support of the young woman who runs the local bakery, but his reputation as a wino with delusions of grandeur makes it difficult for him to generate widespread interest the project. 

The voice-over narration is by a local resident who was just a boy when the peculiar enterprise took place—it's sort of a true story. The lad was inspired by the man's determination to think creatively, and so are we.

In Hotel by the River South Korean director Hong Sang-Soo forges yet another appealing drama out of the flimsiest materials. His last film, At Night on the Beach Alone, explored the aftermath of an affair between an aging film director and his young star (Min-hee Kim) from the woman's point of view. That same woman appears here, further dissecting the failure of that relationship with her girlfriend, but the meat of the tale is to be found in the conversations between and old man (a famous poet) and his two sons, whom he's summoned to the hotel where he's staying because he senses that he's about to die—though he doesn't quite know why. 

Shot in exquisite black-and-white and peppered with delays, unlikely coincidences, missed appointments, and lingering silences, the film is reminiscent of an early Jim Jarmusch film, though the specific timbre is Asian. An atmosphere of idleness, peace, humor, and mystery envelops it, perhaps because there isn't really much going on.

One Last Deal immerses us in the world of Finnish fine art, as Olavi, an elderly art dealer, faces two challenges simultaneously. As the market for his bourgeois landscapes dwindles, he spots an unauthenticated painting at a local auction that might be a seriously undervalued masterpiece. 

Meanwhile, his estranged daughter asks him to take on his delinquent grandson for a few days as an intern to further the troubled lad's education. As Olavi struggles to come up with the cash to buy the painting, which even at a steep markdown he can't really afford, his grandson applies his digital investigative skills to the task of uncovering its provenance.

Heikki Nousiainen shines as the quietly obsessive Olavi who's neglected his divorced daughter for decades for the sake of his business. You might remember him as the blind priest in Letters to Father Jacob (2007) or the grumpy old racist in Unexpected Journey (2017).  

  The Brazilian documentary Edge of Democracy recounts the career of Lula da Silva as he rises to power on the strength of worker support bolstered by pragmatic compromises with the moneyed classes. His annointed successor, Dilma Rousseff, initiates a corruption campaign called Operation Car Wash, but so many elected officials find its net closing in  that they turn the same legal processes against their twin foes, impeaching Dilma and sending Lula to prison without much of a case.

That's the story we're being told, at any rate, by film-maker Petra Costa, whose activist mother spent a good deal of time in prison for political activities—though her maternal grandmother's family has been deeply involved for generations in the construction business, which is closely tied to right-wing politics. 

There are more riotous crowd scenes in the film than strictly necessary to advance the story, and also too many shots of the palatial yet sterile government buildings in Brasilia. In the midst of all the chaos and corruption, it seems almost inevitable that the "suits" will prevail, especially when the same crowds that brought Lula to power turn against him. The film has an elegiac tone, and so does the narrator's voice. Hope for Brazil? Not much. 

The Tobacconist is an old-fashioned drama/romance in which Franz, a sincere but naive rural lad on the cusp of maturity, is sent to help a distant relative at his tobacco shop in Vienna, a few months before the Anschluss of 1938. On the advice of one of his customers (Sigmund Freud) Franz pursues a young Bohemian woman, but blinded by love, it takes him quite a while to discern the opportunistic ties she's developing with the local Nazis. Franz learns about business, tolerance, and other things from his boss, who was maimed in WWI and now caters to Communists, Jews, and the local fascists with equanimity, and he and Freud (played with marvelous humor and understatement by Bruno Ganz) also become friends. The period detail is exquisite. The film's outcome is distressing.

The only real stinker I've come across so far is the Polish/Italian film Dolce Fine Giornata. It's point of focus is Janda, a celebrated Polish poet who fell in love with Italy and married an Italian decades earlier. Impulsive and eager not to act her age, she's bought a sports car and is carrying on an affair with young Arab who runs a taverna nearby. The locals respect her highly, but the mood shifts when she delivers a speech describing a recent terrorist bombing in Rome as a work of art, while criticizing her well-healed  audience as a bunch of xenophobic hypocrites. Unfortunately, her provocative statement isn't coherent enough to be meaningful, and by the end of the film she's exposed herself as a tiresome and self-centered prima donna. In fact, the entire film might well be considered the type of phony, unthinking, narcissistic stuff its heroine is posturing against. 

Also, way too much smoking! On the plus side, the scenery is nice.