Portland Oregon — Observations

Portland International Film Festival at Northwest Film Center.   I saw 68 films in 28 days. The following blurbs are simply my reaction to the films as I saw them.  Fair warning that it’s not meant to be a full-scale review or anything other than a quick annotation.

Some of the notes relate to my specific interests (such as birds). Dates refer to date seen. As a member of the Silver Screen Club, I get to attend some press screenings before the festival actually starts so the dates cover the whole month of February.  Ratings are based on 1-5 scale with 5 being best.

Link to list arranged by title with scores.

2/01/2010
Hipsters — Russia — 5
I walked into this film knowing only that it was from Russia and that didn’t help me at all. Hipsters turned out to be a delightful musical and nothing like what I expect from a Russian film. Set in the mid-1950′s in the underground “hipster” group which tries to copy U.S. music and style, it’s definitely a reminder of the days of the pompadour. The colors are wonderful — in sharp contrast to the drab ordinary Soviet blues and blacks. Mels (whose name is supposed to stand for Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin) meets Polly (definitely the prettiest of the hipster girls) while he’s patrolling with the communist youth group. He’s so taken with her that he ventures into hipster life himself, courting trouble by buying forbidden items like saxophones on the black market. After all, the saxophone is considered only a step away from a switchblade. Music is mostly jazz, great choreography and fun songs.

02/01/10
A Prophet — France — 4
A kind of coming-of-age story set in a French prison. Malik, a young Muslim who seems estranged from other Muslims, becomes even more Corsican than the gang he hangs out with and gets protection from — that protection coming at the price of doing chores, errands and hits if necessary.  He does their bidding but learns to extract vengeance along the way. Strong emphasis on family of whatever kind. Called Prophet because he has visions and occasionally forsees something about to happen. Visions brought on by the particularly violent killing he does to win the Corsican’s favor. Grim, violent and more detail than you ever wanted about prison corruption. Excellent acting and film never seems to drag.

02/02/10
About Elly — Iran — 2
Extended family and friends group on a trip to the seaside has the feel of a road-trip movie — tense relations and one or two who try to control everyone else. The Elly of the title is a schoolteacher who has been brought along in a matchmaking attempt, although none of them know much about her. When things go wrong, it’s difficult to sort out who actually knew what — the stories change from minute to minute. Some are deliberate lies — Sepideh doesn’t want the others to know that she brought Elly along in an attempt at matchmaking although Elly already has a fiance; she also tells the owner of the rental house that Elly is a newlywed in an attempt to secure the house rental. This is after she’s told the other members of the group that the house was already promised to them. Then they all tell various different lies to each other and the fiance in an attempt to make the story sound better. I found the characters unappealing and didn’t really care about them or what happened to them.

02/02/10
Ajami — Israel — 3.5
Struggles of a young man whose family is in danger because his uncle killed a Bedouin in some altercation, interwoven with stories of several other young men all with their own frustrations. Fairly depressing look at how badly things can go wrong even when you’re trying to do the best you can. Tensions between Muslin, Christian, Jew on an everyday level, not so much a political level. They all seem to be trying but the various religious and cultural barriers don’t help at all. Interesting scenes of negotiations — essentially setting a price so that retribution will not be taken in killing more members of the family. Unfortunately, trying to come up with the money to pay the negotiated fee results in more problems. Pay attention — there’s some chronological shifting which lost me for a few minutes, and it’s easy to assume things that turn out to be untrue. Actors are apparently mostly nonprofessionals which adds to the feel of real everyday life in a community overburdened by poverty, crime and ethnic tensions.

02/03/10
Terribly Happy — Denmark — 4.5
Black humor mixed with thriller in southern Denmark — where a small town marshall’s job is definitely not just an easy post to recover from some unspecified incident in the marshall’s life. Details of his personal problems turn out to be relevant to a situation he has to deal with as marshall. The town mantra of  “we have our own way of doing things” is not that uncommon in a small isolated community and the locals are suspicious of the new marshall — indeed of any outsider. On the other hand, they don’t necessarily think highly of their own community members either. The local bar serves as the town meeting place and site of various showdowns reminiscent of the old West. The bog on the outskirts of town serves as both hiding place and a source of justice. Just enough unexpected twists to keep it interesting and just enough creepiness — like the strange child who wanders through town with a doll carriage in serious need of oiling. Everyone hears her go by and everyone knows why she doesn’t stay at home — but they don’t do anything about it.

02/03/10
Fish Tank — Great Britain — 3.5
Coming of age story of Mia, a 15-year-old girl somewhere in England in lower class housing estate. Her mother has various men passing through and a serious alcohol problem. The girl is interested in dance — hip-hop, rap, etc. and can almost imagine herself getting out of this place and doing something with it — before she turns into another version of her mother. One of the mom’s boyfriends takes an interest in her — seems benign in the beginning but you can see it’s not going to be what she needs. Bleak outlook on the possibilities of escaping from that milieu.
Katie Jarvis, who plays Mia, lives on a public housing estate and was apparently found by the filmmaker while engaged in a shouting match with her boyfriend at the same Tilbury train station that’s shown in the film.

02/04/10
Art of the Steal — U.S. — 3.5
Semi-documentary on the Barnes Collection and the various shenanigans that went on between Barnes and various high-powered art and political figures during his lifetime and his attempt to keep the Foundation from falling into the hands of Philadelphia’s power brokers. Film has a definite point of view, but is reasonably well done. Some of the commentary is repetitive but entertaining all the same. It’s paced like a mystery or crime drama with music highlighting tense moments.

Albert C. Barnes had definite views about his collections and intended them to be used for educational purposes not tourism. Since he was a collector of impressionists and post-impressionists before they became popular, it’s an amazing collection and was never lent out. One needed special permission to go there and you were more likely to get it if you were an ordinary person as opposed to a critic or member of society. He had no children and much of this story revolves around the attempts (now successful) of the Philly power brokers to get control of the Barnes Collection. It’s in the process of being moved from Merion, where Barnes built his building, to downtown Philly now.

02/04/10
Girl on the Train — France — 3
It’s hard to imagine Catherine Deneuve as the mother who runs a child care service in her home, giving advice to her somewhat empty-headed daughter, Jeanne, who has qualified to be a secretary but is apparently not capable of spelling correctly on her application letters. The train in question runs by their house and takes her into Paris to look for a job. Lots of long shots of her skating down streets, with or without her young man who has some secrets of his own. This seems to be another variation on the coming-of-age theme and the yearning for belonging of one kind or another. Jeanne seems to want attention, and concocts a story about being attacked by an anti-Semitic group on the train, but her story is full of obvious holes.

02/05/10
Mid-August Lunch — Italy — 4
Ferragosto, August 15th, is a holiday in Italy, a combination of old midsummer festivals with Catholic Church Day of Obligation. Most people are out-of-town but Gianni takes cares of his elderly mother and doesn’t have funds for that kind of vacation. He cooks, drinks wine, visits with a friend and evidently doesn’t pay the bills. When the apartment administrator offers to cover some of those unpaid fees if Gianni will let his mother stay there as well for a few days, he sees the advantage in that. The project escalates to several women — all past a certain age.

Since they’ll all be there on the 15th, he’s preparing the holiday dinner for them. You get the feeling that the other ladies don’t have children as attentive to them as Gianni is to his mother. It’s a charming tale of making the best of circumstances and enjoying a good meal on what may be the last Ferragosto for some of them. Gianni is played by the director, Gianni Di Gregorio, and evidently none of the women are professional actresses.

02/05/10
Home — Switzerland — 2.5
Home may be where the heart is but it’s hard to figure what’s really going on in this family drama — they live beside what appears to be an abandoned freeway with their outdoor furniture and general belongings spread on the lanes of the highway. No one else lives nearby although two of the children go off to school and the father goes off to work. Older daughter spends her days sunbathing in the yard and apparently has no other interests. All of them except the younger daughter spend a lot of time in the bathroom or the bathtub together.

Isabelle Huppert is the mother and is appropriately stressed looking, but otherwise doesn’t seem to do much. There’s something in her past that makes her uncomfortable living anywhere else. but we don’t really know what it is. Then the government decides to actually open the highway and things get even weirder. The children and husband have to cross the freeway to get to their daily activities and cars are zooming by at an alarming rate. The younger daughter becomes obsessed with carbon poisoning. The whole family seems to go slightly madder than they already were, but it’s not clear what the point is.

02/08/10
Police, Adjective — Romania — 4 for ideas; 2 for holding your attention through tedium
I love words and have been known to read the dictionary so a film named with a part of speech and featuring a character reading definitions from a dictionary in an attempt to define his job has immediate appeal. In fact those scenes, and the ones discussing song lyrics with his wife, are interesting. That’s about half an hour of a two-hour film. A large part of the rest of it goes to show the utter tedium of routine police work — standing on corners watching people come and go, trailing a teenager back and forth to school, sitting in the boss’s reception area waiting to be called in, waiting for co-workers to do their job so you can do yours. Our policeman, Cristi, is having a problem because he doesn’t want to arrest a teenager for something that isn’t even a crime in other countries. His attempts to get around his disagreement with the letter of the law leads to the dictionary session with his boss.The film doesn’t answer the questions which are mostly philosophical, can there be law if everyone does what he “feels” is right? Is bureaucracy itself the bigger problem? As we all know, “police” is normally a noun. When it’s used as an adjective, the most common usages are for fiction, as in “police drama,” or for repressive political regimes — police state.

02/08/10
Vincere — Italy — 3
Operatic style treatment of story of Ida Dalser, who claims to have been Mussolini’s first wife, and her attempts to get him to acknowledge her as he transforms from a union leader challenging God to Il Duce. He does acknowledge that the boy she has is his son, but banishes her to her brother-in-law’s house and ultimately several insane asylums while the boy is taken away to a boarding school. We see a memory sequence of their wedding but given Ida’s obsessiveness and the fact that there’s no documentation for such an event, it seems unlikely that it really happened.

Film seems self-consciously artistic at times — shots of her climbing the iron gates at the asylum with snow falling on the other side don’t seem to have much other point. She’s tossing letters out to try to get them to the Pope or anyone in government who might take her side, but that’s not likely to happen. Interesting use of newsreels and historical footage — which is mostly what we see of Mussolini after the first few episodes of passion with Ida.

02/09/10
Mother — South Korea — 4
Story of a mother who’s main focus in life is protecting her son and she’ll go to any lengths to do that. He’s 20-something, somewhat mentally impaired and seemingly incapable of remembering anything for longer than a few minutes. He hangs out with — and gets into trouble with — another local youth who fancies himself as more important than he really is.  Worrying about her son and what will happen to him pushes her to the edge of madness and perhaps slightly beyond. Because he can’t really remember what happened, the son is arrested for the murder of a high school girl. His mother determines to find out the truth and get him freed, because the police and the lawyer she consults are only interested in closing the case.

The mood of the film is somewhat ominous most of the time — we see her dancing in a field but it’s not quite clear whether it’s a dance of madness. The first sequence of her chopping herbs in the back of her little shop while watching her son stand on the opposite sidewalk playing with a dog gives the immediate feeling that something bad is about to happen — and it does. That feeling persists through the film. We learn that he will have an immediate violent reaction to being called a “retard” — something she has apparently taught him. That doesn’t help his case when he’s at the police station or in jail. The focus of the film is the Mother, and how she will figure out how to help her son.
Kim Hye-ja, who plays the mother, sometimes goes a little bit overboard in showing this obsession. Interestingly, she’s well known in Korea for playing mothers, primarily on TV. In our film she’s never given a name, only Mother.

02/09/10
The Good, The Bad, The Weird — South Korea — 4.5

Mix every spaghetti western with some treasure-hunting Indiana Jones and add a high body count swirled with a dash of humor and you have this “Oriental western,” as it bills itself during the closing credits (which are worth staying for). The music even sounds something like Morricone’s music for The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Set in 1930′s Manchurian desert, one map, three guys who have some interests in getting rid of each other over and above the purported treasure, and throw in the Japanese army plus a couple of bandit gangs for good measure. Massive mayhem and a few things I’ve not seen in westerns before — like the guy shooting his rifle while swinging on a rope above the rest of the fighters in the shantytown.

Opening shot of an eagle swooping down to grab carrion away from what looked like crows or ravens on a railroad track just in front of an oncoming train made a great start for me. Spectacular train robbery is the first major action, followed by chases, attacks and counter-attacks using all manner of weapons and modes of transport — and with the unlikely assistance of a grandmother and several small children. Fun if you enjoy westerns at all.

Released in 2008 and reportedly the most expensive South Korean feature to date.

02/10/10
A Town Called Panic — Belgium — 5
Wonderful, hilarious animated comedy whose characters are those old-style action figures from children’s games — the ones where the figures usually have a little platform for their feet. I loved it from the first minute of the animated titles sequence. Full of inventive touches — Horse, Cowboy and Indian live together in a house and Horse seems to be far the most sensible of the three. It’s the kind of world where anything can and does happen, from a giant automated Penguin tossing snowballs to Horses who teach piano to mutants who live in the ocean. And the most likely thing to happen at any given moment is panic. The events, such as they are, that take place are started by the need to celebrate Horse’s birthday — oh, no, we don’t have a present…

Some of the detail about their daily routines — Indian blow dries his headdress, for example, and the coffeepot has three spouts, reminded me of some Wallace and Gromit films but it’s a lot faster. This world is not so much illogical as outside of logic. The film is an expansion of a popular Belgian TV show. At 75 minutes it’s just right.

02/10/10
Wedding Song — Tunisia — 4
Well done story of two young women, best friends — one Jewish, one Muslim — in Tunis during WWII. Nour wants to get married but her father forbids it until her young man finds a job. Myriam helps her by teaching her to read (Jewish girls were allowed to go to school but not Muslim) and covering for her so she can meet her young man. Myriam isn’t that interested in marriage but her mother is betrothing her to a well-off physician so they can pay the new taxes levied on all Jewish residents.

Director Karin Albou plays Myriam’s mother who’s trying to make ends meet as a seamstress and keep her family safe from the increasing pressure against the Jews. Nour’s young man does find a job — but it’s with the Germans, helping to take possessions away from Jewish families. Political propaganda in the form of leaflets dropped from planes and radio announcements blaming all their problems on the Jews, tries to drive a wedge between the two girls but they share one form of oppression — whether Muslim or Jew their bodies are not considered to be their own, but the property of father or husband.

The movie’s washed-out colors make look like it could have been made at the time. Interesting scenes inside the women’s section of a hammam, a public bathhouse, and a pre-wedding party of women having a good time among themselves without the men around.

02/11/10
Reverse (Rewers) — Poland — 4
Combination of a coming of age (although the young woman in question is 30ish) and the strong mother figures that are turning out to be a theme of this year’s festival. Three generations of women in 1950′s Warsaw during the years of Stalinist rule. Story is intercut with a modern segment but bulk of the story is in 1950′s. The daughter, Sabina, works as a poetry editor; she lives with her mother and grandmother and her brother lives upstairs, painting and drinking. The chief interest of Sabina’s mother and grandmother is that she should find a man and they find candidates for her who are failures. Then she mysteriously meets one herself. a charming handsome man. Her mother also likes him — enough to leave him alone in the house with Sabina. From there the story gets darker. Dark as in evil insinuating itself into what has been a relatively calm life, and dark as in dark comedy. The film has some very funny moments mixed in with some horrific ones.

A gold coin — forbidden since all gold was supposed to be turned in — plays a role. Sabina decides to keep it but hide it — which she proceeds to do every day but not in a way I would have expected. The music is amazing — striking tension in some spots to make it seem more like a thriller and using arias in others. The Warsaw Palace of Culture, Stalin’s gift to the Polish people, also plays a role. The title of the film is about reversing evil into something good.

02/11/10
Welcome — France — 4
Calais, the French port for car ferries traveling to England, has become a destination for young men, mostly from the Middle East and Africa, desperate to get into England. France has a law against helping these illegals in any way. One can be arrested just for handing out food to them. The story starts with  17-year-old Bilal who has come from Iraq over the course of several months and is trying to get to London where is girlfriend lives. He meets someone he knows from Iraq in the throngs of young men and they arrange to try to sneak aboard a truck crossing the Channel.

After failing to make that crossing, he uses some of his remaining money to take swimming lessons from Simon, a middled-aged guy in the final stages of a divorce he doesn’t want. His soon-to-be ex criticizes him for not caring about what goes on in the world (she works with one of the refugee aid groups) but then warns him that he shouldn’t help Bilal because he’ll get in trouble. It’s not clear if he originally takes Bilal on as a student because he’s hoping to impress her, or if he’s intrigued by what drives this young man to try to get to England in spite of the odds. Perhaps in some sense he misses that sense of desire. Bilal’s interest in swimming turns out to be inspired by his theory that he can swim the English Channel. Simon tries to dissuade him from this plan but gradually becomes more involved with the boy, treating him as something close to a son. This, of course, gets him in trouble with both the police and his neighbors — who don’t want any illegals around.

The reality of immigration issues forms the backdrop to the more interesting story of Simon’s relationship with Bilal and what he hopes to learn or regain in the process.

2/11/10
I Am Love — Italy –1.5
Tedious story of wealthy Italian family in their villa, meant to be similar to Visconti’s family sagas but definitely failing to improve on those. Family machinations that are not exactly new, extravagant food, overwrought music and elegant clothes with hints of passion breaking out in unlikely places. Excruciatingly long soft-focus sex scenes intercut with shots of flowers and bees. I usually enjoy watching Tilda Swinton, who plays the Russian-born lady of the house, but not so much in this film.

02/12/10
Wild Grass — France — 4.5
 ”After the cinema, nothing surprises you. Everything is possible”  Georges Palet.
Both fascinating and inexplicable, this film from Alain Resnais reminds us that perhaps everything about life and love is a little bit “folle” — the French title is “Les herbes folles” which translates as crazy or lunatic grass. In other words, grass or other plants growing where they have no sensible reason to — such as the weeds that spring up in pavement cracks or on rock walls. There’s no good reason for them to try to grow there and perhaps no good reason for love and/or obsession that occurs as a result of some random incident.

Georges Palet is a middle-aged man who seems to have some kind of unsavory act in his background — perhaps he did something, perhaps he only imagined it. He talks to himself a lot. The chain of events that sets this incident in motion begins when Marguerite’s purse is snatched when she’s out shopping for shoes. The thief drops her wallet in a parking garage where Georges finds it. From there his obsession with her begins. Marguerite, a dentist whose hobby is flying planes, is played by Sabine Azéma, who happens to be Renais’s wife. She has her own obsessions and follies, as well as some hint at a mysterious past.

02/12/10
Sons of Cuba — Great Britain — 3
Documentary about Cuban boys training to be boxers at Havana Boxing Academy. These boys look to be 9-10 years old and are picked to participate in intense training preparing for the national championships. Cuba has dominated Olympic boxing for years and this is the training ground for those future boxers.

In large part, boxing is a way for young Cubans to have a way to earn money and support the family. They also train for the approval of Fidel Castro, their maximum leader. This was filmed during the time Castro became ill and did not make an appearance at any of the events where he normally appeared to encourage the young boxers. Story focuses of several of the individual boys, gives some of their family background, and shows how emotionally invested they are in being successful in this sport — for themselves, their coach and their families.

02/12/20
Lourdes — Austria — in French — 3.5
Christina, confined to a wheelchair, makes a pilgrimage to Lourdes along with an assortment of others hoping to be cured. She is not so much a believer as taking this trip because there are few excursions for those in wheelchairs and she wants to escape from the feelings of uselessness in her everyday life. One of the other pilgrims expresses it as a way to reach out for human contact because he is otherwise alone.

Filmed on location where Saint Bernadette saw the Virgin Mary and using many nonprofessional actors with real infirmities, this film is probably as close to Lourdes as many of us will get. Several of the religious services seem to be real-life events as well. Director Jessica Hausner does not mock religious belief but does show some of the strange sidelights — such as a party prize for Best Pilgrim. Lourdes is not exactly about religion or faith, but about individual lives and dealing with the changes that come to all of us.

02/12/10
Girl With the Dragon Tattoo — Sweden — 4.5
Warning that there are disturbing graphic sex violence scenes. Thriller based on best-selling Millennium novels by Stieg Larson features an investigative reporter, Mikael Blomkvist played by Michael Nyqvist, and a computer hacker played with amazing intensity by Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist is sentenced to jail for some articles he wrote about financial corruption but while waiting for his sentence to begin is hired by the head of a powerful industrial family corporation to look into a 40-year-old unsolved disappearance, perhaps murder.

Blomkvist meets Lisbeth because she had been hired to poke into the background of the libel case he was convicted for — and in the course of her hacking she starts reading everything he saves on his laptop. She’s uanble to stop herself from sending him an answer to the question he was working on for his new job. Her background is mysterious but evidently quite traumatic and her relationship with any authority is at best problematic. They join forces to solve the rest of the increasingly strange puzzle.

Note that the original title in Swedish: “Män som hatar kvinnor” = “Men That Hate Women”  There are two other books in this series which have been filmed and released in Europe. There are also rumors that Hollywood may do a version of the same novels — not apparently a re-do of these films but a new treatment.

02/13/10
The Window — India — 2.5
Bimal, who is struggling to make ends meet and trying to get enough money to marry his pregnant girlfriend, decides that he has to give a suitable gift to his old school after making a visit there and seeing how run down the place is. While he means well, he doesn’t consult the school authorities, leading to an entertaining scene of a school board meeting; he doesn’t tell his girlfriend that he’s taking a large sum out of their bank account, leading to a fight with her; he doesn’t tell his boss that he’s taking some time off; and he doesn’t even get the price of the window before commissioning the carpenter to make it. Woven in and out of his hapless story is a thief who steals anything that isn’t nailed down — collecting everything from bicycles to a school gong to sell at the weekend market. The scenery is interesting, the thief scenes are often funny, but in general there’s not much point to this story.

02/13/10
My Year Without Sex — Australia — 3.5
Liked the music and the clever intertitles of this film and belatedly realized they reminded me of Look Both Ways, one of my favorites from a few years ago which was also by director Sarah Watt. [This is one of the cases where reading about the film before seeing it might have been useful, but surprises are good] This film starts off on a similar premise — death could strike at any time. Natalie, the wife, is struck by a brain aneurysm but luckily is at her doctor’s office for a routine exam when it happens and is rushed into surgery. Ross, the husband, is worried about his job as a radio technician and pretty hopeless as an assistant footy coach for his son’s team.

The title comes from the surgeon’s recommendation that Natalie avoid such things as sneezing and orgasms that might trigger another aneurysm. Shots of billboards, newstand covers, TV ads all reflect how pervasive sex is in our society. The clever intertitles are a play on those sexual themes — Foreplay, Climax etc. This is an ordinary suburban couple with the usual money, children, and trying to fit everything in issues and the usual household problems — nothing’s where it’s supposed to be, the dryer burns up, etc. etc. Just like real life, there are bits of luck as well — they win a prize at some Christmas event, Natalie doesn’t die, nobody is hurt in the car crash. I liked the children but the dog seemed a little too much. Maude Davey does a great supporting role as the priest, choir leader and former musician who’s wondering why God gave her these “feelings” but no way to fulfill them.

Not so much about sex as about coping with everyday life and the ways your life can change with just one stroke of luck or non-luck.

2/13/10
Music on Hold — Argentina — 3.5
Romantic comedy involving a music composer who’s up against a deadline for a score but can’t come up with anything until he happens to be on hold with his bank and the hold music inspires him. The problem is that he can’t get back to that tune again and visits the bank offices in an attempt to find it. Meanwhile Paula, a bank officer, is having some issues of her own because she’s very much pregnant, very much without a boyfriend and her mother (who believes there is a man in the picture) is on the way for a visit from Spain. Ezequiel is in Paula’s office, trying to find his song, when the mother arrives and suddenly Paula introduces him as the boyfriend. Complications ensue.

02/14/10
Protector — Czech Republic — 4.5 Striking, almost film noir style story of Czech radio reporter, his artist friends and Jewish wife as they cope with the German takeover of Prague. The use of bicycles and the gears, wheels and chains is strking and the score seems driven by the pedaling of the bicycle. Is the cyclist pedaling to get away, to get to somewhere else, to stay alive? We don’t quite know the answer to that question and it’s not clear that the cyclist himself knows.

The Protector of the title refers to Reinhard Heydrich, the Third Reich’s Deputy Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, who was also called the Butcher of Prague. It may also refer to Emil’s role in trying to keep his wife safe. As the film opens we see the search brought on by an assassination attempt against Heydrich in 1942. Then the film steps back four years to tell the story leading up to that opening event. Emil is able to keep his job and even advance, with certain adjustments to the German’s demands, but Hana’s career as an actress ends immediately because of her Jewish ancestry. Her big film that was ready for release is pulled. She courts danger by donning her blonde film wig and going out against curfew regulations and hanging out with a movie projectionist who has a copy of her film and also falls in love with her.

There are many unanswered questions — why doesn’t she leave when she has a chance? Later, when she offers to divorce Emil, why doesn’t he agree? How far is he willing to go — and in which direction?

We saw Marek Daniel, who plays Emil, last year in A Country Teacher.

02/14/10
Cooking History — Czech Republic — 3 for ideas, 1.5  for execution
Documentary about military cooking covering several different military conflicts starting with WWII. Includes recipes for enormous amounts of food (most including as a last line “pinch of salt”) and some perspectives on the role of food and conflict. Most interesting sections to me were the one with Tito’s personal cook and his view on the meals that were served during the negotiations to determine whether Yugoslavia would be one country or split into several. As he recounts the menus, you can see that the dishes are becoming more nationalistic at each event. Also interesting difference in the responses of the women cooks — who seemed to be saying that an army needs food, no matter which side it’s fighting on — versus the Croatian who says he could not cook for people who are not his people. Most of the cooks seem to believe that their work is more for the soldiers, to allow them to do their work, and less related to the various political questions being decided.

Graphic but not unrealistic scenes of animal slaughter and sausage grinding and I found the meal prepared with a woman as the serving dish more disturbing. Hilarious in places but also has some weird questions from the interviewer which are ham-handed at best and designed to elicit some particular response. Most of them ignore his questions or say they don’t want to talk about it.

02/14/10
For the Love of Movies — U.S. — 4
Very interesting for anyone interested in film criticism in the U.S. General discussion of the trend away from one “important” film critic who could make or break a film to today’s more fractionalized world where we still have some print critics but there are an increasing number of bloggers and online-only reviewers/commentators. Made by Gerald Peary, Boston Phoenix critic and film professor. Enjoyed the use of film clips and the many quotes from various critics — particularly the overview of the famous Kael - Sarris debates. Really liked the narration which was done by Patricia Clarkson.

02/14/20
Heliopolis — Egypt — 2.5
Interesting views of Heliopolis section of Cairo, originally built by the Belgians as an enclave for foreign nationals, but you don’t want to make the mistake of thinking there’s a storyline. Snapshots of various people in the neighborhood and their frustrations — traffic jams, waiting in line at a supermarket, trying to decide whether to leave town and sell an apartment, tedium of being a hotel receptionist, endless waiting by a guard/policeman on a street that doesn’t look like it has anything to guard. Many references — some oblique, some direct — to the feeling that things were better “before” — meaning before the 1952 revolution. More than one of the characters expresses the feeling that the day has been wasted. Good use of music.

02/15/10
The Letter for the King — Netherlands — 3.5
In the Kingdom of Dagonaut, 16-year-old Tiuri is awaiting the final test for knighthood, awarded every four years to those young men who have passed all the tests. The last test involves spending the night in the Chapel without sleeping, eating or talking and above all they must not open the door before morning. When someone pleads for help outside the door, Tiuri breaks the rule and goes out to help him. The adventure begins as he is sent by a dying Knight to get a message to the King of Unauwen. Chases on horseback, treks through the snow, meetings with a hermit who happens to be the twin of the King, swordfights ensue. And of course along the way he meets a girl.

To anyone familiar with adventure stories, nothing too surprising happens  The scenery is great — primarily the mountain/forest scenes. In Dutch, subtitled in English so children who want to see it need to be able to read, but this is probably an easy movie to introduce them to subtitles. Based on the book by Tonke Dragt which is very popular in Netherlands. 

02/15/10
Reporter — U.S. — 4
Well-done documentary following Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times on several of his trips. Main segment is of a trip to Democratic Republic of Congo  accompanied by two young observers, one a medical student and one a teacher, who won a trip with him to see how he does his reporting first-hand. Discussion of the problems around eliciting compassion in order to get people to take action while trying to avoid the feeling that nothing can be done on some issues that have continued for many years, such as the situation in Congo. Kristof attempts to find the one story that will put a human face on the issues — instead of using statistics about the masses of people. Interview with the warlord is particularly interesting.

Documentary is by Eric Daniel Metzger and will premiere on HBO Feb 18.

 02/15/10
John Rabe — Germany — 4
John Rabe was the German businessman in charge of the Siemens factory in Nanking, China, in the late 1930′s when the Japanese Army attacked the city. Story is based on his actual diaries which only came to light many years after his death in 1950. Many of the characters are done as kind of stock figures — the cynical American doctor played by Steve Buscemi, the devoted French teacher, the patient wife. Despite that drawback, I found the story well-told and a different perspective on what I already knew about the Nanking Massacres.

Rabe was not against the Nazis; he was a party member and didn’t believe that they would condone the way the Chinese people were being treated. While he was certainly naive in that view, he took action as a humanitarian to set up a Safety Zone inside Nanking to protect some 200,000 civilians who would otherwise have been killed. Rabe clearly loved the city he had lived in for 27 years and did not want to see it destroyed. Although Rabe was a hero in China, when he returned home he was arrested and accused of collaborating with the Chinese.

02/16/10
Looking for Eric — Great Britain — 4
Ken Loach film that tends toward romantic comedy but still has a strong dose of working class desperation. Eric, a Manchester postman, is despondent or nutty or simply overwhelmed and crashes his car going the wrong way on a roundabout. He’s also a football fanatic and his hero — complete with full length poster in his room — is Eric Cantona, the former centre forward for Manchester United. When Eric and his mates are attempting a self-help exercise where you visualize someone you really admire and would like to be like, they mention people like Mandela and Ghandi but Eric’s idol is Cantona. That sets us up for some strange encounters where Cantona appears in his bedroom to talk about life and love and how to work out some of his problems.

Cantona gives a credible performance as himself and Steve Evets is great as the stressed-out Eric who’s trying to cope with helping his daughter take care of her baby, dealing with two lazy teenage stepsons and worrying about meeting his first wife again. Cantona’s advice often comes in the form of French proverbs or strange quotations — some of which I missed because the accents were a little thick in places. You don’t have to know a lot about football (soccer), but understanding the fanaticism of any sports fan helps. Film doesn’t always seem to know which direction it wants to go — there’s the romantic comedy aspect of meeting his first wife again but there’s also a convoluted subplot about one of the teenagers hiding a gun for a local thug. That leads to a hilarious example of working with your team (more advice from Cantona).

There’s a remark about seagulls in one of the Eric-Eric conversations that I had to look up. Apparently when real-life Cantona was banned for a year due to some incident, he made a remark at a press conference “”When the seagulls follow the trawler, it’s because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Thank you very much.”

02/16/10
Bluebeard — France — 1
Boring treatment of a retelling of the Bluebeard story. Scenes enacted from the fairy tale are intercut with scenes of almost modern-day young girls reading the story and scaring each other with it. Director is drawing some parallel between the themes of the Bluebeard story and ordinary lives but I was dozing off before it was remotely interesting.

02/16/10
The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls — New Zealand — 4.5
Very entertaining documentary on folk singing sister comedy entertainers from New Zealand. Don’t be put off by a blurb that describes them as yodeling lesbian twins — Lynda and Jools Topp are that but a whole lot more. Their act includes various personalities such as the hilarious Camp Mother and Camp Leader that are famous in New Zealand. Film includes selections from stage performances as well as pieces on their childhood years on a farm, their parents and family and participation in rallies for causes from breast cancer to gay rights. Having started as street buskers some 30 years ago, the twins still hugely enjoy performing at local country fairs.

02/16/10
Small Crime — Cyprus — 4
Charming romantic comedy with a slight mystery — was the death of a local drinker an accident or could it have been deliberate? Young and earnest policeman, who longs for a more important job than stopping people who run the one stoplight on the island, decides to investigate. Various complications — of course involving a beautiful young woman — ensue. 

Beautiful scenery — shot entirely on picturesque Thirassia, the largest of a chain of islets near Santorini. The island is thinly populated and has not yet been affected by the tourism that’s developed some of the other islands. 

02/17/10
Nobody to Watch Over Me — Japan — 4
Film guaranteed to turn you against the media who relentlessly hound not only the victims of crime but the families of the perpetrators. Families are expected to bear the guilt just as much as the perpetrator and some are even driven to suicide. In this story 15-year-old Saori has to go under police protection when her brother is arrested for murder. Astonishingly to us, the Japanese police have a set procedure for families in this situation, bringing with them paperwork for divorce and remarriage to change the family name to the mother’s family name — to hide their identities.

Detective Katsura is assigned to hide and protect her, to the detriment of his own family vacation and attempt to reconcile with his estranged wife and his own 15-year-old daughter. Needless to say they don’t particularly hit it off or trust each other. That trust is further damamged when Saori learns her mother has indeed committed suicide while under police protection. There are a series of car chases, moves to different hotels and other attempts to elude the media. Text messages, blog posts on how the entire family should pay for the crime and the finding power of the internet get a lot of play here as well. Katsura is also dealing with some other issues of his own relating to a case from years before — which the media use to create headlines about him.

Done in a news documentary fast-paced style that holds your attention.

02/17/10
Shameless — Czech Republic — 3
Slight comedy about a weatherman who falls out of love with his wife — ostensibly because her nose is too big and he fixates on it. He begins a series of strange romantic entanglements while is wife (strongly supported by his parents who think he’s a loser) moves on with her life. He loses his job because he falsified weather predictions in order to continue his affairs and earns money working for a service that drives people who’ve had too much to drink home from bars. Oskar’s mid-life crisis continues — including an on-air relationship interview on his ex-wife’s radio show.

02/18/10
Woman Without Piano — Spain — 3.5
Madrid housewife who runs an electrolysis business out of her home longs for something more — but she’s not sure what. Very deliberate pacing; we’re essentially watching Rosa for 24 hours — sometimes in what seems like real time. She’s lonely — all her phone calls are telemarketers of some kind. She suffers from tinnitus or something similar so has a constant ringing in her ear. The bureaucracy at the post office and bus station seem designed to make her feel insignificant. When her taxi-driver husband goes to bed, she takes a suitcase, puts on her wig and heads out to find some kind of adventure. At the bus station she asks for the next bus to anywhere, no particular destination in mind. The bus station is cleared at midnight so she goes off with a young construction worker she met because his phone ringtone is the same as hers;they wander through deserted streets, strange bars and cafes having almost absurdist conversations.

Camerawork is interesting — following Rosa around her apartment and late-night Madrid, but often just behind her so she’s not in the frame but you can hear her footsteps. Deliberateness is a drawback in that some people gave up on the film halfway through. Very little use of background music — and not a lot of dialogue. Some of the late-night scenes reminded me a little of Edward Hopper.

02/18/10
Bad Day to Go Fishing — Uruguay — 3
Down at heels con man is touring small towns in South America, giving exhibitions with a former German wrestling champion who seems to be past his glory days and suffers from too much alcohol among other things. Quirky film is basically trying to be dark comedy crossed with Western — two guys ride into town and cause a stir, resulting in a final showdown. Orsini, who claims to be a Prince of some kind, sets up gigs where any challenger who stays in with the Champ for three minutes could win $1000. Orsini, or course, is pre-arranging who these challengers might be until he arrives at this particular small town. Film doesn’t quite succeed at the deadpan humor it seems to be going for.

02/18/10
Nora’s Will — Mexico — 3.5
Family comedy based on Jewish family of Nora, who commits suicide just before the film opens but leaves detailed instructions on food preparation for Passover meal which she expects family and friends to attend.  Original title would translate more to “5 Days without Nora” but the English title cleverly plays on the idea of a traditional will as well as her attempt to control what the family would do on that particular day. Almost all the action takes place in her apartment after her ex-husband José (who lives across the street) finds her body when she doesn’t answer the door.

José is not a religious man — and doesn’t want to take instruction from either his deceased ex-wife (with all those notes) or the rabbi or the doctor or his son. While waiting around for the son to arrive from out of town, he discovers a photo of Nora from several years earlier that shows him he may not know all there is to know about Nora.

2/18/10
The Warlords — Hong Kong — 3
Story of three blood brothers, war and political upheaval, friendship and betrayal in 19th century China. Jet Li plays Qing general Pang Qingyun who is the sole survivor of the bloody battle that opens the film. He subsequently falls in with two bandits and becomes a blood brother with them. The big drawback — and future plot point is that on his journey there he has spent the night with a young peasant woman who helped him with his injuries. She turns out to be the wife of one of the bandits.

Battle scenes are good — love story is a little thin for what it’s supposed to carry.

2/19/10
Learning from Light — U.S. — 4
Documentary about I.M. Pei and the planning and building of the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar. Fascinating look at the research he did for a culture that was unfamiliar to him and the obstacles the builders had to overcome to fulfill his vision. Just listening to Pei is inspiring in itself — at 90 plus he’s still interested in everything and enthusiastic about his projects. Some references to other buildings but the main focus is this one Museum.

02/19/10
Passenger Side — Canada — 3.5
Quirky comedy as road trip movie with two brothers in a somewhat dysfunctional relationship. Takes place mostly in a car driving around LA during one day.  Note that director is originally from Montreal but now lives in LA and shot the film there. Adam, the older brother, is a 37-year-old writer who avoids modern technology. Traditional land-line phones, cassette tapes and references to black-and-white TV play roles here. Younger brother Tobey is a recovering addict whose car is broken which necessitates the all-day driving around. Along the way they meet an assortment of bizarre characters and part of the humor comes from the different responses of the two brothers.

Title comes from a song Passenger Side by Wilco. Nice use of music on soundtrack.

2/20/10
Wind Journeys — Colombia — 3.5
Interesting story about an accordion player who has spent his life traveling from village to village playing an accordion that is supposedly cursed because it was won in a duel with the devil himself. The journey shown in this film is a trip to return the accordion to his teacher who gave it to him. A teenager insists on coming with him — hoping to become a wandering minstrel like Ignacio. Beautiful northern Colombia scenery in an odd-couple road movie (although mostly on foot or by donkey). I don’t expect to ever see an accordion duel in real life but this was quite fun.

02/20/10
Waking Sleeping Beauty — U.S. — 3.5

Interesting documentary about reinvigoration of Disney under Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Some depiction of ego clashes between them and Roy Disney as they bring Disney Animation back to the top. Film focuses mostly on the period between 1984 and 1994. Lots of interesting clips and archival footage used instead of just straight interviews. Hahn is a long-time Disney employee and perhaps not as critical of the company as an outsider might have been, but fascinating story nonetheless.

02/20/10
Everyone Else — Germany –3
Film about the deconstruction of a relationship which I wanted to like more than I actually did. Architect Chris and relatively new girlfriend Gitti stay at his parent’s place in Sardinia which was meant as a fun vacation and turns into a personality conflict. Neighboring couple includes a blowhard that Chris seems to want to avoid and appease at the same time. Chris is an architect with great ideas but not much conventional success. He’s not like everyone else. Gitti is a publicist for rock bands — which is either not like everyone else or too much like everyone else. Whichever way you want to take it, their relationship isn’t prospering out here where they’re up against everyone else.

Are they in fact as happy as “everyone else”? Perhaps so. Perhaps not.

02/20/10
Dawson Isla 10 — Chile — 3 for interesting idea and location; 2 for execution
After the 1973 military coup that deposed Chile’s Allende, senior members of his government were imprisoned on Dawson Island at the southern end of Chile and remained there for over a year. This is a fictionalized account based on the diaries of Sergio Bitar who was prisoner #10 in the Isla Barrack. Prisoners were assigned numbers based on their barracks and not permitted to use names.

Hard to tell how much time is passing in the film — perhaps deliberate on director’s part. Treatment of prisoners by guards varies considerably from one guard to the next but in general it doesn’t show anything like the torture or mistreatment that we would expect in this kind of film. An unexplained island resident apparently has full access to the prisoners out on work detail — which seems unusual. Story initially seems to be following #10 but goes off in several directions that don’t seem clear. Other things — such as building a church — also don’t seem to have a real reason.

Film actually shot on Dawson Island — 53 latitude. Some news footage from the time also included.

02/21/10
Moomin and Midsummer Madness — Finland — 1
Animated children’s story may have admirers among those who grew up with the books on which its based, but it failed to strike any chords for me. Recommended only if you’re already familiar with these characters and love them.

02/21/10
Reykjavik-Rotterdam — Iceland –4
Entertaining and well-paced crime film with some dry humor and a fair amount of violence. Ex-con has to take on just one more job in order to get the family finances in order and also help his brother-in-law who has botched a smuggling job and is in trouble with the local thugs. One more job means just one last trip on a freighter to Rotterdam.

Adapted from a book by well-known crime novelist, Arnaldur Indridason, who also wrote Jar City. Word is that a Hollywood remake is being planned. The two little boys in the film are Baltasar Kormákur’s (Kristófer in the film) sons. interestingly, Baltasar Kormákur was the director of the 2006 film Jar City and reportedly will direct the US remake of this film.

02/21/10
Chameleon — Hungary — 4
“Illusion is expensive, but it’s worth it.” Two young men who’ve grown up in an orphanage together are engaged in a series of scams on lonely women with money. Targets are chose by what kinds of things they leave in office trashcans, as the duo use a night cleaning job to find their victims. Gabor becomes the perfect mate for each woman– a chameleon changing for each circumstance — until they hand over savings, property or whatever assets they have. The problem comes in when he attempts a new kind of search — using a therapist’s client list — and falls in love himself. Storyline may be obvious but well done with twists and turns and holds your interest.

02/22/10
Down Terrace — United Kingdom — 4.5
Family crime drama that’s both insane and hilarious. Father and son have both just gotten out of prison and are wondering who snitched on them. We don’t know exactly what kind of criminal activity they’ve been involved in but it’s apparent they will do anything to protect their interests. Bill (the father) liked to talk about drugs in the ’60′s and Karl (the son) surely should have moved out on his own by now. Maggie (the mother) alternates between making disturbing observations and making cups of tea. Karl’s life gets more complicated when his girlfriend (whom he hadn’t seen in several months) turns up very obviously pregnant. Darkly funny. Among other bizarre things, a hitman who comes to consult on cleaning up the informant problem also brings along his toddler. You don’t see that in too many films.

An interesting sidelight is that Bill and Karl really are father and son and some of the film was shot at the parents’ home. Some quote that I saw says it’s Ken Loach meets the Sopranos and that’s as good a description as any.

02/22/10
City of Life and Death — China — 4

Story of the Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, in 1937 during the Japanese invasion and capture of the capital of the Republic of China. Story told from multiple points of view including a Chinese soldier, a teacher, a Japanese soldier and John Rabe a German businessman who helped save thousands of ordinary Chinese (see also John Rabe ). I was both surprised and pleased that the film takes the viewpoint of several ordinary people — not demonizing the Japanese with broad brushstrokes but seeing part of the conflict through the somewhat sympathetic eyes of a Japanese soldier.

Opening scenes are of the Japanese invasion and the search for Chinese soldiers hidden in the town. You can see that everyone on both sides is afraid of what may happen. In the second part of the film you see more of the horrifying things that do happen both in the town and inside the Security Zone set up by the Westerners to try to protect some of the civilians. Black and white film adds to the realities of war and terrible price inflicted on both vanquished and victors.

02/23/10
Forever Enthralled — China — 3.5
Biopic about Mei Lanfang, one of China’s greatest opera singers, during the end of the Chinese monarchy when opera singers got little respect and had to follow the whims of wealthy supporters. Covers different periods of his life from the decision to become an opera singer in spite of his grandfather’s warning about the problems of being on stage through to the end of World War II. Film is basically in three acts with the first part covering those years of deciding to be an opera singer and challenging the constraints of his master, the most popular opera star of the time. Yu Shaoqun is excellent as the young Mei Wanhua who transforms himself into Mei Lanfang and portrays only female characters.

The second section is some 10 years later and apparently a section was cut from the final film that had more of the background of Mei’s wife. That omission makes it a little difficult to figure out what’s going on when he meets and falls for the woman who is in some sense his opposite — a female opera star who only plays male roles. Section includes a tour of the US in 1930. Third section deals with the Japanese invasion in 1937 and Mei’s reaction to it. The theme that runs through all of it is one of control — what does the artist control himself, what is dictated by outside forces, what does he sacrifice for the sake of that art.

Film has historical feel — excellent sets and costumes. Opera scenes are engaging but not overly long. I had been a little dubious about this film as I don’t really enjoy Chinese Opera, so was pleased to have selections but not an entire film devoted to opera scenes.

02/24/10
Ward 6 — Russia — 2.5
I actually liked Ward 6 more after I thought about it than I did while I was watching the film, but that may be just because the Chekhov story it’s based on requires some settling. I wasn’t familiar with the story itself but the basic premise is a doctor in charge of a provincial mental hospital becomes depressed and is admitted into his own hospital. Where he once was in charge, now he’s just another inmate.

Film has a quasi-documentary look  — there’s a section at the beginning giving the history of the hospital building which started as monastery in the 1600′s. No idea if any of that is true. The modern-day hospital segment starts off with interviews with several people who seem to be actual mental patients. And the current hospital chief leads the filmmakers through the place but has someone else take them over to see the former director who is now an inmate. There’s a fine and horrifying line between who’s mentally unstable and who’s not. Film seems to be deliberately mixing reality with fiction — as if any of us can tell the difference.

02/24/10
Like You Know it All — South Korea– 3.5

An indie film director, the 40ish Director Ku, is invited to be on a jury panel at a film festival, but he spends most of his time drinking, chatting and making inappropriate moves on various women rather than watching the films he’s to judge. In the second part of the film, Director Ku gives a lecture to a class of college students on Jeju Island and finds that his old teacher is now married to a woman he once proposed to — which leads to more awkward interactions.

Focus is on male insecurity, the mysterious things that go wrong between men and women, whether there is such a thing as a soul mate and the auteur’s romantic misadventures. Several of the actors were also in Woman on the Beach, also directed by Hong Sang Soo. I ended up seeing most of this film a second time since the subtitles were hard to read and I missed a good part of the story the first time.

02/25/10
The Inheritors — Mexico –2
Documentary about children in Mexico (those who are inheriting their families’ conditions) who work long hours at often grueling tasks to help supplement the family income. Children are helping with the family’s work — whether it’s picking tomatoes or making carvings for sale or weaving shawls — as soon as they’re able to walk. Babies go to the fields and rest in the shade under the care of only slightly older children while parents work. Touching but not surprising film about continuing poverty. I’d have been interested to know where we were in each family — locations are listed at the end but not shown on the screen as you’re watching the children. Little to no dialogue and only very brief use of music which was very much too loud at the screening I saw.

02/25/10
Strongman — U.S. –1.5
Documentary about a professional strongman named Stanless Steel,who can bend pennies with his fingers and lift a truck with his legs. Meant to be cinema verité but doesn’t hold your interest.

02/26/10
Nothing Personal — Ireland/Netherlands — 4
Lotte Verbeek is Dutch but looks very Irish — and very much at home on the rocky coast of Connemara she winds up on — watching widower Stephen Rea as he tends his garden. We don’t know her backstory — only that she’s left Amsterdam with only a pack and is evidently trying to get away from everyone and everything. She has no name in the story — agreeing to work for him in exchange for food and the promise that there will be nothing personal — no questions, not even a name. Over the course of several days/weeks they become more accustomed to each other and relax the pull toward solitude that is a main focus of the film. Each turns out to have surprising interests in music, literature and food. I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” when she picked a CD off the shelf to play. Great use of landscapes, music and a non-standard love story.

02/26/10
The Misfortunates — Belgium — 2.5
Drama of seriously dysfunctional family told in flashbacks by Gunther, the son who became a writer but knows he can’t ever completely get away from that influence. Life in the village with his father and three uncles (all of whom have moved back in with their mother in order to concentrate on drinking and bad behavior) is no picnic. Gunther’s grandmother is his only anchor — and the only kind of mother he’s ever had. Basically a coming of age story with some hilarious moments but way too much of the loutish family members for my taste.

02/27/10
Videocracy — Sweden — 2.5
Documentary about Italian television — in a country obsessed with reality TV and whose leader owns a major stake in the various media.Girls comepete to become veline – TV show assistants who dance but never speak. Film is pretty one-sided, and pretty appalling if a large portion of that stuff is true.

02/27/10
Sicialian Girl — Italy — 4.5
Crime drama based on a true story about the teen-aged daughter of a Mafia family who testified against the organization. Title is actually La Siciliana ribelle which translates into rebel more than girl. Rita determines to find justice one way or another for the murder of her father even if she is denounced by her mother and has to leave the village. His killing happens when she’s about 12 and she keeps diaries of everything she learns during the next five years to help her gain revenge. She takes her story to the Palermo judge who has tried before to make some case against the Mafia. A little melodramatic in places, but well done with good performances by lead actors.

Director Marco Armenta also directed a 1997 documentary about Rita Atria “One Girl Against the Mafia: Diary of a Sicilian Rebel”.

02/28/10
Heiran — Iran — 2.5
Family drama of somewhat spoiled teenager whose parents only want a better life for her but she falls in love with Afghan boy who is working near her family’s farm while in the country on a student visa. They get married with the aid of sympathetic grandfather but life turns out to be a lot harder than expected. Overly melodramatic and her insistence on having her own way does not inspire a lot of sympathy.