Sorcery

 

Feature length film from Christopher Murray

Based upon actual 19th century witchcraft trials in Chile, Sorcery features a stunning lead performance from Valentina Veliz Caileo, a young girl using the title of the film to avenge her father's brutal death.

A wonderful premise of a film featuring enigmatic mystery and a key lead performance from a young adult, there is so much potential for this film to succeed and yet it fails to land unfortunately.

The use of landscape as a mystery to itself does not evoke the required atmosphere - long moments of quiet elicit feelings of monotony instead of haunting. 

When the trailer was issued of this title, it was sold as a forebearer and successor to Pan's Labyrinth - a mythical parable where a young girl must overcome the adversity of the German settlers amidst the Chilean landscape maintaining the truth to herself in her quest to avenge her father's passing. And yet when the moments of action come not as a shock to the system but a welcome change from moments of stillness that instead of offering moments of resonance instead make for an unwanted plodding to proceedings. 

Imagine all the council meeting scenes of Killers of the Flower Moon for an hour and a half, when a lot is said and not much done, and you would rather return to the threat and menace put upon the indigenous people to help thrust the momentum of the narrative which stagnates and treads water when it should be flourishing.

The intention is there but it just fails to match expectations of the trailer, and that is a shame as there are so many elements to make a great statement here on the Chilean spirit. However, the end product is lacking that one element of the spell to be magical.

Sorcery is distributed by Sovereign Distribution and on limited release from Friday 14th June

Nostalgia for the Light

Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzman returns with another documentary this time that is at times both deeply personal and yet extremely political.

Nostalgia for the Light is set about the Atacama desert in Chile; where the inhospitable climate and high altitude made it ideal for the building of an observatory which was opened in 1977.  The message of bringing the universe closer to home shows an aspirational tone of the South American nation.

Yet in the same vicinity there is a dark undertone, during the General Pinochet dictatorship used the desert for the Chacabuco Mine prisons were people opposed to the regime would be taken to concentration camps and ultimately killed.  Later bodies were left in mass graves in the Atacama.  Now widows and families scavenge the harsh terrain for any trace of loved ones that may remain; this tone of desperation is in stark contrast to the aspiration and hope for attainment of the universe.

Guzman is an intelligent filmmaker and is keen to mark the distinction between the sky and the ground; giving both stories an equal platform.  Guzman's interview with one widow, Violeta Barrios, is particularly wrenching in its honesty.

Clearly the notion and metaphor of astronomy is a clever one; many of those interviewed state how Chile needs a telescope to look into the ground of the desert to find its past; whereas the telescope itself is something looking towards the future.

Guzman shoots with a good eye when he looks upward, showing scenes of great mystery and magic in the stars whilst giving a look of another world on the Chilean landscape.

A film that although the notion of a documentary may not appeal, it is certainly a film that values the time and commitment.

Nostalgia for the Light is out on Friday 13th July on limited release and is distributed by New Wave Films

Absent

Marco Berger is one of those rare beings, a voice in queer cinema, who wants to be heard upon the conscientious and stereotypical musings of homosexual cinema.

His latest work, Absent, inverts the teacher and pupil dynamic of seduction.  In this case it is the pupil, Martin (Javier de Pietro) acts upon or teases the reactions of his swimming teacher, Sebastian (Carlos Echevarria).

Martin is much like a femme fatale, a person who will not stop at anything until he has crossed the unholy line - and once that line is crossed there is not turning back.  As the twists and turns occur, so the expectation of desire and lust is lost, as regret and loneliness takes hold.  Martin can still grow into a man, whilst for Sebastian a career and reputation can lay in tatters.

The real-time first half of the film is shot quite brilliantly, using the naturalism and testosterone filled air of a male changing room to good effect; however, the effect is somewhat lost once the changing room is left for the outside world, so to speak.

Whilst the professional Echevarria delivers a soulful performance as the emotionally fraught teacher, the newcomer de Pietro, shows himself to be a novice and does not quite convince on the basis of this performance.

However, there is a smoothness about Tomas Perez Silva's cinematography - yet for me the film was not as definely told as a German counterpart, Sasha another piece of queer cinema which dealt with the proceedings with a bit more tongue in cheek and had an all around better resolution.

Yet, Berger (who also edited and wrote the screenplay) remains a distinct Argentinian auteur to watch out for in the coming years and works.

Absent is released by Network Releasing on DVD and is out now.

Las acacias

Following in the footsteps of fellow Argentinian directors - Lisandro Alonso, Pablo Trapero - to garner critical acclaim with a debut feature (Las acacias won the Sutherland Award for Best First Film at the London Film Festival in 2011), Pablo Giorgelli's debut receives a home entertainment release today on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Giorgelli co-wrote the script with Salvador Roselli (who also authored Bombon el perro (2004)), tells the slight story of truck driver Ruben (German de Silva) who delivers lumber from Paraguay to Buenos Aires.  He is informed by his boss he must transport a young mother Jacinta (Hebe Duarte) and her five month old son also.

Little is informed or given to us of the two actors pasts, so we are told details about them as they learn about each other.  The film refuses to leave the confines of the truck cab, not allowing location photography to overshadow the human story being told here.

Giorgelli was given the gift of De Silva, a professional actor, who uses his presence and nobility (not to dissimilar to the same acacias' he transports), to tell you more when very little is said.  Duarte is an untrained actor but her striking, alluring face makes you want to know more about her.

In the same vein as his contemporaries, in terms of physical restraint and keeping narrative clues close to his chest Giorgelli portrays the blossoming of a beautiful friendship taking place between two strangers; Ruben never got to know his son that was taken away from him, so the connection between the five month old child, allows us and him to see how good of a father he could become or could have been.

Neither flashy, nor boring the film is another creative exponent of the cinematic explosion occuring right now in Argentina and surrounding South American countries with so much good viable work being released and viewed - a willingness to put individuals first with universal storylines about loneliness, isolation, love and companionship.

Las Acacias is released on DVD by Verve Pictures on Monday 9th April
My thanks to Rabbit Publicity for the disc

Bonsai

Based upon the award-winning cult novella of the same name by Alejandro Zambra, fellow countryman Chilean Cristian Jimenez has described his second feature, Bonsai, as a tribute to the art of lying.

The film centres on Julio (Diego Noguera) an introvert who wants to be a writer, however when he is turned dow by Gazmuri - an established novelist - to transcribe his latest oeuvre, Julio decides to write his own to impress his next door neighbour Bianca (Trinidad Gonzalez), however Julio is easily distracted and he ends up entangled with his memories of the past illicit affair he shared with Emilia (Natalia Galgani) some eight years previously.

Jimenez uses this device of looking back at one affair in order to kick start a new one with a simple flashback/flash forward device - whilst Julio is an unreliant narrator he nevertheless is unable to decipher the difference between the two source material, and so becomes the subject of his own book. 

The profoundity of the situation should not be lost on Julio who we meet first reading Proust, after initially saying he had already done so.  This existentialsim will also be lost on Julio ultimately, as he loses sight of the present by focusing too much on the past.  There are two funny jokes about Proust at the film's beginning - Julio lies about reading it, gets a copy, goes to a beach to read it and falls asleep in doing so after three pages and then endures a suntan on his chest of the books outline having fallen asleep.

Bonsai is a film about memory and how the past intrudes upon your present and inevitable future.  Jimenez cleverly gives the two women - Emilia and Bianca - different tones when we see their stories when with Julio.  Emilia is dark, morbid and full of shadow harking her emotional fragility, whilst Bianca's world is bright, sunny and full of optimism and promise for Julio, the tone is helped by the work of cinematographer Inti Briones.

There are few surprises though when it comes to it, as in the opening sequence the film's narrator states, 'Emilia dies and Julio will remain alone.  The rest is fiction', and Jimenez joyfully has fun with his free adaptation of Zambra's novella with the arrangement of the film in chapters to make this an objective love story for a besotted soul, who takes his eye of the ball to focus on unrequited love.  Not to say that Julio  is a fool, Jimenez does adore him and the doe-eyed performance of Diego Noguera is key to winning our affection and sympathy.

Bonsai is out on Friday 30th March on limited release from Network Releasing.

Boca

Flavio Federico directs the visceral and intense dramatic depiction of Hiroito, the infamous King of Boca de Lixo, starring Daniel de Oliveira in the title role.

Following on from the cinematic appeal and acclaim of Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, it seems Brazil much like British film in the late 1990s and early 21st century has found a niche by going to the dark past of its recent social history for dramatic intent.

Boca follows Hiroito from the violent murder of his father, which the young boy witnessed as he was stabbed over 40 times with a razor.  Oddly, the young boy was arrested and accussed of the crime, ultimately he was acquited.  Then two months later, aged just 21 he moved to Boca de Lixo (an area of downtown Sao Paolo in the 1950s renowned for nightclubs, prostitution, bars and drugs), purchased two guns and grew to become one of the most successful criminals in Brazil. 

The film richly depicts his violence against fellow criminals, the glamour of the girls, the viscerality of the guns as Hiroito becomes the legendary gangster figure in Brazil.

Gangsters remain glamourous figures in cinema, due to the intense nature of their upbringing - as young men who really want attention and yet end up on the wrong side of the law.

De Oliveira portrays Hiroito as a man with a big chip on his shoulder who backs up his words with lots of actions, whilst never hamming up or chewing up too much scenery.

The film is cleverly filmed with a lot of hand-held camerawork to make you feel a part of the action, making the experience a worthwhile one on the small screen.

Boca is released on DVD by Universal Pictures from Monday 13th February

Liverpool

I remember when I went to the London Film Festival in 2009, and there was a lot of talk about a small film from Argentina called Liverpool.  I remember being a little struck by the title seeing as it is the hometown of my mother and wanting to see it, yet being unable to.

I always remember the title and now thanks to Second Run DVD, (who specialise in auteur cinema from third world countries and directors who fail to get home entertainment release) Lisandro Alonso's fourth feature film is gaining a DVD release in the UK having failed to garner a distributor in this country.

In the same vein of his previous work, it follows a lonely soul on a journey of discovery.  In this case, a sailor, Farrel, leaves his ship and begins a lengthy journey to wintry Tierra del Fuego’s interior, to an isolated village and family that he hasn’t seen in years. We gradually piece together his relationship with the people and community he finds there on a journey that looks familiar to him. From the opening sequences on Farrel’s ship, to the spectacular harshness of his destination, Alonso is meticulous in mapping the sights and sounds of the landscape and Farrel’s personal journey into the past.

Alonso's influences of film are far reaching from that of fellow Argentinian and South American luminaries to that of the mythology of American cinema and the cowboy in the Westerns. 

Alonso can be noted as nothing but courageous in his narrative storytelling, in a film where you are asked to invest a lot of time with one character Alonso does this amazingly brash about turn in the story as our focus must switch to someone else.  As the previous character exits, it reminded me of Alan Ladd as Shane in the synonymous film who walks off into the sunset, seemingly never to return - the mythology and convention of the western can be seen in the small town, the wanderer as a lonesome figure and the journey as a rite of passage and possible redemption (as with John Wayne in The Searchers).

Whilst it is a trying experience at times due to the facet of slow cinema in which this piece of cinema can sit next to the work Bela Tarr; it is nonetheless a rewarding watch should you stick with it.

The DVD is presented in a brand new director-approved anamorphic digital transfer and also includes Untitled (Letter for Serra) / Sin título (Carta para Serra) – a new short film by
Lisandro Alonso, available for the first time anywhere on DVD.

The work of Lisandro Alonso is part of Slow Cinema Weekend as part of the AV Festival in Newcastle, Liverpool is screening on Sunday 11th March

Liverpool is released on DVD from Second Run for £12.99 and is 82 minutes long with Spanish subtitles

A Useful Life (A vida util)

Federico Veiroj's second full length feature is 70 minutes long. Do not be put off by that short length, the film is short and sweet.

A vida util tells the story of Jorge (Jorge Jellinek) who works at the Uruguayan cinematheque in Montevideo, and shows us how he must adjust to life after the cinema closes where has worked for the last 25 years.  Jorge is a cineaste, an archivist but not a film geek as we watch him and his colleague (Manuel Martinez Cerril).

Jorge can be termed a cineaste, as the director and his writers have been deliberate not to make light of his cinephilia - the first time we see him and Martinez, they are discussing Icelandic filmmakers for a future programme; Jorge has a poster of Kurosawa's Ran in his office and they are currently working on a retrospective of Manoel de Oliveira (the Portugese master).

The film endeavours to treat him not as a geek, and befitting the general stereotype of someone who likes to work in the dark and shy away from the outside world.  He attempts to ask out Paola, a University lecturer who is outside of his social circle but who shares a love of cinema with him.  Paola appears at the cinematheque on Jorge's recommendation.

There is a lightness of Jorge's attempts, whilst she is watching the movie, he is outside in seclusion saying to himself, 'Do you fancy a coffee?' and variations of this line as he motivates himself.  Jorge is a lovely character full of warmth and lightness in spite of his lumbering physical frame, he is quite beguiling at times.
Jorge can join the list of other South American anti-heroes, a hero who is technically an outsider isolated from the world due to his loyalty to his work and he is cut from the same cloth as Lisandro Alonso's characters such as the lonely seamen in Liverpool.

The major plot point concerning the closure of the cinematheque owing to lack of funds from the trustees on the board is dealt with sincerely, as there are genuine fears for the future of many cultural and historical institutions in major cities.  In this case, the capital's once burgeoning cinematheque has to shut due to a lack of renewed membership and the lack of people apparent at screenings speaks volumes - the economy of the script is wonderful.

Once Jorge packs up his things on his last day he takes a bus ride and he becomes a charater in his own feature film as he begins life outside and away from the cinema.  His character is a spy with a bag in need of losing; he orates a speech about lying to unbeknown students who mistake him for a substiute teacher; he dances on marble stairs as if he was Fred Astaire and then manipulates the romantic encounter with Paola that does not come across as weird but rather enchanting.

Originally the film was shot on colour and then transferred back to black and white which lends the film a real lushness and vintage quality, as if it is a relic from a bygone era.  Veiroj does not establish any auteur ticks in regards to editing and flashy camera movements to make the film suffer.


A Useful Life (La vida util) is out now on limited release around the country and can be viewed for another week at the BFI Southbank (http://www.bfi.org.uk/) and is distributed by Dogwoof Pictures (http://www.dogwoof.com/)