The Human Resources Manager (2010) dir. Eran Riklis
Starring: Mark Ivanir, Gila Almagor, Noah Silver, Guri Alfi, Roni Koren

***

By Alan Bacchus

A touching black comedy with a heart of gold, The Human Resources Manager is the story of a jaded and grumpy HR Manager stuck with the duty of delivering the corpse of a former employee to her estranged Eastern European family for burial.

Thought it’s an Israeli film, there’s a strong European flavour to it, like the work of Aki Kaurismaki. The film arrives on DVD courtesy of Film Movement, which is curating festival films as part of a DVD of the Month club. The staid, deadpan comedic tone fits in well with many of their other titles.

The film is part road trip journey, but it’s mostly a character study of the unnamed worker bee who works as the HR Manager at a large bakery in Israel. When an employee turns up dead in a car bomb explosion, the media links the worker to the bakery. After a defamatory article against the treatment of the deceased employee breaks, the company assigns our reluctant hero, the HR Manager, to band-aid the situation. This means setting the record straight with the press, a particularly suspect tabloid reporter, and making his company look thoughtful and decent. Soon the man finds himself lugging the corpse and coffin around town looking for a next of kin to relieve him of his duty.

Despite his annoyance with the situation, his conscience compels him to stay with the dead woman and find her relatives in Romania. Now he finds himself a fish out of water, a Jew in the devout Catholic, post-Communist doldrums of rural Romania, where the formerly cynical man transforms into a humane gentleman.

Director Riklis (The Syrian Bride, Lemon Tree) conveys a gritty naturalistic style typical of this kind of mid-range budget international feature. The Dardenne Brothers come to mind, but they never really had a funny bone. The dead-pan comedy and vérité authenticity reminds us of the Romanian films of today, or even some of those early Kieslowski films from Decalogue.

By its very nature, the act of transporting a dead body across such a large distance gives this an existential quality. Though we never meet the dead woman, the fact that her body is unwanted by everyone the man encounters forces us to consider the effect of her life on the lives of others. The comedic irony of the man who is barely connected to her suddenly becoming her caretaker, and thus developing a strange attachment to her, is fascinating, soulful and reflective.

The Human Resources Manager was an Official Selection at the Toronto International Film Festival, among others, and is now available as the DVD of the Month from Film Movement.

A Screaming Man (2010) dir. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
Starring: Youssouf Djaoro, Dioucounda Koma, Emile Abossolo M'bo, Hadje Fatime N'Goua, Marius Yelolo

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Culturally and politically, I have to admire the importance of this film for the Republic of Chad, a country like many in Africa that has suffered from the ravages of war. And for indigenous films in general, it's a strong artistic step forward for a society and people marginalized by imperialism. Director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun seems to be taking back cinema in an African neo-realism sort of way. This film is a deceptively simple yet powerful story about the tragic frailties of man, redemption, and the inexplicable bond of father and son. It was undoubtedly influenced by Vittorio De Sica’s benchmark neo-realist classic The Bicycle Thieves.

The film is also a frustrating slow burner with a sort of painful art house pacing and a single staid tone, which builds up to its admittedly emotional and powerful ending.

There’s a very highly dramatic character arc for Adam (Djaoro), an obsolete man whose only relevance in life is his status as a former champion swimmer and his job as a pool boy. When Adam is fired from his job and given to his son Abdel, he commits a dramatic act of family betrayal, as he commits Abdel to military service. Although he's practically forced to do this, Adam's guilt runs through him like fingers on a chalkboard. The regret of this decision fuels his dramatic journey to find Abdel and bring him home. His redemption completes an overarching narrative of pure melodrama under the guise of art house.

With regard to his hero, Haroun unfortunately takes his influence from De Sica too literally, shamelessly trying to wring out every ounce of sympathy from his main character. What De Sica and his actor Lamberto Maggiorani did so organically in The Bicycle Thieves feels so laboured and exaggerated here.

Adam is portrayed as a reticent everyman. He barely speaks. We see him moping around the picture endlessly, and when he’s not hanging his head, he’s looking off into the distance deep in contemplative thought. I could tolerate Adam’s emotionless silence if there were dynamic, interesting characters to support him. Unfortunately there are none, as everyone else speaks in the same voice and looks just as glum.

In between the few anchors of actual narrative plotting, and in between Adam’s stoic thinking, we see him walking from place to place, again lacking emotion. By the middle and late second act, the constant repetition of these scenes becomes almost laughable.

That said, Haroun doesn’t rob us of a truly powerful and satisfying resolution – however tragic. Adam’s actions and reconciliation reveal A Screaming Man as a disguised melodrama masquerading as art house – which is what De Sica did best.

I imagine this film has even caused controversy within its own community for its cynical view of God and religion, which provides even further dramatic context for what really is archetypal or neo-classical storytelling. So caveat emptor, enter at your own risk.

PS If you hadn’t guessed, the title is ironic – painfully ironic.

A Screaming Man is available on DVD from Film Movement

How I Ended This Summer (2010) dir. Aleksei Popogrebsky
Starring: Grigoriy Dobrygin, Sergei Puskepalis

***

By Alan Bacchus

When the Russians do tragedy, it’s very tragic. In this austere festival film, we’re in the point of view of an affable and truly bored Russian meteorologist student Pavel stationed in the frigid and lonely Arctic circle for the summer. When he’s not following the orders of his hardass boss Sergei he spends his days (nope, there’s no nighttime) like an immature child, listening to his I-Pod, playing video games and goofing around with anything he can find in the area.

But when Pavel receives some tragic news about Sergei, the fear of Sergei’s rage prevents him from relaying the message. From there it’s a battle of Pavel’s psychological fears, needlessly avoiding Sergei, which obsessantly manifests itself into a life and death cat and mouse chase around the base.

It’s sparse affair, one of those slow burners, complimenting the endless days and mind-numbing isolation with a similar cinematic style. A languid pace with cold and stark wide shots emphasizing the effect of the environment on it’s characters. That sort of thing.

It’s not quite a Tarkovsky world though, as the one key story beat is enough to fuel some surprisingly strong internal and external conflict, which snowballs like a Greek Tragedy into something as emotional, cathartic and wholly satisfying.

As mentioned, after establishing the tempestuous relationship of the workmanlike curmudgeon and the carefree student, the shoe drops when Pavel receives the untimely news about Sergei's family. But why doesn’t Pavel tell Sergei. It’s this moment of miscommunication which by cause and effect snowballs into Pavel’s madness. It’s not hard to understand Pavel’s fear. His immaturity, social inhibitions and complete fear of authority causes Pavel to delay telling his boss the news. Careful choices of words in the dialogue and the reactions of the actors to each other makes this all believable.

Eventually Sergei learns the truth, which causes an even greater disruption between the two. Pavel flees Sergei, thinking he might kill him. Will he or won’t he? He probably won’t but because we’re in Pavel’s now deranged point of view we understand his paranoid flight to safety.

At all times we’re sympathetic to Pavel, we identify with his innocence and naivety and immaturity and so his downfall in the third act, which is partly accidental, is completely heartbreaking. The two actors Grigoriy Dobrygin and Sergei Puskepalis, got well deserved recognition, co-winning the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for Best Actor.

'How I Ended This Summer' was the November DVD of the Month from Film Movement Canada. Click HERE for more info.

Come Undown (2009) dir. Silvio Soldini
Starring: Alba Rohrwacher, Pierfrancesco Favino and Teresa Saponangelo

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Two ordinary, seemingly normal people start an affair. It's a familiar story we‘ve seen before, but one which always seems to make for good cinema. After all, if done right we get to live vicariously in the lives of people who fall victim to their carnal desires, but without suffering the pains of the damage which always occurs.

Co-writer/director Silvio Soldini doesn't break new ground with Come Undone, a modest Italian festival traveller, but a pair of completely accessible and grounded performances, including smoldering red hot chemistry bordering on alchemy by his two leads makes this a marvelous little gem.

Anna is a middle class gal with a loving husband. Nothing's particularly wrong in her life, but like a random strike of lightening, or cupid arrow if you will, she falls victim to the coy flirtations of a handsome caterer. Domenico is the caterer, a working class charmer struggling to make ends meet supporting his wife and two children. The build up to their first sexual encounter is well played. A couple of meetings, and even a couple of attempts at consummating fail. Their inability to get together, both due to their jobs and their domestic situations has the sexual tension is bursting at the seams. But eventually they do finally get a room and merge as one in sexual splendor.

It can't be all bliss and we know something has to go wrong. And it's Anna who turns into the crazy stalker bitch when she turns up unexpectedly at Dom's scuba class, a turn which perhaps comes too suddenly and betrays the sensabilities and accessibilies of the characters. The film threatens to fall into Fatal Attraction territory, but thankfully Soldini regains his footing and charts the course of the demise of their relationship with real world believability.

The love scenes are arousing but natural without being stylized in an Adrian Lyne sort of way. The couple have sex passionately and we feel the cathartic feeling of them being together. To compliment the mood the motel room is lit with warm yellows and reds, contrasted with the coolness of their outside world.

Melodrama is kept to a minimum, instead Soldini lets his actors gain our trust. We're strictly in their characters' point of view, and though they're commiting heinous acts of adultery we feel their pain and anguish of the illicitness of their affair.We feel the pressures of the domestic lifestyle they have put themselves into, and the trueness of their love they just can't express outside of their bedroom.

There's a scene towards the end showing Anna and Domenico waiting for their bags in an airport. They are embracing one another causally, with physical skin on skin contact and gentle naturally carassing of their hands together, subtle but dramatic realization of their true love for one another. Come Undone succeeds because of moments like these.

'Come Undone' is the November selection for the DVD-of-the-Month club. Visit http://www.filmmovementcanada.com/ to sign up.

Bomber (2009) dir. Paul Cotter
Starring: Shane Taylor, Benjamin Whitrow, Eileen Nicholas

***

By Greg Klymkiw

A terse, tight-lipped old Brit and his seemingly vivacious wife coerce their touchy-feely layabout son into driving them to a village in Germany to fulfil Dad's decades-old obsession of finding a building dotted on a 60-year-old aerial photo and in this odyssey on the backroads of Europe, the family reaches new understandings about each other and Dad finds redemption in the unlikeliest of places.

Road trips in the movies are certainly not without merit. Tried and true, this is a genre wherein an old chestnut of a story premise will not trouble anyone due to familiarity with the narrative backbone if the ride itself proves rewarding.

Given the title Bomber, one has a fairly good idea what the "secret" revelation and need for redemption will be in this film written and directed by Paul Cotter, but again, that's less important than the journey itself. For such yarns to still have punch, there are several questions that need to be answered in the affirmative. Is the pilgrimage rife with drama and emotion of the highest order? Is it compelling? Is it plausible? Are the literal twists and turns in the road carefully and evocatively mirrored with twists and turns of the thematic and psychological kind? Are they layered, original and, most importantly, entertaining and thought provoking?

These then, are the challenges, not only of the filmmaker in general, but frankly, the reviewer who must assess the worth or lack thereof in this specific film. And the answer to each question above is, rather maddeningly - yes... and no.

Bomber is certainly a film worth seeing, though the whole is definitely not equal to the sum of its parts. Granted, with any film, one takes away individual moments, scenes, sequences and the like, holding on to them long after we've seen the picture, but I think what separates the good from the great in cinema (we can leave the mediocre and merely wretched behind in discussing this work) is when everything comes together in the actual process of watching the film - when what we see while we see it is as seamless as possible, so that questions about character, motivation and plot are answered in due course as the picture unspools. Questions should (almost) always come after. Analysis and thought about what we've seen is richer when the picture delivers a narrative that has as few speed bumps as possible to take us out of the drama, unless taking us out of the drama is an intentional tool to enhance the drama as the film progresses.

For example, Bomber has an uphill climb in gaining our avid interest. This is not a case of a film leisurely giving us necessary information in order to lull us into acceptance of the narrative and/or tone and pace, but rather the fact that the picture seems to start off on the sort of footing that strains credibility in the actions of the main character - who, as it turns out, is not necessarily the father figure, but the son.

At the outset, we are introduced to the son as he tries silently waking while his live-in girlfriend sleeps. Alas, she wakes up and he needs to explain to her that he's popping out to see his parents off on their trip to Europe. The girlfriend reminds him they have an important commitment and that he must not blow it "again". He emphatically assures her he won't, but just as forcefully insists how important it is he visits with his parents.

So far, so good.

He shows up at Mom and Dad's house, helps them pack their car, says his goodbyes and offers his well wishes. We're given an excellent series of clues and character traits about all three characters and their relationships with one another. The son hugs and kisses Mom. When he goes to give Dad a hug, it's rebuffed in favour of a handshake. It's true-to-life, intriguing and entertaining.

And then... Dad and Mom start the car, back out of the garage and... KAPUT! The car dies.

This is where you start to get a sinking feeling as the next series of shots are of the son transporting Mom and Dad to Germany in his van - accompanied, sadly, by some horrendous up-tempo folkie tune. We don't actually see the son's decision to screw things up with his girlfriend (presumably yet again) and drop everything to drive his parents which, in and of itself is not a big problem, but because considerable running time passes with ho-hum driving shots and scant few clues as to how the son agrees to let this happen, all one thinks while watching is, "Why the hell is he doing this?" and "Oh, give me a break, I'm not buying this." Not only is credibility being strained, but also we're not given enough clues for quite some time as to why the son would do this. All the while, we're taken out of the narrative and left with borderline cutesy-pie quirkiness.

Annoying as hell, really. Here we are at the beginning of the road trip and we're NOT buying it, but instead are forced to feed upon a few jaunty dollops of whimsy. Ugh!

Eventually, we come to understand the son's motivations, but frankly, this has taken far too long to occur and it becomes a real chore to stay with the movie. Once we eventually do, there are considerable pleasures to be had, but they come in fits and starts - the entire film being marred by either lapses in credibility or forced quirkiness.

All that said, when the film is clicking, it's funny, bittersweet and often very moving. The trio of performances from Shane Taylor, Benjamin Whitrow and Eileen Nicholas are uniformly fine. Whitrow, in particular offers up knockout work. The scene where he finally encounters what he's been looking for sees him deliver such a moving monologue that we're riveted and though his "audience" in the film is finally less than enthralled, we're moved and shattered to see this character redeem himself. When he discovers the real truth behind the thing he's been haunted by for over sixty years of his life, I defy anyone to control the opening of their tear duct floodgates.

Bomber is without question a flawed work, but in spite of this you'll experience any number of moments so profoundly moving that you'll be grateful to have experienced the parts, if not the whole.

"Bomber", a SXSW 2009 Selection, is now available on DVD from Film Movement.

The Wind Journeys (2009) dir. Ciro Guerra
Starring: Marciano Martínez, Yull Núñez

****

By Alan Bacchus

In the Colombian rural countryside that is setting of this film the accordion player is characterized, like a doctor or priest, as an important and valued member of society. These travelling musicians, called Troubadours, fulfil a number of roles in society, most importantly to bring light through entertainment to the very very poor farmers.

Guerra’s lead character Ignacio Carrillo is one such man, an elderly and revered soft spoken musician as loquacious as Alan Ladd’s Shane. But success in life has come at a price. After the death of his wife, he’s convinced his accordion is cursed, not unlike the blues legend Robert Johnson who sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads. The only way to break the curse is to give the accordion back to its maker – like Lord of the Rings, replaced by an accordion. Along for the ride is a younger musician who may or may not be Igancio’s son, but an apprentice who desires to absorb the essence of the type of musician his absentee father might have been.

The result is a lengthy and epic journey across the stunning landscape of Columbia with allusions to the American Western, the said Tolkien classic, the good ol’ fashioned road movie and the familiar literary rites of passage and mythological resonance of an Odyssian journey.

It’s these familiar and grounded archetypal relationships which give this minuscule Colombian festival art film immense pathos and cinematic gravitas. It’s stunning piece of cinema one of those miracle discoveries which falls into ones lap by chance. It’s the July DVD of the Month from the Film Movement – the unique film distributor that essentially chooses and programs these films to its subscribers.

Along the journey the pair encounter a number of situations which make for often stunning set pieces. There’s a lengthy accordion duel in the first half which features the village champion squaring off against any claimers to the title of champion - a thrilling trash-talking show off, like an 8-Mile with accordions. There’s also an encounter between two men who duel to the death by machete on a bridge over water. And the young man's baptism by the blood of a lizard after proving his worth on the bongo drums is the stuff masterpieces are made of.

It’s also very arty and thus imposing to mainstream viewers. Guerra sets a ‘deliberately paced’ elegant and almost rhythmic style. Some might also call it 'slow'. But it fits in well use of landscape, pastoral widescreen compositions and controlled pacing of a Carlos Reygadas film (Silent Light or Japon) of even the revered existential films of Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry).

The treasure of this film though is Paulo Andrés Pérez’s stunning cinematography, one of the best looking films in international cinema I’ve seen in a while - rich colours pop out of the dense and textured frames. Fluid camera moves enhance the elegance and beauty of the Colombian landscape. Along the way, Guerra placing his characters atop mountains peaks, frames against stupendous godlike cloudscape and sharp cliffs which remind us of the ethereal Herzog classic Aguirre The Wrath of God.

Director Ciro Guerra, only 28 when he made this film, shows remarkable maturity and restraint, in addition to some solid chops of cinematic grandeur. Guerra is a major international talent waiting to break out. The Wind Journeys never quite broke out, but with his next film he’s poised for Palme D’Or deification.

The Wind Journeys, a 2009 Cannes and TIFF selection, is now available in Canada on DVD from Film Movement Canada.

Storm (2010 dir. Hans-Christian Schmid
Starring: Kerry Fox, Anamaria Marinca, Stephen Dillane, Rolf Lassgård, Kresimir Mikic

***

By Alan Bacchus

If you haven’t heard of Film Movement, it’s one of the more unique film distributors around, an institution as treasured as say, the Criterion Collection. Film festival-goers know that some of the best films are the ones you have no expectations or advance knowledge about, but unfortunately, despite the quality, many of these never see the light again. Well, the mandate of Film Movement is to ensure these films find a home this side of the continent. And through its unique monthly DVD service club every month one of these films comes directly to you.

The selection for June is Hans-Christian Schmid’s Storm, a multilingual German-Dutch-Bosnian-Serbian co-pro which was lauded in Berlinale in 2009, and only now finds its audience in the US and Canada.

The title refers to the aggressive action taken against the Serbian leaders for their genocidal atrocities in the 90’s. Brit Kerry Fox plays Hannah the prosecutor for The Hague’s War Tribunal against a wily Serbian commander, a fictionalized version of Slobodan Milosevic or Radovan Karadzic. It would appear to be a slam dunk until Hannah’s key eye witness perjures himself and then dies in an apparent suicide attempt.

Hope is restored when the sister of the witness Mira (Anamarie Marinca) reluctantly reveals herself to be the real eye witness. Despite death threats and other terrorism tactics against her and her family Mira ponies up the gumption to talk about the atrocities she’s witnessed and take down the war criminals for good.

There’s a distinct Soderbergh/Gaghan neo-political tone which puts itself into the Syriana, Traffic, Michael Clayton brand of thriller. While there's some threats of violence against Mira and covert spy tactics threatening Hannah, the stakes of the film exist in the big picture demand to see the Serbian War Criminals find Justice. Unfortunately we don’t know the Serb too well, despite having the film’s entire opening sequence devoted to his capture.

For good and bad, the pacing and volume is also deliberately muted –establishing its credibility and responsibility to the struggles of the characters’ real world equivalents who to this day continue to exact justice. In an effort not to sensationalize the subject matter it also means external conflict and tension don’t quite reach the magnitude we need to truly feel the cinematic emotional punch of the story. After all its lawyers vs. lawyers as the baddies, who, for the most part are faceless suits pulling strings off screen and in the background.

That said there’s a fabulous lead performance from Kerry Fox which was virtually invisible to the world cinema landscape at large. Hell, she was better than Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side, but I doubt Oscar ever crossed any Academy member's mind. The other added attraction is seeing 4 Month, 3 Weeks, 2 Days’ Anamaria Marinca on screen again. She has such remarkable eyes and reactions, and with very little to work with, she, as in her more famous role, is magnetic.

Storm, a 2009 Berlin IFF winner, is now available on DVD from Film Movement. For info about Film Movement Canada’s DVD of the Month Club, click HERE