Wakolda

By Moira Sullivan.

Two films that sounded promising on Day 7 were clearly well made but lacked any compelling pull for the cineaste.

Lucía Puenzo’s Wakolda, a title referring to the name of a doll, promised a powerful story, but the narrative got flattened in the making of the film. For instance, the story about Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele hiding away in Argentina does not need dramatic violins and percussion instruments to point out his diabolical methods. The beginning of the film would have been better silent, as an Argentine family makes their way on a long desert road towards their family home in Bariloche, followed by a treacherous Mengele.

Wakolda

Wakolda‘s central character is the 12-year-old girl Lilith (Florencia Bado) whose growth is stunted after a premature birth. The two meet Mengele (Àlex Brendemüh), who acts as doctor in his new surroundings and takes an interest in putting Lillith on growth hormones and he also treats her pregnant mother Eva (Natalia Oreiro). One conspicuous contrast is that Lilith and Eve are totally trusting of Mengele, and although their father Enzo (Diego Peretti) is suspicious, he is unable to interrupt their medical treatment because of the positive results. He is also distracted by Mengele’s encouragement for him to make dolls with pumping hearts, a curious business venture masterminded by the German sociopath.

There are many questions posed by the director about how the Nazi criminals were hidden in Patagonia after the war, and in some cases known by the towns they lived in. Yet, the premise of Wakolda focuses on Mengeles’s experiments on pregnant women and his biomedical vision that was one of the founding principles of the Nazi movement. To the credit of director Puenzo, the horrific crimes of Mengele are visually translated with careful attention to scientific drawings and artefacts kept in a German boarding school. The school photographer, portrayed excellently by Elena Rogers, who is on to Mengele, is the only livewire on the ball during Mengele’s visit in the area. At least one of the circumstances is made clear by the film: Argentina knew of Nazi war criminals in the country but was reluctant to intervene and bring them to justice.

We Are What We Are

In the Director’s fortnight is yet another Sundance entry, We Are What We Are, which is not what I thought it would be. Director Jim Mickle takes a detour from today’s onscreen vampire saturation to present a tale of cannibalism within a religious family, complete with a sketchy historical rundown for this practice. In the beginning moments of the film, a leaf covered with raindrops and shown in close-up makes its way down a small stream in the wilderness. The scene foreshadows how the rain will eventually lead the law to exposing this flesh-eating enclave lead by Father Parker (Bill Sage).

In a small role, Kelly McGillis (The Accused (1988), Witness (1985)) acts as neighbour Marge, whose photo is not even in the press release. She is unrecognisable in the film but every much the veteran actress, with just too little to do. Veteran Michael Parks (Kill Bill Volume 2 (2004), Django Unchained (2012)) gets more screen time as Doc Barrow, but again has no photo. This is because the film is aimed at the young and hungry. Early on, the wife and mother of Father Parker’s children drowns in a ditch after hitting her head on a pipe. This is after we see her profusely bleeding from the mouth. As it turns out cannibalism is one of the factors that causes Parkinson’s disease. Doc Barrow discovers this and later his dog finds bones sticking out of the ground, and so the noose on the cannibalistic order tightens. Meanwhile, the emerging sexuality of the Father Parker’s daughters is one of the preoccupations of the film, and as they grow to maturity they face the impending burden of taking over the family tradition. The question of whether they are interested or not in doing what it takes to abduct victims and eat them is left open.

Moira Sullivan is an accredited journalist at Cannes, member of FIPRESCI and served on the Queer Palm Jury 2012. She has a PhD in cinema studies at Stockholm University and studied filmmaking at San Francisco State University.

Comrade Kim Goes Flying

By Moira Sullivan. 

The 15^th Udine Far East Film Festival opened on April 19 and ran through April 27, with a great lineup of films from East Asia. Located in a small town in Italy near the Austrian border, and simply known as the Udine Festival for short, the event consistently provides audiences the largest portal of films from East Asia found in Europe and typically screens entries from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Last year, a film from Mongolia was screened for the first time and this year marked the first screening from North Korea. Director Kim Gwang Hun and producer Ryom Mi Hwa traveled to the festival from Pyongyang, the capital city of the People’s Republic of Korea, to present their fairytale entitled Comrade Kim Goes Flying. Meanwhile, many of the other films come directly from premieres in their respective countries or make their international debut at Udine.

The Autumn 2012 edition of the highly regarded Oxford journal Screen wrote about the Udine recipe for success in “Counter Programming and the Udine Far East Film Festival.” The authors affirm Udine as a high quality festival that showcases the best of Asian cinema. The authors go on to claim that although a film from Asia might be presented at A-list festivals, such as Berlin, Cannes or Venice, it garners attention primarily because it comes from Asia, not because the film is popular and given critical attention in its own country. The article also emphasizes that vendors at A-list festival markets are not as informed about the DVDs or screeners shown in the Asian market as the Udine festival organizers.

Udine’s special talent, as noted in Screen, is selecting members for their programming committee that specialize in a particular country in East Asia. Udine selects its films after the South Korean Busan Festival in October, and in the interim between Cannes and Venice, through special contacts within their festival committee. This makes Udine a special niche market for new Asian films. Udine also has a partnership with the Venice Film Festival and the Busan Festival, which helps them with the depth of their film choices. However, films screened at Udine have not always been shown before on the festival circuit. Directors often come with their films to Udine, and in the past the festival has made the likes of John Woo, Johnnie To, Tsui Hark, Takashi Miike, and Takeshi Kitano known in Europe.

Touch of Zen

Each year there is a special retrospective of historical films, and for the 2013 lineup two classics of King Hu were screened – the martial arts masterpiece Touch of Zen (1971) , which heavily influenced the wuxia films of Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou, and Raining in the Mountain (1979). Udine audiences have become experts on Asian cinema and relish these old revivals, as well as a DVD and book market that feature the work of Asian auteurs from previous festival years. Overall, the festival catalog is an accomplished and prestigious document that scrutinizes the current Asian film market. In fact, Udine catalogs should be considered collector’s items, since they do not just catalog the films but audience tastes and trends as well.

One of the most anticipated films to screen was the European premiere of Ip Man: The Final Fight, which closely followed its theatrical release in Hong Kong on March 28. Set in postwar Hong Kong, the film follows the story of Wing Chun Grandmaster Ip Man, most famously known as the man who trained Bruce Lee, who is challenged by rival kung fu masters for the claim of martial arts greatness. Anthony Wong Chau-Sang plays Ip Man and the film is directed by Herman Yau, who also directed The Legend is Born: Ip Man (2010).

The Bullet Vanishes

The 2013 festival year also showcased three world premieres from Japan: Maruyama, The Middle Schooler, directed by Kudo Kankuro; Angel Home, directed by Tsutsumi Yukihiko; and It’s Me, It’s Me directed by by Miki Satoshi, who visited the festival with the film’s super pop idol Kamenashi Kazuya, also known at Kame, a 27 year old dancer, singer, actor, television personality, and radio host. Other highlights included A Story of Yonosuke by Japanese director Okita Shuichi, who previously made the brilliant The Woodsman and the Rain (2011) about a film crew and young director who must ask a woodman to stop sawing down trees so they can finish their shoot; The Bullet Vanishes by Lo Chi-leung, a Chinese detective story set in the late nineteenth century featuring Lau Ching Wan and Nicholas Tse; the Hong Kong action film Cold War, directed by Longman Leung and Sunny Luk; and Lost In Thailand by actor/director Xu Zheng, which currently holds the box office record for mainland China.

As far as awards are concerned, the Golden Mulberry for Lifetime Achievement went to the South Korean director of the Busan Film Festival Kim Dong-ho. Kim distinguishes himself by running a festival known among many as the “Cannes of the East.” The audience award went to the South Korean comedy How To Use Guys With Secret Tips! by Lee Won-suk. The comedy is exceptionally clever, starring Lee Si-young in the lead who is an amateur boxer in real life. In the film, she is given a DVD by a streets salesman that will change her life and turn around her constant rejection in the job market.

How To Use Guys With Secret Tips!

The second place audience award was given to the Thai debut Countdown by Nattawut Poonpiriya. The film is set in New York, where three Thai flatmates piece together a phone number from different business cards and call Jesus—who turns out to be a Thai drug dealer. Coming in third place was Ip Man: The Final Fight, which was quite a feather in Udine’s cap, showing the film in Italy before any festival outside of Asia got the chance. Finally, the critics prize of the festival, known as the Dragon Award, and The Black Mulberry went to the Taiwanese drama Touch of the Light by Chang Jung-chi.

It is useful to point out that the films shown at the festival are incredibly popular in their own countries, commanding attention at the box office. The Udine audiences are seasoned veterans of Asian films, they come every year, and there is always an exciting atmosphere inside the packed theaters (especially since many directors and actors are in attendance from East Asia). Udine has therefore provided an excellent platform for cultural exchange between Europe and Asia. At Udine, Asian films are in a class as opposed to festivals that try to feature world cinema from every corner of the continent, without specialization. There are 48 Asian countries and it is the largest continent in the world. Udine concentrates on “Far East Asia,” hence the title of the festival, and this specialization gives merit to Udine’s grand event.

Moira Sullivan has covered the Far East Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival since 2004. She is a member of FIPRESCI with a doctorate in cinema studies from Stockholm University and graduate studies in film at San Francisco State University.

By Jacob Mertens.

It was the summer before my sophomore year at high school, and I sat in a rundown bargain theater that only showed films months past their theatrical release. My mother had dragged me to a strange film called Moulin Rouge! (2001), and if I am to be honest my first thoughts were something along the lines of “This would be great to watch on drugs.” I absorbed the visual extravagance of the film with little more thought than that, up until the opening extended note of “Your Song.” I do not know if other cinephiles can track down their love for cinema to a few seconds in a single film, but I can. As Ewan McGregor’s Christian belted the words of Elton John over a frantic recreation of 1900s Paris, and lights spread through the city, I felt a chill and I gave in to a rapture.

Moulin Rouge!

Moulin Rouge! may not be the greatest film I have ever seen, but it is my favorite and largely so for that memory. Still, I would defend the film as visually innovative and heartfelt, with an incredible capacity to switch from polar moods of joy and despair without feeling undone for the effort. That, and of course the small matter of director Baz Luhrmann single-handedly resurrecting the musical, only to watch a dreary Chicago (2002) steal the credit a year later. Even so, I approached Luhrmann’s latest film with trepidation, as he was adapting another love of mine: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s enduring classic The Great Gatsby.

Following the epic train-wreck of Australia (2008), Luhrmann looked for source material worthy of his redemption and found it in perhaps the American novel. Only one problem, Luhrmann brings nothing to the film that could possibly surpass Fitzgerald’s prose, with the exception of Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance, who truly seems destined for the role of Jay Gatsby. Before DiCaprio enters the film, Luhrmann’s unwise choice of narrator, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway, chokes out Fitzgerald’s words in a flood of exposition, covering the opening chapters of the book at a hurried pace. A decade ago, Moulin Rouge! used the same pacing to great effect, but Moulin Rouge! did not have the chains of greatness tied around its throat. Consequently, Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby rushes through its opening, feeling less innovative for the director’s by-now trademark visual flair and use of contemporary music—feeling more like a transcription of The Great Gatsby‘s cliff notes. Meanwhile, Maguire cannot effectively communicate the sardonic wisdom imbued in Fitzgerald’s narration, and so his Carraway becomes a shallow and petty creature.

To be fair, the film becomes very watchable once Gatsby is introduced and the tragic love story between he and the married Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) begins. The parties at Gatsby’s mansion give an effective outlet for Luhrmann’s cinematic indulgences, and DiCaprio offers a magnetic portrayal amidst the many wooden performances around him. The film also harnesses fleeting moments of sublime beauty, such as Gatsby staring across the harbor to Daisy’s home and seeing her image in the clouds. Sadly, Gatsby cannot recover from its many missteps. For instance, while giving Jay Z power over the score may have seemed wise in theory, when the man opens the film with two of his own songs and another by his wife Beyoncé Knowles, all before any other singer utters a word, it feels like an advertisement. Also, having Carraway write his narration as some kind of cathartic therapy is trite, and the floating words do little to mask it.

Stepping back from the film again, it was years after high school when I read The Great Gatsby for the first time. After finishing the book, I experienced an feeling of awe not dissimilar from my first viewing of Moulin Rouge! The simple beauty of the closing paragraph overwhelmed me. I reread the passage, I found others nearby to read it to, and in a similar spirit I share it here:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…And one fine morning—

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Clearly Baz Luhrmann had the same impulse to share greatness, and he made an entire film to honor it. And knowing that he could not presume to improve on greatness, he left the above passage intact as his closing monologue. This act, whether Luhrmann knew it or not, sealed his film’s fate as a wasted project. For all its style and glamor, Luhrmann’s Gatsby yields to the ghost of Fitzgerald, whose prosaic insights can find no creative partnership here. His words rise and separate from the film, like oil and water, and above all two lines of dialogue stand out. Carraway tells Gatsby that he “cannot repeat the past” and Gatsby replies, “Of course you can!” Luhrmann would have done well to take the underlying message of this exchange to heart, but instead he tries to piggyback on Fitzgerald’s shoulders, reaching for his own modest greatness, “stretching out his arms” for a Moulin Rouge! or a Romeo + Juliet (1996), for some spontaneous inspiration of madness and grief.

And why not—of course you can repeat the past. But as Gatsby can attest, you risk diminished returns.

Jacob Mertens is Review Editor of Film International.

Shield of Straw

By Moira Sullivan.

Swedish Film Institute’s 50th Anniversy

The Swedish Film Institute celebrates its 50^th anniversary at Cannes this year. A press conference was held and new projects were discussed such as the upcoming Waltz for Monica to be released in December about the Swedish jazz singer Monica Zetterlund. Directed by Per Fly and written by Peter Birro, the film also stars Edda Magnason as the talented vocalist who died tragically in 2005 from a fire in her apartment. Magnason, Birro and Fly all attended the anniversary dinner.

Swedish Film Institute Anniversary Gala (Pictured from left to right: Ninja Thyberg, Anna Serner, Erika Wasserman)

Earlier at a press conference, the CEO of the Swedish Film Institute, Anna Serner, introduced an international equality initiative for films. Armed with facts, Serner proclaimed that of the thousand-plus films that have competed for the Palme d’Or at Cannes in the past 50 years, only fifty-four of them have been directed by women and only one women has won (Jane Campion). Additionally, only four women from the more than four hundred who have been nominated for an Oscar for best director and again only one has won (Kathryn Bigelow).

“In Sweden women have directed roughly ten percent of all feature films over the last fifty years”, said Serner. Furthermore, eight women have won the Swedish National Film Award for best director in the last fifty years, five of them in the last ten years. Serner put forth an equality package of mentoring, an inside look at the industry and a study of women who are about to make their second feature. She urged film industries, filmmakers, producers and film festivals around the world to look at this question and help to bring about international equality.

  Film Highlights on Day 6

Inside Lleyn Davis

Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis has so far garnished the most points from selected journalists at Screen, the market journal that is most relied on at Cannes for film ratings. However, with Llewyn Davis, the directors offer one of their least ambitious projects with the least to say, so it is unsettling that the film has become so popular. One reason could be the short scenes with punchy dialogue, delivered by excellent actors Oscar Issac (Llewyn Davis) and Carey Mulligan (Jean Berkey). Still, the substance of the dialogue is empty, focusing on what a horrible man Llewyn is for getting Jean pregnant, and how there is no money in his music. Other largely pointless scenes have to do with a cat that escapes from one of the sofas he crashes on as an unemployed musician. Llewyn finds his life as a folk singer unrewarding and yearns to escape to the Merchants Marine and pack it in. In the end, the emergence of Bob Dylan as a young folk singer with a ratchety voice and profound lyrics eclipses his own career.

Shield of Straw

Takashi Miike’s Shield of Straw was another film marred by uncharacteristically low ambition. The director has made several films about serial killers, such as Ichi the Killer (2001) and Audition (1999), so he has a strong background in presenting the psychology of a criminally insane assassin. Based on the novel by Kazuhiro Kiuchi, the film tells the story of a billionaire who offers a huge reward for the execution of Kunihide Kiyomaru (Tatsuya Fujiwara), the murderer of his granddaughter. The offer appeals to many low income and down on their luck Japanese. Several attempts on the killer are made while police try to escort him to trial, including attempts by the police themselves. In this respect the film has something to say: how far could someone go to defy the justice system with a vigilante reward. No one can be trusted and orders come from high up to execute the killer, since a condition for collecting the reward is that the government sanctions the execution. Fujiwara is excellent as the killer but in general there is far too much dramatic screaming going on in the film. Takashi was in attendance with his two actors Nanako Matsushima and Takao Osawa, who both play the cops who try to bring in Kiyomaru for sentencing.

Moira Sullivan is an accredited journalist at Cannes, and served on the Queer Palm Jury 2012. She is a member of FIPRESCI with a doctorate in cinema studies from Stockholm University and graduate studies in film at San Francisco State University.

Ain't Them Bodies Saints

By Moira Sullivan. 

David Lowery, Rooney Mara, and Casey Affleck - Photo Courtesy of Getty Images

On day five, La Semaine de la Critique featured David Lowery’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints with Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara. The introduction given by the organizers impressed even the director. Less impressive was the film, with a story that has been done before: an outlaw does prison time, breaks out, returns home to his wife and a child he has never seen, gets shot and finally meets his little girl. The tint and graininess of the film is what makes it stand out, setting a hazy tone in a poor part of Texas, with careful attention to lighting, costume, and set design. The grittiness here and the framing of the shots is excellent. It would be interesting to see a film with this kind of technical perfection be put to use with a more innovative story. The cinematography won a prize at Sundance where the film debuted. Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck and David Lowery were on hand at Cannes to present the film.

The Last of the Unjust was screened out of competition today by veteran filmmaker Claude Lanzmann. His three and half hour epic documentary about the last Jewish elder of a town given by Hitler to the Jews, the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia, is an important and challenging film to watch. Lanzmann refuses to simplify his work and make it comfortable for his audience, insisting that the length of his film is necessary to appreciate the history at hand. Most of the documentary consists of interviews from 1975 during one weekend in Rome with Lanzmann and Rabbi Benjamin Murmelstein. The rabbi worked for Adolf Eichmann from 1938 and was the person who worked out the logistics of the “Final Solution,” and the forced emigration of Austrian Jews from Vienna.

The Last of the Unjust

Murmelstein is an interesting interview subject. He demands total attention, cannot be interrupted, and often acts like Lanzmann’s questions get in the way of the story. At times, however, Murmelstein omits some of the necessary background for his anecdotes, like when he mentions, “Then the Danes came,” and Lanzmann wonders about the Danish Jews in Theresienstadt. Murmelstein helped to free hundreds of thousands of Jews but still was considered a traitor by victims of the holocaust, who demanded his public execution. He found this perplexing because even Hannah Arendt, the famous writer of Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963), had not asked for Eichmann to be hung.

Blind Detective

Tonight’s midnight screening at La Semaine de la Critique was Johnnie To’s Blind Detective, a comic thriller starring Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng, which unfortunately set itself apart with recurrent jokes about a lesbian cop named Susan. In the film, detective Chong See Tun (Lau) has suffered retinal damage and assumes that since his partner Ho Ka Tung (Cheng) is an excellent marksmen and martial artist, she must look like Susan. Meanwhile, Ho Ka Tung refers to Susan as a “buddy,” but is ashamed that she may look like Susan in Chong See Tun’s mind. Another patronizing comment is made about Minnie, a girl who has gone missing and one of several women murdered by a serial killer at large. At one point in the film, Chong See Tun hypothesizes that maybe she fell in love with a woman, which is normal at her age, signaling that being a lesbian is something one grows out of. There is also a woman who is a very tall basketball coach with large feet, likewise used as a source of ridicule. These flubs in the script are attributed to writer Ka-Fai Wai. Johnnie To has done exceptional work in mentoring young filmmakers in Hong Kong and hopefully their scripts will avoid some of the flaws found in Blind Detective.

Moira Sullivan is an accredited journalist at Cannes, member of FIPRESCI and served on the Queer Palm Jury 2012. She has a PhD in cinema studies at Stockholm University and studied filmmaking at San Francisco State University.

‘The Last Silent Star Standing’: An Oral History of 1920s Film with Diana Serra Cary

To delve into her life – almost Zelig-like in the manner she appears in photographs sparring playfully with Jack Dempsey, performing a graceful pose with Irene Castle, being held in Edgar Rice Burroughs’s arms – is to encounter a living connection to a who’s who of 1920s American history and culture. Cary, who possesses an IQ of 145, was discovered in 1920 at 19 months and immediately paired with a veteran performer: Brownie the Wonder Dog. Her 50 two-reelers circled the globe, making Century, that long-ago Poverty Row studio she worked for, a tidy profit. Her movies were so lucrative that Century (which had Universal as its distributor) boasted a ‘Baby Peggy unit’: a production crew entirely devoted to turning out this successful series.

Jeffrey Crouse has talked to Diana Serra Cary, the last(?) of the silent stars.

The Passive Hero: From Yugoslavia to Independence, an Investigation into Slovenian Film

As a part-time resident of Slovenia myself (married to the Slovenian artist and translator Urška Charney), I was pleased to attend the premiere of Shanghai Gypsy. There, in a theatre in Ljubljana, Slovenia’s fairy-tale capital, I encountered a who’s who of the Slovenian screen. The majority of the nation’s film and television stars occupied the relatively small theatre space, faces and names that I recognize because of their ubiquity. In a nation of 2 million souls, there are perhaps 100 recognizable film and television personalities, and they seem to appear in everything. A new entrant to the group is a rare thing. While this may seem small to the point of claustrophobia, there are advantages, at least from a foreigner’s perspective, to swimming in what one might reasonably call a ‘small pond’. If you know any one person in this Slovenian screen-world, you are likely connected to everyone else in it. Kevin Bacon may require six degrees of separation in the popular who-starred-with-who Hollywood game. In Slovenia, you’d need only one or two degrees to reach anyone else.

Noah Charney has met the people that matters most in the small world of Slovenian film-making.

A Pacifist and/or Cowardly Yank in Britain: The Americanization of Emily (1964) as anti-war classic

Very controversial upon its original release the film was indeed a pioneering anti-war film that poked fun at silly patriotism, noble self-sacrifice and the glorification of war before such films were fashionable in Hollywood and widely accepted by the public. Columnist Liz Smith years later described The Americanization of Emily as ‘too good for its time, and now a classic for the cognoscenti’. [Director] Arthur Hiller has always insisted that the film was not anti-war but rather ‘anti-glorification of war’. ‘It’s not war that’s insane; it’s the morality of it,’ as James Garner’s Charlie Madison puts it. With an ambiguous ending that leaves viewers today feeling either cheated and/or confused about the larger implications of the film, perhaps only the satire and black comedy rescue Emily from ‘dated, overblown oblivion’…

From the vantage point of the era of neverending ‘war on terror’, Richard A. Voeltz celebrates an ‘anti-glorification of war’ film that will turn 50 in 2014.

Time is Money – The Acceleration of Time and the Vanquishing of Space in Melancholia, Another Earth, and In Time

Resembling the true-life story of Patricia Hearst, the granddaughter of publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, who ended up joining the very group that kidnapped her, the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) in the mid-1970s United States, [In Time] then develops into a Bonnie and Clyde scenario. However, Will and Sylvia can ultimately be seen as the progenitors of a new species of humans, a species liberated from the slavery of time as a life-binding currency. Will and Sylvia, as the first couple to have actively worked out their freedom from the shackles of time and as freedom fighters, are a novel yet subversive Adam and Eve. Having tasted of the tree of forbidden knowledge (becoming conscious of the reality of things), they actively decide to leave the Garden of Eden and the governance of hierarchical time zones.

William Anselmi and Lise Hogan look at the politics of three high-profile dystopic films of the 2010s.

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Lloyd Eyre-Morgan trained at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in film production. He has written and directed four successful plays and two feature films. This interview, completed by email on 8 May, explores the creative process behind his first, Dream On, which is released in the UK in June.

Tom Ue: Dream On began as a hugely successful play. What led you to adapt the play?

Lloyd Eyre-Morgan: I wrote Dream On as a play with the intention that I would, one day, adapt it into a feature film. I found that theatre offers a great opportunity to develop both stories and characters. Drawing on the theatre audience’s feedback, I was able to develop Dream On into the film that it is today.

What are some of the ways in which the film differs from the play?

The original play was actually a lot lighter and upbeat: it had quite an idealistic ending which I felt was perhaps a little too disconnected from reality, with George and Paul riding off into the sunset together. The audience complained that the ending was a little too easily resolved and not dark enough, so with the film, I definitely took a dark detour in the final chapter. I really hope that the play lives on after the film’s release; I’d love somebody else to put it on somewhere, with a new cast and director. It would be great to see what they do differently.

Did adapting the story change your perspective about the story?

The story made me think about the concept of youth dreaming, and how things are never the way we hope they’ll turn out. Paul is convinced he will run away with George into the sunset, facing the journey of growing up together when, in reality, the journey that he ultimately has to face is growing up on his own journey. We can take pieces of the people we meet with us but ultimately we face most of life’s biggest adventure alone – the transition into adulthood.

You have kept the film’s cast relatively small. Was this decision provoked by the play?

The play had a cast of five, so the film more than doubled this – I think to about 14. It is relatively small for a feature, but I didn’t want to lose the focus of the story around the five central characters.

The film’s dialogue is razor-sharp. Tell us about the writing.

I grew up going on holiday to Welsh campsites, so that’s the setting that inspired my writing. I wanted to embody Welsh culture in the dialogue by including some Welsh sayings and humor. My family are Welsh and people don’t ever want to leave Wales, “Why would they want to? There are beautiful valleys for miles around, a supermarket down the road, and lots of sheep”! I wanted to write a story where the two characters are gay but the film doesn’t dwell on it through dialogue. The two lead boys don’t really discuss the fact that they are gay: they just accept that they have fallen in love. Neither Paul nor George really understands why people around them don’t understand that they are in love. They are both very innocent and naïve to the world around them.

How do you see this project as being different from contemporaneous films about growing up and homosexuality?

The film is a period piece. Both boys are from sheltered homes where gay culture is presumably not discussed. There’s no gay popular culture in this world as there is now. I think this setting makes the boys’ love more innocent. Neither of them understands the attraction but they can’t fight it either. It’s only Denise [Paul’s mother] who fears the world for them. Her innocence is missing: she’s seen the horrors of the world; she knows it isn’t going to be an easy ride for her son to be gay in 1987. Denise has seen only negativity towards homosexuality and has a very fearful view about it – as did a lot of people in England in the 80s due to the AIDS epidemic.

Why set the story in 1987?

Apart from the reasons above, I love the 80s, the style, the music – Andy Oliver did a great 80s soundtrack for us which really embodied the feel of the 80s.

Was the film’s setting during Thatcher’s third election deliberate? How so?

This was deliberate. I wanted to include Thatcher to show the depression that working class England was in at the time. Everyone wanted to escape, which is a huge theme in the film. The time frame sets the tone of the film in a dark era, which is upset by Paul and George’s innocence on the campsite that summer.

Tell us about the casting.

Bradley Cross [Paul], Joe Gosling [George], Janet Bamford [Denise] and Mark Hill [Larry] reprised roles in the feature film. Bradley and Joe built great chemistry during the stage version, which I wanted to transfer onscreen. Janet shaped Denise’s character during the rehearsal process, taking her character on a wonderful journey. Her performance is fantastic, making us laugh one moment and cry the next. Emily Spowage [Angharad] came on board through open auditions in Manchester and she was instantly cast from her great comic timing. She has a real talent and brought Angharad new dimensions that I hadn’t seen before. Mark Hill and Matthew Seber [Norman] also brought great comic timing into the film. I can’t fault any of the cast.

The film looks excellent visually. Tell us about its visual style – particularly Paul’s and his mother Denise’s very distinctive tent – and your decisions with the costumes.

We had great directors of photography Andonis Anthony and Jonathan Boothby, who captured beautiful shots, and who really brought my vision to life. I wanted to make Paul’s world claustrophobic around his mother, hence the one-man tent being shared between them – horrific, I know. With costume, I wanted to go extreme 80s with Angharad. She really embodies young fashion in the 80s. Many of these costumes belonged to actress Emily Spowage who plays Angharad.

The use of camping, traditionally a way to bring together families, to show some of their dysfunctions is quite ironic. Was this decision informed by other films and/or literature?

From going to campsites as a child, you get fathers stomping off for walks to get away from their families. Rain trapping you in tents, where if an argument sparks you could be in there for a while – no escape. Camping is dysfunctionville. It’s just hidden by misconceptions created by Carry on Camping films and Disney movies. I find the whole concept of camping claustrophobic. You’re usually in the middle of a nowhere miles away from shops, there is no escape.

What works inspired Dream On?

Beautiful Thing by Jonathan Harvey. I am fan of his work so he definitely inspired me to write in this genre. 80s movies, and mostly camping in Wales myself and being a self-confessed Dreamer. I think that I realised I wanted to tell gay stories such as Dream On one day, when I secretly ordered the iconic series Queer as Folk when I was 16, hid it under my bed, and watched it when no one was in. Gay cinema and art can be escapism for young gay people who aren’t ready to come out the closet yet. It was for me.

Dream On centers on Paul’s and George’s romance, and the pressures that they face not only from their parents but also from George’s alcoholism. The parents in the film are largely dysfunctional despite their feelings for their children. What do you think separates Paul, George, and Angharad from earlier versions of their parents?

Interesting question, I think that we all reflect our parents and upbringings in some ways. George is searching desperately for his father’s approval, so he wants to become his father. George has been drinking with him from an early age, even with a bad liver. He tries and embodies his father’s approval by becoming the dysfunction that surrounds him. Whether his father had a similar upbringing is up to audience’s interpretation. I think that Paul’s mother was a wild child and saw a lot of horror in the world so she is trying desperately to protect her son – she fears being alone. Angharad is a free spirit, perhaps the freest, from her upbringings: she almost plays a mother figure with her father, cooking, looking after him, and helping to run the campsite.

All of the film’s characters have moments of vulnerability that are revealed to us but not to other characters. Was this decision deliberate?

Yes, I love how people have moments of hidden vulnerability in life. It’s fascinating. You can know someone for years and never see them cry, yet another loved one can see them cry every day. Angharad’s moment of vulnerability is the one that touches me the most.

To what extent do you find George personally responsible for the film’s resolution?

I think George’s youthful idealism inspires Paul’s ultimate resolution: he forces George to grow up, and he catalysts most of the change in the film.

Are Paul, George, and Angharad growing up too fast?

I like to think Paul, George and Angharad have an innocent glow that not many modern 16-years-olds hold in today’s society. They – especially the dreaming Paul – have a very idealistic view on the world where anything can happen as far as they are concerned.

Do you see any connection between one’s age and one’s maturity?

I think that maturity for the characters in this film lie in their experiences. Angharad is perhaps the most mature character: she understands the dangers of the world. She runs the campsite, and advises most characters during their breakdowns in the film, adults included.

Is their push for adulthood at odds with their idealism?

I feel that there is a lot of pressure to grow up which Paul fights throughout the film. Denise tries to suppress his idealism by not letting him have dreams. Paul can’t read comics, make friends, but his world and idealism explode open when he meets George. Without idealism, where are we all? If that didn’t exist, would we ever achieve anything creative? Once idealism is introduced to Paul, he begins to achieve and reach for his dreams, albeit adulthood and reality alter these dreams somewhat as the film concludes.

How do you keep this balance between their being forced to accept responsibility, sometimes for their parents, and their idealism?

I think that the balance is something a lot of young people have to deal with. We always apologize for our parents’ actions as children: it makes us aware of adulthood and sometimes delves further into idealism. As Denise’s actions play out, he delves further into idealism and tries to reach his dreams. He almost uses idealism to escape the world around him.

The film’s ending sees the seventeen-year-old Paul moving out. Are you optimistic for him?

I am optimistic for him, I think Angharad will move out with him and they’ll have adventures round Australia. Denise might turn up for the ride as well… Cough sequel.

What is next for you?

I’ve just completed shooting my second feature film Celluloid; it’s currently in postproduction. Celluloid is a dark psychological tale that really gets into the minds of family dysfunction and it also contains LGTB themes. I’m also about to start shooting a new feature film titled Three In a Bed, a gay rom-com which I’ve co-written with new writer Neil Ely.

Thanks very much for this film, and we look forward to many more from you!

Tom Ue is Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellow, and Canadian Centennial Scholar in the Department of English Language and Literature at University College London, where he researches Shakespeare’s influence on the writing of Henry James, George Gissing and Oscar Wilde.

In the documentary The Iceman Tapes (1992), Assistant Attorney General Robert J. Carroll asserts that Richard Kuklinski was not a serial killer. And yet in adapting his story for a feature film, director Ariel Vroman and his co-writers wisely conceive the mob hitman’s story thus. Kuklinski, who died in 2006 while serving a life sentence in New Jersey, confessed to having killed somewhere between 100 and 200 people. His recollections reveal many means of murder, from shootings and stabbings to cyanide, airborne or planted in food.

His narrative requires a series of such events, and since the most bizarre aspect of the man was his normal family life, The Iceman also captures the mundane that frames the gruesome killings. The obvious reference point is John McNaughton’s Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, a film that shocks as much by revealing Henry’s quiet life, though his murders bring to him thrills (fueled partially by the involvement of his co-hort, Otis). No such pleasure comes to Kuklinski, played by a very reliable Michael Shannon. With no reaction to killing, Kuklinski heads a family in an attempt to find humanity in his deep void. From afar, this take on Kuklinski reflects the collective repression of the middle class, though the film remains subjective. Normal to him, his murderous routine is a delirium to us; for him, family is a fantasy he deceived his loved ones into believing.

Like Henry, the film includes an ironic romance, in the brief courtship of Richard and Deborah (Winona Rider). When pool-hall banter turns to insults against her (to underscore repression, the barbs concern her chastity), Kuklinski slices the offender’s throat without missing a step down an alleyway. The birth of his first child right after meets the previous scene a little too cutely, though dealt with swiftly before more of his notorious work. When his job in porn production ends, a mob boss in charge, Roy Demeo (Ray Liotta), lays off Kuklinski while noting the emptiness in his eyes. The pairing of a nervy Liotta and somber Shannon strikes a nice touch, noting the impulsiveness behind hits that are dealt effectively cold. With his hire as hitman, Kuklinski goes from routine servitude to honored service, thus becoming a knight bestowed with rights in an underworld kingdom. A sequence of killings to follow is, in itself, enough to please the serial killer fan base. We also feel Shakespeare’s “Out, Out” reminder through the varied efficiency of this assassin (even though the real Kuklinski thought the term too exotic for his work). Currency exchange is his cover to his wife, while he receives large sums for departing marks.

The “honor” to his family inspires a code against killing women and children, his reason for freeing a witness. When Demeo learns the news, he decommissions Kuklinski, making him into a knight errant. He then takes up with “Freezy” (Chris Evans), an ice cream truck driving hitman whose practice brings him his nickname. Presenting Kuklinski as a ronin of sorts, the script leaves him frail as his killings begin to overwhelm him. That this swelling mania, along with a fear for his family’s safety, leads to his fall serves the third act better than the well-known subject matter, who killed and killed again until one wrong turn. Convenient or not, the move extends the killer’s darkness, thanks largely to Shannon’s brilliance; he almost convinces us that the Iceman’s humanity was real.

Matthew Sorrento teaches film at Rutgers University in Camden, NJ. He is the author of The New American Crime Film (McFarland, 2012) and a contributor to the forthcoming Wiley-Blackwell Companion to the War Film.

By Moira Sullivan.

The Evolution of Cannes Part 2

It is not only different programming sections that have changed over time, but Cannes screening venues as well. Here is an interesting parallel: the “Great Gothic Cathedrals” in France, particularly the Notre Dame de Paris, took over 400 years to be completed. This year, the famous cathedral celebrated 850 years as a national treasure. There is a base foundation, and different languages carved in stone relevant for the time. Gargoyles and grotesques, images of alchemists and Christians, have all adorned Notre Dame. So too, the facades at the nationally revered Festival de Cannes have changed, an event that began in earnest in 1946 in an old Casino.

A little free paper called La Gazette Paulette, distributed in front of the Palais du Cinema, tells the story of the transformation of the festival grounds. In 1949, the festival quarters was located at 50 boulevard de la Croisette. However, the original Palais Croisette became the victim of its success and had to spread out to hotels in the 1950s. In 1978, Cannes commissioned another Palais and in 1983 a modern edifice was erected. It was demolished five years later and is now the JW Marriott Hotel. In 2012, the Palais was modernized as it stands today.

It must be noted that the current landscape at Cannes contributes to the chaos of my fourth day here. On a rainy afternoon, what better way to avoid the drizzle than inside a theater? However, queues and guards were particularly challenging. Nowhere was a media hierarchy more evident than with the admission of high priority badge holders (i.e. established media outlets), who waltzed into screenings at which accredited journalists had stood for hours in the rain. The scarcity of seats ignored the ‘first come, first served’ tradition, creating a mob behavior.

The oldest distributor of independent films in the USA, Troma, is calling attention to this hierarchy at Cannes with a demonstration in front of the Palais on May 20 at 2pm. Called the “Occupy Cannes” movement, Troma questions the corporate controlled film and media market. Similar to the aims of Truffaut and Godard, who established the Director’s Fortnight in 1969, Troma hopes to open up a dialogue about the current state of affairs at the festival.

 Film Highlights on Day 4

The Congress

The Director’s Fortnight world premiere of The Congress, directed by Ari Folman, was screened outdoors tonight to an audience bearing umbrellas. The Congress looks at the transformation of acting roles in the film business, particularly for women over 30. Robin Wright, who acts as both producer and star in the film, plays a women in her forties who can only act by allowing her face and body to be scanned for use in synthetically created films, an advanced stage of motion capture.

Leos Carax first called attention to the growth of motion capture in live action film in Holy Motors (2012), which played at Cannes last year. In the film, one of the multiple identities assumed by Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavan) is an actor in a body suit covered with reflective markers for a role in a sci-fi film. For Carax, motion capture signifies “the death of cinema” and The Congress nails this.

Robin Wright, who plays herself in the film, is forced to choose between being scanned for motion capture for all future film roles or becoming obsolete in the industry. As a condition of her contract, she is also forbidden from acting anywhere else. She signs, nudged by her agent played by Harvey Keitel. Meanwhile, Wright’s decision to raise her children amidst her acting career angers the head of Miramount Theatres (Danny Huston). Twenty years in the future, people either live as their “avatar” or age and experience natural death – “on the other side” of the fantasy world. Wright appears at a “Miramount-Nagasaki Congress” and affirms that her children are foremost in her life. The foreboding futuristic message of The Congress is created through animation and live action.

Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya

Earlier on the Croisette, Thai Cinema Night took place with Thailand’s Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya acting as guest of honor. The Princess, who is an established actress herself, entered the room to standing audience who did not sit down until she took settled on her throne. Then, Princess Rajakanya delivered a speech that was difficult to hear and hosted a series of trailers for upcoming Thai cinema. One Thai film to look for is The Protector 2 starring Tony Jaa and produced by Prachya Pinkaew, the talented director/producer behind Ong Bak 2 (2008), The Protector (2005), and Chocolate (2008).

Moira Sullivan is an accredited journalist at Cannes, and served on the Queer Palm Jury 2012. She is a member of FIPRESCI with a doctorate in cinema studies from Stockholm University and graduate studies in film at San Francisco State University.

L’Inconnu du Lac (Strangers by the Lake)

By Moira Sullivan. 

The Evolution of Cannes

The Cannes Film Festival continues to be one of the most exciting manifestations of cinema in the world. Fortunately, the event is not only a cascade of film stars and legends, the Red Carpet, and the parties that the media promotes. There are sidebar film venues, which have all come about historically from the foundation of what we know today as the Festival de Cannes.

Marché du Film was created in 1959 for the Cannes market, confirming that cinema should be promoted by commerce. Meanwhile, two parallel but independent events were established in the 1960s to address just how far commerce should impact cinema as an art form. Semaine Internationale la Critique began in 1961, for the purpose of promoting films overlooked by the production companies. Similarly, Quinzaine des réalisateurs (Directors Fortnight) began in 1969 as a protest of young directors under the banner ”Cinema at Liberty”.

ACID Cinema (Association du Cinéma Indépendant) is another parallel event created in 1992, which fosters dialogue between the public and independent filmmakers. Finally, Gilles Jacob, the General Delegate of Festival de Cannes at the time, added Un Certain Regard and the Camera d’Or for first features in 1978 and the Cinéfoundation in 1998 for short and medium films. The Cannes Short Festival was next in 2010, and in 2011 the Queer Palm was created to award films that address lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender themes. These parallel events are what make Cannes a rich experience. For the mediated Cannes, the official selection is what garnishes the most attention, and is of the utmost interest to the media conglomerates.  The festival attracts a multitude of talent and creates a magnificent aura and must expand to remain relevant by listening to the artisans of the field.

Film Highlights on Day 3 

Un Certain Regard

L’Inconnu du Lac (Stranger by the Lake)

The extremely well received L’Inconnu du Lac (Stranger by the Lake), by Alain Guiraudie, is set in a gay cruising spot on a lake in France during a single summer. While Guiraudie is free in showing the sexual relations between his male characters, he also authenticates and legitimizes this culture for audiences so that by the end of the film it becomes as worthy of introspection as other cultural gatherings in society. The theme of the film is not cruising but homophobia. When Michel (Christophe Paou) witnesses a murder in the lake committed by Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps), the man he desires, he undergoes amnesia amidst the throes of passion, and suddenly the perpetrator is free to be with him. Meanwhile, Guiraudie is careful not to focus just on sexual relationships, showing how important friendship and  the acceptance of others is to gay culture through the charming Henri (Patrick D’Assumçao), whom Michel befriends. Also noteworthy is Inspector Damroder (Jerome Chappatte), who investigates the drowning of a gay man. It is clear that the inspector is not gay but his carefully chosen words during the investigation are respectful and convey empathy and concern. This is a new kind of socially responsible inspector than has been seen on screen. This kind of heightened awareness is also true of the lonely ‘tourist’ Henri.

Official Competition

Like Father, Like Son

The words “Fuji TV Film” introduced Like Father, Like Son (Soshite chichi ni naru) by Hirokazu Kore-eda. Though the director is known for his contemplative film language, this particular film, with its fade to black edits and faithfulness to the plot, did not reveal any particular visual inventiveness. The camera angles and editing are conventional, and the story is propelled by dialogue. The subject is based on an article about children who are misidentified in hospitals at birth, and inadvertently displaced in a home absent of their biological parents. Ryota Nonomiya (Masaharu Fukuyama) and his wife Midori (Machiko Ono) raise their son Keita together, though the marriage seems strained. The hospital where Keita was born contacts the parents six years later to inform them that Keita was switched at birth with their biological son. The couple then meets the boy that could have been their son and his parents. Like Father, Like Son goes on to question if only bloodlines determine a parent, and by raising questions about adoption and how to explain it to children the film proves itself socially relevant.

Moira Sullivan is an accredited journalist at Cannes, and served on the Queer Palm Jury 2012. She is a member of FIPRESCI with a doctorate in cinema studies from Stockholm University and graduate studies in film at San Francisco State University.