„Aš žinau, jog aš kvėpuoju“.

Slystelėjau raudoname krėsle, giliai įkvėpiau ir pajutau odą, kurioje gyvenu. Įsitempiau ir laukiau, kol atsitiks kažkas baisaus, bjauraus ar atgrasaus. Deja, netikėtumai manęs laukė visiškai kitur ir užklupo nepasiruošusią. Nenuostabu, nes dvejus metus, po „Šaltų apkabinimų“ nebuvau pajutusi Almodovaro.

Veik dvi valandas naujausias ispanų režisieriaus Pedro Almodovaro trileris, apsimetantis drama ir retkarčiais būdamas juodojo humoro komedija, man prieš akis varė dar vieną santykių istoriją, vis giliau klimpdamas į neįtikėtinai šlykščius, retkarčiais gražius, bet visada nenuspėjamus žmonių gyvenimo voratinklius. Pagaliau vėl į Pedro filmus sugrįžęs Antonio Banderas filme įkūnijo chirurgą Robertą Ledgardą, kuris, siekdamas sukurti viskam atsparią odą, „šiek tiek“ nelegaliai eksperimentuoja su Veros (ne Penelopė, bet Elena Anaya) kūnu. Jų santykis ir yra filmo ašis, esmė ir siekiama išlukštenti paslaptis. Toliau skaityti Lietuvos k/t: Oda, kurioje gyvenu (rež. Pedras Almodovaras), 2011 →

Van Sant takes a break from his usual style and themes, such as marginalized individuals, social alienation, exclusion and violence, told with rough, plain realism, and turns to the romantic drama, dealing with an enchanted dream love between two young people who find a soul mate in each other.

Enoch is a problematic solitary young man whose favourite activity is attending funerals of unknown people. That’s how one day he meets Annabel, a strange girl in masculine clothes who immediately catches his attention. A sort of connection develops between the two and inch by inch they come closer. Enoch introduces her to his dead parents on their grave and to his invisible friend, the ghost of a Second World War Japanese kamikaze, and Annabel reveals him to be suffering from cancer. He offers to help her cope with her disease and with the shadow of death, she accepts.

Themes of the plot are nothing new – a dying young girl who bravely confronts her destiny, troubled youth who come to terms with their problems and traumas thanks to the power of love, the liveliness and joy of a spontaneous, genuine feeling fed by the delight of small, simple things – something between romance-drama A walk to remember and the more recent 500 days of Summer. However Van Sant succeeds to refresh these quite hackneyed motives by a carefully prepared photography and set design, often loaded with symbolic value, and by humorous, witty undertones.

The story takes place during autumn, the season in which life fades away and nature prepares to sleep. This is not a casual choice, as the story deals with approaching death and getting ready to face doom. Warm colours of autumnal season dominate the tones of the film, at least in the first part of the movie; as winter approaches, they are gradually replaced by cold colours, particularly white. Warm colours (such as red leaves lying on the ground, golden light of the sun, even certain costumes and interior) also symbolise the flame of love that bursts between the two.

The film stands out for a strong visual expressivity, which compensates certain predictable lines and situations (“Is she pretty?” “She’s beautiful”) and the long-windedness of dialogues. See for example the opening scene: Enoch is lying on the ground and with a chalk he’s sketching his silhouette on the cement around him. When the protagonists begin to fall in love, the silhouette of Annabel is added next to his shape. At the end of the movie, we see the two empty silhouettes being faded away by the winter wind.

Apart from that, dialogues prevail in the film: as soon as the two begin to know each other, they break their previous silence and talk, talk, talk. One of the favourite talking subjects of Annabel is nature, particularly birds and the law of natural selection, which especially amazes her: in fact in the end natural selection will be one of the driving forces that operate in this movie. The film recovers when finally all the talking makes room again to silence and to expressions.

Acting here is much less realistic and impressive than in other Van Sant’s works, like Elephant: the actors restrict themselves to a traditional performance, where they don’t have real liberty of improvisation (on the contrary of what happened in Elephant) and they just play their lines for quite an affected and banal result.

Aki Kaurismäki has his special way to talk about complex issues in humorous way, which does avoid melodrama, but doesn‘t avoid concern of things he‘s talking about. His humor has many faces as well.

In “Le Havre“ this humor is soft and canny. Marcel Marx, dignified ex-bohemian meets days of changes – his wife goes to hospital, and in almost same moments he finds himself taking care of destiny of a refugee boy. This story starts to resemble one of old fairy tales, which has some enigmatical interconnections, which cannot be explained by cause – consequence relation, and hiding some bright lesson in it.

“Fairy-taleness” is held not only in the way story is made, also in the way old and new is combined. In most of the time viewer will see just things and surroundings which could have been valid several decades ago as well as now. Personages are also quite timeless. But big advertising screens, mobile phones and modernly armed police troops are here, doubtlessly contemporary.

The world of relations between characters cannot not to make one smile. Firstly, there are mainly ordinary people, and relations among them are very warmhearted. Other thing – sometimes they are really unconventional, like in the case of Marcel and his wife – I would guess you haven’t seen such couple in your lifetime.

Talent and experience of filmmakers can be felt from the very first scene, where movement of camera and movement of actors work in a very coherent way, creating dynamics which immediately draws viewer into world of “Le Havre”. It is also beautiful, employing mannerism and a bit Godard-like minimalism of scenography, carrying meanings as well as joy for the eye.

Kaurismäki takes cultural and political contexts and interconnects them. There are some religious allusions. Marcel asks his refugee boy: “Quo vadis, Indrisa?”, as well as states, that shepherds and shoeshiners are closest to laws of the hill, shoeshiner being interresting parallel with Christian symbol of washing other persons feet. As other Kaurismäki’s movies, this one doesn’t let political-social surroundings to pass by. Being shot in France (and in French) it engages with immigration problems (which is an unintentional irony – at first it was planned to roll it in Spain or other south coast of Europe). Though, the most important thing being that director is professional in extracting some interesting and attractive essence from slum districts and lousy bars, being among true people doing “honest jobs” (what was the choice of director himself some time ago). It’s good to go there with him – alone you’d probably feel just confused and alienated.

This movie is very warmly accepted in festivals since it appeared in competition program at Cannes in May. It just carries some good aura, which also is supported by facts like that actor dog named Laika received a Jury Prize from the Palm Dog jury.

Slovakian director Dušan Hanák started creating feature films just after spring came to Prague in 1968. After this blossoming whatever movie he created, he knew that screenings will be forbidden, at least in Slovakia. „322“ was his debut feature movie and it was immediately banned. Secretly smuggled to the Manheim-Heidelberg cinema festival for young filmmakers it took the grand prize. No surprize that in such circumstances underlying themes of freedom are common for his movies.

In these circumstances of suppression and search of various ways for liberation, this could have been a cult film – though anything more than an underground cult film could exist then. Dušan Hanák created the complex alegory of society of that time and place, where questions on independence were so essential that one almost didn‘t feel it anymore, as one doesn‘t feel the air. From the very first seconds of movie viewer is exposed for oppositinion between what is human and what restricts human freedom. The human body, holding personal history, can be named part by part in dry latin names. Human beings are numbered, as well as events irreversibly impacting their lives (322 is code for cancer diagnosis). Steps they take can be controlled by voice from loudspeaker. Still, characters in “322“ don‘t cease to exist.

Lauko, middle aged chef, gets sick, though his doctor defers to tell him exact diagnosis. In the meantime calm and good hearted man is living his everyday life in uncertainty. And living in uncertainty about diagnosis can make your everyday life less everyday-like than a trip to Arapawa island by bike.

This movie is multilayered, developing more than one story, and more than one theme. Each of characters has his/her own postinion in the soviet city setting. There‘s Lauko, searching for peace, drifting from one old friend to another and asking: „are you ok with yourself?“. There‘s his ex-wife Marta, searching for happiness in things and beauty, desperately eager to be loved. There‘s her intelligent, though decadent and cynical lover Peter. And also there‘s the one, numebered ID Nr. BU-66 456963, introducing himself as Human Being. Some girls recognize him as Curly as well… Everyone is following his/her own path, moving to certain end.

In this black and white film creative freedom common for avant-garde and experimental artists can be enjoyed. This is not kind of freedom which would make viewer feel dumb and not getting an idea about what had just happened. Cinematograhy and scenography in „322“ creates a rich net and surprises viewer in new way again and again. This is somehow humorous movie, though personages are busy with themselves and don‘t try to make jokes. But there are things, which they don‘t see and don‘t know. For example, that there are titles appearing on screen from time to time. Sometmes they just tell the name of person we see on screen, sometimes they make ironic jokes about exaggerated desires and fantasies that characters are experiencing. Sometimes stopped motion is used, sometimes photography is aptly inserted. Camera is making jokes as it switches unruly to painted tapestry during serious dialogue, adding alternate meanings. In this way viewer becomes accomplice of director, smiling about lifes of heroes, and himself also. Scenography is as well ingeniously used, composing in scenes things which augments meanings about relations between people talking, or reveals states of mind. All this creates really specific, interesting aesthetics.

Musical decisions only enrichens this already pleasantly sophisticated net. There are scenes in slaughterhouse (when one is really happy that movie is in black and white) accompanied with elevated string music. Or Big Brother like situation, where people bitterly obeys for unknown voice from loudspeakers, goes with marches, making an sarcastic oppositinion between harsh reality and exalted rythims of totalitarian dream.

It was really reasonable to choose this movie as one of representing Slovak New Wave cinema in International Kaunas Cinema Festival programme. It contains critical realizm and lyrical humanism, common for both literature and cinema of Central and Eastern Europe. Action taking place among the most simple people shows that under some rules only the ones living in the margins can still maintain some kind of inner freedom and real lifes. Not accidently the most free person in „322“ is the one with ID Nr. BU-66 456963 written on the back of his white jacket.

Gus Van Sant is famous for his films about youth (“My Own Private Idaho“, “Good Will Hunting”), in which he perfectly reveals their problems. Teenagers in his films are confused, without having any idea what to do with their their lives and the struggles they have to suffer. His latest film „Restless“ tries to combine two most common themes in history of art – love and death.

“Restless” is a love story about two typical Van Santian characters – young, sensitive and troubled people, who are way too familiar with death for their age. Annabel (M. Wasikowska), a girl with brain cancer, meets Enoch (Hopper), who likes to attend funerals of strangers. They don’t have enough time, yet they both try to deal with a fact of death and experience together as much as possible.

Annabel loves nature, she idolizes Charles Darwin and always talks about bugs or birds. Even though she is the one who is going to die, Annabel always tries to see the bright side. Her positiveness and smiling all the time can seem unrealistic and even artificial but this is her mask and her way to deal with grief. Contradictory, Enoch is sorrowful and gloomy after loss of his parents. At the same time he is both fascinated and scared of death. By crashing random funerals and talking with his imaginary friend ghost Hiroshi, who was kamikaze in Japan, Enoch desperately tries to understand the nature of death and reveal it’s secret.

Besides the fact that main characters have to face death in their lives, shadows of death are paranoidly following viewers during the whole film. Story takes place in autumn, when leafs are in ”colors of death”. Annabel tells a story about songbirds that sing because they didn’t know whether they‘d wake up in the morning. Couple goes to morgue and guess what happened to people there. Talking about death is always precarious and it is obvious that in this case “Restless“, written by young screenwriter J. Lew, lacks subtlety and starts to speculate with emotions. It seems that by constantly repeating the same message in different forms and aspects authors nearly forgot other themes. Maybe too much time was spent searching for artfully framed shots (that are actually really good) and looking for retro-vintage outfits for actors before fully finishing and fulfilling the story.

While watching a film it‘s hard to get rid of a feeling that main characters are like perfect paragons – one-sided, predictable and that’s why pretty boring. They are not as complex as in Gus van Sant previous films, where characters had more than one problem and also more than one topic for conversation („My Own Private Idaho“, “Good Will Hunting”). It must be mentioned that actors did their best to give some warmth to their characters, although Hopper sometimes seems unsure of himself in his first lead role. That might be the reason of his eaggertion and overacting in dramatic scenes. Wasikowska (“The Kids Are All Right”, “Jane Eyre”) is always strong even if her character here is way more monotonous than Hopper’s.

If you watch “Restless” as a typical romantic drama, you shouldn’t be very disappointed. Even though a love story is not very special itself, actors do as much as possible to convince the audience. Listening to indie music and watching a cute couple might be quite nice, especially as you still don’t realize that their relationship basically is just a happy montage of skating, fencing, bicycling and running through fields

The strangest thing is that we can’t actually see any symptoms of Annabel’s disease. Her body doesn’t change even during the last stage of cancer. In ”Restless” death is shown more like an idea or a concept, denying what cannot be denied. The scene in which characters rehearse Annabel’s death (which turned out to be their own version of “Romeo and Juliet” ending) is not so different from the death that is shown in this film. An idea of sterile, painless and over romanticized ending of life is too far from reality and faulty itself.

“Restless” gives an impression of schematic and dishonest film, where life flows by somewhere between sentimental flashbacks. It seems that Gus Van Sant is lost between mainstream compromises and his ambitions as independent director, which is the reason of making film about death without real death, film about feelings without real feelings.

The famous Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki returns to France after his Bohemian Life made back in 1992. His new movie in under the title of Le Havre – name of a port city in Normandy, where the plot is taking place. The main character is Marcel Marx an elderly shoe-shiner, who describes himself as Parisien bohemian writer in his earlier life. That`s why this movie can be found as a continuation of Bohemian Life, where the main character is also Marcel, bohemic poet from Paris performed by the same actor André Wilms.

So the story of Le Havre goes around Marcel, who shines the shoes at the day times, later he meets his only friends in his favourite bar and finally comes back to his poor, but cozy home looked by his long loving housewife Arletty (Kaurismäki`s long time muse Kati Outinen impersonates her). But one day lots of things changes. Arletty gets a serious disease and must go to the hospital. Meanwhile Marcel starts to take care of a boy, illegal immigrant from Africa. The boy needs to reach his mother in London – Mr. Marx tries to help him, although he has a lack of money.

Kaurismäki stays faithful to himself – he continues to film the same three decade long movie. Even though the movie action is taking place in France of nowadays (euros are showed many times to emphasize that), Kaurismäki`s aesthetics remains the same as always – some cars, clothing, interiors from 70`s. In Le Havre the director also uses light in the way that only he does – all the pale interiors always looks dusky, kind of abandoned. Nearly the only director of nowadays visually similar to Kaurismäki is Jim Jarmusch, especially his Permanent Vocation. Also in Le Havre Mr. director is not throwing away his common themes – proletarian lifestyle and its problems, delicate political overtones. The political aspect this time is immigration. The government, the society and the media are satirically criticized for its insobriety about the immigrants, about their fear of terrorism and etc.

Aki Kaurismäki can`t drop the movie without adding at least one scene from the rock n’ roll concert of some strange look performers. Also the scenes in the smoky completely unluxurious bars with glasses of alcohol and inextinquishable cigarettes in people`s hands can`t be forgotten. It`s always so in the personal Kaurismäki`s cinematographical reality.

The director`s movies are completely different from what the comedy is usually considered to be for the mass audiences – no cakes thrown into somebody`s faces, no jokes about pussies. His delicate comedies, as Le Havre, is full of black-humor and small humorious details. For example, the Finnish director makes the policeman, who is buying an ananas, look so funny. So the director`s black humor comedies are really sophisticated. In Le Havre genre of the comedy mixes with drama, but this using of drama genre looks more like its parody.

Camera also remains static – it`s also as screenplay simplified to the essential. Acting is elegantly mannered, emotions are so concentrated, that it looks like nearly non emotional. The feelings and lineaments of the characters are told through the little details in dialogues or their actions. For example, we can understand that Arletty loves Marcel very much, because we see her always taking care of her husband by cooking food or cleaning his shoes (though, he is a shoe-shiner). The strangest thing in the movie is that Finnish actress Kati Outinen was considered to perform as Arletty, Marcel`s wife, even though her French pronunciation is terrible. But as it is not the only thing that completely doesn`t fit – as I said, meanwhile the plot goes forward in France of nowadays, the scenography and things used are straight from the 70`s in Finland. And these small imbalances goes to the absurd, but if the viewer conforms Kaurismäki`s rules, he/she might have a great enjoyment. Believing in what`s happening, even though it`s nonsense, is absurd itself. That`s how Kaurismäki is a genius.

Aki Kaurismäki doesn`t need to shit into somebody`s soul to express the topical ideas. Shitting into souls through showing violence, sexual perversities and things like that became common in European cinema, so Aki remains a punk because of always staying positive and humanistic.

The new picture by well-known director Gus Van Sant (Milk, Paranoid Park, Elephant, Good Will Hunting) based on a script by Jason Lew takes us in the life of solitary teenager Enoch Brae which doesn‘t find so much pleasure in the activities his peers do. His imaginary friend Hiroshi Takahashi, a spirit of a dead Second World War kamikaze, helps him to understand his own personality. He is his guide as well as his only friend whit whom Enoch plays the “sea fight” desk game and of course never wins. One of the few things Enoch actually really likes to do is visiting funerals. One day, he meets Annabel Cotton, a girl of his age affected by cancer. Both of them take pleasure in black humour. In the graveyard Enoch introduces Annabel to his dead parents. The most amazing place they have ever visited is the hospital charnel-house and the most funny things to do there is naming the deads and inventing their stories. It’s just a way to cope with thoughts about the death which percolate their life.

Enoch‘s chalk drown silhouette on the floor, which symbolises his loneliness, is supplemented by the silhouette of Annabel. They don’t think they have a future. Annabel will probably die soon and Enoch is restrained by earlier traumas when he lost parents. Annabel helps Enoch to find the joy of being and together they create their new reality. A reality witch is not an imaginary world but the reality simply based on small things, on the nature (birds), on their walks, their plays, their talks and their smiles. Like Annabel says in the film : “Let’s study the world we live in”. She is fascinated by Darwin’s evolution and strongly interested in the nature. Contrariwise, both neglect their life context such as the family or the school

The story is opening in the autumn, when the nature is gets ready to sleep and prepares for the next challenge – the winter season. Exactly like the autumn is gold, Enoch passes with Annabel “the golden age of life”. Of course, they fall for each other and live the happier chapter in their life. The autumn blazes with colours and the scena design corresponds it. Flame colours tone their burning love. Even in the raining and cloudy sequences we could feel a big heat from the actions romance. However, after the autumn the winter comes with snow. The landscapes change, snow covers everything and everything looks differently. Not every nature, not even every existence could go through the winter season and Darwin’s theory works : not everyone survives. The winter is inevitable, the picture makes sure about it. When Enoch and Annabel are hospitalized at the same time both of them wear pyjamas decorated with snowflakes. Actually, the cloth really corresponds with the characters. Enoch wears the dark colours and elegant suits. Annabel is a more open-minded person, she wears more creative cloths. Also a stage design was built up with intention all film long. The early funerals are set up in dark colours but the final funeral we see is in white and once again it corresponds to the current season – the winter – where the film tends from the beginning.

It is really nice to see some pretty nice 35 mm “academic” shots without any hand-held sequences. The today viewer should be used to see hand-held camera in almost every film. The unstable frames became already question of film-making fashion in the contemporary cinema and stably kept camera position are almost unique. Stable camera allows the director to use a traditional staging and we can so be pleased by classical “academic” film-work quite average in this movie. So far Restless was screened at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section.

The film is dedicated to Dennis Hopper (director of Easy Rider), the father of Henry Hooper who plays Enoch Brae. Evidently Gus Van Sant doesn’t really lead the actors and their performance is not at all special. It’s a little bit strange to see such a liberty given by the director who apparently takes account of acting performances, considering that 5 actors who worked with him before were nominated for an Oscar. Restless is a drame but the acting doesn’t surprise at all, except for some moments of Mia Wasikowska (Annabel Cotton). She knows how to look natural in front of the camera and her performance overlaps the others. Anyway, quiet teenagers become soon big speakers and film goes into the dialogues. Fortunately, the closing sequence corresponds to the opening one and Enoch is back to the silence and we understand the situation by the flashbacks.

The film score is under the direction of Danny Elfman, Van Sant’s one of the Van Sant’s court composers. The melodies mostly support the scenes mood. The music doesn’t create the semantic dialogue with the scenes and works like images support. The black humour scenes are funnier with light simple melodies, romantic music accompanies romance scenes.

After fourteen years of marriage, the relationship between Nader and Simin seems to have come to an end: she wants to leave Iran to guarantee a better future for their 11-years-old daughter Termeh, he wants to stay to take care of his father, an old man suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Unable to come to an agreement, she files for divorce and leaves home. The situation becomes more complicated when Nader has a dispute with Razieh, a lower class woman employed to take care of his father, which ends in him sharply pushing her out of his flat. The consequences will be unexpected and very serious.

A separation, the latest film by Iranian film-maker Asghar Farhadi, beyond the essential story-line, stands out for the complex issues it raises, such as responsibility, honesty, religion and love, and for a strong sense of narration. The core of the story is conflict: the two primary conflicts in the plot are the one opposing husband and wife and the one between Nader and the married couple Razieh and Hodjat. From these two thematic issues several secondary conflicts ensue: the conflict between Nader and his house-maid when they fight about her abusing his old father and the missing money, the conflict between father and daughter, the final conflict between Razieh and her hot-tempered husband Hodjat. This growing tension makes the story intriguing and emotionally involves the viewer, who can’t help wondering who’s right and who’s wrong, what’s true and what’s false and inevitably ends up taking one or another character’s part.

The Iranian society of nowadays, with its problems and issues, is also glimpsed in the film: in fact it plays a decisive role in the development of the plot, as the trial separation starts because Simin wants her daughter to live in a society that gives more freedom and possibilities to women, and Razieh has to accept the job offered by Nader unbeknown to her husband, who disapproves of her working. Another major theme, in fact, is the social exclusion provoked by class, gender, economical barriers. Two main oppositions are set in this context: the first one is between Nader and Hodjat (the former is open-minded, modern, cultured and well-spoken, the latter is an illiterate choleric unemployed), the second one between the independent progressive Simin, who has her own career, dresses in a fashionable style and wants to decide about her and her daughter’s future, and Razieh, always concealed by her black chador, who needs to hide her work from her husband and to call her personal imam to know whether cleaning the incontinent father of Nader would be a sin or not. It’s clear that these are two worlds apart, with no possibility of communication. In fact, for the whole movie, they will be unable to come to an agreement and even to listen to each other. They will just keep on screaming, blaming and refusing to recognize their mistakes. In the end, the “adults” seem to be quite childish, and the real grown-up turns out to be 11-years-old Termeh.

Nevertheless, the current socio-political context, even if present and significant, doesn’t seem to be central. The end of a marriage, generation conflicts, social exclusion and the contrast between modern and tradition are universal issues, easy to identify with, that may concern anybody and happen anywhere, not only in Iran. More than the story of a separation in contemporary Iran, this is a story about a separation itself, and all the consequences that ensue.

The actors’ performances are powerful and absorbing: acting is amazingly natural and real and provokes a strong emotional impact in the viewer, as well as the script does. Dialogues are realistic and straightforward, although never banal. The film received the Golden Berlin Bear at the Berlin Festival, and both the two leading actresses and the two leading actors were awarded on the same occasion (as well as on several others). The screenplay gained the Crystal Simorgh Award at the Iranian Fajr Film Festival.

The camera work is essential but expressive: hand-held camera creates a striking effect of reality, as if it was a documentary rather than a fictional oeuvre. Shots are always functional to the action: events, characters and movement are at the centre of the framing, no space is left to additional superfluous elements – such as landscapes or other merely ornamental images. Just from time to time the director highlights visual poetry in everyday situations and events, for example in the scene where Razieh hurries up in the street to search for Nader’s father who disappeared from his room. While running downstairs, her chador flutters behind her and creates a sort of black wave that covers the square of the stairwell and seems to move on its own.

The opening and the closing scenes are essential to the full understanding of the movie and present some particularly interesting filming strategies. These two scenes are related to each other, showing the same characters in different situations and creating a circular narrative. In the first scene we see Nader and Simin at the court discussing their divorce case. The scene is shown from the judge’s point of view: we see them sitting next to each other and addressing the magistrate. They expose their situation and each one tries to assert their reasons. Since the figure of the judge is never shown, the characters look straight in the camera and their claims are virtually addressed to the audience which is directly called upon to hear their case and to judge them. In the final scene, we find them again in the same frame, although separated: they don’t speak and they silently wait for an answer. An answer that – we discover as the movie goes on – is not always taken for granted: more often there is no right and no wrong; everyone has some reasons and some faults.