film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Ray Lobo

  • Carmen And Lola: Review

    Carmen And Lola: Review

    Director Arantxa Echevarría’s Carmen and Lola opens with a stunning scene of Carmen (Rosy Rodriguez) in a very ornate outfit, about to be presented as a wife to another family within Madrid’s Roma community.  What gives the scene its power is cinema’s unique ability to blend the visual, auditory, and narrative.  We witness Carmen sitting on a bed looking stone-faced and gloomy, decked out in the fanciest of outfits as we hear a chorus of people singing off camera, “que guapa esta la novia” (“The bride, she is so pretty”).  The cinematic language is clear—Carmen’s future is orchestrated by her community; but she is not excited about her dictated future. 

    The community may be overjoyed but Carmen is not.  Echevarría continues to drive her thematic point through cinematic language in the subsequent scenes.  We see chunks of butchered meat, fruits, vegetables, vendors advertising their produce in singsong announcements to passersby, negotiating prices by the kilo.  Carmen works in an open-air market with her parents.  Her body is a commodity just like the produce sold at the market, which–based on her looks, her family’s reputation, and her abilities as a future housewife and mother—will fetch a certain price and will solidify family allegiances within her community.  But it is in this same market that she meets the daughter of another vendor, Lola (Zaira Morales).  And it is there, in the heart of where commodities are exchanged, that Carmen and Lola find secret spots, talk, share a smoke, and take the first steps in their love affair.  

    Lola’s family clings to her Roma heritage and are very religious.  Lola, however, knows she is a lesbian even while surrounded by messages portraying gay or lesbian relations as sinful.  Carmen, on the other hand, suffers from an internal dilemma.  She knows she is attracted to Lola, but still has retains remnants of a heteronormative ideology that makes her question her relation with Lola.  Adding to Carmen’s dilemma is her impending marriage to a man handpicked by her parents.  

    The building in which Lola and a large number of her fellow Roma live is flanked by a police tower.  The tower serves the dual purpose of monitoring the nearby highway and the building.  Lola and Carmen feel trapped both by a community that prescribes very rigid gender roles and sexual preferences and a police state that keeps a panopticon-like eye on “dangerous” communities.  They long for escape.  In what is perhaps the tenderest scene in their love story, Carmen asks Lola how they are going to pull off being together.  Lola innocently answers that they are simply going to “love each other.”  After they love each other, one is left to wonder—then what?  

    Carmen and Lola is undeniably a sweet love story.  Echevarría is also very good at plunging the viewer into the rituals and customs of the Roma community.  It must be said, however, that there is no new narrative wrinkle etched by Echevarría.  The film is a rehash of the timeless story of lovers longing for each other in the face of forces—family and community—trying to pull them apart.  Some characters are very one-dimensional.  Lola’s father spends nearly the whole movie in the typical brutal father mode of anger and aggression.  Some of the metaphors for escape—birds, planes, and the sea—are also overused rehashes.  Once we witness the scenes that transmit the culture that Carmen and Lola inhabit, once we witness the tenderness in their relationship, we have to ask the question that hangs over Carmen and Lola’s unoriginal narrative—then what?

           

  • The Human Factor: Review

    The Human Factor: Review

    The news coming out of Israel and Gaza is as dire as ever.  The events of these past two weeks could develop into the biggest conflict in decades between Israelis and Palestinians.  Director Dror Moreh’s documentary The Human Factor recalls what was perhaps the decade that held the most hope for a peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the 90s.  The Human Factor delights those of us fascinated by international relations and diplomacy to insider accounts given by the negotiators and mediators who were in the room with American, Israeli, Syrian, and Palestinian leaders as they attempted to work on a lasting peace. 

    The machinations of Israeli, Palestinian, Syrian, and even the “honest broker” American delegations are outlined by veteran diplomats as peace negotiations shifted from Oslo to Geneva to Camp David.  The Human Factor brims over with stories and insights by the likes of diplomatic heavyweights such as Martin Indyk, Robert Malley, Aaron Miller, and Dennis Ross.  One of the most insightful comments comes from the interpreter and diplomat Gamal Helal.  According to Helal, diplomacy comes down to an all too human factor, language.  As he puts it, the word “future” means very different things for Israelis and Arabs.  For Israelis, “future” means that which comes after the present.  For Arabs, any talk of “future” is connected with mending the injustices of the past. 

    Diplomacy is a chess game.  What The Human Factor does exceedingly well is that it clearly articulates how the outcome of this chess game—one that effects the lives of millions—comes down to the intimate trust and cooperation of individuals forged by sitting in a room, negotiating details both big and small, while sharing a cup of coffee or sharing a meal.  The chess metaphor is admittedly an imperfect one.  Chess involves two players, competing head-to-head, until an outcome emerges.  Peace diplomacy is a long-term game played out along different peace summits by a revolving door of players.  In the 90s, the only two constants were from the Palestinian and Syrian sides—Yasser Arafat and Hafez al-Assad. 

    On the American side, there was a shift in personalities and tones from George H. W. Bush and his Secretary of State James Baker to Bill Clinton and his Secretary of State Warren Christopher.  On the Israeli side, each time the door revolved, the new individual in power marked a sudden shift in temperament—from Yitzhak Rabin to Shimon Peres to Bibi Netanyahu to Ehud Barak.  As if all of this were not complicated enough, each of these individuals faced the pressure of advancing peace while trying to maintain the national interests of their respective countries while also feeling the pressure of reactionary forces within their own countries.  In the case of Rabin, the signing of a peace accord cost him his life at the hands of a domestic right-wing extremist. 

    The Human Factor should be required viewing for students of international relations or even those struggling to understand the current state of Israeli-Palestinian relations.  Peace requires a long-term outlook.  Working toward lasting peace is the equivalent of building a cathedral.  It requires agonizing labor by many hands across generations.  But here again, metaphors and language fail.  The word “peace” connotes a final resting place, an ultimate calm, a convivial utopia.  In the case of Israelis and Palestinians, realistic expectations are necessary.  “Peace,” in their case, may just be an uneasy accommodation.  Given the last two weeks, even an uneasy accommodation seems worlds away.

  • Apples: Review

    Apples: Review

    We do not yet fully understand how memory works.  Why do certain moments in our lives stick in our memory while others do not, why do we unintentionally fabricate memories, why do we forget certain film plots and endings?  Memory has been explored in films like Memento and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to name just a couple.  Memory and film go together.  Director Christos Nikou’s debut film Apples examines the human condition by way of two of its most basic components—memory and identity.   

    The film opens with a repetitive thudding sound.  We realize it is our protagonist (Aris Servetalis) banging his head against a wall.  A few scenes later he rides a bus.  At the end of the bus route the bus driver asks him if he knows where he wants to go.  He has no idea.  He seems to have lost all memory of who he is.  No identification is found on him and he ends up in a hospital ward specialized in cases of amnesia.  In a very Kafkaesque scene, he is assigned a bureaucratic identity—patient 14842.  14842 knows that without a proper name/identity he cannot obtain a passport or even be hired for a job.  No friends or family claim him. 

    Apparently, 14842 is one of a growing number of cases in a sudden outbreak of amnesia in Greece.  Hospital officials decide 14842 is a perfect candidate for an identity reintegration program by which amnesiacs follow orders from a pre-recorded training program that sets them on a path toward beginning a new life.  The tapes command 14842 to ride a bike, have a one-night stand, and even to join a protest—the type of “memorable” life experiences that forge one’s identity.  14842, curiously enough, faithfully follows the tape’s orders.  We are left wondering if he really lost his memory or if there is something else going on with him.  

    To Nikou’s credit, Apples manages the difficult trick of balancing between serious meditation and absurdist deadpan.  This balance is made possible by Aris Servetalis’s wonderful performance.  If the direction, the deadpan humor, delivery of dialogue, and overall look of the film seems very much like a Yorgos Lanthimos film, then you are not off.  Nikou served as Lanthimos’s assistant director on Dogtooth.  If there is any fault to be found in Apples, it lays precisely in Lanthimos’s influence.  If one did not know who directed Apples, one’s first assumption would be Lanthimos.  One wishes that Nikou would have given us a bit more of his own vision.  Thankfully, the Lanthimos style is one that is endlessly watchable.    

    Apples scores high marks in different categories—drama, comedy, arthouse.  Apples may not be allegorical and should be taken at face value; however, it works best when one plays with its allegorical possibilities.  Is Nikou making a statement about how ideology works and how we unthinkingly obey it so as to find a grounding in our identity?  Is he making a statement about societies not remembering trauma in a substantive way?  Is he making a statement about contemporary Greece and its short historical memory, a statement about our contemporary societies and their lack of long-term historical awareness?  We do not know; but that is fine. 

    This uncertainty makes Apples all that much more of a good watch.  A very real-life possibility hovers over all of us at the present moment.  Will we remember this pandemic experience—all the trauma felt by many, the inequalities it exposed in their starkest form, and the political failings it exposed—once we fully conquer Covid.  Apples sets you on a path toward asking these questions.              

  • Knots: A Forced Marriage Story – Review

    Knots: A Forced Marriage Story – Review

    Young girls being forced to marry is a practice usually attributed to other countries.  Knots:  A Forced Marriage Story documents the stories of three American women forced to marry at young ages.  Director Kate Ryan Brewer expertly balances their personal stories while enlightening the viewer on the issue of underage forced marriages.  The sad reality is that while most Americans assume that this does not happen within their borders, the practice has been legally—yes legally– occurring in the United States right under the noses of most Americans, and it is shockingly widespread.

    Nina Van Harn, Sara Tasneem, and Fraidy Reiss reside in different parts of the United States.  They had different religious upbringings.  In all three of their stories, however, there is a marked convergence between the religions of their upbringing and a suffocating patriarchal ideology.  Var Harn, now an adult, reflects that as a child she had to do whatever her father thought fit.  All three women were educated to believe that their gender role required them to be good wives and homemakers, and nothing more beyond that.  Tasneem’s odyssey was one that involved her marrying a man chosen by her father and getting pregnant by the age of sixteen. 

    Reiss’s story was reminiscent of the show Unorthodox.   It involved her parents hiring a matchmaker that found a partner suitable enough for her parents.  Reiss soon discovered that her husband was terribly abusive.  It is Reiss that gives us the most detailed description of the ideological worldview that traps young girls.  She notes that the early grooming that young girls are put through—gender specific schooling, homemaker training, restricting contact to only coreligionists—works more effectively than holding a gun to someone’s head and forcing them to marry.  If you get them early enough, young girls internalize the patriarchal ideology fed to them.  And of course, the biggest punishment is not necessarily physical, it is ostracism from the religious community.  

    Knots lays out the legal and structural landscape that allows underage forced marriages.  While sex between a minor and an adult is considered statutory rape in all states, all it takes in some states for an adult to marry a child is a letter from a parent granting permission.  The United States offers a patchwork of different loopholes and exceptions in the legal systems of different states that allow adults to marry minors.  It is not uncommon for parents to do Google searches aimed at finding states with the laxest laws in order to marry off their daughters. 

    For those who wonder why the United States would legally allow the forced marriage of minors, the answer may lie in the country’s historical unease with sexuality.  As one expert in Knots explains, the origin of all this may lie in the fact that in the 50s the country was very concerned with girls having sex or getting pregnant outside of marriage.  When parents had evidence that their daughters were having sex or had gotten pregnant, the solution was usually a shotgun wedding, regardless of age.  

    As dire as the legal landscape may seem, activists such as Reiss have been tireless in their efforts to close loopholes.  There has been some progress in states like Virginia.  In most states, however, progress has been slow.  Ideologies involving women’s sexuality and patriarchy are quite anchored in the American legal and political system.  For those who find it silly to historically link the Salem Witch Trials to present day America, Van Harn gives evidence that traces of America’s sexual past can still be detected in the present. 

    Her coreligionists instilled in her the beliefs that God was male and that any deviation in her behavior was evidence of her being a witch.  One cannot help but think that the latter belief is ludicrous while the former, in 2021, is well on its way to being ludicrous.              

  • Undine: Review

    Undine: Review

    Christian Petzold’s Undine is the film equivalent of mercury; it is difficult to pin down.  As the film unfolds, it shapeshifts from drama, to romance, to allegory, to fantasy.  Its mutability is precisely what makes it compelling.  The mortar that holds everything together is Undine Wibeau (Paula Beer).  Undine works in the office of Urban Development and Housing.  She is a historian who gives talks on the history of Berlin to guests and tourists.  She is professional and in total control of her subject; yet her personal life is falling apart.  

    The film opens with a shot of Undine in the midst of processing some terrible news.  Johannes (Jacob Matschenz) announces he has a new woman in his life and is breaking up with Undine.  Undine is shattered.  From there, the story gradually becomes more and more fantastical.  Undine has a chance encounter with Christoph (Franz Rogowski) involving an incident with a fish tank.  Post-fish tank, she and Christoph profoundly fall for each other.  Revealing more of the plot would ruin the magic of Petzold’s narrative; and it is precisely this magic, one expertly employed by Petzold, that is capable of seducing even the most hardened and cynical film realist.  If one lets their realist guard down, Undine will seduce you with its siren call.  

    Petzold is no stranger to collaborating with lead actresses.  His collaborations with Nina Hoss (Yella, Jerichow, and Barbara) brought to the screen some of the most complex female characters in the last two decades of European cinema.  Petzold has once again struck gold with his lead actress.  Paula Beer seems capable of doing everything and doing it exceptionally.  In one scene she is emotionally devasted, in the next she has to put on her brave professional face and give a history of Berlin to tourists.  Beer totally convinces us that she has had her heart shattered; hence, we wish we could step into the screen and comfort her.  She is able to conjure empathy in us.  We do not want her to be hurt again.  When she is bought brought back to life by Christoph—both figuratively and literally—her smile is like a powerplant capable of powering the whole of Berlin.  Beer captures that bittersweet feeling of departure and longing in the early stages of love.  She also captures that moment when you realize you have committed a huge mistake and your relationship is on the verge of collapse.  We could spend hours watching Beer on screen.  It should be no surprise she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival for her performance in Undine.   

    Undine is textually a folk tale and a romance.  Sub-textually, Undine is about how cities interact with, connect, and transform us.  We inhabit cities like Berlin, and they inhabit us.  Cities have their flows and rhythms—drainage systems, traffic patterns, architectures, lunchtimes, happy hours, closing times.  Cities also have their blockages.  These flows and blockages fuse onto us.  This is no mere philosophical abstraction.  Anyone caught in a traffic bottleneck or enjoying a smooth ride on a city subway can appreciate in a very tangible way how cities inhabit us through their blockages and flows.  Cities like Berlin have been mapped out, planned, they have grown, collapsed, and been rebuilt.  Berlin’s destruction after WWII and the GDR’s collapse were cataclysmic events felt by city and inhabitants.  Cities can never be completed.  They are assemblages in constant transformation.  In that sense, they are just like us.  Our lives, just like Undine’s, are always in a state of expansion, contraction, rebuilding, and transformation.  

    Petzold has given us a beautiful tale about a woman and a city.  Everything in Undine is liquid, it flows.  The city flows into the personal lives of inhabitants, the inhabitants flow with objects—trains, fish tanks, turbines.  Cities, objects, and individuals all inter-act in Undine.  One cannot help but think of another German, Martin Heidegger.  Undine is Heideggerian in showing us how everything fits in a meaningful network of purposes, functions, individuals, and lives experiencing the rhythms of existence, lives like Undine’s.