SLIFF 2008: Days and Clouds

2007 // Italy // Silvio Soldini // November 21, 2008 // Theatrical Print (Landmark Plaza Frontenac Cinema)

There's both a sickening voyeurism and an endearing, if unreasonable, hopefulness at work in Silvio Soldini's brutal relationship drama Days and Clouds. With a sadist's talent for stomach-flipping emotional turmoil and an eye for tragic entropy, Soldini captures a discomfiting portrait of a middle-age relationship in decline. The marriage of wealthy professionals Michele (Antonio Albanese) and Elsa (Margherita Buy) begins to disintegrate overnight when he reveals that he was fired two months ago. Out goes the townhouse and Elsa's academic ambitions as an art historian, not to mention the couple's fragile illusion of marital peace. Crushed by economic realities that are alien in their privileged experience—a meager lifestyle, long hours in demeaning jobs, a grubby flat—Michele's apathy and Elsa's resentment grow. Soldini doesn't evoke much sympathy for the pair, especially Michele, but he exhibits a morbid fascination with the poisonous nature of denial and silly pride. While the story is fitful, even dreary at times, it possesses an ugly authenticity, reflecting the haphazard realities of mature lives in perpetual crisis. Ultimately, Days and Clouds compels in the manner of a horrific, slow-motion calamity, leaving us wondering if anyone will emerge from the wreckage intact.

SLIFF 2008: The Minder

2006 // Argentina // Rodrigo Moreno // November 21, 2008 // Theatrical Print (Landmark Plaza Frontenac Cinema)

Gently simmering, almost minimalist, Rodrigo Moreno's quietly absorbing The Minder is a film that demands profound patience. The narrative is simplicity itself: We follow Ruben (Julio Chávez), a bodyguard for a government minister (Osmar Núñez), as he goes about his daily routine. Shot entirely from Ruben's perspective, the film captures with gnawing focus the dull and demeaning nature of living in another man's shadow, forever hovering outside rooms and idling in cars. We learn of economic crises and family troubles through snatches of overheard conversation, but the backgrounding of these concerns highlights the film's interest in Ruben's personal angst. They footnote the film's "action"—Ruben standing, Ruben waiting—and draw our gaze to Chávez's wonderfully modulated performance. Moreno leavens the dreary routine with moments of private unpleasantness: Ruben's flaky sister, his romantic loneliness, his talent for drawing (eventually paraded for the minister's amusement). The Minder rewards sensitivity to fine narrative details and emotional subtleties. When the concluding twist arrives—don't fret, one does arrive—it seems entirely fitting. There's a bit of thematic rattle to the film, possessing as it does such wide open spaces for contemplation, but it only lightly diminishes The Minder's astute cinematic vigor.

SLIFF 2008: Ben X

2007 // Belgium - Netherlands // Nic Balthazar // November 21, 2008 // Theatrical Print (Landmark Plaza Frontenac Cinema)

From its loopy credit sequence—presented as though the film were an online fantasy role-playing game—it's apparent that Ben X relies on first-time director Nic Balthazar's assured familiarity with its narrative elements. Based on his own novel, the film confidently tackles subjects that should be challenging to translate to cinema: video games, digital socializing, and the daily tribulations of Asberger Syndrome. Looking suspiciously twenty-something and relying too heavily on bug-eyed cowering, Greg Timmermans portrays Ben, a withdrawn kid who is only comfortable in an online RPG. Indeed, Ben approaches the real world as a game, a strategy that enables him to navigate relentless bullying and social confusion. With furious, often flailing stylization, Balthazar shows us a cruel, overwhelming world through Ben's eyes, while snippets of grave talking heads foretell that Something Bad will happen. Although Timmermans' cartoonish presence never quite solidifies Ben's profound agony, Ben X searingly engages as it follows his conflict with a pair of sociopathic thugs and his quest to meet up with an online romantic prospect (Laura Verlinden). Unfortunately, the film's novel style and potent aura of despair unravel when Balthazar starts cutting corners for a twist conclusion that's both implausible and cheaply moralizing.

SLIFF 2008: Stranded

2008 // France // Gonzalo Arijon // November 19, 2008 // Theatrical Print (Landmark Tivoli Theater)

The overdue documentary response to Frank Marshall's 1993 drama, Alive, Stranded conveys with profound respect and tremendous upwellings of emotion the story of the Andes flight disaster. It's a survival tale seemingly so familiar that the human power that underlies is often forgotten. Director Gonzalo Arijon seeks to rectify this with a stirring, sublime film that focuses on the first-hand experience of the sixteen survivors. Emulating Errol Morris with stylized recreations and an absence of narration, Arijon allows the survivors to convey the story of the crash and the ordeal that followed, dwelling not only on the grisly choices they made, but also on the sheer uncanniness of their situation. The survivors recall the details of their trial with stunning clarity, and Arijon delicately frames their meticulous remembrances and their sobering meditations on life and death. Time and again, the men profiled in Stranded return to the notion that the world in the Andes was a New World, different from the world of family, friends, and comfort they left behind. Exhibiting a mysterious blend of pain and ecstasy, they speak of sacrifice, death, and resurrection with the authority of saints. What a powerful film.

SLIFF 2008: The Pope's Toilet

2007 // Uruguay // César Charlone and Enrique Fernández // November 19, 2008 // Theatrical Print (Landmark Tivoli Theater)

The Pope's Toilet functions as both a wild-eyed melodrama and a rather pointed anti-papal jab. Directors César Charlone and Enrique Fernández rely on an apposite bitterness for the emotional foundation of their film. And why not?: There's nothing to suggest that this desperate, occasionally witty tale of a small-town Uruguayan smuggler and his get-rich-quick scheme—involving a pay toilet and Pope John Paul II's 1988 visit to the region—will end happily. César Troncoso delivers an engaging turn as Beto, a grasping, defeated little man who seems incapable of thinking beyond the next week, despite his airy ambitions. However, The Pope's Toilet calls out for a more appealing protagonist; Beto's venality only seems mild compared to the corrupt border official who bedevils him. More interesting than their clumsy characterization is Charlone and Fernández's ambivalence about the role of Catholicism in Uruguayan society. The pontiff's visit is little more than a financial opportunity for Beto and his fellow villagers, one that proves ultimately hollow. The Pope's Toilet asserts with a sharpness born of disillusionment that even the tangible blessings of Catholic faith are farcical, mere honeyed promises that do little to alleviate poverty.

SLIFF 2008: Konkakt

2005 // Macedonia // Sergej Stanojkovski // November 19, 2008 // Theatrical Print (Landmark Plaza Frontenac Cinema)

The ragged comedic swagger of Sergej Stanojkovski's marvelous Kontakt is a complement to the tragic realism of Aditya Assarat's Wonderful Town. This fable of challenging, unlikely love in a contemporary Macedonia of slate skies and festering wounds ambles along with a soulful awareness of human misery. The avaricious schemes of a relation brings together two social castoffs: Habitual convict Janko (Nikola Kojo) grudgingly accepts a job to renovate the dilapidated villa where Zana (Labina Mitevska) convalesces after three years in a mental institution. They immediately dislike one another. However, this is not the convenient, overwrought antagonism of a screwball comedy, but a plausible defense thrown up by souls fed a diet of mistrust, anxiety, and hostility. Kontakt weaves in other narrative threads as well as Macedonian cultural and historical embellishments, but the odd relationship between Janko and Zana is at the forefront of the film. With bouts of dark chuckles and an effortless hand, Stanojkovski renders their fitful romance so gradually its believability fades away as a concern. Never mind that portly Janko is a violent misanthrope, or that skinny Zana is an emotional cripple. The first time Janko utters the word "sweetheart"—almost off-handedly—one's heart thrills.