DVD REVIEW: ILLEGAL

A scene from Illégal.

Belgium ail

By Don Simpson

A former French teacher in Russia, Tania (Anne Coesens), and her son, Ivan (Alexandre Gontcharov), have come to live in Belgium as illegal immigrants. Tania must rely on her corrupt landlord, Mr. Nowak (Tomasz Bialkowski), to provide her with an apartment as well as forged documents so that she can work as a janitor.

Tania knows that this charade will not last forever but continues to hold on to the hope that the Belgian government will approve her request for permanent residence. When Tania receives the letter from the Belgian government officially declining her request, she drowns her sorrows in vodka -- the vodka serves a dual purpose of dulling the pain as she subsequently burns her fingerprints off with an iron (an act that serves as a clue to the audience that Tania knows that her arrest is imminent).

It is not much longer before Tania is captured by the police and imprisoned in a holding facility for illegal immigrants. Ivan is kept free and safe by Tania’s friend, Zina (Olga Zhdanova). Unwilling to divulge her true identity -- to avoid deportation and to keep Ivan safe -- Tania attempts to navigate her way back to Ivan and freedom.

Recently Belgium's Oscar entry for Best Film in a Foreign Language, it is not without irony that Film Movement scheduled the DVD release of Illégal the day after Independence Day in the United States, as writer-director Olivier Masset-Depasse’s film presents an age old international dilemma that continues to strip human beings of their personal freedoms. Unfortunately, Masset-Depasse’s only explanation of why we should discontinue the jailing of innocent people -- who are merely performing their integral yet unsatisfying and grossly underpaid roles in the capitalist system -- is the ridiculous over-zealousness of the government officials in chasing down and punishing undocumented immigrants. By not offering any justification for Tania’s move from Russia -- where she was presumably well-educated and adequately employed as a teacher -- to Belgium -- where she is forced to the bottom of the employment pool -- Masset-Depasse fails to convince us why Tania should be granted the Belgian residence papers that she hopelessly desires. In his failure to effectively explain Tania’s situation, Masset-Depasse seems to be suggesting that anyone should be able to live and work anywhere in the world -- an extreme and overly idealistic suggestion that could only work if we were living in a Utopian fantasy world. Under our current economic environment, this solution is totally unfeasible.

Masset-Depasse sacrifices a fruitful discussion on immigration issues in lieu of a profound feminist manifesto in which he focuses on the masculinity of the government officials and the femininity of the captives. Tania is a woman helplessly struggling to survive in an oppressive world ruled by violent and fear-mongering men. The women whom Tania encounters -- including a few female guards -- are incredibly supportive and helpful, while the men are all close-minded and one-dimensional. It is also not without purpose that Ivan is, for all intents and purposes, fatherless. Being raised solely by women provides Ivan with the hope of developing into a well-rounded and sympathetic human being, rather than an angry and pigheaded man.

DVD REVIEW: SASHA

Sasha (Sasa Kekez) in Sasha.

Croatia coming out

By John Esther

Released today on DVD, Sasha tells a very familiar story about a gay teenager, Sasha (Sasa Kekez), who must hide his feelings for members of the same sex from his family while overexposing his feelings toward a mentor with heart of cold, Gebhard (Tim Bergmann).

The son of Croatian parents living in German, at the insistence of his mother (Zeljka Preksavec) Sasha has been taking piano lessons from Gebhard. Dad (Pedja Bjelac) is not too pleased with his son endeavoring in anything has effeminate and effete as artistic endeavors, but lets it slide because Sasha has a “girlfriend,” Jiao (Yvonne Yung-Hee), who is also a musician training for the same upcoming all-important audition.

Already unnerved by living in the closet, Sasha starts to unravel when Gebhard tells him he is leaving for Austria. Sasha, in his adolescence naïvete believed he and Gebhard would always be together, even if Gebhard never showed any type of emotional reciprocation to Sasha.

When Sasha relates his brother heart to Jiao, she has her own emotional panic as she has strong feelings for Sasha. Obviously she, like Dad and dimwit Uncle Boki (Jasin Mjumjunov) has no gaydar. But Sasha's mother and younger brother (Ljubisa Lupo Grujcic) do -- although they do not dare say the words out loud.
Written and directed by Dennis Todorovic, Sasha does not breaking any narrative frontiers. There are plenty of coming out stories these days and the ending here is quite conventional and some of the dialogue rings hollow. However, the fine acting, pace and score make it worthwhile viewing, not enough to buy the DVD (which does not seem to offer any bonus features), but catching it via cable or Netflix should work.

SXSW 2011: INSIDE AMERICA

A scene from Inside America.

Deep Southland tales

By Don Simpson

Metal detectors welcome us to Hanna High School in Brownsville, Texas. Then, on the other side of the threshold, we are greeted by police monitors and drug dogs in the hallways. Trust is not a virtue to be found in Hanna High School -- the one thing that the rich and the poor students have in common (other than the American flag that they must pledge their allegiance to on a daily basis) is that they are all bad.

Otherwise, director Barbara Eder’s Inside America works as an analysis of juxtapositions.

The film starts as a group of poor teenagers steal beer from a neighborhood convenience store; then we cut to an ROTC drill squad raising the U.S. flag in front of the high school. Later the ROTC drill squad’s maneuvers are juxtaposed with cheerleader practice and the loud arguing between the poor teens is juxtaposed with the barking orders of the ROTC drill squad. Poor students in ESL classes are juxtaposed with rich students in modeling class. Broken homes -- kids living with foster parents, grandparents or drugged-out parents -- are juxtaposed with the overbearing parents of the rich kids. The poor kids get bad grades and have bad attendance records while the rich kids appear to be passing their classes just fine. Most importantly, the rich kids are U.S. citizens and the poor kids are illegal immigrants or at least do not have a social security number.

As we learn during one of the classes, the students are taught that even the poor and underprivileged can realize the American dream (you know, the old Victorian house with a white picket fence). They can be a part of it; work their way up from the bottom to the top. Who knows how they will be able to do that without social security numbers -- especially if the political right enacts more state laws similar to the Arizona immigration law (SB1070). One of the more humorous (albeit tinged with bitterness) moments is when one of the ROTC students is asked to describe the American way of life. He responds: “Following orders.”

Eder focuses primarily on six high schoolers: Patty (Patty Barrera) lives with her two grandmothers (Cary Gonzalez and Jovita Gonzalez), she is turning 18 soon and her family is trying to set her up with a good (religious and wealthy) boy (Eduardo Aramburo) from church; Patty is dating Manni (Raul Juarez), a tortilla factory worker who lives with his mother (Criselda Argullin), a drug addict; Zuly (Zuleyma Jaime) is trying to figure out where she is going to live once she turns 18 and must leave her foster home; Aimee (Aimeé Lizette Saldivar) is the head cheerleader, frontrunner in the ”most beautiful” contest at Hanna High, and heavy cocaine user; Aimee’s boyfriend, Carlos (Carlos Benavides), is an anti-immigrant ROTC student who enjoys shooting his paint gun at freaked-out bystanders while speeding around town in his big ass truck; Ricky (Luis De Los Santos) is a shy and naive nerdy kid who gets picked on in school and hopelessly tries to sell cookies so that he can travel with the rest of the school choir to Disney World.

Eder’s feature film debut is a raw, brutal and jaded perspective of Brownsville and, from what I have heard about Brownsville, it is pretty damn near spot on. Inside America is based on Eder’s -- a native Austrian -- experiences as an exchange student in Brownsville in 1994. Eder dedicates herself to discovering the truth in this story by utilizing non-actors -- real gang members, beauty contestants and illegal immigrants. Inside America is very clearly a critique of an outsider looking in (Eder seems intent on revealing herself as an outsider by way of the film’s soundtrack), but sometimes it does take someone as far removed as Eder to show the people living inside America the truth.