FILM REVIEW: BRIDE FLIGHT

Frank (Waldemar Torenstra) and Esther (Anna Drjver) in Bride Flight.

Thresh beholdened

By Ed Rampell

Ben Sombogaart’s Bride Flight is a highly recommended adult movie. By this, I don’t mean that it’s porn – although it does have some eroticism and a glorious nude scene. Rather, I simply mean that this foreign film has mature subject matter and is for grownups who think. Bride Flight also has a fairly complex form that requires a sustained attention span, so it’s definitely not for mall rats intent on mindless action and escapism on multiplex screens. 

As its name implies, Bride Flight is indeed about wives-to-be who fly on the so-called “Last Great Air Race” from Europe to New Zealand back in 1953, when these globe straddling jaunts were very big adventures. The passengers aboard the KLM carrier that participated in and won this real life aerial contest included 40 Dutch immigrants, mostly women seeking to escape post-WWII Holland’s hardships by starting new lives at Christchurch, where their Dutch fiancés awaited them. A pretty offbeat premise, as far as plots are concerned.

The film focuses on three women and a man on this flight that, back in the 1950s, took days to make. Frank touches the lives of the trio, and although the émigrés’ existences become intertwined in their adapted country, they go on to lead very separate lives, yet remain intimately bound. In terms of Bride Flight’s complexity, it effortlessly shifts cinematically from past to present, so the romantic saga goes back and forth from the young to the aged immigrants. The technique requires viewers to focus on the unfolding saga, the way that Alain Resnais’ circa 1960 classics Last Year at Marienbad and Hiroshima, Mon Amour likewise bent time and continuity. 

Bride Flight therefore has two actors playing each major character -- 20-somethings for the new arrivals, seniors for the present day Dutch transplants. American audiences will be most familiar with the rugged Dutch action hero Rutger Hauer (1982’s Blade Runner, 2005’s Batman Begins, this year’s Hobo With a Shotgun) who portrays Frank. Waldemar Torenstra plays young Frank. Ada has married a religious zealot and is portrayed by nubile Karina Smulders, whose smoldering sex scene with Frank lights up the screen. Pleuni Touw depicts the older Ada.

As young Marjorie, Elise Schaap’s character makes the best marriage of the trio, although life tosses her a curveball, causing her to become obsessive and possessive. Petra Laseur plays petulant Marjorie as an older and perhaps wiser lady. Probably the most interesting character is Esther (Anna Drjver), a Jew who, unlike her family members, survived the Holocaust, although its lingering, PTSD-like effects continue, understandably, to haunt Esther. 

Esther retains a strong individualistic streak and along with the jealous Marjorie, shares a “deep dark secret.” Esther is a fashion designer. (Interestingly, Drjver is actually a runway model, so talk about tailor-made casting.) While movies and TV shows heavily favor certain professions -- crime fighters, doctors, journalists, attorneys and the like -- Frank’s career path is fairly unusual for motion picture protagonists, and another sign as to what an outstandingly unusual film Bride Flight is. 

Bride Flight's location shooting in New Zealand enhances the overall production, which is handsome to behold and drink in. Like most movies set and/or shot in the South Seas, the indigenous Islanders and their Islands serve mainly as backdrop for the really important doings of the Caucasoid stars. However, in Bride Flight it’s not even New Zealand’s dominant majority culture of white people or “Pakehas” of English origin who are featured; it’s a Dutch minority.

Nevertheless, this 130-minute, partially subtitled film is an excellent, well-crafted feature for auds who prefer their movies mature. Bride Flight is a realistic slice of life, albeit in an unusual milieu. Director Sombogaart’s Twin Sisters was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2004, and gazing into my crystal ball, I predict the same for Bride Flight, which has also earned some richly deserved prizes on the film festival circuit. Bride Flight, like fine wines, shows that films taste better when aged.

 

  

 

DVD REVIEW: IF I WANT TO WHISTLE, I WHISTLE

A scene from If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle.

While a jerk

By Don Simpson

Silviu (George Pistereanu) is an 18-year-old who has spent the last four years of his life in a ramshackle juvenile facility somewhere in the Romanian countryside. He is only a couple weeks away from freedom when his younger brother (Marian Bratu) drops by for a surprise visit with news that their absentee mother (Clara Voda) has reappeared back at home. Their mother intends to whisk Silviu’s brother off to Italy before Silviu’s release date and that plan does not bode well with Silviu. Up until this point, Silviu has built up a good reputation in prison; but a desperate urge to protect his younger brother is triggered, and Silviu begins crossing lines -- literally and figuratively -- that should never be crossed, especially if you are hoping to get out of juvie in two weeks.

Around the same time, an attractive female college student, Ana (Ada Condeescu), arrives at the prison to interview Silviu as part of a sociology research project. Silviu is instantly smitten with Ana -- so much so that he dreams of a future in which he picks up Ana from work and they fuck each other’s brains out in the car. Ah, the mind of a young romantic in love.

We learn very little of Silviu's family back-story -- and that is only during Silviu's brief yet fiery exchanges with his mother. We never learn why his mother left home many years ago or why Silviu is in prison, only that Silviu blames his mother for his current incarceration. We know that Silviu has forged his own moral compass and only abides by rules and logic that he deems worthy. As the title of the film suggests, Silviu will do what he wants when he wants to do it and Silviu throws one hell of a tantrum when things do not go his way. 

All of Silviu's choices supposedly revolve around the safety and well-being of his younger brother, but what good is Silviu's stint in juvie doing his brother? Who has been raising and caring for Silviu's brother during the last four years? And who will care for his younger brother if Silviu's sentence is lengthened for any of the risky choices that he is making? Silviu is willing to throw his own life away in order to keep his brother away from his mother, but what good would it do his younger brother to have no parent or older sibling to care for him? 

First-timewriter-director Florin Serban's adaptation of Andreea Valean's stage play is a taut and lean example of the Romanian social-realist style of filmmaking. If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle is an incredibly simple and unpretentious story, but maybe to a fault. Maybe if we knew a little more about Silviu's past and his younger brother's current situation, it would be easier to understand his motives? As it stands, Silviu comes off as a selfish, tunnel-visioned idiot who is unable to fathom the bigger picture. No matter how hard Serban tries, it will be very difficult to get an audience to sympathize with a character like Silviu.  

If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle won the Silver Bear and the Alfred Bauer Award at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival and was Romania’s official entry for the Academy Award.

HOLLYWOOD BRAZILIAN 2011: A FUGA DA MULHER GORILA

A scene from A Fuga da Mulher Gorila.

Time in the mi(d)st

By Don Simpson

The original title of co-directors Felipe Bragança and Marina Meliande’s film -- The Escape, Anger, Dance, Ass, Mouth, The Calm, the Gorilla Woman's Life -- is as nonsensical and free-flowing as the film itself. The film essentially ends in the same figurative place it begins, in media res, like a surrealist fantasy in which time has no influence on the events on screen. In fact, the passage of time is only recognizable by the linear passing of the gorilla costume from one character to the next.

The film’s two protagonists, sisters Flora (Flora Dias) and Morena (Morena Catonni), embark upon a journey across Brazil in an old Volkswagen Kombi van with no destination. Other than the need to earn money in order to afford the bare necessities (gasoline, food) for their trip, Flora and Morena have shed all other earthly chains. They are free to do what they want to do, whenever they want to do it. There is no purpose or deadline for this road trip. As it turns out, A Fuga da Mulher Gorila is an anti-road movie, or at least an elaborate deconstruction of one.

Dirty toilets, gas stations, oil refineries, beaches, forests, bodies of water, the interior of the van, the circus tent -- Flora and Morena are never influenced or affected by these spaces, the settings have absolutely no bearing on the narrative and are completely replaceable; even the actor (Alberto Moura Jr) who they pick-up is inconsequential to their actions -- merely a rag doll for the sisters to keep for a short while. It is as if Flora and Morena are acting on a sound stage and the scenery is just a trick of the eye. Yet, simultaneously, the surrounding environment is the only aspect of A Fuga da Mulher Gorila that is grounded in reality. The gorilla motif is an even more direct comment on the illusions created by light and mirrors (and cinema). Like a Georges Méliès film, a woman transforms into a guerrilla in front of our very eyes. The guerrilla costume, sequined bikini and low-budget circus sideshow tent is how Flora and Morena earn their modest income.

The seemingly nonsensical lyrics of their stream-of-consciousness songs are the truest clues we can gather about Flora and Morena’s thoughts, but these oblique puzzles are nearly impossible to decipher. Sometimes the words appear to be signs announcing what will happen in the future while other times the words are meant to allow us to delve deeper into the present or the past. Even spoken words and phrases (such as "no, no, he has a gun") are toyed with and repeated ad nauseum in order to reveal how different intonations, inflections and vocal frequencies will change the meaning. It is the words -- spoken and sung -- which present Bragança and Meliande’s incredibly unique film in a squishy bubble-wrap of insanity.

HOLLYWOOD BRAZILIAN 2011: BOLLYWOOD DREAM

A scene from Bollywood Dream.

Open up

By Don Simpson

Sofia (Nataly Cabanas), Ana (Paula Braun), Luna (Lorena Lobato) are unemployed Brazilian actresses with families whom they need to support. They travel to India to work in cinema...but, as far as airport customs knows, this trip is purely a spiritual journey. Upon arrival, Sofia, Ana and Luna discover that their hotel reservation has been cancelled; so they haggle the price of another hotel so low that it is difficult not to wonder if karma will come back to bite them.

The three Brazilian actresses are in search of a Bollywood producer, but he is not at the address listed on his business card. Not ones to give up very easily, they recruit a young dance instructor (Mohana Krishna) and an actress (Geetha Satish) to coach them until their big Bollywood break comes along. Sofia, Ana and Luna are prone to arguing and haggling and find themselves repeatedly clashing with Indian culture. Their difficult struggle to find their way commences, but their way does not follow the same meandering path as their destiny. No matter how hard they fight it, their destiny always prevails over their way. Maybe they should not have lied to airport customs after all -- perhaps this is a spiritual awakening?

Writer-director Beatriz Seigner’s Bollywood Dream is a colorful and musical meditation on three Brazilian women who find themselves far away from their native land. Seigner showcases the drastic cultural differences between Brazilians and Indians, but there does appear to be one similarity: the exploitation of women in the entertainment industry. It seems as though actresses are viewed as sexual objects even in Bollywood. What on earth would Radha have to say about that?

FILM REVIEW: CAMERAMAN JACK CARDIFF

A scene from Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff.

Lighting the ways

By Don Simpson

Jack Cardiff’s work in cinema spanned nine decades, starting as an actor in My Son, My Son (1918) and ending his career as visual effects coordinator and art director on Silence Becomes You (2005). Cardiff began working as clapper boy and assistant camera in 1929. By 1935 Cardiff became a camera operator and by 1938 he was a full-fledged cinematographer. In 1948, Cardiff won his first Oscar for his Technicolor cinematography on Black Narcissus; 43 years later, Cardiff became the first cinematographer ever presented with an Honorary Oscar for “exceptional distinction in lifetime achievement; exceptional contributions to the state of motion picture arts and sciences; and for outstanding services to the Academy."

In his documentary, Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff, director Craig McCall allows Cardiff -- who died on April 22, 2009 -- to tell much of his own story. Cardiff explains how he helped elevate cinematography to an art form with his unique vision and technical wizardry in Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, Scott of the Antarctic, The African Queen, The Vikings...and the list goes on. Cardiff’s biography finds itself fatefully intertwined with the history of Technicolor, particularly Technicolor Europe and Technicolor in the UK. While Hollywood mainly reserved the use of Technicolor film for musicals and large outdoor productions, British filmmakers -- especially Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger -- utilized Technicolor much differently, thanks in no small part to Cardiff’s keen kino eye.

But who gives a hoot about the art of cinematography? So, Cardiff also gives the audience what he suspects they really want, tales about what it was like to work with Cinema’s greatest icons: Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Kirk Douglas and Sophia Loren.

McCall calls upon Martin Scorsese to explain to the audience why Cardiff’s films are so important in the context of the history of cinema while illustrating how Cardiff’s oeuvre not only influenced his own vision, but his peers, like Brian DePalma, Francis Ford Coppola as well. McCall sporadically turns to Douglas and Charlton Heston for additional support.

As the saying goes, a picture speaks a thousand words; and the most moving sections of Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff occur when the pontificating stops and the stunning High Definition clips from Cardiff’s resume are able to speak, albeit visually, for themselves. If anything, Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff gave me the urge to seek out more of Cardiff’s work (especially his directorial efforts) and re-watch (on the largest screen if possible) the films that I have already seen from his resume, namely A Matter of Life & Death, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, The African Queen and War & Peace. However, I will gladly forgo another viewing of Rambo: First Blood Part II.

HOLLYWOOD BRAZILIAN 2011: POR EL CAMINO

A scene from Por El Camino.

Sparks-a-flowing

By Don Simpson

This minimalist road movie takes Santiago (Esteban Feune de Colombi), a 30-year-old redheaded Argentinean, across Uruguay from Montevideo to Punta del Este in search of a tract of land he inherited from his deceased parents. Early in his journey, Santiago meets a Belgian woman, Juliette (Jill Mulleady), and they experience the gorgeous Uruguayan countryside together, meeting random locals along the way. Juliette speaks French, Santiago speaks Spanish and English is their common language.

Juliette traveled all the way to Uruguay in search of an old flame who resides in a hippie commune in Rocha, but it is not long before we recognize that she and Santiago have organically developed into more than mere travel companions. Unfortunately, Santiago is totally blind to that revelation; he does not know what he has in Juliette until she is long gone. Santiago is left with the question: How difficult will it be to find a Belgian woman in Rocha?

Writer-director Charly Braun utilizes a very simple narrative structure that is grounded in reality by Bruno Alzaga and Pablo Ramos’ “life caught unawares” cinematography. Por El Camino is as much a piece of ethnographic journalism as it is a love story between a Belgian and an Argentinian in Uruguay. It is readily apparent that Braun is motivated to reveal a wide array of real Uruguayans in their natural habitats, as we observe them via the eyes of his film’s foreign protagonists.

Por El Camino features a beguiling soundtrack that mixes Latin American music with popular Western European artists such as Donovan, Radiohead and Sigur Rós.

HOLLYWOOD BRAZILIAN 2011: ROSA MORENA

Thomas (Anders W. Berthelsen) in Rosa Morena.

The kids of Brazil

By Miranda Inganni

Middle-aged, Danish and gay, Thomas (Anders W. Berthelsen) desperately wants a baby. Unfortunately, Danish law makes that quite difficult for him, so he heads to Brazil to see his old friend, Jakob (David Dencik), and his wife, Tereza (Vivianne Pasmanter). It's here that Thomas learns that when the legal route fails, there may be another way to secure a child.  

Maria (Bárbara Garcia), a beautiful Brazilian can't afford her unborn baby so she and Thomas enter into an agreement that should benefit everyone, but when human emotions, selfishness and an overly protective boyfriend, Denilson (Pablo Rodrigues), get involved, things get ugly.

Directed by Carlos Augusto de Oliveira, the Danish-Brazilian Rosa Morena teeters on the verge of being a sweet and touching film. Unfortunately, it's hard to feel much sympathy for Maria. She can't seem to quit the drink while carrying her child, nor does she show much maternal instinct for the rest of the children in her brood. And Thomas is quite clueless -- apparently losing himself in familial feelings while finding a fondness for females, all the while burning through his bank account.

Politically sensitive to the issue of "purchasing Third World babies", the closing night film for the Hollywood Brazilian Film Festival is a smart drama featuring fine acting.