ALAMAR

(Pedro González-Rubio; Mexico; 2009)


An extremely straightforward premise – a man and his son spend time at man's father's hut in a fishing village – they fish, the hang out with a bird, they cook, eat, watch the wildlife, spend time painting the hut-on-stilts-in-the-sea that is their temporary home for the film. And that's about it. But this is not some contrived piece of art-wank – its fresh and honest portrayal of the gentle and very deep bond that father and son share, and an stunning depiction of how this bond is cemented even further through their communion with nature and the sea. Filled with moments predicated on the art of finding simple joys in the environment around you, this film is never cloying and has a brightness to it that matches the crystal blue sea and sky it so often depicts. The film is also enriched with a tender ache in knowing that there is an impending change in their future relations. Vibrant colours and rich sound – the noise of lapping water forms a constant soundtrack, and you can almost taste and smell the sea.

THE STRANGE CASE OF ANGELICA

(Manoel de Oliveira; Portugal/ Spain/ Brazil/ France; 2010)

Still making films at 101 years of age, and still making great films at that. Following in line with so many of his other recent films, De Oliveira continues to show us how a man can be driven to distraction, illness, and madness through the mysterious charm of a woman. A photographer takes a photo of a young dead woman, she comes to life in the photo and he becomes increasingly consumed with desire as she continues to haunt him. Exquisitely composed and masterfully paced, there is such pleasure in drifting through the richness of colour, shape, texture of each shot. The interspersed shots of the city at night were especially memorable, with the distant city lights alluding perhaps to the distance evoked when one is yearning for something ephemeral, elusive, impossible. At 101, De Oliveira appears to be at the top of his game.

NENETTE

(Nicolas Philibert; France; 2010)


The entirety of this documentary exposes the heart of cinema, predicated upon looking, judging, and interposing one's own thoughts and ideas with that of the subject. For the whole film we see Nenette, and occasionally other orang-utans caged in the Menagerie at Paris's Jardin des Plantes, and never see the individuals who comment upon her. As we listen to the thoughts of people viewing Nenette, it becomes obvious that she is merely a mirror for these humans. In ascertaining what she is thinking and feeling, we reveal our own feelings and thoughts. The film is memorable for long lingering shots of Nenette, where her presence fills the entire screen, an overwhelming mass of orange hair and a dark circular rubbery face. Its in these moments where she almost seems to disappear, her presence consumed by the imposition of thoughts made on her behalf, but never hers. An ostensibly simple premise that reveals a richness of complexities about spectatorship, this was a graceful, lovely film.

THE PORTUGUESE NUN

(Eugene Green; Portugal; 2009)


OK, I honestly cannot work out whether the director was taking the piss or not. The film is about an actress who is in Lisbon to shoot a film based on De Guilleragues's Letters of a Portuguese Nun, and goes through a slow journey of self-enquiry and self-discovery through her encounter with a Portugueuse nun. Sounds innocuous enough. But, for long tracts of this film, the whole enterprise seemed so contrived. It looked like a Frankensteinian concoction of other directors styles – Bressonian close-ups of feet and hands, Ozu-style direct-to-camera shot/ counter-shots, and the semi-hypnotic minimalist acting reminiscent of Green's compatriot Manoel de Oliveira. Just when it seemed that this highly mannerised style was pretentiously intentional, there would be deadpan moments where the thick fog of pretention was broken by dialogue clearly intended to expose this pretentiousness as amusing. Perhaps, then, this film is not that bad, although if you strip away the question of whether of not the film is critiquing the its own arty-farty-ness, the shape and arc of the narrative was still insufficient enough to really shake the attention awake.

THE ROBBER

(Benjamin Heisenberg; Austria/ Germany; 2009)


This film is filled with potential and promise, but just never seems to take off. The story of a man's twin obsession with running and robbing banks, the film often looks great, but has no drive. The framework of the film screams for some kind of insight into the main character, but he remains blank and aloof, almost unreadable and unidentifiable. Not all films require some kind of character-revelation, but for this viewer, there needed to be something more in this character to make him tangible and to propel the film into larger dimensions. I like the less-is-more aesthetic in cinema, but this film needed a large dose of more. The character is so unusual that it would have better to have provided some small modicum of psychological engagement, to allow the viewer to palpably experience the adrenalin rush of endlessly fleeing from pursuits rather than watching his flight with vague disengagement.

GENIUS WITHIN: THE INNER LIFE OF GLENN GOULD

(Michîle Hozer, Peter Raymont; Canada; 2009)

A fairly standard biography of Glenn Gould's life and work. The viewer is familiarised with his upbringing, his quick ascendancy to fame, and then his rejection of its trappings in favour of a somewhat more reclusive life working on various projects that primarily interested him and not the taste of others. His eccentricities and peccadilloes are placed in the center of the film, although even if you have even smallest understanding of Gould, this angle was going to be extremely obvious. The film-makers did raise the interest levels by showing a gradual change in his eccentricity, from it possibly being a cultivated thing in his youth to perpetuate a kind of marketable myth, to it being a full-blown melancholic malady that truly afflicted his later life. Interesting use of archived footage on occasion, especially at the beginning when it seemed that the whole film was going to be composed of nothing but pieces of old footage of Gould.

AIR DOLL

(Hirokazu Kore-eda; Japan; 2009)

I've found my interest in Kore-eda's films dropping off incrementally with each film since his grand 1998 effort After Life. This has redressed a little with Air Doll. Just a little, mind you. The film is a modernised fairy tale not just because of the theme of a sex doll finding a heart and coming to life, but also because of its reflection of the darker and sadder parts of human existence. The joy of discovery that Nozomi the sex doll experiences, as she explores the world around her, is replaced with the pain of recognising the true reason for her existence – to appease the loneliness of others. The sequences of glimpses into the lonely lives of others in her neighbourhood are achingly rich, but I'm getting thoroughly sick of the sickly-sweet tinkly-winkly soundtracks that Japanese films use to let us know that these moments are poignant. I wonder if the film would have improved a great deal if there was no soundtrack at all.