CINE-FILE / Blog

The 13th Annual European Union Film Festival opens Friday, March 5 and runs through Thursday, April 1 at the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State St.).

Below are reviews of selected films playing during week one (Friday, March 5 through Thursday, March 11).

Ian FitzGibbon’s A FILM WITH ME IN IT (Ireland)
Saturday, 9:30pm and Monday, 6pm
A FILM WITH ME IN IT begins as an understated character comedy but slowly reveals itself to be a sinister and unpredictable piece of work. As funhouse narratives go, it’s one of the most satisfying since Takashi Miike’s AUDITION or Spike Jonze’s ADAPTATION, and fans of either film should rush to this without reading any plot summaries beforehand. (A nice thing about seeing movies at festivals is being able to discover them unprejudiced—a condition A FILM rewards in spades.) Writer Mark Doherty stars as a version of himself, an out-of-work actor in the middle of an unlucky streak; popular comic Dylan Moran plays his best friend, an alcoholic writer who’s equally misfortunate. Both men are veterans of BBC comedy—Doherty worked on Armando Ianucci’s “Time Trumpet,” Moran’s starred in the series “Black Books” and a number of stand-up specials—and their performances have a well-read sensibility reminiscent of the Ealing Studio comedies or Bruce Robinson’s WITHNAIL AND I. Director Ian FitzGibbon helms the film unobtrusively (also in the BBC tradition), which grants a steady momentum through the plot twists where a more stylized approach may have bogged them down. Working in HD allows FitzGibbon to better let the material speak for itself, though the medium creates some fine lighting effects during the night scenes. (Think Vermeer painting a Halloween tableau.) It’s worth mentioning, because A FILM WITH ME IN IT is the kind of entertainment that succeeds largely on seamless craftsmanship. And succeed it does. (2008, 87 min, 35mm) – Ben Sachs

Gianni Di Gregorio’s MID-AUGUST LUNCH (Italy)
Saturday, 5:45pm
MID-AUGUST LUNCH is only screening once during the EUFF and, really, it wouldn’t expect anything more. This unassuming, slight comedy concerns a handful of lonely Romans who are too old or too broke to go anywhere nice for their August vacation. Since everyone else has gone to the coast to escape the heat, the streets of Rome are desolate, so when a lone extra walks onto the scene your eye catches him immediately: what is he doing here? Unemployed Gianni (Gianni Di Gregorio) and his elderly mother, under threat of eviction, play host to the elderly mother and aunt of their landlord and the elderly mother of Gianni’s doctor. A domestic circus ensues. There are dietary restrictions and pills to be taken, and there is only one TV, one fan: if this were a lesser movie, Gianni would be a curmudgeon whose heart is warmed by the antics of his houseguests. But no such crass transformation takes place. Gianni is warm and considerate throughout, and if his guests seem a little giddy it’s only because they don’t usually drink wine or spend so much time with other people. The camera lingers with Gianni and his mother’s quiet conversations, over the uncorking of a bottle, on smoke winding its way out of cigarettes: it behaves like another happenstance guest at the title meal, noticing what we have time for when no one else is watching or waiting. (2008, 75 min, 35mm) – Josephine Ferorelli

Adrian Sitaru’s HOOKED (Romania)
Saturday, 7:30pm and Thursday, 8:15pm
It was perhaps inevitable that the “objective” long-take style of Puiu, Mungiu, and Porumboiu would provoke an antithetical reaction in the next generation of Romanian filmmakers, and HOOKED is an example of such an approach. The actors are as invested in the material as we’ve come to expect from recent Romanian cinema, but director and co-writer Adrian Sitaru is not content to follow them like a documentarian. Nearly every shot of his film is from some character’s perspective, and the restless editing ensures that no one perspective has the last word. The story, as others have pointed out, is a variation on Polanski’s KNIFE IN THE WATER, in which an argumentative couple on holiday is tested by the arrival of a mysterious stranger. What’s different is that the couple is adulterous, the stranger is a prostitute, and the suspense never reaches life-and-death extremes. Sitaru is more fascinated by the shifting allegiances in everyday conversation, maneuvers we generally prefer not to acknowledge. (The film’s title translates literally as “Sport Fishing”—i.e., catching fish just to throw them back—which comes closer to describing the interactions.) The central conceit of hand-held shots of realistic bickering at first suggests POV internet porn or a Duplass Brothers movie; but, thankfully, Sitaru is more insidious than either. Ultimately, the shifting perspectives of HOOKED (which constantly reveal intimate moments to be viewable from another angle) return to the Romanian New Wave’s great theme: living with the legacy of a police state. If Sitaru’s observations aren’t as fresh as his predecessors, his cast keeps things engaging throughout, particularly Maria Dinulescu (the enterprising high schooler in CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’) as the prostitute. (2007, 80 min, 35mm) – Ben Sachs

Andis Miziss’ THE HUNT (Latvia)
Saturday, 5:45pm and Wednesday, 8:15pm
Essentially an accomplished student film, in which a smartly-placed camera ponders subjects like coincidence, repetitive behavior, and freak occurrences so as to avoid more finicky ones, like psychology and volition. That said, Andis Miziss’ first feature contains a number of exceptional moments that promise more fully realized work down the road. A “home” for unwed pregnant women that operates on a moving train; a group of children imitating their hunter father by mounting stuffed-animal heads on the attic walls; a wiry, Albini-esque presence manning an empty bar while the mirror ball still runs: These sights evoke the recent surrealism of Gyorgy Palfi (HUKKLE, TAXIDERMIA) or Zoltan Kamondi (DOLINA) in tone if not in logic. Like these Hungarian contemporaries, Miziss seems capable of making a Brothers Grimm atmosphere out of any location; unfortunately, he devotes much of THE HUNT to prosaic stuff like a philandering architect and a cop with a guilty conscience. It’s still engaging on the whole, with some lovely night photography and dolly shots that allow your imagination to expand on the mysteries of Miziss’ woodsy locations when his screenwriters do not. (2009, 71 min, HDCAM video) – Ben Sachs

Zdenek Tyc’s EL PASO (Czech Republic)
Monday, 8pm and Wednesday, 6pm
“El Paso” is how you announce a highway robbery in Romani, and EL PASO is the chronicle of a Roma family, Vera Horvathova and her children, getting robbed by the Czech government, one civil service at a time. It’s also a thorough shake-down of gadjos who purport to want to help the Horvaths. Social workers, journalists, and pro-bono lawyers are all revealed to have ambivalent, compromised motives. Vera on the other hand is a pillar of strength, and her children are sweet and similar: the integrity of the storytelling suffers for this intermix of laparoscopy and soft-focus, although the blow is softened by natural performances all around. The writing is at its smartest when it strays from a social justice agenda to follow its characters into the local bar, or when it lets a couple bond over how guilty they feel for quitting Vera’s case, but more often it vacillates between over- and under-explication, setting off clichéd narrative chain reactions and then blinking for the duration of difficult resolutions. The opening shots of EL PASO are vivid and breathless, and they promise a pace and tone the movie doesn’t sustain. Recurring use of footage from the security cameras in the Horvaths’ housing project succeeds in conjuring the ghost of totalitarianism, but otherwise cinematographers Jiri Berka and Patrik Hoznauer tend to play it straight and narrow. For all the qualifiers, though, this is a movie with good intentions and good moments held together by honest acting. (2009, 100 min, 35mm) - Josephine Ferorelli

FACE is a €3.9 million home movie. Tsai Ming-Liang intended to call the film SALOME; maybe somewhere along the way he realized he couldn’t make the film he set out for, so what he edited together instead are sketches, scenes seemingly in rehearsal, odd ideas, musical numbers and bits of slapstick. You end up thinking of the final subtitle (of many) Godard gives his KING LEAR — “A STUDY.” It begins with fully formed ideas — the first image of the film is one of Tsai’s greatest inventions, and the last shot is a great bit of slow comedy — as concrete as the front and back covers of a sketchbook. In between, as in a sketchbook, are jotted notes, pencil and ink drawings, and, of course, blank pages. The only difference is that, when paging through a sketchbook, we skip the blanks, while Tsai holds each in front of us for the same duration as the most detailed drawings.

The best film I’ve seen at the festival so far is THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN, and you can read my review at The Auteurs.

Portuguese master Manoel de Oliveira is certainly not slowing down with age. His new film, made at 100 years old, is flat-out great. ECCENTRICITIES OF A BLOND HAIR GIRL (2009, 63 min) might call to mind the novels of Henry James or, more appropriately, the short stories of Guy de Maupassant. It is set present-day, but has a decidedly late 19th/early 20th century sensibility. It’s not surprising, then, to find that it’s based on a short story by Oliveira’s fellow countryman Eça de Queirós—Portugal’s famed writer who was indeed a 19th century author.

Oliveira has kept his film in tune with its short story origins—it clocks in at just over an hour and is a model of efficiency and minimalism both in its storytelling and its style. The narrative is about an accountant, Macário, working for his uncle who falls under the spell of a beautiful young woman, Luísa, living across from his office. There is an introduction; a courtship; proposal; falling out with his uncle; financial ruin; financial success; financial ruin again; and, finally, signs of a happy outcome.

Oliveira collapses time—creating ellipses in the story—through abrupt edits and transitional devices (such as a shot of the nighttime city followed by the same shot of the city at dawn, but more than a day has transpired). The brevity of the film and Oliveira’s briskness give the film an energy, breathlessness, and, seemingly, inevitability. But he has tricks in store. As with many of his films, Oliveira revels in his storytelling and in the construction of narrative (the framing device here is our protagonist reciting his tale to a stranger on a train). Oliveira continues to demonstrate that he is one of our most literary of filmmakers.

But don’t confuse “literary” with page-bound or non-visual—he’s far from that. ECCENTRICITIES is also a stunningly beautiful film even as Oliveira’s style is quite minimal. It is this minimalism that gives the film much of its power—Oliveira relies on subtlety in his imagery, allowing small details to come to the fore. An early shot has Luísa at the window of her home as Macário watches her. She pulls down a translucent shade, partially obscuring her from view, and then pulls across a drape, leaving only a thin shadow of herself. As she disappears from Macário’s view, one feels that this shot has some importance. It is not till the end of the film that we realize that there may be some deliberate foreshadowing on Oliveira’s part.

ECCENTRICITIES’ sense of romantic longing and its tale of a quest for a mysterious woman calls to mind Oliveira’s much younger Iberian compatriot, the Spanish filmmaker José Luis Guerin—specifically his great film IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA. As Oliveira’s career winds down (though, by the looks of things he may continue on in perpetuity—he’s got another film in pre-production!), it’s good to know that there are perhaps a handful of worthy followers on the scene. (Patrick Friel)

ECCENTRICITIES OF A BLOND HAIR GIRL screens twice more in the festival: Tuesday, October 13 at 3:15pm and Wednesday, October 14 at 6;30pm

CINE-FILE’s coverage of the 45th Chicago International Film Festival will start Friday, October 9th and run the duration of the festival. We’ll be posting it here at the CINE-FILE / Blog, updated daily.

You can follow our updates via Twitter through @cinefile.

A number of our regular writers will are also covering the festival for other sites, including Rob Christopher (for The Chicagoist) and myself (for The Auteurs Notebook, though I’ll also be posting here daily).

Cine-File contributors Ben Sachs and Gabe Klinger set up a blog for special, on-the-beat coverage of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival. Check it out here: http://cine-file-chicago.blogspot.com.