LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: ‘The Little Bedroom’

Posted on August 10, 2010 by admin

The little bedroom x650By Ray Bennett

LOCARNO, Switzerland – The circle of life is given warm and redemptive treatment in “The Little Bedroom” (La Petite Chambre) written and directed by Stephanie Chuat and Veronique Reymond. An encounter between a private nurse who recently lost a child and an old man tired of living affords each of them the chance to reassess their fate.

Set in the Swiss town of Lausanne with the nearby alps to play a key role before the story is over, it’s a showcase for Florence Loiret Caille as the traumatised woman and Michel Bouquet as the grouchy and alienated old gent.

Interest should be strong in international markets and festivals although it’s probably not a powerful enough work to make it an art house hit.

Caille plays Rose, who has just returned to work after delivering a son still-borne after eight months’ pregnancy. Diligent and patient, she does more for her patients than she’s strictly supposed to. Bouquet plays one of them, the hard-nosed Edmond, whose son is about to depart for Chicago and wants to place him in a nursing home.

Meanwhile, Rose’s husband Marc (Eric Caravaca) has a lead on a major advertising campaign design contract in New York and must go there to cement the deal. He is torn by the conflict between his ambition and his concern for his wife.

Writer-directors Chuat and Reymond supply information about the characters subtly so they become gradually fully formed with Rose refusing to think of her lost child as dead and Edmond declining to show his son the slightest kindness.

As the odd couple of nurse and patient discover more about each other and Rose conspires in Edmond’s absence from the nursing home, they develop an odd but pleasing kinship. Caille’s supple features convey the warm personality that loss has curdled while Bouquet uses silence and stillness to register a very active mind.

Emre Sevindik’s sonorous score, aided by several piano selections from Bach, Beethoven and Sibelius, enhance the impressively textured images of cinematographer Pierre Milon.

Venue: Locarno International Film Festival, In Competition; Cast: Michel Bouquet, Florence Loiret Caille, Eric Caravaca; Directors, writers: Stephanie Chuat, Veronique Reymond; Director of photography: Pierre Milon; Production designer: Daniel Raduta

Music: Emre Sevindik; Costume designer: Magdalena Labuz; Editor: Thierry Faber; Production companies: Vega Film, Iris Productions; Sales: Vega Film; Not rated; running time, 87 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: Cedric Anger’s ‘The Counsel’

Posted on August 10, 2010 by admin

the counsel 2 x650By Ray Bennett

LOCARNO, Switzerland – French director Cedric Anger’s ambitious legal thriller “The Counsel” (L’Avocat) looks good and has a fine cast but his script covers familiar terrain and is so naïve that the whole thing becomes laughable.

Told in flashback, it’s the story of a brilliant young lawyer who goes to work for a mob boss but gets in too deep and discovers that his only way out is by incriminating the man, or by dying.

It’s as if the director believed the film could exist in a vacuum and ignore the fact that such predicaments have been explored and picked over in an endless number of books, films and television shows. The film will face scorn from fans of crime yarns who expect their puzzles to have a lot more intelligence.

Handsome and keen eyed Benoit Magimel cuts an effective dash as Leo, a sharp and driven attorney whose skill at courtroom oratory wins him a job at a top legal firm. He proves his mettle fast but is soon bored. There’s no suggestion that it’s a mob operation such as the one in “The Firm” but when a hoodlum big in waste disposal seeks to hire him, the head of the legal firm, played with imperial elegance by director Barbet Schroeder, tells him the client is always right.

Gilbert Melki gives the mobster, Paul, the smooth veneer of a polished psychopath as he involves Leo deeper in his criminal activities with the lawyer failing to hear any of the most clanging alarm bells.

Violence against witnesses, bribery, double books on the waste disposal and the income it generates, none of these bother the counsellor a bit. He’s not suspicious when Paul offers him tens of thousands over his usual salary, and talk about the illegal storage of toxic hospital waste troubles him not a whit.

the counsel 1 x325

His beautiful pregnant girlfriend (Aissa Maiga, right) doesn’t push him for riches and Anger’s script gives Leo no motivation for his greed and willingness to be a party to criminal corruption. He is pleased that Paul appears to like him and even befriends Paul’s enforcer Ben, who is made both sinister and engaging by Samir Guesmi.

Eric Caravaca gives an oily touch to the inevitable law officer who comes knocking on Leo’s door with the option of giving evidence or going down with the bad guys.

The howlers keep coming although delivered with a straight face and only the handsome shape of the production maintains interest. Guillaume Schiffman’s cinematography has a classic structure and there’s even an old-fashioned montage showing Leo’s quick career path.

If only Anger the screenwriter had plugged the many gaping holes, Anger the director could be proud of this film, rather than leaving viewers to shake their heads or just burst out laughing.

Venue: Locarno International Film Festival, Piazza Grande; Cast: Benoit Magimel, Gilbert Melki, Aissa Maiga, Eric Caravaca, Samir Guesmi, Barbet Schroeder; Director, writer: Cedric Anger; Director of photography: Guillaume Schiffman; Production designer: Antoine Platteau; Music: Gregoire Hetzel; Costume designer: Marielle Robaut; Editor: Simon Jacquet; Producer: Thomas Klotz; Production company: Sunrise Films;  Sales: Snd Groupe M6; Not rated; running time, 100 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: Nikola Lezaic’s ‘Tilva Rōs’

Posted on August 9, 2010 by admin

tilva ros x650

By Ray Bennett

LOCARNO, Switzerland – An almost documentary look at the wasted summer of a group of youngsters in a defunct mining town in Serbia, “Tilva Rōs” strives for bright spirits but ends up being simply depressing.

First-time feature director Nikola Lezaic takes on most of the filmmaking chores following a local gang of skateboarders who swear and gesture like rappers and videotape themselves attempting stupid pranks inspired by the likes of “Jackass.”

The region’s dark war-torn past and economic problems are a stark backdrop to the pointless shenanigans of kids who appear to have little ambition beyond getting a video on YouTube. The film’s prospects beyond local markets appear slim.

Best buddies Toda (Marko Todorovic) and Stefan (Stefan Djordjevic) lead the pack of pretty inept skateboarders and are the most keen to punish each other for a lark. They stick assorted pins in their cheeks and noses, leap off high places, punch and beat one another and generally abuse themselves, while a video recorder haphazardly captures their antics.

Dunja Kovacevic plays Stefan’s sometime girlfriend and while their parents are involved mostly in protesting the closure of the copper mines, the kids idle between school and college or work with little to do except drink, party and make each other bleed.

There’s no story, just a sequence of rather dull events including a mass attack on a junk car, a swarming attack on a supermarket and a street march supporting the industrial action.

The three non-professional leads have some presence and charm but Lezaic makes few demands upon them besides urging on their stunts. It’s all a bit sad.

Venue: Locarno International Film Festival, Sidebar: Cinema of the Present; Cast: Marko Todorovic, Stefan Djordjevic, Dunja Kovacevic; Director, writer, producer, editor: Nikola Lezaic; Director of photography: Milos Jacimovic; Production designer: Nikola Bercek; Producers: Uros Tomic, Mina Dukic; Production company: Film House Kiselo Dete; Sales: Visit Films; Not rated; running time, 103 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: Daniele Gaglianone’s ‘Pietro’

Posted on August 9, 2010 by admin

locarno-2010-pietro-casella-e-nel-cast-di-pietro-di-daniele-gaglianone-171161By Ray Bennett

LOCARNO, Switzerland – Daniele Gaglianone’s “Pietro” tells of a slightly brain damaged man whose heroin addict brother involves him with bullies and criminals until one day he snaps and things get very nasty.

Pietro Casella (pictured) gives a poignant performance as a man surrounded by people who either order him about or make fun of him, but writer and director Gaglianone leaves too many holes in the story and allows most of the other players to over-act unconvincingly.

Casella’s performance might gain the film attention but its lack of a satisfying background to the unpleasant events that take place offscreen suggest it won’t gain much traction outside Italy.

Francesco Lattarula plays the stoner sibling who likes nothing more than to take Pietro to his favorite bar and have him do impressions and make funny faces. His friends egg on the unfortunate man and react uproariously even though Pietro’s behavior is thoroughly humiliating and hideously unfunny.

The brother and his cohorts all scream and laugh and yell a lot without making any sense. It’s as if the filmmaker bothered only with the central character and left the others to get along as best they could.

The troubled man makes a kind of living delivers fliers for another bully who barely pays him and mistreats his other employees. The film follows Pietro as he goes diligently about his deliveries but there’s no attempt to draw any significance from his work.

After the worm turns and the violence is over, Pietro speaks quietly to the camera and relates how he came to be this way. The film then just peters out with no resolution, offering little by way of insight or purpose.

Venue: Locarno International Film Festival, In Competition; Cast: Pietro Casella, Francesco Lattarula, Carlotta Saletti; Director, writer: Daniele Gaglianone; Director of photography: Gherardo Gossi; Production and costume designer: Lina Fuca; Music: Evandro Fornasier, Walter Magri, Mario Actis, Plus; Editor: Enrico Giovannone; Production company: Babydoc Film; Sales: Ellipsis Media International; Not rated; running time, 80 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: Eva Green, Matt Smith in ‘Womb’

Posted on August 8, 2010 by admin

womb x650By Ray Bennett

LOCARNO, Switzerland – There is an old joke about a woman who had a glass bellybutton. She had a womb with a view, which is more than can be said for Benedek Fliegauf’s “Womb”, a sappy drama about human cloning that has no point of view at all.

In a sense, it’s a film about a woman who goes to extraordinary lengths just to get laid. When her lover is killed in a road accident, the woman, played by Eva Green, goes to her local Department of Genetic Replication and bears a cloned child. She raises him until he’s the absolute spitting image of her deceased amour (Matt Smith) and then goes about eyeing him with lustful indications of heightened excitement.

Gorgeous seaside vistas; the ineffable beauty of Green; the growing international fame of Smith, who is the BBC’s new “Doctor Who”, and the fascinating topic itself should be enough to create some spark at the box office but it’s unlikely to go forth and multiply.

It’s clear that young Rebecca (Ruby O. Fee) and Thomas (Tristan Christopher) are a match because they live close to one other on a beautiful stretch of windswept beach and love to go exploring. They share excitement in flotsam and jetsam and delight in examining assorted sea creatures, and it’s sad when the girl’s parents take her off to live in Japan.

These scenes are quite lovely to watch and cinematographer Pete Szatmari’s images remain so throughout the picture. Not least when Rebecca returns 12 years later in the form of Green, than whom the camera loves nothing better.

Tommy (Smith) is smitten instantly and drops his latest pickup, and they swoon into their destiny. Until he steps in front of a van. Shattered, Rebecca is drawn towards the local replication clinic, which is the only indication the story is set some time in the future. Tommy’s parents, played by Lesley Manville and Peter Wight, think it’s a bad idea, however, and move away promptly.

Fliegauf’s screenplay raises the issue of cloned humans as the victim of prejudice just like any other alien, legal or otherwise, but just as soon drops it. It toys with the ethical issue of human cloning but runs away from that too.

It all seems to be about Rebecca’s hunka hunka burnin’ love, and prospects brighten for something macabre at their remote oceanside shack when teenaged Tommy brings home pretty young Monica (Hannah Murray) and mom takes on the airs of a woman scorned.

The carving knives appear suddenly attractive in the kitchen, but perhaps she will be content to explain to the creature she has borne that his daddy’s not his daddy, but his daddy don’t know. Or will it be straight to bed?

If the writer/director had been willing to strike out more boldly, the answer to these questions would have some power, and the film might have become more than an intriguing premise and pretty pictures.

Venue: Locarno International Film Festival, In Competition; Cast: Eva Green, Matt Smith, Lesley Manville, Peter Wight, Hannah Murray; Director, writer: Benedek Fliegauf; Director of photography: Peter Szatmari; Production designer: Erwin Prib; Music: Max Richter; Costume designer: Mariano Tufano; Editors: Patricia Rommel, Xavier Box; Production company: Razor Film Produktion; Sales: The Match Factory; Not rated; running time, 107 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: “Beyond the Steppes”

Posted on August 8, 2010 by admin

Agnieszka Grochowska gives a riveting performance as a woman torn from her home

By Ray Bennett

LOCARNO, Switzerland: Belgian filmmaker Vanja d’Alcantara’s “Beyond the Steppes” is a gripping and sometimes harrowing story of a mother’s determination to keep herself and her infant child alive despite brutal hardship.

The film is set in Poland and the Soviet Union in 1940 before Hitler invaded Russia and it uses the languages of those countries. Polish actress Agnieszka Grochowska gives a riveting performance as Nina, one of many women taken from their homeland to the Asian wilds of the USSR and forced into pointless hard labor.

Filmed on the vast empty steppes of Kazakhstan, it’s a story of one woman’s struggle to survive, and the combination of unsentimental storytelling, the bleak but beautiful landscape, and Grochowska’s searing portrayal should see it attract attention at art houses and festivals.

Beautiful but barren and harsh landscape in Vanja d’Alcantara’s ‘Beyond the Steppes’

Slim but steely with eyes that can alternately soften and rage, the actress presents a wholly sympathetic portrait of a mother wrenched from a loving home and cast out into the hands of pigs with guns in a pitiless environment.

The writer and director based the story on the experience of her grandmother and she presents it with passion but without sentiment. The picture opens with scenes of domestic bliss in which Nina and her Polish Army officer husband Roman (Borys Szyc) share the joy of new parenthood and a loving relationship.

But Roman and his fellows are soon off to war and Russian soldiers burst into Polish homes to carry away their women and children.

A forced march leads Nina to a desolate camp where the women are made to do backbreaking work all day digging rocks and clearing trenches. When after several months Nina’s son gets dysentery she draws on every resource to obtain medicine to save him. The harsh and lazy Russian soldiers have no sympathy and only when Nina gets help from a Kazakhstan family does she find a reason for optimism.

Shot on the digital Red Cam, the images captured by cinematographer Ruben Impens are stark but impressive. It’s a grim tale with little redemption that will haunt viewers, not least because of the power of Grochowska’s performance.

Venue: Locarno International Film Festival; In Competition; Cast: Agnieszka Grochowska, Aleksandra Justa, Borys Szyc; Director, screenwriter: Vanja d’Alcantara; Director of photography: Ruben Impens; Production designer: Marek Warzewski; Costume designer: Magda Rutkiewicz; Editor: Virginie Messiaen; Producers: Denis Delcampe, Annemie Degryse; Production companies: Need Productions, Lunanime, Akson Studio; Sales: DOC & Film International; Not rated; running time, 90 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: Oleg Novkovic’s ‘White White World’

Posted on August 7, 2010 by admin

white white world x325By Ray Bennett

LOCARNO, Switzerland – There are several mournful songs in Serbian director Oleg Novkovic’s “White White World” (Beli Beli Svet) and they seem to emerge from the melancholy Balkan soul of its array of defeated characters struggling to find love and meaning in life.

With a screenplay by noted Serbian playwright and poet Milena Markovich, Novkovich’s tale is what he describes as “a miner’s opera” set among men and women whose damaged lives reflect the poisoned remnants of a decaying mining town called Bor in southeast Serbia.

Most of the characters turn to song in order to let out otherwise inexpressible emotions but it is nothing like the way people used to burst into a number in old musicals. Serbian classical composer Boris Kovac provides the songs in a slow Balkan tango beat that echoes the polluted environment and lovelorn mood.

The film’s depiction of bruised people trying to get by in a ruined industrial wasteland and it’s sense of battered pride and worldly regret should find a place in art houses and attract awards attention at festivals.

Uliks Fehmiu plays an ex-miner known as King, who runs a local bar and does pretty much as he pleases. This includes having sex with a wild young beauty named Rosa (Hana Selimovic) whose mother Ruzicka (Jasna Djruicic) is a former lover who just got out of prison.

Ruzicka had served time for killing her husband after he found out she was cheating with King, and although she has a loyal suitor in the hapless Whitie (Boris Isakovic), she still carries a torch for King, who behaves as though he can take or leave anyone.

Rosa pursues King but also dallies with a druggie named Tiger (Marko Janketic) and his heroin-addict sister Dara (Millica Mihajlovic). They all suffer, and sooner or later, they all get to sing.

The tension mounts when Rosa announces that she’s pregnant and there will be bloodshed before Novkovic wraps up his tale with a chorus of miners singing in sad harmony beside a quarry.

The faces of the accomplished cast in close-up and the jagged industrial beauty of the deteriorating city in wide shots clash vividly in Miladin Golakovic’s cinematography. They get under the skin along with the many melodic but haunting laments.

Venue: Locarno International Film Festival, In Competition; Cast: Uliks Fehmiu, Hana Selimovic, Jasna Djruicic, Boris Isakovic; Director: Oleg Novkovic; Screenwriter: Milena Markovic; Director of photography: Milidan Colakovic; Production designer: Aljosa Spajic; Music: Boris Kovac; Costume designer: Irena Marjanov; Editor: Lazar Predojev; Producers: Milena Trobozic-Garfield, Uliks Fehmiu Production company: West End Productions; Sales: Films Boutique; Not rated; running time, 121 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: Valdis Oskarsdottir’s ‘King’s Road’

Posted on August 6, 2010 by admin

king's road x650By Ray Bennett

LOCARNO, Switzerland – Danish filmmaker Valdis Oskarsdottir, who won the 2004 best editing prize at the BAFTA film awards for “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” has created a winning concoction for her second feature, “King’s Road”, which had its world premiere at Locarno’s Piazza Grande.

Set in a bedraggled trailer park in rural Iceland populated by a bunch of goofballs, eccentrics and sad sacks, it could be taken as a penetrating satire of all that went wrong in that country’s financial meltdown as much as a genially whacky little romp.

With Daniel Bruhl adding some international star power and Oskarsdottir’s reputation, the affectionate and amusing picture could generate considerable interest at home and abroad.

Bruhl plays a young man named Rupert who has fled to escape his hoodlum uncle with best friend Junior (Gisli Orn Garoarsson), who has returned to the shabby trailer park known as “King’s Road” hoping to get some money from his father.

Deposited in the muddy park by bossy taxi-driver and general pest BB (Ingvar Eggert Sigurosson), who takes most of their money and confiscates their beer, they find Junior’s dad, Senior (Sigurour Sigurjonsson), not at all pleased to see him.

Senior has a currency scam going with BB and suffers from assorted phobias that keep him from entertaining his trophy wife Sally (Nanna Kristin Magnusdottir), who takes to hanging out with a couple of dimwit brothers named Ray (Olafur Darri Olafsson, pictured with Magnusdottir) and Davis (Olafur Egilsson).

They have a scam whereby Ray acts as a crossing guard at the entrance to the trailer park where he allows people to cross only when a car approaches. He then fines the stopped driver whatever he can get away with.

The inhabitants also include a no-talent songwriter guitarist who spends his time hiding his constant drinking from his pregnant wife; an old lady who carries around a dead seal made into a handbag; and a couple who spend all day in a broken-down car smoking cigarettes and spliffs listening to heavy rock.

The writer and director manages to make all the characters stand out thanks to a smart screenplay, appealing performances, and accomplished editing while the band Lay Low sings jaunty numbers on the soundtrack.

Many of the characters turn out to be related in some way and the film has a good time sorting out relationships as the comedy turns very black toward the end, by which time it’s a shame to see them leave.

Venue: Locarno International Film Festival, Piazza Grande; Cast: Daniel Bruhl, Gisli Orn Garoarsson; Director, screenwriter, editor: Valdis Oskarsdottir; Producers: Arni Filppusson, David Oskar Olafsson, Hreinn Beck; Director of photography: Bergsteinn Bjorgulfssin; Production designers: Harry Johannsson, Gunnar Paisson; Costume designer: Sonja Bent; Music: Lay Low, Lovisa Sigrunardottir; Production company: Mystery Island; Sales: Beta Cinema; Not rated; running time, 100 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: ‘Deep in the Woods’

Posted on August 5, 2010 by admin

deep into the woodsBy Ray Bennett

LOCARNO, Switzerland – French filmmaker Benoit Jacquot’s “Deep in the Woods” (Au fond des bois”), takes a surprisingly benign view of kidnapping and rape in the tale of a bucolic erotic neurotic and her many tumbles in the long grass with a scalawag who beguiles her.

Set in the handsome countryside of southern France in 1865, the opening film at the Locarno International Film Festival is filled with lovely scenery and has many sequences showing the voluptuous Isild Le Besco nude in the throes of extreme passion. It could be viewed as the flight of an excitable woman’s febrile imagination but given that it’s written and directed by a man, it also smacks of sheer male fantasy.

Benoit’s fans will likely applaud his distinctly non-PC approach and the pictures are very pretty but the film lacks gravity and leaves too many questions unanswered to take it beyond festivals and art houses.

Not least of its potential problems is that the man in the story – a wanderer named Timothee, more of a boy really – is depicted as a filthy scamp with dirty teeth and fingers, broken nails and smelly clothes. Nahuel Perez Biscayart (pictured with Le Besco) has big eyes, a wide smile and impish charm in the role, but he looks awful. He is, however, a confident trickster with the ability to reduce the often blank-faced Josephine (Le Besco) to compliant jelly merely by running his fingers down her spine.

Appearing lecherous and sneaky, he espies her first in church with her family and then shows up at her home claiming to be deaf and mute. Josephine is betrothed but seems to be a troubled girl. Her doctor father is sympathetic to the boy and wants to treat him, and over dinner Timothee demonstrates an entertaining knack for illusions. But then he shows how easily he can cause the young woman to quiver in her bustle, and he puts her under his spell.

Timothee takes Josephine into the woods and they do to each other the kind of exciting, nasty and satisfying things that lovers often do. The problem is that as far as her family is concerned, Josephine has been kidnapped, and a search begins.

The consequences of their trysts, including Timothee’s arrest and trial, raise the rather large question of whether Josephine was willingly complicit or he was guilty of a violent sexual crime. Jacquot’s resolution will no doubt divide audiences but not really leave them much to chew on.

Venue: Locarno International Film Festival, Piazza Grande; Cast: Isild Le Besco, Nahuel Perez Biscayart, Jérôme Kircher, Mathieu Simonet, Bernard Rouquette, Jean-Pierre Gos; Director, screenwriter: Benoit Jacquot ; Director of photography: Julien Hirsch; Music: Bruno Coulais; Editor: Luc Barnier; Production company: Cine-@, Passionfilms, Egoil Tossell Film; Sales: Films Distribution; Not rated; running time, 102 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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Songwriter Margaret Ann Rich dies

Posted on July 23, 2010 by admin

 

Margaret Ann and Charlie Rich in their prime

By Ray Bennett

Country music songwriter Margaret Ann Rich, widow of singer Charlie Rich, died Thursday at her home near Memphis, TN, following a struggle with Alzheimer’s Disease. She was 76.

Charlie recorded several of her songs including “Life Has Its Little Ups and Downs” and “Field of Yellow Yellow Daisies.” Many other artists recorded her work including Tom Jones, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge, Bobby Blue Bland and Ricky Van Shelton, who had a country No. 1 with “Life Has Its Little Ups and Downs.”

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