Kaunas International Film Festival Film Journalism Workshop

Gus van Sant ”Restless”

Gus Van Sant is famous for his films about youth (“My Own Private Idaho“, “Good Will Hunting”), in which he perfectly reveals their problems. Teenagers in his films are confused, without having any idea what to do with their their lives and the struggles they have to suffer. His latest film „Restless“ tries to combine two most common themes in history of art – love and death.

“Restless” is a love story about two typical Van Santian characters – young, sensitive and troubled people, who are way too familiar with death for their age. Annabel (M. Wasikowska), a girl with brain cancer, meets Enoch (Hopper), who likes to attend funerals of strangers. They don’t have enough time, yet they both try to deal with a fact of death and experience together as much as possible.

Annabel loves nature, she idolizes Charles Darwin and always talks about bugs or birds. Even though she is the one who is going to die, Annabel always tries to see the bright side. Her positiveness and smiling all the time can seem unrealistic and even artificial but this is her mask and her way to deal with grief. Contradictory, Enoch is sorrowful and gloomy after loss of his parents. At the same time he is both fascinated and scared of death. By crashing random funerals and talking with his imaginary friend ghost Hiroshi, who was kamikaze in Japan, Enoch desperately tries to understand the nature of death and reveal it’s secret.

Besides the fact that main characters have to face death in their lives, shadows of death are paranoidly following viewers during the whole film. Story takes place in autumn, when leafs are in ”colors of death”. Annabel tells a story about songbirds that sing because they didn’t know whether they‘d wake up in the morning. Couple goes to morgue and guess what happened to people there. Talking about death is always precarious and it is obvious that in this case “Restless“, written by young screenwriter J. Lew, lacks subtlety and starts to speculate with emotions. It seems that by constantly repeating the same message in different forms and aspects authors nearly forgot other themes. Maybe too much time was spent searching for artfully framed shots (that are actually really good) and looking for retro-vintage outfits for actors before fully finishing and fulfilling the story.

While watching a film it‘s hard to get rid of a feeling that main characters are like perfect paragons – one-sided, predictable and that’s why pretty boring. They are not as complex as in Gus van Sant previous films, where characters had more than one problem and also more than one topic for conversation („My Own Private Idaho“, “Good Will Hunting”). It must be mentioned that actors did their best to give some warmth to their characters, although Hopper sometimes seems unsure of himself in his first lead role. That might be the reason of his eaggertion and overacting in dramatic scenes. Wasikowska (“The Kids Are All Right”, “Jane Eyre”) is always strong even if her character here is way more monotonous than Hopper’s.

If you watch “Restless” as a typical romantic drama, you shouldn’t be very disappointed. Even though a love story is not very special itself, actors do as much as possible to convince the audience. Listening to indie music and watching a cute couple might be quite nice, especially as you still don’t realize that their relationship basically is just a happy montage of skating, fencing, bicycling and running through fields

The strangest thing is that we can’t actually see any symptoms of Annabel’s disease. Her body doesn’t change even during the last stage of cancer. In ”Restless” death is shown more like an idea or a concept, denying what cannot be denied. The scene in which characters rehearse Annabel’s death (which turned out to be their own version of “Romeo and Juliet” ending) is not so different from the death that is shown in this film. An idea of sterile, painless and over romanticized ending of life is too far from reality and faulty itself.

“Restless” gives an impression of schematic and dishonest film, where life flows by somewhere between sentimental flashbacks. It seems that Gus Van Sant is lost between mainstream compromises and his ambitions as independent director, which is the reason of making film about death without real death, film about feelings without real feelings.

Monika Gimbutaitė

The new picture by well-known director Gus Van Sant (Milk, Paranoid Park, Elephant, Good Will Hunting) based on a script by Jason Lew takes us in the life of solitary teenager Enoch Brae which doesn‘t find so much pleasure in the activities his peers do. His imaginary friend Hiroshi Takahashi, a spirit of a dead Second World War kamikaze, helps him to understand his own personality. He is his guide as well as his only friend whit whom Enoch plays the “sea fight” desk game and of course never wins. One of the few things Enoch actually really likes to do is visiting funerals. One day, he meets Annabel Cotton, a girl of his age affected by cancer. Both of them take pleasure in black humour. In the graveyard Enoch introduces Annabel to his dead parents. The most amazing place they have ever visited is the hospital charnel-house and the most funny things to do there is naming the deads and inventing their stories. It’s just a way to cope with thoughts about the death which percolate their life.

Enoch‘s chalk drown silhouette on the floor, which symbolises his loneliness, is supplemented by the silhouette of Annabel. They don’t think they have a future. Annabel will probably die soon and Enoch is restrained by earlier traumas when he lost parents. Annabel helps Enoch to find the joy of being and together they create their new reality. A reality witch is not an imaginary world but the reality simply based on small things, on the nature (birds), on their walks, their plays, their talks and their smiles. Like Annabel says in the film : “Let’s study the world we live in”. She is fascinated by Darwin’s evolution and strongly interested in the nature. Contrariwise, both neglect their life context such as the family or the school

The story is opening in the autumn, when the nature is gets ready to sleep and prepares for the next challenge – the winter season. Exactly like the autumn is gold, Enoch passes with Annabel “the golden age of life”. Of course, they fall for each other and live the happier chapter in their life. The autumn blazes with colours and the scena design corresponds it. Flame colours tone their burning love. Even in the raining and cloudy sequences we could feel a big heat from the actions romance. However, after the autumn the winter comes with snow. The landscapes change, snow covers everything and everything looks differently. Not every nature, not even every existence could go through the winter season and Darwin’s theory works : not everyone survives. The winter is inevitable, the picture makes sure about it. When Enoch and Annabel are hospitalized at the same time both of them wear pyjamas decorated with snowflakes. Actually, the cloth really corresponds with the characters. Enoch wears the dark colours and elegant suits. Annabel is a more open-minded person, she wears more creative cloths. Also a stage design was built up with intention all film long. The early funerals are set up in dark colours but the final funeral we see is in white and once again it corresponds to the current season – the winter – where the film tends from the beginning.

It is really nice to see some pretty nice 35 mm “academic” shots without any hand-held sequences. The today viewer should be used to see hand-held camera in almost every film. The unstable frames became already question of film-making fashion in the contemporary cinema and stably kept camera position are almost unique. Stable camera allows the director to use a traditional staging and we can so be pleased by classical “academic” film-work quite average in this movie. So far Restless was screened at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section.

The film is dedicated to Dennis Hopper (director of Easy Rider), the father of Henry Hooper who plays Enoch Brae. Evidently Gus Van Sant doesn’t really lead the actors and their performance is not at all special. It’s a little bit strange to see such a liberty given by the director who apparently takes account of acting performances, considering that 5 actors who worked with him before were nominated for an Oscar. Restless is a drame but the acting doesn’t surprise at all, except for some moments of  Mia Wasikowska (Annabel Cotton). She knows how to look natural in front of the camera and her performance overlaps the others. Anyway, quiet teenagers become soon big speakers and film goes into the dialogues. Fortunately, the closing sequence corresponds to the opening one and Enoch is back to the silence and we understand the situation by the flashbacks.

The film score is under the direction of Danny Elfman, Van Sant’s one of the Van Sant’s court composers. The melodies mostly support the scenes mood. The music doesn’t create the semantic dialogue with the scenes and works like images support. The black humour scenes are funnier with light simple melodies, romantic music accompanies romance scenes.

 by Dominik Dušek

Restless
directed by Gus Van Sant
with Henry Hopper, Mia Wasikowska and Ryo Kase
USA 2011
Drame, 91 minutes

Le Havre

Directed by Aki Kaurismäki

Starring André Wilms, Kati Outinen, Jean-Pierre Darroussin

Finland, France, Germany, 2011, 93′

Swinging between fairy tale, dreamlike vision and social denunciation, Le Havre by Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki is the kind of film that will make you leave the cinema feeling a bit more hopeful about the world and human kind: the relationship between a humble shoeshine and a refugee child facing the risk of being expelled from France, the instinctive solidarity of neighbourhood friends against a blind and repressive judiciary system, the totally unselfish generosity of these gentle social outcasts, carry us in a world beyond reality, quite a land of make-believe, although staying strongly clung to the most current reality (the socio-political topic of immigration and racial integration). A world in which colours are carefully prepared and combined (the opposition between cold and warm colours is recurring and particularly the colour red acquires a significant sense, especially if one considers certain hints about socialism, such as the name of the protagonist, Marcel Marx); in which the arrangement of objects, inspired by socialistic design, creates a delicate harmony and is loaded with significance and poignancy (see the contrast with the jail, dominated by the white colour and by sharp shapes, mostly oblique and vertical lines); in which even the bad black vulture is not so bad after all. And just when you think that even this enchanted world can no longer escape from reality, here surprise will seize you again.

by Elisa Martellini

Jodái-e Náder az Simin (A separation)

Directed by Asghar Farhadi

Starring Leila Hatami, Peyman Moaadi, Shahab Hosseini, Sareh Bayat and Sarina Farhadi

Iran, 2011, 123’

After fourteen years of marriage, the relationship between Nader and Simin seems to have come to an end: she wants to leave Iran to guarantee a better future for their 11-years-old daughter Termeh, he wants to stay to take care of his father, an old man suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Unable to come to an agreement, she files for divorce and leaves home. The situation becomes more complicated when Nader has a dispute with Razieh, a lower class woman employed to take care of his father, which ends in him sharply pushing her out of his flat. The consequences will be unexpected and very serious.

A separation, the latest film by Iranian film-maker Asghar Farhadi, beyond the essential story-line, stands out for the complex issues it raises, such as responsibility, honesty, religion and love, and for a strong sense of narration. The core of the story is conflict: the two primary conflicts in the plot are the one opposing husband and wife and the one between Nader and the married couple Razieh and Hodjat. From these two thematic issues several secondary conflicts ensue: the conflict between Nader and his house-maid when they fight about her abusing his old father and the missing money, the conflict between father and daughter, the final conflict between Razieh and her hot-tempered husband Hodjat. This growing tension makes the story intriguing and emotionally involves the viewer, who can’t help wondering who’s right and who’s wrong, what’s true and what’s false and inevitably ends up taking one or another character’s part.

The Iranian society of nowadays, with its problems and issues, is also glimpsed in the film: in fact it plays a decisive role in the development of the plot, as the trial separation starts because Simin wants her daughter to live in a society that gives more freedom and possibilities to women, and Razieh has to accept the job offered by Nader unbeknown to her husband, who disapproves of her working. Another major theme, in fact, is the social exclusion provoked by class, gender, economical barriers. Two main oppositions are set in this context: the first one is between Nader and Hodjat (the former is open-minded, modern, cultured and well-spoken, the latter is an illiterate choleric unemployed), the second one between the independent progressive Simin, who has her own career, dresses in a fashionable style and wants to decide about her and her daughter’s future, and Razieh, always concealed by her black chador, who needs to hide her work from her husband and to call her personal imam to know whether cleaning the incontinent father of Nader would be a sin or not. It’s clear that these are two worlds apart, with no possibility of communication. In fact, for the whole movie, they will be unable to come to an agreement and even to listen to each other. They will just keep on screaming, blaming and refusing to recognize their mistakes. In the end, the “adults” seem to be quite childish, and the real grown-up turns out to be 11-years-old Termeh.

Nevertheless, the current socio-political context, even if present and significant, doesn’t seem to be central. The end of a marriage, generation conflicts, social exclusion and the contrast between modern and tradition are universal issues, easy to identify with, that may concern anybody and happen anywhere, not only in Iran. More than the story of a separation in contemporary Iran, this is a story about a separation itself, and all the consequences that ensue.

The actors’ performances are powerful and absorbing: acting is amazingly natural and real and provokes a strong emotional impact in the viewer, as well as the script does. Dialogues are realistic and straightforward, although never banal. The film received the Golden Berlin Bear at the Berlin Festival, and both the two leading actresses and the two leading actors were awarded on the same occasion (as well as on several others). The screenplay gained the Crystal Simorgh Award at the Iranian Fajr Film Festival.

The camera work is essential but expressive: hand-held camera creates a striking effect of reality, as if it was a documentary rather than a fictional oeuvre. Shots are always functional to the action: events, characters and movement are at the centre of the framing, no space is left to additional superfluous elements – such as landscapes or other merely ornamental images. Just from time to time the director highlights visual poetry in everyday situations and events, for example in the scene where Razieh hurries up in the street to search for Nader’s father who disappeared from his room. While running downstairs, her chador flutters behind her and creates a sort of black wave that covers the square of the stairwell and seems to move on its own.

The opening and the closing scenes are essential to the full understanding of the movie and present some particularly interesting filming strategies. These two scenes are related to each other, showing the same characters in different situations and creating a circular narrative. In the first scene we see Nader and Simin at the court discussing their divorce case. The scene is shown from the judge’s point of view: we see them sitting next to each other and addressing the magistrate. They expose their situation and each one tries to assert their reasons. Since the figure of the judge is never shown, the characters look straight in the camera and their claims are virtually addressed to the audience which is directly called upon to hear their case and to judge them. In the final scene, we find them again in the same frame, although separated: they don’t speak and they silently wait for an answer. An answer that – we discover as the movie goes on – is not always taken for granted: more often there is no right and no wrong; everyone has some reasons and some faults.

by Elisa Martellini

“Black Bread” – the film by Agusti Villaronga made by the same name Emili Teixidor novel, with elements of two other works by him, Retrat d’un assassí d’ocells and Sic transit Gloria Swanson, won many awards in films festivals and first film in Catalan language, has submitted the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards.

The story develops at Spanish Civil War (1944) postwar period in Catalan village. In the forest 11-year-old Andreu (Francesc Colomer) finds corpses of a man and a boy. Suspicion of murder falls on Farriol (Roger Casamajor), father of Andreu, so it is forced into hiding. The boy believes that his father was innocent, but sent to another village further away from his parents’ problems, he has to reflect the question of his father innocence again.

The film is playing two spaces. One is closed – the houses, the cave, and second is open – the forest, the river, the way, the field. In the closes spaces dominate almost just grown-up. In their space-time suddenly all things become serious and ominous, frightening in its rational and inevitable. However, children are not prohibited in some moments intrude into the dangerous grown-up areas. For example, when the police arrested Farriol, children observe the arrest and thus they start to learn to understand an adult world full of negative things. Andreu dreams later that his cousin of his peers Nuria (Marina Comas) and he finds themselves in a cave and sees how adult males unsex a youngster. These images introduce children to the cruelty of adult existence. However, all the woeful experiences, caused by the invasion of the grown-up world, are offset by open space, reserved for children. Forest, road, meadow, where they tell legends, and sometimes have a fight, but the space is open to the most supernatural, magical forces that are friendly for the child, but oppressed by adults.

In this film one of these mystical creatures is a man-bird, which Andreu observes twice. The first time is when a man-bird drink water from the river, and the second time – Andreu cousin Nuria flitter. In both scenes are the substance of the nudity and the flight, but between the scenes is a major difference. Angelic looking naked guy in the back wings movements imitating bird drink the water from the river. His white body color combines with the splendor of the river, and creating the picture of some utopian place and with a sacred angelic chastity impression. That purity feeling is the opposite of the second soiled collision of Andreu with a man-bird.

Nuria stands in the balcony half undressed (contrary to the guy on the river nudity) and replicate bird flight. Looking at it there is no thoughts of ​​beauty and spirituality. For girl can be seen in dark, dirty hole in the door and dirty house wall color, emphasizing not so much about living in a family house in material poverty as an earthly child nudity, which, when she flaps its arms, turns into lubricious eroticism. Nuria’s character represents the earthly, the opposite of freedom/flight ideal of Andreu, instilled by his father. Once upon the grenade cut off the hand of the girl, so now her flutter in the balcony is disabled, grotesque and ill-omened fate, because the incomplete hand is like a dead wing, as an allegory of captivity.

Generally the screenplay develops of freedom of human in captivity of human. The first few scenes depicted in the forest shows a place where freedom rules apply. However, although the horse is in the territory of freedom, like one of the most important symbols of her, the opportunity of freedom will soon condemned: horse brutally murdered. All what happens after is marked feeling of incarceration. And really – the lasts film scenes finish unequal struggle between freedom and captivity, poverty and wealth, mind and heart. Disappointed grown-up lie, but perhaps still too young to understand the adult world, Andrew opened his dark corners soul. Lost faith in the authority of his father, ceasing to respect his mother, rejected the proposal hopeful of Nuria escape; he closes in a prison – at school, where everyone wears the same niforms and receives harsh penalties for noncompliance. Thus Andreu forgets the instruction of his own father that the essence is not that what your mind, and what is in the heart.

by Otilija Kerbelytė

In short – a delicate symphony of a human life and nature evolution.

Terrence Malick finally presents his fifth feature film “The Tree of Life” that took six years for him to make. Remembering his earlier works, such as “Days of Heaven”, “The New World”, “Badlands” and “Thin Red Line”, a word “astonishing” fits here perfectly. And the latest work is not an exception. “The Tree of Life” – a drama that keeps your intensive attention for more than two hours is worth watching just because of the camera work and the huge amounts of questions that pops in your head while watching. And remains there for a long time.

The film captures with incredible views of nature, moving composition of sounds and incredibly simple yet not a cheap plot. The story evolves around the life of a Texas family in 1950s where three boys are growing surrounded by loving mother and demanding father and with the oldest boy Jack trying to find answers to the eternal questions of life. Non-linear narrative (tricky, but not so complicated as in Christopher Nolan`s “Memento”) and parallel with quite long shots of nature requires constant attention to the plot and gives satisfaction after the film is over and all the story is finally complete.

The duet of Brad Pitt (the old one and good one) and Jessica Chastain (fresh face on the big screen) as  Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien is convincing. They fulfil the roles of two extremely opposite parents: a daydreamer and a bit childlike mother and career-seeking and strict father. Sean Penn – the adult Jack – has the same wise and critical look as the young Jack – Hunter McCracken. The nicest scene belongs to the Jack at the age of two (Finnegan Williams) when he is strolling around his younger brother`s cradle looking a bit worried about his further position in the family. The importance of this scene is the feeling of Jack as loosing his place in his family and supposing unsecurity – this theme will be relevant in the future life of the boy. The acting of Jessica Chastain gives a sweet impression of a mother, who is into family more than anyone else. And she fits there more than anywhere else. Maybe because of this particular sense Chastain received Hollywood Breakthrough Award yet the role itself is very non-Hollywoodian.

Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki who collaborated with Malick in “The New World”, follows the life of a family from different perspectives. And then it is! The key moments are captured –  first steps of a child, goodbying hands on the opposite sides of the window, cosy childhood home space and big ascetic bureau buildings of glass. And the tree. And the eyes of young Jack, trying to be the one he is not.  Finally, five editors formed a continious story interrupted by views of various forms of nature. Besides digital dinosaurs, some mermaidish women in a water waiving hands artificially, every shot in the movie is where it belongs to be. Oh, music. The work of composer in this movie Alexandre Desplat is brilliant: the classical music strenghtens the impression of eternity and connects all the view together. Music, visuals and the feeling it gives altogether is the trinity of the film.

And finally there is a unique dialogue. Where a few are talking while the only one is listening. Religious theme. God is the one who opens the movie (“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation … while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?“) and he is the only character that no one has ever seen but his significance is undeniable. Jack is praying. His mother is praying. Prayer is the conversation and at the same time – it is search for the answers. Religion supposed to lead to the right way, but the answer depends on you. There are a lot of  the cinematic experiments to question philosophical issues, but Terrence Malick manages to make it in a such precise manner, that visuals, Bible, Mozart and lost adult (who is still a small boy inside) provides a simple and clear answer, but to find it, you have to wait till the end, decoding symbols and catching relevant details. This is the nicest work while watching the film and pleasant one.

The winner of Palme d`Or at the Cannes Film Festival “The Tree of Life” bursts on the screen like a tree with all its natural beauty  and strenght impossible to resist.

By Indre Audenyte

How are you feeling about the idea of being abused? Not something, you would call dream of a lifetime? Then how about being raped by a fly? Do not worry if your answer is once again negative, because this movie already covers this issue. “Fly”, made in 1970 by Yoko Ono and John Lennon, both of whom were really interested in fluxus art and began experimenting with various themes, is dedicated to these questions. Yoko Ono (about whom John Lennon once said that she is: “the world’s most famous unknown artist: everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does.”) took fly as her alter ego and used it to create this disturbing picture.

The plot or, more likely, the lack of it, is about an unknown woman (starred by an actress, that goes by the name of Virginia Lust) lying completely naked on a white sheet and being “abused” by a really persistent fly. That’s it. And it lasts 25 minutes (which is way too short for a normal movie, but for this one it might seem like forever) with the fly moving from one body part to the next.

A question might arise: what is the point of this movie? As stated before, Yoko Ono imagined that fly is her second side of personality. To understand this fully, we have to touch the subject of symbolism. There are many explanations. For example, ancient Christian lore shows the fly as a symbol of impurity and a temptation to stray from the path of righteousness. Beelzebub, the prince of demons, was known as the “Lord of Flies”. This insect represents corruption and putridness. Even in ancient Tarot, the card of Devil has a fly depicted in it, representing the basic animalistic emotions and impulses. Not only that, but scientifically, the fly is a carrier of viruses. If we will keep this information in mind, we can say that Yoko was feeling unclean, tainted and in this film she shows just that: being lured to the dark side, towards leaving humanity behind and becoming an animal. Although, in the end, the fly leaves through the window, which symbolises that even though it spent 25 minutes trying to “corrupt” woman’s body, the insect – evil failed and left in hope of finding new, weaker victim.

Yet in ancient greek culture, the fly is sacred to the god Zeus. These “monsters with wings” signified omnipresence. And since the flies are everywhere (or at least were, in times, when hygiene was a rare sight), so is divine presence – always nearby, always watching and buzzing with divine energy. From this point of view, the fly in Yoko’s movie can be seen as purifier, consuming the negativeness and evil, cleaning all character’s body parts and then leaving her spiritually clean and perhaps even holy. In such case Lennon’s wife, when talking about the fly as her alter ego, may have meant that she sees herself as some sort of purifier, spending a lot of time absorbing the dark parts from other’s souls (this explanation also makes sense, seeing as John was constantly using narcotics and sleeping with nearly every girl that could move. He was even trying to find spiritual truth and learn more about transcendental meditation in one of India’s guru home, but was thrown out because of using drugs).

Whatever is the reason behind this picture, the film was made in only two days. The fly, which had over 200 of doubles, was collected by assistants and stunned using special gass and then deployed on various sedated actresses body parts. The camera work appears to be basic, but perhaps that was meant to be so. You can practically never see full body of the actress, only the part where the fly currently is. The woman is completely naked and her intimate parts are shown up close, but instead of creating sexual thoughts, it makes the viewer feel shock, like the female character is being abused or even raped. Another quite interesting thing about this movie is the spectre of emotions one feels during it, starting with feeling sorry for the actress, then it moves on to create a paranoia in audience’s mind, forcing to constantly check their own bodies for flies, ending with nervous laughter or even hysteria.

The soundtrack consists of sounds made by Yoko and John, imitating buzzing of a fly, pleasurous groaning and cries of pain. Such technique creates a creepy atmosphere, which is accompanied with disturbing scenes.

On the whole, it is left unclear what was meant to say by this film, but the emotions felt while watching it, make the “Fly” worth viewing, at least for testing your patience and seeing how long it takes for one to start imagining flies walking on his own body.

It appears that it’s possible for a single person to shoot an award winning movie using only a photo camera as an equipment and at the same time being a director, an operator, an actor as well as playing all other roles in the process of filmmaking. If you’re as talented as Kim Ki-Duk, you won’t necessarily need a film crew at all. Kim Ki-duk started distrusting people when one of his dear students stole a script they had written together. “Arirang” is an impellent and poetic documentary drama. It gives viewer a chance to take a glimpse into famous South Korean director’s soul and attempt to understand why he decided to desolate the world of cinema.

Even though the movie is an autobiographical documentary about secluded artist’s life in the mountains, it has all the elements required by a narrative story. Lyrical prelude, rising tension, bursting emotions, resolution. Daily household chores, uncomfortable nibbling, weatherbeaten heels and other not quite aesthetical images give you a hint from the very beginning: you shouldn’t be here if you came to watch a comfortable story. In one prolonged take Kim Ki-Duk is neatly brushing his long hair. When he finally manages to make a decent hairdo, he flashes a steady glance into the mirror and prepares for a confrontation with the viewers as well as with himself.

An intriguing solution to vary long monologues is to exchange them with even longer dialogs with… himself. Kim Ki-duk with a neat hairdo rigorously interrogates shaggy and emotionally unstable Kim Ki-duk. Kim Ki-duk talks to his shadow politely as if it was a spirit of his ancestor. Double personality? Just as well. Who else while living a secluded life than yourself could stimulate and inspire you to start living again instead of merely existing?

Director makes no bones and shows even the most intimidating emotions (modern cinema should have already disenchanted the fact that men don’t cry) – it’s perplexing and admirable at the same time. He constructs espresso machine while, ironically, strong coffee is an obvious symbol of stressful and rushing modern world. He even manages to engineer an elegant handgun. During the film Kim Ki-duk repetitiously bursts into “Arirang”, an old Korean song called by the word which has no specific meaning in the modern language. It seems that the crisis of the artist has no specific reasons either: it was a gradual progress during the intensive process of creating. Just like that handmade espresso machine.

A unique story of one person created almost without any money and using incredibly simple equipment has picked an award in 2011 Cannes International Film Festival. During the event Kim Ki-duk agreed to give only a single interview. Things appeared to be brighter when he told that shooting and introducing this unusual movie helped him to recover. Yet during the same interview everyone got confused when he started sobbing the same languorous “Arirang”.

by Marija Sajekaite

Director’s A. Farhadi’s film ”A Separation” is morally challenging and powerful drama about modern Iran society, although the themes that are being analyzed in this film are universal and understandable to everyone.

An unhappily married couple want to split up. Simin wants to leave Iran for her daughter’s future but Nader refuses to emigrate because of his old father who has Alzheimer’s. The film starts in court where both of them try to explain situation from their own perspectives. As man and woman sit apart, avoiding looking to each other, we have a feeling that they have already separated. We can’t see the exact figure of a judge, characters talk directly to the camera. Audience becomes a judge and this happens to be the key to the whole film.

One mistake leads to another and terrible mess starts. As in his previous film „About Elly“ Farhadi is interested not in action itself but in consequences it may cause and, most importantly, in reactions and moral dilemmas of people. Characters in the film are separated from each other by sex, age, social class or religious beliefs, yet they all make the same mistake when they try to convince themselves that a small lie is not really a lie. There is no other word to describe acting besides brilliant. Every similarity as well as every single difference is shown as clear as possible, avoiding exaggeration or overacting. Clear structure of the narrative and powerful dialogues create an atmosphere of being right in the middle of what’s going around, feeling the same anxiety and suspense as the characters feel.

Farhadi doesn’t take sides. In this dramatic and psychologically complex film he uses clear and sensitive voice to prove that usually we can’t blame just one or another – everyone might be right, everyone might be wrong.

Monika Gimbutaitė