Friday 2 December 2011

FIC Xixón 2011

One more year has passed, and this odd Autumn (almost no rain, summer like temperatures... shit, I love my normal dark, rainy Asturian autumns... bloody climate change) has brought us a new edition of Xixón's Film Festival. This year I could attend to 9 films, and my perception was pretty good, there are only 2 of them (well, maybe just 1) that were not worth my time (and I already suspected these films would not fit my taste, but had nothing more to choose for that session), all the others ranged from entertaining to excellent.

  • Viva Riva by Djo Tunda Wa Munga, Congo/France/Belgium (sounds like colonization revival :-), Rellumes section (Friday 2011/11/18)
    I think this is my first African movie, and it's pretty good. A story full of violence, sex and action, Kinhasa has almost run out of gas, and that turns Riva, a gas smuggler, into one of the big men of the city. He chases after an African beauty, and a bunch of ruthless criminals chase after him and his gas. It's interesting to see how even in these times of global everything... attitudes towards, sex, violence, money, and life in general are still rather different depending of our geographical location.
  • Take Shelter by Jeff Nichols, USA, Official competition (Saturday 2011/11/19)
    Excellent film. Some people could had been misled to think that this would be one more apocalyptic film (that's neither good nor bad for me, there are some "end of the world scenario" films that I really like), but not, this is not one of those films. Well, in fact maybe it is, but a different kind of apocalypsis. It's not a natural disaster or man made threat what the characters are really presented with, but a personal disaster, one of the worse that one can imagine, losing control of your mind and being aware of it. The hell descends upon an Ohio family when the householder, whose mother has been suffering from schizofrenia since her thirties, starts to suffer from delusions, paranoia and terrible nightmares. There's a very interesting situation here, while he's pretty aware of the severity of his case and the high chances of him going crazy, he just can't avoid to carry out some plans based on what his delusions and paranoias tell him. I would consider this a very harsh film, a drama that almost turns into horror, internal horror. It grows in intensity as it moves forward, reaching some devastating moment at the end. A must see film.
  • Unfortunately I could not attend to any film on Sunday, as I was selected (it's a draw where any Asturian (well, any Spaniard) older than 18 can be selected, no volunteers here...) to waste the whole day working for the electoral system (you're seized by democracy to collaborate with it under threat of prison if you refuse, no matter if you're an Anarchist or are fed up with their System)
  • Essential Killing by Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland/Norway/Ireland/Hungary, Generos Mutantes section (Monday 2011/11/21)
    Rather interesting film. It's not the masterpice that the guy that introduced the film praised, but certainly a rather good one. One Taliban is taken from Afghanistan to Europe and manages to scape, wandering through a forest in in the middle of Polish winter. A harsh depiction of the fight for survival in a very hostile environment enriched by the empressive natural landscapes (the Afghan mountains first and the European forest then). Some people try to do a sociopolitical reading of the film, the director has denied it, and I'm on his side, I don't think he would have chosen a Taliban shithead as main character if he wanted people to feel identified with him.
  • Faust by Alexander Sokurov, Russia, Official section (Tuesday 2011/11/22)
    Long in short, I didn't like it. Well, I quite liked some visual passages, but the development of the story was quite uninteresting. I've not read the book by Goethe, but given its masterpiece status I'd like to think that a much better film adaptation could have been done. During the first hour I had to strive to not fall asleep, then things got better, but it was just only the excitement of thinking how the end was getting closer...
  • Hors Satan by Bruno Dumont, France, Official section (Wednesday 2011/11/23)
    Terribly boring film, the plot lacks of any interest (well, there's hardly any story being told) and it's just a few sequences along the film mixing violence, sex and oddity what prevents you from falling asleep. By the way, this film presents us with one of the most disgusting sex scenes that I've seen in a long while...
  • Punk's not dead by Vladimir Blazevski, Macedonia, Rellumes section (Thursday 2011/11/24)
    I pretty much enjoyed this my first Macedonian film ever. The synopsis really caught my attention, some 40 something punks in the ramshake city of Skojpe intending to relive their old band. Once in the cinema the story turned out to be pretty good, many fun moments, and an excellent way to show us different tough aspects of the life in Macedonia (that can apply to a good part of the ex-Yugoslavia). The director could have slapped us with each of those aspects: ethnic conflicts, lives and social networks broken by the Western sponsorized civil war, alienation, escape from reality through fucking chemicals... but instead, he preferred to show all this in a soft way, more like a pinch, but one of those which stinging remains with you for a long while. This was the only "meeting with the director" session I could attend this year, and it was outstanding. Vladimir Blazevski gave an introduction that really shocked me, he told us how special and touching this film had been for him, after a 17 year hiatus due to the state of shock in which the break up of Yugoslavia, the fall of the socialist system and the devastating civil war had left him. Once the film finished and excellent discussion with him followed. There he explained (slowly, with a discourse full of details and in a sad and reflective voice) that he had never been related to the Punk counterculture, but that he chose it for this film because of their condition of outsiders, of people that do not seem to fit... just how he felt after Western democracies and the Vatican decided to destroy Yugoslavia.
  • The Stoker by Alexei Balabanov, Russia, Rellumes section (Friday 2011/11/25)
    One entertaining film by Balabanov, indeed I liked it quite more than his other 2 films that I'd previously watched. This said, I don't understand why he has gained the cult status that he seems to enjoy, to me he does entertaining violent films, just that, nothing more. At least this time he shows signs of some social awareness, thing that I absolutely missed in his stupid "Russian Rambo in Chechnya" (War) film. This film (same as Cargo 200) reflects the state of disgrace in which Russia lives after the fall of the Communist State, but I don't think Balabanov has any kind of political intention (OK, yes, I have to admit it, I feel some aversion for this guy because of his stupid antiChechen film)
  • Michael by Markus Schleinzer, Austria, Official section (Saturday 2011/11/26)
    A great surprise. Based on the synopsis I had many doubts about this film, but it was the one that better suited my schedule. It could be a masterpiece or it could be an unbearable "experimental" piece, hopefully it turned out to be an excellent film. Based on a very harsh situation (a kid that's been kidnapped for year by a correct, intrascendent clerk that happens to be a pedophile) the director creates a very convincing work, where while avoiding explicit displays of "horror" he shows enough to make us feel uncomfortable and keep us glued to the screen. There's a very interesting portrait of another terrible situation, members of a family dividing the properties of their deceased loved one, as a fundamental part of the process of getting over the tragedy.
  • Miss Bala by Gerardo Naranjo, Mexico, Géneros Mutantes section (Saturday 2011/11/26)
    An excellent finale for this edition. This is a very convincing and well done radiography of Mexican society, so you know what to expect, violence, gratuitous violence, at any moment, by any (no) reason and exerted by anyone. And also, corruption, plain corruption pervading it all, anyone, any social construct... a broken society suffering a sort of civil war. If it makes it to normal cinemas, go and watch it!
You can check my reviews of past editions here and here.

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