Podcast of Radio Session about Cambridge Film Festival and Romanian Cinema

You can find the recording of last saturday's Bums on Seats show, on which I was on discussing Romanian New Wave with the host.
I'm on after about thirty minutes.

http://cambridge105.fm/wp-content/uploads/podcasts/bums-on-seats-2011-09-24.mp3

Cambridge Film Festival 2011, Day 8

Last day. As tradition there was a surprise film closing the festival. Only the surprise was even bigger, because this year there was a second surprise film.

18:00: Surprise Film 1: Steven Sodebergh's Contagion an analitical, almost documentary style drama about a an epidemic of a new deadly decease. The film avoids classical melodramatic tropes of disaster films (so it isn't Roland Emmerich). A great cast as well.

20:15: Surprise Film 2: The Debt  A drama/thriller with Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, Sam Worthington and Jessica Chastain. Really was a surprise, and a pleasant one.

Cambridge Film Festival 2011, Day 7

11:30: Discussion about The Romanian New Wave on Cambridge105 Radio. Bums on Seats is a weekly radio show dedicated to film. This week I was invited by host Toby Miller to discuss Romanian cinema and it's future during one part of the show. A podcast will be available soon.

15:15: Niki&Flo (Niki Ardelean, Colonel in Rezerva): the third film by Pintilie to be shown at the festival (I missed the first one: "The Oak").

In the third film by Lucian Pintilie shown during the Romanian New Wave section, we find Niki (Victor Rebengiuc), a retired colonel, who isn’t very happy. His son just died, his only daughter is planning to move to the US with her husband and his wife is sick. On top of this he has to deal with Flo, the father of his daughter’s husband and next door neighbour, an obnoxious and eccentric former hippy, who believes himself to be the smartest and best thing the World has to offer, and who loves bossing people around, especially Niki.

With both his children gone and nothing left but routine, Niki’s feeling of unimportance grows and he quietly yearns for the happiness of the past.

In contrast to his previous to feature films (“The Oak” and “Afternoon of a Torturer”, both shown at this festival) “Niki and Flo” has a more connected and straight narrative, though still avoiding classic story-telling techniques. The film moves forwards slowly, and though little seems to happen on the surface of the scenes, beneath them storms are raging, leading us to a blunt and surprising conclusion, which still makes perfect sense.

At some point the film reminds one of Eugen Ionescu’s “The Rhinoceros” where characters are sitting at a table talking in parallel and over each-other, hardly making room for a conversation, but where Ionescu’s work fell into the Absurd, here the situations remind us of the real life.

18:00: Romanian Shorts: five Romanian shorts selected by Anamaria Marinca. Strung Love a hilarious short film about love in high-school during the communist era with Alexandru Potocean. Music in the Blood (Muzica in Sange) a lighthearted drama about a man who believes his son could be the next big manele singer, with Andi Vasluianu and Dan Bursuc. The Counting Device (Numaratoarea Manuala) a comedy about a man who brings his nephew to work to find him a job, only to find that the young man doesn't appreciate an honest and mundane job. Stopover a great short film about a woman having her wallet stolen in an airport and receiving help from an unlikely source. Oxygen a slow-burning, poetic film about those who tried to cross the Danube to escape the communist regime.

22:30: Silent Running: A classic SF from 1972 with Bruce Dern, about a man who is taking care of the last existing plants somewhere on a space station. When the order comes in to abandon the project and destroy all plants, he decides to fight for what he thinks is the salvation of Earth. 

Cambridge Film Festival 2011, Day 4

Another bloody day

23:00: Red State - Kevin Smith's surprising turn as a non-comedy non-View Askew director, with no cameos by himself or Ben Affleck or Jason Mewes or the rest of the crew. Starting of with a classic teenagers torture by redneck community exploitation flick, the film turns into a violent shootout film with unsure political messages. A bit of a mess, fucking entertaining though

Cambridge Film Festival 2011, Day 3

Today was a violent bloody day filled with vengeance and self-made justice.

16:00: Drive + Q&A with director Nicolas Winding Refn Jesus! An intense movie, altering quiet moments with uncensored violence. Surprisingly good and one to make you think. Review below.

22:30: Sympathy for Mister Vengeance As I said: Jesus! If you have seen "Oldboy" you know what you are in for, though this time the story is a bit more grounded. Still, beautiful images, shakesperean vengeance story and characters, and great acting...oh and bloody, gruesome violence. Enjoy!

Enter Hero. Enter Psycho. Enter Saviour. Enter Devil. Enter Driver.

Ryan Gosling plays the unnamed protagonist in Nicolas Winding Refn’s new film about a Hollywood stuntdriver, who makes some extra cash by doubling as a get-away driver, THE get-away driver.

A stoic character who apparently hasn’t heard of the term “adrenalin”, the man is as calculated and precise in his life as he is when he is doing dangerous stunts for action movies.

Enter Carrey Mulligan’s angel-faced, kind-hearted, single mother, Irene, who cannot but disturb his self-imposed apathy, as evidenced by his shy, child-like smile, which shows up whenever she’s around.

Despite his illegal preoccupations, Driver has strong personal principals, showing unconditional kindness towards Irene, her little son, and even her husband, after he returns from prison.  A true gentleman. Also a psychopath.

When former associates of the husband show up and threaten the woman he won’t verbally admit he loves, his response is quick and extremely brutal. Hammers are used for purposes the makers did not intent, lives are ended by shot-guns and heads are bashed in with boots. All in their uncensored inglory.

Channeling Robert de Niro’s Travis Bickle and Chan-wook Park’s OldBoy, Driver makes his own justice, and woe to those who stand in his way.

The film repeatedly goes from naught to sixty in mere seconds, from very intense quiet moments to explosive scenes of violence, blurring the line between hero and villain. It will draw you in from first to final breath. 

Universitality and Cultural Diversity: Interview with Deepak Verma

I am sitting here with Mister Deepak Verma. Am I saying it correctly?

Yeah.

Sorry, I’m not from England, so I wasn’t…

Well neither am I.

Fair enough.

We just came out of a viewing of “Mumbai Charlie”. This is your first directing feature…

This is my first directing film, I’ve directed a lot a theatre before. So when I wrote the film I had the idea, well its based on this real story of this community in India who worship Charlie Chaplin, it’s based on this doctor who loved Charlie Chaplin. When the Earthquake happened in 2001, he wanted to bring laughter to this community so he set up this Charlie circle, teaching people how to walk like Chaplin, how to find their inner moustache, which is kinda what the film is about. So I wanted to have a bit of a laugh at that with the film. The short film is about that, about finding this business-man, who all he thinks about is business, making money, and he realizes that he not living his own life, his living his dad’s life, and when he meets this community, he finds his inner Charlie, that’s what the film is.

How did you first discover Chaplin?

Well I’ve watched Chaplin for years, but I think when I found this article one day on the Tube about a community in India, where they celebrate Chaplin’s birthday every year, I’ve obviously compounded all that experience as much as I knew, and I realized that the guy was very much like a god of film, I mean a lot of what he did…now we don’t really realize that it was Chaplin that create it. The comedy. I mean he’s universal, and universal comedy is a bit like gold dust. Cause nowadays you can watch a film and maybe some people like it and some people don’t, at the time, everyone loved Chaplin. Everyone. I just came back from Kerry where they did the Charlie Chaplin Comedy Film Festival, where I had this film as well, and they absolutely loved it. And you really realize how much love there is for Chaplin still. And Chaplin’s son Christopher did some of the music. The estate helped us, and we used “The Great Dictator” speech, which is just beautiful.

I’ve been a huge Chaplin fan for a few years now, and even though I hadn’t seen any of his films for quite a while, watching your movie now evoked those emotions of…magic.

Well yeah. It’s magical. He really talks to you. You do a little [wiggles his upper lip in classical Chaplin fashion] and you look at the camera, and…there’s a bit of Charlie in everyone. And that’s what the film’s about. About finding that. Cause I think we’re living in a very…erm, the speech that we use from “The Great Dictator”, which is like: we found speed, but we’ve lost the way. We’ve lost the way. Everything’s fast, everything’s quick. We’ve lost the moment. And it’s about finding the moment, which is what all of Buddhism, all of Yoga, all about any form of meditation, spirituality is about, about being in the moment, and that’s what he is. If you look at Chaplin, he is in that moment, right there! That’s all that matters.

One thing said about Chaplin is, that he gave a voice to the impoverished, to the people living in the Depression, do you think that your film, which is set in India gives a voice to…

Well I think that was the point, I mean obviously he was brought up from a poor background, he was in the workhouse, his mum was ill and poor and all of that, but inside him he had this journey that he had to make. And when he made films later on he always referred to his youth, the tough times that he had. A lot of his films…”The Kid” I think is great because in a way the Kid is him, some of it, that character, the boy, the little boy. And also, I’m from India, I was born in India, and we’re from a quite, well-to-do family, but you’re still on the streets, you’re still ducking and diving, so I wanted to really use that, just to be in India, to work in a slum, the people in the slum, and just kind of get to know them. It’s just a pleasure and a privilege really, and quite moving for me is that, while working, this time they really treated me like an Indian, cause usually they treat me like a tourist, white man, cause no matter how good my Hindi is, it’s still got a little accent.

You said Charlie found a bit of himself in the Kid, do you think that in this film there is a part of you in the main character?

Absolutely, I mean I think when…well there’s a doctor character who teaches everyone how to be Chaplin. The character of the Doctor is very much me, he’s somebody who wants to change the World, he’s got his own idea of the World, that people don’t necessarily understand what he’s talking about half the time, but some of the time they do, and when it works it works, when it works you see what he’s talking about, you see what the message is. And his message is: Follow your truth, follow your bliss. Which is kind of what I’ve always done, you know, follow the truth, follow the art, do what you really want to do, not what other people brainwash you to do. And that’s what the film is really about.

Chaplin is universal, but he is a Western creation, and in the film we have him recreated by someone in the East. Now in 1998 you founded Pukkanasha Films, the productions of which combining cultures, cultural entities…

Well, yeah, I think I would say that I want to tell stories which are universally appealing, whether they’re English, American, Indian, whatever. Obviously the first couple of projects that I want to do have got that cultural context, but, we’re looking at a Spanish project, we’ve got an American project, and so, I think to set out to do a diverse project is not the way I work, I want to a project where the characters have a great and amazing journey which appeals and speaks to everyone, and so there’s a story. I believe there’s structures in filmmaking, there’s designs, and you go to do this and you got to do that, but I think with “Mumbai Charlie” some people watch it and think “What is that?”, it’s a bit strange, it’s a bit magical, and the aim is a bit “Alice In Wonderland”. It’s a bit “Alice in Wonderland” inspired, when he drinks the medicine from the doctor, who’s a bit like the Mad Hatter, so all of those influences are there.

What do you think about how different cultures are represented by the English media: films, tv. Obviously, you’ve been on “Eastenders”, and you were amongst the first characters to bring cultural diversity. What do you…

I am very proud to be in that position, where the character was the first Asian/Indian character there, whom the people just saw as a character and just loved as a character, and not as some Indian guy. And that for me is very important, and I think it’s very wrong to just start being diverse, and I think that that’s where some of the Film Council, the ex-Film Council, and some of those organizations…you know, organized diversity does not work. It just doesn’t work, it’s a failure, and it doesn’t really say anything. It’s just ticking boxes, and employing people who…I don’t think people from certain minorities should get a leg up. If you’re good, you’re good, if you’re not good, you’re not good. So I really believe it’s about the story, and this film was made with private money, and it is what it is, you know what I mean? I’m not ticking any boxes, I’m just doing what I want to do. To me that’s really, really important, because I think that’s where this companies get it wrong, where an x amount of money will go to black filmmakers, and x amount will go to Asians, I think that’s wrong, I think it should go to the best filmmakers, and if none of them are black, fine, and none of them are Asian, fine, if all of them are Asian, great. That’s what I think, which people won’t like but.

Do you think your cultural background has hindered you from finding any work in England?

No, I think if it’s hindered me it’s something that has to do with what I do as a person, and if anything has propelled me, it’s what I’m doing. I have this saying: “it’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at.” And if where you’re at is telling you to seek stories, than people will follow you. But if you keep barking about how “I’m Asian, and he doesn’t earn enough money…” But that’s not the way to…I think it’s rather about what you want. At the end of the day it all comes down to script, and character and obviously idea, that’s all it’s about, it’s about nothing else. When form-filling takes over that, which a lot of times it does, a lot of film-makers do get financing because they just know how to fill in forms and they’re from a particular cultural background. That does happen, it does. People will deny it, but it happens. I think that’s just gonna get nowhere. You might take the forms and send them to DCMS and say we have that many blacks or Asians, and it doesn’t do anything for me. I think it is the same for theatre, I think it’s just about what is interesting.

You are now preparing a musical version of “Wuthering Heights”, what other projects do you have lined up theatre-wise?

“Wuthering Heights” is going to be a musical with a big West-End angle, that’s the idea; “Mumbai Charlie” as a feature, people love the film, so, see how that goes. And I’m working on “Jane Eyre” as a theatre show as well, using Calcutta as a place. Cause “Jane Eyre” is about a girl who is raised in a convent, and kind of finds herself, I think most things I write are about persons finding themselves. So I am working with some actors I know. What I like is to have the idea, get the actors, do the workshops and I am quite lucky who you pay them and they do it. You just don’t wait around for subsidies, just get one with it. There’s always ways to do things.

Until you get started on the feature length version, what is in the plan for “Mumbai Charlie” now?

We’re going to festivals. It’s playing in L.A, we’re playing at AFM [American Film Market, I think] I hope, where we are doing an independent screening, period. And, it’s won an award at the Honolulu Film Awards, which is an interesting place to win an award, it’s going to Atlanta Shorts Fest, it’s going to various festivals. Where take it around the festivals, and then we can see where we stand here.

Sounds good.

Ok.

Ok. Thank you very much. Good luck.

Thank you. 

For more information about the Cambridge Film Festival click here

Cambridge Film Festival 2011, Day 2

This day was a bit a more relaxed.

17:30: Mumbai Charlie - a funny half-hour film about a young business man from Mumbai who rediscovers himself when he meets the Charlie Circle, a group of people who worship Charlie Chaplin. Warm recommendation, regardless if you like Chaplin or not. Q+A with director and crew afterwards

18:30: Interview with Deepak Verma - writer, director of Mumbai Charlie. Interview will be uploaded at a later moment.

22:30: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark - horror film written and produced by Guillermo del Toro, with Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce. A blatant disregard for horror conventions, the film is full nicely executed jump scares, though lacks some deeper horror qualities due to exposing the monsters from the very beginning. At points it felt funny, or like a scary version of "The Borrowers". It was intense throughout, and genuinely frightening at moments, but it didn't get under my skin as other classic horror films did and didn't really stay with me afterwards. Recommended none the less.
(recenzie in romana la un moment dat)

Cambridge Film Festival 2011, Day 1

The Cambridge Film Festival has begun yesterday, and today I managed to view three films, one of which was for the festival magazine, Take One. (make sure to take one when it comes out)

I will try and keep a short festival diary on each of the 10 days, and hopefully will even manage to do it (at least on most days).

So here's today's:

12:30: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - as expected it was a very satisfying film, with a brilliant set of actors and a talented director (Let The Right One In's Thomas Alfredson). Let's just say I smell Oscars, aplenty.

(recenzia in romana urmeaza cat de curand)

15:00: Mann v. Ford - made for TV HBO documentary, interesting subject, unimpressive film. Review attached below.

17:45: Resistance - a war drama taking place in an alternative 1944 where D-Day has failed and the Germans have invaded Britain. In a small village in Wales all the men have suddenly disappeared to fight in the resistance, leaving the women under German occupation. Having nothing left home a German general wants to settle here, and tries to form a bond with a local woman, who cannot turn down the help he offers, but does not want to give up her husband. A subtle, slow drama with great performances, much in tone with Tinker, Tailor.... With Andrea Riseborough and Michael Sheen. UK release on November 25th, well worth seeing it.

(in romana, recenzie, cand am timp)

Mann v. Ford

It’s Erin Brockovich, the TV-documentary version, and that could be enough said.

This 2010 HBO documentary follows a community of Native Americans as they are trying to find justice after learning that the rainbow coloured sludge the Ford Motoring Company has dumped on their land during the 60’s is actually highly toxic, causing serious health problems to most inhabitants of the area.

The comparisons to the 2000 Julia Roberts drama don’t stop here, for on the horizon, as a crusader for these people ignored by the authorities, appears the rescuer, a spunky female lawyer looking like a middle-aged Barbie, complete with blonde hair, pink lipstick and matching figure. A southern accent, a go-to attitude and an optimistic determination make her an appealing character, as the film makers themselves must have noticed, considering the movie often seems to center more on her than the Indians themselves.

There is clearly enough and strong material for a moving movie and a deeper study about the carelessness of major companies about the effect some of their actions have on smaller communities, yet the filmmakers do not seem to be able to handle all this material effectively, the product never surpassing its ‘made for TV’ feel, and as for why it received a cinema release in the UK, remains, in this reviewers opinion, a mystery.

Throughout its course the movie retains a stubborn one-sidedness; victims are interviewed in a Church, the lawyers reinterpret anything said by the plaintiffs into an eloquent monologue, which in any court-room drama would stir calls of “Objections, they are leading the witness on”, and no opposing opinion is ever presented, these elements giving a pervading feeling of self-righteousness.

But as the toxic waste permeates into the ground beneath, the real emotional moments permeate the parade of victimization, and moments such as the one where one community member lists all those who have died or are suffering of cancer on a single street, nick-named “Cancer Row” (hint: nearly everybody) are truly gut-wrenching, and are the saving element of the film.

A David vs. Goliath story, if David would spend an hour and a half talking about how mean and ugly Goliath was and then skipped the fight to the aftermath.