Harvard educated Darya
Zhuk was based out of the US when she decided to take up filmmaking, and she
accomplished that by going back to Belarus, her country of origin, for her
quirky, colourful and perceptive directorial debut Crystal Swan. Set during the transition period of the 90s,
Minsk here is an eccentric mishmash of its socialist past and its proto-capitalist
present, and an oddball representation of that was achieved through a giant
Lenin statue forming the backdrop in a nightclub playing electronic music. The
movie’s strikingly captivating heroine is Velya (brilliantly brought to life by
Alina Nasbullina) – a law graduate turned DJ – who loves her shocking blue wig,
and has fallen trap to the lure of the ‘American Dream’. She craves to travel to
Chicago, propelled by her love for house music, even though she has scant
chances of securing a visa. Hence, she puts in a false telephone number in her
application, to give the impression that she has a stable job here and thus a
strong reason to come back. However, when she learns that the embassy will call
on that number to verify her employment status, she must find a way to
intercept that. As it turns out, the number belongs to a dysfunctional household
in the countryside, and that the family is preparing for the marriage of their
embittered eldest son (Ivan Mulin) who gets enticed by this aloof city girl.
Woman’s agency, the desire for freedom, painful coming-of-age and poignant
journey back home formed the film’s central themes. Interestingly, the deadpan irony
of the working class making crystals which fetch absurd prices in Western
Europe provided a salty commentary in how capital operates.
Director: Darya Zhuk
Genre: Drama/Social Drama
Language: Russian
Country: Belarus
It’s rather bemusing
to note that Danish provocateur Lars von Trier began the 2010s with a movie as
haunting, wrenching and transcendental as Melancholia
and ended it with one as inflammatory, grisly and brash as The House that Jack Built (one can say the same about the 2000s too
which he’d begun with the bleakly beautiful Dancer in the Dark and ended with the daringly controversial Antichrist). What has remained unchanged, however, is his irrepressible penchant for provocations and cheeky subversion. Filled with disturbing
themes, unsettling violence and misogyny, wildly digressive narrative, gallows
humour, flamboyant stylistic insertions and biting self-reflexive commentary,
the film’s bound to mesmerize and infuriate in equal measures; no wonder, on
its premiere at Cannes – which was an event in itself given that he’d been
declared persona non grata 6 years
back – over 100 viewers walked out, while there was also a 10-minute standing
ovation at the end. It’s structured as freewheeling, mock-serious and ironic
conversations – mix of self-deprecating ruminations and deadpan philosophizing –
between Jack (Matt Dillon), a demented sociopath and brutal serial killer with
a love for architecture, and a man he calls
Verge (Bruno Ganz), who’s either the Roman poet Virgil’s amused ghost or Jack’s
exasperated psychotherapist or perhaps his delusional conscience; and, over faux-intellectual
discourses ranging from rationalizing his murders and the grand artistry behind
them to Glenn Gould’s music and Nazi concentration camps, Jack recounts over
flashbacks 5 of his vicious crimes – a cocky woman (Uma Thurman) he bludgeoned;
a gullible widow he strangled; his unwitting girlfriend and her kids he executed;
a stunning hooker (Riley Keough) he massacred; and his absurd scheme to murder 5 men with a single bullet.
Director: Lars von Trier
Genre: Drama/Psychological Horror/Black Comedy
Language: English
Country: Denmark
With the bleak,
wintry crime drama The Third Murder –
strikingly moody, seeped in fatalist atmosphere, awash with ambiguities, and
filmed in muted monochromes shorn of life and joy – Kore-eda made a stunning
detour vis-à-vis the gently absorbing family dramas he’s most associated with. Its
stirring elements of familial bonds and dysfunctions, understated approach, and
underlying empathy, nevertheless, did connect it back to his filmography
despite the stylistic departures. The film begins on a violent note as we see a
man brutally murdered by being bludgeoned on the head, followed by burning down
of the corpse. The alleged perpetrator is Misumi (Kōji Yakusho) – that he
served a long sentence on charges of another murder decades back, and has also
confessed to this crime have made the death sentence a distinct possibility for
him. Hence, defence lawyer Shigemori (Masaharu Fukuyama), who’s assigned to
this case, begins his investigations with a sense of cynical resignation.
However, the more he interacts with the enigmatic and strangely placid accused
man who’s incredibly obtuse in his motives, and in turn delves into his tragically
lonely existence, and also gets to know that he’d developed a poignant kinship
with the victim’s forlorn teenaged daughter (Suzu Hirose), the astute lawyer
starts getting a sense that this isn’t an open and shut case despite everyone’s
wishes to close this quickly. Yakusho was terrific as the mild-mannered
antihero, as were his interactions with Shigemori – often shot in close-ups
with exquisite use of the glass partition. The poetic photography and the compelling
low-key score added noirish sensibilities to this meditative, slow-burn
exploration of the slippery nature of truth, complex moral quandary, societal
apathy, and, ultimately, the vileness of capital punishment.
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Genre: Crime Drama/Post-Noir/Legal Drama
Language: Japanese
Country: Japan
Tetsuya Nakashima’s Confessions, adapted from Kanae Minato's
bestselling novel, is a decidedly grim, discomfiting and nihilistic revenge
thriller that blurred the line separating perpetrators and victims while
portraying the irredeemability of its characters. However, while it was
formally adventurous and thematically bold in creating a distinctive palette
for its tale of well orchestrated cruelty and vengeance, where no one is
innocent of wrongdoing, the extreme distancing effects created through
hyper-stylization made it well nigh impossible to develop strong connects with
the proceedings. The movie began with a long and intriguing prelude that
immediately established the context and set the stage for what followed – viz. Yuko
(Takako Matsu), a school teacher, sharing with her class of ill-mannered students
in an eerily placid tone about her 4-year old daughter’s death by drowning, and
her decision to personally exact revenge on the two kids who perpetuated this, as
they’re otherwise protected by the country’s juvenile law. The two students, both
extreme social recluses, are Shuya (Yukito Nishii), a sly, cocky and pathological
sociopath desirous of garnering notoriety as a means to establish connect with
his mother who’s abandoned him, and Naoki (Kaoru Fujiwara), an introverted boy who’s
easily manipulated. The narrative, shot using gray-blue filters to accentuate
the bleak tone, frequently intercut between the three characters to portray
their dark confessions, psyches and motives as the two boys face the wrath of
Yuko’s punishment. While its commentary on societal and parental complicity
pushing the kids towards loneliness, alienation, self-obsession, wanton cruelty
and delinquency was palpable, and the depiction was undeniably chilling, it was
difficult not to be left tad cold by the film’s overly oppressive atmosphere,
straight-jacketed characterizations and stylistic overindulgence.
Director: Tetsuya Nakashima
Genre: Thriller/Psychological Thriller/Revenge Thriller
Language: Japanese
Country: Japan
Hong Sang-soo’s
poignant, delicate and melancholic film On
the Beach at Night Alone is structured like two films rolled into one;
however, unlike, say, Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, where the perspectives switched, or Tale of Cinema, which was split into disparate
narratives, or Right Now, Wrong Then,
where the same sequences were repeated differently, there was a clearer
continuity here, albeit with various intertextual elements thrown in as always.
And, while his works are usually always self-reflexive, this was especially
personal given that Hong’s extramarital affair with actress-muse Kim Min-hee
had caused media gossip leading to this film, and that was clearly alluded to throughout
its length leading to a self-lacerating outburst near the end. The contemplative
and relatively shorter 1st segment follows Young (Kim) hanging out
with a pensive divorced lady (Seo Young-hwa) in Hamburg – while possibly
awaiting her married lover – as they stroll around the local market, visit a
musician bookseller, etc. In the emotionally volatile 2nd segment,
Young, who’s a famous actress, floats around in a small town back in Korea, has
rambling conversations over copious quantities of soju with old friends – a
lovely older friend (Song Seon-mi), a gruff movie theatre manager (Kwon Hae-hyo),
a cuckolded former flame (Jung Jae-young) – and spends solitary moments in the
beach reminiscing her turbulent affair with a filmmaker. During the narrative
switchover it wasn’t clear if the first part was a memory or segment from a
film starring Young, while the climactic scene could potentially be a dream
sequence – these intriguing meta elements, combined with a quintessentially
freewheeling flow, lilting score, and Kim’s stunning, mercurial and wrenching
performance, made this such a reflective, capricious and absorbing work.
Director: Hong Sang-soo
Genre: Drama/Romantic Drama
Language: Korean
Country: South Korea
