Archivi categoria: Film (English)

English version, Film, Film (English)

Strange Days by Kathryn Bigelow

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Article by: Matteo Merlano                                                                                       Translation by: Lorenzo Matarazzo

  • Los Angeles, December 31 1999, at the dawn of the new millennium tensions and chaos rule a militarized city, slave to a new drug which is powerful and unstoppable: Deck, i.e. other persons’ experiences recorded on mini-disc and directly wired to the brain of the user. Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) is the biggest “experiences’” dealer around, but when he receives a clip containing a Deck fix showing the truth about the homicide of rapper Jeriko One, leader of the rising afroamerican rebellion, his life takes a dangerous turn.

    Set only four years after the moment of shooting, Strange Days predicted the future in a rather disturbing way. Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman director who cleared the Action genre through the customs of male-only directions (masterpieces such as Point Break and Near Dark are works of hers) and gives us the image of a Los Angeles which is nocturnal, violent and full of tensions and contradictions (a big part of the credit goes to the script from James Cameron, Bigelow’s ex-husband) where the characters wander like ghosts searching for Life, not theirs, but other people’s, the one which is “transferred” in the brain like a file from a Usb drive. No one is safe in this world and to escape sadness everyone is willing to do anything. A movie filled with a 90s’ atmosphere, from the aesthetic choices (fast montage and a photography reminiscent of the one used in videoclips) to the Hip Hop, Techno and Post-Punk countercultures, up to the human side, where in a society which lacks direction the only salvation is true love, when it is absolute and romantic. Great soundtrack: Tricky, Deep Forest, Peter Gabriel and Skunk Anansie, to name a few.
    Perfect cast with Fiennes, at ease and troubled at the same time in this scenario, a Juliette Lewis who is more beautiful and reckless than ever and Angela Basset, who carries on the role of tough women so dear to Cameron (Sigourney Weaver in Aliens and Linda Hamilton in Terminator), as well as a disturbing Vincent D’Onofrio, playing a corrupted and psychopathic policeman.

    It is unbelievable how much of the vision from Bigelow and Cameron came true. At the time of production racial tensions had reached their peak because of the police killing of Rodney King in 1992. Today they have emerged again for the same reason in many places around the United States. A militarized L.A. sadly reminds of the big European cities of these weeks. After the 13 November tragedy in Paris and after other similar events, Strange Days appears extremely contemporary. A must see which helps to understand the dark, crazy and “strange” days that we are living in now, year of the Lord 2015.

 

English version, Film, Film (English)

Borsalino City by Enrica Viola

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Article by: Barbara Vacchetti

Translation by: Martina Taricco

Borsalino City, part of the always rich Festa Mobile section, is a documentary directed by Enrica Viola and produced by UNA Film. The movie retraces the history of the Borsalino company, which was founded in 1857 by Giuseppe Borsalino in Alessandria, a town located in the piedmontese countryside. The brand became internationally well-know thanks to the Grand Prix held in Paris in 1900. A few months later Giuseppe, who had learned the hat craftmanship around the world, died and the company was passed on to his son, Teresio Borsalino. After a family feud Teresio’s cousin, Giovanni Battista Borsalino, founded a new company called Borsalino Fu Lazzaro. As a consequence of the split, rumours followed that the true inventor of the Borsalino hat had not been Giuseppe while instead his brother Lazzaro (Giovanni Battista’s father). It was Teresio Usuelli, Teresio Borsalino’s nephew, who inherited the family company whose centenary was celebrated in 1957. In the movie, the family descendants tell and recall the feud, the business achievements and their history.
Nonetheless, the documentary focused the attention not only on the Alessandria firm as instead much more on the social rule played by hats from 19th Century until the first half of the 20th Century. In fact, for a hundred years, hats showed the social class people belongs to. Nobody would have gone out without a hat and this is proved by many photographs and video of that time. However, during the 60s wearing hats was not fashionable anymore so that many hat factories were forced to shut down or sell the company.
In particular, the Borsalino was considered as a source of wealth for the city of Alessandria because it employed many of its inhabitants. Thanks to many audio testimonies granted by some of the employee, we know that the company bell marked not only the working life but also the activities of the city. When Alessandria was bombed during the Second World War, the population did their utmost to save all the hats left in the factory and to help with its reconstruction.

 

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But the most interesting and unique aspect of the documentary is, with no doubt, the strong relationship between the Borsalino hat and Hollywood. By hearing Robert Redford rich voice telling us about his visit at the factory and his desperate quest after the hat worn by Marcello Mastroianni in Federico Fellini’s 8 ½, the audience goes back over to the Hollywood golden age and finds out the importance that hats had during that period. What would happen to Casablanca if in the scene when Humphrey Bogart leaves Ingrid Bergman, both of them were wearing any hats?

FILE – NOVEMBER 23, 2012: The American romantic movie drama Casablanca celebrated its world premiere on November 26, 1942. Starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman the film was a solid success in its initial run, winning three Academy Awards, and its characters, dialogue, and music have become iconic. It now consistently ranks near the top of lists of the greatest films of all time. Please refer to the following profile on Getty Images Archival for further imagery: http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/Search/Search.aspx?EventId=113854183&EditorialProduct=Archival&esource=maplinARC_uki_12nov Humphrey Bogart (1899 - 1957) and Ingrid Bergman (1915 - 1982) star in the Warner Brothers film 'Casablanca', 1942. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)

And what would happen to the image of the gangster wearing a hat that was so fashionable both during the prohibitionism and in films noir? The hat was used to connote the character. It was not only a medium with which cover one’s face when the police arrived, the hat gave a mysterious look to the character and, consequently, made the actor look like a star. After all, the huge recourse to hats to depict the gangsters was due to Al Capone habit of always wear a hat himself. The Borsalino company was able to took advantage from the popular imagination to promote its product and identify itself all around the world, that turned out to be a winning move. It is enough to mention the movie played by Jean-Paul Belmondo e Alain Delon which is named after the best-known hat in the world: Borsalino.

English version, Film (English)

La felicità è un sistema complesso by Gianni Zanasi

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Article by: Lara Vallino

Translation by: Martina Taricco

Enrico Giusti’s job is a very useful one: he gets acquainted with incompetent business executives, he listens to them, then becomes their friend, and eventually manages to take over the company they are not able to run. His ability is to make these people believe that it was their own decision. He is the best and the only one in his field, but guilt does not leave him alone: are all managers like locusts?

Continua la lettura di La felicità è un sistema complesso by Gianni Zanasi →

English version, Film, Film (English)

Mountain by Yaelle Kayam

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Article by: Alessandro Arpa

Translation: Kim Turconi

According to biblical tradition, The Mount of Olives represents the place where God will bring the dead back to life on Judgment Day. Cliffs and rocks outline a landscape full of paths both winding and labyrinthine, each of them studded with an unknown number of tombstones. A house built into a rock wall separates the world of the dead from the living. Tzvia (played by Shani Klein) lives in this spiritual and transcendental place. She is the protagonist of Mountain, the new film by Yaelle Kayam, which was presented for the first time this year in the “Orizzonti” section of the 72nd annual Venice International Film Festival. This feature film tells the story of a Jewish woman waiting for any signs of love coming from her husband. The routine of Tzvia is always the same: she does housekeeping and walks in poetic landscapes among millions of burial recesses. While Tzvia waits for the love and attention of Reuven, her husband, she begins to wander in the area around her house at night. Thus, she discovers that some erotomaniacs meet to consummate decadent copulations with each other, when the sun goes down. At the beginning, she hides herself among the tombstones and watches, with a voyeuristic attitude, the merging of the bodies during sexual intercourse. The Jewish woman discovers the meaning of sexual liberty and makes a comparison between that attitude and her unsatisfying life with her husband. Tzvia is still hidden and she does not know how to escape the situation. When the erotomaniacs become aware of the presence of the woman, Tzivia reduces herself to a servile condition. She feels a sense of guilt, so she decides to offer a meal to the group of exibitionists every night from now on. The film exudes the philosophy of Bataille and sacredness becomes seminal. Mountain presents images full of symbolism. For example, the scene in which Tzvia touches a used condom clearly indicates that she is a sexually repressed woman, while the image of the dead mouse lying on the floor reveals in advance the tragic ending of the film. To summarize, this work by Kayam is nebulous and fails to emerge. Still, there are some interesting – but half-developed – ideas. They float in the air just like Tzvia’s sexual desires do. Who knows if love will crush sense of duty once again.

Conferenze Stampa, English version, Film, Film (English), Report, TFF 33 - 2015, Torino Film Festival

The Press conference: Suffragette Opens 33 TFF Press Conference

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Article by: Danila Prestifilippo                                                                                     Translation by: Roberto Gelli
Not only was Suffragette shown yesterday evening to inaugurate 33th TFF, but also the film was the protagonist of the first press conference, which took place this morning. Film director Sarah Gavron, screenwriter Abi Morgan and one of its producers Faye Ward answered journalists’ questions and explained the film goals and the choices they made, in order to create the short film.

Muad (Carey Mulligan), a female worker, is the protagonist. She is a fictional character and fights together with other women, who represent really existed historical feminists like Emmeline Pankhurst (Merylin Streep). As director Gavron pointed out, the aim of this semihistorical approach was to make a connection between the women, who were given the mocking name Suffragettes and started their battle for their right to vote hundred years ago and modern women, who are still struggling with salary discrepancy, sexual violence and for their right to children protection and tutoring.

Suffragettes social movement has fought for fifty years but, if it is true that the first forty years had been a pacific struggle, in the following sixteen months the fight became more violent and cruel and almost none knows about it. The absence of films that tell us about the violence these courageous women had to endure, played a great role in persuading Faya Ward and Alison Owen to produce the film. Faya Ward stated: “We wanted the public to be aware of the importance of the sacrifices and the success related to Suffragettes fight. We also wanted to underline how their results are effective in nowadays society. We have tried to give modern spectators some contact points, in order for women not only to be politically active, but also to encourage them to be and become what they really feel they are or they could be. Our attempt was to give voice to those, who were not yet given their chance on the big screen.”

Abi Morgan, who had already been the screenwriter of movies such as The Iron Lady, emphasized that the challenge was to choose a really meaningful example of woman’s life and be able to put it in a precise historical context. She said: “On the one hand the character of Muad underlines the role of lots of passive supporters who became activists, on the other hand it investigates the reasons which persuaded women like her to put their jobs, their families and their homes at risk, in the name of a civil right”. The film focuses on the political matter and puts in the foreground these courageous protagonists, so the decision to not examine in depth personal stories was due to the fact that there are not enough literary or movie material at disposal, to which one can refer to. With reference to that, Morgan added that it was much more important to end the film with information about Saudi Arabia and its 2015 law concerning women right to vote only if accompanied by men, rather than to think at some sort of dramatization of Maud in the Hollywood style.

Sarah Gavron gave some further meaningful figures: “Still today, 66 million of women worldwide have no right to vote, 2/3 are illiterate and only 22% hold public offices. It says that the face of poverty is female and unfortunately these figures confirm it”.

The film’s aim is not only political and historical, it concerns the social matter too by denouncing and preventing the high young people abstaining rate, above all among women. Director Gavron told about the reaction of most of the female audience attending Suffragette’s introduction meetings. As she had hoped, after seeing the film, they expressed their wish to vote again because it made them aware of the sacrifices made by British feminist movement. She also reported that the troupe film (almost completely composed by women) wanted to give a clear signal during the film shooting, so they symbolically demonstrated against government by obtaining the permission to film in the House of Parliament in London, that same institutional place, which had declared against women right to vote.

Asked about a possible way to increase female presence in all sectors, starting from institutional offices, Abi Morgan answered: “We have to introduce the concept of positive discrimination and keep insisting about the importance women have within a context implying equality of the sexes. Geena Daves said “See in order to Be”: we need to have a radical attitude, to leverage the mass media but, in order to be successful, women complicity is essential”.

Faye Ward ended the press conference by making a consideration about the fact that Suffragette is a film of women who fight for their right to vote but “today the concept of fight may imply different ways. Each one of us can be what he wants to be, and this is true for both genders and all races. It is enough that we find our own voice and utter our words in every place, in political institutions or other kind of institutions.

English version, Film, Film (English), Universal

Kilo Two Bravo by Paul Katis

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Article by: Luca Bellocchia                                                                                           Translation by: Rita Pasci

An excellent debut film from British director Paul Katis, after working his way up directing short films. The film is based on real events that happened to Mark Wright and a small unit of British soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, on a ridge near the Kajaki dam.
To disable a Taliban roadblock, a three-man patrol offers to carry out the mission. In a dried out river bed, one of them accidentally detonates a landmine, losing his leg in the process. This triggers a tense and claustrophobic narrative, where shots of vast deserted spaces define an indifferent and merciless setting. Although the film was shot outdoors, the action takes place in a very confined space.
What’s thought-provoking is the fact that even though the film is set in Afghanistan, the indigenous population is kept at a distance from the centre of the action, apart from the very beginning of the film.
Katis favours all that is anti-spectacular, the events are told in a dry and blunt manner. The outstanding performance of the actors playing the main characters cannot leave even the most insensitive viewer indifferent.
One thing that’s astonishing is the sense of humour of the soldiers, who, despite the tragic situation they find themselves in, still manage to defuse the tension. The soundtrack is reduced to the essential, the panting of the maimed and wounded and the noises made by flies cast the viewer directly into what’s happening, making everything more real.
Kilo Two Bravo is a film that gives an opportunity to elaborate on a point of view about war that is still unexplored, namely that of real war, where young people die simply because of distraction, misunderstanding, or just pure bad luck.

English version, Film, Film (English)

February by Osgood Perkins

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Article by: Valentina Di Noi

Translation by: Chiara Toscan

Osgood Robert “Oz” Perkins, son of the actor Antony Perkins, proved to be a wonder with his first work as a director, the horror thriller February. We have already seen him acting in Psycho II and more recently screenwriting The Girl in the Photographs.
February is undoubtedly a film that creates an atmosphere. The theater was immersed in the sharp frost of the snowy streets that were so white they gave a sense of purity. However, such sensation was not meant to last, as soon those streets were going to be spoiled by trails of blood.
The film is set in Kempville, Ontario Canada. It’s February and the students of the all girls boarding school “Kempville” are getting ready to leave for their hometown for the winter break. Kate (Kiernan Shipka) and Rose (Lucy Boynton) are stuck at school because their parents have mysteriously failed to retrieve them. Rose finds herself forced to babysit Kate even if they are not friends but rather share resentment. At the same time, Joan (Emma Roberts), escaped from a mental health facility, is heading towards the school, while Kate starts to have a strange attitude.
In this feature film lingers not only tension but also teenage crisis and inner torments, especially through the characters of Rose and Kate. Its deconstructing montage might create confusion, however, at the end, all the pieces of the puzzle come together.
The film has no shades, only clear contrasts: the breaks between scenes as well as music change are clear.
Just one more thing: pay attention to the cutlery and Donnie Darko‘s bunny ears.

English version, Film, Film (English)

Interruption by Yorgos Zois

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Article by: Alessandro Amato

Translation by: Cristiana Caffiero

In aesthetic terms “Catharsis” means purifying the human passions that are understood and overcome with art. However, this word comes from Ancient Classic Greece and is connected with a sort of religious ritual that requires to purify both body and soul. Nowadays Greece is facing a cultural and social crisis: in few words it is an adrift country. Despite this, Greek cinema is constantly focusing on this national crisis and ready to supervise its flow. There is no real school of contemporary Greek cinema but there are several common artistic trends in these Greek movie makers.

Interruption is the first feature film by Yorgos Zois and without doubt follows this trend. This film starts with some out of focus lights blurring in a dark space. These lights stand for something not clear but alive that is going to bump soon into an unexpected future. This obscure element is actually an ancient man who’s completely naked. There’s a young blond and short haired woman with him. Those lights we have noticed at the very beginning of the film are actually Clitennestra and her lover Aegystus. Nonetheless the old man and the girl are Agamemnon and Cassandra. The starting events of The Oresteia are well known: the queen and her lover will kill the king who has come back to Troy after many years with another woman. The clash between Cassandra and the new masters of the palace occurs in a glass cube in the middle of the stage. According to mythology there should be then Orestes coming back from his exile and his vengeance versus his mother. Anyway the performance is suddenly stopped by a group of young people running through the stage and telling us they are the Chorus. Their leader is a black haired guy with an amused smile who takes some people from the audience as volunteers. They will introduce themselves and take active part in the show.

“What’s happening here is fiction or reality?” this is the question made by to a member of the Chorus to a girl.
“It’s the reality” replies the girl but she doesn’t look very convinced. The wonderful event this movie is trying to show is the theme of being guilty putting it aside for a while and playing it without misleading it. Now it’s high time to recollect Pirandello.
This movie is about a nowadays issue. At the end the young man kills himself while the theatre audience stands up thinking the tragedy came to its end. He’s another victim of nowadays spread indifference. It’s time that the actors and people taking part in the tragedy take off their clothes as a metaphor of their shame. But if they purified themselves and cleansed their guilty souls what about us and our Catharsis?

English version, Film (English)

The Time Machine (L’uomo che visse nel futuro) by George Pal

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Article by: Matteo Merlano

Translation by: Sema Udmir

London, 1899. George is a brilliant inventor who developed an amazing machine enabling a person to travel in time. And with this machine, the protagonist starts to explore the future and witnesses the progress also the failure of humanity (two, even three world wars). His route will take him 800.000 years ahead, to a future where humanity is divided between angelic and naive Eloi from the external world and cruel and monstrous Morlocks, the inhabitants of the Earth.

George Pal depicts a story in his film based on amazing novel of H. G. Wells who invented an imaginary world, reflecting very well the sci-fi of that period. Colorful pop culture does not take it very seriously, and the fierce social critique of the novel which is that the Eloi represent the rich and Victorian middle class while the Marlocks represent the working class, gives a visionary image to whom made The Time Machine precious like a jewel.

By a sort of anthology of first time lapse experiment, time travel is shown us through the season changes and the changes in fashion in time. It also shows us the history of Time Machine which is the ancestor of Delorean, an armchair with commands operated by a lever with a knob in diamond (to the limits between Steam-Punk and Trash).

Perhaps one of the last examples of Cinema of Attractions in the historical sense of the term, is the film watched all over the years and still enjoyable and fun in its vintage style. We owe to George Pal fantastic 60s cinema (especially Barbarella). However, his spiritual students such as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg can not be forgotten as well. By the way, a remake of the film in 2002 (which was unsuccessful at the box office) is directed by great-grandson of Wells, Simon who used a lot the original version on his remake film with Guy Pearce in the lead role and Jeremy Irons, the head of Morlocks.

“Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads”, says Doc Brown in Back To The Future. We agree with you Doc. To travel, it is enough to sit on a comfortable armchair and to use healthy, vital and a lot of immagination.

 

English version, Film, Film (English)

Mia madre fa l’attrice by Mario Balsamo

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Article by: Lara Vallino                                                                             Translation by: Andrea Cristallini

MIA MADRE FA L’ATTRICE

Documentaries have often been overlooked or dimissed as not suitable for cinema screenings on the grounds that they are too specialized, although they bring to the big screen unknown or intentionally ignored realities. Conversely, after his succesful Noi non siamo come James Bond, which gained him the Jury Prize at TFF 30, Mario Balsamo makes his comeback in Turin with another slice of his life: the documentary Mia madre fa l’attrice, one of the four Italian movies in the main section of the festival.
No polar bears or exotic indigenous peoples then, here we are in fact presented with a typical emotional connection, the one between a mother and her son. Since the dawn of times, this indissoluble bond has always been subject to study, and this is still the case today. Either audiences are not tired of listening to the same old story, or perhaps a universally accepted definition has not been agreed upon yet.
Mario Balsamo shows us the very self of his mother: a tough character, a troublesome person, the woman he loved most in his life. He also reveals the difficulties in their relationship: they seem to have become more distant than ever, separated by a wall of mutual incomprehension.
However, sometimes something happens that teaches us how to look at life from a new perspective and after the events he related in his documentary in 2012, Mario is not the same man anymore. He wants to reconnect with the multifaceted woman and be finally able to love her not just as an actress but also as his mother. He takes the most important film in which his mother acted in the 1950s, Piero Costa’s La Barriera della legge, as an opportunity to get close to her again through their shared passion for the film art. Costa’s film is a constant remembrance for Silvana and an obsession for Mario, although neither of them has ever seen it.
They embark on the search for this cinematographic work, that appeared to be no longer available and that they will eventually find uninteresting once they get to see it.
But it’s a well-known fact that it’s the journey that counts. They go on the road in a Lancia Fulvia 810, around Pietrasanta and Versilia, visiting the very same places where Silvana would display her talent many years ago. We witness amusing and moving dialogues, halfway between reality and fantasy, gradually leading to a reconciliation which results in a long-awaited hug. A happy ending for the director, who may finally manage to see in Silvana Stefanini a mother, rather than just an actress.

 

 

English version, Film, Film (English)

God Bless The Child by Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck

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Article by: Alessandro Arpa                                                                                         Translation by: Andrea Cristallini

Hush bye bye, don’t you cry, go to sleep little baby, when you wake you shall have all the pretty little horses… Harper is only 14. She sings lullabies at night and in the morning she looks after her four brothers: Elias, a 12-year-old rebel, Arri (8 years), Ezra (5 years ) and Jonah (2 years). Being the elder sister is not necessarily a punishment but it can become something close to it if mum is away, lost in a serious struggle with her self-esteem.

A blend of the cinema verité and a cinematographic remake of Tierney Gearon’s photographs, God Bless the child is the second feature film by Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojda-Beck. The film, which premiered at SXSW Festival in 2015, is the American response to Hirokazu Koreeda’s Nobody Knows. As opposed to the Japanese director’s film, where the mother is an escort, in the work of Machoian and Ojda-Beck she is a depressed woman, a ghost who leaves the house at dawn abandoning her children and comes back at night, while everyone is asleep, except Harper, who has grown up against her will. “Sorry” is her only line in the film, with neither a close-up nor a single frame showing her face. The film drowns in a fog of sadness. Several group scenes are included in the film, with delicate and innocent children songs in the background. In the epic fight between the brothers in the backyard, as they wear boxing gloves resembling Hulk’s hands, game and pain merge and pain eventually makes the loser cry. God bless the child is a vivid and realistic portrait of childhood. And for a change, children are not asked to run after the film, but it’s the film itself that surrenders to their genuine interpretation. And when the sun goes down and everyone is asleep, the door opens and there she is, back again. She gets into bed with her four children, in a shroud that envelopes lonely souls. And Harper is there, staring ruthlessly at her, as life gets harder and harder: hush bye bye, don’t you cry, go to sleep little baby, when you wake you shall have all the pretty little horses.

English version, Film, Film (English)

Riaru Onigokko / Tag by Sion Sono

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Article by: Luca Richiardi                                                                                                 Translation by: Cristiana Caffiero

Life is surreal.

There are movies with no soul which just try to step towards any directions without a reason. There are movies that are just empty and dreary. Well, this movie is just their opposite. “Tag” is directed by Sion Sono: it violently breaks in and manages to find a sharp conclusion both in a literal and figurative way. It confuses the feelings and perception of its audience but it doesn’t hide the fact that it has lost the sense of perception itself. This film needs to show its total dismay in order to penetrate the subconscious side of its audience and finally break through its conscious one. However, “Tag” is not addressed to an ordinary audience, for the simple reason that the movie is directed by Sion Sono. It’s a typical Japanese film with its peculiar artistic language which could by perceived as unfamiliar by a western audience, or at least by an audience not acquainted with Japanese pop culture.
This kind of audience might fail to notice the potential for social criticism hidden behind an excess of grotesque violence, which may appear then as empty divertissement: what has been defined, in jargon (particularly in the world of anime, manga and videogames enthusiasts) sa fanservice.
What exactly is fanservice? Excessive and pointless violence, schoolgirls in extra short miniskirts which are constantly lifted, eroticism, promiscuity, reification of the woman.
“Tag” contains all these elements. It’s thrown onto the screen in a shameless, exaggerated, intentionally provocative way, as if to ask: “Is this what you want?” As the film unravels, laughing at all this becomes a gesture that makes the spectator feel guilty.
This collage made of absurdities, which people may have fun in, is a heaven for “nerd” teenagers and hides a cruel and dreadful hell. It reveals itself step by step, while we follow the young female protagonist Mitsuko in her absurd suffering.
Among all this violence, torture and death, her loss of identity is what mostly harms. It makes her appear to be an empty box or a mannequin identical to many others. She looks as a figure, whose not uniform nature may be compared to that of Jesus and therefore doomed to sacrifice. It is a kind of essential sacrifice, a spontaneous gesture which gets away from this torture pattern felt as a function of a sadistic pleasure. And it takes place exactly in front of a parody which blames and despises these masses of obsessive fans.
What is such a heroic sacrifice aimed at? It is understood, its aim matches the film’s one: a sabotage internal to the system so that it can penetrate deeper and, hopefully, it can be able to reach and consequently wake up consciences, in order to take them away from this grotesque circle of hell.

 

English version, Film, Film (English)

La France Est Notre Patrie by Rithy Panh

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Article by: Alberto Morbelli                                                                                           Translation by: Lorenzo Matarazzo

TFFDOC section opens with a quite interesting work by director Rithy Panh, a documentarist of Cambodian origins, who has always made a point of his research on social inequities, sometimes experienced personally. The film “S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine”, presented and awarded at Cannes in 2003, is a case in point; the consequences of the regime forced him to run away from his native Cambodia to find shelter in France, where he began his film studies.

“La France est notre patrie” starts with a sequence showing an overwhelming and devastating jungle which swallows with its roots the area of a house that does not belong to such a landscape. This is probably a metaphor for the topic that the director intends to take on in this work.

The documentary narrates in a personal way the history of the French colonies in Indochina for the whole course of the “rêve”. Rithy Panh softly deals with these issues, without ever stating his anticolonial opinions. The extracts were selected from film footage (silent, black and white and in colour). They show the various aspects of the Federation of French colonial possessions in Indochina: they’re scenes of daily life with its faces, constructions of great public works, industrialisation and agriculture. They seem like beautiful scenarios made out of progress and exploration of this foreign and exotic land, the way France saw it at the time.

Skilfully, the director manages to weave a story based on the encounter and clash between two worlds. He identifies and shows throughout the narration two opposed protagonists: the colonising “white man” and the indigenous “bon sauvage”. He lets the archive footage, interspersed with his tableaux, do the talking. The captions reassure the public on the reason why it’s crucial for the colonising mission to prove successful for everyone’s sake, just like a newsreel of that time would have. It’s up to the editing and soundtrack, however, to give us the first clues about the goal that Rithy Panh wants to achieve. A message that slowly reveals itself, getting us farther and farther away from what we see and read.
It is an intimate process of awareness and discovery for the audience. Images and meanings develop as two parallel lines, only meeting as a result of personal reasoning. Thus, the self-proclaimed colonial reality becomes its very own condemnation. An acute expedient which turns the flowing of time into a weapon which acts as a boomerang.

The documentary constitutes a fascinating history lesson on the events that occurred during the colonization of Indochina, as well as a profound consideration about what we perceive in the present time. The eyes looking at those images have changed. Our society has a different take on that material now. It is a subtle social criticism on past historical events and on contemporary too. Undoubtedly, as the above-mentioned beginning sequence teaches us: nature swallows with time anything produced by white man with the alibi of progress. In conclusion, all communities should be the one and only rulers of themselves or it will be for posterity to judge.

English version, Film, Film (English)

Lost and Beauty: the Dying Italy

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Article by: Alessandro Arpa                                                                         Translation by: Chiara Toscan

TF<<Chi la ridusse a tale? E questo è peggio,

Che di catene ha carche ambe le braccia;

Sì che sparte le chiome e senza velo

Siede in terra negletta e sconsolata,

Nascondendo la faccia

Tra le ginocchia, e piange.

Piangi, che ben hai donde, Italia mia…>>.

After 27th edition’s winning film La bocca del lupo (The Wolf’s Mouth) TFF dedicated the pre-opening night to the latest laborious work by Pietro Marcello, Bella e perduta (Lost and Beautiful), the only Italian film contending for Locarno International film festival 2015. This bitter tale fuses documentary and fantastical fiction, while poetically denouncing the collapse of human-nature relationship. The film also functions as an off-key requiem for the Italian Republic, a frank protest against the apathy of an immortal caste system of defeatists. The protagonist, Tommaso Cestrone, is a humble, real-life shepherd in line with Marcello’s stock characters, the so renamed “Angel of Carditello” is the only volunteer serving the Royal Estate of Carditello which simbolises the ill-treated and forgotten beauty. Piles of debris and tyres pollute the magic atmosphere of the place that has become a dump for memories. Tommaso is the only one committed to the enhancement from the indifference of the world. Tommaso, among his last wishes, wants to save Sarchiapone, a young talking buffalo that, at times, recalls the melancholy poetry hidden in Balthazar, the donkey protagonist of Au Hasard Balthazar by Robert Bresson. At this stage of the film, Pulcinella appears from the obscure bowels of Vesuvius. He arrives in the nowadays Campania to grant Tommaso’s wish. Pulcinella and Sarchiapone embark on a journey in the forgotten territories of “the land of fire”: a sore journey without hope. Bella e Perduta is a protean film that had a difficult birth. The initial intention of the director was changed during the course of production due to the sudden cardiac death of the real Tommaso Cestrone. For this reason, the film was completed after two years of development. The only choice left to the director was to merge the hints of reality with dreamlike situations. The figure of Pulcinella connects the primordial meaning of psychopomp very intelligently for the immortals. Although the protagonists improvise around a default scenerio, it is difficult to reach the sincere expressive power of transexual Mary Monaco and Enzo Motta, who are the protagonists of “La Bocca del Lupo”. Tommaso and the interpreter of Pulcinella are suspended and suddenly crushed by the power of nature, mother and executioner at the same time. The foolishness of human being is expressed by the look and subjective shots of Sarchiapone who hopes to survive at the mercy of man. But now eveything is destined to collapse and takes attention to the tomb of Tommaso: <<Will we remember this land? >>

Probably not. Maybe yes but it will be very late, and there will remain neither your tears Sarchiapone… nor ours.

 

English version, Film (English)

INFINITELY POLAR BEAR: MARK RUFFALO IS MOVING AND AMUSING

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Article by: Karima Vinti

Translation by: Greta Moroni

 Forget about the perfect family, the one in which a child grows up without problems, where both mum and dad have a job and nobody suffers from some kind of disease, whether it is physiological or pathological. The world of Cam (Mark Ruffalo) is that of a man, father and husband, who had a nervous breakdown. After this event, he was diagnosed with maniac depression, in other words a bipolar disorder. It is 1978, and the Stuart family is left alone dealing with this illness. Maggie (Zoe Saldana), Cam’s wife, has all the responsibility on her shoulders, as she has to work hard and take care of their two little girls. However, the family will have to face more problems.

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Conferenze Stampa, English version, Film, Film (English), Report, TFF 32 - 2014

The Theory of Everything

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Article by: Barbara Vacchetti

Translation by: Simona Restifo Pecorella

“This is not a story about a disease, but the story of a human relationship”, said Eddie Redmayne yesterday at the press conference of the Turin Film Festival. He is the protagonist of ‘The Theory of Everything’, in which he plays the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. Actually, that is what the film is all about: it is a love story. Between whom though? Between Stephen and his first wife, Jane, or between Stephen and physics?

The film is the adaptation of the autobiographical book ‘Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen Hawking’, written by his first wife. It starts right from the first meeting between them, and then proceeds along the years, when they were in love and supported each other, when they created a family and when finally got separated.

Despite the serious tones, it manages to be funny in some moments. The two references to the famous British series ‘Doctor Who’ were particularly interesting and gave it a decisive British print.

Playing the role of Stephen Hawking has not been easy, but the charming interpretation of charismatic Eddie Redmayne convinced everyone right away – maybe also earning him an Oscar nominee for best actor this year. For the time being, however, he has received the Maserati award last night in Turin.

Eddie Redmayne ritira il premio Maserati
Eddie Redmayne received the Maserati award

Yesterday morning, at the press conference, the British actor told us that he was eager to participate in the film project but, as soon as he obtained the part of Hawking, he realized the difficulties this role could entail. In fact, dancer and choreographer Alexandra Reynolds followed him in the preparation of his role by teaching him how to move his body properly and to use only certain muscles. Moreover, the actor went to a specialized clinic where he could study the physical and emotional troubles caused by ALS illness.

Eddie Redmayne in conferenza stampa
Eddie Redmayne at the press conference

Interpreting this role certainly involved a very hard work, both physical and psychological. However, Eddie Redmayne stated that it was primarily the meeting with Stephen Hawking that helped him immerse adequately in the role and make him understand even the smallest aspects of this wonderful, iconic man, who wants to reveal us something more than the mysteries of the Universe.

The film focuses precisely on this point. It does not say much about physics, black holes or Hawking radiations, but it rather concentrates on human relationships. The difficulties encountered along the way can only be overcome with a tremendous force of will and with the affection of caring people. It is a study on love and on different ways of loving. That is what the “theory of everything” is really about.

 

Foto di Bianca Beonio Bocchieri

 

English version, Film (English)

WAITING FOR AUGUST- THE STORY OF THOSE WHO STAY

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Article by: Ilaria Longo

Translation by: Carla Cristina Loddo

 Bacau – Turin: a distance that keeps seven children apart from their mother, who works as a caregiver in Piedmont and will go back to Romania only in summer.

Georgiana is the oldest daughter, who takes care of her younger siblings and does the housework. Their days pass in a typical way for children their age: they wake up, get dressed, and someone always cooks dinner for them. However, a fifteen-year-old girl forced to grow up too soon is the one doing all of his. The mother’s phone call is punctual and she wants to talk to all of her children, from the youngest to the oldest, but she cannot stay long on the line because she needs to go back to work. She tries to fix this by sending them the awaited package from Italy, and the children wonder if their mum remembered to buy that desired toy. However, since she did not receive her pay slip, it contains only candies, snacks, and a present for Georgiana’s fifteenth birthday. “The next package will be for your birthday, this time is for Georgiana”, says their mother. It is a life of games for the youngest children and of washing machines, dinners and lunches for the oldest. When a baby tooth is lost, when the candles are blown, with a word on the phone, the wish is always the same “I hope that mum will come back soon

Waiting For August 2

Even if the first shots are cold and snowy, the air you breathe in that house is positive and warm. Georgiana’s figure is the most relevant, as she immediately gets into the role of the homemaker and the mother, though ironically she says, “I will never have children”. She is able to keep some moments for herself, from the Argentine soap opera to a night with friends, even though every time weeping or caprices interrupt her. The viewer gets used to the idea of considering Georgiana a grown-up woman, but then realizes, almost with a smile, that she is a teenager worried about her first date, (for example, when she is looking for her foundation and bobby pins). You forget you are watching a documentary and that someone else is in that house. The film director, Teodora Ana Mihai, is accompanied by four Belgian operators, who enter tiptoe in the social housing condo in the outskirts of Bacau. Only the film director knows Romanian and whispers to the camera operators, explaining the various scenarios. Sometimes the international language of games and feelings is the one that overcomes: the languages are not an obstacle anymore. Five moments of shooting in nine months and more than 150 hours of shot film. They could have filmed more, dug deeper, but the respect for this young family’s privacy is huge.

The question is instinctive at the interview after the show: “where is the male figure?” As you can see in the documentary, in the Romanian domestic hierarchy the woman is in charge. In-fact, Ionut, the 17-year-old brother, is invisible, as he spends his days playing video games. The father has vanished after an ugly divorce, not sharing family moments anymore and it is not even named. The film director does not care about the life of this man: his absence demonstrates how alone the children are.

It is an intimate and delicate work, which speaks for itself and acquires even more weight after the confession made by the film director during the presentation of the film: “I was born in Romania during the communist period; when I was seven and a half, my parents left and found asylum in Belgium. To ensure the secret services that they would go back to their homeland, they left me in Romania”. Even though they came back after just one year, this experience marked Teodora Ana Mihai. History repeats itself and with this work, she wants to give voice not only to those who emigrate from their homeland, but also to those who are forced, like her, to remain in their homeland suffering the consequences.

 

 

 

Conferenze Stampa, English version, Film, Film (English), Report, TFF 32 - 2014, Torino Film Festival

CALIGARI: TODAY, AS EVER

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Article by: Fabio Olivetti and Davide Bertolino

Translation by: Giulia Miolo

Besides the screenings of previews and first works, the Turin Film Festival also celebrates the classics of cinematographic history. The film exhibition has always had a special consideration for the international review; this year it has decided to pay homage to the German cinematography by promoting three of its most relevant films.

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English version, Film (English)

Big Significant Things: a transition journey.

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Article by: Karima Vinti
Translation by: Greta Moroni

“WORLD’S LARGEST CEDAR BUCKET”. It is the opening of the film “Big Significant Things”, which tells the journey of a twenty-six-year-old boy escaping from his future. In San Francisco, waiting for him there is his girlfriend. We never see her face, but we only hear her voice through their several phone calls.

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