67th SSIFF

I am back here to O Raio Verde to write more film reviews and more about the 67th San Sebastián International Film Festival a little. While Mateus is in Greece studying the Olimpic Games, I will be here in Spain, amazed by baque language and this Festival.

I wished I could have written more film reviews at Venice, but it didn’t happen and it’s also fine. Maybe here at San Sebastián I would write more, as I am unfortunetely not surrounded by my friends. I don’t know anyone here, well not yet.

I have already checked the festival programme and I am excited about some movies and also some Q&A’s. I definetely want to see Jayro Bustamante talking about La Llorona, maybe I watch it again.

I also want to try to watch Roberto Gavaldón movie (in Restrospective Section of the festival), especially one with Maria Félix, just to remember my first semestre at UFF and those events of Cineclube Sala Escura at Cinemateca do MAM -RJ.

So keep up with me through this whatever that is.

Sei lá, mil coisas!

76. Venice Film Festival

So my time at Venice Film Festival came to an end. It’s a super nice venue, I really liked it. And to whom it may concern, I have some highlights movies I have watched in this 76. Venice Film Festival:

– La Llorona, Jayro Bustamante

– Hava, Miryam, Ayesha, Sahraa Karimi

– Babyteeth, Shannon Murphy

– This is not a burial, it’s a resurrection, Jeremiah Lemohang Mosese

– La muerte de un burocráta, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea

And here it’s the rest of the list with the other movies, with my personal avaluation from 1* (bad) to 5* (good).

– Revenir, Jessica Palud (***)

– Burning Cane, Philip Youmans (****)

– Mes Jours de Gloire, Antoine de Bary (***)

– Atlantis,Valentyn Vasyanovych (***)

– The Painted Bird, Václav Marhoul (**) _ I needed to leave in the middle, too much for me.

– Ensayo de un crime, Luis Buñuel (****)

– Wasp Network, Olivier Assayas (***)

– Babenco – Alguém tem que ouvir o coração e dizer: parou, Bárbara Paz (****) _just won the Bisato D’Oro, the best documentary.

– Moffie, Oliver Hermanus (***)

– Qiqiu, Pema Tseden (****)

– Mosul, Matthew Michael Carnahan. (****)

– Eletric Swan, Konstantina Kotzamani (****)

– Out of the Blue, Dennis Hopper (***)

That is list of the films I watched during the festival, which ends today. Unfourtunetely, I haven’t been able to see the shorts selection and many others. But I left with a feeling of wanting more. Who knows I come next year…

Some backstage things

So I haven’t told anything yet about the festival itself. I am here for the first time with a Student Accreditation, which it’s quite good, because we (Letícia and Maja) could watch some screenings for the press and industry only.

We watched La Llorona (Jayro Bustamante), Revenir (Jessica Palud) and Burning Cane (Philip Youmans) like that. The cinemas are concentrated in a spot in Lido. The same island from Morte a Venezia from Visconti. We even went to the beach.

To be in Venice feels like to be in a movie. I have seen this city so many times in my life in so many different contexts and movies too. We need to take a boat-bus everyday to come to Lido, that reminds me the time when I lived in Niterói and needed to go to Downtown of Rio de Janeiro. Same same, but different.

For the moment, that is all. I haven’t seen George Cloney yet. But it doesn’t matter I saw the cast and crew of La Llorona and they are so cute.

Balloon, by Pema Tseden

The second day of watching movies here. This one is a tibetean movie from the young director Pema Tseden and it’s called Qiqiu (Balloon), from the Orizzonti Program of Venice Festival.

It’s another movie in the countryside on the mountains. I think I watched till now many movies here that are not sited in the cities. This one is about a sheep farmer’s family and drama starts when the small two boys found some condoms. In a playfull way they made some ballons out of it.

It seems cleary that the introduction of these condoms disturbs the conservetive constellation of this family and their neighbours.

It’s an interesting film about how religion (tibetean budism), family tradition (typical patriarcal gender roles) and tabu (condoms). It’s a local story, but somehow very relatable with many realities around the World.

Even though the movie wants at some certain level to give to the female main character an empowerment and agency of her own body decisions (she rides a motorcycle to the local hospital, she asks for the condoms), the male characters have more saying and are more developed than the femle’s one.

Nevertheless, Qiqiu is an entertainment film worth to be watched. And the kids are just cute.

The Presence of the Absents

This is not a burial, it’s a resurrection!, by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, is an amazing movie. I was just amazed yesterday. Each frame, each camera movement, the sound, everything in this movie was captivating. One of those movies that you remember the images… they stick in your mind.

For those in Brazil, who haven’t seen yet Bacurau, by Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles. Go!

This movie has a similar plot to Bacurau. Also about a small village trying to resist. Of course, it’s not the same. But I had to make this parallel. This is not a burial, it’s a resurrection! is actually centered on Mantoa, an old lady, who lives in a small village on the mountains in South Africa.

The villagers will need to move out, because of a construction of a dam. Mantoa, who has lost their son and husband, convinces her fellow habitans and the major to stay. She doesn’t want to move the graves and also wants to die and be buried at her village.

As the time passes and the deadline approaches, the forces of “progress” threat the order and lives of this village, called Nasareth. And in a beautiful uncanny way the reaction of this main character and her neighbours.

There is also an interesting presence of the dead people of this community. Their absence is really present, especially in the life of the widow Mantoa. She still mourns her dead son and husband.

PS: Ok, I just tripped a little here. This movie is not that much similar to Bacurau. But it made me think about it and relate them together for many reasons. The main one are the characters, who resist and fight. But if you are in Brazil, go watch Bacurau. And if you have the chance to watch This is not a burial, it’s a resurrection from Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, please, watch it!

La Llorona, by Jayro Bustamante

OMG! Ok! First film took me by surprise. I just saw La Llorona (The Weeping Woman), by Jayro Bustamante, at the 76. Mostra Internazionale D’Arte Cinematografica de Venezia. It’s a movie from Guatemala (La Casa de Producción) in Co-Production with France (Les Film du Volcan). And it’s also in the special selection of this year’s TIFF in Toronto and San Sebastián Film Festival.

The movie is a horror film? It starts like a drama, but then goes to many elements from horror genre. The plot is about the trial of a General of Guatemala, that is being charged of the crimes during the military dictatorship. Many people were tortured, violated and killed. Especially the native population, the Maya Ixil.

The majority of the movie sets in this big house, where this General lives with his family. The protests outside, from a raged population, that lost relatives and friends at the dictatorship’s period, which was fighting against “the danger of communism”.

The constellation of this family or this house is made by a personal security, his wife, his daughter and granddaughter, and of course the maids, all of them from the ethny Maya Ixil.

After the trial, where the “justice” is made and he is guilt of all the crimes, the maids live the house, except Valeriana, one of the oldest housekeeper. They receive another maid, Alma, that no one knows exactly she is from. During the hole movie, even before the arrival of the new maid, all the characters are somehow disturbed. Not only by the protests outside, but also from nightmares of the violent past of the male figure.

Jayro Bustamante’s strong images of the characters, especially the female’s one, give a real cathartic feeling, at least for me, of revenge for all those, who want resist facism and its consequences. And with this time of raising white supremacy, this film brought to tears (yo soy la llorona).

Olá, amantes de O Raio Verde!

Olá, leitoras e leitores do blog O Raio Verde! Eu sou Júnia Matsuura e começo aqui uma colaboração com Mateus Nagime. Ele me cedeu este espaço para fazer algumas críticas de filmes e relatar em tempo quase real o que se passará nos festivais que irei nas próximas semanas: Festival de Veneza e o de San Sebastián na Espanha.

Para estrear aqui, vou falar de um filme que vi nesse domingo no fsk Kino em Berlim. La Flor, de Mariano Llinás de 2018. La Flor é um filme argentino e tem 14 horas e 38 minutos de duração (868 minutos) e estreou ano passado no BAFICI – Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente. Eu não cheguei a ver ele todo infelizmente, porque ontem só exibiram os três últimos episódios. O filme é dividido em 6 episódios e cada episódio é um gênero cinematográfico. O filme tem 4 mulheres como protagonistas, e dá a entender que o filme demorou muito tempo para ser feito, ao longos de anos aí.

La Flor é um projeto coletivo entre a produtora El Pampero Cine e o grupo de teatro Piel de Lava, formada pelas atrizes Elisa Carricajo, Valeria Correa, Pilar Gamboa e Laura Paredes.

O episódio IV é um filme de suspense meio sci-fi, meio aquele filme do Christopher Nolan, Inception, no google tá como um experimental metanarrativo. Primeiro momento, parece ser um filme ensaio sobre o processo criativo desse diretor que tem 4 atrizes ansiosas, mas que prefere filmar as árvores. É realmente tem muitos planos de árvores. Vários planos de árvores na beira da estrada argentina, ou de praças em pequenos pueblos. O diretor em primeira pessoa reflete sobre seu processo criativo não tradicional, por exemplo não há um roteiro. Depois o filme encaminha para esse suspense/sci-fi, é chegada a presença de um cientista alertado por um código 2, coisas estranhas acontecendo, e as 4 atrizes que são bruxas agora, o diretor desaparece e sua pequena equipe ficam loucos. O cientista tenta descobrir quem são essas pessoas, já que não há claras pistas de que se trata de um filme e uma equipe de filme, além de um caderno vermelho com anotações do diretor, um mapa rodoviário da Argentina e vários livros literários.

O episódio V é anunciado pelo diretor do filme, mas agora outro ator assume a fala, pois o outro desapareceu, e diz que o episódio V não há as 4 mulheres/atrizes que sempre aparecem, e o filme começa em silêncio e em preto-e-branco. Fun fact: a projecionista entrou alguns minutos depois e nos perguntou se alguém sabia se era assim mesmo, “sem som?”, daí um senhor falou, “bem, creio que sim, porque tá sem legenda e pelo fato de ser preto em branco talvez seja para ser assim mesmo!“, e de fato, sim, dava para ver como os atores acentuaram suas expressões e gestos. E está tido como um remake a preto e branco, em grande parte silencioso, da Partie de campagne de Jean Renoir.

O episódio VI é “sei lá, mil coisas!” Eu viajei nas imagens! E havia umas cartelas entre as imagens filmadas dessas 4 protagonistas novamente. As cartelas eram trechos retirados de um diário de uma inglesa que viveu nas Américas durante o século XIX. Ela e três outras mulheres deixam o deserto, depois de muitos anos em cativeiro. As imagens tinham uma plasticidade diferente, pelo que entendi essa parte, foi filmada de modo câmera escura sobre um pano, e a imagem ficava parecida com alguma pintura de Monet ou Renoir, uma coisa bem bucólica aquelas mulheres e campo gaúcho bem vasto.

De qualquer maneira, fiquei curiosa para ver a outra metade desse filme.