Bestiaire (2012)

Bestiaire (2012)

Director: Denis Côté
Country: Canada | France
Runtime: 72 min
Animals/People: Along the rhythm of the changing seasons they watch one another. Bestiary unfolds like a filmed picture book about mutual observation, about peculiar perception. A contemplation of a stable imbalance, and of lose, tranquil and indefinable elements.


A drawing course, a safari park and a taxidermist’s workshop: three settings in which humans and animals meet. The focus of observation is on relationships of sight and perception, which often reflect unequal power structures at the same time. In the process, the film also seems to be considering the question of how animals can be filmed.

It’s nothing like the technically high-powered animal films of today, whose almighty cameras transcend the boundaries of water, land and air and no longer know nature’s secrets. Sober visual observation without commentary, with an often static camera watching proceedings from a fixed position with a keen eye for form and movement: horns in front of a concrete wall, nervous zebras’ legs in the cramped stalls, the precision contained in the taxidermist’s skillful hand movements.

Carefully considered shots which allow the viewer time to reflect on beauty and the unfamiliar, on this domesticated wilderness in the midst of civilisation. This all allows a form of choreography to emerge to the accompaniment of the surrounding noises, a cinematic bestiary in which man too takes his place among the stoic, impassive, impatient, wild and rebellious animals.

The Land of Hope (2012)

The Land of Hope (2012)

Director: Shion Sono
Country:Japan
Runtime: 133 min

In the fictional Nagashima prefecture, Ono Yôichi (Murakami Jun) lives a peaceful life on his family's small farm, with wife Izumi (Kagurazaka Megumi) and parents Yasuhiko (Natsuyagi Isao) and Chieko (Ôtani Naoko). One day, an earthquake disrupts the calm, causing the reactor at a nearby nuclear power plant to explode. The Nagashima community is directly within the twenty-kilometer evacuation radius—except for the Ono farm. Haunted by memories of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, in which evacuees were forced out of their homes permanently, the Onos are faced with a terrible decision: stay and risk the possibility of radiation poisoning, or leave the home their family has spent generations building.

Out of concern for their unborn child, Yôichi and Izumi reluctantly opt to leave the farm, while Yasuhiko and Chieko remain. Relocated to a nearby urban community, the younger couple try to rebuild their lives. But the newly pregnant Izumi is plagued by paranoia, unconvinced that her new home is any safer from airborne contaminants than the farm. Back in Nagashima, meanwhile, where Yôichi's aged parents are being prevailed upon by authorities to voluntarily relocate, Yasuhiko's true motives for staying are revealed...

Neighbouring Sounds (2012)

Neighbouring Sounds (2012)

Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho
Country: Brazil
Runtime: 131 min





Life in a middle-class neighborhood in present day Recife, Brazil, takes an unexpected turn after the arrival of an independent private security firm. The presence of these men brings a sense of safety and a good deal of anxiety to a culture which runs on fear. Meanwhile, Bia, married and mother of two, must find a way to deal with the constant barking and howling of her neighbor's dog. A slice of 'Braziliana', a reflection on history, violence and noise.

Metéora (2012)

Metéora (2012)

Director: Spiros Stathoulopoulos
Country:Greece
Runtime: 82 min




In the hot plains of central Greece, the Orthodox monasteries of Meteora are perched atop sandstone pillars, suspended between heaven and earth. Down in the valley, the eternal cycles of farm life – birth, milking, slaughter – provide a stark contrast to their ascetic world. The young monk Theodoros and the nun Urania have devoted their lives to the strict rituals and practices of their community. A growing affection for one another puts their monastic life under question. Torn between spiritual devotion and their human desire, they must decide which path to follow.

O Gebo e a Sombra (2012)

O Gebo e a Sombra (2012)

Director: Manoel de Oliveira
Country: Portugal
Runtime: 95 min
Despite his age and general weariness, Gebo keeps on working as an accountant to provide for his family. He lives with his wife, Doroteia, and his daughter-in-law, Sofia, but it is the absence of João, son and husband, that worries them. Gebo seems to be hiding something, especially to Doroteia, who is anxiously waiting to see her son again. Sofia is also waiting for her husband to come home, and yet she fears him. All of a sudden, João arrives and everything changes.
by Kenji Fujishima

The specter of death haunts nearly every dimly lit frame and extended take of Gebo and the Shadow, the latest film from the 104-year-old Manoel de Oliveira, and a work that, for once, could be said to reflect his age. That's hardly meant as a slight. Though the film is dominated by fixed-camera setups within one set, more or less, the Portuguese auteur's minimalist style, rather than seeming tired, ultimately meshes beautifully with the story's world-weary, reflective substance.
An adaptation of a stage play by the Portuguese modernist Raul Brandão, Gebo and the Shadow details a family on the verge of a long-time-coming collapse. Delusions run rampant among the clan members. Most notably, the titular patriarch (Michael Lonsdale) insists on keeping his wife Doroteia's (Claudia Cardinale) hopes for the return of their fugitive son, João, alive, to the point of pretending that he's seen him even though he actually hasn't in many years—a long-running charade reluctantly maintained by their servant, and João's wife, Sofia (De Oliveira regular Leonor Silveira). And then, João (Ricardo Trêpa, another De Oliveira regular) suddenly reappears—and rather than bringing about an end to family tensions, his return merely exacerbates them as his presence exposes even deeper fissures: the family's sheltered lives versus João's hard experience, an insistence on maintaining an increasingly outdated value system, and so on. At one point, a couple of their friends, Chamiço (Luís Miguel Cintra) and Candidinha (Jeanne Moreau), show up, and, in a moment that recalls a similar seemingly throwaway conversation in The Strange Case of Angelica, one of them pontificates about the consolation he finds in art in an increasingly "tasteless" society.
Brandão isn't especially subtle about his themes, and one could criticize the film for essentially offering mouthpieces for various points of view rather than fully fleshed human beings, however beautifully this particular cast of cinematic legends delivers their lines. In a sense, then, we're always aware that we're watching a "stage play"—and De Oliveira intensifies that feeling by basically refusing to open out the play in any way. Other than a couple of outdoor scenes, the majority of the film's action takes place in that one cottage; with De Oliveira sticking steadfastly to an aesthetic of stationary camera setups and long takes, the audience is put in the position of feeling as if its watching a filmed theatrical performance more than anything else.
But De Oliveira's style is hardly a mere stylistic affectation. Instead, a profound sense of stillness comes across in Gebo and the Shadow; we not only hear characters talking about their dead-end lives, but we also begin to feel that inertia in our bones. To that feeling of deadening stasis, Renato Berta's beautifully detailed, Goya-esque cinematography adds a sense of impending death hovering above these characters: Dark hues predominate, with candlelight providing the only sources of illumination in the gloomy decor. (One could conceivably think of this film as a kind of still life with humans.)
All of this might make the film sound like an impossibly bleak and austere experience, whatever its incidental visual and temporal beauties. And yet, the longer we stay with these characters, the more the film begins to come across as an extremely deadpan comedy about people resistant to change beyond all rational reasoning. "Happiness is nothing ever happening," the remarkably passive Gebo at one point says. Maybe it's fitting, then, that, when something truly dramatic does finally occur in his life and he's thus forced to make an honest-to-God decision, De Oliveira presents the outcome as a kind of ironic triumph, complete with outdoor light finally entering into this darkly lit purgatory.

Sabad Nirantar aka Word Within the Word (2008)

Sabad Nirantar aka Word Within the Word (2008)

Director:Rajula Shah
Country:India
Runtime:74 mins.

Sabad Nirantar is a search for the Word within the word; a poised reflection on the formless essence of reality expressed through the living resonance, continuing and constant exchanges among diverse worldviews, epochs and emotions of the indigenous spirit and its undying echoes enlivening the emergent and modern soul. It seeks to comprehend and expand upon the Bhakti movement, an important chapter in the social, political and literary history as far back as 12th century, in India, that of medieval mystic poets like Kabir, Gorakhnath, devout singers Meera, Sehjobai and others blooming from within the wretched of the earth and coming to form cogent dialogues across socio-philosophic fractures in an ancient landscape ravaged by history. Embarking upon a journey into the flux, the film finds within the zeitgeist, ancestral voices question and dismantle fatal stereotypes, those blind yardsticks of lopsided reason with which knowledge attempts to measure the past and present.

Revolución (2010)

Revolución (2010)

Director: Carlos Reygadas, Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna, Rodrigo Plá, Amat Escalante, Mariana Chenillo, Patricia Riggen, Gerardo Naranjo, Rodrigo García, Fernando Eimbcke
Country: Mexico
Runtime: 106min








Description: Made up of 10 short films, 'Revolucion' analyzes through the eyes of the directors what is the revolution today and what it means to the young minds of Mexico.

Figures of Thought (1990)

Figures of Thought (1990)

Director: Arun Khopkar
Country:India
Runtime:33min


A film about three of our leading visual artists, Bhupen Khakar, Nalini Malani and Vivan Sundaram. It takes, as its point of departure, a glass mural on which all three were working, then zeros into each of them. It links them to their physical and mental worlds through cinematic devices like associative sounds, variable light and montage. Compositionally, the visuals aim to link with the styles of each artist, as well as the larger narrative traditions of India.

Daughter... Father... Daughter (2011)

Daughter... Father... Daughter (2011)

Director: Panahbarkhoda Rezaee
Country: Iran
Runtime: 70 min


The film poetically traces the solitary existence of three sisters living in the traditional central western region of Iran, where the occasional traveling salesman serves as a distraction from the general monotony.

Frida Kahlo: A Ribbon Around a Bomb (1992)

Frida Kahlo: A Ribbon Around a Bomb (1992)

Director: Ken Mandel 
Country: USA
Runtime: 49min

A tortured Mexican artist whose work reflected her physical and psychological pain, Frida Kahlo lived in the shadow of her more famous painter husband Diego Rivera during her lifetime. But in recent years there has been a steady revival of her work, which has gained new respect among the artistic community.
To the average observer, her paintings immediately appear to be incredibly dark, if not disgusting and sick. But an understanding of her background gives Kahlo's imagery a wider dimension.
"Frida Kahlo: A Ribbon Around the Bomb" is a documentary about Kahlo's life, but it's hardly the traditional form for this type of film. There are talking-head interviews with some of those who shared Kahlo's life but the framing device — and clearly the emphasis — for exploring her work (some 120 of Kahlo's paintings are shown) is a dramatic interpretation by actress/co-producer Cora Car-dona.
Using excerpts from a play (Abraham Oceransky's "The Diary of Frida Kahlo"), Cardona portrays Kahlo as a fiery, angry, unfulfilled soul who dwelt on death and embraced pain. During her childhood she suffered from polio and later was severely injured in a bus accident, from which she never fully recovered. She also could never quite get over being unable to have children.
Meanwhile, Kahlo's self-portraits reveal a range of dark, self-destructive feelings, whether her haunting face is on a fawn plugged with bloody arrows or on a body opened to reveal a steel post replacing her spinal column or whether she is shown in various stages of bleeding in hospital beds.
While some of this is unpleasant, there's a morbid fascination with this woman who was unable to come to terms with herself during her lifetime.
Some of Kahlo's history is glossed over or omitted completely (her affiliation with the Communist Party, her affair with Leon Trotsky) and her relationship with the older and physically imposing Diego Rivera is only briefly explored. There are also some dramatic moments that seem to be here more for Cardona's benefit as a performer than to lend any insight into Kahlo.
Still, despite its dwelling a bit too much in the Land of the Tortured Artist, much of this is quite compelling. Although, whether she should really be compared to Vincent van Gogh is arguable.
"Frida Kahlo: A Ribbon Around a Bomb" (the title comes from poet Andre Breton's description of the volatile Kahlo) is not rated but would doubtless get an R for language and for some of the imagery in Kahlo's paintings.