LIFF 2022 Day 3

Return to Seoul (S.Kor)

Freddie is enjoying the good fortunes of youth, enabling her to travel where she will, meet people and see things.  I remember those days with fondness.  Korean born but put up for adoption at an early age and brought up in France, her plans for a trip to Japan are scuppered by the weather and she diverts to an impromptu visit to Seoul.  Fortune finds her mingling with a crowd, including the quiet Tena, who fortunately speaks French and so helps her with the locals.  As we join her in the film, Freddie is contemplating her suggestion to visit the Hammond Adoption center to trace her birth parents.

Impulsive and tangential, her heart isn't truly in the escapade; and when she learns her parents are separated and only dad wishes to make contact, her disappointment is lowered further when he turns out to be a needy drunkard.

 

Feeling the pull of both her biological and adoptive homelands, and the emotional thump of her mother's rejection amplifies Freddie's emotional decision making - leave the disappointment behind and return to the comfort of her old life, or derail her life and stay in the hopes her mother will reply to the request, and not turn out to be another bum.

 

Park Ji-min who plays Freddie seems to be just barely maintaining composure throughout, you expect her pursed lips to explode with an angry release of frustration at every predicament she finds herself in, and the ups and downs on her journey of self discovery keep the interest going through to the end, sometimes leading to particularly tender and heartfelt moments thanks to a cast underplaying their parts compared to a typical high energy Korean film.  7

Everybody loves Jeanne (Fr)

Jeanne is fast approaching middle age, single and her life is falling apart.  The culmination of a life's work project to find a solution to the oceans microplastics has ended up as a very expensive fish toy at the bottom of the sea.  Her reputation in tatters and her frantic attempt to save the project reduced to mocking YouTube videos, she also has to deal with the death of her mother, who threw herself off a bridge in a fit of depression.

Fighting bankruptcy, the only option is to sell her mother's Lisbon apartment, but first Jeanne must get there and expose her already fragile emotions to the stress of a thousand family memories as she chucks her childhood in the skip.

The plane journey gets worse as Jean, a large and oafish petty thief happens to tag along like an unwanted shower curtain salesman, and just doesn't seem to want to go away.

Everybody loves Jeanne plays out unsurprisingly as a 'girl meets idiot who turns out to be actually quite nice actually but is still an idiot but at least he's not an arse' sort of film.  There isn't any plot twists here, but it is very enjoyable.  It's played as a romcom of sorts but finds time to meditate on Jeanne's journey of healing as she reconciles her mixed feelings for her mother, who regularly berated Jeanne and her brother at least as much as she loved them; memories of childhood handled tenderly mix with Jeanne's inner monologue, which, much like the excellent BoJack Horseman episode 'stupid piece of shit' - which could so easily have been a direct inspiration - shows her inner insecurities and suggestions that she too might suffer from the same depression that plagued the mind of her mother.  It's a beautiful, tender and funny film and one I would really recommend - and given my relationship with pretentious French films in the past, who'd have predicted that with a French romcom? 8

My Small Land (Jpn)

I originally wanted to see the Korean thriller Confession, but it had sold out so I'm assuming it was as good as Jeanne, which I managed to wangle the last ticket for.  

My backup choice had some parallels to Return to Seoul, in that it dealt with a young girl brought up in a country other than her birth one.  In this case, the geography is reversed, with young Kurdish teen Sarya, fleeing the middle east with her family after her father is wanted for taking part in an illegal demonstration, and finding refuge in Japan.  For a while they forge an existence with a similar group of Kurds in Saitama; Sarya has a promising school record, the beginnings of a romance with a work mate and her aims to become a teacher look on track.  But it starts to fall apart with the news their refugee status has been rejected and their visas are taken away.  With temporary status they can't work or travel, and with their meager savings, their landlord starts to run low on charity.  As with Jeanne it didn't have any major twists and turns, and whereas the earlier film had a pleasing mix of humour and emotional clout, My Small Land only has the latter.  That's not to say it was only half as enjoyable, but the heavy scenes had to work harder to keep up.  Fortunately, the acting, especially by Lina Arashi playing the young lead with maturity beyond her years helps to carry this off.  It did meander a little and may not reach the sort of satisfying conclusion some may wish for, but I left with a hopeful warmth for the family that all would be well.  7

LIFF 2022 Day 2

Myanmar Diaries (Ned/Mya/Nor)

Ukraine, unfortunately but understandably from a western point of view gets most of the airtime when it comes to news reports, but another conflict, predating those events by over a year, still continue apace further east.  The military coup that removed Aung San Suu Kyi from power at the start of February last year has seen the country's infant new democracy throttled in the cradle.  For the inhabitants, it's a daily onslaught of thumping on the door in the middle of the night, snatched family members, and thousands of deaths.  The civil disobedience movement, growing organically out of this, made of a ragtag of civilians brave enough to bang pots and pans, stand unarmed against groups of military police, or even join the guerillas hiding in the countryside and outright bring the war back to the military's door, give a fragile hope for the future 

Myanmar diaries is a powerful window into this horrible world in which to exist.  Created anonymously by Burmese filmmakers, it intersperses acted scenes in small rooms; small vignettes showing life's twisted and broken under occupation, and captured phone footage of protests, attacks, shootings and more.  Though you know the former is acted out, the scenes gain additional weight because you know the situations they depict went on a thousand times, perhaps behind the curtain of that cramped flat you just saw as a mass beating of protesters took place.

Not for the faint of heart, but a much needed light shining on yet another atrocity as the pendulum continues to swing further to the right. 7.5

Finite, a Climate for Change (UK)

Climate crises (plural) is pretty undeniable now with half of Pakistan under water, regular and searing forest fires in the Americas, and of course the Arctic ice thawing at an unprecedented rate.  It's depictions of these kinds of international incidents that precede the main meat of this film but somewhat surprisingly, and a little disappointingly, it settles on two relatively small and local fights, in the UK and Germany, connected by a common threat of open cast coal mining, and Clumsy, a beringed climate activist who lends his time to protesting both of them.  For the UK, a small village in the Tyneside Pont Valley is under constant threat of reopening a once underground mine as open cast, a fight that has waged between the residents and banks, the coal mining company looking to get at a rich seam of black gold, for the past 30 years.  Germany however has the largest open mine that has quickly spread across the site of the formerly huge Hambach forest, of which now only 10% remains.  Even so, the company in charge eats ever further into it and unsatisfied with even that, uses draconian laws to evict residents in any village if they so much smell coal beneath.

 

Starting with an almost cozy tale of locals and activists coming together to sit and sing and make banners progresses to higher stakes and more dangerous situations; treetops and rabbit holes become the last outposts as armoured police increasingly lose control of the situation and lives of the activists themselves become chips on the table.  As businesses leverage their best lawyer talent to push slowly forward skirting around the limits of the law we see just how much both sides are willing to go.  What starts small becomes much bigger and a study on just two small examples of the worldwide move to a direct action approach.  An inspirational film that I will be introducing to my kids. 8

Alcarràs (Spa/It)

The Solé family, spread across three generations spend countless summers happily picking fruit in their orchard home in the Alcarràs.  Centuries old orchard trees produce bountiful harvests that provide a livable income for them, at least until now.  The market trading value pushed downwards by the big buyers is compounded by news that the current head of the nearby Pinyol family - whose grandfather rewarded the Solés for hiding them in the war with a verbal agreement that the land was theirs to farm - is not much of a fan of traditional farming - or traditional handshake agreements - and likes the look of what is legally if not rightfully his land after all, covered in solar panels.

Alcarràs is a moment in time where a family must adjust, and it's told deftly with room to study the effect of change on the three generations; the youngest children play happily around the stressed parents with little understanding of the politics at work, only to gaze in confusion at the outcomes that affect them; the teens are torn between the need to have a familiar baseline in their life and the opportunity to rip it up and find something new.  In the middle, father Quimet is stuck in his own ways, too young for retirement but too old for reinvention, watching helpless as his life shakes and crumbles around him and no-one seems to be entirely on his wavelength. Rogelio, grand father to the flock seems to be able to have the calm to see the coming changes and not have the will to fight them.   Still worse, their friendly auntie and uncle who come over for meals and get togethers, see advantage in a deal, and seem to be taking matters into their own hands.

It's a beautifully shot, bittersweet film of the loss of a way of life, it's situation recalling themes from both the earlier climate film and my own personal situation with the politics of neighbourly land ownership.  But it did feel overly long, and the use of nonprofessional actors, though providing a sense of authenticity, did mean it went a little unfocused here and there. 7

Mediterranean Fever (Pal/Ger/Fra/Cyp/Qat)

The Leeds Palestinian Film Festival is not something I was familiar with but it's been going on quietly in the shadows of LIFF for nearly a decade now.  As a joint collaboration, this feature about strange and unlikely friendships was also the launch film of the LPFF.

Waleed is depressed, and we don't know why.  He has been suffering clinically for.. maybe ever and is just existing.  Therapy is no help and his days just revolve around sleeping, feeding the kids, and not writing his book.  Variety comes in the form of Jalal, a brash, arrogant man with loud dogs and louder music tastes, but who at least gives Waleed something to take his mind off the emptiness.  Jalal becomes more interesting still when it becomes clear he's mixed up with some unsavoury types who want their loan money paid back with interest, but is Waleed just after a creative writing inspiration, or something darker..

Though billed as a comedy, the laughs are sparingly applied in favour of a dark undertone that rises to the surface in the final act as things come to a head.  Amer Hlehel is capable as Waleed, his ability to stare the pants off his subject matter tells of the dark thoughts within, eventually eclipsing Ashraf Farah, who plays Jalal with an initial arrogance that softens in aghast as the two parts swap places.  A good, solid film that explores some of the darkest reaches of the mind. 7

For this week, that's all I can manage but with a following wind and an understanding partner, maybe I can fit a few more in next week.

LIFF 2022 Day Something

Well, its been a long three years since I did much of this, and work/family commitments mean that another 2013 is a long way off.  The last posts were in 2019 (apologies) but as you can appreciate, the 2020's have been a bit crap so far, and this is the first time Ive been back to a festival since.  Here's hoping we're through it and we only have global recession, climate demise and an idiot government to deal with now.  

The films I post are just a smattering of the films at LIFF this year; theyre chosen more because they fit my schedule than what I would prefer to watch, unfortunately.  However, experience has taught me this can be where the best films can be found - the ones you happen to see because the stars align, ones you may wrinkle your nose at and scrawl a '3' next to on your initial scan of the brochure.

I like films.

Hello, Bookstore (US)

What nicer experience to ease me back into the festival spirit than this quiet, gentle study of the locally famous but unassuming 'the bookstore', nestled in the quiet but environmentally dynamic US town of Lenox, Massachusetts. Inside, dwells the quiet, cuddly figure of Matt Tannenbaum, proprietor since my birth year (which yes, is a long time ago, since you ask), who runs the store with occasional help from his two daughters.  Learned yet characteristically set in his ways, he watches as the oft present threat of Amazon tag-teams with the in-out-in-out of the COVID lockdowns to squeeze the already modest income passing through his tills.  The film introduces us to Matt as he greets potential buyers behind the door in the entranceway, doing his best to work around the restrictions of the first lockdown by getting them to shout their credit card details through the glass, and charts the ups and downs - barely registered by the man too busy enjoying his passion while he still can - until the present day.  If it were just a record of the slow death of yet another bookstore, it would have not been nearly so enjoyable, but fortunately it is warmed through by his warmth and friendliness to his patrons, cushioned by readings and excerpts of choice chapters from the many shelves, or from his own life; perhaps a mix of the two sometimes, it's quite possible his memory has been sprinkled with the storylines of a thousand novels.  A lovely, affectionate look into the life of a person, an building and a tonne of books that together means much more to the residents of the town. 7.5

Goodbye, Don Glees (Jpn)

What appears to be LIFF22's only anime offering, if you discount Unicorn Wars (which you should), GDG is a sweet coming of age tale about the "Don Glees", a duo of teens sidelined from the popular groups and habitually doing their own thing.  For this year's summer break celebrations, they're joined by mysterious newcomer Drop, who convinces them their alternate and private fireworks show will be much better preserved with aerial footage from an expensive drone.  With all Roma's money spent, the drone AWOL and the fireworks coming to nothing in a deluge of rain, they managed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, when the village has to cope with the aftermath of a huge forest fire the following morning.  So begins a road trip of sorts to recover the drone and maybe some footage to prove their innocence.

With Studio Madhouse at the helm, the animation is serviceable but unspectacular, save for a few scenes where the traditional cell animation process is augmented by computer, delivering some grand scenery where it counts.  Throughout, the dialogue between the three leads is engaging, though sometimes goes off in odd directions, (perhaps this may be down to my ability to parse the anime style getting somewhat rusty in recent years) but bounces along nicely fleshing the three characters out and keeping things going.  A somewhat contrived ending twist takes a little swallowing but doesn't ruin the film and there's still plenty to enjoy.  7

 

Next Sohee (S. Kor)

Who will be the next Sohee, and the next, and the next...

Sohee is young, spunky and hard to faze.  On her final year of school she is told how lucky she is to land an extern job at a major telecom company, somewhere that - she is assured - if she keeps her head down and works hard, could give her struggling school a much needed boost in the all important Korean rankings system.  She might even get a few gold stars herself to add to her prospects.  But quickly any idea of a fulfilling job post evaporates, and Sohee finds herself in the middle of a busy call centre with grueling hours, impossible bonuses, and downright horrendous customers, who seem to want to terminate their contracts with alarming regularity.  When Sohees' boss is found dead in his car, she begins to spiral dangerously downwards, caught between her suspicions around the death, the unfeeling grind of the company, and her increasing isolation and reliance on a stiff drink to make it stop for a few hours.

Based on real life events, Next Sohee tries to convey the reality of both the exploitative working conditions found in some high pressure Korean workplaces, and the frustrating feeling of helplessness from anyone who sticks their head above the parapet and tries to make a change.  No one is to blame, everyone is a victim, and lives will continue to be ruined.

Though a tad long, the film is split into two halves with a very different pacing for each, and this helps to keep the attention from flagging.  Ultimately though, if you are wanting a film to leave you satisfied that justice has been served, I'm afraid the conclusion it reaches remains true to the real life events it emulates, and this may find you wanting. 7.5

Dusty Blog Syndrome

Leaving a blog unattended for a while seems to be something people do;  I'm certainly guilty of that, having left big gaps in the internet where I didn't grace it with my presence.  You can see patterns emerge looking at blog sites, and as times move, other things such as the youtubes or the instagrams or whatever the young dudes are going onto these days.  You see a burst of energy where the site is overflowing with content created with passion and care, and then some event comes along in someone's private life, or sometimes the curator is the sort where passion burns intensely until an inevitable burnout, and the posts slow to a stop.  And its a bit like running - each time you stop, it gets harder to start again.

(On a completely unrelated note: hbomberguy is back!)

Anyway, such is my situation: between 2019 and now there's been a lot of upheaval; notwithstanding the global Covid pandemic, there's also been several job changes, a major house move involving a lot of delays, land-related politics and arguments that persist a year after (and probably for some time to come), and around the same time as that, I got a major infection in my knee, with 2 weeks of intense pain and undiagnosed infection led to 2 further weeks in hospital where at one point was told I may lose the leg.  To complicate things, mum coincidentally went in on the same day with what turned out to be anemia and only came out a day earlier; thankfully the hard working people at the NHS managed to diagnose the issue and a full recovery followed.  My own personal recovery has been slow and things still aren't right (turned out to be a major case of septic arthritis and now I have about half a meniscus between two knees), but I can jog short distances once more so I'm grateful for what I can still manage.  There's a knee replacement somewhere on the horizon but for the moment I'm keeping going. 

Don't get old, kids!