Simon’s MIFF ’13 Diary: Day Five/Six

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Due to the fact that I had to get an education (well, the had to part is questionable), my fifth day of MIFF was a limited one. Limited both by my scholarly pursuits and also the lethargy that eventually caught up with me. Thus I only saw the one film (I skipped out on Iranian drama Rhino Season and the documentary about Mexican drug cartels and pop musicians Narco Cultura), and decided to combine day five and six into a single entry. Hopefully you won’t crucify me for it… Here’s what I saw:

Like Father, Like Son (Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)

Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda has made a reputable career out of his explorations of the dynamics of the Japanese family, a torchbearer continuing the flame lit by Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu all those years ago. Kore-eda’s films explore different facets of the family unit and it’s continual evolution in modern times, often in a keenly Japanese context as the family unit sustains much of the Japanese cultural identity. His newest film continues his steady handed and consistent approach as he looks at that which defines the family unit and the influence of the individual on it’s cohesive structure. The film follows two families who discover that their six-year-old boys were switched at birth and now much reconcile as to whether to exchange their children before they begin primary school. The central father figure of the piece is a strong willed and stern patriarchal presence who keeps a tight reign on his son’s behaviour, when he isn’t absent at his demanding engineering job. When he discovers that his son is actually born to a retail merchant, he uses this as an excuse to air his grievances about his son’s apparent inadequacies. As the situation continues to unravel, Kore-eda ends up posing the conflict as a method of exploring the parents rather than the children, as the father begins to reflect on his parental choices and overtly possessive reactions. Growth comes from empathy in the end, as Kore-eda sides with the children; a position none of the characters seem interested in subsuming. As per usual, Kore-eda achieves the most pure of performances, an element crucial to the communication of the legitimacy of the families on screen. Before we begin to question their relationships we must be convinced of them, and there aren’t many filmmakers who can elicit such pitch perfect performances with such (seemingly) minimal effort, especially from children. An effortlessly charming, funny and poignant film, Like Father, Like Son continues the ongoing legacy of one of the most patient and observant directors working today.

Stories We Tell (Dir. Sarah Polley)

Sarah Polley’s previous feature film Take This Waltz was a quirk-drenched, hipster nightmare that I personally responded to very negatively. When I heard that her third film was a faux documentary of sorts, I was intrigued to see where exactly she might go within this framework, and despite earlier scorn I purchased a ticket. You know what? I’m glad that I did. Stories We Tell turns the camera around on she who helms it as Polley investigates both the life of her late mother and the strange turn of events that bubble to her family’s surface after her mother has passed on. Through interviews with her father, siblings and shall we say, her mother’s accomplices, Polley attempts to uproot what seems to be her now questionable parentage. Her mother, ever the outgoing type it seems, had potentially had an affair with another man previous to falling pregnant with Sarah yet never uttered the truth of the matter to anyone in her days alive. Polley tackles the topic by asking each of her interviewees to present the story in their own words, from their own perspectives, and in doing so hopes to come to some consensus of her own lineage and the source of her mother’s actions. Why we should care about this family and their story becomes the crucial question however, as through this process Polley comes to tackle the topic of why we desire to create narratives for ourselves in the first place. Each of the interviewees have constructed their own versions of the story, with each of them allowing those recollections and memories to form the backbone of their attitude towards the actions of Polley’s mother and the situation at hand. Thus, initially it seems that Polley is investigating the notion of subjective truths, even with the acknowledgement that her film will be an individualised manifestation as she edits and cuts what she sees fit. What results however is something deeply more profound, and gets to the heart of the reason for the whole project in itself; it’s explicit meaning to its creator above all else. Despite some heavy footed trampling over the artistic intention of the piece, Stories We Tell is a film that delicately attempts to understand our continuous yearning to find meaning in everything and why that desire is such a powerful and driving force.

The Spectacular Now (Dir. James Ponsoldt)

One American indie film after another? This is usually a recipe for disaster in my books, but thankfully in this case my admittedly overt prejudice against the whimsy machine was left lying in the dust. The Spectacular Now is the second feature from director James Ponsoldt and it follows a young man (strangely) named Sutter Keely in his final year of high school as he basks in mostly his own glory. In the wonderful opening montage, Sutter exclaims the elation of his life’s current snapshot as Ponsoldt choreographs the joy to a woozy and vertiginous brass band number. Sutter parties hard, has the best girlfriend in the world and is liked by everyone. He’s a bit of a jerk, but he uses it to his advantage, as he trails across backyards and school halls oozing an attractive charm and confidence. That is until his girlfriend breaks up with him and he wakes up hungover on a stranger’s front lawn. He is nudged into consciousness by Aimee Finicky, a quiet and unassuming girl from his school, who Sutter begins to take a liking to and eventually asks her to “tutor” him to help boost his below average grades. What results is Sutter attempting to unconsciously juggle the two women in his life, with his attraction for Aimee growing and his relationship with his ex-girlfriend dwindling in the cobwebs of his mind. On top of that, Sutter seems to have a mild drinking problem, a fact that hovers over the film like a nagging fly, as he swigs from a flask constantly, even whilst at work. Ponsoldt positions Sutter as a high-functioning alcoholic, one who drinks repeatedly with little impact on their external presence. You can’t see the crutch but you know it’s there.

The first hour of The Spectacular Now is the best kind of teen drama, with the budding relationship between Sutter and Aimee awkwardly and tenderly driving the narrative. Their first kiss, their first dance, all the boxes are checked, yet they are checked with a finesse and insight that seems to come from a place of purity and rosy cheeked honesty. It’s once the film derails into Sutter seeking out his estranged father that the film begins to stumble over it’s piling up of tropes, no matter how richly portrayed. The cyclic nature of abuse and alcohol dependency is continuous problem for many, and there is no denying that Sutter’s journey is a valid and necessary one, but in the context of the film’s first hour it can’t help but appear heavy handed. Sutter’s personality is stripped of its attractive charm and is suddenly exposed for what it is, an inability to truly love and be loved, a conundrum that comes to an unsatisfying close. The Spectacular Now works in many respects, and is certainly worth seeking out; just don’t expect a revolutionary insight into the experience of those familiar teenage years. What you can expect however, is a pretty deft and earnest one.

A Touch of Sin (Dir. Jia Zhangke)

Before the screening of A Touch of Sin, director Jia Zhangke stated that his desire to make this film came from his witnessing of numerous acts of spontaneous violence occurring across mainland China, of which his film was a response to, and hopefully a positive one. Read in this context, the film becomes ever more powerful than it probably should be and while the film is explicitly violent, A Touch of Sin uses it as a way to explore a deeper rooted issue; the source of said violence. His film presents four separate characters who are each given their own story eventually culminating in a crescendo of violence in one form or another. Each of the characters call local villages their home, with all being witness to some sort of persecution or injustice in their socio-political environments, as Zhangke alludes to the struggles inherent in the growing class divide and hyper capitalism in China. Whether it is imposed road tolls, prostitution, exploitation by village leaders or a systematic funnelling down of governmental bureaucracy, each of the figures violent acts stem from some form of corruption. His characters seem to be responding like caged animals, taking vengeance or seeking self-defence against some inaccessible power that be. Zhangke doesn’t glorify the violence in any way however, his brutality comes with a heavy sadness as violence erupts from tension above all else. By giving his characters back stories as to their arrival at each vicious act, Zhangke acknowledges and gives a voice to those who find themselves involved in such situations across China every day, particularly those who become victims of the public misleading of truths. Violence begets violence in A Touch of Sin, a necessarily saddening fact. The film is a blunt force of ugly and yet (unfortunately) necessary violence, communicated as distressing above all else, especially when one considers the fate of the film’s final character. It’s death or complacency in Zhangke’s modern, industrialised China; a dire situation that requires the dissenting voice that A Touch of Sin so effectively delivers.