Meeting foreign critics and journalists in Beyoglu after the end of the festival due to the cancellation of their flights gave me the impression that the festival is not over yet. But it is. And like after any other celebration of cinema around the world one has to sit down and consider what remains. One has to judge what impression is left behind, after the parties, the screenings, the master classes, the discussions and the diners. There is no doubt about it that Istanbul Film Festival is and has been known for its great hospitality towards foreigners. If you come here once it is almost sure that you will be back next year, the festival therefore has its followers not only on an audience level but also on a critics – press level.
But what really matters at the end are the films, the films that stimulate you, aesthetically please, trouble you, upset you, those generally that, while you watch them and after you watch them, motivate you to think, feel and talk about them.
The Day of the Skirt the French film by Jean-Paul Lilienfeld with Isabelle Adjani in the protagonist’s role, a low budget production was one of them for me. Shot mostly in a school’s theater classroom, with the camera getting out of this space very few times, the day of the skirt manages to raise questions about the current situation of state education in western countries where the majority of the students is first or second generation immigrants who cannot care less about Molière but are already deep into the road of survival through drugs, guns, sex and crime, since they are surrounded by a society which discriminates them. Their teacher (Adjani) fed up with their apathy towards her theater course and their sexist comments keeps them as hostages in the classroom where a whole drama evolves commenting on their families, society and their future. Through very powerful dialogue and a strong performance by Adjani the film follows the line that other European films showed in the past concerning current education. On the side we also see in the microsociety of the school (the director, the other teachers, the police and the minister of education who arrives on location) the reactions that represent today’s views on who is to blame for the current educational problems. Adjani has two requests: One is to have a journalist from national television to come to class so that she can report a rape of one of her students and the other is for the Minister of education to establish a day of the week in which female students and teachers will be able to wear skirts without accepting sexist comments and being sexually harassed. The first one is granted to her the second is considered a fallback into feminist fights and cannot be granted.
Kosmos by Reha Erdem was definitely the Turkish film, from those that I saw, that impressed me the most. It is not a secret among my Turkish friends that I am a big fun of his. Shot in the beautiful town of Kars without though giving credit to it, Kosmos tells the story of a small town thief who comes into a town where xenophobia is dominating its closed society. By saving a little boy from drowning, although he is a stranger into town, he is very well received by the local community. Soon the people of the small town will realize that this strange man who comes from nowhere, talks as if he recites verses, is unable to keep a steady job and according to his words is “looking for love” has also the power to heal people from their diseases. That is a fact that scares some of them but also leads others to line up outside the wreck where he resides in order to take advantage of his special abilities. As long as the results of his “miracles” are positive he is aloud to stay at the small town, although he is suspected for the minor thefts that occur from time to time. However, as soon as something goes wrong and one of his healed children dies the whole town together with its authorities tries to capture and imprison him. Hunted he leaves again the same way he came into town by crossing the river with the help of the most innocent person he was in contact during his stay in that town, a young teenager girl with whom he was communicating through abstract voices and sounds. Erdem is pushing the colors of the film towards magenta and sepia creating thus warmth into the snowed landscape, as well as the notion that this is an episode into this man’s life, which repeats itself in every town he goes beyond any concrete geography and time. The symbolism of the metaphysical powers the protagonist possesses help also in that direction, that is to take the plot and the story in an abstract environment therefore in every small closed society world wide where the fear of the unknown reigns.
The Man Beyond the Bridge in a way also deals with the same issue of societal prejudice and fear in a whole different visual way. With a very direct and simple direction, completely opposite of the well known Bollywood style of extreme colors, music, songs and luxurious settings, Indian director Laxmikant Shetgaonkar sets his story in the forests of Goa. The protagonist is a forest guard who lives alone in the forest separated from the nearest village by a river which can be crossed only through a rope bridge. When he is approached by an insane woman, she slowly becomes his only companion and later his lover. The superstition and the talk of the villagers begin soon enough and they push the woman and their newborn baby out of their territory. The story is given in a very lucid and basic way touching the human sentiments and weaknesses.
Todd Solondz’ Life During Wartime represents better than anything else what American independent production can accomplish. (The director gave also a master class during the festival related to that issue). In a very dark and funny way the film describes the lives of three Jewish sisters and their mother all imprisoned in their relationship’s with the opposite sex. Imaginative situations that seem completely real and real situations that seem completely surreal exchange places during the narration of the film while the protagonists deal with their inner fears and desires and USA is at Wartime.
Three documentaries also impressed me in the festival’s program. Space Tourists by Christian Frei would have normally been for me a very boring documentary about the people who are willing to pay extreme amounts of money and go through intense training in order to take a trip for a few days in space. But the documentary had also a twist. In a parallel narration it was following Kazakh rocket debris collectors who were making their living by selling the parts of the rockets that would fall back down to earth and consisted from expensive and valuable metals. The juxtaposition between the two narrations made the film very interesting and was also giving a comic side to it.
An amazing revelation of pop and op art was passing through our eyes while watching the documentary Henri – Georges Clouzots’ INFERNO by Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea. The recently discovered footage of an unfinished film by Clouzot with Romy Schneider entitled L’ Enfer gave to the directors a very interesting story to deal with. Clouzot never managed to finish this film but 15 hours of rushes as well as storyboards and interviews from the crew helped reconstruct the story both of the film but even more of its process of shooting. The story of the film L’ Enfer was about a man who was extremely jealous of his beautiful wife and Clouzot in order to depict the paranoia that was occurring in this man’s head used all the cinema techniques available in the 60’s combined with tricks inspired by op and pop art of that time. We see how the absolute freedom that Clouzot had during the making of the film and also his personal pathology led the shooting gradually to a total collapse.
Last but not least and coming back to the issue of education the documentary Dansing Dreams - Teenagers Perform “Kontakthof” by Pina Bausch directed by Anne Linsel and Rainer Hoffmann follows the famous choreographer in her last project before her death which is a dance performance by teenagers who have never danced before. The whole educational process that these teenagers go through from the beginning of the project till its opening night reveals how such a well constructed educational experience can bring an extremely positive result and even a liberating catharsis to teenagers.
Except from the films the festival also raised also the big question following the demonstrations and the protests for the preservation of EMEK cinema: Where will the Festival take place next year now that almost all the cinema theaters on Istiklal Caddesi (Beyoglu) are closing down? Are we all going to be stack in a multiplex within a modern mall, with 7-8 theaters and watch world cinema there? Isn’t the interaction with the city in which a festival takes place a substantial part of the festival itself?
25 April 2010
