Explore by #Zurich Film Festival
Sin señas particulares
ONLINE STREAMING (Switzerland) on Filmexplorer’s Choice by filmingo.ch
«World Cinema Dramatic» Audience Award and Special Jury Award for Best Screenplay at Sundance Festival 2020, then Golden Eye for the Best Film at the Zurich Film Festival 2020. Yes, Fernanda Valadez knows how to make a film – even if this is only her feature debut. Minimal and direct in the plot, Sin señas particulares speaks through wonderful photography and framing: a skilled balance of landscapes, short depth of focus close-ups, clever play between background and foreground motives. Through these formal elements, the young filmmaker manages to express the struggle of the individual within a constantly threatening environment, which is underlined by a monotonous and dramatic soundtrack. This is the struggle of a mother, Magdalena, in search of the truth concerning her missing child. More stubborn than heroic, she succeeds in breaking the “protective” and corrupt silence around missing people in Mexico, actually would-be or rejected migrants. Her road trip will lead us at the border with the States, a territory of anarchy and violence, which the film accurately depicts without giving us any clear geographical reference points. This land without landmarks painfully coalesces with the often ungrounded and brutal violence that lies at the centre of the film, like an inexplicable dark magnet.
Inexplicable or simply unexplained? Is violence in Mexico really a transcendent matter, powerful like a diabolic divinity (as it is presented in the film)? What is behind the horror of brutality? How can so many people go through such a dehumanization? Sin señas particulares aligns itself to a flourishing Mexican cinema that is devoted entirely to exploring the “phenomenon” of violence – certainly a perfect cinematic subject. The anecdotic description of violence and its tragic consequences is often the focus of cinematic attention, one that seems predominantly oriented to claiming or compassion. Elements of understanding the “habit” of violence like fatalism, romantism or heroism, and of course corruption and class division, surface less frequently. Is this a cinematic opportunism that ends up being an indirect celebration of violence? A difficult question. Fernanda Valadez’ disquieting end of the film, however, brings a relatively new contribution to this question in highlighting, not without a general documentary tonality, how evil can even affect the unsuspecting “normal” people…
Sin señas particulares | Film | Fernanda Valadez | MEX-ES 2020 | 95’ | Zurich Film Festival 2020
Golden Eye for the Best Film at the Zurich Film Festival 2020
Petite fille
On ne peut nier à Sébastien Lifshitz d’avoir un talent : celui de documenter l’intime sans jamais tomber dans les travers du voyeurisme. Autrement dit, le don principal du cinéaste est l’éthique de son regard. Fait confirmé par Petite fille. Le film suit durant près d’un an le quotidien d’une famille fédérée autour d’un combat : faire reconnaître au monde le droit de leur enfant de huit ans, Sasha, à qui l’on a assigné le sexe masculin à la naissance, d’être reconnu comme une fille.
Sébastien Lifshitz compose une chronique de cette lutte qui mêle portraits d’individus, au centre desquels Sasha et sa mère, et tableau de société, dont sont mises à plat les normes de genre et les institutions qui les soutiennent. En effet, la nécessité urgente de Sasha d’être reconnue comme fille est la cible d’une violence institutionnelle inouïe. L’établissement scolaire qu’elle fréquente – chéri, semble-t-il, par les familles bourgeoises du coin – lui refuse ce droit, considérant son identification au genre féminin comme une déviance alimentée par ses parents. De même, l’école de danse où elle prend des cours lui interdit de vêtir le costume porté par les filles qui fréquentent l’établissement. Les parents de Sasha ne parviendront à faire accepter les besoins de leur enfant qu’à l’aide du soutien apporté par une pédopsychiatre spécialisée en matière de dysphorie de genre.
Ce combat, qui met donc autant en jeu des individus que des institutions, est documenté de manière presque exclusive à partir de l’espace du foyer familial – unique lieu où Sasha peut être qui elle est, dernier rempart contre une « enfance volée », pour citer les mots de la mère. D’où la question de l’intime, et donc de l’éthique du regard. Sébastien Lifshitz, même s’il entre dans la maison de Sasha en tant qu’ami acquis à sa cause, court à chaque instant le risque de violer, en tant qu’étranger, le peu d’espace de confiance où la jeune fille peut tenter de s’épanouir. Autrement dit, le cinéaste est sans cesse menacé de se transformer en rapace avide d’images destinées à alimenter un discours sensationnaliste sur la misère des autres. Ce qui est profondément admirable, c’est qu’il ne commet jamais ce faux pas. Petite fille ne comporte pas une seule image où se lirait chez Sasha ou ses proches le malaise d’être filmé. Au contraire, le documentaire transpire une confiance parfois proprement radieuse entre le filmeur et ses sujets.
On peut reprocher à Sébastien Lifshitz certains défauts d’écriture, tels que ses maladresses de montage – voir la séquence de déplacement en train, dont chaque plan ne laisse la place à rien d’autre sinon de signifier que Sasha et sa mère voyagent de Rouen à Paris – ou ses choix musicaux peu délicats, à l’exemple du plan sur Sasha à la plage, alourdi par une musique qui cherche à conférer une dimension dramatique à un quotidien qui l’est déjà suffisamment. De même, on peut s’ennuyer de son classicisme formel, désapprouver son esthétique dont la transparence n’a d’autre but que d’alimenter une narration « efficace ». Jamais, en revanche, on ne saurait l’accuser d’ôter leur dignité à ses protagonistes. Son geste de cinéaste consiste en tout et pour tout à suivre ces derniers, les défendre, faire entendre leur voix et respecter l’intégrité de celle-ci. Ce qui, si on prend la peine d’y réfléchir, est déjà beaucoup.
Petite fille | Film | Sébastien Lifshitz | FR-DK 2020 | Zurich Film Festival 2020
Aswang
What’s going on in the Philippines? How is Rodrigo Duterte conducting his “war on drugs”? What are the real consequences of his brutal regime? These are probably the questions that pushed many viewers to attend the world-premiere of Alyx Ayn Arumpac’s Aswang at IDFA last year, and convinced new ones to watch it when screened at Zurich Film Festival.
In the local folklore, “aswang” is an umbrella term used to describe many shape-shifting spirits that prey on humans, such as vampires, ghosts, witches and other monstrous creatures. Since 2016, this “nightmarish” term has become part of everyday life in Manila and all over the archipelago. The documentary opens with a shot depicting a flashing police siren and what seems to be a crowded crime scene. «Night after night the darkness unravels bodies, sprawled face down on the streets. Death floats down the rivers and the sea», says the voice over narrator at the end of this short prologue. That’s exactly what happens in the Philippines, where police are allowed to torture, kidnap and kill anyone suspected of being involved in drug-dealing activities, with minimal or no consequences.
Here, Arumpac chooses wisely to focus her attention on the experiences of a limited group of people – among these the portrait of Jomari, a street boy, is the most shocking. She successfully documents the cruelty of the death squads in an impassioned cri de coeur that manages to remain lucid and achieves her goal of a “wake-up call” to the rest of the world. The camera work is functional and skilfully avoids sensationalising misery and violence. The score is essential and does a fair job, without overdramatising such despair. The lack of testimonies from the other side of the “barricade” (for example, police officers or government officials) represents a strong political statement itself and the choice to set almost the entire film at night already serves as an obvious, unintentional metaphor of the “dark times” under Duterte’s dictatorship.
All in all, Arumpac proposes a brave, urgent piece. Her documentary builds up multi-layered criticism towards the regime, showing how the current system is the result of connivance and corruption at many societal levels, ultimately proficient in protecting the strong and the powerful. There are surely certain areas that might have been explored in more depth; for example, the actions (or inactions) of political opponents, intellectuals and the Church. Nevertheless, Aswang accomplishes its main mission and leaves the viewers petrified and perplexed, reminding them that in the Philippines «whenever they say an aswang is around, what they really want to say is be afraid», and today it is still so.
Aswang | Film | Alyx Ayn Arumpac | PHL-FR-NO-QAT-DE 2019 | 85’ | FIFDH Genève 2020, Zurich Film Festival 2020
J'ai perdu mon corps
Screenings in August 2020 at Zinéma Lausanne
C’est l’histoire de deux solitudes : celle d’une main, oui, une main coupée, se promenant toute seule sur ses doigts ; et celle de Naoufel, enfant puis adolescent, entre famille perdue et futur très incertain. Si la figure de Naoufel, par sa malchance quelquefois un peu forcée, embrasse la société des perdants, des faibles, des maltraités par la société — et ne peut que nous faire penser au Rémi d’Hector Malot en version contemporaine —, les aventures de la main qui s’échappe d’un laboratoire médical constituent certainement l’élément d’intérêt et d’originalité qui marque la dramaturgie autrement trop mélodramatique de J’ai perdu mon corps. La construction de l’entrelacs entre les deux histoires se fait avec lenteur, par un montage convaincant (car) assez ouvert.
Les films d’animation nous ont habitués à jouir de la liberté d’espace et mouvement, ici bien exploitée par Jérémy Clain dans le périple improbable de la main, contrairement au parcours plus réaliste de Naoufel. Mais c’est la liberté de mouvement dans le temps qui marque le récit filmique de J’ai perdu mon corps : nous nous retrouvons souvent à perdre plutôt les coordonnées temporelles, entre les flash-back — ou flash-forward ? — de Naoufel enfant/adolescent et une main qui se révélera plongée dans un futur destiné à se souder au présent de la partie finale du film. Dans ce puzzle temporel bien intrigant, c’est l’identité de la personne et de son caractère qui émerge avec encore plus de décision. Naoufel est fidèle à lui-même, à son corps ; l’histoire de ses malchances et de ses hésitations ne fait que mettre à l’épreuve et donc souligner l’intégrité de son âme, qui est également celle de son corps.
Ce n’est pas seulement par la beauté souvent romantique des dessins que J’ai perdu mon corps explore le registre de la sensualité. La main et sa perspective inhabituelle en sont aussi un vecteur, mais moins que le choix de cadrer les scènes depuis des points de vue improbables, avec une préférence pour les détails et donc pour la profondeur de l’image. Une si belle saga esthétique et une architecture cinématographique si importante ne feront alors que nous laisser un peu déçus face à la maigre qualité de l’histoire racontée, tachée de misérabilisme et soutenue par une histoire d’amour un peu conventionnelle.
J’ai perdu mon corps | Film | Jérémy Clapin | FR 2019 | 82’ | Zurich Film Festival 2019
Welcome to Sodom
Screenings in Swiss cinema theatres
Filming the largest electronic waste dump in the world at Agbogbloshie, Accra in Ghana – revealingly named “Sodom” – Florian Weigensamer and Christian Krönes provide us with astonishing images: a toxic landscape of gifted waste that is constantly laboured upon by free workers of all ages who recycle the valuable and worthwhile metals and burn the useless plastics. There is an apocalyptic beauty in these appalling images of waste and fire, which actually constitute only the framework for the variety of peoples and activities on which the filmmakers focus. Besides the work and the little businesses, we also discover a lively society where music and dance attempt to dispel the hellish miasma of death. A confused preacher with a newspaper for a microphone reminds of the punishment for Sodom and Gomorrah, while two quiet workers play golf on the carpet of waste and charred plastic. The women – often children – sell “pure” water and candies, an improvised cart shows off a Mercedes emblem, a gay Jewish worker reads Shakespeare and Chaucer…
Yet, the visual beauty and the curious diversions in Welcome to Sodom do not act as relief for us, but almost as sarcastic touches of desperate irony. The basic elements are subverted: the ground moves like rubber on swampy earth, fire produces black clouds of smoke, water is wasted to cool the metals – this is the hidden face of our technology consumerism. Some people still find this hell an attractive place: the risks notwithstanding, the opportunity for small businesses remains interesting and, moreover, Sodom is seen as a place of freedom, a no man’s land. When the price of freedom looks like this nightmare, and with Ghana still considered one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, one cannot but deduce a catastrophic situation concerning the distribution of wealth.
If the Sakawa voodoo rituals inform us of the levels of despair of people for whom death is an occasional outcome of money games, the documentary still gathers pearls of hope from this ocean of trash, insofar as it collects the wishes and imagination of the people living in Sodom: migrating, becoming an astronaut, finding a tolerant place for homosexuals, learning languages. For this, the use of the voice-over creates a crucial distance, like a safe bubble for witnesses in the middle of a panorama without horizons. In this same vein, the exceptional music played by the locals emerges equally as a decisive layer of Welcome to Sodom, and transmits a contagious positive energy. Thus, the last word of the film is spoken by a powerful song, which is placed at its end as a very long coda, as if seeking deliverance. (GDS)
Welcome to Sodom | Film | Florian Weigensamer, Christian Krönes | AT-GHA 2018 | 92’ | Zurich Film Festival 2018
Special Mention at the Zurich Film Festival 2018
Scheme Birds
Scheme Birds is a difficult contemplation on reality. Grey, isolated lives that duplicate inter-generational hardship are stacked within one of the government housing towers (or “schemes”) that dot an even greyer landscape with brutalist absurdity. Motherwell, Scotland, is a former steel producer for the Empire. “Steelopolis” now lies in socio-economic ruin due to Thatcher’s strategy to make Britain great again, at the expense of its neighbouring kingdoms.
Our teenage protagonist Gemma is born in the year that the steelworks are blown up. The camera intimately buries its lens into the daily life of this young woman and her community as they invariably fall victim to the system: «If you stay here, you either get locked up or knocked up». With no work and little opportunity, the children fight. Cultural pugilism starts at an early age: toddlers pummel soft furnishings as a celebrated milestone; Gemma trains with her fists in the local boxing gym run by her grandfather; scraps between other teenagers go viral on social media, spilling onto the streets and landing them in jail or hospital. The illusion of respect from incarceration and violent brawling culminates in both tragedy and transformation, but through exchanges of hardened love and hope for tiny lives we are directed by filmmakers Ellen Fiske (UK) and Ellinor Hallin (Sweden) towards Gemma’s strength and bravery when mobilising her and her son’s freedom from this template of existence.
The filmmakers treat actuality with self-effaced sensitivity. Motherwell’s story is told mostly through Gemma’s narration over montage and filmed action. Small lapses of time demonstrate the duration of the filmmakers’ interest in her world as we watch a feisty girl, happy to live her whole life in the scheme, peel away from juvenility into a caring mother and friend. Time in its synchronic slicing and diachronic unfolding are visually engaged through slow-motion grabs of intense emotions set against the vocal thump of Scottish artist and author Loki the Rapper. Scenes that dwell inordinately on everyday actions express the grip of “mundane being” over any transcending purpose.
One cannot overlook the simple yet apposite metaphoric relation between the teens and the homing pigeons - the pride of their community. Seen as pestilent “rats with wings” in most affluent cities of the world, we track their haphazard murmuration, swirling around the towers; the potential to break free from the flock can occur at any moment. While most return to what they know, some «fly the nest».
Fiske and Hallin’s collaboration brings concrete social truths to light with story-telling and cinematic finesse that fictional working-class realist cinema simulates in representation, but ultimately removes us from.
Scheme Birds | Film | Ellen Fiske, Ellinor Hallin | SWE-UK 2019 | 87’ | Zurich Film Festival 2019
Best Documentary Feature at Tribeca Film Festival 2019
