PSIFF 2015—ALLÉLUIA (2014)

Raymond Martinez Fernandez and Martha Jule Beck were an American serial killer couple who murdered as many as 20 women during a killing spree between 1947 and 1949. After their arrest and trial for serial murder in 1949, they became known as "The Lonely Hearts Killers" for meeting their unsuspecting victims through lonely hearts ads. They were executed by electric chair in 1951.

In 1969, Leonard Kastle wrote and directed his one and only feature The Honeymoon Killers starring Shirley Stoler and Tony Lo Bianco as the nefarious (if celebrated) couple and it's perhaps the entry I'm most anticipating in Noir City's 2015 line-up, having only seen Arturo Ripstein's Deep Crimson (1996), his Hispanicized and stylishly melodramatized adaptation of these events. Neither have I seen Todd Robinson's Lonely Hearts (2006). Anticipating Noir City, however, I made a point of not missing Fabrice Du Welz's Alléluia (2014) at the 26th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF), which—as a Belgian entry—was included in PSIFF's World Cinema Now sidebar, as well as being featured in PSIFF's newly-launched and edgy "Breaking Waves" program.

Alléluia screened as part of the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, where Variety's Peter Debruge noted: "Belgian director Fabrice Du Welz makes good on John Waters' prediction that the trashy cult classic The Honeymoon Killers was due for an Internet-era remake." Updating the tale's lonely hearts ads to online dating, Alléluia delivers its "cautionary satire" in unsettling co-dependent spades. Debruge adds: "Du Welz's interpretation serves as an expertly calibrated dismantling of Hollywood's perfect-couple myth, suggesting that love—especially that which borders on obsession—can sometimes be the most toxic force on earth." At The Hollywood Reporter, Boyd van Hoeij's bottom line: "Two rock-solid performances, gritty cinematography and an impressive mise-en-scene make for a great movie."

Alléluia next screened in the Vanguard program at the Toronto International (where David Hudson picked up a few reviews at Fandor's Keyframe Daily, as did Critics Round-Up). At A.V. Club, A.A. Dowd dubbed the film "spectacularly crazy" and "grisly, darkly comic stuff", praising its star duo Laurent Lucas and Lola Dueñas as embodying "these infamous maniacs with can't-look-away conviction." At MUBI's Notebook, Daniel Kasman observes: "Shot close in intimate 16mm, the film juggles tones deftly to capture the loneliness, desire, horror, humor, and absurdity in an amour fou between two single sociopaths who find in each other an intense, primal attraction. But both persons are so distorted, and the love between them thereby turning so distorted, that it leads not to the greatest, strangest love affair—though you could call it that, I suppose—but the most perverse: the man sets up a scheme to seduce and rob women, and the woman, quickly beset by manic jealousy, to kill them." At Cinema Scope, Blake Williams writes: "Fabrice Du Welz's present-day reiteration (complete with online dating) is a formally sleek study of looming insanity, and is prone to innervating jolts of hysteria; it also contains one hell of a balls-out performance by Lola Dueñas. And while it may ultimately go down in memory as that film in which Laurent Lucas mimics Humphrey Bogart's hippo call from The African Queen, its conflation of the ridiculous with the sublime is this neo-extremist's most admirable and stirring manoeuvre to date." Last, but never least, Girish Shambu adds: "The 'termite-art' highlight of the festival. Every frame of this film seems to simultaneously carry a fierce awareness of its meager resources and an imaginative response to it. Most of Alleluia (and almost the entire first half) is shot in close-ups of never-ending invention: partially and playfully lit frames, frames divided into zones, expressionist pools of color, bold graphic strokes, starkly inscribed silhouettes."

Alléluia then bolstered its festival pedigree at Austin's Fantastic Fest where it won Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Actor. Notwithstanding, it was perhaps one of the most sparsely-attended screenings I caught at PSIFF, emphasized by its being projected in the Camelot's largest theater, but—as someone who enjoyed the film—I was glad to see it on that giant screen, slight audience be damned. Alleluia is raunchy and rollicking dark fun whose visual flourishes I relished at every chaptered turn.

As noted in the PSIFF program note: "Courtship is an arcane ritual and love demands blood sacrifices in Fabrice Du Welz's gloriously deranged retelling of the ripped-from-the-headlines cult classic, The Honeymoon Killers. The sordid, sinister tale of two serial killers who swindled and butchered 'lonely hearts' in the late 1940s gets an inspired update here. When a lecherous scam artist (Laurent Lucas) seduces a desperately needy mortician (an elemental Lola Dueñas) through an online dating site, he can't conceive of the impulses he's awoken within her. Her fierce devotion to him is rivaled only by her emotional volatility, leaving her as unchecked as a severed artery. As the lovers embark on a Grand Guignol-like odyssey, Du Welz weaves a dark cinematic spell, amplifying the depraved passion until this dizzying affair grows obscenely operatic."

I've only a few notes to add. In researching Fernandez and Beck, after his World War II service, Fernandez sought work aboard a ship bound for America where a steel hatch fell on top of him, fracturing his skull and injuring his frontal lobe. After his hospitalization, he was arrested for theft and imprisoned for a year, during which time his cellmate allegedly taught him voodoo and black magic. He later claimed black magic gave him irresistible power and charm over women. I'm anxious to see how this plays out in Kastle's film—it's downplayed in Ripstein's—but is front and center in Alléluia where Michel (Laurent) prepares for his first date with Gloria (Dueñas) by performing an "arcane ritual" to The Elementals. In his Hollywood Reporter review, van Hoeij notes "all of Du Welz's films feature religious rituals, often to fill a void in the life of the characters" so it's perhaps no surprise that he should capitalize on this detail. It's fanned into flame when Gloria later joins him in the ritual and they are envisioned dancing naked and silhouetted in front of a raging bonfire: desire as a form of demonic (daemonic?) possession.

With regard to that first meeting between Michel and Gloria, staged at a chic restaurant, which Boyd van Hoeij describes as having "the precision of a military airstrike", he likewise details the encounter: "Michel talks a lot and ladles on the gentlemanly charm like nobody's business, while Gloria says little, at once shy and mesmerized by this man. Initially, the handheld camera looks at the couple in profile, going back and forth from one face to another in a single take, which stresses the distance and void between them across the table. But halfway through the conversation, over-the-shoulder shots and reverse shots fuse the two together, as the eye of the person opposite looks straight at the face of the other, whose head is seen from the back in the same shot." Although van Hoeij is the only reviewer I've read to actually use the term mise en scène, he appears to do so predominantly by way of Manu Dacosse's cinematography, emphasizing grit and grain and "numerous intense close-ups allowing the actors to turn their deranged characters into frighteningly three-dimensional human beings." But I would here apply Adrian Martin's proposed "social mise en scène" as a tool to best understand this sequence, which I've recently gleaned from his important study Mise en Scène and Film Style: From Classical Hollywood to New Media Art (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Martin details the conceptual underpinnings of social mise en scène in his chapter "A Detour via Reality: Social Mise en Scène" (pp. 127-154), pointing out that—though it is not a totally new idea in film studies—it's an overlooked path. "With social mise en scène," he writes, "rather than going directly or primarily to the unique, idiosyncratic sensibility or world-view of the maker, we attend to the newly grasped raw material of social codes, their constant exposure and deformation in the work of how a film articulates itself. In particular, it allows us to zero in on something specific: known rituals that are recreated, marked, inscribed in the flow of the film, usually in order to be transformed." (2014:134)

To clarify his argument, he utilizes the listening booth sequence in Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise (1995) where Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) listen to Kath Bloom's "Come Here"—"a play of stolen glances and half-hidden smiles" (p. 135) that register their awkward attraction and stylistically plays out the tension between private feeling in public space. Boyd van Hoeij could just as well have been consciously using the term social mise en scène when describing how Dacosse's camera "stresses the distance and void between them across the table."

Finally, I assert that my favorite sequence in Du Welz's Alléluia is the intricate citation of the dynamics between Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart) and Rose Sayer (Katherine Hepburn) in John Huston's The African Queen (1951) where—as Debruge has intimated in his Variety review—the lamination of Michel and Gloria's relationship upon that cinematic pair reveals an inappropriate identification that at the same time dismantles the Hollywood ideal. The intercutting of laughter is brilliant, and poignantly sobered the moment Michel points out to Gloria that you can see in Bogart's eyes the pain of his cancer and his awareness of impending death. I felt tremendous sadness in this sequence, realizing how much Michel and Gloria both dreamed of a "normal" (i.e., romanticized cinematic) life they were never destined to have.

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PSIFF 2015: TALKING PICTURES—AWARDS BUZZ AT FULL GALLOP

A signature program of the Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF), "Talking Pictures" presents screenings of some of the year's most acclaimed films, followed by intimate, in-depth conversations with the directors and the stars, moderated by America's foremost film journalists and experts. For this year's "Talking Pictures" programs, PSIFF added a special forum focusing on leading contenders in the race for Best Foreign Language Film honors, in recognition of the extraordinary quality of this year's submissions.

Scott Feinberg, Awards analyst for The Hollywood Reporter, joined a number of the directors of this year's leading candidates for the Foreign Language Oscar® race in an illuminating discussion encompassing their films, what drives them thematically and creatively and the concurrent blessing and curse that comes with being the subject of "Oscar® buzz." While there is no doubt that the attention that comes with being selected by your country as its official standard bearer in the Foreign Oscar® sweepstakes is a boon to career aspirations, the flip side of that coin may be the expectations that such status raises among critics, members of the film industry and filmgoers lining up to see your film. The morning discussion, held at the Palm Canyon Theater in Palm Springs, was preceded by a presentation of clips from each of the directors' films.

In attendance were Paula van der Oest (Accused), George Ovashvili (Corn Island), Andrey Zvyagintsev (Leviathan), Alberto Arvelo (The Liberator), Zaza Urushadze (Tangerines), Abderrahmane Sissako (Timbuktu) and Damián Szifrón (Wild Tales).

Feinberg welcomed his audience and gave thanks to PSIFF Artistic Director Helen du Toit and her programming team for making the panel possible. He equally thanked the panelists for making films that were such a pleasure to watch this year. He promised that by the time we were through with the panel discussion, we would want to seek these films out, an opportunity unique to PSIFF: nowhere else would all nine films on the Oscar® shortlist be available for viewing. After viewing clips from the films, Feinberg introduced each of the panelists, synopsized their films, and began his line of questioning.

* * *

Scott Feinberg: To begin with, I want to do the general question that people are probably wondering: what initially inspired or sparked the idea for the film that brings you here today? Alberto, maybe we can start with you?

Alberto Arvelo: Thank you, first of all, for this invitation and this fantastic idea to bring us together. What inspired me was a simple, old story. I grew up with my father's stories about Simón Bolívar. He took me to bed every night telling me stories of how Bolívar crossed the Andes and his liberation of South America.  My father's not here anymore but I still have his stories in my mind. When I told him at 16 years old that I wanted to become a filmmaker, he told me, "Then you have to make one day a film about Simón Bolívar in some way." For example, the crossing of the Andes, that whole scene, is a sort of homage to my father. It's exactly what he told me when I was a kid.

Scott Feinberg: Abderrahmane, how about you? What was the root of the idea for Timbuktu?

© Gerhard Kassner / Berlinale

Abderrahmane Sissako: My last film was in 2006, so it's been a while. Because I had two girls, two children, and was not in a hurry to do another film. But when the Jihadists occupied the north of Mali, which is the country I know, it was a shock for me. One day I read in the newspaper that a young couple was stoned to death only because they were not married. This was something that moved me incredibly so that is why I decided to do this film.

Scott Feinberg: Paula, people may or may not know that the story at the center of your film is a real one. What was it about that, that resonated with you to the point that you wanted to make a film about it?

Paula van der Oest: Yes, my film is about the nurse Lucia de Berk who was wrongly accused of killing babies and elderly people in a hospital where she worked. When she was released from prison in 2010, the producers of my film were already following her case. She had also written a book. I remember I saw her on TV and she was a woman that some people found a bit strange and peculiar in the way she talks. Even after she was released—and I have to admit that when I saw her—people around me said, "Well, she did it." I realized that I didn't know anything about her. So when the producers came to me with the idea of making the movie, they brought me the first draft of the script. I read it and began to realize her real story: this was how it happened. When you don't know anything and you hear some rumors—we have a saying, "where there's smoke, there's fire"—I felt it was necessary to make this movie to show how this process goes if you don't know anything and if you go along with the mass rumor that this woman murdered babies and children.

Scott Feinberg: George, it's a part of the world that you know, but why did you feel a need to help us learn?

George Ovashvili: First of all, thank you very much. This is a very good opportunity for us to be together, all of us, and really thank you [addressing the audience] for being here. Generally, as most of us think about being alive as human beings, I wanted to tell the story of one human. I got the story from my scriptwriter a few years ago, the true story about the river, which creates a small island during the spring rain season and how the villagers wait for this moment when the islands are formed to go there to grow their crops. Then when the next rainy season comes, that island is washed away and reforms in some other place, where another person comes to plant their crops and start life again. I felt this was an interesting idea because even now in my country people continue to do that. So we created this story about a human who struggles to raise his crops and how his struggle is part of a greater cycle.

Scott Feinberg: I don't know what Vegas would say, but I've got to say that the odds are great that of the nine short-listed films, and the seven we have here, two of them deal with this disputed territory of Abkhazia. Zaza, can you tell us what brought you to your side of the same story?

Zaza Urushadze: This film is about the war and I must say this war was very painful for we Georgians because we lost a beautiful part of our country. And I lost a lot of close people during this war. My picture deals with the acceptance of life in this environment and tried to convey our humanity.

Scott Feinberg: Damián, from what I understand you grew up enamored with short story anthologies and it was a frustration with other projects that led, in a way, to Wild Tales and the short stories that comprise that. Can you tell us more about that?

Damián Szifrón: Yeah. I was developing other feature films, longer ones, regular ones—actually, it was not that regular because it was a science fiction trilogy—and I was writing that for seven years. I was also developing a western and a romantic comedy with these new ideas that kept on coming, mostly from reality, and I didn't know what to do. I stopped them from becoming more feature films because I already had so many in development. I tried to compress them to their minimum expression, like a bonsai treatment, you know? So that's how I got these powerful short stories that expressed a lot of stuff in a very straight way, in a very free way, and I wrote them as an amusement. I didn't know I was going to shoot them so quickly. I thought I was going to shoot my science fiction trilogy first, then the western. But as soon as I finished them, I could tell that they all came from the same DNA and that they were all connected thematically. I saw that they were a film. The film is about the pleasure of reacting against injustice and frustrating real-life situations. I enjoyed writing that a lot and—when a producer that I work with a lot read them—he said, "You should do this right now." So I did.

Scott Feinberg: Andrey, the story you tell in Leviathan, it's a film very much about Russia, but amazingly it was inspired by a situation in Colorado, right?

Andrey Zvyagintsev: This is true as to the origins of the story. It was based on a story in Colorado where a small person, a welder with a major company, conflicted with authorities, which eventually led to certain demolishment of property and eventual suicide, unfortunately. Over the course of time we had to modify this story and adapt it to the realities of contemporary Russia. But now it is safe to say that eventually the story came back to the place of its origin.

Scott Feinberg: I want to turn the focus to something that is one of the few things that filmmakers in every part of the world share, which is frustration at trying to finance your movies. Some of these films were made for, basically, nickels—it's amazing how much art is on the screen for so little money—some have bigger budgets in the tens of millions. But in every case I know that people have had to fight for everything they had at their disposal. So I want to direct this to a few of you guys, but please anyone jump in who feel they have something to add. I want to start with Andrey. People who have seen Leviathan understand it is a film that doesn't just tow the line and paint a totally flattering portrait of Russia. In the same way that all of our countries have things that we are more proud of, less proud of, Leviathan shows Russia's warts and all. And yet, people might be most surprised to learn that a large chunk of the financing came from the government, right?

Andrey Zvyagintsev: The assumption is correct. Initially, one of the co-producers was willing and ready to finance the project completely; however, over the course of time, 30-35% was offered by the Russian Ministry of Culture, which was basically how we got the project going.

Scott Feinberg: Alberto, The Liberator is the biggest project to come out of your country. Just the massive scale: a 69-day shoot, 100 sets, 6,000 costumes, 10,000 extras, $50,000,000 budget! That's a huge undertaking. What was it like bringing all that together? I'm sure it took years of work.

Alberto Arvelo: It was a roller coaster of 10 years, basically, invested in this dream. We all felt that we needed to make this film. It took us 10 years of trying with equity from Germany, Spain, South America, from all around the world. If you want to make a film about the biggest military campaign of mankind, then it was the only way to do it. An epic is a difficult genre because, in some way, you're asked to lend reality to the past and that is the only way to do it. So you're not free in some strange way. You have to serve that story and what happened there. Getting back to what I said at the beginning, the Bolívar military campaign was the longest campaign of humankind; 40% of his army died crossing the Andes. There was only one way to do this: by showing the immensity of this tragedy, of this hope.

Scott Feinberg: I'd like to ask the rest of the panel maybe by just a show of hands or if you want to add a little more after that, I think for a lot of international filmmakers it's sort of a situation where the government does help out in a way and I wonder if that was your experience? For which of you did the government help to finance your film? Paula?

Paula van der Oest: The biggest part of our industry—I can't even call it industry because we make only about 30 films a year—but they're subsidized. But every now and then there's a check, and then it's canceled again, so for this movie money came from Sweden (composer and an actress), Belgium and Luxemborg for financing. This film was about 2,000,000 Euros but also it happened once that I couldn't get a film financed and we made it together with a group of friends with some TV money. But, yes, the main part of the movies are subsidized but people are starting more and more with crowd funding. That's what's happening now.

Scott Feinberg: Damián, did the Argentine government contribute?

Damián Szifrón: Yes, it helped when the movie was being made. We have a system where a percentage of every ticket that's sold for American films goes to a place and then they use that money to help Argentine directors to make their films. I have to say it was not hard to get the money for the film. I'm very lucky. Agustín Almodóvar and Pedro Almodóvar from Spain read the script and they were immediately on board. It's a big movie for Argentina—it was almost a $4,000,000 budget—but it was not impossible. So, for me, the frustration did not come from the money part, no.

Scott Feinberg: Zaza?

Damián Szifrón: [Teasing] Zaza went with a gun. [Laughter.] "I want to make this film." "Okay!"

Zaza Urushadze: The budget for our film was just 600,000 Euros. It was enough.

Scott Feinberg: A simple man. How about you, George, what was your budget?

George Ovashvili: We collected the money for three or four years. My budget was 1.5 million. I have five countries as co-producers. That means that each country came with just a little bit of money. Georgia was 25%. Then Germany, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, France, Spain. It's very hard to find money in our country because the industry is at a very low level and has no money. But we have an institution which gives money every year by a radio competition, but just for two or three projects a year. When the co-producers came on board, they read the script and they thought, "Oh, that's a very simple story, just two characters, one location (an island), so that's very easy." Only later did they realize how difficult the project was because we had to create the island, we had to create the cornfields, and we had to wash away the island at the end of the film.

Scott Feinberg: Abderrahmane, Timbuktu was at Cannes. You've been there before. Have you found that it's gotten easier over time as you've become more established to find the funds you need to make your films or is it always an uphill climb?

Abderrahmane Sissako: For me it never was really difficult to finance my film. First, because they are not very expensive and, practically, the financing came from the French television channel Arte, as well as the other television channel Canal+ and CNC, the national fund for supporting film in France. The financing for Timbuktu came together really fast, I believe, because of the burning subject matter. Our first intention was to shoot in Mali but because of safety issues—there was a suicide bombing and things like that—we were not able to shoot there. I ended up shooting in Mauritania whose government was supportive of our project. There is really no organization for film in Mauritania but they supported us by providing security. There were over 200 soldiers attending to our shoot. At the time there were lots of abductions of foreigners and our crew was international: French, Belgian, and African as well. It was important to have strong security around the film. The government of Mauritania also provided a little bit of financial aid. We also had a lot of sponsorship and product placement, who provided gasoline, cars, things like that.

Scott Feinberg: What I'd like to do now is ask more targeted questions for each of you. To begin with George, Corn Island used hardly any dialogue at all—it was almost wordless—and yet, for me, it was almost more gripping than most action movies with explosions that I've ever seen, particularly at the ending, which gets my heart beating just thinking about it. Has that always been your style of filmmaking to hold back on dialogue? What led you to that decision?

George Ovashvili: Before my first film, I did a few short films that had no words of dialogue. It's my approach. It's not original thinking, but for me cinema is the visual way to tell a story. I've always tried to use less words to tell what I want to say. If I can't show you on the screen, then I can just tell you my story. In Corn Island we have just a few lines. While I was working on the script, I felt the relationship between the characters didn't require them to say anything. I felt they could understand each other perfectly without words or explanations. My storytelling goes very slow, step by step.

Scott Feinberg: Alberto, you can fill the space in a movie with words, you can fill it with silence, and you can also supplement either with music obviously. You have Gustavo Dudamel—who people know not only as the conductor of the L.A. Philharmonic but, appropriately enough, the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar—providing the first score he's ever done for a film for The Liberator. How did that come to be? And what do you think it adds? It's one of the best scores that I can remember.

Alberto Arvelo: Music is very important in this film.... This man Simón Bolívar, when he started, suffered a huge amount of loneliness. That's something you can't transmit with words. That's basically, for me, a territory of silence, and music (which is a way of silence). I was in some way attracted to that loneliness and that passion behind this romantic character. As Lord Byron said, Bolívar was one of the most romantic characters ever. Music was fundamental. I spent time with Dudamel trying to understand how to create that music and to talk about Bolívar as the spirit of Latin America. We are made of music at the same time. We are living music always. Music is a part of our lives. With the music we created a character but also a people. This music is about the creation of Latin America in some way. Bolívar was very complex. Dudamel and I worked together before creating a contemporary opera for the L.A. Philharmonic; it was a fantastic collaboration. I went to him to ask him advice about the score for The Liberator. I remember one day when we were at Cannes he sat down at the piano and he was playing and he said, "You should do this in one of the battles" and "you should have this music in a Tchaikovsky choir here and there" and at one point we realized that he was already composing so I said, "Come on, Dudamel, compose the film" and he said, "No, I'm a conductor. I'm not a composer." It was fantastic, he finally said, "I'll do it." I think he got the essence of—not only the sound of Latin America—but, of Bolívar's loneliness. His score is what I feel makes this epic contemporary.

Scott Feinberg: Andrey, not uniquely but Russia is not terribly responsive to criticism, especially from internally, and there are certainly things in your film—from having a portrait of Vladimir Putin behind the corrupt mayor to having Pussy Riot, the band that was jailed, flash by on a TV, and other things that search the general idea that a simple man can be overwhelmed by the system in Russia. I just wonder: did you fear any repercussions for this portrayal? Did you ever imagine that Russia might actually submit this film for the Oscars®? Clearly, it is artistically worthy, but I think some people thought that it might be set aside.

Andrey Zvyagintsev: The very fact of submission of Leviathan for this year's Oscars® came as a pleasant surprise for me. Majorly, this has been the tremendous work one of the producers Alexander Rodnyansky has done on the movie. Partially, the very fact of the submission was also based on a huge backlash that we had in the media back in 2011 when the then-submission caused a controversy in the Russian media. People in the mass media were basically dissatisfied with the then-nominated film. That's why, partially, this contributed to Leviathan eventually having been submitted for the competition.

Scott Feinberg: Paula, your film also points to a pretty dark chapter obviously in the history of your country and one that has been described as "the biggest miscarriage of justice in Dutch history." It shamed the judicial system, and yet it was a huge ticket-seller at home and it's now an Oscar® submission. Did you have any pause about tackling the story? Do you feel a certain responsibility when you make films to share aspects and stories about your country—good, bad, ugly, whatever they may be—is that part of your mandate you feel as a filmmaker? To share stories about your country to the world?

Paula van der Oest: Yes. I'm afraid I don't have a career plan. I started filmmaking and half of the films that I've made I've written myself and they tend to be comedies. I was nominated in 2003 and that was a three-sister comedy. Sometimes producers come to me with scripts, plans, but I always go for story, subject. Therefore, I don't have a very consistent oeuvre—comedies, a film about a South African poet, a dark fairy tale cult movie—every time a new kind of film. This one, I felt it had to be made. Also, it was rather satisfying or important that the nurse, the real nurse, was still around. It was not that she had a veto or had big influence and could stop the movie, but she read versions of the script and saw edited versions of the film. At first, with the first versions, she found it very boring. She said, "I hate it." Finally, she was happy. When we premiered in Amsterdam, it was very weird. After everything that had happened to her, all her years in prison, after all the people who still said "she did it" after she was released from prison, when she walked on the red carpet into that screening, the whole audience rose. It was very moving. She was fragile on stage and I think the film did more for her than the fact that she had been released because people could see how it worked and what had happened and how lonely and desperate she had been all those years. If it weren't for those people who thought, "This isn't right"—there were a few people who kept saying, "This isn't right"—finally, they were proven right. So I felt it very important to tell this story and this was more related to our country or to society. Sometimes I want to make a film I think is important because it says something about people, about life. It has to have a meaning.

Scott Feinberg: Abderrahmane, one of the things that I really admired about Timbuktu—as well as Accused, Corn Island, Leviathan—was how well you cast your child actors and how effective they were in their roles. Individually, as in the scene in which Toya and Issan talk to one another about their outlook, but also collectively, as with the scene of the pantomimed soccer game, which is one of the greatest scenes ever. What's your technique for finding these young actors and getting such effective performances from them?

Abderrahmane Sissako: My first "technique" in Mauritania is that I have no choice. There are no actors. So you have to work with people that really have the desire to do this. So we do what we call a wide casting. We look around for people with personality. As far as the main couple in my film, a man and a woman, they are a Tuareg couple. I needed them to be able to speak Tuareg. In my film there were several languages. In order to find them, I requested that we look in the world of music. My casting director looked on Facebook and she found this Tuareg musician who lived in Madrid. The actress who plays his wife is a Tuareg singer who lives in Paris.

Scott Feinberg: They were also fantastic, but I'm actually talking about the daughter and the shepherd.

Abderrahmane Sissako: In the script the part of the child was a three-year-old girl so I went to visit a Tuareg camp in Mauritania where there are 70,000 Tuareg refugees. I went looking for a mother with a three-year-old child, and I couldn't find them. Every time I entered the tent where we were doing the casting there was this 12-year-old girl who was always there and who always showed up in every picture we took, so my casting director said, "You have to look for a part for this one." So I said, "Look, let's make the child 12 years old." Problem solved.

Scott Feinberg: Zaza, Tangerines is one of the most effective anti-war movies I think you could find. I would imagine that for your country it's probably what All's Quiet On the Western Front was for others for things like that. It makes you see how a lot of what people do during war is stupid and futile. Were there earlier films or filmmakers that influenced the way that you told this story? Obviously, it's a story that is its own conflict, but in the way that you wanted to present it, did you find others to be helpful?

Zaza Urushadze: Coppola's Apocalypse Now.

Scott Feinberg: Just the insanity of it all? That was a much louder film but, yeah, there were some crazy folks in that as well.

Zaza Urushadze: It probably didn't influence me so directly.

Scott Feinberg: As an unrelated follow-up, the main character, the older man in the film (Lembit Ulfsak), is—I understand—one of the greatest Estonian actors. He's had 40-50 years in Estonian theater and film. Tell us a little bit about him because you can see that he knows what he's doing very well.

Zaza Urushadze: I knew him when I was a child. He was famous in the Soviet Union. I would have to say that—when I was writing the screen play—I knew that he would play Ivo.

Scott Feinberg: Damián, I've seen Wild Tales a few times and every time there are people who leave the theater crying because they've laughed so hard. It's hilarious. Each time you think it can't get funnier, it does. Where does your sense of humor come from? What is it you want people to take away from your film?

Damián Szifrón: What you're describing is a great way to leave the theater. I don't think I would ask for more. Regarding my sense of humor, I think of my parents. Both of them were very funny, probably because of their origins. My grandparents on my father's side came from Poland, they were Jewish, and came from the war. They survived and went to South America with nothing at all. Sometimes humor is a powerful tool to improve your life, to create relationships and to move on. So probably that's in my genes. I permit myself to think that humor is a form of expressing themes and issues that—without humor—would miss the target. When you tell a story with solemnity, sometimes a lot of people don't relate to that because everybody has their own problems and life is not easy for different reasons. But with humor, you can establish a strong connection with people. Sometimes in art humor is not that well considered; but, not with moviegoers. Moviegoers do remember what makes them laugh. Humor is a complex way of communication. It includes every other layer. It's like an orchestra with a lot of instruments. You say something humorous and the other person laughs very fast. You communicate fast. In a movie theater packed with people laughing at the same thing makes you feel less lonely in a way. You can understand that we all suffer from the same things, we all get angry about the same things, and that establishes a connection.

Scott Feinberg: Now, in the same way that—if a tree falls in a forest and there's no one there to hear it—if a great film doesn't get talked about or seen, it doesn't matter how great it is. I wonder for each of you what the key was to getting your film seen and talked about? Was there a person? A festival? A moment that was instrumental in helping your film come to the attention of a larger audience? I know a number of you premiered at Cannes, Toronto, Karlovy Vary, Warsaw. Were festivals important? What was key to raising the profile of your film? Alberto, I'm calling on you.

Alberto Arvelo: Our premiere in Toronto was fantastic, I have to say. It was especially important because when I was a teenager in Montreal where my father was a researcher, I wanted to make films. I went to most of the film festivals in Toronto and Montreal and I'd feel the excitement of their red carpets. Being there with my film was fantastic and amazing. People were laughing, crying, clapping in the middle of the projection. I definitely think it was that moment, no doubt. Most of the actors came to join us in that amazing moment. Art is about loving, hugging, feeling and—when you have that equation around you—that's, by far, the fire.

Scott Feinberg: Abderrahmane, Cannes is a special unique place. If they don't like your movie, they let you know. They'll boo. If they love your movie, they'll applaud it for 20 minutes. What was it like for you having been there with Timbuktu and to be so well-received?

Abderrahmane Sissako: It was exactly one year that I was still shooting the film and I arrived in France three days after the end of shooting to do the post-production. So we were really trying to hurry all the post-production to have the chance to enter into the Cannes competition. We were only able to give the finished version of the film about eight days before the festival. I'm telling you that because even I first discovered my film in Cannes. So I had really no distance and absolutely the fact that it was such an incredible response of the press and the public was something very important.

Scott Feinberg: Paula, as you mentioned before, the festival your subject attended put your film on the map for most people, right?

Paula van der Oest: Yes. We got very good reviews. Box-office wise, they could have been better; but, that was okay. The strangest thing is that everybody here on this panel have been selected by major, interesting, very important film festivals; but, my film wasn't. Actually, nowhere. I feel confident about the movie. I love it. I am very proud of it. People are moved when they see it. But so far, no festivals. So out of the blue I was selected as the Dutch entry for the Oscars®, and now I'm on the short list. For me, this is great!

Scott Feinberg: George, you guys premiered at Karlovy Vary, right? That was the beginning? Was that where the momentum for your film began?

George Ovashvili: We had the first version without any sound in 2014. We sent it to Cannes and they refused. At the same time, we got an invitation from Karlovy Vary to be in main competition and we started to think about whether we should go there or not. At the same time we got an invitation from San Sebastián to be in main competition. So it was a bit of a dilemma for my producers to decide where to go. Finally, they said, "We don't have to wait until September. In July we have to go to Karlovy Vary." We went there and I was not expecting anything, but before the closing ceremony the director of the festival asked my producers if they were going to stay for the closing gala and I said, "No, I have a ticket and I need to fly out." They said, "No, no, no, you stay. You have to be there." Nobody told me why. We won the Crystal Globe and the Award of the Ecumenical Jury. It was a good start for the world premiere of my film. When I was selected by my country as the candidate for the Oscars® it was a big surprise for me as well because there were a few good films in competition. Finally, when I was shortlisted, I really could not believe that. I said, "There must be some kind of mistake."

Scott Feinberg: Zaza, you guys started in Warsaw?

Zaza Urushadze: The Warsaw premiere was our first festival and we won Best Director and the Audience Award. After, at different festivals, we got about 20 awards.

Scott Feinberg: Damián, Cannes for you as well must have been an experience? I don't remember too many comedies even being necessarily in competition there. So how did it play over there?

Damián Szifrón: It was amazing. I truly work for the audience. When I write, I never aim for film festivals. Actually, this is the first film I've done that went international. So probably the next one I'm going to think of festivals! But not this one. Yes, I finished the first cut and I showed it to the people involved in the film and they said, "We should send this to Cannes." I said, "Cannes?! You really think so?" Then when I received the call from Thierry Frémaux, he said, "We want the film" and he put the film in the main competition and then he put it on the first Saturday at 9:00 so I was, of course, terrified. But, yes, the reception was magnificent. All the team was there, with the actors, and we began to receive some calls from people who were inside the press screening earlier and they said, "The critics are laughing out loud. The critics are applauding between the episodes." It was a great place to show the film, of course, yes.

Scott Feinberg: Did you run into Andrey out there at Cannes because that's where Leviathan also premiered, right?

Andrey Zvyagintsev: That is correct. We had the most amazing round of applause from both the press and the film critics. One of the festival organizers insisted on our being present for the closing ceremony. We had gotten very revved up and our expectations were set very high. Everything we hoped for actually came true so we were very thankful for this warm reception.

Scott Feinberg: Okay, so with our remaining five minutes, I'm going to ask you to be brief in your response to this, but I think one of the neat things we can do here is to acknowledge how special it is to be on the short list. There were, I think, 83 films that were submitted by countries from around the world. Nine made the list. Seven are here. Five will go on January 22, but regardless, it is a huge honor to have made it this far. I want to ask you about the moment and the meaning to you and your countrymen when you found out from your compatriots. I'm going to direct this specifically to Abderrahmane: Your's is the first film that Mauritania has ever submitted for Oscar® consideration and you've made the nine. That must feel pretty special?

Abderrahmane Sissako: Yes, no doubt, it is something extraordinary for me to have made the short list and to be here at the Palm Springs International with all of the other directors. It's very special. Maybe there's a difference for me than all the other directors because I have the feeling that it is not only my country that I represent but the whole continent of Africa as well.

Scott Feinberg: Andrey, you came close 11 years ago when Russia submitted your film The Return. This time you made it and I know, as you said, it was not necessarily a slam dunk. What was your reaction when you found out that it had happened, beyond being a pleasant surprise? How did you celebrate? [Andrey made the audience laugh by seeming perplexed by the obviousness of the question, spreading his arms out to encompass the immediate experience.]

Andrey Zvyagintsev: It is, of course, an absolutely astounding experience. Our team could not believe it at first; but, as I said, the story goes back to 2011 when the Oscar® committee in Russia was expanded. About 30 people were actually in the committee and they included independent filmmakers, actors, screenwriters, and they helped us to get the project going. This is how, I guess, partially, the movie was greenlit. So, all in all, this is a very interesting and long story and our reaction was, of course, nothing but ecstatic. We were excited and this has been a truly wonderful experience.

Scott Feinberg: Damián, in the 53 years since Argentina first submitted a film for Oscar® consideration, only six have made it as far as yours has now. As a cineaste and a student of film history, that's got to mean something to you?

Damián Szifrón: Of course! It means a lot for us. Everything what's going on with the film is just overwhelming. Sometimes I think that my body can't take that amount of happiness, you know? All this good news! We've been celebrating since the film screened at Cannes. Every month we have a boost. The Oscars®, and having the chance to be here with these immensely talented people, it's wonderful. Sometimes it's a bit strange because of the element of competition, which is strange to art, I would say. It's not natural for an artist to compete. When you're a football player, you have to win and somebody has to lose, and that's the idea of the whole thing. But here, when you work, you're not thinking of what other people are doing. You're not clashing against anything. I don't want to fight him, especially. [Demian nudges Zaza; the audience laughs.] Art has to transcend the competition, and also the nationality, I would say. Sometimes you're more connected to filmmakers from places that are very far away from your's than your neighbor. That makes you a bit anxious because it's not in your nature, I would say.

Scott Feinberg: Zaza, of the other films from Estonia that have been submitted for Oscar® consideration over a period of 22 years, yours is the first that has ever been shortlisted.

Zaza: Mostly, I can't believe it. First a Golden Globe nomination, and now the shortlist? It's amazing for small Estonia and a small Georgia too, since it's an Estonia-Georgia co-production.

Scott Feinberg: Congratulations to you all.

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HBO: LOOKING, Season Two—REVIEW By Tez Anderson

Season Two of HBO's Looking premieres Sunday, January 11, 2015 at 10:00PM ET. Most of the cast (except for Russell Tovey) attended the premiere party at San Francisco's Castro Theater where they screened the first two episodes of the second season. Attending the Premiere were Michael Lannan (Executive producer), Andrew Haigh (Executive producer), Jonathan Groff, Actor (Patrick), Frankie J. Alvarez, Actor (Agustín), Murray Bartlett, Actor (Dom), Raul Castillo, Actor (Richie) and Daniel Franzese, Actor (Eddie).

The first episode opened with a trip to the Russian River where Patrick (Jonathon Groff), Agustín (Frankie J. Alvarez) and Dom (Murray Bartlett) go to detox and chill out in Dom's older boy friend's cabin in the woods. When Doris (Lauren Weedman) arrives, it quickly turns into a "molly"-induced frolic in the forest complete with gay-boy bears and faeries dancing and fucking in the redwoods. It is a pleasant romp. Adding interest was an appearance of AIDS in the first episode. Dom finds photos of his boyfriend's long-dead lover.

For those that like Looking, this season will not disappoint. For those who do not like Looking, this is not going to win any converts because it's more of the same. According to Frankie J. Alvarez, "We pick up pretty much where we left off." Though he claims the series will go "deeper" into the characters' lives this season.

The hallmark and strength of Looking is the utterly natural, effortless way the cast interacts with each other even when they are in conflict. I asked Alvarez how much leeway the cast had to improvise. He responded, "It's more like embellishing. The scripts are very well written but we are free to play a bit. And we usually have a couple of takes to depart a bit."

There is one new, welcome addition to the cast, Daniel Franzese (Mean Girls), who plays Eddie, a likable and funny bear, with whom Agustín seems smitten in the first episode. Franzese was a clear audience favorite as was Lauren Weedman. Both stole the show whenever onscreen and both received rousing receptions when the credits rolled. Fanzese said it was "a thrill to play a guy like me on TV." It is also rare. He is utterly believable playing to type.

I like Looking. I like the pace. Its dramatics are subtle. For me that is one of the strengths of the show.

In the second episode the crew returns to San Francisco, which I liked better. HIV becomes central when they revisit the more mature Lynn character (played by Scott Bakula). Dom and Lynn are now a couple in a believable, open relationship. Bakula perfectly portrays Lynn as the elder of the show. I thanked writer / producer and the creator of the show Michael Lannan for including realistic older gay men with HIV concerns. He said to expect more about HIV in Season Two, including one of the characters starting PrEP. Agustín is clearly not coping well with his failures. He relies on substances a lot and is found on the street by Richie (Patrick's former Hispanic beau). The second episode seemed to finish before it started; a sign that it was more engrossing than the romp in the woods.

I didn't talk with Groff. He ran late and was caught up talking with folks further down the line. I kept expecting him to break into song. I saw him in Spring Awakenings and, of course, Glee. In the onstage conversation after the screening he said his character Patrick has an "encounter with a karaoke machine" and a full-on fling with his already partnered boss.

Tez Anderson is an LGBT activist who has been doing major work this past year in bringing media attention to the plight of long-time survivors of HIV and AIDS. He was instrumental in launching Let's Kick ASS, a non-profit committed to empowering long-time survivors, and has been featured in several mainstream publications. The Evening Class welcomes his contribution.

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LISTS: FAVORITE NARRATIVE FEATURES 2014

Clocking in during the final hours of the last day of the year seems appropriate to post ten of my favorite narrative features of 2015. At this belated juncture my hubris will be tempered by the fact that everyone will have had their fill of lists and I can squeak by dutifully without calling too much attention to myself. I've tried to create a list that reflects commercial achievements mingled with festival triumphs that, hopefully, can someday be seen. Listed in alphabetical order.

The Auction (Le Démantèlement / The Dismantlement, Sébastien Pilote, 2013)—Although a young filmmaker, Sébastien Pilote has an admirable sensitivity towards narrative portraiture of elderly men, demonstrated first with The Salesman (2011), and now again with The Auction (2013), which moved me to the marrow at the 2014 Palm Springs International Film Festival. Gaby Ganon (Gabriel Arcand) is a laconic hermitic sheepherder who runs the Bouchard & Sons family farm; a misnomer as he has no sons, just two daughters, who have both fled the farm for the city. When one of his daughters asks him for an extravagant loan to keep her city residence, Gaby has to decide whether to sell off the farm and dismantle a family business that no one wants to inherit, thereby giving up a way of life he has always known. His sacrifice is remarkable and poignant. Would this have happened if he'd had sons to take over the operation? Does it matter when a father's love is concerned?

Winner of the SACD Award for Best Screenplay at the 52nd Cannes Film Festival, The Auction offers a quiet, observant script with low-stated but heartfelt characterizations. Arcand was named best lead actor at the 2014 Canadian Screen Awards. The film had its North American premiere in the World Cinema sidebar at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was picked up by Film Movement for U.S. distribution, essentially on DVD and streaming platforms, including Netflix Instant Watch. I don't believe it actually achieved theatrical distribution in the U.S.—which is a shame—but, at least it's available for those desiring a keen, subtle tale. Highly recommended.

Birdman (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2014)—Thoroughly enjoyed Iñárritu's Birdman (2014), a welcome maturation of his consequential ensemble pieces. Michael Keaton is a sure shot for Best Actor accolades during Awards season for—as my San Francisco Film Critics Circle colleague Omar Moore phrased it—"playing at least three different characters", at least one of which wryly comments upon Keaton's one-off 1989 portrayal of Batman. Edward Norton and Emma Stone will follow suit with supporting nods. As a foil to Keaton's scene-stealing dominance, Norton handles his own with wit and physicality. With doe-eyed cynicism, Stone gives voice to a skeptical younger generation formed (and informed) by social media at odds with the old-fashioned integrity and artistic aspirations of Keaton, her father. And, of course, the film's technical merits will prove competitive.

Birdman's conceit of the "continuous" take tips a brim to Hitchcock's Rope (1948) and is more seamless in some transitions than others, now and again calling too much attention to itself, and relying now and again on arguably discontinuous tactics (timelapse anyone?) to achieve its conceptual flourish. Iñárritu's grasp of the insular world of backstage antics is compelling, offering the bitchy wit of the wings. My friend Mike Black—who I keep begging to write on film on The Evening Class—offered this winning observation via email: "As in All About Eve, Birdman offers up for our consideration that quaintly enduring tension between stage actors and 'movie stars,' as though it were a Marxist conflict pitting the working artist-proletariat against an economic elite, a conflict in which we all, as human beings, have a personal stake. Which may be true. In any case, despite all the artifice and whimsy, or because of it, the story ends up with a surprising poignancy that was quite satisfying." No doubt due to the script's lapidary dialogue, which is sharp as crystal at points.

Iñárritu's cinematographic tricks, the insular environment within the theater's anatomy, the choreography of his actors within the world he has staged, constitute a "spare no prisoners" mise en scène, reminiscent at times of Charlie Kaufman's exploration of the thin line between dream and waking life, shuffling realities even as imagination invents them.

In an acerbic stroke of reflexivity, I loved the scene where Keaton is bemoaning the loss of integrity in performance, railing that most audiences only want explosions—when suddenly, there are explosions, helicopters being shot out of the sky, and a robotic alien bird creature cawing over the edge of a building—and Keaton rages on that probably at that very moment the spectatorial eye is bulging with excitement and, sure enough, right there in my spectatorial seat, I felt my eyes wide-opened and bulging taking in all those delicious special effects. Busted! A brilliant moment of cinematic innervation taken to task.

Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)—What more is there to say about the undisputed cinematic achievement of the year? In concept, Boyhood may not be necessarily innovative—one need only recall François Truffaut's Antoine Doinel cycle, Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy, Michael Apted's Up Series, or Michael Winterbottom's Everyday (2012)—but in practice, Boyhood emerges as strategically and singularly expressive and, therein perhaps, lies the film's creative strength?

Linklater has already exhibited an incredible grasp of the elasticity of time through his narrative trilogy and character study Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013), let alone his rotoscoped ruminations on same in Waking Life (2001) and A Scanner Darkly (2006), but his grasp of the theme of how lives are shaped by the passage of time—his sheer genius, I have to say—has achieved a pitch of brilliance in Boyhood, which I caught in a special pre-theatrical version screened in conjunction with the San Francisco Film Society's Founder's Directing Award given Linklater at the San Francisco International Film Festival, surfacing as my favorite movie experience in recent memory. I'm grateful to have been present at that event to ask Linklater an Evening Class question.

I was outright stunned that Linklater had the creative foresight to imagine a film that would take 12 years to make (with all its attendant creative problems and solutions), chronicling the titular boyhood of Mason (in a career-defining performance by Ellar Coltrane). Ranging from Mason's childhood inquiries into the existence of elves to a lovely mind-altered dalliance on his first day of college, Boyhood exudes the majesty of becoming oneself. If I have any regrets about the film, they would mirror Michael Hawley's own notation in his film-415 year-end list: "I'm especially grateful to have seen the 'festival cut' with Linklater's dream soundtrack, which included songs from Outkast, Daft Punk, Weezer and others that were sadly M.I.A. from the theatrical release."

Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014)—As David Robson wrote in his Evening Class preview for this year's Mill Valley Film Festival: "Writer-director Olivier Assayas has made a career out of examining social shifts through the prism of the creative process; in his newest state-of-the-earth address every exchange is weighted but graceful, with half the movie spent watching Binoche and Stewart in and around the Alps, their conversation taking in life and art, high- and low-brow, age and youth, time and space. The total experience is never less than bracing…."

Still on festival track (next up, the Palm Springs International), Clouds of Sils Maria is a sinuously textured meta-fiction that reveals time as a moebius strip, and art as a Faustian bargan with celebrity. Juliette Binoche offers a rich performance that feels like she is playing multiple roles in sequence; first, a glamorous red carpet darling who, secondly, becomes masculinized in her search for a character. Her gendered range is amazing. And as Robson mentioned in his capsule, Kristin Stewart is a revelation. The film, which premiered at Cannes, has won the prestigious Louis Delluc prize and is being represented by MK2, so expect it at a theater near you soon. Keep an eye out for a particularly affect-drenched dissolve where Stewart is shown driving on curving roads in a dialogue-free sequence that reveals more about her character's struggle for autonomy and independence than words could ever say.

Eastern Boys (Robin Campillo, 2013)—Along with Alain Guiraudie's Stranger By the Lake (2013), it appears that homoerotic thrillers are this year's dark horse darlings. When I viewed Campillo's Eastern Boys at the 2014 San Francisco International Film Festival, it seemed at first content to track with Guiraudie's Stranger as a cautionary tale against the dangers of compulsive desire—with its not-to-be-missed suspenseful homo home invasion sequence!—but then it opened out into an intriguing, satisfying narrative about immigration and assimilation, with the added queer provocation that having "a Daddy" sometimes awards certain rights of citizenry. Campillo's French erotic fantasy (of sorts) hits all its intense marks and fully entertains as Daniel (Olivier Rabourdin), a middle-aged Parisian, gets more than he bargained for when he takes up with Marek (Kirill Emelyanov), an Eastern European train station hustler.

Winner of the Venice Horizons Award at the 2013 Venice International Film Festival (where Variety critic Guy Lodge deemed the film "sleek, shape-shifting and intermittently stunning") and Best International Feature at the 2014 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Campillo is best known for screenplays co-written with Laurent Cantet (Time Out, The Class). Eastern Boys is the first film he's directed since 2004's Les revenants (They Came Back), which directly inspired Fabrice Gobert's French TV series The Returned, which in turn has curious similarities with the ABC series Resurrection (though Resurrection attributes its premise to Jason Mott's 2013 novel The Returned). As far as I've been able to determine, it was not given a theatrical release but is on queue alerts for DVD rental and on-demand.

Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2014)—It fascinates me that in the space of two years two completely different films have approached the biblical tale of Job and presented creation's intrinsic violence by way of stunningly distinct approaches. Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paraval's experimental documentary Leviathan (2012) converted a fishing trawl into a site of horrific carnage, and now Andrey Zvyagintsev's epic novelistic thriller skewers the Russian Orthodox church for lobbying political advantage by preaching the Old Testament to corrupt officials ("God is power; power is might") and the New Testament to a fleeced flock ("God is love; love is truth").

In contradistinction to North American narratives (Unbroken comes immediately to mind), I applaud Leviathan's eschewal of melodramatic formulas that set up victimized protagonists who triumph over overwhelming forces. Instead, with Leviathan we get a very real story about how you cannot bait Leviathan with a fish hook. In other words, sometimes individuals are not only victimized but brutally and systematically crushed for no good reason other than that they can be. Leviathan is powerful in its indictment of institutional corruption in government and church and I find it close to unbelievable that Russia's Oscar® selection committee—steered by Nikita Mikhalkov, Vladimir Putin's buddy—have chosen Zvyagintsev's film as Russia's official submission to the Academy Awards®.

Along with winning Best Screenplay at the Cannes film Festival for Zvyagintsev and co-writer Oleg Negin, Leviathan has been awarded by the National Board of Review, won the Critics Prize at the São Paulo International Film Festival, the Golden Frog at Camerimage, Best Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, Best International Film at the Munich Film Festival, and Best Cinematography at the Seville European Film Festival. It has pending nominations at the upcoming Independent Spirit Awards, the Golden Globes, the London Critics Circle Film Awards, and has been shortlisted for the Academy Awards®. Although still on festival track (next stop: the Palm Springs International Film Festival), Leviathan has been acquired by Sony Pictures Classics and will open in the Bay Area and at Boise's The Flicks come February 2015.

Norte: The End of History (Lav Diaz, 2013)—As a member of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle (SFFCC) I felt compelled to nominate Joel Shepard, Video & Film Curator at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for our annual Marlon Riggs Award (given for courage and vision in the Bay Area community). I was delighted that my SFFCC colleagues agreed. In recent years Shepard has created a diasporic conduit between the rich film culture of the Philippines and San Francisco (whose community is the highest-rising Asian American demographic in the Bay Area). His visionary New Filipino Cinema film series has brought the best of independent Filipino cinema to the U.S., including encore screenings of Norte: The End of History, which premiered earlier at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF). When editing EatDrinkFilms, I invited Philippine critic Francis "Oggs" Cruz to map the 2014 edition of New Filipino Cinema and his colleague Richard Bolisay to culturally contextualize Norte.

In his introduction at Norte's SFIFF premiere, Rod Armstrong mentioned that Norte was possibly the longest film at SFIFF (clocking in at 250 minutes), at the same time that it was one of the shortest in Diaz's ouevre. I was swept up by Diaz's epic exploration of Dostevyskian themes regarding the nature of crime and its punishments, and ravaged by Sid Lucero's savage performance as an existential law school dropout. As a Filipino actor, Lucero hasn't received much love from American enthusiasts, but his devastating performance is one of the most heartbreaking and shocking of the year. Several scenes in Norte felt like gliding vessels slowly filling up with grief, guilt, revelation and overwhelming meaning. Elliptical interruptions in the narrative jolted the storyline into startling new trajectories. Profundity and depth earmarked the familiar conceit of the free man imprisoned in his own skin and the incarcerated prisoner achieving freedom through inner peace.

Continuing to win converts on its festival trajectory, Norte: The End of History stops next at the Palm Springs International Film Festival as part of its Awards Buzz sidebar; Norte being the Philippines' official submission to the Academy Awards®. Further highlights include multiple wins at the Gawad Urian Awards (the most prestigious film awards in the Philippines): Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. It's also been honored with the Nuremberg International Human Rights Film Award, and the Best Director prize at the Cinemanila International Film Festival. Included on the short list for the foreign language category at the Academy Awards®, Norte has likewise been nominated for the upcoming London Critics Circle Film Awards.

Selma (Ava DuVernay, 2014)—Remember when The China Syndrome (1979) opened in theaters and then two weeks later Three Mile Island happened? A similar symbiosis appears to be happening with the release of Ava DuVernay's Selma and the Black Lives Matter protest movement triggered by increased public outrage over the slayings of Trayvon Martin in Florida, Michael Brown in Ferguson, and Eric Garner in New York. Lending a sense of lineage and historicity to the truth that Black lives have always mattered despite institutionalized racism to the contrary, Selma offers an intimate interpretation of the events surrounding the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting right marches, which resulted in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As righteous melodrama pitched to an elegant degree, Selma achieves its goal and satisfies profoundly. It is an emotionally charged historical fiction, resting largely on the shoulders of David Oyelowo as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (a role he was born to play), with solid supporting turns from Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon Baines Johnson, Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King, Oprah Winfrey as Annie Lee Cooper, and Tim Roth as Governor George Wallace.

As much as Selma succeeds as historical melodrama, however, its historical accuracy has proven controversial and come under fire, primarily for the film's representation of President Johnson as an obstructionist. LBJ Library Director Mark Updegrove has stated, "When racial tension is so high, it does no good to suggest that the president of the U.S. himself stood in the way of progress a half-century ago. It flies in the face of history." In his article for the Washington Post, Joseph A. Califano, Jr. has likewise highlighted historical inaccuracies in Johnson's portrayal. On a Facebook entry dated December 28, 2014, film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum stated he'd seen Selma and opined: "It isn't terrible overall, but it's historically lazy on many levels—not as much as Spike Lee's Malcolm X is, but still lazier than it had to be."

But, again, as melodrama Selma hits its marks. The hair went up on the back of my neck watching Selma's reenactment of the Bloody Sunday march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. And the glimpse into the factious strategizing fueling the movement was welcome insight. If historically lazy, Selma is at the same time inspiring in its contemporary moment, which—with no disrespect to history—might be more important right now. Of particular interest to me was the necessity of DuVernay to write "sound-alike" speeches for King's character since the license to use King's speeches had already been secured by Steven Spielberg and his DreamWorks team and Warner Brothers for their own projected biopic. I'm going to reserve judgment on Selma until I see how that project passes the historical litmus test.

My transcript of the on-stage conversation between Elvis Mitchell, Ava DuVernay, David Oyelowo, Oprah Winfrey and the film's producers Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner might be of additional interest.

Two Days, One Night (Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne, 2014)—One of the cinematographic trademarks of films by the Dardenne Brothers is that of the camera stalking closely behind a subject's shoulders, as if following within their narrative trajectory. Some of that is used here in their latest Two Days, One Night but somehow that spatial sense of identification has tightened even further so that at several times within the film I felt—not behind Sandra (Marion Cottillard)—but within her, experiencing the film through her own heightened anxiety. Ultimately, I found Two Days, One Night one of the most suspenseful films I've seen in some time, a nail biter, bringing me face to face with the most uncertain of scenarios: encounters with unpredictable human beings, driven by necessity and self-interest.

Two Days, One Night feels searingly relevant. Sandra has discovered that she is about to lose her job so that her co-employees can earn a year-end bonus. She seeks to convince each of them to not accept the bonus so she can keep her job. Rationalizations rise like thunderheads as she travels household to household beseeching solidarity. This simple narrative encapsulates the ignobilizing pressures of neoliberal capitalism in a global nutshell.

White Shadow (Noaz Deshi, 2013)—Another discovery from the San Francisco International Film Festival was Noaz Deshi's fevered feature White Shadow (2013), wherein—as Michael Hawley synopsized for The Evening Class—"a Tanzanian albino teen struggles to remain alive in a culture that believes his body parts have restorative properties. …Variety's Guy Lodge praised the film as being 'stylistically reckless in the best possible way,' as it 'veers wildly between earthy verité and near-ecstatic surrealism.' "

At The Hollywood Reporter, Boyd von Hoeij notes: "The film's camera work is agile, occasionally even jumpy, and the colors go back and forth between realistic and heavily de-saturated during the day and almost pitch black at night…. This jumble of different types of footage, shot by German cinematographer Armin Dierolf and the director, infuses the film with an energy that's part bad fever dream, part harsh reality."

Premiering at Venice Critics' Week where it scored the Luigi De Laurentiis Award, White Shadow bolstered its festival pedigree with a Special Jury Mention at the Transylvania International Film Festival, the Grand Prix and Audience Award at the T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival / Poland, the CineVision Award at the Munich Film Festival, Best Feature at the East End Film Festival / UK, Best Director at the Durban International Film Festival, and the New Directors Prize (Special Jury Recognition) at the San Francisco International, where I had the distinct pleasure of taking Deshi out for brunch to discuss his film. I'll reserve further praise until that transcript is posted. As far as I've been able to ascertain, plans for distribution have not been announced.

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