5 Films to Look out for at the 21st Sarajevo Film Festival
The 21st SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL runs in Bosnia and Herzegovina from the 14th to the 22nd of August 2015. This year promises to be a very exciting edition, and the many premieres featured in this year's programme confirm this as one of the region's most important festivals as well as one of the stand out film events of the year in Europe.
Here are five films that we at CineCola have previously viewed and reviewed and that we have highlighted as films that you should make an effort to see should you be in Sarajevo around the days of the festival and wanting to quench your thirst for quality arthouse cinema.
A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT by Ana Lily Amirpour
A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT revolves around a young girl, who is also a vampire, whose blood sucking identity is jeopardised when he meets a man who seems to treat her with respect. This feature debut by ANA LILY AMIRPOUR is a visual and stylistic masterwork. The black and white photography is meticulous and every shot is highly passionate, romanticised and meticulously choreagraphed. The ambition of blending several genres into one, from the western and horror genre to the commercialised Iranian romantic films matches also highlights the prominence of the mixture of the geographical filmmaking languages from the United States and Iran. Despite the undeniable fact that the plot can come across as being paper thin, and seeming to thrive on style over substance, its compelling feminist undertones and the riveting mix of graphic novel and shamelessly cheesy Iranian commercial romantic cinema, as well as horror and western, make this film exciting and potentially trend setting.
GOODNIGHT MOMMY by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala
A truly terrifying experience. A masterful conglomeration of horror film clichés with a compelling lenience towards arthouse cinema – in fact the same sort of arthouse approach that producer ULRICH SEIDL is known for. Despite all this, first time feature directors VERONIKA FRANZ and SEVERIN FIALA already seem masterful in building an intense and chilling atmosphere with haunting and downright shocking relentlessness, spinning out of a relatively innocent domestic drama, developing into a dense psychological thriller with paranormal flirtations and erupting into a full blown tough to watch torture movie. The story is pretty simple – two twins become suspicious and then obsessed by the fact that their mother is not their real mother but a kidnapper or a monster. The visual charge of the film provides added immediacy in such elements as the bandages worn by the mother, who has just returned from a facial plastic surgery operation. It’s hard to pay rightful tribute to the visceral horror that is GOODNIGHT MOMMY. It is, in fact, one that has to be lived through but it is certainly not one to be experienced by the faint hearted.
CHRONIC by Michel Franco
A character study. A nurse taking care of the dying, who need him as much as he needs them, so good at his job as to arouse suspicions among his patients' family. CHRONIC is a film about death, but more rewardingly about people's behaviours when coming face to face with mortality. MICHEL FRANCO's disarming leniance towards realism, through still camerawork, cold lighting and lack of manipulative music soundtrack intensifies the ambiguity of the film and plays with the darker sides of this character driven story. This in turn is intensified by TIM ROTH's leading performance, soft spoken and mysterious, leading to further ambivolence and psychological depth. In the end, CHRONIC may even be read as an audacious experimentation on the audience, distracted by the story and subjected to uncomfortable moments of portrayals of vulnerability induced by illness and impending death.
IRRATIONAL MAN by Woody Allen
WOODY ALLEN continues his trend of alternating a comedy outing with film noir with IRRATIONAL MAN. In his story of a disenchanted philosophy professor finding redemption through his undertaking of an "irrational" act deals with many familiar themes that have defined his previous works. Nevertheless, here he also seems to more openly play with the audience's general perception of what a WOODY ALLEN should be, by filming what is quite a dark narrative and examination of a deep psychological conflict and turmoil in a deceitfully lighthearted way. The restrained pacing of the film allows added engagemen. The screenplay is not as instantly memorable as previous works by the American filmmaker, but its genuineness makes the realism of the storyline all the more impactful. The performances are great. JOAQUIN PHOENIX's down and out intellectual is as plain as he is mysterious. EMMA STONE adds a jagged edge to her perfected soap and water girl image as the students who develops a crush on her professor, likening herself as the muse who will save her while PARKER POSEY is beautiful as the older woman who dreams of the man as her ticket out of a dead end marriage, hopelessly romantic borderlining delusional. It is also this bizarre love triangle that adds a more personal and dramatic depth to the film, itself quite a rewarding examination on relationships and relevant delusions.
SONG OF THE SEA by Tomm Moore
TOMM MOORE's SONG OF THE SEA is a venerable hand drawn animation feature with an extremely distinctive visual style rich in water colour texture and meticulous composition that is unique, groundbreaking and one would expect trend setting. The story is influenced by Celtic mythology, and it is the story of a journey undertaken by a young boy and his deaf mute sister, who is a creature named "silke" and who must find her voice and free supernatural screatures from the spell of a Celtic goddess in the process. It is a delightful and exciting adventure, wth a witty sense of humour and impressive character depth. SONG OF THE SEA is also praiseworthy for its well balanced use of honest melodrama. Also impressive is the heavy use of the very Irish traditional music soundtrack, which plays an active and specific role in the narrative, rather than being a pretty and petty surplus.