KARLOVY VARY '09: Poets, Pretentiousness, Paskaljevic & Pálfi

I usually go every year to the Karlovy Vary Film Festival (which wrapped Saturday night) to catch up on East European films, mainly in the section which they call "East of the West." I also go for the less elevated reasons of renewing my acquaintance with many in the critical fraternity, enjoying the atmosphere of this pretty spa town (formerly known as Karlsbad), and going to social gatherings, the best being at the neo-baroque Grand Hotel Pupp (pronounced "poop"). Despite the wet weather, none of this disappointed.

Among the most successful films in the "East of the West" section was the Hungarian Lost Times (directed by Aron Matyassy), a somber, emotionally-charged tale, rather reminiscent of Bruno Dumont's studies of the French lumpen-proletariat, and set in one of those God-forsaken villages on the Hungarian-Ukraine border, where a young car mechanic lives with his mentally-disabled sister. Room and a Half, directed by the veteran Russian animator Andrey Khrzhanovsky, is an extremely moving and unusual biopic of Nobel Prize-winning poet Joseph Brodsky, which mixes documentary footage with animated sequences, and fictional passages. It won Best Film in the section, one of the few awards I agreed with.

Mind you, it could have also gone to the very different pitch-black Serbian comedy Devil's Town, an impressive debut feature by Vladimir Paskaljevic, son of Goran Paskaljevic. Despite the episodic structure of Paskaljevic Jr’s film, similar to his father's most celebrated film Powder Keg (1998) and many others coming out of East Europe—a range of different characters' lives crisscross over a short period of time—it most skillfully manages to move from outrageous comedy to pathos within one sequence. Although the title refers to Belgrade, and there are some references to the civil war in the ex-Yugoslavia, the never-predictable plot of corruption, perverse sexual encounters and human inadequacy, should resonate internationally. There is an especially funny scene where a young man is trying to elicit money from his dying father to invest in a film he wishes to make in which the Serbs are seen as madmen to satisfy the west, and then provides his suffering supine parent with the way he imagines the musical soundtrack.

It was far superior to the Croatian-Serbian co-production Will Not Stop There, by Vinko Bresan, a crass comedy-drama, whose humor and violence was as heavy as the symbolism of reconciliation between the two co-producing countries. Unaccountably, it won the Fipresci prize, the jury of which had the unfortunate task of judging the main competition. I almost feel pity for the programmers of film festivals in the "A" category—apart from Berlin, Cannes and Venice—who can only choose world or international premieres for their competition. When the Big Three have taken the lion's share, there is little of value left for the other "A" festivals. Karlovy Vary does its best, but the festival's treasures lie elsewhere—this year there were tributes to Alan Rudolph, John Malkovich (who was handed a Crystal Globe), Patrice Chereau and Jan Švankmajer, and sections such as "A Female Take on Russia," excellent documentaries, Andrzej Wajda's best film in many years (Sweet Rush, previously shown in Berlin), and a spanking new digitally-restored print of Cover Girl (1944).

Pretentious, which my dictionary defines as affected, unwarranted or of exaggerated importance, is a word I rarely use to describe a film because it is often used by those who find certain films too difficult to comprehend (like Last Year In Marienbad), but this year in Karlsbad, I found myself using it a lot. It came to mind while watching Benoît Jacquot's Villa Amalia, in which Isabelle Huppert gives a great imitation of Isabelle Huppert. She plays a rich and spoiled concert pianist (again!) who gives everything up—walking out in the middle of a concert, burning all her clothes, leaving her philandering boyfriend—and changes her life to become a rich and spoiled owner of a villa in Italy, where she has a lesbian affair. Among the other pretentious films in competition was Angel at Sea—directed by the Belgian Frederic Dumont—which, to my astonishment, won the Grand Prix of $30,000. Desperately in need of the Dardenne brothers to cleanse it of symbols, it was set among French and Belgian expats in Morocco, and featured the superb Olivier Gourmet as a serial cat-killing manic depressive. Gourmet shared the Best Actor prize with Paul Giamatti, who merely looks confused, as well he might, throughout Sophie Barthes' stunningly ponderous and contrived allegory Cold Souls, introduced at Sundance this year.

There were some pleasant discoveries in the competition such as I'm Not Your Friend by the Hungarian György Pálfi, who gave a new meaning to the word "grotesque" with Taxidermia a few years ago. This highly cynical battle of the sexes was shot in 20 days of improvisation between the filmmaker and nine amateur actors, the hand-held camera helping to create the fluid nature of their relationships. The film is topped and tailed by an irresistible documentary focusing on the interaction between 4-year-old children (shot over three months), foreshadowing that of the adults.

The inevitable Iranian film in competition was Twenty by Abdolreza Kahani, which won the Special Jury Prize. For me, most Iranian films, good or bad, are intrinsically interesting for what they say about Iran, and this was no exception. It takes place mostly in the confined setting of a restaurant, whose owner is forced to sell, a decision that has a negative effect on his staff. There are some melodramatic soap opera elements, and the cast hardly ever change their expressions, but there is an implicit condemnation of the society and its treatment of women. At the award ceremony, the director, whose film won a Special Jury Prize, got the audience to stand up and give their support to "the people of Iran," which we dutifully did without being absolutely sure which Iranians we were supporting.

But the most pleasurable surprise among the international premieres was Whisky with Vodka, by Andreas Dresen, which belies the common (and false) idea that Germans have no sense of humor. Actually, in this case, it is an obvious homage to Woody Allen, with a nod towards the relationship between Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder in The Producers. The film, which won Dresen the Best Director award, is in the tradition of Day For Night and Allen’s disastrous Hollywood Ending, about the making of a film within the film, and one of the most convincing.

One of the particularities of the K.V. fest is the avid audience of backpacking youngsters who come from all over the Czech Republic to see as many as six movies a day and then party through the night. Unfortunately, this enthusiasm for film is not translated to Prague, where few of the same films are shown. However, this holds in most countries where warmly-greeted unpretentious festival films, like Devil's Town and Whisky with Vodka, might have to struggle to find distributors.

[Ronald Bergan (PhD English. Lit), film historian, critic and lecturer, is a regular contributor to The Guardian. He has held a Chair at the Florida International University in Miami, where he taught Film History and Theory. Among the many books he has written are Sergei Eisenstein: A Life in Conflict; Jean Renoir: Projections of Paradise; The Coen Brothers; The Eyewitness Guide To Film (published in 8 languages) and Francois Truffaut Interviews, which he edited.]

Posted by ahillis at July 13, 2009 12:16 PM