bal (w,&d. kaplanoglu; w. köksal)

Bal, which translates as Honey, won a significant prize at the last Berlin film festival. It was interesting to note the amount of Germans who worked on this film, presumably in part due to the German finance deals which got it made. The film itself tells the relatively straightforward story of a young, unconfident boy, Yusuf, whose father one day vanishes when off on a long trip in search of honey. There's an ecological aspect to his fate: the reason he's been forced to search further afield is that the bees are vanishing from his usual stamping grounds. The suspense element is generated by the question of whether Yusuf's dad is going to come back or not, something the opening sequence rather gives away.

Bal is beautifully observed and filmed; Yusuf's rural world is at the very margins of Europe, a place where mobile phones and the internet have yet to make an appearance. It's a rural community, but one which does not seem to be particularly poor: the family are seen to be eating well and live in a spacious house on the edge of their village. The reasons for Yusuf's reticence at school, where he aspires but fails to be one of the better readers, overcome by a stutter whenever the moment comes, are never really explored: he's just the way he is. At one point, when looking for his father, he's taken by his mother to a fair, where people have arrived in their cars to dance and trade: for a second the audience is given a glimpse of the wider world to which Yusuf is connected, with traditions and commercial possibilities his parents' straightforward life never normally touches.

The advantages of their life seem obvious: their home would make for a hippy dream house, tucking away in steep wooded hills. The disadvantages are, however, also clear: if something happens to you and you're a long way from home, no-one's going to come and help. Whether there's a more subtle commentary on Turkish life at work I couldn't really tell. Bal may be a beautiful film, but it's also so inoffensive it makes you wonder what the filmmakers, financiers et al were trying to achieve.

of gods and men (d. xavier beauvois; w. beauvois & comar)

The more you like the premise the more likely you are to be disappointed. I think that's the conclusion I came to in discussion with Mr Mahey this week, with particular regard to the work of Dos Santos.

The premise of this film is a bunch of Christian monks (lead by a man called Christian) who live in the Atlas mountains of Algeria at a time when violent Muslim extremism is on the rise. Which made me think of Pamuk, for a start. Particularly in the engaging opening scenes where the monks are seen co-existing with the Muslim village, and Christian has a copy of the Koran on his desk alongside the saying of Francis of Assisi. I thought at this point that Beauvois was about to deliver the film which no-one seems interested or capable of making, one which explored not just the fault lines between Christian and Muslim communities, but the points they have in common. Where better to set this film than in the mountains of North Africa?

Then the villagers dropped out of the story and the Muslims were relegated to terrorists and the brutal army, menacing the monks in vespers with their noisy helicopters. I reassessed, and tried to re-read the film as a study of the devotional life and sense of duty. Christian takes walks by the beautiful lake as he wrestles with his destiny. But the army and the terrorists kept popping up to interrupt the peace. In the end, the film turns into a thriller. Will they survive or not? If so, who will survive? And how? It's the Towering Inferno in extremist Algeria.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that. A recipe for art-house success, without doubt. A superb premise which has gone down out a storm. I loved the premise. And was then disappointed by the film itself.

the white ribbon (d. haneke)

My mind is a little blunted by the return of insomnia, and perhaps also the crunching, megalithic nature of Haneke's latest offering.

As a result of which I have only one observation of any note about The White Ribbon. First, however, the observations of little note. Which include the fact that, in spite of hints of narrative, the film in fact appears to be another impressively gruelling example of Haneke's slightly obsessive reluctance to favour an audience with anything in the way of what they expect or (so he might argue) have been lead to subliminally desire. As in Funny Games (and perhaps Hidden), the evil kids walk away unpunished, most of them implicitly destined to become successful members of the National Socialist party. As well as its reluctance to bestow any kind of Grecian notions of justice, the film is also a whodunnit whose detective, the engagingly buffoonish teacher, spends a year putting clues together and then fails to act on them. The unnamed school teacher is no Poirot, and in spite of an implicit decency, it seems unlikely that, having survived the first world war, he will put up much resistance to the rise of Hitler. Brecht wrote, unlucky the land in need of heroes, but Haneke appears to offer a bleak counterpoint: cursed is the land lacking in heroes. Firstly it will suffer the persecution of the evil children, then it will run the risk of fascism; finally it will fall prey to the moral vacuum of modern consumerism.

Having noted all of Haneke's usual barbed contrariness and general cassandrism, my one point of real note relates to his aesthetics. With The White Ribbon the director has followed up on his success d'estime with Hidden (and ridden the strange hurdle of his misjudged US remake of Funny Games), with a film that, in spite of its inherent audience antagonism, has been hailed as a masterpiece, and lauded with the Palme D'Or. Part of the film's success is probably attributable to its inordinately beautiful cinematography, composed on a stark black and white print. Haneke has always been a secret stylist, and here he gives this vice free rein. Given this, no matter how stringent he is in his adherence to his narrative principles, there's something about The White Ribbon's production values that gives it the feel of a weighty classic, redolent of a great European literary tradition, something enhanced by the unusually wordy narration. Perhaps this is part of another game within a game, but it's not hard to see how the lofty aesthetics allow critics to drool; and have helped The White Ribbon to have generated a contrarily eulogistic response, which somehow doesn't seem in keeping with Haneke's aspirations. As ever, with cinema, the production values themselves contribute and in some way seem to impose their own set of values, irrespective of the filmmakers' own intentions.

burrowing (w&d henrik hellström, fredrik wenzel)

Burrowing is the kind of film for which film festivals are made. This is not going to be on general or even marginal release in the cine plazas of Great Britain anytime soon. It's a slow/ meditative/ ponderous (delete as appropriate) film which is part Swedish social realism and part essay on the thin line between nature and civilisation.

The film follows four characters to varying degrees as they drift around a low rise Swedish housing estate which borders some woods. One seemingly cracks up, grabs a canoe, and paddles off into the distance never to be seen again. Another, an immigrant who tries to stab fish in a stream, breaks into a Lidl carpark, never to be seen again. The third is a young boy, who also narrates (although his role as narrator, established at the start, seemingly fizzles out as the film unfolds) who seems to have an anti-social streak which is never developed and ends up going awol in the woods. The last character, the most charismatic, is a man who is never seen without his young child, usually in his arms. We learn he doesn't have keys to his home, which he shares with his parents. There's no sign of the mother. At one point he picks up a canoe paddle and assaults a neighbour with it, before immersing himself in a lake with his son, the fear of death by drowning endowing the scene with a fearsome tension.

The four characters don't really have narratives, and their non-narratives never overlap. This is whimsical cinema, composed of elegiac crane shots and a roving, spying camera. The voiceover is hacked together from Thoreau quotes. There are moments of beauty, and moments of torpor. However, the scenes where the man, cradling his son as he stumbles through the forest or immerses himself in a lake, have a strange power to them. The English title, which as well as Thoreau seems to have Kafkaesque connotations, declares the film's intention to get beneath the surface, to find some kind of deeper truths. It's not altogether clear whether it has pulled this off, but there's no doubt the intrepid Swedish directorial team are embarked on some kind of unorthodox investigation, even if it's one that sometimes runs the risk of going over the heads of its audience, rather than under the surface.

the last mistress (d. catherine breillat)

There's something reassuringly old-fashioned about The Last Mistress. Whilst Breillat has established a reputation in previous films as a provocateur, this is a costume drama and love story. There's more rogueishness in an old lady's claim that she's from the 18th Century, not the 19th, and they did things differently back in the old days, than in any of the film's occasional sex scenes.

The film tells of the ten year love affair between Ryno de Marigny and Vellini, a sultry Malagan. There's is a tempestuous love-hate relationship. Despite the fact that Ryno marries the improbably beautiful Hermangarde, and they secrete themselves away in a castle on a rocky coast, the ghost of his former lover lurks in the wings. Ryno and Vellini's love story will never have a cheesy ending: if they seperate they would appear to be going against nature; if they are together it is in the face of society. Breillat's film has both a jaundiced and a celebratory take on love: it's a never ending chapter of accidents which inevitably leads to pain and suffering; but it's also the only thing which really makes life worth living. The apotheosis of love is sex, and whilst the sex scenes have no shock value at all, in contrast to the scenes which made the director's reputation in previous films, they reek of an overpowering intimacy which can only be achieved when minds, as well as bodies, meet.

Besides its take on love, The Last Mistress is also an old fashioned celebration of the beauty of its stars. Fu'ad Ait Aattou, as Ryno, is a man-boy, with ornate lips which the cinematography falls for in much the same way as his future grandmother does, as she listens, sprawled in her armchair, to the tale of his love affair with Vellini. Roxane Mesquida, as Hermangarde, has the kind of radiance which some thought had died on a cliff with Grace Kelly. And as Vellini, Asia Argento once again shows her star quality: a quality that comes about not so much as a result of the talent of the acting, but a force of personality that seems to travel out of the screen, borne on rays of transparent light.

Breillat's film luxuriates in all this, as do the three older characters who punctuate the story, leeching life vicariously from the travails of the young. The perfunctory ending seems to suggest that the narrative, whilst intruiging, is not of such great import. What counts is the ceaseless game of love. There's a hint of Swann and Odette, another great Parisian love story, in Ryno's passion for Vellini. The Last Mistress makes no pretensions to be avant garde and breaks no taboos. Rather, it draws its strength from what is timeless, capturing emotions from the past which are as powerful now as they were then, and will always be.

the band's visit (dir Eran Kolirin)

Kolirin knows how to frame an image. The opening shot shows a man trying to fit a yellow balloon into the front seat of a camper van. We don't know why the man is doing this, nor will we ever learn. The man gets in the van, drives off, and is never seen again. What lies behind the van is a group of eight policemen, members of the police band who have arrived in Israel to perform. They stand there, puzzled, immobile in the their faintly comical powder blue uniforms. The camera has never moved.

This eye for a set-up continues throughout The Band's Visit, lending the film a crafted, dispassionate aesthetic. A military band carrying instruments of various sizes through a dusty desert is a visual treat, and the director is not afraid to spoil us, lingering over their haphazard progress. However, there is more to this dispassionate eye than mere pretty pictures. The danger that the film's narrative runs is that it will become too sachirine. Kolirin resists this with his pared back script and the cast's understated performances.

The film tells the story of a military band who get on the wrong bus and end up in the middle of deepest Israel. They are befriended by Dina, a free-spirited and bored cafe owner, with a curious history, never revealed. There are no more buses, so the band is forced to accept the hospitality she and a friend offer. The next day they leave for the concert. That's it. The drama is all in the culture clash, the coming together of old enemies. In Dina's cafe, one of the policeman hangs his blue hat over a picture of an Israeli tank.

Any hint of sentimentality would undercut the film, and leave it open to charges of implausibility. Wisely, Kolirin's script is as carefully composed, and restrained, as his shot composition. There's no Hollywood ending. The characters don't find it easy to get on with the enemy. They have to negotiate for common ground, scrabble around for moments where they can trust and alight upon the field of their common humanity.

Music helps, nowhere more so than in the scene where three bandsmen sing Summertime lugubriously, in the company of an awkward Israeli family. Perhaps oddly, the other thing that assists them is their lack of a common language. They are forced to resort to English, and in their mutual uncertainty with the second language they find common ground.

You can see why The Band's Visit has been so successful on the international festival circuit. The band finally find their way to the site of their performance, and the film concludes with Tawfiq, the weather-beaten bandleader, singing a traditional Arabic tune. Israeli and Egyptian flags flutter in the background. The hope is tangible: culture alone gives a framework for the possibility of understanding. The most intractable of divisions can be overcome.

However, The Band's Visit's restraint, and gentle pacing, alludes to another truth: that these divisions will not heal in a rapidly edited hurry. They healing must be allowed to proceed at its own pace. It must be handled with due care, and great consideration.

little children (d. todd field)

So what's this movie about then? At one point, Jennifer Connelly's character, who makes unspecified documentaries, interviews a child whose father has been killed in Baghdad. The child says something extremely profound which leads the workaholic Connelly to realise the value of her own family and she calls home in a frustrated attempt to speak to her neophyte house-husband Patrick Wilson.

This could be a conservative message as much as a liberal one. Family matters, blood is thicker than oil. The nominative liberal angle is the sympathetic take on the paedophile, McGovery. These days just to show a paedophile and not have him stoned to death is a badge of liberal conviction, and the clever exploration of his relationship with his mother establishes this movie as several degrees to the left of centre in its sensibility.

Probably. Because, again, the movie is about family. It is set in an anonymous, pseudo-Lynchian middle America, where mothers are bored and rich and fathers can see no reason not to indulge their desires, which have become no more than commodities. The two lead characters, Winslett and Wilson, would appear to be stepping into line by consumating their tender affair. Or perhaps Winslett is actually emulating Madame Bovary and asserting her feminine independence. They both appear to get away with their affair, the paedophile loses his penis, the bully his aggression, status quo returns to a chastened middle America.

It is part of the strength of this movie that these questions buzz around it like flies at the scene of another Bagdad bombing. It's perspective might be considered Humanist, in response to recent ideological leanings of the mother state. The fate of these none-too-likeable characters might be considered trite or insignificant. But its hard not to suspect that the film is not entirely about its characters. It's about the parameters of desire, the way in which desire binds and releases us. The things it can make us do or not do.

It might be noted that Winslett is described by the anonymous narrator (a late editorial choice to echo American Beauty or always part of the plan?) as being small-chested and dowdy and not Patrick Wilson's type at all. The fact that the red swimsuit she wears for large stretches of the movie shows her to be neither particularly small chested, nor particularly dowdy, is typical of the neat contradictions the director either gets away with or provokes.