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Release date: 8th March 2010
Certificate: 12
Running time: 135 mins
Director: Shinji Higuchi
Starring: Kou Shibasaki, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Mao Daichi, Etsushi Toyokawa
Genre: Action/Drama/Sci-Fi
Studio: MVM
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Based on a 1973 novel by Japanese sci-fi writer Komatsu Sakyo, Sinking Of Japan appears strangely timely - the apocalyptic action movie, in which seismic shifts threaten to sink the archipelago of Japan, saw its UK release while an earthquake hit off the coast of the Maule region of Chile, triggering a series of tsunamis. The warning message at the beginning of the film (“One day soon. Maybe tomorrow”) suddenly rang true.
Sinking Of Japan is straight in with the action: Toshio Onodera drags himself through the debris of an earthquake to rescue a young girl, Misuki Kuraki, from an imminent explosion. As a power line collapses and falls towards a pool of petrol, a figure emerges through the smoke and flames. Reiko Abe, a female rescue worker, carries them both to safety. True love is born.
Meanwhile, Dr Tadokoro, Toshio’s boss, is discovering that Japan is sinking, and will soon have proof that there are but 338.54 days left to figure something out. A series of unlikely events are set in motion as some of the population are evacuated while others die in their millions, and still more wander around looking vaguely unconcerned.
In the midst of the carnage, someone has the good sense to ask Dr Tadokoro if he has a plan, which, of course, he does. It only has a very slim chance of success, and nobody questions why it was not set in motion a couple of days earlier, but then it is a disaster movie after all…
In the tradition of American disaster films, Sinking Of Japan relies heavily on CGI explosions as city after city falls into the sea. The destruction of the archipelago is depicted by a series of shots from space charting the spread of volcanic eruptions and the seas encroachment. These become somewhat repetitive and take time away from the development of a cohesive storyline.
In order to justify the ‘sinking’, the start of the film is chock full of scientific explanations, something that would be brushed over with a broad “scientists say…” kind of statement in other films of a similar nature. This comes across as slightly heavy-handed, is pretty indecipherable, and makes it feel like you are watching a scientific documentary – a feeling that grows as statements such as, “Data analysis predicts time of geological event,” appear on the screen to explain the action.
The human relationships that should add emotion and drama are often badly drawn and lack depth. They also appear contrived. Dr Tadokoro’s ex-girlfriend just happens to be Takamori, an important Government Minister, who ends up running the country after the Prime Minister dies and the acting Prime Minister flees to safety. Luckily, this allows her to implement Tadokoro’s plan to save Japan. Convenient.
The music score is awful. During the emotional final farewell between Toshio and Reiko, a duet is sung in the background, the lyrics are subtitled, and all feeling is drained from the moment by the sickly sweet words. At other points during their relationship, desperately dated strings intrude to ruin the mood, implying either a very confusing ‘70s cop show, or possibly something verging on the pornographic.
However, the sentiment of the film, that slightly wimpy Toshio can only sacrifice his life to save Japan when he has Reiko to protect, is pretty enough, and Reiko, as female action hero, is endearingly unconventional. There is also a veiled jab at Korea, as it is mentioned that all of the world’s countries have agreed to take in Japanese refugees bar North and South Korea. There is even a shot of the migrants being turned away from Korean ports.
In general, the cinematography of the film is strong. The opening sequence is a montage of Japan’s landscape through the seasons. There is also a particularly impressive scene in the flat shot from the inside looking out, with Toshio and Reiko framed by the windows as they stand on the balcony with the sunset behind them. Of course, there are lots of buildings collapsing, as well, leaving the outlook appearing convincingly bleak, and the director makes good use of all the moodily grey ‘stumbling through ash’ moments, as characters miraculously travel miles, apparently on foot (possibly with some swimming through flooded areas), to arrive at exactly the same place as their loved ones without any from of communication.
Sinking Of Japan tries hard but ultimately fails to deliver. Higuchi manages to complicate and confuse what could be a relatively simple plot, and in doing so fails to make an innovative or challenging contribution to this well worn genre. EM
Film: Aftershock
Release date: 27th December 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 135 mins
Director: Feng Xiaogang
Starring: Jingchu Zhang, Daoming Chen, Chen Jung Li, Yi Lu, Fan Xu, Jin Chen
Genre: Drama/History
Studio: Metrodome
Format: DVD
Country: China
As China’s highest-grossing film, and their entry for the Oscars Best Foreign Language Film 2011, Aftershock has a lot to live up to. It spans the thirty-two years between the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake and the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, both traumatic events within living memory. While dealing with this deeply emotive material, director Xiaogang Feng chose to concentrate on the effect of these disasters on an average Chinese family.
Fang Daqiang, a hard working father, is having a normal kind of day. He picks his children up and sends them home with a new fan for their mother, Yuan’ni. On the way home, the twins are set upon by bullies - Deng protects her brother Da, a pattern that will be repeated with far more dire consequences. That evening, Fang and his wife steal a moment of intimacy in the back of his truck; they are a happy family. Seconds later, the earth begins to shake. Suddenly, their world is quite literally crumbling around them. The parents run back to their home only to find the building collapsing around them. Yuan’ni attempts to run to her children but is held back by her husband who goes to find them himself, sacrificing his life.
As the dust settles on the ruined city Yuan’ni finds Deng and Da trapped beneath a twisted heap of concrete. She is forced by rescuers to make a choice - if one child is rescued the other will be crushed to death. They ask her repeatedly, beating her down, until she eventually chooses her son. With her son free but in urgent need of medical attention, Yuan’ni leaves to find him medical help.
Against all odds, Deng survives and wakes up next to her dead father - her mother’s words ringing in her ears. Tattered and filthy, the fragile child walks through the destruction, where she is found by a soldier and later adopted by a childless couple in the People’s Liberation Army. Deng and Da, once so close, are forced to live separate lives…
The opening shot of dragonflies fleeing from the impending disaster, following the train tracks, brings the viewer neatly to the crossing where the truck containing Fang and his family waits patiently. It is a clever way in which to show how vulnerable humans are in the face of nature. The family are completely unaware of the fate that awaits them, while the humble insect is already taking action. The children’s gold fish also try to escape by jumping out of their glass bowel and are shown flapping helplessly on the wooden cabinet onto which they fall, another metaphor for hopelessness.
Aerial shots are used to document the change in the city from the low-rise 1970s buildings to the high-rises of 2008. They also chart the city’s destruction and subsequent development. While useful, they can appear repetitive. The economic shift depicted in these three decades shows the effect of the reform and opening-up policy during this time in China. As a film Aftershock has been criticised for brushing over the political realities of this period and, although they are occasionally alluded to, there is no in-depth examination.
Chairman Mao is evident in the background of many of the scenes from Deng’s childhood in the People’s Liberation Army barracks. His photo hangs on the wall in the adoptive families flat, and his death is mourned. However, what was in many ways a traumatic time in Chinese history is viewed in a warmly reminiscent manner, with the sets created from a collection of donated, original props. There is an air of cosiness that some would argue is inappropriate. Yet, it is possibly more accurate, within the context of this film, to describe it as such.
The power of the party is also shown through colour. Green and red are often predominant in scenes, more so during Deng’s life with her adoptive family, and allow bridging when the action shifts. When the film moves to Da and Yuan’ni’s narrative, the colours are often muted, except when they honour the dead, and are in a sense reunited, or during celebrations.
Aftershock centres heavily on the psychological impact of the Tangshan Earthquake and the relationships that were made and broken by the disaster. Deng’s character remains removed and cut off from others until she can come to terms with the choice her mother had to make. Yuan’ni remains married to her dead husband, accepting no advances, in deference to his sacrifice, and carries the guilt of her daughter’s presumed death. Yet in spite of this, the characters survive emotionally and the film is hopeful.
As a film, Aftershock has not pleased everybody, despite it being a box office hit. When dealing with recent and sensitive subject matter, it is hard to get it right. In many ways, it can be applauded as an emotive family drama, but it is possible that a greater historical and political perspective would have given it depth and made it more satisfying to those still dealing with the fallout from these events. EM
Film: The Invisibles
Release date: 20th November 2010
Certificate: E
Running time: 22 mins
Director: Gael Garcia Bernal & Marc Silver
Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal
Genre: Documentary
Format: DVD
Country: Mexico
This feature is available to watch online at: youtube.com/invisiblesfilms
Gael Garcia Bernal is probably better known for his Academy Awards than his political activism, and his co-director Mark Silver is not exactly a household name, but together they have created The Invisibles, a story of South American migrants. A documentary. These people, and these stories, are real. You can watch all of these films at youtube.com now.
Part 1 – Seaworld
In this first film, we are introduced to a group of migrants from South America who are stopping during their journey at a centre run by volunteers in Mexico.
There are single men and women and there are entire families, all searching for a better life over the border. Most poignantly, we are introduced to a little girl from El Salvador who desperately wants to see ‘beautiful’ America. Her youngest brother is only one year and eight months old. Their parents have risked everything to get their family this far, and the journey is far from over…
Marc Silver is an accomplished director and the precision of his opening shots is startling and stark. At first, there is no speech, just rolling music that washes over the men, women and boys who lie or sit against the concrete walls, listless in their anticipation of what the future may bring them. When the dialogue does begin, it is often in the form of a voiceover, leaving the individuals in shot to their own quiet dignity, while the tales of torture and death, destinies that could befall anyone of these people, are told in a calm and matter of fact manner. If people cannot provide the details of rich American family members, the tips of their tongues will be removed. If they have no money or information, they will be cut up and placed in 200 litres of boiling oil, sometimes while they are still alive, until the only thing left of them is old photos on posters of the missing.
By the time the film reaches the small El Salvadorian girl, the outlook is bleak, yet she is happy, and smiles at the thought of Sea World in America, a capitalist dream that she does not realise she is not entitled to. Captured in the name of this first instalment is the innocence of childhood.
Throughout the film emotions are kept at bay. These people no longer have the energy to express grief. The butchering of humanity becomes as regular as the chopping of the dark red beetroot in the centres’ kitchen. All that remains is a quiet sense of disbelief, which is transmitted to the viewer, that all this can happen to normal people, in the modern world, at the US border.
Part 2 – Six Out Of Ten
Garcia Bernal interviews three single mothers from Honduras. They have left their country to better provide for their children, but to do this they have had to leave behind the very people they love the most. Often the fathers of their children are dead. They see themselves as having no other choice than to travel to the US for work. Yet, on the way to America, six out of ten women will be sexually abused…
Silver uses a low camera angle to create intimacy in the first scene. Garcia Bernal sits with the women on the train tracks. For this moment, he has thrown in his lot with the people who have landed in his country of birth.
Through the hazy light of sunrise or sunset – the boundaries are blurred here for the migrant population who do not officially exist – the viewer finds themselves in a rubbish tip where people work, picking through the debris. A sun-bleached doll, discarded on the dry earth, is a reminder of the bodies found in the desert that borders Arizona. Sliver grinds this home with repeated cutaways to a barren tree in which carrion birds await their feast.
The human cost of this journey is made abundantly clear as a woman who works at the centre flicks through a book of names and tells some of their stories – a 14-year-old girl who asked for a contraceptive injection to prevent pregnancy if she was raped, and a 17-year-old girl raped while two months pregnant. The cinematography is sparse; there is no escaping from these truths.
The film closes with the very real tears of one of the mothers - she wants to provide for her child, but is aware of all that she has risked to do so.
Part 3 – What Remains
In the penultimate film, Silver and Garcia Bernal take a step back from the migrants at the centre and turn instead to the relatives of those who have left, and the stories of those who have been lost along the way…
Roses open the scene; perfect, pink and natural. The voiceover begins before we are shown the face of the woman who is speaking, giving, once again, a sense of absence. She has lost her son who, after having said that he would contact her twelve days after his departure, has never been heard of again. “I like plants,” she says, “they help me forget my worries.”
What remains is a collection of broken families who may never know the fate of their loved ones. Garcia Bernal is shown photos of the murdered migrants and then taken by a 16-year-old boy to a collection of unmarked graves. In this country, it is now the children who are the keepers of the dead. There is no official record of their deaths.
Part 4 – ‘Goal!’
The final film encompasses the political problems behind the continued migration, and the very real risks caused primarily by the imposed illegality of the journey. It tells the story of those who will keep trying no matter what the cost, and the Mexican people determined to help them, even though in doing so they place themselves at risk…
The film opens with a montage of shots - a man in a hospital bed, bandaged, heavily tattooed, and incapacitated by his ordeal, the ‘death trains’ on which crowds of migrants sit, exposed to the weather, and the gangs who make their livings extorting money from these people. It was on one of these trains that the young man sustained his injuries; he was pushed off by a gang member, and has had to have two fingers amputated as a result. There are men in wheelchairs, men being treated for the physical symptoms of sexual abuse; it is only here that the film suggests a sense of defeat.
Olga, a woman who treats the wounded migrants, lifts the mood with her deep respect for their efforts to better their lives, and the priest who ministers to them tells us they say, “God is with us.” Whatever might happen to them on the journey, they believe that this is their right.
The film’s title comes from a scene in which men and boys are watching football. They stand and shout at the goal, it could be any scene from any place, but here it is a cry of hope that life will one day be as normal and safe as the situation suggests.
Finally, Garcia Bernal uses a voiceover, while a train roles on into the dust, the migrants wave, and he tries to explain that this is not a problem that will go away - and that these people cannot continue to be invisible.
The Invisibles is an important collection of films because the voices it gives have so long been repressed and ignored. The heart of their message is that the migrants are real people who have expectations of life very similar to your own. The only difference is the country into which they were born. Silver and Garcia Bernal are due to make a feature length film on the same theme, and I can only imagine that it will be a stunning piece of art, yet a horrific tale of the state’s lack of care for the people who need it most. EM
Film: Blame It On Fidel
Release date: 26th May 2008
Certificate: 12
Running time: 99 mins
Director: Julie Gavras
Starring: Nina Kervel-Bey, Julie Depardieu, Stefano Accorsi, Benjamin Feuillet, Martine Chevallier
Genre: Drama/History
Studio: ICA
Format: DVD
Country: Italy/France
Adapted from the novel by Domitilla Calamai, and directed by Julie Gavras, Blame It On Fidel is a coming of age story with a difference. Taking the lead from her father, internationally acclaimed filmmaker Costa Gavras, the director has created a political drama set in 1970s France, filmed from the point if view of its 9-year-old protagonist.
Anna is a child of the French bourgeoisie - and proud of it. She lives in a big house in Paris with a garden, and all her and her brother François’s needs are taken care of by their Cuban born Nanny, Philomena. Her father, Fernando, is a successful lawyer, and her mother, Marie, is a journalist for Marie Claire; life is pretty swell. Unfortunately, the arrival of her Spanish activist aunt soon puts an end to all of this, much to Anna’s consternation.
At the start of the film Fernando attempts to explain to Anna that his sister and niece had to be smuggled out of Spain, after his brother-in-law was killed for his political beliefs, and cannot go home. Anna immediately senses the threat to their way of life, and rightly so. Fernando’s guilt at not helping his sister earlier, and the unexpected support of his wife, leads him to quit his job and go to Chile to support the socialist Allende’s campaign for power.
Anna is left increasingly concerned by her parents changed behaviour – they move to a small apartment, have an array of migrant nannies, invite a load of Communists around for dinner, and her mother takes up feminism and compiles a book on women’s experiences of abortion – it is a lot for a 9-year-old to take on board.
Anna retaliates in a series of amusing ways, including turning the lights and heating off to save money and eventually stealing from her class mates, convinced that if they only had more cash they could move back to the big house and life would get back to normal. But, eventually, through her conversations with the adults who surround her, and despite of her parents inconsistencies, Anna starts to adapt to, and even enjoy, her new life…
Blame It On Fidel deals with the complexities of a young girl trying to get to grips with the world. In Anna’s case, this involves forming complex political and religious beliefs. The film is shot from the child’s point of view, and the viewer is as limited in their understanding of events as Anna is herself. She learns about what is going on around her by overhearing conversations, but also through listening to stories that people tell her. At the start of the film, Anna tells her mother that her favourite story is that of Genesis, and her understanding of religion is limited to the narrow view of Catholicism, but by the end she has learnt tales from Greek mythology and Vietnamese folklore, not to mention the ideals of Communist atheism. As a director, Gavras draws the viewers’ attention to the power of stories in forming the beliefs of a society.
When it becomes apparent that Anna’s parents have become Communists, Philomena is outraged and tells Anna that Communists forced her from her home and made her flee to France for safety. She describes them as bearded and red, which turns out to be amusingly close to the truth. Her grandmother is also judgemental of their politics, and believes that communists want to take away her money and house. Anna confronts her parent’s friends with these stereotypes but they laugh it off and try to explain their point of view, utilising an orange as the world cut into segments to be shared. At the beginning of the film, we also see Anna cutting fruit; she lauds it over the other children at the wedding and considers them below her when they do not cut their fruit as neatly. Through these linked scenes, and the symbolism in each of them, the viewer can see that Anna has grown.
There is often humour in this film, which could so easily have been a dry political commentary on post ‘68 France. This is best captured when Anna tries to play shop with the revolutionaries sharing her home, and adds a massive mark-up to the price of the plastic plates on her stall utilising free market economics, while the men try and explain the concept of the redistribution of wealth.
Kervel plays the part of Anna brilliantly throughout, and was picked by the director out of 400 other girls because she so closely resembled the character. This is not to take away from her acting ability, which shines through every pouting mouth and tantrum, ensuring that the viewer cannot help but be on her side through it all as it becomes apparent how fallible and inexplicable adults can be.
Blame It On Fidel is a beautifully shot, well-rounded drama that remains true to its main character and the mood of 1970s France. It can be both confusing and frustrating as the viewer to be forced into the position of a child, but the humour of the film, made possible by this disparity, more than makes up for it. EM
Film: All About My Mother
Release date: 28th February 2000
Certificate: 15
Running time: 97 mins
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Starring: Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Peña, Antonia San Juan, Penélope Cruz
Genre: Drama
Studio: Pathe
Format: DVD
Country: Spain/France
Winner of the 1999 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, All About My Mother is considered to be Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s best work. It is a celebration of all that is taboo, an inversion of ‘normality’ handled with his usual compassion for all those who tread the borders of acceptable society. During the ‘90s, he was one of Spain’s best-known filmmakers and he remains one of their most loved. He is also credited with introducing international audiences to such household names as Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz.
The film opens with Manuela, a single mother who works full time as a Transplant Coordinator to support her son, Esteban. She has left her own dreams of becoming an actress behind to feed his artistic aspiration of becoming a writer. Their relationship is close and nourishing; they share the same interests and like the same films. As parent child relationships go, it is almost perfect.
While watching the movie All About Eve one quiet evening, Esteban starts penning what he jokes will be his future Pulitzer Prize winner, All About My Mother, and here, in his omission, lies hidden the only darkness in their happy world - the lack of a father.
On his seventeenth birthday, Manuela finally decides that her son is old enough to hear the truth, and as they wait in the rain after a showing of Streetcar Named Desire, she tells him as much. Placated, he runs out to get an autograph from the shows star, Huma Roja, but, in his rush, he fails to notice a car speeding towards him. Fate has its way, and steals Esteban away from his mother when he is still little more than a child. The only way that Manuela can think to carry on with her life is to search for the boy’s father and tell him that he had a son, and that his son is dead.
Manuela travels from Madrid to Barcelona and begins the complicated process of tracking down her ex-husband Lola, a drug using transsexual prostitute…
All About My Mother is its own intertext, and the intermingling of art and life is a common theme throughout. The film appears self-consciously aware that there are no new stories to tell, only new ways in which to express them. If it were not for Almodovar’s unusual choice of characters, the plot alone may have appeared re-hashed. That is not to say that the characters were chosen for this reason alone, nor that they appear token or stereotypical, instead their existence is normalised by the well-worn circumstances in which they find themselves.
This is reflected in the film’s cinematography. During Manuela’s first night in Barcelona, she takes a taxi to ‘The Field’ to look for Lola. This innocently named place is a patch of scrubland on the outskirts of town where prostitutes tout for trade. As they drive off, unsuccessful, two women are seen crouched down to the left of the car playing pat-a-cake - it is as fantastically mundane as it is explicit.
The lighting is also used notably, and to great effect, in expressing character. Whenever Huma, the actress from Streetcar, is present, the scene takes on a theatrical look, lit as if it were a stage; often menacing and mysterious, moving towards lighter spectrums as her character becomes more fulfilled.
Life is seen as a series of premonitions. All the major action in the film is foretold; before Esteban dies and Manuela has to donate his organs, he has already been to the hospital she works in to watch her role-play the event as part of staff training. Again, when she plays the part of Stella in Streetcar, having befriended Huma, she knows the lines because she originally learnt them when she played the part in an amateur production, during which she met Lola for the first time.
And it is relationships that are central to this film, especially those between women, or people who have chosen to live their lives as women. When Manuela reaches Barcelona, she discovers Agrado, a woman born a man who has kept her male genitalia as it helps her find work as a prostitute. She is Manuela’s umbilical cord to the past, yet together they help each other move towards the future.
All About My Mother still stands out as unusually accepting in its portrayal of diverse sexualities, and is refreshingly real compared to its overtly emotional Hollywood counterparts. It is a film that applauds people’s unique circumstances and life choices. The only things that are truly frowned upon are judgement and conformity, and although heavy drug use and prostitution should in no way be encouraged, in many ways it would not be the worst piece of art for life to imitate.
Almodovar has successfully created a drama of misfits without reducing his characters to clichés. What comes across most clearly is the joy of being different, if you can accept yourself and revel in your individuality then you can make, and even become, beautiful art. EM
