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Film: Unmistaken Child
Release date: 11th April 2011
Certificate: E
Running time: 102 mins
Director: Nati Baratz
Starring: Tenzin Zopa
Genre: Documentary
Studio: Matchbox
Format: DVD
Country: Israel
This is a majority English-language release.
Could you give up your child for a religion you truly believed in? That is the question posed by documentary filmmaker Nati Baratz in his latest film.
When Tibetan Buddhist master Geshe Lama Konchong died in 2001 after twenty-six years of isolated meditation in a remote mountain retreat, the Dalai Lama instructed his most dedicated disciple, Tenzin Zopa, to search for his reincarnation. Unmistaken Child follows his journey as he travels the Tsum Valley to find the baby whom he believes is his master’s reincarnation with only a series of signs and dreams to guide him.
After meeting many children, Tenzin meets a 1-year-old boy who is so attached to the rosary beads that belonged to Tenzin’s deceased master that he steadfastly refuses to give them back, claiming that they are his. Tenzin is sure that he has found the right child, so he takes him to meet the Dalai Lama, who gives the child a series of tests which he believes will prove that this baby is the reincarnation of Geshe Lama Konchong. But will the Dalai Lama agree and, more importantly, if the baby is the reincarnation of the Tibetan Buddhist master, will his parents be able to hand him over to a life in the monastery...?
One of the most striking features about the documentary Unmistaken Child is the lack of voice-over. Whilst it is an unusual omission for a documentary, in this case, the film is greatly enhanced by its absence. At first, it seems as if the purpose of this is to draw attention to the beautiful scenic shots of Nepal, creating a sense of serenity which corresponds with the tranquillity of the Buddhist faith. However, as the film progresses, it becomes apparent that this subversion of a generic convention does so much more. The lack of voice-over means that the film never judges its characters; it lets them tell the story.
Furthermore, by doing this, Baratz ensures that the audience is drawn directly into this fascinating and little known world as seen by the people who inhabit it. This means that, at times, Unmistaken Child is incredibly moving. When Tenzin goes back to the retreat where he had lived with ‘Geshe-La’ since he was a young boy of 7 years old, the camera holds his face in a close-up as he struggles to comprehend his loss. He is so overcome with emotion that he can barely speak through his tears, except to say that, when Geshe-La was there, the retreat was beautiful but “now everything has gone.” It is at this point that the film transforms from a film about something that is far removed from most people’s experiences into something that many people can relate to. For it is during this scene that it becomes evident that despite his unusual lifestyle, Tenzin is grieving for the loss of someone he looked up to as a parent figure – and that is something that affects all of us at some point during our lives.
As well as allowing the audience to relate to the subjects of the documentary, the film also sheds light on the concept of Buddhism in a way that is fascinating. It’s obvious that in being asked to find his master’s reincarnation, Tenzin has been given an overwhelming task. As he travels the valley in search of the special baby, he is treated like a celebrity; people clamour to catch a glimpse of the young man who was so close to the greatly respected Geshe-La. It’s rather surprising just how many families are keen to prove that their child is the one that he is searching for. In one particularly humorous scene, an elderly grandmother desperately tries to convince Tenzin that her grandson is a special baby because, unlike her other grandchildren, he had a very easy delivery.
However, the film reaches a new emotional level when Tenzin meets the baby whom he believes is his master’s reincarnation. From the first time that the little baby fiercely clings on to the rosary beads through to his impressive performance in the ‘tests’ set by the Dalai Lama, Tenzin’s excitement is palpable and the idea that he could be the reincarnation of the Tibetan Buddhist master is highly believable. Also, as the bond between them grows, it seems as if Tenzin could be just as dedicated to mentoring the child as Geshe-La was to him.
Of course, as the film never fails to show, there are two sides to every story and even though the little boy is shown to be impressively bright and almost special, he is also a typically boisterous toddler who likes to run around outdoors. His normality is reinforced during a scene in which Tenzin is unable to comfort him when he has a nosebleed and his father must teach him what to do. It is here that the audience are reminded that despite Tenzin’s belief that this little boy is destined to dedicate his life to Buddhism, he also has parents who love him unconditionally and want to do what’s right for him. The scene in which they silently deliberate whether to give up their child for the religion they strongly believe in, knowing that they are unlikely to ever see him again, is unbearably tense and utterly heartbreaking. It’s an impossible decision and one that they never imagined they would have to make.
Unmistaken Child is a beautifully shot film that illuminates its subject in a way that is truly captivating. It is also an entirely objective film that refuses to judge the actions of its characters, which makes the questions that is raises all the more difficult to answer. SH
Film: Accidents Happen
Release date: 14th February 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 92 mins
Director: Andrew Lancaster
Starring: Geena Davis, Harrison Gilbertson, Harry Cook, Joel Tobeck, Karl Beattie
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Studio: Matchbox
Format: DVD
Country: Australia/UK
This is an English-language release.
In 2002’s The Hours, troubled authoress Virginia Woolf states that she is killing off the heroine of her most famous book because “someone has to die, in order that the rest of us should value life more.” Don’t be fooled by the breezy title; Andrew Lancaster, helming his first feature-length project, Accidents Happen, has made a film that re-iterates a similar theory, placing tragedy at the epicentre of familial strife, and the catalyst for emotional blockading and forced self-evaluation.
Accidents Happen introduces us to the seemingly happy Conway family, consisting of mother, father, and four young children, whose routine is abruptly halted when their car collides with another. We aren’t shown the immediate aftermath of the event, and instead the film jumps forward eight years to a point in time where the surviving members of the Conway clan are being forced to address the impact of the accident on their lives, and search for some form of closure.
The implications of the crash are that Linda, the Conway daughter, has died, and that one of the sons, Gene, is in a vegetative state in hospital. Gloria (Davis) and husband Ray (Tobeck) have also since divorced, provoking bitterness towards Ray’s new fiancée Becky. By default, youngest son Billy Conway (Gilbertson) is the principal figure in the film, as everyone else in his family are either voiceless or unapproachably volatile. His unflinchingly direct mother, plagued by a medical condition as a result of the accident, hates everything around her; his alcoholic older brother is a destructive force within the family.
Billy, much less vocal about his feelings, becomes caught in the crossfire of all these frayed relationships, but also must deal with the guilt of his own wrongdoings…
If this all sounds unbearably overwrought, then that’s a fair assessment; there are plenty of ways to instigate familial issues without resorting to such brazen attempts at melodrama. Writer Brian Carbee has approached a heavy subject matter by giving the characters irredeemable flaws and grating oversensitivity to the point where it’s relatively impossible to see this family dynamic as genuine, or even credible.
Accidents Happen has a difficult time finding fresh ways to articulate the perceived tropes of guilt-laden grief, content to follow the black-comedy style of accentuating the stony-faced, bitter persona that tragedy can invoke. There’s a tendency towards chronicling grief through bitingly-honest quips – particularly courtesy of Davis’s Gloria. One feels that the film is striving to be The Upside Of Anger, in terms of viewing standoffish, comic hostility as a substitute for grief, but the one-liners and general limitations of Gloria as a person (she’s more of a badass sister to her kids than a mother) just make the entire setup feel infantile. Davis herself opts for the Julia Roberts method of rabid, quickfire delivery, but has neither the charisma nor the material to pull it off.
As a framing device, the crash itself doesn’t prove effectual enough in binding the family together, so it’s very difficult to gauge what might have gone on in the eight years that have passed. Accidents Happen does everything it can to feign bravery (and even novelty) by making none of its main characters particularly sympathetic amidst their seriously unenviable state of collapse, but then expects us to rally for them in its final act. Examples of clinical Solondzian humour litter the film, almost as if it’s satirising guilt itself; maintaining a coolly distant but assuredly fervent perspective on dysfunctionality. When the script lurches towards staging misfortune to introduce its ruminative philosophies on loss and blame it gets particularly schematic, embellishing poignancy in an unmistakably conventional style.
Lancaster does manage to build a community around these characters, which harks back to the 1970s, in the way that Linklater’s Dazed and Confused did. Youths engage in boredom-fuelled acts of minor, concentrated criminality, while struggling for affection or a sense of purpose. And while it’s true that this makes Accidents Happen slightly more interesting as a generational conversation piece, it would be generous to suggest that it takes advantage of the era, much more adept at providing a soundtrack than connecting this pocket of time to Billy’s legitimate concerns. A redundant, pompous voice-over occasionally chimes in to heighten importance; shots of floating fragments of shattered glass act as emblems of transition – but the question remains: what has this film, with its fleeting, commonplace title, really told us about blame or acceptance?
Accidents Happen appears perfectly committed towards alienating its audience at first, but falls back on itself, reverting to encourage emotional identification through climactic, wrenching clichés. Lancaster’s film is murky, certainly, but fatefully not involving enough – a pallid version of Running With Scissors that never really clicks, and can’t fulfil the cutting personality intoned in the frosty dialogue and effacing actions of its disconnected troupe. It may bear enough of the hallmarks of a self-destructive family dramedy, but scratch beneath the surface and this is an ill-conceived genre film effort. CR
Film: 3some
Release date: 14th March 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 94 mins
Director: Salvador Garcia Ruiz
Starring: Adriana Ugarte, Nilo Mur, Biel Duran, Cristian Magaloni, Pepa Pedroche
Genre: Drama
Studio: Matchbox
Format: DVD
Country: Spain
‘Love triangle’, ‘Ménage-a-trios’, ‘threesome’; call it what you like, it’s not a new concept within European cinema. Arguably the most famous film to explore an unconventional relationship between three people is Francois Truffaut’s Jules et Jim (1962). Truffaut’s masterpiece, adapted from the novel of the same name by Henri Pierre Roche, examines the vibrant, but ultimately destructive, relationship between Jules, Jim and Catherine and is a paradigmatic example of the French New Wave movement. Like Jules et Jim, Salvador García Ruiz’s latest offering, 3some (originally titled Paper Castles) is also adapted from a novel. In addition to this, the film also explores the unusual relationship between three young people.
Maria Jose (Adriana Ugarte) is an art student at the College of Fine Art during the 1980s. One day, whilst preparing a canvas, she fails to notice classmate Jamie (Biel Durán) furiously sketching her portrait whilst his friend, Marcos (Nilo Mur), watches admiringly.
Jamie has taken it upon himself to help cure Marcos’ sexual inadequacies and it’s not long before he decides that ‘Jose’ is the perfect woman to help Marcos overcome his phobia of sex. Although she is initially unsure, it soon becomes clear that Jose enjoys their unusual arrangement.
What ensues is a complex relationship between three students who strive to enhance their understanding of many things (art, sex, truth), but ultimately, what they want to achieve is a greater understanding of themselves before the time comes for them to leave college and enter the real world…
3some is certainly influenced by Jules et Jim and the films of the French New Wave to an extent. It’s filmed in a highly naturalistic manner, which serves to make the unconventional relationship more plausible. Perhaps the best example of this is the first of the film’s numerous sex scenes.
The considered performances from Adriana Ugarte as Jose and Nilo Mur as Marcos perfectly capture the nervous uncertainty of two young people who are about to sleep together for the first time, which then gives way to polite disappointment when the relationship cannot be consummated. That’s why it is not preposterous when the camera pans round to reveal Jamie watching them through the doorway, or indeed, when he decides to join them. This voyeurism is prominent throughout the film as the characters constantly watch one another in order to ensure that whilst they may not be participating in the action, they are still involved. The camera also honours this voyeuristic agreement as the male bodies are objectified just as much as the female.
This equality is carefully constructed and maintained by the trio. For the most part, they live within the confined space of a small flat that is filled with their own artwork. This self-created, self-contained world is their shelter. Therefore, it is unsurprising that when the characters venture into the conventional outside world - a trip to the beach, or dinner at Jose’s parents’ house - the lure of a conformist relationship becomes too much and various jealousies and insecurities start to become apparent.
However, despite the film’s semblance of realism, it is ultimately superficial. The characters spend a great deal of time discussing grand concepts, such as art and truth, but these conversations lack depth to the point that they are almost clichéd: “We’re not normal, we’re artists,” Jamie proudly informs them. This lack of depth also makes it difficult to discern the characters’ true feelings. This is true of Jamie, in particular; for example, it is not entirely clear whether his jealousy towards the growing relationship between Jose and Marcos is genuine. When he bans them from seeing each other without him, it is not clear whether it is because he loves her, or whether it is all part of his plan and he is merely trying to provoke Marcos into a rage that will unblock his artistic creativity. It is possible that the characters themselves don’t even know the answer.
Moreover, although the film is set during 1980s Spain, it fails to engage in a discussion of the true spirit of the post-Franco era, and the way in which people were embracing an unknown degree of personal and sexual liberation. Whilst the unconventional central relationship pretends to do this to an extent, it is actually quite tame. It is an issue that has been explored to much greater effectiveness in the films of Pedro Almoldovar.
3some has some nice flourishes, but it is predominantly lifeless. Although it is largely preoccupied with the idea of the importance of creativity and emotion, it fails to examine the film’s events in any sort of depth. The film’s historical context is also largely ignored, much to its detriment. Therefore, despite a promising start and some solid performances from its young cast, 3some is a rather shallow affair that doesn’t really contribute anything stylistically or thematically to the well-worn idea of the ménage-a-trios that hasn’t been seen before. SH
Spanish drama about the tripartite sexual relationship that develops between three art students.
Jaime (Biel Duran) and Marcos (Nilo Mur) are both study painting in Valencia. Together they decide to seduce female fellow student Jose (Adriana Ugarte), and before long a love triangle has developed between the trio.
Lying around in bed together, the three lovers discuss their innermost desires, fears and frustrations in sex and in life.
Film: 3some
Release date: 14th March 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 94 mins
Director: Salvador Garcia Ruiz
Starring: Adriana Ugarte, Nilo Mur, Biel Duran, Cristian Magaloni, Pepa Pedroche
Genre: Drama
Studio: Matchbox
Format: DVD
Country: Spain
This is an English-language release.
Geena Davis and Harrison Gilbertson star in this coming-of-age comedy drama.
15-old Billy (Gilbertson) has been the one thing holding the Conway family - bitter, sewer-mouthed mum Gloria (Davis), emotionally-distant dad Ray (Joel Tobeck) and binge-drinking older brother Larry (Harry Cook) - together, since a tragedy caused the family unit to fracture years before. But when Billy starts to cause trouble, things finally come to a head as the family is forced to face up to some harsh home truths.
Film: Accidents Happen
Release date: 14th February 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 92 mins
Director: Andrew Lancaster
Starring: Geena Davis, Harrison Gilbertson, Harry Cook, Joel Tobeck, Karl Beattie
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Studio: Matchbox
Format: DVD
Country: Australia/UK
