AFI Fest, the longest-running international film festival in Los Angeles, has taken off at Hollywood Boulevard. From Thursday through the next week, directors from around the world, including new auteurs and renowned award-winners, will be making appearances at the TCL Chinese Theater, the Egyptian Theater and the Dolby Theatre to support their newest projects, with numerous awaiting fans in tow.
A&E; senior staff Sebastian Torrelio and A&E; contributor Tony Huang will be attending AFI Fest this week, scoping out the newest selections on the festival circuit, and films that may be coming to American audiences in the near future. On their first day of AFI Fest coverage, both saw a few selections of world cinema that make the best of sharp cinematography, rich atmosphere and, in some cases, uncompromising storylines.
“August Winds”
Directed by Gabriel Mascaro
FiGa Films
Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro takes a careful – perhaps too careful – hand to his debut fiction feature film, “August Winds,” which follows a village girl (Dandara de Morais) as she confronts an oncoming typhoon as well as small-town ennui. More an extension of his documentary background than a full-fledged fiction piece, it operates in that familiar art house mode: plotless collections of oft-striking imagery.
And although this inevitably leads to dry academic efforts, one must admit that Mascaro knows his surroundings enough to capture the eye. A particular shot of workers climbing and working coconut trees is fascinating in and of itself, charged as it is with the intrigue of actual climbing. Another shot of a pool of water that seems to breathe, ebbing and flowing, grabs attention almost as well.
But Mascaro must make his film serious, and uses this structural switch to trigger an avalanche of unwanted and unneeded gravitas. He fulfills perfectly the mission of a serviceable, respectable art house film, but leaves little of his own self on the screen.
— Tony Huang
“Blind”
Directed by Eskil Vogt
Director Eskil Vogt is more well known for his writing talents – he penned Joachim Trier’s “Reprise” and “Oslo, August 31st,” both of which became internationally recognized works. His debut directing feature, “Blind,” lets his abilities shine, even if certain pacing problems hinder it from breaking through the calm, composed scene he’s created for his characters.
Vogt follows Ingrid, played by Ellen Dorrit Peterson, a woman who has succumbed to blindness, causing her to live an internal life. Talks with her husband (Marius Kolbenstvedt) become the most interactive portions of her day. Peterson bleaches her hair and eyebrows, adding to the chilly atmosphere of Vogt’s camera, taking in the stark whiteness of Ingrid’s apartment. Ingrid likes to spend time with her radio and her computer, writing a fun fictional tale about her neighbors (Vera Vitali and Henrik Rafaelsen) attempting to overcome their distraught single lives.
Ingrid’s story becomes more exciting when she throws her husband in the mix. She has become adept at observing her surroundings, sometimes so much so that she imagines what isn’t there. It’s at these moments that “Blind” is at its most solemn, but interesting, as Vogt makes the best use of his sharp camera and built-up tension. “Blind” is an intimidatingly simple though effective character study that presents itself with a steady grasp of surrealism. “Blind” is a very patient story, one that isn’t afraid to show its characters at their most vulnerable. Ingrid is bored – and with that boredom comes a healthy dose of paranoia, struggle and pleasurable imagination.
— Sebastian Torrelio
“It Follows”
Directed by David Robert Mitchell
RADiUS-TWC
“It Follows” takes the idea of the unseen horror villain and boosts it to an unbelievable scope. Like most teenage thrill-seeking films, the adults are gone, and the group of unprepared victims must run from their problems – a problem that simply won’t stop following them wherever they go. The main victim Jay (Maika Monroe) has been transferred a curse after a bad sexual experience: a demented, murderous one that manifests itself as an invisible presence to the uninfected, and a morphing, slowly walking individual to the haunted.
Jay’s friends (Keir Gilchrist, Lili Sepe, Olivia Luccardi) don’t believe her at first, naturally. Jay appears crazy to everyone trying to help her. Director David Robert Mitchell makes each moment of “It Follows” as terrifying as possible, a strikingly loud score backing up each character’s over-the-shoulder turn or opening of a creaky doorway. The only resolution to their fears, to pass on the curse to a new sexual partner, doesn’t work for long. The evil always returns with a gimmicky level of impossible defeat, its each action keeping the characters methodically on their toes.
Like the best teen horror films, “It Follows” doesn’t let its victims rest until the job is finished. Mitchell’s villain is part ghost, part zombie, part alien, and won’t let its target, or its audience, rest for even a brief moment. The weakest part of Mitchell’s midnight tale is probably its conclusion, a bit too nonsensical for its own good. But that doesn’t mean that “It Follows” ends on a sour note – evil is at its strongest when it can’t be anticipated, on screen or off. Mitchell makes sure that his audience leaves with an uncompromisingly stricken dread, weary to even the smallest unseen forces, and what may be lurking behind every blind corner.
— Sebastian Torrelio
“Leviathan”
Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev
Sony Pictures Classics
Russia’s entry for the foreign language Oscar this year, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Leviathan” is a confident drama interrupted by loud ideological bone-picking. It starts out, and mostly remains, a gripping procedural thriller, an old-school, noir-ish tale of Kolya (Aleksey Serebryakov), a mechanic trying to keep his house from a corrupt official’s (Roman Madyanov) grubby paws. Mixed into the fray are a dissatisfied wife (Elena Lyadova), an army buddy lawyer (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), a rebellious teenager (Sergey Pokhodaev) and an ominous seaside landscape. Zvyagintsev expertly sets in motion all of his moving gears and confidently guides the viewer to psychological understandings of his characters’ relationships.
One highlight is how he stages the first drunken encounter between the protagonist and the official. He first shows in hilarious detail how both arrived at their inebriation; he then escalates tension to the point where you expect guns to be pulled, and as Kolya runs in you expect bloodshed any moment. But the official leaves without a fired shot, and we’re shown Kolya holding his gun, perfectly self-restrained, the Chekov gun left on the mantle.
Unfortunately, this sort of tense and perverse play with dramatic convention slowly gives way to a bluntly pessimistic and broadly constructed morality tale, with religion and government both receiving hard, somewhat uncharitable blows. Clearly, Zvyagintsev has a bone to pick, and doesn’t mind derailing the complexity of his characters and his script to get where he has to; the denouement is painfully dissatisfying. A welcome surprise, and then a big disappointment.
— Tony Huang