One of the most fascinating things about the American Film Institute Festival is the crowd of foreign filmmakers on show.
With a host of international selections comes a host of international viewpoints. Many of the films at this year’s festival portray the realities of social issues from the standpoint of other nations – some of which are developing, some very similar to our own. All of the filmmakers at AFI have come to prove a point or send a message, but the worldwide stars this year have come with an added humanitarian punch.
One of the most obvious of these social messages comes from Jayro Bustamante’s “Ixcanul,” Guatemala’s first-ever Oscar entry for the best foreign language category. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú presented how the film’s horrible circumstances are an issue even in the United States today.
“Ixcanul,” which means means volcano in Mayan Cakchiquel, follows a young woman who is to be married off to her parents’ suitor, but after becoming pregnant with another man, she is forced to hide her shame for her own sake and her family’s. From there, the audience is made to wait for one shocking moment towards the last quarter of the film that presents its grand note of social awareness.
Bustamante’s film is more interesting for its individual pieces than the sum of its whole. The actors, primarily María Mercedes Coroy as the daughter Maria and María Telón as her mother, give exquisitely passionate performances. Meanwhile the lens evokes the widescreen splendor of nature documentaries, with the Guatemalan landscape from atop an active volcano at the center. Though the plot doesn’t really pick up until the end, “Ixcanul” is still a film with a graceful-enough identity to get noticed among this year’s foreign pictures.
However, it doesn’t quite compare to “Mustang,” this year’s French entry for the best foreign language category at the Oscars. “Mustang” is an absolute splendor, and one of the most powerful films at the festival for its message and entertaining thrills. It tells the story of five teenage sisters living in a Turkish village with their grandmother and uncle. The girls are locked inside by their strict guardians after a seemingly innocent act is mistaken as lewd by the neighbors, forbidding interaction with the outside world.
From there, the girls’ freedoms are slowly removed as they are forced to wear plain dresses, learn wifely duties and prepare to be shown off to local families for marriage. “Mustang” is simultaneously heartbreaking and charming, as the adolescents do everything in their abilities to break the rules of their prison-like household. The film’s message about sexual repression and the moral treatment of children hits hardest towards the end, when the family goes through a mouth-gaping series of events.
“Ixcanul” and “Mustang” are movies that carry with them a plea for social change that will be heard above all the other international commotion this year.
Though that isn’t to undersell what other foreign films, which mainly base their stories around satire and fun, have to say. “Aferim!” is a Romanian Western that feels like a biting black comedy, a historical drama and a Monty Python comedy movie all at the same time. In it, a police official and his son travel across feudal Europe to find a gypsy, accused of having an affair with a nobleman’s wife.
Along the way, they come across strange, distasteful people who make for an unsettling watch. “Aferim!” also makes the audience grimace through its use of vulgar European prejudices as well, which reflect difficult-to-swallow truths that permeate today. Director Radu Jude’s hand is a steady and assured one, further solidified through his phone-in Q&A from Bucharest, Romania at the end of Sunday’s showing.
AFI’s worldwide selections from name-making festivals around the globe will always be joyfully exquisite and thoughtfully playful. But these movies are among the most powerful, daring and alarming to the masses.
Compiled by Sebastian Torrelio, A&E senior staff.