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The Stopover - Voir du pays (2016)
France / Greece
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“You’re Always Trapped” .. Moments of facing yourself
In the movie The Stopover French soldiers returning from service in Afghanistan spend three days to deal with their traumatic experiences. However, the most revealing moments for these soldiers happen outside their therapy sessions.
One character, Aurore, is haunted by feelings of entrapment, which she expresses from start to finish. At the beginning of the movie, she traps a fly in a beer bottle. Near the end, she looks through her bus window and she sees a van of illegal migrants being deported. Here the film draws a comparison between the condition of displaced migrants and displaced returning soldiers, pointing towards a larger situation of physical and emotional displacement.
Another soldier, Ness, served as a dog trainer in the war. In one scene he stands behind a gym glass staring at a dog on the other side. The dog symbolizes Ness’ past carefree life, but it runs in a circle, suggesting that Ness will never get back to his past life.
The film has multiple scenes where Aurore discusses why she joined the Army, but the reasons are never entirely clear. At different moments she gives money, patriotism, democracy and friendship as her motivations. But with her detached personality, matched by the cold, distant tone of the directing, none of them feel entirely convincing. This affects our impression of her towards the end: even when she gives a climactic decision about her future, it feels as tentative and uncertain as her life.
In another scene, a local Greek Cyprio tasks Aurore why she joined the Army. She first mentions money as her reason, then hesitating about saying that she did that for democracy, and how she announce to her friend “Marine” at the end of the movie that she would give up the Army as she lost her belief in many things.
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Together For Ever - Amžinai kartu (2016)
Directed by Lina Lužytė
Romania / Lithuania
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Romania / Lithuania
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Together For Ever, a Romanian drama film written and directed by Lina Luzyte. The film tells a story of two married couples from Lithuania and their young daughter facing that problem of how their life is going to a single frequency after years of marriage. But when the husband gets a job as a stuntman in cinema their life turns upside down.
Plot points and where to find them ?!!
I really liked the way Luzyte created a story that comes from our daily life, when just the husband gets a new job it’s a big deal in family life, that can create a plot point.
The film goes deeper in each life of the family members showing how the wife used to keep her family life calm through tying them to some certain disciplines that lead them announce their refusal to her life style and try to fulfill their simple dreams that starts when the husband accepts a job as a stuntman.
The arguments about such an issue show how the family members are far apart from each other and how they were just pretending or faking everything. Luzyte also didn’t give names to her characters to deepen that impression they could be anybody you bump into in your daily life.
Emotions .. Let it go!!
One of the best things about the movie is how the motifs were in parallel improvement with the plot and sometimes the contrast they creates before and after the turning point.
- Like that scene when the wife gets in the car, at the first part of the movie, and has that cold talk with her husband as if there just had a fight, but then you discover they are going to a gala concert, and the scene in the second part of the movie when she gets in the car giving her husband that look she used to give him 10 years ago.
Also the emotions and how they were developed with the characters who start to be more comfortable about declaring and sharing them with one another.
Plot points and where to find them ?!!
I really liked the way Luzyte created a story that comes from our daily life, when just the husband gets a new job it’s a big deal in family life, that can create a plot point.
The film goes deeper in each life of the family members showing how the wife used to keep her family life calm through tying them to some certain disciplines that lead them announce their refusal to her life style and try to fulfill their simple dreams that starts when the husband accepts a job as a stuntman.
The arguments about such an issue show how the family members are far apart from each other and how they were just pretending or faking everything. Luzyte also didn’t give names to her characters to deepen that impression they could be anybody you bump into in your daily life.
Emotions .. Let it go!!
One of the best things about the movie is how the motifs were in parallel improvement with the plot and sometimes the contrast they creates before and after the turning point.
- Like that scene when the wife gets in the car, at the first part of the movie, and has that cold talk with her husband as if there just had a fight, but then you discover they are going to a gala concert, and the scene in the second part of the movie when she gets in the car giving her husband that look she used to give him 10 years ago.
Also the emotions and how they were developed with the characters who start to be more comfortable about declaring and sharing them with one another.
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Kills on Wheels / Tiszta szívvel (2016)
Directed by Attila Till
Hungary
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Hungary
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“The American style”, and what’s better than that to make an action movie, even if it was from Hungary. Trying another styles was proved to be ineffective and may not get the expected reception. But do we really need to make action movies the American style anymore, especially when already the rate of producing action movies the common style in Hollywood has become less?
Now we have action mixed with sci-fi and sometimes magic in comics movies, by Marvels and DC, that have a wide spread in cinemas all over the world for the last few years. So, do we really need more of that kind of action movies that we are already stuffed with?
But how about “Action” and “Comics” in one shot!!
Kills On Wheels, a Hungarian action movie written and directed by Atila Till. The film tells the story of a paralyzed fireman named Rubaszov, now turned into a hitman. The movie is told from the point of view of a disabled teenager named Zoli and his friend, who are working on a comic book inspired by Rubaszov’s life. Zoli and his friend gets involved with Rubaszov in killing business, but their lives become in danger when the man hired Rubaszov finds out about them.
A team of killers on wheels and a comic book, that’s a good start, before you just give up your expectations and let whatever happens. The movie involves in a story that has been told several times.
Mocking the main characters disabilities for Comedy, makes you feel the movie is commercial. Guns, ha-has and Johnny Cash songs as a soundtrack to get in the mood for killing, then rock music after shooting some bullets.
Actually, The thing that makes the movie survives is the plot twist, but even that was ruined!!
Now we have action mixed with sci-fi and sometimes magic in comics movies, by Marvels and DC, that have a wide spread in cinemas all over the world for the last few years. So, do we really need more of that kind of action movies that we are already stuffed with?
But how about “Action” and “Comics” in one shot!!
Kills On Wheels, a Hungarian action movie written and directed by Atila Till. The film tells the story of a paralyzed fireman named Rubaszov, now turned into a hitman. The movie is told from the point of view of a disabled teenager named Zoli and his friend, who are working on a comic book inspired by Rubaszov’s life. Zoli and his friend gets involved with Rubaszov in killing business, but their lives become in danger when the man hired Rubaszov finds out about them.
A team of killers on wheels and a comic book, that’s a good start, before you just give up your expectations and let whatever happens. The movie involves in a story that has been told several times.
Mocking the main characters disabilities for Comedy, makes you feel the movie is commercial. Guns, ha-has and Johnny Cash songs as a soundtrack to get in the mood for killing, then rock music after shooting some bullets.
Actually, The thing that makes the movie survives is the plot twist, but even that was ruined!!
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Train Of Salt And Sugar (2016)
Directed by Licinio Azevedo
Mozambique / Portugal
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Mozambique / Portugal
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Train of Salt and Sugar, a stunning drama film that tells us a lot about the dreams of the promising African cinema that always has a place at CIFF. The film is a co-production between Mozambique and Portugal directed by Licinio Azevedo.
The film takes place in the year 1988, when after many years of war for their independence against the Portuguese ... Mozambique is in a civil war !!
The film tells the story of a train journey from the town of Nampula, in Mozambique, the land of Salt, heading to the town of Cuamba, near Malawi, the land of Sugar. In a train full of passengers traveling through danger of the civil war to trade salt for sugar, and soldiers who went behind the rebels.
Now the CIFF seems to have a plan about the 3:30 screenings, where all of them seems to be about trying different human experiences. All of them were about involving in the characters insiders; dreams, hopes, showing their moments of weakness, loss, anxiety and happiness.
We can see that Train of Salt and Sugar is just another movie after The Stopover talking about war sequences. How the soldiers in both movies suffers war trauma that causes that violence and toughness in their actions and how they just poured that on each other and those who are close to them, causing more pain to them and the others. Another thing is the feminine presence in both movies and how they were a mirror for the ugly face of war, even they were female soldiers in the French Army as in The Stopover, or just female passengers in Train of Salt and Sugar.
Another movie that seems to have its common things to share with Train of Salt and Sugar is Mimosas which is also a travelogue through a dangerous road where we discover more about the characters.
Those three movies are models for that type of non-plot movies when following the Syd field type of writing is not that big deal anymore. Cinema is about human experiences, and human experiences are just ‘emotions’, well who cares about plots?!! .. It’s that type of cinema where the audience achieve their personal triumph or declare their defeat. A cinema about us that breaks taboos and encourage new experiments in writing. A cinema like reading a book by Paulo Coelho out loud. Does anybody have issues with Paulo Coelho?!
The film takes place in the year 1988, when after many years of war for their independence against the Portuguese ... Mozambique is in a civil war !!
The film tells the story of a train journey from the town of Nampula, in Mozambique, the land of Salt, heading to the town of Cuamba, near Malawi, the land of Sugar. In a train full of passengers traveling through danger of the civil war to trade salt for sugar, and soldiers who went behind the rebels.
Now the CIFF seems to have a plan about the 3:30 screenings, where all of them seems to be about trying different human experiences. All of them were about involving in the characters insiders; dreams, hopes, showing their moments of weakness, loss, anxiety and happiness.
We can see that Train of Salt and Sugar is just another movie after The Stopover talking about war sequences. How the soldiers in both movies suffers war trauma that causes that violence and toughness in their actions and how they just poured that on each other and those who are close to them, causing more pain to them and the others. Another thing is the feminine presence in both movies and how they were a mirror for the ugly face of war, even they were female soldiers in the French Army as in The Stopover, or just female passengers in Train of Salt and Sugar.
Another movie that seems to have its common things to share with Train of Salt and Sugar is Mimosas which is also a travelogue through a dangerous road where we discover more about the characters.
Those three movies are models for that type of non-plot movies when following the Syd field type of writing is not that big deal anymore. Cinema is about human experiences, and human experiences are just ‘emotions’, well who cares about plots?!! .. It’s that type of cinema where the audience achieve their personal triumph or declare their defeat. A cinema about us that breaks taboos and encourage new experiments in writing. A cinema like reading a book by Paulo Coelho out loud. Does anybody have issues with Paulo Coelho?!
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Published on the Egyptian Film Critics Association (EFCA) website on December 16, 2016
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