Omar

This new film from Hany abu-Assad of “Paradise Now” fame is strong stuff.  A thriller in which Omar, a young Palestinian is accused of killing an Israeli soldier and then used as an Israeli agent highlights the layers of distrust and selling out in that part of the world.  On top of that we have Omar’s romance with Nadia, his boyhood friend’s sister and the rivalry for the girl with another friend Amjad.  The Israelis are aware of it all such is the extent of their spy network.  The Israeli agent Rami played by Waleed Zulaiter speaks perfect Arabic and they infiltrate the whole of this divided area (Nablus and Nazareth with the wall separating Palestinian from Palestinian).  It is a bleak setting and Omar is doing his best to survive.  He tries to find the best solution in the middle of all this but it will mean betraying his country or being prisoner for life of the Israelis.  One gets the sensation of the futility of it all – centuries of hatred, rigid beliefs and practices impeding people from living a better more peaceful life.  Adam Bakri and Leem Lubany are very good in the leads  and while the film has some fuzzy plot issues, the message it conveys is clear.  Certainly a film that makes you think about social and human reality and an exciting piece of movie making to boot.

★★★★ +

The Man who loved Yngve

This film has a lovely adolescent mood complemented by a great soundtrack of largely British 80’s music and local hits.  There are also some original tracks as well.  It is a coming of age film with Jarle torn between his gorgeous girlfriend Katrine and the newcomer to school, Stefan Edberg look alike in tennis shorts – Yngve.  Jarle has his own garage band and the teenage concerns are much the same for every generation with this one set against the backdrop of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  I really appreciated the humour, exemplified in the scene when Jarle and Helge go to buy dope and in the after concert party.  Fun and not obvious.  The cold beautiful scenery of Stavanger adds a rawness to the story too. All this ends in quite a heavy finale but one that fits perfectly with the idea of life experience and growing up.  Redhead Rolf Kristian Larsen is great in the lead role, ably assisted by Ida Elise Broch and Arthur Berning in supporting roles.  A thoroughly likeable film!

★★★★

 

Elena

Andrei Zvyagintsev had the fine “The Return” as his debut film and comes back in his third with this one.  Very much a moral tale set in modern-day Moscow it takes a small story involving the inheritance of a rich man and whether his second wife and nurse is entitled to more than her fair share.  She has her layabout son and grandchild to support, he a wastrel daughter.  Wherever you look, the film screams out about the widening gap between the haves and the have nots, the vast moral wilderness that has opened up in useful years and the cynical attitude of nearly everyone involved.  Despite its slow moving pace, Zvyagintsev has plenty to say about today’s Russia and much of it is embedded in small details about daily life there.  Nadezdha Markina is excellent as Elena the wife, Elena Lyadova is compelling in her scenes as Katya, the daughter and Andrey Smirnov as Volodya, the wealthy source of the family money is spot on.  The script is particularly pungent and the photography of Mikhail Krichman is coldly fitting.  Philip Glass composed some of the soundtrack.  Perhaps a little overlong, this is nonetheless a riveting portrait of today’s Russia as seen in a French style morality story.

★★★★ +

Snails in the Rain

Recent Israeli picture that is a bit of a soufflé.  Boaz (played by the gorgeous model Yoav Revueni) has a girlfriend (good work by Moran Rosenblatt) and a promising academic future.  He starts to receive letters from a stalker who is in love with him and this awakens not only memories of his past but uncertainties about his sexuality.  A type of psychological thriller that doesn’t go very far, it purports to show Tel Aviv in 1989 and ends up showing a lot of Revueni’s body.  Yes, the photography is great and there is some interest in the whole issue of being stalked and the breach of trust with your fellow man but in the end Mozer lets it all go in a weak ending.

★★

Speechless (Wu Yan)

A simple but very effective film from Hong Kong film maker Simon Chung.  The story is part love story, part mystery as a foreigner is found naked on a river bank in South China.  He doesn’t talk and the staff at the small local hospital don’t know what to make of him.  A male nurse steals him away to avoid his being put into a psychiatric hospital and discovers a clue to the story that led him there in the first place.  Beautifully shot and with discreet acting and music, this is also an interesting look at current day China without tremendous dramas – the churches, the hospitals, the police and the prisons are all featured.

★★★