independent film reviews

Cool graphic design doesn’t even make this film interesting.

An extremely minimalist take on the lives of four deeply unhappy people. Well-shot if you are fine with a drab color palette. Largely pointless. I mean, one can stretch potential meaning if one really wants to, but this film certainly didn’t make me want to. I’m only giving it minor consideration now that I am sitting here writing this review. Continental, despite its entertaining and clever title, is nothing more than somber entertainment that fails to make any memorable or long-lasting impressions.

Director:
Stéphane Lafleur

Producer:
Luc Déry, Kim McCraw

Editor:
Sophie Leblond

Screenwriter:
Stéphane Lafleur

Cinematographer:
Sara Mishara

Music:
Stéphane Lafleur, Hugo Lavoie

Principal Cast:
Marie-Ginette Guay, Gilbert Sicotte, Fanny Mallette, Réal Bossé

Language:
French

Rainier Wenger with one fanatically fabulous student.

One of my favorite films of the 2008 Seattle International Film Festival, The Wave is based off of a true story. Although the actual story takes place in Palo Alto, California, the film takes place in Germany.Teacher Rainier Wenger receives “autocracy” for his project week theme, instead of “anarchy,” as he previously wanted. A generally unconventional character, Wenger decides to undergo a project in his class when his students declare that they think a dictatorship can never happen in Germany again. For the week, Wenger declares himself dictator and becomes the ruling leader of his newly established autocracy.Before he knows it, however, his students, newly dubbed The Wave, have taken the project outside of school grounds. They extend fascism into the hands of unwilling participants and the project soon swings out of control.

Although greatly unrealistic and exaggerated at times, one has to remember that the film is based off of real events, and that is what makes the film powerful. The Wave is a study on how one charismatic leader can motivate a populus into doing his will. It is dictatorship on a very small scale, but the haunting part is that dictatorships always start from a small group of mind-washed individuals.

Director:
Dennis Gansel

Producer:
Christina Becker, Nina Maag, David Groenewold

Editor:
Ueli Christen

Screenwriter:
Dennis Gansel, Peter Thorwart, based on the novel by Todd Strasser

Cinematographer:
Torsten Breuer

Music:
Heiko Maile

Language:
German

Principal Cast:
Jürgen Vogel, Frederick Lau, Max Riemelt, Jennifer Ulrich, Christiane Paul, Elyas M’Barek

A cute, happy, dysfunctional cast!
I’ve come to take quite a liking to black comedies that come out of the Nordic countries. They often focus on untraditional subject matters and have underlying social commentaries; in the case of The Art of Negative Thinking, the focus is on disabled people — a demographic that is usually never made light of in American culture, which regards disabled individuals as practically helpless.

Those who have personal experience with disabled people or are particularly sensitive to the subject might find this movie to be callous and cruel. But that would be a simplified view on the subject. The movie does not set out to make fun of the disabled. The characters in the movie are unique individuals, each with their own mental and physical dysfunctions. Despite whatever quirks they have, they react to crisis in ways that any human being off the street might. The scenes that are hilarious are not hilarious because they contain disabled people; they are hilarious because they are studies on human emotion that take unexpected turns.

It seems at times like the characters are acting irrationally or intensely, making it easy to generalize that the movie is making a mockery of the disabled. But what’s important to note is that the three non-disabled characters in the movie act just as irrationally as the disabled ones do. If anything, the movie almost sets out to prove that the playing field is level, and that everyone has a little bit of crazy in them.

Director:
Bård Breien

Producer:
Dag Alveberg

Editor:
Zaklinka Stojevska

Screenwriter:
Bård Breien

Cinematographer:
Gaute Gunnari

Music:
Stein Berge Svendsen

Principal Cast:
Fridtjov Såheim, Kirsti Eline Torhaug, Henrik Mestad, Marian Saastad Ottesen, Kari Simonsen, Per Schaaning, Kjersti Holmen

Language:
Norweigan

The soldier from the second clip contemplates suicide!

Collections like Fantastic Parasuicides, which combine three shorts by different directors under one title, always manage to peak my interest. In this case, all of the three shorts explore the idea of “suicide,” and due to my preference for black comedies, I thought this collection would be right up my alley. What I discovered was that only one of the pieces really held my attention; the other two were interesting, but hardly memorable or really even worth watching.

The first piece, by Park SoYeong, explores a girl’s suicide after failing an exam. It’s wacky, off-the-wall, and complete with poorly shot action sequences and sound effects along the lines of what you’d find in Pac Man. All definitely on purpose, and all intolerable if you do not find juvenile, nonsensical humor funny. In my case, I found it slightly amusing, but it definitely kind of turned me off to watching the other two, even though the other two are nothing like this one.The second piece, by Jo ChangHo, is almost dialogue-free and explores one soldier’s hesitations about committing suicide. He rents a hotel room in which to do the deed, but things take a turn for the unexpected. I’m not quite sure what the point to this story is, asides from the fact that there is obviously some kind of parallel between the life of a chicken and the life of the soldier. Definitely slow-moving, and, in retrospect, my least favorite of the three.

The third piece, by Kim SeongHo, is the least amateur offering by a long shot. A 70 year old man has suicidal plans for his birthday when he realizes that no one has remembered his birthday; from there, he stumbles upon a suicidal youngster and saves him. The film ends with not one, but TWO unexpected twists. Beautifully shot and effective in telling a story that the viewer will care about for longer than the duration of the story itself — something that the other two shorts failed to do miserably.

Directors:
Chang-ho Jo, Seong-ho Kim, Soo-yeong Park

Producer:
Stanley Kwak

Screenwriter:
Seong-ho Kim, Soo-yeong Park, Chang-ho Jo

Cinematographer:
Hee-seok Na, Young-min Kim

Music:
Jae-hwan Jeong, Hyeon-suk Choi, Myeong-jong Kim

Principal Cast:
Yeo-reum Han, Tablo, Ga-yeon Kim, Hwi-soon Park, Jae-jin Jeong

Language:
Korean