My Beautiful Country (Die Brucke am Ibar)

It is not easy to be neutral when talking about war. It is not easy for a photojournalist to choose between his responsibilities as a documentarian and as a human. History is written by the victors or rather is more disseminated. The question of taking side of which country is not as straight forwards as it is decided in the meetings of politicians over a table, having a cigar in one hand and a glass of cognac in the other hand. The life of innocent people is definitely not the first concern in these meetings.

In “My Beautiful Country”, Michaela Kezele, the Serbian-Croatian director, observes the war from the perspective of human relations and emotions, emotions that don’t recognize war. Danica, a young Serb who still mourns the loss of her husband during the war, lives in a small Albanian-Serbian village near Ibar river with her two young boys. When Ramiz, an Albanian soldier seeks refuge in her home, she is scared and hesitant at the same time. By accepting him, she would be officially making her home a shelter for her enemy; by refusing him, she would disregard her values as a human. She chooses the first because these values still weigh more than the rules that made her once neighbour, her current enemy. A bridge over Ibar, which is the translation of the original title (Die Brucke am Ibar), separates these neighbours, but cannot raise hatred in people like Danica who doesn’t have time for hatred!

The natural relation between Ramiz and Vlado, Danica’s younger son develops into a friendship, which is in stark contrast with the way soldiers brutally humiliated their opponents in the beginning of the movie.

Love develops between the alleged enemies; between Vlado and a young Albanian kid, between Vlado and Ramiz and of course between Danica and Ramiz. The beauty of this film is how these loves relate and their protagonists follow each other as they take us with them throughout their journey.

An important issue brought up in the film was the use of depleted uranium ammunition by NATO in Kosovo and Bosnia. This issue was so controversial that prevented the screening of the film in parts of the concerned region.

The tragedy of war is not always about people who are killed by their enemy but people who are killed by their ally. This, in my opinion was the highlight of this film and the director portrayed this as delicately as possible.

“My Beautiful Country” was Kezele’s first feature film and was shown in the 36^th Montreal World Film Festival. 

The Words

       

We admire authors; their words are our companions in bed, on the plane, in the park and in our solitary moments. The words take us to the ancient times, to the farthest place on Earth we never visited; to the lives of people like us or so different from us. The words play with our imagination. Deprived of visual means, the words can so delicately describe a scene with such details that we would not notice if we were to see them with our own eyes. Words portray a feeling so subtly that we can trace the most powerful inner emotions just as we can trace the brush strokes on a canvas. 

Although we think highly of our favorite authors, we don't really know what they went through to get to the point where their words get published and reach us. 

"The Words", is a story within a story of two men, both aspiring writers whose fate coincide in a dramatic circumstance. Rory, a young American writer, dreams of having his two novels published. His words are ‘too artistic’, ‘too fine’ to be published as an unknown author. The continuous rejection by publishing houses frustrates him when he suddenly finds a story as old as the yellow papers on which they were typed, in a vintage bag his wife buys him during their honeymoon.

Reading the story affects Rory tremendously to the point that he believes he is nothing compared to the unknown writer of his discovery. He decided to type the story, without changing a word or a single punctuation. When he receives his wife’s awe and praise after she accidentally reads the story, for a moment he believes himself to be the writer of that novel. 

The book gets published, Rory reaches stardom as his dream came through. But not long after, he encounters the truth, the real author who followed him after his fancy book openings, not to defame him but to tell him his life story and his inspiration to write that novel. A man who loved his words so much that he sacrificed the woman who inspired him to write them.

‘The Words’ takes us on the journey of two writers with extreme ambitions. One leaves his wife for the sake of words, the other steals is so desperately fascinated by words that he steals them. 

Although there is a third story containing these two stories, its presence in the movie was completely unnecessary and in my opinion it even marred the riveting story line. The bogus and tawdry gestures of Olivia Wilde and her ostentatious act and dialogue with Dennis Quaid not only didn’t relate to a Columbia University grad student but also gave a cheesy taste to the movie end. However the masterly play by Jeremy Irons as well as Bradley Cooper save the movie and one can ignore that downside.

‘The Words’ by Brian Klugman was in the world competition in Montreal World Film Festival, with the presence of Klugman and the crew at Cinema Imperial on August 29th. 

Anfang 80 (Coming of Age)

When we think about falling in love, most of the times we relate it to youth. When we think about ‘happily ever after’ couples, we imagine an old couple walking hand in hand on the street. If we see such couples, we usually picture a long life they’ve shared together; through the good and bad; through happiness and pain; and through laughter and tear.

‘Coming of Age’ transforms this impression by portraying some of the most heartfelt feelings between people of age. It does this not by arousing a sense of pity towards the old; on the contrary, it enlightens some of our wrong perceptions about them.

Rosa, an eighty-year old woman, meets Bruno, after discovering about her terminal cancer. She is quite independent and unconventional as she refuses to undergo chemotherapy. Rosa is still alive yet her niece rents her apartment without her permission.

Bruno’s inspiration after he meets Rosa, his will to enjoy the taste of love in the last years of his life is astounding. He is quite levelheaded when he announces the news to his wife and his children. He doesn’t bother explaining much.

Together, they rent a new apartment; they go to IKEA for choosing furniture for their home; they make love; they dance; they even smoke pot. Careless of the world around them, they taste the beauty of love and caring beside each other.

Rosa is elegant. At the age of 80, she smiles and laughs from the bottom of her heart. Her firm character during the movie and the way she manipulates different situations with young people is admirable. To the young, the old are ‘invisible’ as she put it.  However she does not give in and insists on her visibility. She is not piteous; she’s admirable. Rosa, this daring woman slaps the young radiographer after she mindlessly ignored that Rosa was standing there, waiting for her instruction for quite a while.

The astounding play by Karl Merkatz who portrayed an old man’s desire to taste love and his efforts in taking care of his love, at the age when he himself needed to be taken care of, was remarkable. There was a perfect balance in the choice of the accompanying role by Christine Ostermayer.

Anfang 80 or Coming of age, a movie by Gerhard Ertl and Sabine Hiebler, was in the world competition in the 36th Montreal World Film Festival.  Karl Merkatz was chosen as the best actor in the festival on September 3rd. The movie also won the Public Award for the most popular movie of the festival. 

Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way

This piece was played on March 21st, 2012 at CKUT radio and includes my short review on "Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way", one of the movies at FIFA (Festival International des Films sur l'Art" in Montreal. It also includes a listing of some of my favorite movies in the 30th edition of this festival.
FIFA is between 15th and 25th of March. Do check it out.