#ExperienciaFICFA,
NOTES FROM THE FESTIVAL
by Jan Galligan & Lillian Mulero
Santa Olaya, PR
This year the Festival invited us to take “An Excursion Through the World of Cinema" via 42 films shown over six days. It was impossible to watch seven films every day in order to see them all. Clearly we would only take a short jaunt. After studying the festival website and watching every movie trailer, we managed to see ten films, starting with Dona Barbara by Venezuelan film director Betty Kaplan who is currently living in San Juan and working with producer Peter Rawley on a film adaptation of Eduardo Lalo's novel Simone. We wanted to see her 1995 film on the big screen. It exceeded our expectations. The Rómulo Gallegos story is set in the plains of central Venezuela, and is considered the most widely known Latin American novel. Gallegos was the first elected president of Venezuela, and in 1967 the Premio Rómulo Gallegos was created by the Venezuelan government. In 2013, Lalo's Simone was awarded that honor. We are looking forward to their film depiction of Lalo's novel.
The closing night of the festival when all the prizes are awarded, featured El Clan, Agentinian director Pablo Trapero's brutal yet quotidian account of sequestration and murder, which takes place in what appears to be an ordinary middle class household in Buenos Aires during the time of el Proceso and la Guerra Sucia. The film tells a story both macabro and banal.
Another film with the theme of kidnapping and forced imprisonment, El Secuestra de Michel Houellebecq is unique in a few respects. The fictional account was inspired by a rumor that French novelist Houellebecq, had been kidnapped by Al Qaeda in reprisal for comments he made calling Islam “stupid.” French director Guillaume Nicloux turns the rumor into an actual event, but supplants Muslim kidnappers with Polish Gypsies who spirit Houellebecq from his Paris apartment to a modest house in a gritty, industrial, countryside. The abductors have their hands full, as Houellebecq, who plays himself, requires a constant supply of cigarettes, excellent wine, books to read, good whiskey, and eventually the ministrations of a young woman. Filmed verite style, you are given an intimate, seemingly truthful account of Houellebecq's sequestration, as he adapts to his situation and becomes increasingly more interested in the lives of his captors. This is the power of the novelist, on the page and in real life – an ability to know and understand life in any milieu, wherever and whatever that may be. We watch fascinated, as Houellebecq chain smokes day and night, eats every meal with gusto, drinks large quantities of wine and whiskey, and evolves from prisoner to guest in the home of his captors. Ultimately, at the moment of his release, he asks if he might continue his stay for “a few weeks more?”
A Cambio de Nada, which I thought meant “nothing ever changes” but Lillian explains means, “in exchange for nothing,” by Spanish director Daniel Guzman, tells a buddy-movie story, featuring Dario a teenager living in Madrid who is faced with the improbability of finding work at a time when over 50% of his compatriots are unemployed. Dario proves to be resourceful, inventive, stealthy, and cunning. At odds with his parents, he leaves home to live on his own. Short and skinny, Dario joins his best friend Luismi, tall and fat. Together on a small motorscooter, they make a funny team, with Dairo driving and Luismi barely managing to hold on behind. Bending over as low as possible, they race down the highway, trying to reach 120 kpm. The best they can manage is 113. Luismi is too tall and weighs too much. Like El Clan and Houellebecq, this story centers on money, foiled attempts to get as much as possible, and here, altruistic plans for what to do with the money, once obtained. You could say, nothing changes -- money is hard to come by and these days and you pay a high price trying to get it.
En Duva Satt på en Gren och Funderade på Tillvaron (A pigeon sits on a branch contemplating existence), directed by Roy Arne Lennart Andersson, led Lillian and me to a discussion of translation. For this screening, the Swedish film was presented with Spanish subtitles.The English version of the Swedish title calls the bird a pigeon. A mourning dove or huilota in Spanish seems more exact. The opening scene of this succinctly surreal film, which unfolds like a series of figurative paintings by American artist George Tooker, shows an older man and his wife, in a natural history museum. Impatient, she is about to walk into the next room. He is caught between two displays. To his left is a large mounted bald eagle. On his right, a mourning dove sits on a branch. He paces back and forth, removing his glasses to view them in detail. The eagle is war. The dove is peace. The rest of the movie is a complexly beautiful essay on the delineation of the meaning for both.
Back to the Beginning, one of two Puerto Rican films in the festival is David Aponte's feature film debut. This film also depicts a struggle for money. Erick Montalvo, played by Jorge Alberti, is a small time drug dealer. The first act of the film is filled with the harrowing, brutal, day to day of his life in prison. Money is the only relief. Bribes to the guards, payoffs to other prisoners, and finally a large under the table payment to a lawyer who manages to bribe Erick's release. Back on the outside, Erick strives to lead the straight life, forgoing his criminal past in favor of a nine to five job. His wife is pregnant and they are about to be evicted from their upscale condo. No one will hire him and he cannot escape his past. Desperation drives him back to his best friend and criminal partner, Leo, who gives him money to pay the bills and enlists him in an elaborate plan to hijack an armored truck loaded with cash. Leo, a murderous enforcer for the major drug lord of San Juan, and Erick disguise themselves as security guards and steal the truck. Instead of delivering the money to the drug lord, they keep the loot for themselves. Leo escapes by driving an Audi R8 sports car into San Juan rush hour traffic, bouncing over the median, and leaving his pursuers stuck in a traffic jam. Erick, on a hijacked motor cycle, pulls off a similar feat, also stranding the police as he makes his escape to the hospital where his wife is having their baby. He arrives in time to see his seriously ill newborn son. The police arrive moments later. Erick drops $120,000 in loose bills, the hospital's charge to save the baby's life, on the floor as the police lead him away, back to prison, where he was at the beginning.
Other films we saw include Defret, from Ethiopia, Experimentor, about social psychologist Stanley Milgram, Carmina y amén by Paco León, and the Israeli comedy The Farewell Party. Films we wished to have seen include Miss Julie, Nao Pare na Pista, El Abrazo de la Serpiente, Alias Maria, La Patota Paulina, Invasion, Ixcanul from Guatemala, and the Puerto Rican transgender documentary Mala Mala.
SPANISH VERSION as published in En Rojo, cultural supplement to Claridad