international film – Page 2

REVIEW: You Will Die At 20

March 7, 2021March 7, 2021 Emma Pinchak Leave a comment

Recently I’ve been thinking more about mortality; I guess I’m not old, but everything these days feels like a crossroads. They are each so definite, a fixed point in time that demands a decision, either by me or whatever fate or force controls me. For Muzamil, all other paths have been eliminated; it’s just a short, straight path to a certain end. It feels like there are a million hidden stops along the way; they come out of nowhere, they hinder, they allow you to pass. I don’t know what that is, but in the context of You Will Die at 20, I guess it’s the townspeople, everyone preventing Muzamil from living without severe restrictions on where he goes, what he does.

Having only a little time on Earth is supposed to increase the value of life. Knowing that it will end, likely before we want it to (or more precisely, before we’re adequately prepared for it to), should free us from monotony, allow us to respect each day as something special. But thinking about the ending inserts countless checkpoints, countless worries: are you eating healthy, exercising, getting your teeth cleaned regularly, had your flu shot, checking that your car mirrors are positioned correctly, getting your oil changed often, making enough money, making enough money to retire before you die, making enough money in case of an emergency? The stops expand a life, drawing out its borders infinitely. Now it’s too long, too much. Sakina numbers the days in chalk on the walls of a sunlight-slashed room, waiting for her child to die. The main difference in opposing views of mortality is the degree to which one accepts their end, no matter how untimely. There is mourning, and there is apathy. With each there is some ratio of fear to happy passiveness, the very worst kind of Punnett square. There’s not necessarily one option that’s the best, or least likely to ruin the psyche, but when something forces you into extremes, like a sheikh prophesizing your early demise, it can seriously alter your mental state for a startling amount of time.

The village, much like its residents, is almost totally austere: rather neutral tones but harsh surfaces, little life able to grow, stark. The amount of calm, steadiness, in the characters and their surroundings was unsettling, but of course that’s where the movie’s power is.Where there are richer colors, the contrast with their surroundings hurts to look at, makes you feel like crying no matter the subject of the scene. Excitement was always paired with doom, at some point down the line; there was always worry behind the beautiful points.

Most of the movie covers Muzamil’s 19th year, his last-ditch efforts at individualism, or just proving he’s alive. Early-onset death throes, the last dregs. If we lived more like that, tried to feel more, all of the time, would we be better or worse? As people, friends. Citizens, leaders. I’ll invite you to watch this movie and try to think about that. You can access it for free until March 17th.

You can find both in-person and at-home showtimes for the Michigan and State theaters here.

REVIEW: International Studies Horror Film Fest

November 3, 2018November 3, 2018 Emma Pinchak Leave a comment

There are hidden gems of all sorts in this world, from underground bagel joints to hole-in-the-wall consignment shops to rooftop stargazing parties. The sixth annual International Studies Horror Film Fest is no exception to this hidden gem phenomenon–although at any one time there were hardly ten people comprising the peanut gallery, the time I spent in the Hatcher Library this Halloween was far more magical than, say, a packed football game or waiting in a mile-long line to get into the club. There’s just something special about gathering with a group of strangers to watch spooky movies nobody’s ever heard of.

The first movie, Little Otik, was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. It lies somewhere between directors Tim Burton and Jean-Pierre Jennet, like if the characters of Beetlejuice and Delicatessen had a love child. Between the extremely up-close shots of people sloppily eating soup and disturbing stop motion animation scenes, this film holds everything I love about some of my favorite movies. The translation of the 19th century traditional fairy tale “Otesanek” into modern-day surrealism is a far better alternative to the diluted brothers Grimm stories we are saddled with in the US.

Plus, little treasures like this:

I have to say, the other movies were not as good. What We Do In The Shadows was framed as a “documentary” on a group of “vampires” living together in an old, dusty house. The next line you might expect me to write is “hilarity ensues,” but what actually ensues is 87 minutes of the stale side of campy–there were a few hearty laughs from the audience, but the whole thing seemed like a rejected MTV movie script that New Zealand fished out of the trash. Yet somehow, the part of me that cannot let go of a love for Napoleon Dynamite and Crossroads (you know, the Britney Spears movie) had me laughing on the inside too.

Ghost of Mae Nak, which was released in 2005, really looks like it’s from 2005. The entire movie looks like someone applied a bad filter on it, not to mention the marginal special effects. I must say, though, that Mak and Nak’s relationship was exceptionally cute, and of course I gobbled the melodrama of Mak’s coma right up, being the dramatic fool I am. However, the title character did nothing but pull the same “scary” face and scream at people. I feel they could have been a little more creative with this.

Finally, there was Go Goa Gone, a self-proclaimed “zomcom.” This went exactly as you might imagine it would: it was a spoofy husk of a bona fide horror movie that relied on moderate gore to retain its classification within the genre. The zombie makeup and action scenes were certainly nothing to scoff at, if a bit repetitive. Though I’m generally not a hardcore fan of zombie movies, I do believe they have the potential to be high-quality contributions to the world of film. Train To Busan, for example, had a rich and heartwrenching storyline. Go Goa Gone may have been able to boast this if it had not gone so directly down the comedic route.

I understand the difficulty of choosing the perfect lineup for a Halloween film fest. Too many hours of intensity and violence can exhaust even the hardest psychopaths amongst us. However, none of these movies were actually scary, even for someone who is definitely affected by the Goosebumps TV series (I’m talking about myself here). Turning off the room’s lights could have helped, and maybe a paper skeleton or two to serve as decorations on the otherwise bare walls. While there were good parts to the movie showing (including our wonderful host), there is room for improvement. I have no doubt that the seventh annual film fest will knock the socks off of everyone in attendance!

REVIEW: The Wanted 18: Contemporary Cinema from the Islamic World

September 22, 2018October 12, 2019 Fareah Fysudeen 2 Comments

Image result for the wanted 18

Claymation from the perspective of cows, real interviews of Palestinians and Israelis, a personal narrative interwoven as the spine of the movie, and a compelling true story of a town of Palestinian people who secretly milked eighteen cows as a way to resist Israeli occupation– this movie is artistically ambitious, politically evocative, and utterly heartrending.

The Residential College, with support from the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, is hosting a series of movies on contemporary cinema from the Islamic world, and The Wanted 18 is kicking off the series. The film screenings take place in East Quad’s Benzinger library at 7 p.m. After the film screening, audience members had a short dialogue on the movie lead by the series’ curator and host, Sascha Crasnow. I appreciated the organization of the events, the dialogue that followed it, and the film was easily one of the best documentaries I’ve seen.

This documentary takes place in Beit Sahour in the 1980s, a small town east of Bethlehem with a majority-Christian Palestinian population. The people of Beit Sahour used the cows as a way to boycott Israeli goods and remain self-sufficient. The eighteen cows went from ordinary livestock to infamous celebrities that were “threats to the national security of the state of Israel”. How? How did these cows, as one interviewee put it, become “political activists” alongside the Palestinians against Israeli occupation?

This movie unfolds that answer in one of the most creative documentary formats. The film brilliantly includes claymation in a comic-book-like style. In fact, it takes the humor so far that the animation is from the perspective of the cows. They’re the hilarious epicenters of the movie, and all the events unfold around them. “Oh, shit,” one cow says to another as they’re given off to the Palestinians; they have distinct characters (Lola is called the “sexy cow”, for example); they don’t side with the Palestinians or the Israelis, but are shown to be strong and powerful allies to their own cause. We as the audience relate to the cows in some very commonplace way– they have western accents, make crudely funny remarks, seem to full of desire and indecision. At first, the cows are reluctant to join the side of the Palestinians and even try escaping from the truck that held them. One cow said in the beginning to the Palestinian attempting to milk her, “Ugh, get lost, tiny terrorist.”

As much as we get of the cows, though, we also get of real interviews from people that lived through the boycott. For the people of Beit Sahour, these cows represented an attempt to join the narrative of resistance and recognition. One man from the documentary says when first acquiring the cows: “I felt as if we had started to realize our dreams of freedom and independence.” The cows became Beit Sahour’s symbols of civil disobedience and autonomy from occupation. They knew they were mere civilians– a doctor sweeping the street, a homemaker hanging up the laundry, butchers, teachers, tailors– but they wanted to feel like their lives were no longer dictated by an external force, like their homes weren’t a prison. “We deserve to have our homes,” another interviewee said, “We deserve to have our land, we deserve to have our freedom, and we deserve to have our cows.”

During the height of Palestinian resistance in 1987, the cows rose to celebrity status outside of Beit Sahour and the state of Israel become deeply paranoid that they may lose control over their occupied lands. In a scramble to regain power and composure, the state of Israel declare the eighteen cows as “wanted criminals”

There are parts of this movie that are controversial and jarring. There is an animated scene where a woman throws off her bedsheets and finds a dead cow beneath them; some of the things the cows say can be considered offensive expletives, like the “tiny terrorist” comment; one person frequently referred to by the interviewees dies at the end of the movie to the heartbreak of the audience; and of course, we know the struggle is not over for the people of Beit Sahour, or Palestinians, and Israelis. During the dialogue, one person critiqued the movie for trivializing the seriousness of the issue by the sense of crude humor the cows possess. The director of the film, however, counters this; he says, “When you laugh, you are challenging your oppressor and challenging the image of being a victim.” There is a great deal of conversation to be had around this film, for it is complex and deals with complex issues.

What I love about this movie is that it takes something so difficult to discuss and creates conversation around it in a manner that is intelligent and artistic. I would recommend this film to anyone who is exploring art from the Islamic world, or who is interested in political art, or loves to watch compelling, deeply moving documentaries. This film is brilliant and raw in its storytelling and creativity, and, in its own way, is a form of resistance.

You can find more films in this film series in the poster below:

Additional sources: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/qa-middle-east-powerful-army-chasing-18-cows-151111094846819.html