Disappearing Act IV: Medal of Honor

In recent years, probably no national cinema has immortalized it bureaucracy more than that in Romania.  To say filmmakers have been inspired by their red tape and apparatchiks would be misleading, but they certainly recognize them as a source of acute drama.  Such is the case for an elderly pensioner in Calin Peter Netzer’s Medal of Honor (trailer here), the closing film of Disappearing Act IV, the other film festival now underway in New York, which happens to be free.

Ion I. Ion has a distinctive name, but not distinctive enough.  Out of the blue, he is awarded a high state honor for his rather undistinguished military service.  After accepting the medal, he sends an inquiry to the ministry, asking why it was bestowed on him.  In the following days, his stature in the neighborhood rises significantly.  After the official ceremony (featuring former President Ion Iliescu playing himself in the 1990’s), I.I. Ion starts to believe he really is a war hero.  Then he gets his reply from the ministry: his medal was intended for Ion J. Ion.

In some ways, Medal is an appropriate companion film to Corneliu Porumboui’s Police,Adjective (which also screened during this year’s Disappearing Act), but history weighs more heavily over Netzer’s tale of bureaucrat bungling.  For obvious starters, Romania’s record during WWII could be uncharitably described as opportunistic, a fact I.I. Ion indirectly concedes when relating his dubious war stories to some street kids on the block. 

However, the Socialist era continues to have a more corrosive effect on the Ion family.  I.I. Ion and his son Cornel have not spoken since 1988.  As his father sees it, he merely sought the assistance of the militia to discourage his son from immigrating to Canada.  The son considered it informing, as does his mother Nina, who has cold-shouldered I.I. Ion ever since.

While not exactly a breakneck thrill ride, Medal is far more accessible than some of the recent audience endurance tests produced by the Romanian New Wave.  Still, it is a very subtle film that implies more than it states outright down the stretch.  In real life, Iliescu is a complicated figure, whose ultimate place in history remains highly debatable, but at least he is a great sport playing himself.  Of course, as I.I. Ion, Victor Rebengiuc is the workhorse of the picture, convincingly insecure and neurotically verbose.  Viewers cannot help feeling simultaneous sympathy and contempt for him.

 

Frankly, a little less of I.I. Ion’s constant pressure of speech would not have sabotaged the filmm and poor long-suffering Nina Ion is little more than a matronly caricature.  Still, it is an intriguing drama, particularly given its post-Ceauşescu context—and especially for free.  Those shut out of the other festival’s screenings should definitely keep Medal of Honor in mind tomorrow night (4/22) when it concludes Disappearing Act IV at Bohemia National Hall.

Disappearing Act IV: Eighty Letters

The Communists loved their paperwork and with good reason. It was one of their most effective tools for controlling people. Yet, Vacek’s mother seems to have a talent for it, navigating the red tape required for immigration while writing four scores of undeliverable missives to his defector father in Václav Kadrnka’s Eighty Letters (trailer here), which appropriately screens at Bohemia National Hall as part Disappearing Act IV, the annual showcase of films unjustly overlooked after their well received festival runs, co-presented by the Czech Center.

Alarmed to find himself home alone one morning, Vanek catches up with his mother at the tram stop, essentially forcing her to take him with her on her mysterious errands. They do not talk much during the day, but they are not visiting places conducive to conversation. Confused and a bit withdrawn, Vanek whiles away the time in series doctor’s waiting rooms and government lobbies. It is not until we hear his mother’s voiceover composing another letter to his father that we appreciate how close she is to completing the deliberately arduous application process. Of course, that begs the question: then what?

Eighty is a film that refuses to look the audience in the eyes, which might be understandably off-putting for some viewers. Indeed, we watch most of Kadrnka’s pseudo-autobiographical story from sidewalk level, but there is a reason for that. The last time I was in Prague I asked my Czech friends why everyone identified me as an American before I ever spoke a word of awful Czech. My nondescript wardrobe was hardly a giveaway. They said it was because of the way I held my head up when I walked. Seeing this film helps explain that answer.

Unfolding from Vanek’s POV, Eighty is a quiet film with quite a bit of running through the streets of Prague. It could almost be considered The Red Balloon’s Kafkaesque cousin. Unfortunately, Zuzana Lapcikova and Martin Pavlus are strangely cold screen presences. However, they certainly look and feel convincing as mother and son.

Kadrnka masterfully sets the mood and frames his shots. Despite the emotional aloofness of the cast, it is an interesting film to watch purely for its craftsmanship. It is certainly worth a look, particularly this Sunday (4/15) when it screens free at BNH as Disappearing Act IV continues in New York. It is also a great opportunity to catch up with Jaak Kilmi and Kiur Aarma’s wonderfully sly and illuminating documentary Disco and Atomic War, which also screens for free on Sunday, right before Eighty Letters.

Disappearing Act IV: The System

Communism ripped apart scores of German families. Perhaps the Hillers were one of them. Aimless twentysomething Mike Hiller cannot say, because his mother refuses to speak of his late father’s shadowy past. The murky ambiguity of the former East German elites’ post-reunification experiences are explored in Marc Bauder’s intriguing thriller The System (trailer here), the opening film of Disappearing Act IV, the annual New York showcase of European films unjustly overlooked after their well received festival runs, co-presented by the Czech Center, the Romanian Cultural Institute, and the Group of European Cultural Institutes.

Mike Hiller suspects his father’s death was no ferry accident and his mother’s silence only stokes his resentment. Still, as a former low level Stasi clerical worker, she has her reasons for reticence. She was married to Rolf Hiller, a hotshot confidential operative charged with acquiring hard currency for the state through dodgy international transactions. Ironically, he would have been one of the few East Germans well positioned to prosper after the fall of the Wall, just like his ex-partner, wheeler-dealer Konrad Böhm. When through the machinations of fate Böhm interrupts Hiller and his punk buddy burglarizing his home, he decides to take the young underachiever under his wing, out of respect for his late father. Or perhaps he is just playing Hiller.

Quickly Hiller is immersed in the world of Russian pipelines, kickbacks, and blackmail. Yet, it is clear East Germany’s corrosive Communist past eats away at the characters in the present, like a lingering toxin. Intelligently written by Dörte Franke (who will take Q&A with Bauder after the screening) and Khyana El Bitar, System’s storyline is often murky and morally ambiguous, but never overly complicated in the obscure Le Carré tradition. Frankly, it critiques crony capitalism as much as it does Soviet era socialism, explicitly linking the two.

Jacob Matschenz (outstanding in the inter-connected Dreileben trilogy) is certainly convincingly petulant and rebellious as Hiller, sometimes at the risk of overdoing the Holden Caulfieldisms. However, Bernhard Schütz is totally riveting as the manipulative and mercurial Böhm. Watching him spar and toy with Matschenz’s Hiller is jolly good cynical entertainment. Yet, there is an ethical center to the film represented by Jenny Schily, quite compelling as Hiller’s widowed mother, always a victim of circumstances beyond her control.

It is rather bizarre this will be The System’s premiere American screening, because it is the sort of smart, sophisticated political thriller that ought to have been a cinch for mucho festival play. Of course, Disappearing Act is all about catching up with such inexplicably neglected films. Enthusiastically recommended, The System will be the only paid admission during Acts IV when it opens the festival-showcase this coming Wednesday (4/11) at the IFC Center. All other selections are presented free of charge, including Mila Turajlic’s Cinema Komunisto, a fascinating documentary survey of Yugoslavian cinema under Tito, screening at Bohemia National Hall this coming Thursday (4/12).