Global Lens ’12: Short, Fat, Bald Man

Antonio Farfan cuts a distinctly George Costanza-like profile, but he has none of the Yankees’ special assistant to the traveling secretary’s confidence, such as it was. Still, he might just develop a smidge of social confidence in Carlos Osuna’s Fat, Bald, Short Man (trailer here), an earnest animated feature that screens tonight at The Picture House in Pelham, New York, as part of the 2012 Global Lens collection, which started its annual tour this January at MoMA.

Farfan is the only employee with any integrity in a Bogotá notary’s office, until the arrival of the new boss. Not only is Mr. Enriquez honest, he happens to be the near spitting image of Farfan. However, Enriquez is assertive and sociable. He duly takes Farfan under his wing, but the nebbish clerk is not about to explode out of his shell anytime soon. Nonetheless, if he ever stands up to his abusive mooch of a brother that will at least be something.

Fat is a small, modest film, largely distinguished by its striking animation. Mixing rotoscope effects, traditional 2D animation, and photorealistic backgrounds, it has a distinctly idiosyncratic look. As storytellers though, Osuna and collaborating writers Carlos Andrés Reyes and Juan Mauricio Ruiz opt for the scrupulously realistic. They will only grant Farfan small victories and force him to endure multiple public humiliations, despite their obvious love for the Colombian Charlie Brown.

Osuna’s team creates some nice scenes for the two short bald men, but the most memorable sequences involve Farfan’s strained relationship with a dying neighbor. Contradicting the film’s expected carpe diem message, the old man’s persistent regrets are definitely of things done rather than not done.

Álvaro Bayona sensitively gives voice to Farfan’s neuroses and Osuna’s stylish animation helps compensate during the occasional slow moments. While relatively circumspect, the payoff is rather satisfying, because it is straight forward and believable. A well meaning, technically accomplished animated film recommended for those with adult attention spans, Fat screens tonight (2/3) and Thursday (2/9) at The Picture House as the 2012 Global Lens tour makes its way from MoMA to Pelham.

Global Lens ’12: Mourning

Open and honest communication is tricky in a closed society like Iran. However, deafness is something of a double-edged sword for a middle-aged couple, particularly as they escort their agitated hearing nephew home. What they express and how much he picks up on will be highly significant in Morteza Farshbaf’s Mourning, part of the 2012 Global Lens collection, which kicked-off this January at MoMA and continues this weekend at The Picture House in Pelham, New York.

We see the subtitles, but do not hear the Persian. Kamran and his wife Sharareh are discussing just what they should tell young Arshia, who might be following some of the conversation as a lip reader. His quarreling parents left a family retreat in the middle of the night, angrily driving into an apparently fatal accident. Frankly, they are decidedly sketchy on the details themselves.

Although they suffered through difficult years, Kamran and Sharareh have become the responsible ones in their family. Of course, they are still deaf, a fact they are keenly aware of. While they never address contemporary social issues directly, viewers get the sense Iranian attitudes towards deaf citizens are not exactly edifying. Indeed, this fact weighs on their considerations regarding Arshia’s future.

Developed from a short film Farshbaf co-directed as part of Abbas Kiarostami’s film workshop, Mourning’s timing is perfect, screening around the country just as Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation appears poised to win the best foreign language Oscar. While it lacks Separation’s visceral intensity, it is still quite an accomplished work. Farshbaf keeps viewers thoroughly invested as he slowly but surely reveals what his characters know and how they feel about it all. In narrative terms, Mourning is very straight forward, but it address questions of communication and perception in intriguing ways.

Though not professional actors, real life artists and married couple Kiomars Giti and Sharareh Pasha are remarkably convincing as Farshbaf’s leads. They convey a dramatic lifetime together, relying solely on their physical expressions. Intended as a somewhat withdrawn, even anti-social character, Amir Hossein Maleki plays Arshia accordingly. As a result, he often fades into the background.

Technically, Mourning is quite well crafted, especially for a feature directorial debut. Farshbaf’s POV gamesmanship is distinctive, but never comes across as forced or self-indulgent. Cinematographer Hamid Reza Ahmadi Ara also fully capitalizes on the scenic but lonely landscape, composing many striking vistas.

Some viewers might need a bit of time to acclimate to Mourning’s rhythm, but it is a very good film. Nicely produced and acted, it is one of the best of this year’s Global Lens slate, along with Mohamed Mouftakir’s Pegasus. Following its North American premiere at MoMA, Mourning screens this Saturday (2/4) and Sunday (2/5) at The Picture House in Up-State (from here) New York. Pegasus also screens there Saturday (2/4) and Tuesday (2/7), as the Global Lens collection makes its way across the country.

Global Lens ’12: Pegasus

Most girls love horses, but not Zineb’s patient. The young pregnant teen is deathly afraid of the “Lord of the Horse.” Her case will disturb the hospital psychiatrist on several levels throughout Mohamed Mouftakir’s Pegasus (trailer here), which screens as part of the 2012 Global Lens showcase now underway at MoMA.

Thoroughly burned out, Zineb does not want to take on such a demanding patient, but she has no choice in the matter. When not binge-drinking or sparring with her strict but smitten boss, Zineb slowly wins the girl’s trust. Her fate appears to be intertwined with the story told in flashbacks, in which the only child of a Bedouin chief contends with thorny gender roles and an initiation ritual involving a fierce black thoroughbred. It is a childhood lived in the shadow of the Lord of the Horse, a mythical figure used to inspire and cow in equal measure.

Sort of like a sinister cousin to Carroll Ballard’s The Black Stallion, Pegasus presents some of the most ominous equine imagery seen on film in quite a while. Though billed as a psychological thriller, its revelations will probably not shock anyone who has seen a fair sampling of M. Night Shyamalan, David Lynch, and Stephen King movies. However, this is more about the roots of the emotional fracture than the big twist at the end. In fact, Pegasus forthrightly depicts the misogyny faced by young Bedouin women, deliberately kept illiterate and subservient by their traditional Islamic society.

Mouftakir creates an eerie vibe, tapping into something rotten at the core of the characters’ collective psyche. He freely blurs the nature of ostensive reality, but some social actualities are inescapable. Cinematographer Xavier Castro also nicely captures the mysterious atmosphere of the exotic Bedouin environment and the coldly ominous clinic. Frankly, Pegasus looks exactly like what one might expect of a Moroccan film.

It also relies on a strong ensemble of varying ages, convincingly playing characters whose relationships to each other are often kept obscure. Saadia Ladib is quite compelling as the haunted Zineb, while Abdelatif Chaouqui develops some intriguing ambiguities as her severe boss. However, the accomplished Moroccan actor Driss Roukh really delivers a punch to the solar-plexus as the abusive Bedouin chief.

Despite sharing a visual kinship with dark fantasies, Pegasus is a tragedy more than a genre picture. Yet, it is quite unsettling and rather chilling at times. Definitely for discriminating cineastes, it is a powerful cinematic statement, highly recommended when it screens this Saturday (1/21) and next Thursday (1/26) as part of this year’s Global Lens, now underway in New York at the Museum of Modern Art.

Global Lens ’12: Craft

Bianca Ventura can play Marilyn Monroe, Bettie Page, and Carmen Miranda, so she obviously has considerably greater range than Michelle Williams. In truth, she is a gifted actress, but lives hand-to-mouth on what she makes performing singing telegrams and the like. Yet, she keeps hoping and working in Gustavo Pizzi’s Craft (trailer here), one of ten films selected for the Global Film Initiative’s 2012 Global Lens showcase, launching this week at MoMA.

Auditioning for a serious play, Ventura knocks it out of the park with an improv about her day gig. She lands the part, but her tryout tape takes on a life of its own. In the short run, this means little to Ventura. She still has to sing “Happy Birthday Mr. So-and-So” to rich old codgers. In fact, her prospective good fortune leads to plenty of immediate complications and heartaches.

Pizzi co-wrote Craft with his wife Karine Teles as her star vehicle and it certainly succeeds as that. She can sing, she can dance, and she can act, just like her character. She also looks and feels like a real person, rather than a Hollywood Barbie Doll. This is her problem and she knows it. Yet, Teles never allows her alter-ego to wallow in self-pity, constantly containing her emotions to the breaking point. That is what grown-ups do and Craft is definitely a film for and about people who have experienced the bitterness of life.

Unfortunately, there is really nobody else up to her level. Her celebrity dress-alike colleagues are all predictably catty or perky, while her boss is reliably exploitative. Her landlord is a cold, condescending shrew and her theater director boyfriend is nauseatingly whiny. Yes, Teles commands the screen because she is very good, but she does not have a lot of competition from these stock characters.

An actor’s life is a humiliating one. Anybody who has tried to make a go of it will relate to Ventura’s story. Of course, it will probably not be the occasion for pleasant nostalgia. As soon as the story elements are established, viewers will probably suspect exactly where it is headed.

Still, Pizzi integrates several colorful but narrative-driven musical numbers into the mix. The song by co-composers Lucas Vasconcellos and Leticia Novaes heard over the opening credits is also quite a lovely little fix for Brazilian music fans. Ultimately, Craft lives up to its title, but it never delivers any surprises. A small but mostly worthy selection for this year’s Global Lens, it screens this Friday (1/13) and Monday (1/16) at MoMA.