Panorama Europe ’18: The Maltese Fighter (short)

During WWII, the residents of Malta were collectively awarded the George Cross for their brave defiance of the Axis onslaught. Sadly, they were not so united in the 1970s, when Labour Prime Minister Dom Mintoff and his allies employed political violence and strong-arm techniques to consolidate their grip on power. For an unemployed boxer, political thuggery is the only position open to him, but it comes at the cost of his soul in Arev Manoukian’s The Maltese Fighter (trailer here), which screens as part of a program of Maltese short films during this year’s Panorama Europe at MoMI.

Carmelo is a warrior in the ring, but it provides little compensation for the single father. His shipyard job did not bring in much more, while he had it. It is 1971 and a new administration has taken over. Known supporters of Mintoff’s critics are in for it. Carmelo is imminently qualified to bash them black-and-blue, but he is awkwardly recognizable. He has a crisis of conscience after only one night, but his new masters will inevitably come around again with another list of names to visit.

Fighter is a visually a striking film that fully capitalizes on Valetta’s stunning harborscape and its gritty back alleys. Cinematographer Matthew Emvin Taylor, gives it a golden hue, with an ominous tint. If ever there were a film with a keen sense of place, this would be it.

Perhaps just as importantly, Malcom Ellul, who has mainly played gladiators and centurions up to this point, gives a remarkable performance as the guilt-wracked Carmelo. He is no mere side of beef. This is sensitive, subtly turned work. Yet, he is also clearly physically cut, so he looks mucho convincing in the boxing ring.

This is a powerful cinematic statement that directly addresses a violent era many would prefer to whitewash and water-down. Indeed, it serves as an uncomfortable reminder, like a punch-drunk fighter who refuses to go down. It is also quite a bold showcase for the talents of Manoukian, Ellul, Taylor, and the rest of the ensemble. Very highly recommended, The Maltese Fighter screens this Saturday (5/19), as part of the 2018 Panorama Europe.

Panorama Europe ’18: Miracle

Irena’s pig farm could use a capitalist pig. The former state collective was once the envy of Lithuanian agriculture, but it has fallen on hard times in the immediate post-Communist years. Bernardas claims to be the white knight riding in on a red Cadillac, but his motives are more complicated than he lets on in Egle Vertelyte’s Miracle (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Panorama Europe at MoMI.

Irena knows pigs, but that just isn’t enough anymore. The farm is on the brink of collapse, the share-owning workers have not been paid in months, and most of the town is rooting for her failure, because they resent the perks she enjoyed during the old regime. Enter Bernardas. The rather eccentric first-generation Lithuanian-American wants to buy the farm, because of a supposed sentimental attachment. It turns out the farm was built on land confiscated from his parents.

Frankly, you might expect Bernardas would more likely harbor feelings of bitterness towards the farm, but beggars can’t be choosers. Indeed, as soon as he takes possession of the farm, he starts to act suspiciously disinterested. Irena could better understand the situation if she talked with the village priest more, but she still bitterly clings to her abrasive Communist-era atheism.

Bernardas has been widely interpreted as a Trump surrogate, which in fact, feels like a fair reading. (Yet, the expat is arguably a more complex character than his pseudo-analog.) However, there is more to the film than a deadpan skewering of capitalism. As the title suggests, there is also a level of Christian allegory that pays off much more profoundly (and for the record, there is not much nostalgia for Communism, either).

In terms of aesthetics and ideology, Miracle often suggests a kinship with the work of Swedish Marxist Ray Andersson, but it is dramatically more humanistic. The bold manner it addresses the mysteries of faith and suffering also calls to mind The Temptation of St. Tony from Estonia and Letters to Father Jacob from Finland. Arguably, the film challenges viewers to replace their false gods with the real one. Of course, it is not easy, but neither is pig farming.

Egle Mikulionyte does indeed resemble the sort of severely reserved character found in the films of Aki Kaurismäki, or Heaven forfend, the uber-dry Andersson, but she also projects a keen sense of Irena’s closely guarded pain and insecurities. Ultimately, she is an acutely human and heroically dignified figure. Vyto Ruginis plays Bernardis as more than a bit of a blowhard, but he too is messily human and deeply sad. Yet, Daniel Olbrychski steals the show with understatement as the simple, patient priest.

So yes, watching Miracle requires a little faith. It pays off considerably, but it takes the long, indirect route to get there. Recommended for sophisticated viewers, Miracle screens tomorrow (5/5) during Panorama Europe, at MoMI.

Panorama Europe ’18: Case for the New Hangman

Prague was the home of Franz Kafka, but the old Communist regime was never really sure what to make of him. Apparently, they were even less enthusiastic about Jonathan Swift, judging from the lifetime filmmaking ban they imposed on Pavel Juracek after they got a load of his Kafka-influenced dystopian riff on Gulliver’s Travels. Of course, there is no better recommendation for a film than the crude use of censorial force. Poor Lemuel Gulliver is in for quite an excursion down the rabbit hole in Juracek’s freshly restored Case for the New Hangman, which screens during this year’s Panorama Europe at MoMI.

There is a lot going on in New Hangman, but it is hard to really pin down the plot. Frankly, that is far too prosaic a concept for this Gulliver’s misadventures. After his car breaks down, largely out of its own subversive willfulness, Gulliver is welcomed to Balnibarbi by some ghosts from his past. Once he breaks out of his own personal Hell, he quickly runs afoul of the local authorities by talking on a Monday, their designated silent day of the week.

He will sort of acclimate to dubious laws sets forth by the scientific society, at least for a short while. However, his guileless will lead to trouble. Indeed, his invitation to the cloud city of Laputa will be rather timely, arriving right before his appointment with the titular hangman. However, their interest in him stems from the vain hope he might have encountered their prodigal king, now working as a bellhop at the Monte Carlo Carlton Hotel, during his stay there. Or something like that.

In any event, it is easy to see why the socialist censors took one look at New Hangman and said “oh, Hell no.” It is not a strong one-to-one allegory, but it is clear as day every authority figure in the film is cruel, arbitrary, corrupt, unstable, and looney as a jaybird. Plus, it is just light years removed from the official sanctioned style of socialist realism. You will not find any rough-hewn but dignified laborers digging down deep to make their production quotas and hasten the building of socialism here.

Visually, New Hangman is wonderfully baroque and trippy. Balnibarbi is a cluttered place, but the sets and settings are often quite imposing. It certainly looks like Juracek was processing influences from caricaturists like Honoré Daumier and J.J. Grandville, as well as the films of Wojcieh, particularly The Hourglass Sanitorium. Lubomir Kostelka also rises to the occasion. As Gulliver, he looks like a composite of Graham Chapman and Roman Polanski and acts like a much less passive everyman than we might expect. He is often believably freaked out by it all, but he can also lose his patience and his cool.

The work of cinematographer Jan Kalis and the entire design team is always strikingly cinematic. Juracek also nimbly walks a tightrope, keeping the audience baffled and somewhat unnerved, without ever truly menacing them or leaving them unmoored in a surrealist maelstrom. Even if you are not sure what New Hangman all adds up to (which is highly likely), it is a rewarding film to parse, ponder, and generally try to impose meaning on. It should be seen on a big screen, like movies were meant to be seen, so real cineastes should definitely make an effort to see it when Case for a New Hangman screens this Saturday (5/5) during the 2018 Panorama Europe, at MoMI.

Panorama Europe ’18: The End of Fear

Barnett Newman is not the most famous American Abstract Expressionist, but his work was targeted in one of the most notorious cases of art vandalism. Essentially, his large color field painting Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue III was twice a victim, once when it was slashed while on display in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and again when it was irrevocably butchered (or so experts say, on-camera) by the very man hired to restore it. The case of the much-abused canvas gets an ironic docu-essay treatment in Barbara Visser’s The End of Fear (trailer here), the opening night film of this year’s Panorama Europe at MoMI.

Newman’s work is a lot like Ellsworth Kelly, but there were many different subtle shades of red in the painting in question. Maybe that was rewarding to contemplate, or maybe it was just pretentious hype, but we will never know, because Daniel Goldreyer’s restoration completely ruined the effect. According to the film, he already had a somewhat questionable reputation for a similarly controversial Mondrian restoration, but the film declines to mention his mysterious involvement with a Roy Lichtenstein painting that went missing after the owner sent it to Goldreyer for a cleaning in 1970 and then suspiciously turned up at a Colombian gallery on consignment for his widow, several years after his death.

Unfortunately for the Stedelijk, Goldreyer bullied and fast-talked museum director Wim Beeren into approving his restoration, as we can hear from surviving phone messages. Alas, that left the Museum in a decidedly disadvantageous legal position.

There will be further ironies compounding in this bizarre tale, so it easily could have sustained a more conventional documentary. However, Visser adds various meta elements, including a contemporary painter recreating Who’s Afraid III from scratch, but nobody seems to understand the point to all that once its finished. Her talking head segments are also unusually thoughtful and reflective, which certainly not a bad thing.

Frankly, this is a terribly sad incident that impoverished human culture through the loss of the Newman painting and the city of Amsterdam, to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars misspent on a faulty restoration. As a work of cinema, it would have much more effective if it had just been a little more grounded, but it still shines a light on a fascinating historical episode. Recommended overall, The End of Fear screens Friday night (5/4) at MoMI, kicking off this year’s Panorama Europe.