SDFF ’14: Where the Road Runs Out

Equatorial Guinea is the only African country whose official language is Spanish. However, it still will not be able to submit the first feature film produced entirely within the country for foreign language Academy Award consideration, because the overwhelming majority of its dialogue is in English. Still, the Equatorial Guineans can work towards other milestones, like improving its rankings on Freedom House’s index of civic rights and Reporters Without Borders’ measure of press freedoms. Political realities are scrupulously ignored, but the country’s desperate poverty offers a handy path to redemption in Rudolf Buitendach’s Where the Road Runs Out (trailer here), which screens during the 2014 San Diego Film Festival.

George Mensah is one of the world’s foremost experts on crop fertility, but the Rotterdam-based scientist is stuck in a boozy rut. When his old do-gooder friend Cheese finally dies from his enlarged heart (nobody can miss that symbolism), he heads to Equatorial Guinea to take stock of the research station and orphanage he thought he had helped underwrite. However, when he reaches the remote community, he finds ramshackle buildings instead of the state-of-the-art facilities he expected. Their mutual friend Martin may have some explaining to do.

Nevertheless, “Mr. George” reluctantly gets involved with Jimmy, an annoyingly heartwarming orphan, given a leg brace for extra added heart-string pulling. He also haltingly courts Corina, the orphanage’s headmistress. She is not a nun, but she had more or less resolved to live that way, until Mensah turned up.

Isaach De Bankolé (recognizable from many Jim Jarmusch and Claire Denis films) is a powerful screen actor, who ought to get more opportunities as a leading man (he happens to be married to Cassandra Wilson, so at least he gets to hear a lot of great music). Despite some slapsticky moments, he maintains his presence and dignity as Mensah, but this will not be the film he shall be remembered for.

Frankly, Juliet Landau and Stelio Savante provide decent support as Corina and Martin, respectively. However, there is way too much precociousness going on for safe adult consumption. There is a rule here against singling out young actors for criticism, so let’s just leave it at that.

There are some perfectly nice sentiments in Road, but its manipulations are not exactly subtle. Cinematographer Kees Van Oostrum makes the countryside sparkle, but the day to day realities of Equatorial Guinea are actually quite grim for those who are not connected with the government. It is a conspicuous blind spot that makes it hard to give the film the love it so obviously craves. Only for diehard Bankolé fans who do not mind some easy sentimentality, Where the Road Runs Out screens again this afternoon at the SDFF and will next play the Heartland Film Festival on October 18^th, 20^th, 24^th, and 25^th.

SDFF ’14: Touching the Sound—the Improbable Journey of Nobuyuki Tsujii

Blind since birth, Japanese classical pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii’s admirers even included the late great Van Cliburn, who heard the young musician during the international competition that bears his name. It is therefore probably safe to conclude Tsujii acquitted himself quite well in Fort Worth. Viewers will follow his progress round-by-round and even more importantly watch Tsujii give back to the survivors of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Peter Rosen’s Touching the Sound: the Improbable Journey of Nobuyuki Tsujii (trailer here), which screens today during the 2014 San Diego Film Festival.

We often hear how other senses compensate for lack of sight among the blind. In Tsujii’s case, he developed a Mozart-level musical talent, at an astonishingly young age. It is not just his ear and his mechanics that impress, but also his remarkable memory for long passages of music. Clearly, he was born to play the piano—a fact his supportive mother quickly recognized.

Indeed, Tsujii’s mother is a central and edifying figure in his story. However, it is worth noting the extent to which his fellow students also accepted Tsujii, despite his differences. In fact, Rosen shrewdly recognizes one of the pivotal stories of his early career revolves around his mother’s decision to allow him to attend a class camping trip, rather than force him to practice slavishly for an important competition.

Not surprisingly, Rosen’s nicely constructed and surprisingly intimate documentary has absolutely nothing bad to say about Tsujii. At only twenty-four, he has not had much time to do anything scandalous, especially while living the life of an international prodigy. Perhaps the film’s greatest drama involves the Chopin and Cliburn competitions, but the most emotionally resonant sequences capture his special concerts for tsunami survivors. The healing and rebuilding are far from complete, yet in films like Touching we get a sense of the dignity and resiliency of the Japanese people. Nations that have endured far less have demanded far more, considerably less graciously.

Of course, Rosen also documents the fact Tsujii sure can play. Altogether, he is quite a nice young chap, who is particularly gifted expressing the lyrical beauty of his instrument. Definitely worth spending time with, Touching the Sound screens this today (9/27) as part of this year’s San Diego Film Festival.

SDFF ’14: A Love Story, Lindenfeld

There are not a lot of Deutsch speaking ethnic Germans left in Romania. The Communists saw to that. Ulli Winkler was fortunate to escape when he could. Decades later, he will return to the ghost town here he once lived, searching for the love of his life in Radu Gabrea’s A Love Story, Lindenfeld (trailer here), which screens during the 2014 San Diego Film Festival.

Germany was good to Winkler, or “the Chairman” as most of his employees know him. He even adopted a son, but he never married. The memory of his intended Helga Kerber simply remained too strong. When the Soviets came to ethnically cleanse Romania’s Banat region, they swept up Kerber in their net, but they missed Winkler through a twist of fate. However, a 2005 television report on the presumably abandoned town of Lindenfeld spurs a flood of memories. Through serendipity, Winkler soon receives reports his beloved Kerber is still alive. With his health and faculties slowly but steadily declining, Winkler instructs his loyal servant-protector Boris take him back to Lindenfeld (a relatively manageable drive in today’s borderless Europe).

Lindenfeld is an unabashedly and achingly old fashioned film, it the best way possible. There is no unfinished business like first love—and Gabrea takes care of business quite well. The constant strains of Pachelbel’s Canon are admittedly a bit of a cliché, but the recordings featured on the soundtrack are unusually lush and pretty. Even if the audience resists, it does what it is supposed to do.

Victor Rebengiuc and Victoria Cociaş play the senior Winkler and Kerber with wonderfully wise maturity. There are no theatrics, thank you very much, but their ardor feels very real. Yet, the subtlest work might come from Alexandru Georgescu as the poker-faced but stout hearted Boris, with the sort of performance that stealthily sneaks up on viewers.

Based on a popular Romanian novel, Lindenfeld dramatizes one of the first tragic manifestations of the Soviet oppression in Eastern Europe and its lingering repercussions. It is a perfect story for Gabrea, who really ought to be more widely celebrated on the international festival circuit. However, his choice of subject matter, such as the National Socialist occupation, the Communist experience, and Yiddish culture (see films like Gruber’s Journey, Red Gloves, and Goldfaden’s Legacy) are apt to make European cultural arbiters rather uncomfortable. Throughout Lindenfeld he helms with a delicate touch and a forgiving allowance of human fallibility. Highly recommended, A Love Story, Lindenfeld screens this Saturday (9/27) as part of this year’s San Diego Film Festival.

SDFF ’14: Miriam (short)

She is not one of those sugar-and-spice girls. In fact, she is a rather pushy kid. She might even be more than that, but it is hard to tell for sure during the course of Esther Hegarty’s short film adaption of Truman Capote’s story Miriam (trailer here), which screens during the 2014 San Diego Film Festival.

Miriam Miller is rather taken aback when a precocious young girl approaches her in a cinema. It seems the deceptively innocent lass claimed the widowed Miller as adult companion to gain entry to the film. They also happen to be namesakes—a fact that little interests the younger Miriam. The elderly woman probably would have forgotten the encounter had the girl not turned up at her flat later that evening. Miller is justifiably put off by Miriam’s unexpected presence, but she is alarmingly difficult to keep out and even harder to eject.

Representing Capote’s gothic impulses (transplanted to the UK), Miriam will comes as a bit of a surprise to fans of Breakfast at Tiffany’s (although the novel is considerably darker than the film), but it is not exactly In Cold Blood either. In fact, Hegarty’s screen treatment is particularly effective, because it keeps viewers uncertain whether they are watching an outright horror film or simply a rather dark drama of human frailty.

Karen Lewis (daughter-in-law of the late great Richard Attenborough) is terrific as the increasingly panicked Mrs. Miller, vividly conveying her effort to maintain her proper British composure. Young Annabel Parsons is certainly creepy as her unwelcome guest. In his final screen appearance, Harry Potter alumnus Roger Lloyd Pack is also quite ominous, in a distinguished kind of way, as the mysterious old man.

At about half the length of a Twilight Zone episode, Miriam nicely demonstrates the virtues of ambiguity and Hegarty’s command of mood and atmosphere. It would be a great candidate for one of Shorts Interntional’s theatrical packages. Recommended for fans of short films, Truman Capote, and sinister cinema broadly defined, Miriam screens this Saturday (9/27) and Sunday (9/28) as part of The Twist shorts programming block at this year’s SDFF.