Ahed's Knee (2021) NYFF 2021

A couple of years ago Nadav Lapid had his film SYNONYMS at the New York Film Festival.  The reaction to the film was to confound the people I spoke with. Some people loved it and other people hated it. The film was the subject for discussion for  a while before it kind of disappeared. This year Lapid returns with AHED's KNEE and  it is in some ways even more frustrating.

The film follows a director  who takes time from a personal project about a Palestinian protester he is working on to screen one of his films in a small desert community. He hangs out with a friend and the Deputy Director of the Ministry of Culture for Libraries who arranged the screening. But life is crashing in on him with issues with his mother and a requirement to sign a document that his film is really about a safe subject and agreeing not to talk abut proscribed topics.

I m absolutely torn about this film. The central thread of the director trying to come to terms with life and the state of Israel is absolutely brilliant. I loved the discussions and the characters. Frankly is it wasn't for the things I will get to in a moment I would consider this one of the best films of the year. However as good as most of this film is Lapid does some incredibly bad things that make me want to lock him in a closet.

The problems with the film begin with the frequent use of a camera style that shifts in and out of POV with in a single shot. We'll be looking at  something and then the camera whips away to look at something else and whips back and then away and on and on. I know it's suppose to make the film feel subjective, but it never works. The camera movement is never close to hw some one looks. The movements feel like they are being made by a camera on rig.

Lapid also has these moments of fancy that mostly don't work. The shift to a night time city street while walking in the desert is fine and works in context but something like the dance bit to Lovely Day is what the f.... At other times the camera does these weird gyration that make no sense, such as when it stops and starts while our hero is walking in the desert and actually bumps into the stopped camera man. Its a show bit that makes zero sense.

Lapid's use of knowing humor isn't always on target. Things occasionally spin out for a humorous moment that really shouldn't be there. 

I don't know if Lapid is behind it but I am wondering why about a half an hour in there is a song in Hebrew that isn't subtitled. Its clear that it is suppose to mean something but the print I saw it wasn't subtitled in English so any meaning is lost.

Honestly Lapid has some interesting things to say but he undercuts all of them because he insists on making us aware of  his hand. The result is that by the time the film ends and there should be an emotion catharsis we feel manipulated  and disconnected to what we are seeing. We see the manipulation more than we feel the emotional truth.

I have no idea if I should recommend this because I don't know what I feel about it.

The Devil's Drivers (2021) Toronto 2021

Israel is in the process of building walls to seal up their borders with Palestinian lands. They do not want to allow free access between the two areas. However many Palestinians can not survive on the money they can make near home and have to make risky border crossings in order to get into Israel in order to make a living wage. Since Israel will not give them papers they trust themselves to people like Hamouda and his cousin Ismail who drive modified cars across the desert hoping to avoid patrols of soldiers looking to stop them.

Up close and personal tale of the men who drive for a living and the people who use their services to go back and forth. It’s a film full of crazy tension and heartbreak as we ride along on mad dashes and  see the cost of what a divided economy has done to the poor. It makes you think about the economies of both Israel and Palestine since its clear Israel can't function without the people its trying to keep out (much like the US and other countries)

I’m not going to say this is a perfect film, it’s not, but it’s a raw and real and it has gut punch of real life.  Hell the driving sequences are jagged as they come but at the same time they are more exciting than the CGI crap we get in Hollywood blockbusters. We feel for the men and their families because what we are seeing is not perfectly edited for perfect emotion, but rather everything is assembled to make it feel like we are with the people on screen. The fact that they are aware of the camera but ultimate oblivious to it, they really open themselves up to us, adds a depth of emotion you don’t usually see in films of any sort.

Honestly I haven’t been this excited by chases in film in a long time.

Recommended

ATTICA (2021) TIFF 2021

While there were a number of films premiering at Toronto this year the one film I wanted to see the most was the documentary ATTICA about the infamous riot that happened fifty years ago and still is reverberating through society. It is a tale that I don't think most people full grasp any more. Using the first person testimony of the prisoners, the observers and some of the National Guard, the film puts us into the prison when it all went to hell

A big note about the film, it is not focused on either the run up to or what happened after the riot. ATTICA is simply focused on the riot itself, pausing to explain things like how all the guards were white and came from generations of prison guards, as needed. I mention this because there was a point where I was curious when they were going to give some background on what happened.

Despite this ATTICA kicks serious ass. This is a film that lays out hat happened in great detail. Because so much of it was filmed and photographed we get to see how it all went down. More importantly in the end we get to see the and truly understand the carnage and hell the guards rained down on every one in the prison yard. I was  horrified.

My horror at what the film shows comes from my doing a paper on the uprising when I was in college about ten years after the fact. I was stuck using the books and periodicals I could get from the school library. I didn't have access to the images of the rivers of  blood, the footage of the prisoners being forced to crawl through the latrines or of the shot up bodies of the guards victims. I never fully understood the full level of evil visited on the prisoners.

This film is a masterpiece. Its a brilliant explanation of what happened over five days in 1971. I only wish that the film might have put things into context of what it all meant and how the uprising changed many things. Still as a recounting of what happened this film can't be beat.

Highly recommended.

The Other Tom (2021) Venice 2021 Toronto 2021

 

THE OTHER TOM is a kick in the ass. 

The film is the story of Elena, a young mother who  is having trouble with her son. He is diagnosed with ADHD and is promptly put on meds. However the meds make the boy into a zombie and a mere shadow of his former self. Elena wants to get him off the drugs but the move to do so brings her into a battle with the authorities who want  “what’s best for the boy”. But is it really best?

In an age when everyone is on meds there aren’t many films discussing what all of the pills that are supposed to make us better are really doing to us. No one is really discussing how the pills are changing us. This is really the first time I've seen anyone mention it in anything more than a passing reference. The fact that this film deals with the side effects is really important. 

In the decade before my mother passed away she was on a weird cocktail of medicines that were supposed to keep her alive. All of them had the side effect of depression and suicidal thoughts. They turned my Mom into a depressed zombie who slept all day. When my mom talked to her doctor about the effect, the doctor prescribed an antidepressant with side effect of suicidal thoughts.  They never could get the mix right and the only way my mom could ever feel normal was not to take anything.

I was delighted to see a film that focused on the battle I saw waged on a daily basis. I love that someone finally has stepped up and brought the battle to the attention of a large audience.

But don't let me over sell that one aspect,  there is more to the film than that. It is a really good look at a single mom trying to take care of her son. It’s a film that seems to be digging at what its like to be the single parent more than many recent films. Things are not glossed over and I love that because it forces us to consider what it is showing us and not just move on to the next thing.

A lot of praise for this working needs to go to the great cast especially, Julia Chavez as Elena who gives us a character we can relate to and root for. They sell it all and seem to be living the story instead of just enacting it.

This is a super little film and is highly recommended when it plays in Venice and Toronto.

Together (2021) Toronto 2021

 

A young woman is joined in a seaside hotel by a man from the internet with the intention of committing suicide together.

This solid little short film is based on what the film says is a growing Korean trend of people making suicide pacts on the internet. It’s a beautifully acted film that raises all sorts of questions as it makes our expectations go sideways.  I didn’t expect this to go as it did and was absolutely pleasantly surprised. This film is a prime example of why the length of a film doesn't matter so long as it moves the viewer. This film moves you more than most features you'll run across.

Making its world premiere as part of the shorts program at Toronto it is highly recommended.