Rotterdam review

Geoff Andrew catches new work from Isabelle Huppert, Michel Piccoli and Tony Marchant.

Feb  8 2007

Famed for the determinedly international eclecticism of its left-field programme, the Rotterdam Film Festival this year again impressed with its sheer diversity. The feature films ranged from allusive whimsy such as the Argentine silent movie pastiche 'The Antenna' and the clunkily absurdist 'Death Prestige' by French critic-turned-cult favourite Luc Moullet to portentous Italian melodramas such as 'Cover Boy' and 'The End of the Sea'. On top of these, there were poetic documentaries such as the Tyrol-set 'Bellavista' and Ariane Michel's visually resplendent polar diary 'Les Hommes') and multi-character dramas that were soapy (Iceland's 'Parents') or soporific (Japan's 'Strawberry Shortcakes').

Politics made itself felt in many of these, and Iraq was the focus both for the Kurdish 'Crossing the Dust' and Britain's 'The Mark of Cain'. First-time director of the former, Shawkat Amin Korki, deserves praise for getting his movie made. But the essential naivety of its tale of two Kurdish soldiers squabbling over what to do with a lost Arab boy named Saddam at the time of Hussein's initial downfall is a liability only partly lightened by laughs afforded by spectacularly odd English subtitles ('Invert the food!').

Marc Munden's film, however, is very powerful: a Loachian realist drama charting events leading to the appalling abuse, by British soldiers, of Iraqis suspected of terrorism – and, of course, to a cover-up. A fiction inspired by interviews with soldiers returning from Basra, the film is both impassioned and plausible, thanks to strong performances and a deft script by Tony Marchant that avoids sermonising.

One common theme was the trials and tribulations of young people. Hirosue Hiromasa's 'Fourteen' focused – realistically but without much insight – on both sexes, but Malaysia's 'Love Conquers All', Brazil's 'Antonia', France's 'On Fire' and Germany's 'The Unpolished' were all centred on – and directed by – women. The first two are admittedly minor, and while Claire Simon's 'Ça Brûle' – a study of a 15-year-old obsessing over a married fireman who attended to her when she fell off her horse – has its moments, it is also overlong and, towards the end, implausible. But Pia Marais' first feature, 'August Und Alles Danach', shows great promise: a 14-year-old strives to attain a stable, respectable life totally at odds with the nomadic,
marginal existence of her dealer dad and deeply dependent mum.

Unsurprisingly, given their subject matter, few of the aforementioned titles are comic. The Flemish 'Ex Drummer' – a boldly directed, but exceedingly politically incorrect, bad-taste tale of an arrogant writer slumming it with a metal band featuring 'handicapped' sleazoids – does have a few pleasingly funny moments. Most deliciously amusing, however, was 'Belle Toujours', a belated follow-up to Buñuel's classic 'Belle de Jour' by Portugal’s 98-year-old Manoel de Oliveira. Michel Piccoli returns as Husson, who glimpses the still striking Séverine (Bulle Ogier replacing Deneuve) at a concert, and tracks her down. After 40 years, however, it takes a while to persuade her to dine with him. The meal is a jewel of comic invention, the actors expressing a gamut of emotions with scant recourse to words, though Piccoli's performance makes the entire film a superbly droll meditation on memory, morality and desire.

But Rotterdam's highlight (apart from the 'Dormitorium' exhibition by the Brothers Quay) was 'Private Property', the third feature from Belgium's Joachim Lafosse. Isabelle Huppert gives a brave performance as the divorcee mother whose desire to sell the family home and start a new relationship provokes anger and
dismay in her twentysomething twins (Jérémie Renier, a favourite of the Dardennes, and his brother Yannick). Using long takes, spasms of humour, authentically cruel dialogue and top-grade acting all round, Lafosse has created a work of great complexity and emotional sway. Let's hope it finds a UK distributor.

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