AFI FEST 2009: PRECIOUS, THE WHITE RIBBON, AJAMI
Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire by Lee Daniels (top); The White Ribbon by Michael Haneke (middle); Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Filippo Timi in Vincere by Marco Bellocchio (bottom)
Among the Sunday, Nov. 1, highlights at the AFI FEST 2009 at the Chinese Theater complex in Hollywood are:
- Lu Chuan’s historical drama City of Life and Death, winner of the Golden Shell for best picture at the San Sebastian Film Festival
- Claude Chabrol’s psychological mystery-drama Bellamy, his first collaboration with Gérard Depardieu
- Lee Daniels‘ Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire, a strong possibility for the Oscar 2010 best picture shortlist and the Sundance 2009 US Narrative Jury Prize winner
- Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or winner and potential Oscar 2010 contender The White Ribbon, which has been receiving enthusiastic acclaim
- Marco Bellocchio’s Vincere, which earned stars Filippo Timi and Giovanna Mezzogiorno best actor/actress trophies at the Chicago Film Festival
- Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani’s Ajami, winner of the Israeli Academy’s best film award
Schedule and synopses from the AFI FEST website:
Bellamy
Mann Chinese Theater 1 – 1:00 p.m.
Inspired by novelist Georges Simenon’s beloved Jules Maigret character, master French New Wave director Claude Chabrol has his first collaboration with Gérard Depardieu. In the film, police investigator Bellamy (Depardieu, in one of his finest roles) is on holiday with his loving wife Françoise (Marie Bunel), who may or may not have stumbled onto a murder mystery case. The reluctant yet curious Bellamy can’t resist investigating Noel Gentil (Jacques Gamblin), who claims to have “sort of” killed a man for an insurance scam, just as he can’t help but be infuriated by the sudden arrival of his alcoholic, gambling mess of a half-brother, Jacques (Clovis Cornillac). As usual, Chabrol is less interested in the whodunit as in exploring his characters’ hypocrisies and motivations, and—as a W.H. Auden poem at the end of the film reminds us—appearances that deceive. Though posing as a crime thriller, Chabrol’s film is actually a sharp-witted study of unresolved familial jealousy and anger. –Rose Kuo
City of Life and Death
Mann Chinese Theater 6 – 1:00 p.m.
Lu Chuan’s essential epic, exquisitely photographed in black and white by Cao Yu, recreates the atrocities committed by the Japanese army during its occupation of Nanking in December 1937. Lu begins with a ferocious battle sequence, with the last Chinese soldiers desperately attempting to hold back the invaders, then tells the story of a small group of Westerners and Chinese who engage in desperate but ultimately hopeless negotiations with the Japanese to limit the suffering of the civilian population. Then begins the Nanking Massacre—or the Rape of Nanking—a six-week period when 300,000 civilians were murdered and countless females violated. Lu’s focus on characters enriches the film: a Nazi official’s secretary betrays those he is charged with protecting in a futile attempt to save his family; and a Japanese soldier, anguished by the deeds of his comrades, participates anyway. War crimes, we are reminded, are not the work of demons, but of ordinary human beings during extraordinary times. –Rose Kuo
Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
Graumann’s Chinese Theater – 7:00 p.m.
Set in Harlem, this vibrant, honest and resoundingly hopeful film follows the story of Clareece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), a 16-year-old African-American girl born into a life no one would want. Pregnant for the second time by her absent father, she waits hand and foot on her poisonously angry, abusive mother (Mo’Nique). School is cruel and chaotic, and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and an awful secret: she can neither read nor write. Though sometimes down, Precious is never out. Beneath her impassive expression is a watchful, curious young woman with an inchoate but unshakable sense that other possibilities exist for her. Could a transfer to an alternative school be the chance she has been waiting for? Winner of three awards at Sundance, the audience award at Toronto and an official selection at Cannes, director Lee Daniels takes us on a journey from darkness, pain and powerlessness to light, love and self-determination.
The White Ribbon
Mann Chinese Theater 1 – 7:00 p.m.
After the gleaming contemporary surfaces of CACHE and THE PIANO TEACHER, Michael Haneke turns his caustic eye on an obscure German farming village just before World War I. The population operates on the same notions of class, hierarchy and morality that have reigned for a thousand years, until sudden mysterious acts of cruelty and violence occur. The town’s pastor, baron and doctor do their best to adjust, but, like increasingly desperate heroes in a Kafka story, are too embedded in the status quo to stem the tide. Inexorably, the poison seeps into the fabric of everyday life, foreshadowing the horrific catastrophes that soon will redefine German identity. Haneke’s tale, winner of the Palme d’Or and two other Cannes awards, is considerably deeper than the typical morally superior condemnation of evil Germans. The scenes of carriage rides, church dances, family dinners and courting rituals provide a heartbreaking lyricism, mourning a world vanishing before our eyes. –Larry Gross
Vincere
Mann Chinese Theater 6 – 7:15 p.m.
Once considered a filmmaker whose best works (FISTS IN THE POCKET, CHINA IS NEAR) were in the past, Marco Bellocchio has been on a roll during the past six years. But even triumphs including GOOD MORNING, NIGHT, MY MOTHER’S SMILE and THE WEDDING DIRECTOR hardly prepare viewers for the stunning theatricality and sheer audacity of this operatic study of the rise and fall of Benito Mussolini (Filippo Timi), told through the eyes of his tragic mistress Ida Dalser (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) and their son. From the moment young Mussolini the Socialist (!) appears on screen, daring God to strike him dead, the film announces itself as a biopic of rare bravery, paralleling Mussolini’s political opportunism with his private life, disposing of unwanted family with the same ease as he does his enemies. Too often depicted in the movies as Hitler’s clown prince, this Mussolini—brought to life through Bellocchio’s inventive use of newsreel footage—emerges as a full-blown monster. –Robert Koehler
Ajami
Mann Chinese Theater 6 – 10:30 p.m.
It is difficult to find metaphors that capture the complex essence of the greater Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or of Israel’s internal Jewish-Arab clash. The impasse seems existential in nature. This is why, of the many films about the situation, Scandar Copti’s and Yaron Shani’s AJAMI is so remarkable. This muscular, intensely realistic depiction of urban battles on the streets of Ajami, a city marbled with cultural and religious divisions, echoes the larger regional tensions. The story follows a moment of bloodletting that sends ripples through a rainbow of characters, and the film marks a notable development in Israeli cinema, with documentary and fiction meshing (co-directors Copti (a Palestinian) and Shani (an Israeli) cast from a pool of local amateurs). Their dizzying, time-shifting narrative creates a destabilizing atmosphere that’s both literary and somehow precisely apt for a world of sustained, macho-fueled chaos. –Robert Koehler
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Tags: AFI FEST, AFI FEST 2009, Ajami, Bellamy, City of Life and Death, Film Festivals, Gabourey Sidibe, Gérard Depardieu, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Lee Daniels, Los Angeles Screenings, Marco Bellocchio, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, The White Ribbon, Vincere
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