Beauty in Trouble: The Way They Live Now


Beauty in Trouble
Czech Republic, 2006
Directed by Jan Hrebejk

Beauty in Trouble is directed by Jan Hrebejk, who was responsible for the Foreign Language Academy Award nominated Divided We Fall from 2001. He is, it has to be said, a director who now makes more commercial oriented films that are a progressive departure from the tradition of directors (himself included) who emerged from the Velvet Revolution in the 1990s; a contemporary generation influenced by the prevailing spirit of the Czech New Wave in the 1960s. Beauty in Trouble is inspired by a Robert Graves poem updated to the present to tell the story of one woman caught between the affections of two men.

Regards the Czech way of life, time inexorably moves on and in the 21st Century there are more domestic issues to deal with than political ones. However, the state of the world and the way we live now is not only alluded to at the very beginning of the film, but is to cause the personal upheavals that lie ahead. The year is 2002. There has been a major flood in Prague that is threatening to devastate much of this historic city. Fortunately, no historic places were damaged though many important archives were lost and as most of the flooding was in the suburbs, many families suffered.

At the beginning of the film Marcela, a not so happily married young mother of two children, is watching the floods on Television from the safety of the spartan flat next door to her husband’s place of work. The floods were to cause her to lose her home, just like many others. The film subsequently revolves around Marcela’s many relationships – her husband, two children, her mother, her step-father and her mother-in-law. Into this world steps an older and wealthy Italian businessman called Evzen who inadvertently meets Marcela after her husband Jarda is tracked down after stealing his car for his illicit garage business. Instantly smitten by her beauty and earthy nature, Evzen offers to take care of Marcela and her children, with the option of a more secure life.

The many fine aspects of the film benefit from the development of the central and supporting characters and Beauty in Trouble touches a nerve on personal values in the modern world, in this case an under-privileged Czech family. It also injects humour into what otherwise would be typically realistic social situations. Marcela’s mother is mentally unstable and insists on giving what little money she has to a confidence trickster. The most entertaining character is Marcela’s mother’s common-law husband, also known as Uncle Richie. His playful taunting of Marcela’s children and everyone else, including himself, is entertaining and something of a throwback to stock characters from the Czech films of yesteryear.

Beauty in Trouble has deservedly won awards, most notably a Special Jury Prize at Karlovy Vary and Best European Film in Denver. In its own country, the leading and supporting actors have also been ceremoniously recognised. Still, it was not so surprising to find that the film, initially, only had an official release in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. However, following a year of playing in festivals, it has just been distributed in Poland and it will be interesting to see how it is received elsewhere.

Day Night Day Night: The Enemy Within


Day Night Day Night is Julia Loktev’s first fictional film after beginning her career making documentaries. However, the film very much retains a documentary atmosphere and the subject matter couldn’t be more controversial, particularly considering the city in which it is set. A 19-year-old girl is preparing to become a suicide bomber in New York’s Times Square. We do not know her motivation and who she represents, only that she is fully committed to carrying out this deed.

At the very beginning of the film we are brought instantly to New York and the day of reckoning. The nameless young woman is travelling by subway to the centre of the city and a date with destiny. We know nothing of her background, not even her name. She speaks (rarely) with no particular accent and it’s hard to pinpoint her ethnicity. She could be mixed-race. She is whispering to herself almost as if in a trance. The message seems to be meant for some divine authority and serves as a declaration of commitment. From this poignant moment we are taken back to the days immediately preceding her mission.

An unnamed terrorist group has recruited the girl as a volunteer. We don’t see them as they have their faces covered, so are anonymous even to the girl, suspecting perhaps that she may be working undercover. From here begins some diligent preparation for her mission. In the post-9/11 world, most New Yorkers are reassured their city is practically the safest in the world, even if that means much paranoia and the inevitable infringement of civil liberties. The truth is that ‘sleepers’ such as these could still get through the security and create mayhem that would have a catastrophic effect and throw the world into panic again concerning the safety of civilians. The film tends to stand back from any judgement of what is taking place, depicting the precariousness of everything instead.

The director was born in St. Petersburg but grew up in New York, graduating from the University there. No stranger to facing the harrowing side of life head-on, Loktev’s award-winning film follows a documentary made some years earlier called Moment of Impact which dealt with the aftermath of her father’s debilitating car accident. Her other work has included audio and video installations. After winning Director’s Fortnight in Cannes in 2006, the film has only been seen at a handful of festivals and distributed in Belgium and France with a limited release in the US. This is a pity and is another example of a film that does so well at a high profile festival only to become elusive afterwards.

Lead actress Luisa Williams was working as a nanny when she auditioned for the film after seeing a flyer for open casting calls on the boardwalk in Coney Island. On the set, she was referred to as ‘Sunshine’, something that contrasts greatly to the ultimate intentions of her character.

The Island of Redemption


The Island (Ostrov)
Russia, 2006
Directed by Pavel Semyonovich Lungin

The Island (Ostrov, 2006) is an award-winning film by the renowned Russian director Pavel Semyonovich Lungin which, perhaps, hasn’t yet achieved the full recognition that it deserves. The film begins in 1942 in a remote part of Russia where a sailor, Anatoly (Pyotr Mamonov) and his captain, Tikhon are captured by the Nazis as they board their barge and tugboat which is shipping coal. The Nazi officer leading the raid offers Anatoly the perverse choice of shooting Tikhon to stay alive, which Anatoly reluctantly takes and Tikhon falls overboard. Though the Nazis blow up the ship, Anatoly is found by monks the next morning. They take him to an island where he subsequently becomes a stoker at the monastery, but he is overcome with guilt.

During his subsequent life on the island, Father Anatoly has carried on his back the hardest of sins; the sin of betrayal and the sin of cowardice. The belief that he has murdered his captain in order to gamble with saving his own life is something that has scarred his soul. No matter how much he wishes for it, death doesn't come. Thirty years later, Anatoly now has the gift of clairvoyance and healing, with many people coming to him for cures and guidance, but he remains in a perpetual state of repentance over Tikhon. A prominent admiral arrives with his daughter to see Anatoly. The daughter is possessed by demons but Anatoly attempts to exorcise them. The admiral is someone from Anatoly’s past….

Through the main character of father Anatoly, director Pavel Lungin, has magically succeeded in reflecting the whole universe as the controversial character comes to symbolise life and death on many levels. Anatoly reaches, in its cruellest way, the worst in life and the best in death. Life and its contradictions, the life in which sense often can not be found, is none the less the place where we belong and where peace will only come if in death you have succeeded in clearing the hardships that you carry within yourself.

Lungin’s portrayal of this small religious island community is directed with a dramatic sense of atmosphere in location and characterisation. The people that come to Anatoly for help, who are also fighting prejudices and disbeliefs, are welcomed by the beautiful landscape of the island. The sea and the expansion are very cold but full of life as well, with the people at one with nature, beautiful in their peace and expectation, overcoming fear with the strength to accept the different. Also, with equal doses of humour, Lungin portrays the positive and the negative aspects, the open-mindedness and the narrow-mindedness, of the lonely monastery. This transforms The Island into a perfectly complicated picture in which the whole universe with its contrasts is reverberated.

The Island is a powerfully unique and brilliant film which manages to capture perfection by portraying the world and its whole complexity through one echoing moment of erratic resonance. In the end, the film culminates with irony. The irony which, like an antithesis, and in keeping with the films depiction of opposites, plays with the extremes of fate. The cowardice of Anatoly is harshly punished for many years but fate will be both cruel and forgiving. At the end of the film Anatoly will finally be delivered the peace he longed for far too long, his conscience cleansed.

As a footnote, The Island has been praised by Russian film critic Olga Rebrova as probably the best film made in Russia in recent years and is continuing the best tradition of Soviet films that tell stories about people while at the same time probing their inner penitence. Such adulation only adds to the surprise at how modestly it’s fared in festival awards. Lungin was previously awarded the Best Director Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for his film Taxi Blues in 1990. The Island, meanwhile, closed the 2006 Venice Film Festival and has also received praise from Alexis II, the Russian Orthodox Church leader.

Russian Euphoria in London



Euphoria (Eyforia)
Russia, 2006
Directed by Ivan Virypayev

A most unusual and innovative work that caused a stir in the festival circuit in 2006, Euphoria (Eyforia) is renowned theatre director Ivan Virypaev’s first venture into film. His debut is a poetical piece with a commonplace but highly engaging narrative told in a highly individual style, perhaps influenced from theatre, with the perennial themes of love and jealousy dealt with in a cruel and brutal way. A young man and woman - two people who were destined to be together but for all the wrong reasons – explore their irresistible attraction and suffer the inevitable redemption. Like the River Don that forms the backdrop for the film, nature takes its course as they flow downstream. Their skin exposed to the scorching sun carries them in their boat and out towards eternity.

Russian cinema shouldn't be such a new discovery for people who like films but it is highly unique, perhaps because of cultural isolation, but at times it creates something superb and also provides us with a burst of creativity. Such is the case with Euphoria which can only be inferred as something at once shocking and indescribable, wonderful and magic. The first impressions of the film are strange because of the atmosphere it creates, but this is really something special and completely new. The tension created from no dialogue but heightened emotion comes as no surprise when we find the actors, also new to the screen, learned their trade from the theatre.


Euphoria is an emotional situation and of course is related to a superficial high, usually of a medical patient when they feel good, unusually pleasant and self-satisfied. The situation is synonymous not only with mental patients but with people who enjoy drugs and alcohol. It also relates itself to celebrating in sport, whether as a participator or spectator. However, it is also something that is temporary, and finally, it is the situation before death. This explains the approach of Virypayev, a symbolic representation of the situation in Russian society. It is a film about the love between a man and a woman but an unexpected, true and ruthless love. They saw each other only once in an intoxicated state at a wedding. Their eyes met, and that was it, a fatal attraction of sorts. The instincts and the feeling, which Virypayev explores so bravely, intelligently and even impudently, live in each of us. Euphoria is an attempt to solve the mystery of an unsolved soul. The film’s achievement is that it dramatically affects the spectator in a totally different way to the thrills of mainstream films. This is simply powerful cinema in an understated form.

The cinematography by Andrei Naidenov, with his long and majestic frames on the river, is complimented by the beautiful landscape with the intimidating spirit of the steppe. Though this is the first film of Ivan Virypayev, Naidenov has photographed over 30 films. Virypayev, however, is a truly different director and one hopes this is not the only time he will cross mediums from the theatre into film. Polina Agureeva (Vera) and Mikhail Okunev (Valeri) have come into film from theatre along with Virypayev but Maxim Ushakov (Pakha) was a theatre designer and animator, something which makes his performance in Euphoria all the more remarkable.

12:08 East of Bucharest: The re-emergence of Romanian Cinema


There’s been a healthy and encouraging trend of national cinemas taking people by surprise and doing well, creating a wave of directors and films which results in a short domino effect in output. In recent years, it’s happened in Denmark, Mexico, Iran and Hungary, to name a few, and now the current wave seems to be coming from Romania. The truth in Romania’s case is that the collapse of communism helped to change the situation in its national cinema. Thereafter, financing often depended on a jury awarding state grants, but it was discovered that they were awarded within a clique of earlier members of the jury, making it harder for many new filmmakers to get financing if they were not part of their group.

The unlikely international success of filmmakers at the turn of the new millennium, disliked by the old juries, saw a new emergence in Romanian cinema. In 2001 and 2002, Romanian directors competed in the Directors' Fortnight section at the Cannes Film Festival. Cristi Puiu's low budget first feature film Stuff and Dough (Marfa si Banii) was presented in 2001 and the following year, Occident, a comedy drama directed by a then-unknown Cristian Mungiu - concerning young people who move to the west rather than struggle in Romania - was also presented in the same section at Cannes. Also in 2002, Nae Caranfil’s Philanthropy (Filantropica) was another popular comedy combined with a social satire that found festivals receptive and was to win awards. Sinisa Dragin’s Every Day God Kisses Us on the Mouth was a winner at the prestigious Cairo and Rotterdam film festivals in 2001 and 2002 respectively, also winning for best actor (Dan Condurache) at the 2002 edition of the Bratislava film festival in 2002, with a further special mention from the ecumenical jury.

This new found confidence coming out of Romania as a producer of directors who could find a critical acceptance worldwide seemed to gather pace in 2005 when Cristi Puiu followed his debut success Stuff and Dough with The Death of Mr. Lazerescu. This award-winning film depicts a belligerent 62-year-old drunk who reluctantly spends a night in hospital after yet another drinking bout. Here he suffers from the circumstances that will bring about his ultimate fate as an untimely coach accident with many casualties causes an emergency and stretches resources so that he is shuffled from one hospital to another. The Death of Mr. Lazerescu shows a more confident director able to tackle characterization and make a satirical comment on the state of the national health. Drawing allusions from Lindsay Anderson’s Britannia Hospital (1982) to Frederick Wiseman’s Hospital (1970) peopled by Rohmer characters, this film still has a contemporary relevance which will make people from any nation knowingly shiver with concern about the state of their health care.

Corneliu Porumboiu’s debut feature 12:08 East of Bucharest (A fost sau n-a fost) has brought Romanian cinema into the spotlight yet again. It’s December 22nd 2005 and it has been 16 years since the revolution that saw the overthrow of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu. With Christmas approaching Pisocci, an old retiree and occasional Santa Claus, is preparing to spend yet another yuletide on his own. Manescu, an alcoholic history teacher, doesn’t want to lose his entire salary to pay off his drinking debts so he can enjoy himself a little. Jderescu, the owner of the local TV station, for some reason doesn’t seem very interested in vacation.

The full English title refers to the setting of the film (the city of Vaslui) and the time of day at which Ceauşescu fled in 1989. The Romanian title roughly translates as Was There or Wasn't There? in reference to the film’s ultimate question: Did Vaslui have any part at all in the 1989 revolution? Jderescu wants to know if there was a protest in the town prior to 12:08 pm on December 22, 1989 and with Piscoci and Manescu’s recollections, he wants an answer this sixteen-year-old conundrum. Together they agree that they stormed their town hall calling for Ceausescu’s head. However, phone-in viewers dispute the claims of the so-called heroes. Some remember them either drinking in the bar or getting ready for Christmas rather than in the streets joining the revolution.

Romania has not been known in the past for comedy but the fall of communism has shown a new optimism. 12:08 East of Bucharest makes light of what are serious subject matters, particularly the severe but celebratory moment in its history. The three main actors’ play their part very consistently for their abundant screen time and an undercurrent of dry humour always lingers which dispels any tension. This makes 12:08 East of Bucharest much funnier than The Death of Mr Lazarescu, which sold itself on being part comedy (see Romanian poster below) when in truth it had a couple of funny lines and hedonistic laughs at best. Also (in 12:08), each of the three central characters has deeply personal issues which draw allusions to the former Romania and Eastern Bloc - secret pasts, financial problems, daily upheavals and exposed irregularities. The new generation of students in the history class are so ignorant they even fail the Ottoman Empire exam and the more recent events, that made Romania the spotlight of the world's media, seem irrelevant to them. This new generation don't appear to acknowledge the freedom their forefathers helped to bring about.


For the most part though, 12:08 East of Bucharest is trying to show that the revolution didn't bring a happy ending as all the post-communist Romanian films are attempting to do now. The last third of Porumboiu’s film is perhaps too long because it’s completely set within the TV studio and uses a mainly static camera. This is due perhaps to a slight flaw in script and/or direction which budget issues could easily explain. Despite this, the deadpan and slightly bemused direction transcends any shortcomings or potentially calculated attempts at forcing its humour onto the audience. The revolution was televised but not in this small town east of Bucharest and the inhabitants have differing recollections on just how revolutionary they were. The notion that the human brain can invent memories to suit its own agenda could be used as an excuse for those who were not forthcoming about vivid recollections when asked "Where were you when.....?"

Meanwhile, the likes of Puiu, Porumboiu and Cristian Mungiu's forthcoming film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days have seen Romania not just come from behind the rest of world cinema but can currently claim to almost have its nose in front. It would appear that Romania is also becoming the favourite cinema of Cannes. Two years ago it surprised with The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (the first of a planned sextet of films, Six Stories from the Bucharest Suburbs), awarded to Cristi Puiu in A Certain Regard; and last year the same award went to 12:08 East of Bucharest. This year 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days won the Cinema Prize of the French National Education System, the FIPRESCI certificate and, most importantly, the Palme d'Or. Mungiu's film is scheduled for release in the UK in January 2008.

DVD Review of The Star (Zvezda)


Director Nikolai Lebedev has gone back to World War Two to celebrate an heroic Russian fighting unit that were partly responsible in bringing forward the end of the war by immersing themselves in enemy territory. In this case the territory was Poland and the enemy was Nazi Germany. The Star (Zvezda), released in 2002, tells the story of the brave young men and women who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of their country and for the rest of the world.

The film is not as expressively or poignantly bleak as Elem Klimov’s Come and See from 1985, but is still worthwhile on its own terms. Unlike that film, the production values render The Star as being more suitable for a mainstream international audience, though it still keeps a certain authenticity despite not having the non-manipulated harrowing long takes and sparse dialogue of Klimov’s film. Also, it’s worth noting that Battleship Potemkin, Andrei Tarkovsky’s films and Come and See were products of the Mosfilm Studios (founded in 1920), that was responsible for The Star. The other connection is that the character of Anikanov is played by the actor Aleksei Kravchenko who won a government award for his performance in this film. He was the child actor (actually 14 at the time) in Come and See and, after watching both films, his earlier performance was hard to surpass.

Regards the plot development and pacing of The Star, I particularly like the way it depicts what happens when the fighting isn’t taking place, how mundane things and slow life in war is depicted and that only makes the sudden attacks and death all the more random. Where I think this film does work is the hell on earth scenario that is war is only the case when someone gets killed. The rest of the time things are quite peaceful, despite the overriding fear that at any time something terrible may happen and life, in the first person at least, will end.


The casting of women in war films introduces a romantic element to the storyline that lowers the harrowing tone of lives being lost. Arguably, women in war films pull the heart strings more with the love interest in such a genre something of a Hollywood invention. If we were to use the term realism here, I am not sure how authentic an account we would have of war with people falling in love on the battlefield, albeit this is kept to a repressed level here.

The extras add good value to the DVD. Included is an interview with producer Karen Shakhnazarov, an interview with director Nikolai Lebedev, deleted scenes, photo gallery, filmographies, optional Russian stereo and 5.1 audio, plus the ubiquitous DVD chapter selection.

In summary, The Star is not as good as Come and See but as a film about the Russian experience in World War Two, it is still a worthwhile companion piece and also a very good film to add to any recommended war genre list. Aside from the over stylising in some scenes and the need to incorporate a love story element, it works well as a period war film.

The Lives of Others: Life on the Other Side of the Wall


The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) is set in a gloomy East Berlin of November 1984 with the fall of the wall still a distant dream the thought police would have you imprisoned for. Indeed, if not engaged in mind reading, the GDR still has cold and merciless ways of keeping its population under control and to obey the system of communism. This created a year zero atmosphere in East Germany and the opening scene exemplifies this world when we see a man reduced to tears and shame after 50 hours of questioning by the secret police (known as the Stasi) has him finally reveal his accomplice. The Stasi philosophy is that if a person is innocent they will angrier the longer they are questioned but finally crack if they are guilty.

The initial central character in the film is Georg Dreymann (Sebastian Koch) who is a successful playwright and open-minded liberal. These two aspects make him a potential loose canon and focus of the Stasi. Along with girlfriend Christa Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), who is a famous actress herself, they are practically a celebrity couple in a country that refutes celebrities. Dreymann has become disturbed by the number of suicides of people in his country, something the GDR have failed to acknowledge since 1977 by a process of tight censorship. At a party to celebrate his latest play, Georg encounters Minister Bruno Hempf who crudely declares his attraction towards Christa. He also orders the loyal Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz to have Dreymann watched closely in order to discredit him. This assignment falls to Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) a trusted member of the Stasi looking for promotion who will operate under the Stasi codename HGW XX/7.

At this point the film gradually switches from Dreymann as main protagonist to Wiesler inadvertently becoming complicit in his struggle while secretly listening to conversations at Dreymann's home. Wiesler will find himself softening his stand and be caught between both sides of the oppression of East Germany in this Cold War period, slowly being drawn into the lives of those he is secretly listening to. In the pre-Gorbachev and Perestroika years, the fear of all its citizens can be felt here in the looming presence of the ruthless Bruno Hempf and his compatriot Anton Grubitz.

The year in which this film is set is 1984. This creates the idea that it’s perhaps just more than a coincidence on the director’s part that like George Orwell's book, this East Berlin is a world where parts of the communist philosophy would read like his famous novel set in the same year. Also, the book's proclaiming beliefs like: "War is Peace", "Freedom is Slavery", "Ignorance is Strength" are not out of place in this GDR world.

For the actor who plays Wiesler the film is quite personal. Ulrich Mühe said in a book describing the background story of The Lives of Others that his ex-wife Jenny Gröllmann was an agent of the East German secret service from 1979 to 1989. Therefore, his character in the film was listening to and ultimately complicit with the Georg Dreymann character that is loosely based on himself. Jenny Gröllmann swore under oath that she didn't work as an in-official agent (Codename “IM”) for the Staatssicherheit and a court ruled Ulrich Mühe must not call his ex-wife IM any more. In a strange parable, Gröllmann died of Cancer just prior to the film’s release. The events in Ulrich Mühe’s life that inspired his involvement in the film were to take another bitter sweet turn after The Lives of Others won Best Film at the European Film Awards with Mühe receiving the award for Best Actor.

At the Molodist Film Festival in Kiev last year, The Lives of Others certainly created more of a buzz than the other more critically acclaimed German film in the main competition, Matthias Luthardt's PingPong. That film was also short-listed for the European Film Awards but had a lukewarm reception from the audience in Kiev. The Lives of Others, by contrast, won the audience award in Locarno and Warsaw and created a big sensation at the Telluride film festival, so it came as no surprise that it was nominated for big awards and now worldwide distribution, thereby underlining its popularity and appeal in what is arguably the most telling account of the latter days of the old East Germany

The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen), Germany, 2006
Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Cast List: Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, Martina Gedeck, Thomas Thieme, Ulrich Tukur.
Running time: 137 mins