Neruda was asked to write an introduction poem for Araya, but he chose not to, saying ‘you cannot write a poem about a poem.’ He’s not wrong, this Venezuelan epic is a poetic ode to the global working class, from creation to post-industrialized exploitation. Watch Araya to see one of the best films from Venezuela and the anti-capitalist canon.
Araya opens with an epic creation sequence. We’re shown the sea, sky, and earth in sequence, just as God created the world in the book of Genesis. Then we’re introduced to sea life and birds, as a brass orchestra and xylophone start playing in the background. The carefully edited introduction crescendos with a vertical camera pan over the top of a pyramid of salt, revealing a community of salteros (salt workers) mining the salt marshes. Every shot draws us in, setting the scene for an epic tale of humanity, represented by these hidden people in Venezuela.
These forgotten people are all workers. They all make their living from the sea, working constantly to sustain themselves from the salt and fish it provides. The director, Margot Benacerraf, emphasizes the struggle to survive by focusing on their movements. The routine actions of each person living off of the sea appear like a well oiled machine, in tune with nature, and each other. The salteros follow each other up the salt mountain to weigh, sell, and deposit their salt; the fishermen bring back their fish for their families to salt. No time is wasted and each movement reinforces their struggle and their community.
Whilst we see the community working tirelessly together, we never fully identify with them. The director deliberately maintains a distance between the audience and the subjects of the film to keep their lives symbolic and poetic, in a similar way to the Soviet films of the USSR (Man with a Movie Camera) and Cuba (Lucia, Soy Cuba). She does this by using a narrator to emphasize their hardships as opposed to interviewing the workers directly. By telling their story through images instead of through their voices, they become representatives of the global working class, and not just exploited Salteros in Venezuela.
This sets up a final scene in which industrialization arrives, overtaking the manual labor carried out by the workers with a greed for profits. As machines take over, the salteros vanish – turning from hidden workers to hidden unemployed. At the same time, nature is replaced with exploited land. It’s a threatening message for workers and all citizens of the world.
Conclusion
Araya is a poetic epic. Through images, it tells the story of mankind from creation to post-industrial exploitation. It’s a art-house warning for workers and citizens of the world and an incredibly important film to add to your anti-capitalist viewing list alongside Soy Cuba and Salt of the Earth.
The first things you think of when you hear Saint Lucia are probably pristine beaches and tropical paradise. Tourism is the #1 industry in this small island nation of approximately 200,000 people – a population smaller than any of the largest 100 cities in the U.S. Despite it’s small size, Saint Lucia has attracted Hollywood productions in the past (see Superman II and Doctor Doolittle). However, as with many similarly sized island nations, Saint Lucia has yet to form its own film industry.
What you can find, are smaller, self-financed film projects like the three short films we’ve uncovered below, each spanning a different genre. The production quality might not match what you’re used to, but they each give a brief glimpse of a Saint Lucia that differs from the country presented by Hollywood and travel guides.
Soucouyant
It helps if you’re a fan of horror films before you watch Soucuoyant. There’s so little to grasp from the limited dialogue and film shots stitched together that you will need to use your own imagination to connect the thin story.
The short is centered around the myth of the Soucouyant, an ancient vampire-like spirit that possesses her unfortunate victims to keep on living. She’s brought to life in blurry shots of her roaming through the jungle to convey her eeriness. In contrast, her aging male victim is in a bright urban area, hinting he’s normal. The footage of these two characters don’t quite fit together to tell a clear story, however, the juxtaposition of the two leads us to assume that this aging man is her target. The short staggers to a final ‘aha’ moment which obviously inspired the recent Smile Hollywood horror hit.
Too Late
Too Late features two friends that set a time to meet up early the next morning. One of them is skeptical of his friends ability to arrive on time, and sure enough, he’s on a completely different schedule to his friend. Cutting between one friend waiting at the cafe and the other silencing his alarms and taking his sweet time getting ready, hours pass and our punctual friend gives up.
Too Late is everything you might expect of an amateur film that makes fun of ‘island time.’ The joke is amusing, but it’s not pushed beyond the single scene, making this short film a bit one-note. The biggest weakness, however, is the poor sound quality which distracts viewers from fully engaging in the visual gags.
The Fruit of Life
In The Fruit of Life, multiple generations of a Saint Lucian community are connected through their knowledge of the multiple uses of the coconut. We’re shown how coconuts (the fruit of life) can heal and nourish everyone.
Like Soucouyant, The Fruit of Life jumps between different characters quickly and without much dialogue, making it difficult for us to follow the knotted narrative thread which links them. It jumps from a girl having her bruise tended to by her grandmother with coconut oil to images of a old man (her grandfather?) hunted by a group of men with machetes. The words “strength,” “wisdom,” and “perseverance” link these scenes to the future in which the same girl is leading a business pitch selling the humble benefits of the coconut to the government/corporation(?). It’s a wild leap from kids playing to trauma to a business sales pitch, but one that represents that you can achieve the Saint Lucian dream (and success) through perseverance and sharing your ancient wisdom.
2024 was an impressive year for international films. With a lot of the 2023 festival circuit hitting theaters in 2024 and many more films from established, renowed international directors, we had our eyes fulfilled.
Whilst the Academy may celebrate the American Dirt of International Film, we’ve picked a list of 20 films that showcases talent from the 6 inhabited continents. Our list features returning maestros, including 84 year-old Victor Erice (after a 30-year absence), and modern virtuosos such as Alice Rohrwacher and Ryusuke Hamaguchi. The list also welcomes impressive films from first-time filmmakers such as Sandhya Suri and Pham Thien An.
Explore the diverse list below and reach out to us with your thoughts. We’re always eager to find out what we’ve overlooked or missed!
20 Best International Films of 2024
20. Evil Does Not Exist (Japan)
With a number of brilliant films behind him, viewers understand what to expect from a Hamaguchi film. With Evil Does Not Exist, Hamaguchi plays with these expectations and defies them with an eco-parable that takes repeat viewings and time to unlock.
19. The Practice (Argentina)
You either love or hate Martin Rejtman films. I love the way he manages to craft absurd situations from the everyday to turn life into a deadpan comedy. For comedy is all life is at times; a comedy that should produce more laughs than it usually does. The Practice is pretty similar to Rejtman’s previous films, so if you haven’t seen any, give this one a shot.
18. Second Chance (India)
A low-key fish out of water story featuring a city girl at a home stay in the Himalayas. The gulf between her typical life and the life she adopts is clear, but the humble way of life in the mountains grounds her and gives her time to find herself. Feels realer than Academy Award nominee Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom and contains equally impressive scenery.
17. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Iran)
Another classic from Mohammad Rasoulof; censorship in Iran has unintentionally created some of the best films of the 21st Century. This film is full of intense family drama which highlights the effects of government stoked fear. The metaphor of the sacred fig brilliantly bookends the film with a perfect final shot.
16. Mother of All Lies (Morocco)
Asmae El Moudir painstakingly re-creates her Casablanca neighborhood by hand in Mother of all Lies. She invites her family and friends to view the set, forcing them to travel back in time to re-live the traumas from her childhood. Part TheLook of Silenceand part Four Daughters, this film is a reckoning for their community and their involvement in the atrocities of their past.
15. Crossing (Turkey/Georgia)
A retired teacher from Georgia travels to Istanbul to search for her long-lost transgender niece with her unpredictable neighbor as a companion. Their odyssey into the underworld of the city carries them into unfamiliar places, but their journey brings forth a heart-warming inter-generational friendship that highlights that love might just be all you need in life.
14. Santosh (India)
Santosh is a gripping thriller that follows the plight of a police widower that takes her dead husbands job to stay afloat and gets caught in a web of sexism and classism. She battles with the prejudices of others as well as her own, as she seeks to re-right the wrongs done to her. For fans of Nayattu and Serpico.
13. About Dry Grasses (Turkey)
Nuri Bilge Ceylan is the master of slow-burn narrative rich dramas. If you haven’t heard of him, put Once Upon a Time in Anatolia at the top of your list. About Dry Grasses follows a teacher aged and embittered by his assignment to a school in the remote regions of his country. We watch his futile attempts to strengthen his fragile ego. Highlights of the film include the best philosophical dialogue and the most unexpected Viagra pop of the year.
12. Shayda (Australia)
A young Iranian woman living in Australia finds refuge at a women’s shelter with her 6-year-old daughter Mona. She starts to build a new life until a judge grants her husband visitation rights. Shayda is one of two Iranian films on this list with unpredictable fathers. It’s buoyed by two brilliant performances from Zar Amir Ebrahimi and Selina Zahednia. For fans of Iranian family dramas.
11. Twilight of the Warriors (Hong Kong)
In Twilight of the Warriors, Kowloon has been brilliantly reconstructed to create the perfect martial arts set: lots of props, lots of people to fight around, and many small rooms connected by thin alleys. The story is sustained by a nice buddy bromance that builds throughout the film. If you’re looking for action, you’re in the right place. This is the #1 action movie of 2024.
Dahomey and The Coconut Revolution are two African documentaries worth seeking out from 2024. Both feature conversation from university students of the plight of their respective countries in the modern world. Dahomey is the more neutral of the two, letting the images of royal artifacts of Dahomey do the talking as we follow their repatriation from France to Benin. We are left to watch and listen before joining the discourse.
9. Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (Vietnam)
You can’t have a top 20 list without a slow film. Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell is a wonderful debut feature from Pham Thien An with shots that feel like they’ve been composed by a master. It follows Thien as he bounces around the country searching for his purpose and life’s meaning.
8. No Other Land (Palestine/Israel)
Israel’s encroachments on Palestinian territory date back to the country’s formation. However, the encroachment is typically overshadowed by developments in the conflict in the international news. No Other Land intimately documents Basel Adra’s lifelong protest against Israeli settler encroachment. In the film, Basel is joined by a sympathetic Israeli that helps to publicize their struggle. The footage places you within their struggle, which is at times shocking and appears increasingly hopeless. However, Basel’s calm words encouraging patience for activists worldwide is the message everyone should take away from this enlightening documentary.
7. Sujo (Mexico)
Sujo starts with narco-violence in remote Michoacan, so I was expecting this to become the latest pessimistic and bleak narco-flick that festivals have been gobbling up over the last ten years. However, this film explores an alternative narrative, in which Sujo (the son of a hit-man) is carefully guided away from his father’s fate despite all the temptations. His journey is posed as an allegory for the history of modern Mexico, in a similar way to Innaritu’s Bardo from 2023. It presents a hopeful future, despite a traumatic recent history and the plans of fate, with the help of dreams and magic.
6. All We Imagine As Light (India)
Payal Kapadia’s debut feature – a poetic critique of the Indian governments crackdown on student activists was a brilliant and powerful, political documentary. Her second film is very different. All We Imagine as Light evokes a mix of the Taiwanese New Wave (Yi Yi) and the similarly slow burning romances of Wong Kar-wai (Chungking Express). This type of film is my comfort food, and I loved how this version creates the chaos of the Mumbai to contrast with the calm of a home village. Every city-dweller needs this kind of release!
5. Close Your Eyes (Spain)
Close Your Eyes starts with a film within a film. An eccentric Marlon Brando-esque protagonist pulls you in by setting up a quest. However, just before we depart on an international search, we’re pulled into another mystery; a re-opened case of a missing actor (the same actor in the starting film). Close Your Eyes is a slow burn movie that gently unfolds into a story about friendship, community, and meaning of life.
4. La Chimera (Italy)
Time-travel is a key ingredient of some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters. It holds an unnatural power to change the future and the past, adding the driving plot behind the Back to the Future and Terminator series from the 1980s and a few modern Christopher Nolan films. Over in Italy, Alice Rohrwacher has mastered the ability to use time-travel naturally. Instead of using it as the driving force of the plot and drama, it is the icing on the cake. She has combined time-travel with wholly Italian influences; De Sica’s Neo-realism and Fellini’s Surrealism, to make her own fantastic style.
It’s not often that you watch a movie that makes you yearn for a simple life cleaning toilets. Hirayama is perfectly content with his simple, structured life. His work is balanced by analog, everyday, time consuming hobbies such as photography, listening to cassettes, and reading books. The calm pace of his life, allows him (and us, the viewer) to step away from the rush and find beauty in the simple things. Perfect Days is a reminder to slow down and appreciate the life we have.
2. Green Border (Poland)
Green Border is the most powerful protest feature film of 2024. It’s brutal depiction of migrants inhumanely bounced between the Belarus/Poland border should shock all viewers. However, we’re not left without hope, as we can identify with a range of protagonists that take action (subtle or not). The clincher is the final scene. Green Border further establishes Holland as one of the best, and most overlooked, filmmakers out there.
1. Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (Romania)
Radu Jude is no stranger to controversy or satirizing contemporary society. His previous feature, the Golden Bear winning Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, took aim at sexism, nationalism, and consumerism with COVID-19 and sex as a backdrop. Before that, he highlighted his country’s hidden involvement in the holocaust in I Do Not Care if we Go Down in History as Barbarians. Both of these films packed a strong punch of humor and cynicism, but Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is his most potent critique of the world today and a movie that will define the 2020s for later generations.
AFI Fest continues to shine as one of the premiere film festivals in Los Angeles. The programmers do a great job of curating the best films from the 2024 festival circuit whilst introducing international films from first-time filmmakers that run along side the big red carpet premieres. The 2024 edition was no different. Outside of the camera grabbing U.S. features, there was a litany of international gems. Find a recap of our favorites below.
Our Top Three from AFI Fest 2024
1. Sujo (Mexico)
Sujo starts with narco-violence in remote Michoacan, so I was expecting this to become the latest pessimistic and bleak narco-flick that festivals have been gobbling up over the last ten years. However, this film explores an alternative narrative, in which Sujo (the son of a hit-man) is carefully guided away from his father’s fate despite all the temptations. His journey is posed as an allegory for the history of modern Mexico, in a similar way to Innaritu’s Bardo from 2023. It presents a hopeful future, despite a traumatic recent history and the plans of fate, with the help of dreams and magic.
2. La Cocina (Mexico/U.S.)
La Cocina is brimming with energy. It’s present in the editing, the acting, and the dialogue and makes the film captivating despite the small set. The lead dominates the camera with the control of his body, expressions, and voice to create a character you cannot look away from. Everything is captured brilliantly in this one-set recreation of a stage play. The only thing holding it back from being one of the greats is that it feels limited by the restrictions of the stage. It doesn’t quite feel like it has truly transferred from the stage to the cinematic medium (similar to the limited space in Birdman and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom). Despite this, La Cocina is still one of the year’s most engrossing dramas.
3. No Other Land (Palestine/Israel)
Israel’s encroachments on Palestinian territory date back to the country’s formation. However, the encroachment is typically overshadowed by developments in the conflict in the international news. No Other Land intimately documents Basel Adra’s lifelong protest against Israeli settler encroachment. In the film, Basel is joined by a sympathetic Israeli that helps to publicize their struggle. The footage places you within their struggle, which is at times shocking and appears increasingly hopeless. However, Basel’s calm words encouraging patience for activists worldwide is the message everyone should take away from this enlightening documentary.
Honorable Mentions
Santosh (India)
Santosh is a gripping thriller that follows the plight of a police widower that takes her dead husbands job to stay afloat and gets caught in a web of sexism and classism. She battles with the prejudices of others as well as her own, as she seeks to re-right the wrongs done to her.
Second Chance (India)
A wonderfully low-key fish-out-of-water story featuring a city girl living in a home-stay in the Indian Himalayas. The humble way of life in the mountains helps to ground her after a tumultuous break-up so she can re-find herself before she returns to reality.
Viet and Nam (Vietnam)
The slowest film I watched at this years AFI Fest, Viet and Nam features a few narrative segments that each touch on the hopelessness of life in contemporary Vietnam. Whilst the message is bleak, the pictures are gorgeous, especially the dark shots deep in the mines which merge the underground with the celestial.
Thank You for Banking with Us! (Palestine)
This Palestinian family drama features a housewife that is pushed into a new lease of life with the help of her sister following the unexpected death of her father. Politics are in the background as the film centers on the awakening of an ordinary housewife overwhelmed by the expectations of her role as a woman and mother.
Another year, another great slate of films from AFI Fest. We strongly encourage everyone to check out next years edition. Please find previous coverage of AFI Fest here.
Andorre presents a dystopian vision of Andorra without dialogue in twenty minutes. The city is constructed with slow pan shots of glass buildings, duty free shops, and skiers backed by a futuristic electronic soundtrack. It’s a commentary on the vapidity of life in Andorra and a critique of the culture draining effects of globalization.
This observational documentary short reminded me of Jessica Kingdon’s Ascension. Like in Ascension, Andorre features a lot of still and pan shots of everyday situations to create a picture of their subject country. In Andorre these pan shots focus on icons of globalization, such as duty-free shopping shelves (cigarettes, alcohol, candy) and fitness centers. These shots are book-ended by shots of people entering and leaving the country at the border, highlighting the transient status of the people in the city. Add in the lack of dialogue and there is no sign of local life or culture.
It’s not just local life that is absent, but human life is also overlooked in this short. Commercial products are the focus of most of the pan shots. We’re shown aisles of duty-free shopping (cigarettes, alcohol, candy, jewelry) complemented by commercials for the same type of products. Culture has been sucked away in this place and replaced by commercials.
The spacey-electronic soundtrack completes the short’s dystopian globalist portrayal of Andorra. It sounds eeire and futuristic, like a Bladerunner soundtrack composed by a knock-off Vangelis which sets the tone of the shots we’re shown. The only other sounds that we’re allowed to hear are the ambient sounds of cars, footsteps, and a few words from a tour guide. They’re always heard at a distance, behind the spacey-electronic soundtrack, making reality feel further away. The sound completes the short by adding a dystopian tint to the vapid globalist images we’re shown.
Conclusion
The director, Virgil Vernier, creates a dystopian vision of Andorra by editing together a range of everyday shots of the city alongside a futuristic electronic soundtrack. It’s simple, but very effective. If you’re interested in visiting Andorra, watch this before or after you go.
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