Film Difficulty 2

To help you ease your way into our world, we have devised a the film difficulty ranking system to rate the difficulty of each film reviewed on our site. The easiest to watch films (the Rom-Coms and Superhero flicks that you watch anyway) will have a rating of 1. Foreign language films automatically add one point, as do black and white films, and films with strange and hard to follow plots. Welcome to Film Difficulty 2.

Film Difficulty Ranking 2: These films are perfect introductions to those new to foreign films. These one’s may have subtitles, or be in black and white, but these films are all easy to follow and enjoy.

For the next step, check out Film Difficulty Ranking 3.

111

Medusa – AFI Fest 2021

Medusa is another genre-bending movie set in contemporary Brazil (see Bacurau, Good Manners, Executive Order, or Divine Love) that corresponds with the rise in the far right and radical Christianity in Brazil. The focus of this film is on how the patriarchy is upheld by radical Christian women

In modern day Brazil, a woman watches a sexy music video of a woman dancing on her way home on the night bus. When she gets off, she’s tailed by a gang of masked women. She tries to escape, but can’t. They gang up on her, beat her up, and force her to swear fealty to Jesus and to become a good Christian woman.

The attackers are Mariana and her female friends from the local evangelical church. Their horror-genre influenced masks are obviously intimidating. However, behind the mask they’re even more sinister. Instead of carrying faces that show years of trauma and fear they carry pristine smiles and clean pastel clothes. They look like a group of preppy high-school girls and not like your typical group of thugs. Their smiles and matching identity give them a cold collective assuredness that their violence is right and justified, when it isn’t. It also highlights a lack of individuality stemming from the strict codes of their social bubble – no one wants to stand out for fear of being identified with the other, so they all try to one-up each other in their devotional acts in order to maintain their social position. They’ve already started beating up people in the street, so what are they capable of next?

The design of the film makes it clear Mariana is brainwashed by her bubble of existence. The church she attends with her friends is flavored with hypnotizing 80’s music and dystopian neon lights and features coordinated song and dance routines that make them look robotic. Plus the microphone holding, slick talking, smartly dressed preacher gives off hints of snake oil salesmen before we see his ‘miracles.’ The whole radical Christian experience is designed to indoctrinate Mariana and her friends. Plus as a reward, they get friends like them, and corresponding male counterparts in the beefy ‘Watchmen’ group that attends their same church.

Problem is they can’t control everything in their own lives. They’re still victims to the patriarchy that plays them – both represented in the male religious pastor they fervently follow and the male ‘Watchmen’ they’re expected to date and marry. They can either continue to live for the radical Christian patriarchy and stay in their bubble, or break free by expanding their bubble until it pops.

Head to our AFI Fest 2021 Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2021.

112

Le Pupille – AFI Fest 2022

Le Pupille brings you into a Catholic Orphanage during Christmas in the height of the Second World War. Despite the frugal times and strict Mother Superior, the girls find joy in a few magical scenes reminiscent of the wonder of early cinema.

In the Catholic Orphanage, objects are a scarcity. Unlike the often stuffy materialism of today’s modern world, the girls in Le Pupille live in large rooms with very few things around them. This partly emphasizes the frugality of the war period, and in turn, distinguishing any warm nostalgia for Italian fascism, but it also sets a blank slate for the rare objects included in the movie to star. The radio and the giant red cake are enhanced by the absence around them, making them seem much more luxurious than they should be.

The frugality in front of the camera is also seen in the film’s production. The director, Alice Rohrwacher, shot Le Pupille completely on film, and therefore all of the special effects are completely VFX free. This gives the film a playful magic that feels like the wonder of the Melies’ silent films. In one scene a baby appears out of thin air (from one shot to the next), whilst a freeze-framed shouting Mother Superior conveys shock from what feels like the kids perspective in another. Unlike the seriousness of modern VFX, that often strives for digital realism, the old school special effects used here add wonder and magic to film. It encourages wonder rather than inhibiting it.

It’s this simplicity both in front of the camera (with the limited objects and distractions) and behind the camera (in the production process) that makes this short Christmas film feel so playful and joyful.

Head to our AFI Fest 2022 Hub for more reviews from AFI Fest 2022.

113

La Botera – Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival 2021

Set within a neglected Buenos Aires neighborhood, La Botera follows Tati, a girl living alone with her father whilst navigating the challenges of adolescence.

Tati is already an independent woman. The opening scene shows her getting up, making breakfast, and getting ready for school on her own. We’d think she was living alone until the phone rings and Tati tries to wake up her previously unseen dad to answer it. She also sticks up for herself against the bullies at and outside of school in contrast to her childhood friend and confidently initiates conversation with people older than herself, such as a local boat rower she plays boyfriend and girlfriend with. However, she still retains the naivety of a young adult as shown in her awkwardly brash interactions with older kids and her friendship with another young neighborhood boy. The army games and relationship with the latter show she’s still connected to the young girl she’s slowly moving away from whilst the conversation with older kids represent the pull of her growing up.

Her coming of age feels a bit more hostile than others. It’s partly due to the bleak environment La Botera is set within – the constantly overcast skies and heavily clothed characters emphasize the cold unwelcoming environment. But the hostility is mostly due to the strained relationship she has with the dad she lives with alone. Unlike the gentler fathers in other father-daughter coming of age movies like Eighth Grade and Alba, Tati’s father offers little love and sympathy. He punishes and chastises her in almost every scene they share. Even when he has an opportunity to share a moment with her, such as when they’re watching football on TV, he gets annoyed as she apparently shouldn’t enjoy a ‘man’s game’. Maybe he’s been affected by the neighborhood they live in or his own experiences, or maybe his machismo just hides his fatherly insecurities. Either way, he contributes to the hostility of his daughter’s coming of age.

If you’re into coming of age stories set within a pretty bleak environment, La Botera is worth a watch. The close-up shots that follow Tati give it an edge that make it feel more real and personal than others.

Head to our LALIFF 2021 Hub for more reviews from the 20th edition of LALIFF.

114

Hive – A Group of Widows Bond Against the Patriarchy and Grief

Hive Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

In Hive, a struggling widow starts making Ajvar to get by. Setting an example for self sufficiency, the town’s widows flock to her to share their grief and start healing. However their independence faces backlash from the patriarchy.

From: Kosovo, Europe
Watch: Trailer, JustWatch
Next: Writing With Fire, Beatriz' War, Shok

Hive – The Breakdown

Before watching Hive, all of the films I’d previously watched from Kosovo were affected by the Kosovo war. Whether directly or more indirectly, the trauma of the war that forged the country’s birth just over 20 years ago has never had a chance to heal.

Hive is no different. Fahrije’s husband has been missing for what might be years. Her father in law and two kids still believe he is alive. But she seems to believe he must be dead. Her face has been sucked of all emotion – as pointed out by her daughter – and she has started to move on. She visits mourning sites, such as the river where many local men were killed, and has also taken over some of her husband’s chores (bee keeping). She’s accepted his fate.

In addition to being a mother, Fahrije is forced to assume her husband’s role in his absence. So she seeks work to make a living in a neighboring town. However, she’s ostracized for behaving like a man with locals shooting her threatening stares and throwing bricks at her car and windows. Faithful wives aren’t supposed to learn how to drive and leave the house. In response, Fahrije also subconsciously takes on the stereotypical masculine emotions too, assuming an unemotional stoicism that confuses her kids. She hides her grief so deep to avoid dealing with it.

Her way out is not in independence through work but in company. Her successful Ajvar making business inspirationally brings together other widows together in community. They’re willing to sacrifice their honor because she’s taken the brave step to doing something about her situation and trying to move on.

What to Watch Next

If you’re looking for another inspirational story about a group of entrepreneurial women fighting the odds to succeed, try Writing with Fire. It features India’s only women-run news channel. Or if you’re looking for another story set within another traumatic event, Beatriz’ War follows a widow and her community fighting for freedom in East Timor. Or for more stories from Kosovo, try the tragic short, Shok, and feature film, Three Windows and a Hanging.

115

Alcarras – AFI Fest 2022

The Sole family have farmed fields in the small municipality of Alcarras in Catalonia for generations. However, the wealthy landowner that owns the property has found more profitable ways to use his land, which doesn’t involve farming or what the Sole family wants. He’s looking to destroy the orchards that provide the Sole family’s livelihood to install more profitable solar panels.

What Alcarras does brilliantly is tell a very specific local story in order to highlight how capitalism is affecting not just the Sole family, but the local community and many other people around the globe. It’s set completely in one small municipality in Spain centered one family, all played by non-actors from similar backgrounds to the family on screen, living on one farm. Through the film’s run-time, we get to intimately know each member of the Sole family to understand their life on the farm as well as how they are each affected by the threatening eviction. We see why they love the freedom and independence of farming their own land as well as how they’re pulled apart by an uncertain future. Whilst a multi-family or multi-country film might fail to generate sympathy for it’s characters because of it’s broad scope, Alcarras, in spending time with one family in one region, gives the audience more time and closeness to sympathize with not just them, but everyone affected by capitalism around the world.

The hidden message in Alcarras is that the Sole family’s experience is not isolated to Alcarras, nor Spain. The few short scenes showing the community’s labor strikes, which Quimet and his son join, show that the Sole family’s experiences are not isolated. The priority of progress and profit over personal and community happiness is destroying families across the world.

Head to our AFI Fest 2022 Hub for more reviews from AFI Fest 2022.