Film Difficulty 3

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 3.

Film Difficulty Ranking 3: More of a challenge for those familiar with foreign films. Level 3 is like a mix between an intriguing European mime artist and your most interesting and demanding school teacher.

If you’ve mastered these films, move onto Film Difficulty Ranking 4.

Lane 4 – Spain/Latin American Competition – SBIFF

In Lane 4, Amanda is most comfortable in the water. Lacking her parents’ attention at home, swimming is the only thing she has. But she’s not alone in the pool. Priscila, the star of her swim team, becomes her friend and rival in the pool and in life.

The film starts with Amanda completely still, floating underwater in the fetal position in a swimming pool. By comparing the swimming pool to a womb, the opening image shows Amanda’s desire to return to the womb, to escape all the stresses of her daily life (see Freud’s Thanatos Instinct). In the pool, she can escape from her parents who don’t understand her, the social pressures of maintaining a ‘cool’ image, and her own growing pains. However, unfortunately for her, she cannot stay underwater forever. Eventually she has to surface for air. When she breaks from the fetal position and swims to the surface, it’s symbolic of her second birth. It’s her rebirth as a woman and a world full of expectations for her.

The scenes of Amanda underwater are the corner stones of Lane 4. Each one of them indicate her underlying desires. First, as mentioned above, she’s reborn from a girl into a woman, even though she desires to return to the simplicity of the womb. Secondly, she dives to the bottom of the pool on her own to reluctantly collect a hairband given to her by her mother. This image symbolizes her reluctance to grow up and tie back her hair – something that her mum thinks she should do to show off her ears. The third underwater scene shows her diving towards Priscila’s boyfriend. This scene starts to reveal her desire to assume Priscila’s position as the coolest girl on the swim team which are confirmed in the last underwater scene to end the film. Above water, Amanda is mostly silent and rarely reveals what she thinks, but underwater, she reveals all of her underlying desires and urges.

Lane 4 contains most of the typical coming of age film tropes, such as:

Dealing with absent parents.
Dealing with friends who have grown up before you.
Dealing with a dad that still sees you as a little girl.
Jealousy of the popular girl at school.
Wanting to go out with most attractive boy at school.
Her first period.

As a result, it will feel very familiar to other coming of age films, such as Alba. The main thing that sets apart Lane 4 from other films is that it’s set within a competitive swim club. This environment, and the underwater scenes that reveal her hidden desires, made Lane 4 one of the most memorable films at SBIFF.

Flesh Out – Eat More to Become More Beautiful

fLESH oUT Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Verida is getting married, and in Mauritania, that means she has to fatten up before the wedding to make sure she’s as beautiful as possible. You’ll get eat all the bowls of cous cous and meat with her on her journey to becoming a big beautiful woman. Flesh Out is a well made portrait of a woman caught in a culture that clashes with modernisation.

From: Mauritania, Africa 
Watch: TBC - IMDb Page
Next: Mustang, Sand Storm, Supersize Me

A Useful Life – A Uruguayan Ode to Cinema

A Useful life Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

If you love going to the cinema to watch films, find out how they are run by watching A Useful Life. This short film focuses on a struggling art house cinema in Uruguay. It’s an ode to cinema of the past and how it is being forced to adapt to a new digital world.

From: Uruguay, South America
Watch: Trailer, Buy on Amazon
Next: Cinema Paradiso, Hugo, Gloria

Echo – Paint Your Own Picture of Icelandic Society

Echo Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Why Watch Echo?

If you want to see a composite 80 minute film made from 56 parts
Experience a wide range of Icelandic society
Join the debate on the current state of Iceland

From: Iceland, Europe
Watch: Trailer, Mubi, IMDb
Next: Involuntary, Hale County This Morning This Evening, Coffee and Cigarettes

Fatal Assistance (Haiti) – The Disaster after the 2010 Earthquake

Fatal Assistance Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

You’ve probably heard about the 2010 Haiti Earthquake and you may have even donated some money via one of the many fundraising initiatives, but have you got any idea about how all the funds raised were put to use? Fatal Assistance investigates the recovery attempts after the earthquake and will get you questioning whether we need to reform how we donate and how charities work.

Why Watch Fatal Assistance?

Learn about the devastation caused by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti
Analyse the effectiveness of disaster relief charities
Watch a film from Haiti from Haiti’s minister for culture, Raoul Peck (who you may know from his other great documentary: I Am Not Your Negro)
Find out if there are any solutions for the future

The Breakdown

Fatal Assistance starts with a first hand account of the 2010 Haitian Earthquake. You’ll see footage of people falling to the ground under the tremors and buildings shaking and crumbling. However, unlike the big disaster fiction films, this film is a documentary and focuses on the earthquake’s aftermath.

The destruction of the earthquake was massive. It made 1.5 million people homeless and caused 24 times as much debris as 9/11. Loads of celebrities and people around the world raised millions to help Haiti’s recovery. As a result, the country was full of hope despite being ravaged by disaster. There was enough money to change the country, for it it recover from the earthquake and lift it out of poverty.

However, you can tell that the hope is not going to be fulfilled. The letters that are narrated throughout the film seem to come from the future and feel full of regret.

The lack of hope is personified in the zombie-esque appearance of former U.S. President Bill Clinton who is in charge of the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission. The IHRC was part of a ‘dictatorship of aid’ which consumed all of the money without actually solving anything. All the charities involved in the relief effort only offered temporary solutions, arguably to ensure they continued to exist and receive funding instead of actually solving the problem they were created for.

Image result for fatal assistance

Conclusion

The result is a pretty negative view of the IHRC and Haitian recovery effort. Whilst the documentary doesn’t outwardly point fingers, it’s quite clear who Peck thinks is to blame. It’s worth watching to debate the effectiveness of relief charities (see GiveWell for a one solution) and for a quick lowdown on Haiti in the 2000s.