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.

The Harder They Come (Jamaica) – Tune in For Reggae and Guns

The Harder They Come Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

If you like reggae you need to watch The Harder They Come. The reggae soundtrack is the star of this film which brought reggae to the world. You’ll also meet Ivan (played by Jimmy Cliff) a poor man from rural Jamaica trying to make it in the city.

Why Watch The Harder They Come?

The soundtrack – it brought reggae to the world
It’s the first film made in Jamaica by Jamaicans speaking Jamaican Patois
If you like shoot-outs and general chaos (just like the good old Westerns)
Experience a bit of Jamaica by watching it here on YouTube

The Breakdown

Ivan is traveling from rural Jamaica to the city in search of work after his grandmother dies. On the way to his mother’s house in Kingston, his bus almost crashes as it tears round downhill bends and a porter almost runs away with all his belongings after he arrives. This opening is all set to a energetic reggae soundtrack, giving you a chaotic introduction to the life and sound of Jamaica.

Ivan comes to the city in search of work, however work is scarce. Everywhere he goes he meets unskilled people like him also looking for work. He eventually manages to get a job after he fixes a broken bicycle, but gets thrown into prison after he slashes the bikes original owner when he tries to take it back. It’s at this stage of the film that Ivan’s hate for authority starts building.

So, why does Ivan grow to hate authority?

He’s whipped by the police for slashing the man who tries to take his old bike back
A rich record producer forces Ivan to sell his hit song for a pitiful $20
The preacher he works for at the church bullies him

You’re led to believe that it’s a combination of these reasons that makes Ivan kill a cop. However, it’s the film he watches (Django) which causes him to continue killing cops. The film romanticizes the outsider fighting against authority. In the clip we see, Django takes on a whole regiment of KKK members by himself while the whole crowd cheers on.

And it’s these shots of the crowd cheering on Django that director Perry Henzell chooses to show us interrupting Ivan’s cop-killing spree. Ivan’s popularity and fame grows rapidly when he’s on the run, much quicker than after he sold his hit song to that rich record producer. Like Django, he becomes an anti-hero in Jamaica because he’s a poor, downtrodden man who stands up to authority. Even though cop-killing isn’t really justified, the public cheer him on.

Image result for the harder they come

Conclusion

Whilst Henzell gives Ivan enough reason to hate authority, he doesn’t really justify Ivan’s complete u-turn mid-film from a guy trying to find work into a full on criminal. As a result, a lot of the sympathy you feel for Ivan which is built up in the first half of the movie is forgotten.

Therefore, my advice is not to watch this film for it’s plot. For example, you wouldn’t watch Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Predator for it’s great storyline. Instead, watch this film because it’s entertaining, it has a great soundtrack, and it finally brought Jamaica to the big screen.

When the Stars Meet the Sea – Life’s Journey set in Madagascan Myth

When the Stars Meet the Sea Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Why Watch When the Stars Meet the Sea?

If you like mythology – Kapila’s Madagascan origin story is like a dark version of Hercules.
It’s also a Siddartha-esque story about tuning out hate for peace and happiness.
To see how Raymond Rajaonarivelo uses the landscape to represent the story of life.

From: Madagascar, Africa
Watch: Trailer, Vimeo, Kanopy, IMDb
Next: Zerzura, Kirikou and the Sorceress, Sleepwalking Land

Kapila is born during a solar eclipse in the opening of When the Stars Meet the Sea. According to traditional Madagascan beliefs this gives him destructive powers, so his father secretly leaves him in a cattle pen to be trampled. He’s permanently crippled, but before the cows kill him, he’s saved by Raivo, who takes him to the city to raise as her own child. However, even though he’s brought up by a loving adoptive mother, he’s never able to fit into the community because of his crippled leg and growing supernatural powers. So he starts to question his roots, and with the help of a mystical blind woman he starts a journey into his past.

A dark Madagascan version of Hercules

When the Stars Meet the Sea feels a bit like a modest Madagascan version of Hercules. In both, a child with supernatural powers is left to die but is saved by a humble villager that raises him as their own. Similarly, they both grow up with supernatural powers and realize that their humble families are not their own. So they go on a quest to find their true identity. However, whilst Hercules is destined for greatness, Kapila is cursed to use his powers for destruction.

Taming Vengeance with Love

Kapila’s journey therefore becomes his battle with destiny. Society believes he’s evil because of his birth date, and the glimpses of his destructive supernatural power justify their fears. It appears in his weakest moments: when’s he’s bullied or grieving. In order to allay his power, he has to quell his desires for vengeance against those who cross him, and replace those desires with love. In this way, his journey resembles that of Siddhartha: he can achieve peace and happiness if he tunes out his anger and desires for vengeance. It’s a journey of purification and finding peace with oneself.

The Landscape Holds the Ultimate Journey

When the Stars Meet the Sea infuses the landscape into the story. As Kapila walks through the Madagascan landscape on his way home he passes through the desert, woodland, mountains, and the savannah. The variety of scenery may look like an advertisement for the beautiful landscapes of Madagascar, but it’s also representative of the diversity of our own lives. In traditional Madagascan beliefs, the sky (where Kapila draws his supernatural powers) and the sea (where he journeys towards) represent birth and death. The earth represents the life in between. His journeys through the different Madagascan landscapes therefore represent the diversity of life and its challenges whilst his journey towards the sea represents life’s ultimate journey in this world: from birth to death.

What to Watch Next

If you’re looking for more African films in which the main character embarks on a magical quest, check out Zerzura from Niger. It features a psychedelic journey into the desert to fight the Djinn. You could also watch the brilliantly animated Kirikou and the Sorceress which features a magical baby that takes on an evil sorceress that demands human tributes from his village or Sleepwalking Land which features a post-apocalyptic Mozambique.

Otherwise if you’re looking for more films with a bit of magic and family secrets, go watch Eve’s Bayou, an American film set in rural Louisiana.

Anishoara – A Country Girl Dreaming of Escape

Anishoara Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Why Watch Anishoara?

Follow a girl quietly determined to forge her own path
Hear the mythical origin story of the Sky Lark
See a rural Moldovan town that looks like it’s preserved in time

From: Moldova, Europe
Watch: Trailer, IMDb
Next: Yara, Mustang, Honeyland

The Breakdown

Anishoara starts with the most unique scene of the whole film. A charismatic man tells the mythical origin story of the Sky Lark in a close up shot with him looking directly at the camera. The story is about a beautiful princess who had suitors lined up for her from across the country. Instead of choosing one of the princes, she chose to love the sun and raced across the land and sea to be with him. But when the sun fell in love with her and embraced her, she burned to ashes and fell back down to earth. Devastated by her fate, the sun decided to reincarnate her as a Sky Lark; a bird that is known for flying vertically before falling back to earth as if it’s trying to reach the sun.

Anishoara a 15 year old is the movie’s Sky Lark. Just like the Princess in the myth, she has suitors lining up to be her partner. There’s a farm boy that teaches her to drive the tractor and a creepy old German tourist that also tries his luck. Instead, she chooses a typical mysterious bad boy named Dragosh that takes her around the country on his motorbike. However, just as the princess was destined to a doom of trying to get close to her love, Anishoara appears destined to chase after Dragosh without getting close to him.

However, her suitors and Dragosh unintentionally change her future, perhaps for the better. Each one of them gives her a gift which helps her to escape from the rural town. The farm boy teaches her how to drive – a method of escape. The old German leaves his binoculars – a tool for her to see outside of the bubble she lives in. Dragosh takes her to the sea, revealing that life exists outside of her town. She uses what she learns from her relationships to seek a new life away from her unchanging home town. Elsewhere she may have the chance to determine her own life. In her escape, she also breaks free from the myth of the Sky Lark.

What to Watch Next

If you’re looking for more films that take place in rural settlements that feel like they’re from another era, check out North Macedonia’s Honeyland and Lebanon’s Yara.

For more films about women trying to escape from their current lives check out Nevia from the streets of Napoli and Mustang from rural Turkey.

Or if you’d like to see more understated films about women chasing after lost relationships, watch Uski Roti, an Indian film about a woman waiting for her unfaithful husband to return, of When the Tenth Month Comes featuring a woman hoping for her husband to return from war.

Witnesses – A Bleak Croatian Portrayal of the Futility of War

Witnesses Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Witnesses follows a group of brothers who have returned from the front lines of the Croatian-Serbian War as broken men. Their thirst for revenge fuels a late night attack on a Serbian neighbor. Rumors of witnesses pushes them to solemnly work to eliminate all of them. However, stuck in a bleak city on lockdown in a narrative that keeps replaying the past indicates that their fate is unavoidable.

From: Croatia, Europe
Watch: Tubi, Kanopy
Next: The Load, Sleepwalking Land, Shok

The Breakdown

It feels like the three brothers are doomed right from the start when they murder their Serbian neighbor. As they drive towards his house crammed into a small car, they’re completely silent and lifeless. Their lack of emotion makes it feel like their condemned to act instead of acting willingly. After the murder, they appear solemnly sat around the table in their mother’s house in silence. Their mother is dressed black in mourning, and their father is lying next door in an open coffin. An empty bar is the only other place the brothers are pictured, sipping on pints of beer in silence. It feels like they’ve already resigned themselves to their fate and are simply waiting for it to catch up with them.

Their hopelessness is also imbued into the setting. The skies are constantly overcast which shrouds everything underneath them in a bleak palette of greys. The lack of light makes the brothers faces appear more ghostly and pale, in contrast to the more vibrant colors of their flashbacks on the front lines of the war in a time before they’d lost hope. Now, with trauma from the war and having murdered a neighbor, their pale faces are a mark of the life that has left them. They’re sleepwalking like zombies towards their fate.

The narrative structure also serves to construct the prison of trauma they’re stuck in. Following the murder, they’re never given the same freedom as in the opening scene where the camera follows them around the town in their car in one shot. As the film moves on, the same scenes start replaying: scenes of the three brothers in the bar, scenes of the three brothers around the table by their dead dad, and scenes of the three brothers at funerals. Repeatedly showing the brothers in the same places traps them within a limited area. Furthermore, the scenes are all shot with still cameras that don’t move, mimicking their guilt by trapping them within the frame. Even though they haven’t been found guilty, the way the cyclical narrative and fixed cameras become their prison. They’re stuck within the deserted town to be consumed by their guilt and trauma from the war.

The bleak setting, emotionless characters, and cyclical narrative imbues hopelessness into the look and tone of Witnesses, turning it into a gloomy but effective film about the futility of war and hate, and the grief and trauma it causes.

What to Watch Next

If you’re looking for more bleak portrayals of the Balkan Wars, I strongly recommend watching:

The Load: A road trip movie following one Serbian man’s truck journey from Kosovo to Belgrade. It’s also his journey to becoming aware of the grim reality of the war.
Shok: A short film that depicts the brutal occupation of Kosovo.

Or if you’d rather watch more bleak films featuring characters blindly moving forward in divided countries check out Mozambique’s Sleepwalking Land or Rwanda’s The Mercy of the Jungle.

100

Angel on the Right – A Hot Head Returns Home

Angel on the Right Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Why Watch Angel on the Right?

To visit a rural Tajik town far away from centralized control
If you like films that star hot headed men
For a surprise appearance of magical realism

From: Tajikistan, Asia
Watch: Trailer, Amazon Prime, JustWatch
Next: Redemption, White Sun, Witnesses