Film Festival Coverage Hub - Reviews & Recaps

There is No Evil – AFI Fest 2020

There is No Evil is made to be provocative in both the story structure and the content. Each of the four stories contains a mystery: we have to ask who the main character is and what they have done? Revealing their identity and actions is provocative as it shows how they’re linked to capital punishment and mandatory military service. None of the characters are what they initially seem.

Likewise the content is provocative. As mentioned, each story is linked to the death penalty and mandatory military service. But not just one of the other, as often the mandatory military service requires you to enforce capital punishment. Regular citizens are expected to follow orders and pull the stool from under those citizens deemed worthy of death. The director focuses on this to show how encompassing authoritarian rule is in Iran, and how blindly some people follow it. By showing how the state forces you to commit the absolute highest crime for it’s benefit, the director reveals that there’s nothing some citizens wouldn’t do to facilitate the authoritarian government in Iran.

There is No Evil is split into four parts partly for political/logistical reasons. Director Mohammad Rasoulof is currently banned from filmmaking in Iran and breaking the film into shorts made it easier to hide his name from the permits and delegate. However, breaking the film up into four sections also helps to expand the perspective of the film. Instead of focusing on one family in one singular feature, the four parts show the range of people and lives the death penalty affects. We see those who resist and those that follow the law, as well as family members and friends who can’t escape it. It shows that everyone can be implicated.

Whilst it shows people from both sides, the film appears to favor those who resist. This is shown in the openness of the worlds in each short, especially when comparing the first short to the last. In the first, we follow a father governed by his routines. He follows rules and chastises his wife for forgetting to do things by the book. Despite being free to go wherever he wants, his world feels narrow and restricted. A lot of the time he’s inside either a car stuck in traffic, or in buildings, and he works in a windowless room far underground in artificial light. So whilst he’s not an outcast to society, his world feels limited and bleak. In contrast, the outcast in part four has escaped from Iranian society. He’s been forced to live off the land far from civilization because he resisted. But his world also feels more free for it. His story is full of natural light and wide expansive shots of the landscape. His world feels more free despite his political status because he stood up for what he believed in. His spiritual freedom is reflected in his bright world. In him, the director shows he favors those who resist.

Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.

Nasir – AFI Fest 2020

This film portrays a day in the life of Nasir, a Muslim tailor in Tamil-Nadu, one of India’s Southern states. It doesn’t shy away from the mundane, as it takes time to show Nasir go about his everyday tasks. We see him wash, eat, sleep, chat, and work. The aim is to portray Nasir as an ordinary Indian man. Just like everyone else, he’s burdened by life’s necessities.

The only thing that might stand out about him is that he’s a bit of a poet. He makes up poetry in his head and recites it to his colleagues and is shot walking around with his inner thoughts voiced over in the narrative. There’s also a few long takes of Nasir’s face in close up as he’s resting by an aquarium. These long takes force us to notice him thinking or day dreaming, to add a thoughtfulness to his character. It further adds to the construction of Nasir as an ordinary nice guy, humbly living his life.

The director sets up Nasir’s humble life to contrast with the threatening rise of Hindu nationalism in the background. It’s first heard on the market loudspeakers when Nasir walks his wife to the bus station. Then we hear his boss talking about the upcoming Hindu festival and how they need to get rid of the Muslims. It’s clear the Islamophobic sentiment is getting stronger and becoming more outspoken. Nasir seems to be oblivious of this, partly because the director protects him from it with a much narrower aspect ratio than your standard widescreen. It keeps him and his humble life as the focus and keeps the threatening presence of Hindu nationalism out of the screen.

Nasir is a humble look at one person trying to live a humble life amidst rising nationalism.

Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.

Kijiji Changu (My Village) – Pan African Film Festival 2020

Kijiji Changu focuses on the relationship between two very different best friends Makame and Saidi. Saidi is a young playboy. He doesn’t have a steady job but is quick to give away what he has to get any of the local women in his bed. In contrast, Makame has already grown up. He fishes to earn money for his family and is already married and trying to conceive a child. The only strife in his life is that his mum and wife Maryam don’t get along, because his wife hasn’t given her a grandchild. However, when Maryam sleeps with Makame’s best friend Saidi in a desperate attempt to conceive, she becomes pregnant. But, whilst it saves her marriage and pleases her mother in law, it proves to have disastrous consequences.

From the sound of it, Kijiji Changu should have a lot of drama. There’s adultery, promiscuity, and rivalries between a wife and her mother in law and two best friends. However, Kijiji Changu fails to translate any of this drama to the screen due to a lack of narrative focus and a repetitive soundtrack.

Firstly, the story is unfocused. The film begins by setting up the brotherly relationship between Makame and Saidi. In some scenes they’re best friends and others worst enemies, but it kind of makes sense, as after all, they are very different characters. The plot slowly moves on with Makame and Saidi being friends, then not talking, friends, then not talking, even after Saidi sleeps with Maryam. The adulterous act is a prime opportunity to spark some fire into their love triangle relationship, but instead of developing the drama, the film loses focus. Instead of wondering how his wife had got pregnant when he hasn’t been with her in the whole film, Makame blindly celebrates the news that Maryam is pregnant. The film then fades out and returns to the village 9 months later in which the focus of the film switches to a story about HIV. In doing so, the character rivalries the initial hour built up are pushed to the side.

Secondly, the repetitive soundtrack messes with the emotional tone of the film by playing the same song to very different visual scenes. For example, the same song is played when Saidi seduces a woman as when the mother in law scratches her tongue at Maryam, and when one man enters the hospital. Each of these three scenes should elicit a different emotional response from the audience, but because the same musical piece backs each of them, the tone is muted. Soundtracks usually guide our emotional response by matching the same music to scenes which share similar emotions visually. However, in this case, the soundtrack doesn’t always match the visual emotions which confuses how we are meant to perceive the film.

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I Carry You With Me – AFI Fest 2020

I Carry You With Me is an epic cross generational, border crossing love story that hops between Puebla in Mexico and New York in the USA. It’s shot across three time periods: the present in NY, the past in Puebla, and the distant past reflected in childhood memories. The majority of the film takes place in the middle where Ivan and Gerardo meet. It contains the bulk of the film’s emotion and narrative. However, the cuts to the present imbue it with nostalgia by situating it in the past. It makes it feel like a dream period for the couple that contrasts with the uncertainty of their lives in the present.

The style also contributes to the dream like qualities of the middle period. Like Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love, Heidi Ewing uses a lot of color filters to imbue warmth and feeling to I Carry You With Me. Instead of warm reds and oranges, there’s greens, oranges, and blues that create a world that feels unique and special. It captures the excitement of their romance. Also like In The Mood for Love, there’s food. A plate of Chile en Nogada replaces a bowl of hot steaming noodles. Chile en Nogada being one of Puebla and Mexico’s most iconic dishes and one that is notoriously hard to make. It both situates their romance and symbolizes their love.

The portrayal of Puebla also challenges the typical American Dream narrative presented in U.S.-Mexico films. It depicts a Mexican city full of warmth, beauty, and life to contrast with the lonely, bleak, coldness of New York. In this film, the U.S. is not the land of opportunity that it is often depicted to be. Instead of leaving to escape poverty, they leave for the opportunity to start a new life.

I Carry You With Me is not without it’s own cliches. There’s the gay guy with the female best friend and another who’s best friend is a flamboyant drag queen. Then there’s the haunting memories of the first time their fiercely patriarchal families put them down. Obviously not all families in Mexico are like this, and whilst I don’t doubt these events happened to the real Ivan and Gerardo, they feel like exploitative throw in scenes designed to evoke sympathy and emotion. However, despite the cliches,I Carry You With Me is a brilliantly romantic portrayal of generation and border crossing love.

Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.

My Little Sister – AFI Fest 2020

My Little Sister starts with two protagonists: Lisa and Sven. They’re twins, and evidently very close. Even when they’re shot apart, as in the opening scene, they’re still connected – it’s a shot of Lisa giving blood followed by a shot of Sven sleeping alone in a sanitized hospital room. She’s giving her blood to help him fight cancer.

Over the first half of the movie, the camera follows Lisa and Sven equally. However, the narrative balance between them becomes more lopsided as the film progresses. Coinciding with Sven’s deteriorating health, Lisa takes up more and more screen time. The movie becomes less about how Sven copes with cancer and more about how Lisa deals with it. Whilst it confirms his physical end, her assumption of the film’s focus also represents her inheriting Sven’s spirit. She takes on Sven’s stage presence (he was known for being a charismatic stage actor) and assumes some of his characteristics. She becomes more independent and creative than she appears at the beginning of the film.

One example of Lisa’s change is in her marital relationship. After she takes Sven abroad to her home in Switzerland, she starts questioning her life with her husband Martin. He’s a symbol of the soft patriarchy that has frozen her in a place she doesn’t want to be. She has compromised her creative career to move to a remote Swiss town for his advancement, but got no support in return. Instead of considering a return to Berlin with Lisa, Martin mansplains that living as a housewife abroad is in Lisa’s best interests. Her role for him is to fulfill his ‘happy family’ image at work functions. Lisa’s revolt against his soft patriarchy is triggered by the arrival of Sven. He’s a reminder of her previous ambitions that have been forgotten in her nuclear family life abroad.

There’s no doubt that My Little Sister is a sad family drama. The only respite seems to come from the classical opera music that replaces diegetic sound in and following the most hopeless scenes. However, looking at it positively, we follow a character that inherits the freedom to become a more independent character. So if you can brave a film featuring an intimate relationship with a relative fighting cancer, you’ll be able to appreciate My Little Sister.

Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.