VENICE REVIEW: Dormant Beauty (Bella Addormentata)

Dormant Beauty (Bella Addormentata) 

Venice Review

5:56 AM PDT 9/5/2012

By Deborah Young

Maya Sansa and Pier Giorgio Bellocchio in Dormant Beauty

The Bottom Line 

Marco Bellocchio reaffirms the dignity of life in another film of sparkling intelligence, set around a real-life euthanasia case.

Italian master Marco Bellocchio's tale of a modern-day Sleeping Beauty features a top cast top-lining Toni Servillo, Isabelle Huppert, Alba Rohrwacher and Maya Sansa.

With typical intelligence and complexity, director Marco Bellocchio weaves three stories around the politically hot topic of euthanasia, turning a real-life Italian national drama into engrossing narrative for sophisticated audiences. Refusing to offer easy answers or perspectives, Dormant Beauty is directed in such a way it doesn’t need to take a clear-cut position on the question, because like all the director’s work it has no concern with convincing people of anything, but a great deal of interest in illuminating contemporary Italian society. Its unqualified success in doing so should make it a full-fledged contender for a major prize at Venice and help it to closely imitate the international sales of his recent work.  

Like Bellocchio’s film about the Aldo Moro assassination, Good Morning, Night, the story takes off from real events that obsessed Italians in 2009 when Beppe Englaro decided to take his daughter Eluana, in a coma for 17 years following a car accident, off mechanical life support. The most remarkable thing about the case was the father’s insistence on seeing Italian law applied rather than taking the easy route of doing it quietly on the sly (the film shows two examples). The case of Eluana became a cause celebre that pitted pro-life activists against the girl’s family; prime minister Silvio Berlusconi also got involved and politicians, seeing fertile ground for cashing in on voters’ strong feelings, turned the sad case into a parliamentary vote.

The case is still a hot topic as shown by the fact that the Northeast province and region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, where the film was shot, took the almost unbelievable step of cancelling their active Film Commission, theoretically for budget reasons but most probably to block financing to this film and avoid controversy. The Film Commission logo does appear on the opening credits, however.   

   

As might be expected from the director of My Mother’s Smile, a.k.a.The Religion Hour, Catholic vs. secular views about euthanasia square off.  The religious-minded young Maria (Alba Rohrwacher sporting a no-makeup, Catholic schoolgirl look) demonstrates on the opposite side of police lines from a boy she likes, Roberto (Michele Riondino), and his rabidly angry, mentally ill brother. It’s an honest, clean relationship that leaps across ideological barriers, at least while they fall in love.

In another story so subtly interwoven it seems to overlap, a famous actress (Isabelle Huppert) obsessively cares for her own coma-stricken sleeping beauty, her daughter Rosa, with a small army of nurses and nuns. Though no cardinals or bishops appear in the story, Huppert embodies the Catholic p.o.v.; her neglected son even calls her “the Divine Mother.” It’s not a disrespectful portrait of a mother’s pain, but the very fact that the cold Huppert plays a Francesca Bertini-style diva, one who dreams of Lady Macbeth in her sleep, signals how distant she is from the screenwriters’ affection.

In a third story, Dr. Pallido (Pier Giorgio Bellocchio) becomes attracted to a beautiful, suicidal drug addict (Maya Sansa) and watches over her sedated sleep in a public hospital, while doctors and orderlies are cynically betting on how long Eluana will survive.  The young doctor’s attention may not be disinterested, but it offers space to affirm the positive value of life and freedom:  “You’re free to kill yourself,” he tells the girl, “and I’m free to try to stop you.”   

The film’s real center of empathy, however, is Toni Servillo’s very human impersonation of Uliano Beffardi, an honest politician. A first-term senator elected for Berlusconi’s party, he’s called on to vote for a law against euthanasia designed specifically to stop Eluana Englaro from being taken off life support. It goes completely against his conscience, especially given a traumatic event in his past.   

Uliano contemplates resigning from office to honor his beliefs, but he’s deathly afraid of losing the trust of his daughter, Maria. Their differing ideas about the Englaro case are a painful source of friction. Meanwhile, he reluctantly goes to Rome where the political tension is peaking as the vote approaches.

Remarkably, Bellocchio takes time out for wry humor that will help the film immeasurably at the Italian box office and beyond. The script he wrote with Stefano Rulli and Veronica Raimocontains a scene for the archives that tears the political class to pieces, allowing the best of Italian liberalism to triumph for one brief moment. The droll, lined face of Roberto Herlitzka, who played Aldo Moro, animates the surreal figure of a shrink who seems to work in the Senate (or maybe in party headquarters) prescribing uppers and downers to depressed politicians. There’s even a candle-lit Turkish bath where the pols relax like ancient Roman senators, with their heads sticking out of a steamy pool while they watch closed-circuit TV of live parliamentary debates.

Bellocchio’s excellent technical crew lead by director of photography Daniele Cipri’ (who directed Toni Servillo in the other Italian film in Venice competition, It Was the Son) gives the film a dark, rich look echoed in Carlo Crivelli’s moving dramatic score and its magical adaptation of David Bowie’s Abdulmajid.

Venue: Venice Film Festival, Sept. 5, 2012.Production companies: Cattleya, Rai Cinema, Babe Films

Cast: Toni Servillo, Alba Rohrwacher, Maya Sansa, Pier Giorgio Bellocchio, Isabelle Huppert, Michele Riondino, Gian Marco Tognazzi, Fabrizio Falco, Brenno Placido, Roberto Herlitzka, Federica Fracassi
Director: Marco Bellocchio
Screenwriters: Marco Bellocchio, Veronica Raimo, Stefano Rulli
Producers: Riccardo Tozzi, Marco Chimenz, Giovanni Stabilini
Co-producer: Fabio Conversi
Executive producer: Francesca Longardi
Director of photography: Daniele Cipri’
Production designer: Marco Dentici
Costumes: Sergio Ballo
Editor: Francesca Calvelli
Music: Carlo Crivelli
Sales Agent: Celluloid Dreams
No rating, 115 minutes.

VENICE REVIEW: Thy Womb (Sinapupunan)

Thy Womb (Sinapupunan) 

Venice Review

9:13 AM PDT 9/6/2012

By Neil Young

Bangas-An (Bembol Roco), Mersila (Lovi Poe), Shaleha (Nora Aunor)
of the film Thy Womb (Sinapupunan)

The Bottom Line

Alluring scenery and a sympathetic lead performance help elevate an otherwise tepid, underdeveloped slice of Philippine ethno-drama.

An infertile midwife turns matchmaker for her aging husband in the ever-prolific Brillante Mendoza's colorfully ethnographic but torpid drama Thy Womb (Sinapupunan), premiering in Venice competition seven months after Isabelle Huppert collaboration Captive contended at Berlin. He teams up here with Nora Aunor, an enduring mega-star of his nation's cinema and music industries, making this Toronto selection an appealing box-office proposition at home. Overseas fortunes regarding distribution and TV sales will likely depend on the Venice jury, and unless it wins something big on the Lido a future of festival berths looks the most probable scenario.

Mendoza, credited here as "Brillante Ma. Mendoza," won Best Director at Cannes in 2009 for what remains internationally his best-known work, the harrowingly violent Kinatay (aka The Execution of P.). Hostage chronicle Captive similarly put its cast and audience through a tough ordeal, but Mendoza is on restrained and lyrical form here as he immerses us in the unspoiltwaterworld of the Philippine archipelago's south-western extremity, Tawi-Tawi.

A spectacularly big sky, big sea location just off the coast of Borneo, Tawi-Tawi is one of the country's five mainly Muslim provinces, and Mendoza's depiction of the religion's exotic but mild local variant adds much flavor to proceedings, especially the dazzlingly opulent garments worn at festive and formal occasions.

Shaleha (Aunor) and her fisherman husband Bangas-An (BembolRoco) are practicing adherents of the faith. But it's never made clear how this informs Shaleha's decision to seek a second wife for his spouse, whose long-held desire to have a child of his own has in the past been temporarily satisfied by adopting. "Instead of cheating on me, I'd rather pick a bride for him," she confides to a friend.

Shaleha's search comprises the bulk of the slender narrative, taking its cue from the steady rhythms of life on and between the islands, a sedate pace with several long stretches of waiting. This patience-taxing approach does allow us to contemplate the district's natural and man-made environments via cinematographer Odyssey Flores' generally pin-sharp digital images. Among the wide range of locations visited is an abandoned church, whose dilapidated state eloquently hints that Christianity, while still the overwhelmingly dominant religion in the country, has receded as a force in this particular area.

Mendoza's offbeat choice of title, a reference to the Virgin taken from the Catholic prayer "Hail Mary," ties in with this aspect of the story. But Burgos' script only touches superficially on potentially tricky matters of faith and religion, and it's never clear what's going on when the Tawi-Tawi tranquility is shattered by the occasional appearance of gun-toting guerillas. Further frustrations mar the crucial final act, after a beautifully demure and surprisingly willing partner for Bangas-As emerges in the form of Mersila (Lovi Poe) with negative consequences for the self-sacrificing Shaleha ("for my husband's happiness I'd do anything").

Fifty-nine-year-old Aunor's 170-film career dates back to the 1960s, including collaborations with colossal figures of Philippine cinema such as LinoBrocka and Gerardo de Leon. And her elfin features, so powerfully expressive of both happiness and sorrow, help make Shahela an engaging, unlikely heroine here. It's a shame, then, that her character is ultimately somewhat ill-served by Burgos and Mendoza's overall design, especially in the underdeveloped finale which concludes on an ironic but naggingly unsatisfying note just as things are about to get much more interesting.

Venue: Venice Film Festival (Competition), September 6, 2012.

Production company: Center Stage Productions
Cast: Nora Aunor, Bembol Rocco, Mercedes Cabral, Lovi Poe
Director: Brillante Ma. Mendoza
Screenwriter: Henry Burgos
Executive producers: Brillante Ma. Mendoza, Melvin Mangada, Jaime Santiago
Director of photography: Odyssey Flores
Production designer: 'Dante Mendoza' (i.e. Brillante Ma. Mendoza)
Music: Teresa Barrozo
Editor: Kats Serraon

Sales agent: Center Stage Productions, Mandaluyong City, The Philippines
No MPAA rating, 105 minutes 

BERLIN REVIEW: 'Captive,' Brillante Mendoza's Awful Kidnapping Movie, Makes the Case for a Dumber Version of Itself

BERLIN REVIEW: 'Captive,' Brillante Mendoza's Awful Kidnapping Movie, Makes the Case for a Dumber Version of Itself

BY ERIC KOHN
Indiewire

FEBRUARY 12, 2012 10:48 PM

Captive poster in Berlin International Film Festival

After a brief foray into quieter terrain with his 2009 feature "Lola," Filipino director Brillante Mendoza returns to the provocative territory of his 2009 shocker "Kinatay" with "Captive," another grim kidnapping story, this one far weaker in terms of both shock and quality.

A dramatization of the 2001 incident in which Muslim terrorist group Abu Sayyaf took numerous people hostage from an island resort, the movie follows them through nearly a year of hellacious wanderings through the Filipino jungle. At two hours, the best thing that can be said about "Captive" is that it makes you feel the sheer longevity that the hostages had to endure, but that's not enough to salvage this mercilessly redundant thriller.

At first, Mendoza's typically intense shaky-cam style holds promise; the initial rounding up of hostages and the ensuing initiation by their captors maintains a basic level of intrigue. Fiercely devoted to their cause, the gun-wielding outlaws interrogate their affluent prisoners to get a handle on their wealth. On a rickety boat drifting through the empty ocean, these exchanges create tension that quickly dissipates once they make landfall. Then "Captive" settles into a rhythm of running, shooting and shouting, with a few breaks for flimsy dialogue.

If you choose to focus on Isabelle Huppert, a good movie hides somewhere in "Captive." The French actress plays a Christian aid worker boldly shouting down the kidnappers every step of the way; as usual, she's a fiery, engrossing figure whose confrontational moments infuse the story with a tension it otherwise sorely lacks. Mendoza can direct suspense with the best of them, and his command of the medium is such that the early scenes of "Captive" manage to generate palpable fear. But once it fails to realize that potential, Mendoza heads down a road to nowhere.   

The bad movie that mainly defines the "Captive" experience is epitomized by a CGI bird. This strangely colorful (and obviously artifical) being manifests itself at a late moment in the film, after the trapped characters have traipsed around the woodsy terrain for months on end, repeatedly bitching to their kidnappers. The nonfiction backdrop and passing conversations about the politics driving the situation imply that Mendoza wants to make something deeper than a genre exercise, but neither Huppert nor various plot twists can salvage "Captive."

The few intriguing developments -- a forced marriage between a hostage and one of the kidnappers, the unlikely bond Huppert's character forms with an adolescent kidnapper -- come and go like a series of vignettes. When a journalist finds the kidnappers' camp and sits them down for interviews, a prolonged series of first-person confessionals take over as if "Captive" were suddenly an unfunny episode of "The Office." That segment, like a few others, come across with the same misguided superficiality of that CGI bird.

"Captive" lacks any coherent emotional hook or worldly argument, despite taking on form and content that attempts to command both. Instead, it only evokes the sheer frustration of the situation and the ineptitude of various governments to resolve it. Everything is black-and-white: The terrorists are angry, the hostages are mortified. Ironically, "Captive" makes a good case for a movie that could be this dumb on purpose: Only the occasional bursts of gunfire inject life into the frame.   

 

Criticwire grade: D+

HOW WILL IT PLAY? The genre elements, limited star appeal of Huppert and real-life basis may help "Captive" find a solid theatrical life (at least more than Mendoza's previous films), but bad word-of-mouth will likely bury its longterm prospects.

http://www.indiewire.com/article/berlin-review-captive-brillante-mendozas-awful-kidnapping-movie-makes-the-case-for-a-dumber-version-of-itself#

Who’s afraid of DANNY DE GUZMAN?

Who’s afraid of 

DANNY DE GUZMAN?

People's Mayor Danny de Guzman tells some 
sob stories about his office, city and its citizens

MARAMING multo sa Mandaluyong at isa-isa o sabay-sabay na itong nagpaparamdam at nagpapakita sa kasalukuyang nakaupo sa puwesto at sa mga alipores nito.  Balitang maski sa sarili niyang anino ay takot na rin ang incumbent kaya dinadaan na lang nito sa mga tarpaulin, na nagkalat sa buong siyudad, ang panunungkulan nito.

Mandaluyong constituents gather in droves at the 

dilapidated stair and small lobby of the 
People's Mayor's office

         At ayon mismo sa mga nakakaalam sa city hall, takot na takot si Mayor Tarpaulin sa anumang nakikitang tarpaulin ni Mayor Danny de Guzman sa kahit na saang lugar o sulok ng Mandaluyong kaya agad itong pinatatanggal sa mga naglipanang mga galamay.

         Isang ikot sa buong siyudad ng mga baliw at iskwater ay kapansin-pansin na halos walang katiting na tarpauling nakasabit si Danny De Guzman.  Maliban na lang siguro sa kanyang sira-sirang opisina sa lumang city hall building sa loob ng Maysilo Circle na halos nasilo na nang buong-buo ni Mayor Tarpaulin.

         Nakakatakot ba si Mayor Danny de Guzman?  Anong mayroon siya at talagang “threatened to the max” sina Mayor Tarpaulin at ang tropang trapo nito? Isipin niyo, maski tarpaulin lang ni Danny ay pinag-iinitan pa nila.  Overrr... sobra... at lagpas na!  Kaya tama na!

         Takot at di matatahimik ang mga bulok at tiwaling pulitiko na matagal nang pabaya sa kanilang puwesto at trabaho kay Mayor Danny de Guzman.  Sa tunog at dating pa lang ng kanyang pangalan ay nanginginig na ang buong katawan at katauhan ni Mayor Tarpaulin.  Masdan niyo ang mahabang pila ng mga mahihirap at ordinaryong mamamayan ng Mandaluyong na araw-araw ay nagbabakasakaling makita at makausap si Mayor Danny de Guzman.  Lahat sila ay humihingi ng tulong, sa iba’t-ibang pangangailangan, na malugod namang tinutugunan pagdating ng kaibigan, kapuso, at kapamilya nilang si Danny.

         Si Mayor Danny de Guzman ang siyang tunay na “Best Friend ng Bayan” at di ang sinumang pretender na mahirap abutin at lapitan.

A square "halo" befits the 
Most Popular Mayor of Mandaluyong City

         Sabi nga ng isang epileptic patient na matiyagang naghihintay kay Mayor Danny de Guzman sa kanyang opisina: “Ayaw na naming magpunta sa magarang blue building dahil masyadong sosyal ang mga tao roon.  At malamang na masigawan pa ako ng tauhang si Ferdie.”

         Napag-alaman naming si Ferdie ay ang kilalang mahadera at salbaheng bakla na matagal nang empleyado ni Mayor Tarpaulin.  Tunay ka, totoong naglipana ang mga bakla – tago man o ladlad – sa administrasyon ni Mayor Tarpaulin for 15 years.  Is it his way of “making up” for a lost gay love?

         Kapansin-pansin na walang gaybar at walang massage parlor ng mga bakla sa Mandaluyong.  Pero ang buong siyudad ay mistulang gaybar at cruising ground ng mga bakla sa buong Metro Manila at karatig-pook.

         At ang lahat ng ito ay dahil umano sa “fear and loathing” ni Mayor Tarpaulin at ng mga alalay nito.  Matagal nang napababayaan ng mga sinungaling at mandaraya ang mga mamamayan ng Mandaluyong.  Panahon na ng pagbabago at katotohanan. (MJG)

The People's Mayor(fourth from right) with his Power Staff and friends