 |
|
|
Other reviews by Howard Schumann
|
MORE
FROM THE
***
Mungiu does not show us the world in which the girls live or any of the circumstances that led to Gabita’s drastic decision to have the abortion. It is just a given. When it is revealed that Gabita is pregnant and is seeking an abortion, it is the more aggressive Otilia who makes the arrangements. Trying to book a room at the hotels that were suggested, Otilia is thwarted by cold, bureaucratic clerks who act as if they just came from the hospital depicted in Crisit Puiu's The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. Gabita’s failure to confirm hotel reservations means that Otilia has to settle for a third hotel not on the list. When she meets with Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), the illegal abortionist, he is perturbed that she came instead of Gabita and even more distressed that neither of the two hotels he suggested were booked.
Otilia is sullen and uncommunicative, and the conversation among family members goes on and on, making her feel more and more isolated. One relative criticizes her asking for a cigarette and goes into a speech about the failings of the younger generation as Otilia looks for a reason to leave. As the film winds to a gripping conclusion, the almost unbearable tension had many in the sold out audience stirring uncomfortably in their seats. Though 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days depicts the oppressive nature of the social system and its laws, it is not a polemic against Communism, nor does it take sides on the thorny issue of abortion. It is more about the dignity of two women, friends who are willing to take risks and sacrifice for each other without expectation of reward or even thanks. ***
The film revolves around the relationship between Vincenzo and translator Liu Hua (Tai Ling) who first meet in Italy, where Vincenzo's impatience with her translations at a dinner meeting causes her to lose her job. When he tracks her down in Shanghai she is working at a library and resistant to Vincenzo’s approach. Looking at his offer to help him in his travels in China as little more than a well-paying job, she reluctantly agrees to accompany him. Their relationship, however, grows as they move from city to city, her interpretive skills much in evidence to help the bewildered Vincenzo, who does not own a cell phone.
Castellitto is an excellent actor (though one longs for a younger Enrico Lo Verso in this role). However, he is emotionally distant throughout the film, his expression rarely changing from a far away hangdog expression. Though Tai Ling brings a great deal of presence to the role, her relationship with the much older Vincenzo never seemed real to me and the ending seemed to exist only in a reality known as the movies. Though Amelio is one of my favorite directors, coming on the heels of the brilliant Keys to the House, Missing Star is a disappointment.
As the film begins, an unknown intruder desecrates the library by pulling one hundred books from the shelves, opening them, and nailing them to the floor of a research library with the type of heavy spikes used to nail Christ to the cross in biblical literature. At first the identity of the perpetrator is a mystery and the police are called to investigate. It is soon apparent that the guilty party is the professor who has renounced his identity and left his BMW near a bridge while feigning suicide by throwing his car keys and wallet into the water.
One Hundred Nails emphasizes the need to return to the simple life and the joy of commonly shared friendships to counter the strident consumerism of our age, yet the film is not well served by banal dialogue and characters that are little more than a vehicle for the film’s ideas. Olmi says that his aim was to show a Christ that was “not the Son of God, but the Son of Man”, yet the Christ story has little meaning outside of Christ’s relation to God, and Olmi's depiction of the book-rejecting teacher borders on anti-intellectualism. While the “return to simplicity” theme of One Hundred Nails has relevance, the notion that the books of organized religion are the only avenue to God is shortsighted and simplistic.
|
Taking
place in a city close to the Pacific Ocean, the Vancouver
Film Festival, now celebrating its 26th year, is one of the
world's leading showcases of East Asian and Canadian films.
Featuring 350 films from more than 50 countries and attracting
an average of 150,000 viewers each year, the following world-class
directors were represented this year: Jia Zhangke, Jacques
Rivette, Lee Chang-dong, Gus Van Sant, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Roy
Andersson, Cristian Mingu, Wen Jiang, and many others.
Set
in Romania in 1987 during the final days of the Ceausescu
regime, the picture conveys a pervasive grayness that underscores
the sterility of life in Eastern Europe at the time. If there
was a bright and happy side to life in Romania in the late
eighties, you will not find it here. For the first thirty
minutes, preparations are being made for an unspecified event
by two students in a college dormitory in Bucharest that looks
like the interior of a hotel scheduled for demolition. One
roommate, Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) sends the other, Otilia (Anamaria
Marinca), to procure items such as cigarettes, soaps, and
beauty items and to borrow money from friends, but we do not
learn what the money is for. The two women are very different.
Gabita is passive, almost helpless, while Otilia is more self
assured and outgoing, though she is also circumspect in displaying
her emotions. 
A
scene outside a building in which Bebe scolds his elderly
mother creates more anxiety for Otilia, and the meeting at
the hotel between the two women and the abortionist is replete
with threats, bullying tactics, and demands for more money.
When the sleazy abortionist discovers that Gabita is not two
months pregnant as she had said but four months, three weeks
and two days, he ups the ante. Cynically citing the risks
he is taking that could result in a long prison term, Bebe
only agrees to perform the abortion after both women reluctantly
agree to have sex with him. Heightening the feeling of uneasiness,
Otilia leaves Gabita alone in her hotel room propped up on
two pillows unable to move, as she fulfills a promise to her
boyfriend, Adi (Alex Potocean), to attend his mother’s
birthday party. 
The
film, of course, is about the journey, not the destination
(to use a familiar cliché) and on that journey we are
privy to an engaging look at China with all its immense beauty
and complexity, via the outstanding cinematography by Luca
Bigazzi. The film takes us to Shanghai, Wuhan, Chongquing,
Baotou, and a trip along the Yangstze River, showing us coastal
areas that are scheduled to be flooded when the Three Gorges
Dam is fully operative, a Chinese mega-project that has resulted
in the displacement of 1.2 million people. The trip brings
the travelers face to face with poverty, overcrowded housing,
and children left to fend for themselves. 
As
they slowly open up to each other, they expose one another’s
vulnerability, and the film delves into their past and present
life and how they arrived at their present situation. We meet
Liu’s son (Lin Wang) at the home of her grandmother.
In China’s one child policy, he is one of the unwanted
children who have been “hidden” since the father
of the boy abandoned the family. Although the meeting between
Vincenzo and the boy is casual, their relationship becomes
central to how the story plays out. 
Religion
in its different forms has been one of the themes of Ermanno
Olmi’s body of work, and his relationship with the Church
has been steadfast. Walking, Walking (1982) retells
the story of the three wise men looking for the Christ child,
and The Legend of the Holy Drinker (1988) is a parable
of divine intervention that has been compared to Dreyer’s
Ordet in its religious depth. Other films--Down
the River (1992) and The Secret of the Old Woods
(1993), celebrate nature as an expression of the divine. In
fact, a theme first enunciated in Genesis: The Creation
and the Flood (1994), that the scriptures are more than
just words written on a piece of paper but part of a living
tradition, finds full expression in his latest effort, One
Hundred Nails.
If
One Hundred Nails is indeed Olmi’s last feature
film (as he claims), it would be nice to say he “nails”
it, but unfortunately such is not the case. The film is beautifully
photographed by Olmi’s son Fabio and the shots along
the Po River create a mood of rare tranquility, yet it offers
a strangely conflicted and unconvincing message. While it
has strong religious overtones with a Christ-like figure suffering
for mankind, it also tells us that the religions have never
saved the world and that on Judgment Day, God will have to
account to mankind for all the suffering he has allowed. The
main character is a philosophy professor played by Israeli
actor Raz Degan who turns his back on his profession and prefers
to live a simple and harmonious life among the peasants of
the Po valley, saying, “All the books in the world aren't
nearly as valuable as a single cup of coffee with a friend.”
Soon
he moves into an abandoned house alongside the Po where he
lives off the local people who provide him food and support
him in rebuilding his home. Looking like a modern day St.
Francis of Assisi with his dark hair and beard, he is seen
as a savior by the poor farmers and blends in among the community,
going to the beach with them and dancing with the local girl
from the bakery. When the inhabitants are threatened with
evacuation and a fine, however, the professor (who they now
call Jesus Christ) gives them his credit card to pay the fine
but it is used by the police to track his whereabouts and
he is arrested as the villagers await his return with streets
lit up as in a second coming.