”VIVE LE CINEMA!”

 LAB' GUEST COLUMN _ Enrico Campanella _ cinephile                                                                                                       

pics.source.http://betweentheseats.blogspot.com/2010/12/year-in-review-part-1.html

''Crazy. Meditative. Profound. Dazzling. Daring. These are only few of the various definitions for the 41^st International Film Festival Rotterdam which just finished last week.

It started with a Norwegian curling (“King Curling”) to conclude with a Tasmanian tiger (“The Hunter”) and in between for 10 days an apotheosis of Brazilian trashes from ‘70s, Nordic drama, surreal Asian, philosophical Eastern Europe, cynical American, social French and many more.

A melting pot of movies from every party of the world that enchanted the city and cinema fanatics creating an unique atmosphere; for almost two weeks Rotterdam has been not only the centre of international cinema all over the Europe but an immense, temporary café where to meet directors, actors, producers, to exchange ideas, opinions during daily debates and happenings.

However this edition suffered a cut off of the budget, due to financial recession, therefore organisers had to rise up the tickets price in order to maintain high standard in terms of quality of selected movies and collateral events.

The kick off gem was the hilarious “King Curling”, kind of Norwegian version of “The Big Lebowski” where bowling was replaced by the Nordic Olympic sport. The result: a lethal mix of slapstick, a continual double meaning humour up to the final climax: simply brilliant.

After the inaugurating day every spectator had the hard, but absolutely privileged, task to prepare his own list thru all the possible films, trying to set up a schedule according to tastes, interest and time, essential factor in such a full immersion festival. Our choices have been based on determined criteria, like innovation, creativity, in order to combine, possibly, different genres and nationalities.

“Un Vie Meilleure” was the first impeccable call, realistic French drama about migrants, poor people in contemporary western society, vivid performances, in particular of the main character, the super star Guillaume Canet. And then “Weekend” touching British delicate gay love story, against banal prejudice, consumed in two days in the grey Nottingham.

In a festival you should always expect some breaking thru, like “L’Ultimo Terrestre”, satirical, surreal Italian comedy of improbable, odd alien invasions, regenerating a rotten town, with narrow minded, selfish and weak inhabitants.

A superb mention is to be devoted to the retrospective about Peter Von Bagh, legendary Finnish movie maker: his milestone “The Count”, portrait of a real swindler still remains definitely joyful even after decades from first projection.

Probably the palm of most inventive and visionary movie should be assigned to the Italian “La Leggenda di Kaspar Hauser” abstract remake of the original one directed by Werner Herzog. A phenomenal, as usual, Vincent Gallo, here in a double role, sheriff and pusher, stranded in a deserted island where all the rules and conventions seem completely vanished. The appearance of the mysterious, enigmatic Kaspar Hauser could lead to a renaissance but the passivity and inertia of the few persons will compromise everything.

    

Inertia is also the cardinal concept, aspect of the authentic masterpiece of the festival, the American “The Comedy”, disenchanted depiction of thirty five years old guy in New York. A podgy, rich man living in Manhattan, jobless, killing time with no scope in his life, completely arid in terms of either emotions or feelings. He spends his days from bar to bar, planning jokes, to mock the boredom of his existence. Unable to express any intentions or ideals, he represents magnificently the cynical attitude of these days. Although this loneliness and despair the movie is incredibly enjoyable and remarkable and at least a couple of sequence- the scenes taken place in synagogue and in a cab- can be already considered a must.

The festival had the wonderful capability to enrich the soul of each spectator, to distract him from standard routine, making him ready to new confront toward modern and future frontier of the 21^st century cinema, which still is the supreme piece of art. Therefore, once again, let’s praise up the evergreen motto….”VIVE LE CINEMA!”

See you in 2013 for the 42^nd edition!!!'' 

(Enrico Campanella-cinephile)

 LAB' GUEST COLUMN _ Enrico Campanella _ cinephile                                                                                                        

Enrico Campanella is a naval architect with passion for cinema. He has seen more than 25 movies at the IFFR this year and many more in the previous years.He has been kind enough to take notes during the festival in order to write for us this great review.We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!