Jim's Film Festival Diary for Friday, April 4

Films: In the Arms of My Enemy, Me, Mongol

Future Screenings: In the Arms of My Enemy - Wed, 4/9/08, 2:30PM at the Ritz East
Me - Sun, 4/6/08, 4:30PM at The Bridge
Mongol - Sun, 4/6/08, 12PM at the Ritz East

I showed up very early to the first screening on this, my first day at the festival, but as it turns out I could have taken an even more leisurely stroll through Old City than I did, as said screening started very late due to a series of technical problems. This seemed like a rather bad omen. But thankfully I had, mostly by chance, scheduled all three of my screenings in exactly the same theater (which I highly recommend, if you can manage it), so I didn't have to worry about being late to any of my other films. Plus, my first two movies were fantastic, and the third was... well, it wasn't bad, anyway.

In the Arms of My Enemy
Due to a mix-up, this French drama set in 1800s Russia arrived at the last minute in a different format than expected, so they had to scramble to set up something that could play it. To make matters worse, the print was in black and white instead of color; it was of inferior quality; and it was played at a slightly faster speed than it should have been (everybody's voices were a little too high-pitched, and everybody moved a little too jerkily). Despite all this, I still enjoyed the film very much, which is a testament to how well it's made. It's broken up into four parts: the first part, called "Horse Thieves," is a short sequence in which we see two young men frolicking in a lake together while two other young men sneak up and steal their horses. The second part is called "Him," and goes back in time to tell the story of the two men who were frolicking in the lake. It turns out they're brothers: one, Vladimir, who's a little slow and weak, the other, Jakub, fiercely and violently protective of him. Poor and desperate, they join up to become Cossacks mainly so they can get regular meals. The training process is brutal and torturous, but things finally seem to be going their way, until the day at the lake. The third part is called "Them" and tells the story of the horse thieves. Again, they're two brothers, one made lame due to the other's mistake when they were young. To make up for it, he's now fiercely and violently protective of his brother, to the point of being tyrannical. The final part is called "The Chase," and follows Jakub as he tracks down and has a series of bloody confrontations with the thieves.

The film is full of parallels and repeating themes, the main ones being brotherhood and violence, of course. The major symbol for the thieves seems to be animals (specifically horses), while the major symbol for the other set of brothers seems to be water. But ultimately, like all great films, In the Arms of My Enemy is really an examination of humanity. I get the sense it's a film that was written backwards, almost as the solution to a puzzle—how can two people who have literally been at each other's throats, and have lost what they held most dear thanks in part to each other, somehow end up together? It solves this puzzle beautifully and believably.

I should also mention that this film was preceded by a very funny, clever, imaginative, disturbing, and moving short called Hirsute, which on the surface is just a weird little time travel movie, but underneath is really, like In the Arms of My Enemy, an examination of what it is to be human.
Festival rating: Excellent

Me
This is a Spanish film set in Majorca with a German main character (this was quite the international set of movies!). His name is Hans, and he's come to the island to start his new job as a kind of a general handyman for a rich German who lives in a large house just up the road from a small town. Hans is a very shy, hesitant, indecisive man; it's often painful to watch him try to navigate life. (Àlex Brendemühl, who also co-wrote the film with the director, does an amazing job in the part.) Almost immediately upon his arrival, we get the sense that this is a town full of mysteries, most of them revolving around his predecessor, who also happened to be named Hans. He's even living in the same building where the first Hans lived, and all of the first Hans' belongings are still sitting in his room, waiting to be picked up. There's almost a Rebecca kind of feel to the story, as the new Hans finds himself constantly haunted by the ghost of the old Hans, nearly to the point of madness. He is compared to Hans, mistaken for Hans, rejected for not being Hans. He even suspects that Hans might actually be in his house, and in a particularly creepy moment, thinks he glimpses the man's shadow on the wall during a moment of intimacy. It's a film about identity and reincarnation and the power of naming. It's eerie, unsettling, and deeply absorbing. Unfortunately, it's also a bit slow, especially during the middle to later sections. But toward the end it takes an unexpected turn: the character you thought was headed toward ruin and self-destruction has a transformative moment during an almost magical ritual. Things finish up not at all where I expected, but at the same time, right where they always had to—the mark of a truly great film.
Festival rating: Excellent

Mongol
Russian director Sergei Bodrov tells the story of how Genghis Khan got to be Genghis Khan (sort of) in this epic period drama. The first half of this movie—which concentrates on the brutal childhood of the boy who would be king, Temudgin—is truly excellent. Temudgin learns early on that the old ways of the Mongols can be stupid and deadly, and much of the rest of the film consists of him following his heart (and the advice of his one true love) and slowly developing his own new way of doing things, thus breaking from tradition in ways that inspire many and strike fear and hatred in the hearts of others. The boy's story is touching, funny, and even magical. This is not an historical biopic, but rather a mystical retelling of myths and legend. It's full of fate and doom and moments of intervention by the Gods. There's also plenty of gigantic, epic battle scenes, enhanced by CGI effects. But in the second half of the film, things start to slow down, and the movie drags out to a seemingly impossible length. (In fact, it's only a little over two hours long, but it feels much, much longer.) Temudgin gets captured and escapes and is captured again, over and over. And then, just when it feels like the movie is finally getting to the really important bits—how exactly Temudgin really became the great warlord known as Genghis Khan, and how he united the Mongols and forced them to abide by new rules and traditions—it just skips over all of them. He literally just gets up one day, decides to create a set of laws and unite the Mongols under them, and then we jump ahead many years, right to the decisive battle. And when the battle is over, it leaves us with a phrase along the lines of, "and then lots of other stuff happened," almost as if they're trying to set things up for a sequel.

It's a disappointing way for such a promising film to trail off. It seems pretty clear to me that director Bodrov simply wasn't prepared to tell the story of Genghis Khan and the creation of Mongolia; the story he wanted to tell was the smaller scale, human drama of how Temudgin became the man who could be a Khan. And that is in fact, in many ways, the more interesting story here. So he should have stopped when he was done telling that story, instead of making a very half-baked attempt to do more.
Festival rating: Good

Image Credit: Flickr user pedrosimoes7.