Cheshire on Film
Best Foreign Films: The White Ribbon Stale; Ajami Excites
Along
with documentaries, the foreign film contest at the Oscars is the
division that perennially — and justifiably — attracts criticism that
the results are skewed at best, corrupt at worst. Issuing from a
selection process, which has been called labyrinthine, opaque and open
to various sorts of political influence, the nominees from abroad
usually include films that critics have never heard of alongside recent
art-house hits.
This year is no exception. Two films, from Peru and
Argentina, represent the
never-heard-of-it-and-probably-never-will-again contingent. A third, A
Prophet, by France’s Jacques Audiard, is a 2009 festival hit that’s
soon headed into US theaters. (I found Audiard’s crime drama
interesting but overlong and overrated.)
The two remaining films
come from Germany and Israel. Both have already opened in the US to
considerable acclaim (they should reach the Triangle soon). Though I’m
writing this before the awards are announced, I would wager that one of
these two will take home the gold on  March 7. Neither strikes me as an
out-and-out masterpiece, yet both are understandable as nominees.
Though entirely different from each other, they are both marked by the
kind of weighty ambitions that tend to impress Oscar voters.
The
German entry, The White Ribbon, comes from Michael Haneke, an Austrian
who has mainly made French-language films in recent years. He has also
dealt primarily with contemporary Europe and its manifold spiritual,
psychological and cultural discontents. Here he turns to one of the
most foreboding moments of the European past: the eve of World War I.
The
setting is a town in northern Germany. How typical the place is will be
up to the viewer to judge. It looks entirely tranquil, a quiet burg in
sleepy province; the clouds of war have not yet blotted the horizon.
But in the story’s opening moments, something strange and terrible
happens. The local doctor is returning home when he sustains a
life-threatening injury after his horse trips over a wire that someone
has placed in his usual path.
The ominous note struck here foretells
the story’s dark unfolding. In another director’s hands the story of
this deceptively tranquil community could have been a straight-out
genre piece, a gothic horror film with scythes decapitating unwary
rustics and bodies swinging from the smokehouse rafters. Haneke,
though, is after something more subtle. Or, at least, he’s hooked into
a different genre: call it the art-house chin-puller.
The incidents
of mysterious violence continue, but they are never shown, only
referred to by the other characters. Who — or what — is behind them?
This is not a conventional mystery movie, either. With a good deal of
confidence, Haneke weaves his narrative paths through every nook and
cranny of the village, moving from the lowliest workman’s hovel up to
the local baron’s estate. In every home, not least the local
minister’s, there are guilty secrets and hidden hurts, mostly of the
familiar sexual or coercive kinds.
Not everything is mean or
menacing, though. As the title of the film obliquely indicates, Haneke
is shrewd enough to offset his story of social darkness via some
strategically placed shafts of brightness. Perhaps the sweetest of
these involves the courtship of the village’s young schoolteacher and a
shy local lass. (Incidentally, the story is narrated from five decades
away by the same teacher, now an old man who admits upfront that he
can’t vouch for the truth of what he’s recounting.)
With gorgeous
black and white images shot by Christian Berger, The White Ribbon looks
like an Ingmar Bergman film from the mid-’60s period of Shame and
Persona. Its performances, by a gallery of perfectly cast unknowns, are
well-nigh impeccable, as are Haneke’s eloquently fluid direction and
skilled writing. (The film’s German is more literary and ornate than
the subtitles convey. At the New York Film Festival, Haneke said this
was entirely due to the space constraints inherent in subtitling.)
But
for all the meticulous craftsmanship the film so handsomely displays,
the big question remains: Does Haneke have anything to say? I think
not. He doesn’t solve the story’s mysteries because such cryptic
reticence is fashionably arty; in his world, there’s no such thing as a
reliable narrator. What he bleakly suggests, regarding patriarchy and
its (mostly) suppressed violence, is that this pious but poisoned
society has somehow called down the disaster of World War I on itself.
This
isn’t wrong, necessarily, so much as it is notably deficient in
conviction, freshness or trenchancy. The conclusions are trendy but
stale, leftovers from literary cocktail parties of three decades ago.
Past Haneke films, such as Funny Games (the European version) and
Caché, have struck me as actively offensive. The more straitlaced and
workmanlike White Ribbon actually calls forth a more damning adjective:
academic. In that, though, last year’s Palme d’Or winner at Cannes
serves as an apt representative of a European art cinema that long ago
lost its mojo.
• • • •
In terms of freshness and meaning,
it’s perhaps no surprise that the superior film considered here is the
Israeli production Ajami, which focuses largely on the harsh realities
faced by Palestinians both in Israel proper and in the occupied
territories. Ironically, The White Ribbon and the Israeli film offer
similar indictments of patriarchy and its predations. But while
Hanek e’s thematic thrust feels entirely pre-digested, Ajami’s has the
unnerving immediacy of a live feed from a battle-zone ER.
The
movie’s unusual achievements obviously stem from its unusual creative
sources. It was jointly made by two young filmmakers of different
backgrounds: Scandar Copti, a Christian Arab, and Yaron Shani, a Jew.
Their methods were also unusual. Instead of actors, they used members
of the communities they portray, work-shopping them at length and
having them improvise extensively rather than following a script. The
result is a film full of wonderfully convincing performances, a drama
with the human textures and authenticity of a documentary.
Ajami
(the title is the name of an Arab neighborhood in the city of Jaffa) is
also striking in that its story is not overtly political. Rather, like
an acclaimed Italian film I reviewed here last year, Gomorrah, it might
be described as a Neorealist gangster film. The look is grungy, the
action peppered with violence. Though following different sets of
characters, the story concentrates on young Arab men who are caught up
in the criminal activities and poverty-induced dilemmas of their
families. One youth must figure out how to pay a blood debt caused by
crimes his clan is committed against another.
The scene in the film
where tribal elders hash out which clan owes what to the other is
unforgettable: sort of an Arab Godfather moment; it’s unlike anything
I’ve seen in a movie about Palestinians. Quite obviously, the social
critique it contains is sharp and penetrating. And Israeli Jews, though
they get less screen time, are not let off the hook either: The film
shows the brutality of their policing methods and humiliating
checkpoints.
The film’s cumulative impact is considerable, perhaps
most so on home ground. The New York Times reported from Tel Aviv about
showings in Israel: “When a Palestinian youth turns to drug selling to
help pay for his mother’s surgery, Jewish filmgoers here have wept.
When the family of a kidnapped Israeli soldier breaks down over his
murder by Palestinians, Palestinians in the theater have had tears in
their eyes.”
The big winner at last year’s Israeli Oscars, Ajami
isn’t a perfect film; its movement toward tragedy ends up seeming a bit
forced and pat. Yet it is certainly one of the most fascinating and
worthwhile foreign films released here in recent months. If it takes
home an Oscar, the win will be thoroughly deserved.
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Form + Function
While almost any architect in North Carolina will tell you that conventional financing for most building projects has screeched to a frustrating halt, Steve Schuster, founding principal of Clearscapes, has two words for you:
Tax credits.
They come in all shapes and forms. They make the unbuildable suddenly buildable. And without them, nine current Clearscapes projects would not be possible. “As an architect, I’ve learned that if I can figure out ways to make my clients’ projects work, it gives me the opportunity to design,” said Schuster.
His firm used them for 35 projects over the past 25 years. The Pine State Creamery in Raleigh was financed that way, as were the Murphey School Apartments and the Montague Building on Moore Square.
“Major corporations are the beneficiaries in purchasing the credits,” he said. “The banker, or lender, is the source of the funding.”
One of Clearscapes’ newest projects, the Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh, is using historic and new market tax credits from the federal, local and state governments to get that project going, he said. The investor receives a total tax credit of almost 50 cents for every dollar put up. “That’s an incentive to build,” he said.
And it’s good news for museum-goers, for downtown Raleigh and for the city’s tax base — not to mention the people who design good buildings here.
 PBC+L’s Black Box Theater
Pearce Brinkley Cease + Lee (PBC+L) has completed its teaching and studio theater for Barton College in Wilson, NC. Support spaces include dressing rooms, classroom, set shop, audio/lighting control room and lobby. Seating capacity is 180.
By carefully orienting the lobby around a predominant corner, the architects created two distinctly different campus spaces. The larger space serves as an extension of the main campus quad, and the smaller creates an arts court with the existing Fine Arts & Music Building.
Also worth noting: PBC+L did quite well at the AIA South Atlantic Region, with honor awards for its Park Shops and SAS Hall at NC State and its Laurel Park Elementary School in Apex. “To the best of our knowledge, no other firm in the South Atlantic Region has won three honor awards at one time,” said Jeffrey Lee, principal.
Award for AIA Triangle
Kudos to the AIA Triangle Section for winning the AIA National’s Outstanding Single Program Award out of 278 competing sections. Judges noted that the local chapter had bumped its membership up 22 percent and its continuing education lectures and seminars by 25 percent.
About the Catalano House
After Metro went to press for its February issue, we were saddened to learn of the death of noted architect Eduardo Catalano.
We’d spoken with Marvin Malecha, dean of the College of Design at North Carolina State University who had recently prepared a proposal to restore Catalano’s revolutionary parabolic-roofed house — demolished in 2001 — on the NC State Centennial Campus. He was awaiting the opportunity to discuss the restoration with Catalano himself when the news broke.
Catalano’s daughter is currently en route to Argentina to place the late architect’s ashes in a columbarium of his own design. According to Malecha, she is open to talks about rebuilding the parabolic house when she returns. “The family has made no commitment to us,” Malecha cautioned, “but on the other hand, they will entertain the opportunity to discuss the project with us.”
Mike Welton also writes a blog on architecture and the people who make it possible at: www.architectsandartisans.com.
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