YS invited us this year to see films with her at the Jerusalem film festival. The festival takes place every year in July, and, for many years we have been going to see four or five films. Choosing them has always been difficult, but this year we let YS choose them for us. It was actually at the film festival, one year, that we renewed our connection with her.
So, over the course of a few days, we saw 6 films:
- Eami by Paz Encina
- Pacifiction by Albert Serra
- Decision to Leave by Park Chan-wook
- Incredible But True by Quentin Dupieux
- Holy Spider by Ali Abbasi
- Robe of Gems by Natalia López Gallardo
All of the films were international, and of the kind that one would see only at a film festival. YS isn’t into Israeli films, which is fine with me. But, except for “Incredible but True” – a light comedy – most of them were hard-going. “Holy Spider” was the most rivetting, because it works as a thriller. Some of the scenes were quite brutal; not bloody – a series of women are slowly strangled to death. Not easy to look at, and, as they say, not something that you can easily “unwatch”. The action takes place in the holy city of Mashad. A night overlook of the city, shown near the beginning, makes the city itself look like an enormous spider. On my two short visits back in the 1970s, I did find the place a bit discomfitting, as I believe any non-Muslim would.
Eami is 90 minutes of pure poetry, about a genocide of a native people in Paraguay. But it is narrated in a long monologue, in a sleep-inducing voice, unfortunately.
Fighting sleep was a major problem for me during the festival. “Robe of Gems” was almost incomprehensible. Not only to me. D was thinking that it took place somewhere in Argentina (it is set on the Mexican – US border). YS and other people in the audience had difficulty understanding the plot too, and the relation between the characters.
“Decision to leave” was a bit easier to follow, but very long (2 hours 18 minutes). It’s well made, but didn’t draw me in. Now, less than a week afterwards, the memory of the film is already fading.
My favourite among these films was “Pacifiction”, though it was the longest of all of them, at 2 hours and 45 minutes. Certainly it could have been shorter, and the director was playing with our attention, but there was something about its slow pace that suited its story-line and tropical location. Boredom is part of my experience also in South Asia, but isn’t something I grudge. The characterization is interesting, with many enigmatic personas, including that of the French high commissioner at the center of the film. Peter Bradshaw, who also loved the film has done justice to it in his review. I didn’t think about its similarity to the work of David Lynch.