38th Montreal World Film Festival (Montreal Festival des Films du Monde) 21 August-1st September 2014
http://www.ffm-montreal.org

38th World film festival in Montreal was a special event that drew the attention of the critics in Montreal and all over the world to fertile field of cinematic materials. The program of the festival was precisely organized to have the group of the films that represented "film" as the dominant medium of art.  The films provided the broad spectrum of the narratives that constituted various forms and conventions. In order to reveal the mode of discourse in the criticism hidden in these reviews,  the focus is aimed toward the films that are chosen as the particular examples for narrative and formal analysis.


Salaud, on t'aime (Bastard, we love you)(2014, Claude Lelouch)

Claude Lelouch's film does not necessarily lie in the category of the best films, but it is a good film. The film deals with the themes such as guilts, parental mistakes, professionalism, friendships  and family values. The film succeeds in creating an atmosphere in which the specificity of form and the mode of production achieve a balance. To avoid any misunderstanding, I would like to say that the comparisons between generations, or in other words generational conflicts are used as a means of establishing the end of masculine values. The end of the film is the reconciliation between an irresponsible father and his daughters. Though the new generation is right in criticizing the old one, they carry the burden of guilt as well.


Sakurasaku( Blossom Bloom) (2014, Mitsutoshi Tanaka)

The film does not succeed visually and narratively to foreground  the respect for the lost Japanese family values,  the criticism of the modern  life styles in the urban cities and the encouragement of the new generation to appreciate the past. The sentimentality of the moments, the lack of visual style and the poor narrative structure in the film help us to avoid of any unnecessary mode of criticism that involve some misunderstanding and can be interpretatively wrong.


Jack Strong (2014, William Pasikovsky)

The director succeeds in creating the Cold War atmosphere, terror and anxiety, but the narrative style is chaotic and the characterization is weak. The film narrative articulates the dichotomy of duty and choice. The ambiguous ending makes us think about how the film tries to construct the sense of impossibility of political liberation and freedom. The problematic status of the protagonist's national identity presents a coherent image of Poland as a nation and as an ideological political system.


Tokyo the City of Glass (2014, Kazuhiro Tranishi)

Transformation of body and masculine anxiety are the main themes that construct the narrative of the film. The film is filled with homosexuality and homoeroticism. Yukio Mishima's Confessions of A Mask, Gustave Mahler's adagietto from fifth symphony and Tokyo Gay district are all references that characterize the queer perspective of the film. The director succeeds in creating a detective story that deals with the problematic sexual identity and the sense of guilt.


New Territories (2014, Fabianny Deschamps)

The film is visually stunning. The voice over narrative and the stylistic analysis of the film make us believe that the audiovisual structure of the cinematic text is influenced by documentary style and horror/serial killer films. The immigration from Chinese village to Hong Kong provides a storyline in which the controlling of the body and the searching for the body become key elements in narrating the ghost story. The director succeeds in representing a dark film in which the social political structure of the Chinese village is partly criticized and evaluated.


Perro Guardian (2014, Baccha Caravedo)

It is interesting that the picture reminds us of  Le Samurai (1967, Jean-Pierre Melvile) and The Professional (1994, Luc Besson). Like the protagonists in those films, male character is a lonely person who is the professional killer. His religious belief is what is emphasized in the film symbolically and explicitly. The film remain unforgettable for, among other things, the expression a wide range of religious feelings and emotions that help to build the character though the ending is ambiguous.

Closer to the Moon (2014, Nae Caranfil)

Closer to the Moon is a good film that is well structured. The passions and thoughts in the film are synthesized as the adequate expression of the satirical ideas against the political system. The film is filled of many references and homages to the film particularly as the medium such as homage to Rear Window (1954, Alfred Hitchcock) in the scene in which the characters look through a binocular or telescope and observe the things that happen in the apartments in front of them. Doris Day's song as the diegetic score is another reference to the film medium, and the film in film structure of the script is foregrounded by the emphasis on the acting.

They are all Dead(2014, Beatriz Sanchis)

The director's strategy to make a film about agoraphobia does not succeed in creating a subtle expressive cinematic text. The film thematically follows the ideas about art, sexuality, family responsibility and guilt. Two types of maternity are compared: the real mother who feels responsible for everything and another one who has agoraphobia and feels guilty about her brother's death. According to director's interview, the Mexican point of view about the death is what the director tries to emphasize in the film. The ending of the film is positive, optimistic and full of light though the threatening presence of death is always with the characters.

Chagall-Malevich(2013, Alexander Mitta)


There are many shots in the film that remind us of Chagall and Malevich paintings. The narrative is precisely devoted to the revolutionary period when Chagall spent his life in Russia. At the same time, the joys of freedom and creativity accompanied by colors founded in Chagall's paintings are reflected in the images. The film debates on the beginning of the art of social realism in the first years of the Russian revolution. Chagall individualism is criticized by the followers of Malevich abstract political art. The ending of the film is insightful and symbolical. The idea of flying and floating into sky founded in Chagall's paintings become alive and gives to the cinematic text a sense of playful and spiritual meaning. Chagall's realm of kingdom is sky and Malevich one is earth.


Field of Dogs(2014, Lech Majewski)
Field of Dogs is a very good film. The narrative structure is dreamful and symbolical. There are many moments in the film that one can find Tarkovsky's influences. For example, there is a scene in which the wall is bleeding and has a heart beat  that reminds us of the dream scene in Mirror (1975, Trakovsky). In another scene, we see two bodies making love together while they are floating in the air that is similar to what Tarkovsky was doing in Sacrifice (1986, Tarkovsky). Finally, at the ending of the film we see that water is falling from the ceiling of a church that brings into our mind what Tarkovsky was doing with water in dream sequences in Mirror or Stalker(1979, Tarkovsky).

Cap Nostalgie (2014, Izuru Narushima)
The narrative of the film suggests that the life is always changing and what is going to be left behind is the sense of nostalgia that makes us aware of the fragility of life and ultimately of the impossibility of immortality. The film succeeds in creating a perspective of life that puts the meaning of love, death, friendship under question and investigation in such a simple way that draws the attention to the transcendental concepts. What is valued as a mark of artistic achievement is the director's choices to represents the characters' styles of life as faithfully as possible.



Review By: Morad sadeghi