AJAMI
A collaboration between Israeli Director Yaron Shani and Palestinian Scandar Copti, Ajami tells the story of a Jaffa neighbourhood rife with tension amid a hostile mix of Muslim, Jewish and Christian families and local gangs. The story is narrated by Nasri (Fouad Habash), a teenage boy whose family’s life is turned upside down when his uncle shoots dead a member of a rival family. Through flashbacks, Nasri presents us with a personalised account of the unjust, immoral crimes and religious prejudices surrounding the lives of both the community and its outsiders, and the hardships faced by its young generations, to achieve little more than establishing a sense of honour and safety for their families. Winner of this year’s Sutherland Trophy, Ajami uses a non-professional cast of local actors to present an authentic and shocking account of rivalry, revenge and the struggle to survive in a world where fear and death share a lingering presence in the everyday lives of young men.
STORM
Continuing this year’s theme of dystopia, from German director Hans-Christian Schmid comes his first English-language film Storm, starring Kerry Fox (An Angel at my Table) as Hannah, a fiery prosecutor for the UN International Crime Tribunal. When a leading witness for the prosecution of a Yugoslav National Army commander accused of ethnic cleansing commits suicide, Hannah goes in search of fresh evidence. She stumbles upon a new witness, uncovering not only a testimony that will win her the case, but further atrocities for which she must battle the legal system in order to help her witness find justice. Filmed on location in The Hague, Bosnia and Berlin, using hand-held camera techniques to emphasise the intimate and personal nature of the responses of the characters, Storm essentially refers to the injustice of the legal system and its weighting of funding against moral obligation. The emotional versus the practical is approached primarily using gender roles, with the two women at the centre of the argument fighting against the voice of reason from senior male prosecutors. Storm is certainly emotionally compelling and refreshingly honest, yet it is difficult to ascertain whether the subject of Schmid’s film would work better as a television drama.
WHO’S AFRAID OF THE WOLF?
Through the eyes of five-year-old Terezka comes a world where reality and fantasy are inseparably intertwined. As Czech director Maria Procházková describes, the film is split over two levels, or understandings, one from a child’s point of view and the other of the actual events and conversations between adults (cleverly engineered through Terezka’s eavesdropping) that allow us to capture the link between a child’s misinterpretation and reality. The idea is further illustrated with a series of drawings (Procházková’s film background is in animation) which appear as thoughts on windows, or people with whom Terezka is in contact. In addition to aliens, the theme of Little Red Riding Hood is constantly referred to, and we later realise that Terezka is using it as a form of escape as the gradual unwinding of her parents’ relationship takes its toll. Perhaps the wolf is a metaphor for her fear? It appears consistently in her dreams in situations when she is most afraid or anxious. A charming and refreshing film, Who’s Afraid of the Wolf ? is a family drama with a twist, and, like the fairy tale, it too has a happy ending.
METROPIA
With the voices of Vincent Gallo, Juliette Lewis and Alexander Skarsgard comes a strange alternative animation from Swedish director Tarik Saleh. In a not-so-distant 2024, Europe has become an almost singular state, where English has become the sole European language spoken throughout this dismal, dystopian world. Natural resources have been depleted and the world economy has reached a standstill. Business giant Trexx decides that connecting the whole of Europe via a mass underground metro system will encourage ‘peace and mobility’ across Europe. With the world outside reduced to nothing but a barren landscape, Europe’s citizens have been forced to pursue a life centred underground, within the Metro. Unknown to all but a few, the Metro is now, along with their monopolised shampoo product, Dangst, providing Trexx with the power to control the minds of its users.
The film’s protagonist, Roger (voiced by Vincent Gallo), refuses to use the Metro, protesting to his girlfriend that something strange is going on, as every time he enters its doors he hears a voice in his head that is not his own. When he spots the model from his girlfriend’s Dangst bottle on the Metro, he begins to follow her, until finally she stops and questions him about the voices in his head. Seducing him, Nina (Juliette Lewis) takes Roger on her mission, without explaining her agenda, where he discovers the inhumane mind control exercised by the Trexx Group.
The slow, uncertain pace of Metropia may be interpreted as a reflection of the mystery and anxiety radiating from Roger, but in fact, the director has revealed that this was originally due to technical difficulties. Saleh has explained that producing the film involved a very lengthy, tedious process, forcing the graphics ‘backwards through an animation programme’, which explains the limited movements of its characters. Owing to such complications, Saleh also mentions the hundreds of digital layers involved in creating the characters’ movements, which partly explains why movement is predominantly restricted to facial expressions, especially within the eyes, which, as Saleh explains, ‘never lie’.This truly innovative and fascinating use of photorealist animation, combined with Metropia’s eerie aesthetic and quiet pace, merge to evoke a futuristic Orwellian sense of paranoia that leads us into a constant guessing game. With such an unconventional plot line, presented in an even more unconventional manner, Metropia is gripping, not in the traditional manner of an action/suspense thriller but, rather oppositely, through its subtlety, provoking intrigue and a desire to discover the climax to such a secretive plot. The slow pace and strange, prophetic gloom of the film may dissuade some audiences, but if you have a little patience, this inventive film is definitely worth a watch.
