We begin today's slew of reviews with Young Girls Vanish, a short film that tries to connect a series of grisly murders from the 1600's and contemporary violence towards women. In the 1600's, these murders, often violent mutilations, were attributed to the activity of a giant wolf, but it soon becomes clear that some of these murders might be due to something closer to reality (i.e. the actions of depraved men). However, the film doesn't quite succeed in pulling off its thesis; it comes off as too subtle for its own good.
Amiko is a somewhat rebellious young teenager with a very distinct view in life. When she falls in love with a schoolmate Aomi, she does what many teens would do in this situation: sit on her feelings and let it simmer into wild fantasies and idealizations. But when Aomi stops going to class, Amiko takes action.
Amiko is an amalgamation of slice-of-life, wacky absurd comedy and teenage angst. It's a bit rough overall giiven its independent nature, but the product does have a certain level of charm to it that's undeniable. At a lean 66 minutes, the film doesn't overstay its welcome and at least it has that going or it.
Ryuichi Sakamoto has accumuated an impressive body of work eer since he started working in the eighties as part of the Yellow Magic Orchestra. In Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, a documentary by Stephen Nomura Schible, we see Sakamoto delve into his influences and what goes on when he creates music.
The documentary des not pretend to be a comprehensive historical document of Sakamoto's life, though there are still glimpses of that in this film. We see his early days at the YMO, his forays into acting and composing film music (including a fantastic anecdote where he rewrote and performed the intro for Bernardo Bertolucci's The Sheltering Sky in thirty minutes) and his recent struggles with throat cancer and the creation of async, one of his best albums to date.
Sakamoto's image and style has shifted over the years: from his early electronica days, he has gone into a musical style that can be described as a mix of electronica, minimaliist and ambient soundscapes, as well as a bit of orchestration. Still, in the middle of all that is the piano, which he considers the heart of all his music.
Sakamoto's influences are also laid bare - Bach organ solos, Tarkovskian film scoring, ambient sounds in nature, politics and environmental activism. Fascinating is the part where Sakamoto wants to create a film score for a non-existent movie, eventually creating such a track in his latest album.
Perhaps one of the most uplifting statements of the film is where Sakamoto finds beauty in the things we often take for granted: the ntion of his own impending death, or a line from Tarkovsky's Solaris, or the sounds of nature, or a decrepit piano, the "corpse of a piano that drowned" during the Fukushima nuclear disaster. A documentary or fans and music lovers alike, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda is fascinating stuff.
Samuel Maoz's Foxtrot begins with a distressing emotional scene when Michael Feldman is told that his son jonathan, a soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces has died in the line of duty. But Foxtrot is far more than a simple examination of grief and mourning, it confronts a far bigger picture - the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine - and it does so while being a pitch black comedy.
The film is divided into three segments, each covering a different point in time. The second part focuses on Jonathan himself, working a mostly boring job manning a remote outpost on the Israeli border. The monotony actually helps depict how much animosity and predjudice has normalized between the Israelis and the Palestinians to the point where it becomes routine, including one scene where a Palestinian couple, perhaps having come straight from a party, is made to stand in the pouring rain. Even though the order is absurd and meaningless, the couple does so, and the man looks at his wife with nothing more than a look of resignation.
And absurdity becomes Foxtrot's main weapon, so to say: it illuminates how senseless and pointless the war has become. Perhaps subliminally, Jonathan's family feels that as well, their comfortable middle-class lives detached from what is happening.
And in the third part, where it all comes together, the Foxtrot metaphor rings true: everything has changed but everything also goes back to where it came from. There's a story within a story where a priceless family heirloom is replaced by a porno magazine, where something noble has been replaced with something vulgar being passed from father to son, much like how the scars of a neverending conflict are now inherited through generations.
Rendered in beautifully stylized rotoscoped animation, Tehran Taboo plays out ike a greatest-hits version of Iranian social cinema: it critiques multiple facets of Iran's very strict, patriarchal society through the intersecting lives of several characters. There's Pari driven into prostitution because of a drug-addicted husband who is locked in prison; there's Sara, who wants to work but is restricted by her banker husband, and Babak, who gets into a bind after a drug fueled night of sex.
The film doesn't try to be subtle about it: this is a film of protest, and it doesn't shy away from showing the many double standards and hypocrisies that exist in such a society. Perhaps comparisons can be made with this film and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, also animated and also made by an Iranian expat. It's been said that it isn't as bad anymore in real contemporary Iranian society, but if the foundations of abuse are still there, scenarios like the ones depicted in the film can still happen.
The film also skillfully avoids making its characters into caricatures, giving them complex stories and personalities that are relatable, all made even more devastating given the film's conclusion.
Tehran Taboo is a film that will make a lot of people indignant and angry. At the very least I hope it helps start a conversation towards real and just change.
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