Cine-adrenalin @TIFF15 143

Cosmin POPA

Cine-adrenalin @TIFF15

The 15th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival, one of the largest festivals in
Eastern Europe, took place in Cluj-Napoca (Romania) in 27 May-5 June 2016.

Transilvania International Film Festival.

TIFF.15. The festival that could be called, year
after year, “another kind of festival”. Cranes
that carry people above other people’s heads,
concerts that become the soundtrack of the
Brownian motion in downtown Cluj, the
city that swells with dialects and spectacular
attendance – everything added remarkably to
the appeal of the festival.
This year, TIFF outperformed itself with
an increasing desire to stand out at world
scale. Two hundred and forty-eight films
from 64 countries generated more than 80,000
tickets in the ten days dedicated to cinephilia.
More than one thousand guests, directors,
actors, producers and other professionals in
the industry, journalists and Romanian or
foreign critics attended the special screenings
Cosmin POPA and events in the more than 20 special places
Babeș-Bolyai University of the festival.
email: [email protected] If we were “The Usual Suspects” we
would learn in “EducaTIFF” how to travel
EKPHRASIS, 1/2016 from “Shadows” with the “Berlin-Bucharest
EXTREME STORYTELLING Express” to “No Limit” and then ask “What’s
pp. 143-148 Up, Doc?” beneath the bewildered eyes of our
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“#Animal” sidekick. A sacrifice for “Cinema, Mon Amour” during a “Supernova”.

These were just some of the special TIFF sections this year.
“The Romanian Days section will have, straight from Cannes, two of the three
Romanian films displayed there: Cristi Puiu’s Sieranevada and Bogdan Mirică’s Dogs.
Other films also have their world premiere. I’m talking about Gabriel Achim’s film,
The Last Day, then In Search of the Lost Father - Ionuţ Teianu, Sorin Luca’s Dream Images,
Two Lottery Tickets, a comedy by Paul Negoescu, and last a film made by a young man
from Cluj. I think it’s the first time that the feature film section of the Romanian Days
is showing a film directed by a graduate of the “Babeş-Bolyai” University, one of my
former students, Ion Indolean, film critic”, declared Tudor Giurgiu, the festival direc-
tor, in the first TIFF conference of this year.
The “Focus” changed this year also, with a view on Lithuania, Lebanon and
Croatia. Some screenings occurred in the presence of the important filmmaker
Šarūnas Bartas, whose films were often seen in Cannes. We should also mention here
the sections dedicated to the filmmakers Chantal Akerman, Šarūnas Bartas and Zeki
Demirkubuz or the wonderful and extremely unusual Sion Sono retrospective. A
TIFF edition that seemed more concerned with the importance of the film, of the film-
makers, of cinephilia, of film education and not only on the dry projection of the se-
lected films.
The opening of the festival was marked by the renowned French street arts group
“Transe Express” and their provocative performance “Mobile Homme”. The artists
were suspended for whole minutes above the Unirii Square spectators and executed
acrobatics at a height, with trapeze artists suspended on cranes. The festival films
opened with the world premiere of the new film by Nae Caranfil who stays true to
his pleasure and passion for filmmaking and music. The metaphorical line of the
film is kept by the diegetic theatre performance. The myth of a modern Orpheus is
implemented realistically by the characters’ embodiment, the father (Teodor Corban)
looks like Hades himself (“the devil himself”), Eurydice (Maria Obretin) is the
depressive wife and, of course, Tony (Laurențiu Bănescu) who descends in an inner
inferno. Will he save Eurydice or won’t he? Will he look back?
In the Unirii Square Open Air section other films that were displayed were
“Mad Max: Fury Road” – one of the most important films made the last year, the fa-
mous “Taxi Driver” – a film that does not or should not require any presentation,
“Baahubali: The Beginning” – the first part of the two and perhaps the most expen-
sive Indian film up to now; “Truman” – a film shown at the great festivals of Toronto,
San Sebastian, London and which received about 5 Goya awards in 2016.
“Truman” (2016), directed by Cesc Gay, is a film like a long “goodbye” said by
Tomas (Javier Camara) to his friend Julian (Ricard Darin). An inner voyage of the
two protagonists who seek a form of coming to peace with the events. “Each person
dies as best he can.” Everything happens following a semi-improvised, semi-sched-
uled journey by which the two rediscover the strength of their friendship, which does
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not need words, explanations, important discussions, one in which distance did not
matter and money are not an issue, one that bleeds tacitly with understanding and
acceptance. All these aspects seem to turn around Truman, an old dog that will re-
main without a mater because all potential adoptive parents are afraid that he will
die quickly. He is like Julian’s alter ego, with whom he will part with difficulty. Cesc
Gay manages to create characters who become universal, a friendship that impress-
es the audience and also a content that bears a message that is more than important:
“Relationships are everything that matters in life.”
Theni “Baahubali: The Beginning” turned out to be one of the films that border on
the ridiculous because of their extreme approaches, a different story of the prodigal
son who comes to save his people from the tyranny of his step brother. People
laughed a lot and faced the cold for almost three hours, to be able to see the financial
performance on screen.
The frequently discussed patriarchy and male infatuation are ironically and
intriguingly approached in “Chevalier” (2016) by Athina Rachel Tsangari (director
of “Attenberg”, a point of reference of the “Greek Weird Wave”). Six wealthy men
spend their vacation fishing in the middle of the Aegean Sea. Since they are isolated,
they invent various games to escape boredom. The purpose needs to be mentioned:
to be the best “in general”. The concept is so vague that it becomes hilarious. Thus,
during the film, we witness the surreal humor of virility down to instinctual stages.
“Chevalier” is a ridiculous Olympiad, a subtle and intelligent performance of the
human condition, a metonymic game for the real problems of the present day Greece.
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“United States of Love” (2016) is an intelligent title for the film that talks about
the forms of love, about the drama of the Polish woman of the 1990s and about the
craft of capitalism and the promise of the American dream. Nevertheless, director
Tomasz Wasilewski creates a kind and careful portrait of the woman who vibrates,
struggles, becomes the animal emptied of power in front of a rush of desires. In an age
dominated by profound changes and future uncertainty, four women find themselves
caught in love. Prisoner in a tedious marriage, Agata (Julia Kijowska) longs viscerally
for the young Catholic priest of the parish. Iza (Magdalena Cielecka), principal of
the town’s secondary school, tries to save by any means possible the relationship
with the recently widowed doctor. And then there’s the obsession of Renata (Dorota
Kolak), retired teacher, with her neighbor Marzena (Marta Nieradkiewicz). Left alone
after her husband left abroad, young Marzena wants to become a model and thus is
trapped by a sick disadvantage of capitalism. The film structure is complex, timeless,
with brief leaps back in time, as a comment to the reliving of those times. It is split
in three episodes, of almost equal lengths, which describe the dimensions of four
different forms of love. With Oleg Mutu’s splendid image, Tomasz Wasilewski creates
private scenes and moments, claustrophobic domestic spaces, different perspectives
and emotional masks.
The loss of memory is one of man’s greatest fears. Nevertheless, sooner or later, one
encounters a time when all the memories burn like one Christmas light after the other.
Paul (Mathieu Amalric), an anthropologist travelling for studies, leaves the exotic
lands of Tajikistan to return to the Paris of his youth. The path is marked by forays
into the precise and slightly inexact world of childhood and adolescence memories:
the nightmare of a depressive mother, the prankish brother, the trip to Russia, the
departure for faculty, the friends, the crazy parties, the loves and sexual escapades.
They say, however, that one never forgets one’s first love. Arnaud Desplechin’s “My
Golden Days” emphasizes the power of nostalgia, of the uncertainty of memory
and the strength of the burning desires of youth, which leave unhealed wounds. A
coming-of-age film defined by the storyline of adolescent love.
At the other end of the world, in an apocalyptic landscape where rules are not clear,
where you work for or against the government, very few things can keep you afloat.
“Frenzy”, Emin Alper’s second film, after “Beyond the Hill”, is a psycho-social drama
in which the desaturated image, the wonderful acting, the paranoid characters and
the apparently chaotic events create a time bomb ready to explode. After twenty years
spent in jail, Kadir (Mehmet Ozgur) is released earlier. There is only one condition:
to report any kind of potentially terrorist activities or individuals. He will find details
in the residents’ garbage, not before the attempt to rebuild the relationship with his
brother Ahmet (Berkay Ates), the little brother. He is a dog catcher who shoots the
stray dogs at the outskirts of the town. No wonder that, after such a long time, Kamir
is only a stranger to Ahmet, in a society dominated by suspicion. With a subjective
structure, “Frenzy” does more than provide a complex view of terror; it also creates
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an allegory of the effects of terror on a society dominated through fear. With the
contribution of Răzvan Rădulescu (credited as consultant), Emin Alper directs a
“Frenzy” that is so much more; it signals the potential seed of hatred that can prompt
a man to walk each and every day looking over one’s shoulder.
Movie fans could not miss “Hitchcock/Truffaut” directed by Kent Jones, a
documentary that relies on the Truffaut’s famous book on Hitchcock. The feeling
imparted by the documentary comes close to childish infatuation. A (miraculous)
handful of directors like Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Wes Anderson, James Gray,
Kyioshi Kurosawa, Richard Linklater, Araud Desplechin and others, who come to
care talk passionately about what Hitchcock and Truffaut did for the history and
importance of world filmmaking. Then we can hear the two engaged in conversations
mediated by a translator, but it looked as if this was not needed, they were already
speaking the film language, they could understand each other more than what could
be seen at first sight.
The cine-concerts tasted differently this year. The music sounded like in Catholic
cathedrals wherein the echo is endless, and the films did not tremble beneath another
soundtrack. Zone Libre revisite 2001 – reconsiders Kubrick Space Odyssey in an
electrifying note, The Passion of Joan of Arc seems to have color in the organic music
of Touve R. Ratovondrahety, The Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors cannot part with the
music of A Hawk And A Hacksaw, and British Sea Power dotted the I’s.
A more than notable presence was Cristi Puiu’s Sieranevada. A derisory performance
that keeps you caught up for approximately three hours without feeling that you are
missing something. A memorial service kept forty days after the father’s death; at
the service, a family like any other (perhaps more numerous) puts on display their
pain, their fear, anxieties, joys, opinions, principles, private thoughts, loneliness in an
unstoppable vertigo. During this time, we are literally walking with the characters
in the apartment, we are listening to their conversations, we are the most silent fly
on the wall. While several weeks before Cristian Mungiu established the desire of
reinvention, Cristi Puiu establishes his maturity, another filmmaking refinement that
surpasses the previous Cristi Puiu.
Not very far away, in a world in which rules are written differently, in which
the law looks at things rather than interfere, man seems to have the freedom to do
anything, to use his instincts for survival or for domination. With Dogs, Bogdan Mirică
manages to create a thriller with western elements, wherein the austere atmosphere,
the emptiness and imminent evil talk about how people are not better than animals.
Roman (Dragoș Bucur), a young man from Bucharest, arrives at his deceased uncle’s
house firmly intent to sell the inherited property. Not far from the frontier with
Ukraine, the night hides illegal activities. Old Hogaș (Gheorghe Visu), the officer on
duty, warns Roman about the real legacy of his uncle and his “boys”. The charismatic
and ruthless Samir (Vlad Ivanov) is the new boss who will hang on to the land on
which he lives. However, Roman does not give up so easily. Roman is the new dog,
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the city dog that does not yet know with whom he’s dealing. At first, he barks from
beyond the fence, but once he crosses the barrier, he finds himself on a territory
already dominated by Samir and his boys. Vlad Ivanov plays Samir, the bad dog,
the alpha dog, the hyena. He is the boss, left after the death of old Alecu, and now he
feels threatened by the newly come Roman. Hogaș, the officer, is the old and sick dog
that runs quickly toward the inevitable, while agent Ana is the inexperienced, always
hungry pup, who is not necessarily interested in the order of things. We are in “no
man’s land”, where someone else can only be met at long distances, where there is not
ear to hear the screams, where wild animals wander freely. In this desolate landscape,
subject to the mentality of the plainsman, Bogdan Mirică lets loose characters that are
thirsty for affirmation. In fact, it seems that it stood out in TIFF and was awarded the
festival grand prize.
The award festivities celebrated the entire career of the actresses Carmen Galin,
who received the Excellence Prize, and Lujza Orosz who received the Prize for her
entire activity. They were joined, with some delay, by actress Sophia Loren, whose
presence in the festival was more than spectacular. The award of the best director
went to Avishai Sivan for the film Tikkun (2015). After a sort, the film suffers from the
lack of rhythm and of some form of dynamism that one seeks in the film industry,
even when someone eats soup for ten minutes. There is, however, the excellent
cinematography y Shai Goldman with some moments when it becomes remarkable.
The special prize of the jury when to Runar Runarsson’s Sparrows, and the FIPRESCI
award to Gabriel Mascaro’s Neon Bull. Gabriel Achim’s Last Day received the prize of
the Romanian Days for the feature film section. And in the same section, the prize for
debut went to Ion Indolean and his film “Discordia”.
The closing festivities, the awards, the champagne glasses that clinked proved that
TIFF.15 was the heart of a city that breathes films for at least ten days per year. An
injection of film adrenalin that could cure asthenia.