FILMS WORTH WATCHING by Robert Alstead
Father and son from Winter in Wartime. Courtesy mongrelmedia.com
Growing up is painful enough. Growing up during a war really hurts. That’s the thrust of rites-of-passage drama Winter in Wartime (Oorlogswinter), a WW2 Dutch occupation film seen through the eyes of a 13-year-old.
Headstrong, rebellious and impressionable Michiel (Martijn Lakemeier, providing good screen presence) grabs the opportunity of his lifetime when he stumbles upon Jack, a downed RAF pilot (Jamie Campbell Bower ofSweeney Todd) in a snowy hideout in the woods. At risk of being shot, Michiel aids the wounded Jack and plans his escape.
Newfound responsibility forces Michiel to reassess his own instincts. In particular, he slowly recognizes the quiet heroism of his father, the town mayor, after initially being contemptuous of his diplomatic approach to the military occupiers. Michiel also learns firsthand not all Germans are despicable, even if he has plenty of reasons to hate them.
Martin Koolhoven’s film is beautifully shot, with atmospheric period detail, but it pushes credibility to the limits as it ventures into action flick territory later in the film. But while the twisty plot wears thin by the end, the central theme of the boy’s yearnings for manhood is touching.
Reel 2 Real International Film Festival for Youth (April 9-15) also turns 13 this year. “To help us celebrate, the focus will be on films about how this important rite of passage is observed around the world,” notes executive director Venay Felton. The festival opens with The First Movie, a documentary that explores the power of cinema for children in the small, frontier village of Goptapa in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Gassed in 1988 by Saddam Hussein, the village is steeped in the culture of conflict. Respected critic and curator Mark Cousins introduces the children to films for the first time and then sets them off with video cameras to make their own works, revealing the vitality of their imaginations.
Other R2R films include 7, or Why I Exist, a documentary in which children talk about their world, aspirations, dreams and beliefs and White Lion, a coming-of-age, nature drama featuring the South African equivalent to BC’s “Spirit Bear.”
Dutch fantasy Eep! features a girl who has wings instead of arms and the Quebecois film Aurélie Laflamme’s Diary is about a young girl who suspects she is an alien. As well as animation, shorts and workshops, the festival offers The Crocodiles Strike Back, the sequel to last year’s R2R award winner. It closes with an encore screening of Boy, a film about magic, heroes and Michael Jackson.
For adults, Certified Copy (out now) is an intriguing puzzle, teasing one with ideas about the value of original art and the authenticity and transience of human experience. Juliette Binoche gives a mesmerizing performance as Elle, an antique dealer and single mom, in a passionate counter-point to the jaded, professorial author James (William Shimell), as they meander together one day through rural Tuscany discussing art, love and life. Director Abbas Kiarostami’s first foray outside his native Iran has echoes of Edward Albee’s similarly dialogue-heavy Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? which also featured a tour de force performance by the late Elizabeth Taylor. However,Certified Copy’s warm Italian setting, playful thematic undertow and fluid cinematic language makes it a light-hearted, albeit inconclusive, exercise.
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Robert Alstead made the Vancouver documentary You Never Bike Alone.www.youneverbikealone.com. He writes at www.2020Vancouver.com.
