“By their extraterritorial nature, film festivals the world over have always permitted works to be shown and for filmmakers to present them freely and safely, even when certain states opposed this.”
So said Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Michael Mann, Pedro Almodovar, Woody Allen and Wim Wenders – among many other luminaries – as signatories to a petition calling for the release of Roman Polanski. The Oscar-winning director, detained on September 26 after arriving in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award at the city’s film festival, was thus reminded that such events, while they may indeed be culturally and intellectually “extraterritorial”, are certainly not beyond the reach of national or international law.
Almost exactly 1,000 kilometres away and on the same day, a somewhat less contentious film festival was winding down in the coastal city of San Sebastian – an ideal location to illustrate how these cinematic jamborees can function as types of temporary “Interzone” (William Burroughs’ term for the legendarily louche and bohemian “international city” of Tangier as it existed from 1945-1956).
Part of Spain, but also very much regarded as being one of the main towns of the Basque Country, this attractive, quite fancy seaside resort of 200,000 well-heeled individuals is known as “Donostia” in the Basque language (or “Euskara”). And its film festival, which has taken place annually at the end of the summer season since 1953, is very carefully bilingual. Its full title is 57 Festival de San Sebastian/Donostia Zinemaldia.
Adding to the cosmopolitan feel, the French border and the classic aristocratic retreat of Biarritz are only a few miles away. Napoleon’s forces conquered this breezy settlement of rugged hills and sandy coves during the Peninsular War in 1808, and ruled the roost until repelled by the British and Portuguese in 1813. The victorious troops got carried away with their success and burned the town to the ground – forgetting, in their excitement, that the residents were almost all staunchly anti-French.
Only one original street remains from before the conflagration, but the city’s “old town” exudes an appealing antiquity – numerous bars and restaurants that are full of character in what’s regarded as Spain’s capital of gastronomy certainly help in that regard. And any lingering resentment towards the Brits has clearly long since been extinguished. Spotted promenading around the parte vieja during this year’s festival (and even pouring the excellent local cider behind the bar of one cosy establishment) was Burnley’s very own Ian McKellen, who managed to pick up his lifetime achievement gong without attracting Interpol’s attentions.
Sir Ian did so before a screening of one of the most noteworthy films at the 57th “SanSe” festival, Me, Too (Yo, tambien), an offbeat romance by the writing-directing team of Alvaro Pastor and Antonio Naharro. The choice of movie was fortuitous. Back in 1982, McKellen made headlines with his performance in the title role of Stephen Frears’ television film Walter, which broke new ground in its presentation of what was at the time referred to as “mental handicap”.
Twenty-seven years on, Me, Too – an engaging, rough-edged and moving crowd-pleaser set in the cinematically unfamiliar surroundings of Seville – saw a performer with Down’s Syndrome, big-screen newcomer Pablo Pineda, earning San Sebastian’s Best Actor Award. It’s the first time that such a prize has gone to an actor with the chromosomal disorder. Although this prize attracted some mutterings that Pineda was simply “playing himself” – like Pineda, his character, Daniel, is in his mid-30s, the first person with Down’s Syndrome to earn a university degree – the accolade was in fact very well-deserved.
Pineda is touching, funny and sharp as he traces Daniel’s progress through a “nervous romance” with a dysfunctional work-colleague – the latter a “normal” woman appealingly played by Lola Duenas, who collected the Best Actress award.
Duenas’ chief competition was surely her compatriot Carmen Machi, a 46-year-old Madrilena who, like her, appeared in Pedro Almodovar’s Talk To Her and Volver. Machi is best known in Spain for her TV role as chatterbox cleaning lady Aida in the smash hit show of the same name. And that explains why her casting as the protagonist of Woman Without Piano (La mujer sin piano) came as such a surprise to local critics.
An austere, meticulously crafted example of the slow-paced modern art movie, Woman Without Piano presents Machi as a dissatisfied, childless middle-aged woman who escapes from her drab flat into the night-world of the Spanish capital. Her “adventures” in bus stations and Edward Hopper-ish cafes are decidedly low-key and her dialogue is minimal, but Machi speaks volumes through the smallest of facial expressions and gestures.
Perhaps too rigorously unyielding for some, the film – which won Best Director for Javier Rebollo – has sufficiently intelligent maturity and, crucially, just enough deadpan humour, to ensure that viewers are amply rewarded for their patience.
It was a similar story with Turkish competition entry 10 to 11 (11’e 10 kala) by Pelin Esmer, which, to the surprise of many, went away empty-handed at the prizegiving. Taking its tone and pace from its unhurried protagonist, this is the lightly fictionalised tale of the director’s fiercely independent octogenarian grandfather – an educated, old-fashioned gent whose Istanbul flat is crammed floor to ceiling with “collections” accumulated over the course of the decades. In its best moments – a Bosphorus twist on Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape – the picture exudes a beguilingly unusual atmosphere. You can almost smell the dusty piles of yellowing newspapers and magazines. And that atmosphere sustains what is, objectively speaking, a relatively slender storyline.
Istanbul is the city that spans two continents – an observation which also applies to a pair of very fine films that were shown outside the main competition section. A co-production of Portugal and Chile, Optical Illusions (Illusiones opticas) is the strikingly promising feature debut from director Cristian Jimenez, who co-wrote the script of this ambitious satirical comedy-drama with the more established Alicia Scherson (Play and Tourists). Although it is set in the southern part of Chile, the gloomy humour in this tale of suburban intersections is unexpectedly Nordic. The influence of Sweden’s Roy Andersson (Songs from the Second Floor) and Finland’s Aki Kaurismaki (The Man Without A Past) is evident, but Jimenez’ intricate, textured patchwork is very much its own idiosyncratic creation.
Among the many co-productions on show in San Sebastian this year, the Mexico/Canada provenance of Nicolas Pereda’s Perpetuum Mobile raised some wry smiles, given the cultural and economic behemoth that nestles between those two nations. The film– chronicling the misadventures of a hangdog Mexico City removal man at home (nagging mother) and at work (troublesome customers) – also proved unexpectedly hilarious to many. Others, however, were left bemused, baffled or bored by the quotidian verisimilitude of Pereda’s approach. Every film festival has no shortage of these sort of enterprises among its selections these days, but the lo-fi, video-shot Perpetuum Mobile is executed with an unfussy panache that proves weirdly compelling and, after the credits have rolled, hauntingly resonant.
Neil Young
About The Author
