European Films

Vincenzo Marra's L'udienza è aperta - Festival review

A week in the lives of three law officials working on a case involving members of the Naples-based mafia-like Camorra organisation is the subject of the documentary L'udienza è aperta (lit. The Hearing Has Started). The film comes on the heels of director Vincenzo Marra's fiction festival success  Vento di terra (Land Wind), but was made with a smaller budget and without the possibility to guide the characters to a foregone conclusion that would underline the film's major themes. Despite its shaky and murkily lit video footage, the documentary is nevertheless fairly compelling; the three people portrayed are three outspoken characters, all with their own (and often contrasting) ideas of justice and politics, two opposite and separate poles that -- especially in Italy -- are all but separate. Some knowledge of Italian legalese is required to understand the film fully, even though Marra never focuses on the actual case but only on the people handling it.

The film follows the aging judge (who moonlights as a writer of decidedly right-wing columns for a local newspaper), the assistant judge, a fiercely opinionated woman, and the defence lawyer, a church-goer who is one of the most famous councils of Naples. At the start of the film, the law officials and the popular jury are locked outside of the courtroom, which is shown in a series of quick establishing shots as a sterile room lit by neon lights, dominated by the text "La legge è uguale per tutti" (The law is equal for all). In a curious slip of the tongue, the judge will later say that the courtrooms used to have that text on the walls (in the past tense), indicating that -- in his mind at least -- the maxim has become obsolete. 

The film focuses on crime as an inherent part of Neapolitan society, and it is sobering to hear the reflections of those who are in touch with it daily. The defense lawyer, despite deriving his livelihood from the fact that crime exists, says that crimes cannot not be solved in the courtroom but should be stopped through prevention. The female judge speaks of the ties between politics and justice, arguing that is not forbidden for people working in the legal sphere to have and voice their political opinions (in a country as polarised as Italy, it is hard not to have a political opinion in any case), though that this should not interfere with their functioning. 

Despite beginning with a short introductory text, the film will still be hard to follow for those unversed in the ways of Italian society and in the functioning of its legal system, despite the fascinating portraits it paints of its three protagonists. Co-produced by state television RAI, and shot on mini-DV, the film will likely end up on television as a imperfect peek at an imperfect system.

Santiago Amigorena's Quelques jours en septembre (Some Days in September) - Festival review

A thriller that uses the events of September 11, 2001 as its denouement was of course on the minds of screenwriters since, well, probably September 12. What is surprising is that the first thriller to use it is not only French, but also interested in such often-thought-dispensable matters such as character development, humour, and a top-notch technical package (though they do not always mix well). In Santiago Amigorena's Quelques jours en septembre (Some Days in September) Juliette Binoche stars as an ex-Secret Service agent who takes two children of a former American colleague under her wings when he tries to contact her again in early September 2001. He seems to know something that causes a great many people to be after him, and he wants to see his children before it is too late.

The directorial debut of screenwriter Santiago Amigorena is not exactly a tout thriller, but then again, even just calling it a thriller would be unjust. The film walks the fine line between thriller and thriller satire, sometimes taking small detours left and right of the line before rejoining the ranks. It is a tough balancing act but Amigorena mostly pulls it off, most likely because as a screenwriter he learnt how to judge individual scenes in relation to the whole. An assassin who is addicted to calling his therapist (who answers every time with "Did you kill again?")  is something straight out of the comedy book, but as played by John Turturro and integrated into the larger whole, it sort of works even though you are aware it is goofy. 

Juliette Binoche (burdened with the guilt of the First World, its colonial past and contemporary media coverage in Haneke's Caché/Hidden) plays the cigarillo-smoking Irène, an ex-undercover agent turned "spy teacher" who goes to pick up the sassy Orlando (Sara Forestier, the girl from L'esquive/Games of Love and Chance) at a farm where she lives with her grandmother. Together they travel to a seedy hotel in Paris where they are to meet Elliot, the girl's father she has not seen for ten years. The all-American boy David (newcomerTom Riley) also arrives at the hotel and asks for his father. He gives a different name at the reception but is sent to the same room. Orlando and Irène both have guns, and when he knocks on the door the twentysomething will receive a warm welcome from the two armed ladies.

Together they will travel to Venice, where the European headquarters of a Saudi investment fund is based. The Saudis are but one of the groups who are after Elliot, who should have presented himself at the hotel in Paris but decided against it when he spied Turturro's assassin called Pound enter the building. Who is looking for Elliot, and why is almost irrelevant; what is more interesting is that Elliot (Nick Nolte) seems to have some knowledge of imminent events that might drastically change the political-economical balance. Amigorena has fun with his characters, making them enjoy the moment much more than thinking ahead too much about what tomorrow may bring, which foreshadows the impending doom of September 11 that few saw coming. Secret Service agents such as Elliot and Irène are of course know more of what is happening above and beyond diplomacy than most people, but they are also more intensely aware that every moment may be their last, so they try to enjoy what time they have. Irène and Orlando spend several days in Venice with David, making the most of the presence of the handsome young man to the extent that they even bet on who might get to spend the night with him first. There is indeed tension in the air during these scenes, but it is not the type typically associated with the thriller genre. This change of gears is a welcome breath of fresh air and allows the characters some room to breathe and the audience some time to get to know them.

Of course a film that is implicitly about September 11 will be scrutinised for its politics, but here Amigorena has little to offer beyond some generic jabs at American imperialism and superiority. Orlando's character hates the Americans: "They are dinosaurs," she says, "The most powerful of all, but unaware that they will soon be history". One of the problems is indeed the film's unwillingness to develop both Orlando's character and her arguments a bit further. Having grown up on a farm, it is not really clear where she gets her ideas from, even though they might represent a sentiment not uncommon amongst the French. David's position seems to be either mildly amused or diffident. 

The film has several leitmotivs that oppose beauty and ugliness: all characters are fans of poetry (note Elliot and Pound's names), and Venice as a location is of course superb to look at. Another of the film's ideas is how there are different ways of looking at things and Amigorena underlines this by showing us Binoche's character taking off her glasses  when she feels lost. Without glasses, she sees everything out of focus, which might throw a new light on the same objects. The film's opening and closing scenes are examples of cinematographer Christophe Beaucairne (on the Lido last year with Le parfum de la dame en noir) giving the audience something close to Irène's point of view. Especially the last sequence of Quelques jours en septembre is audacious: a pan of the Venetian horizon that lasts several minutes and is out of focus until the very end, when the beauty of Venice and the ugliness of worldwide powergames seem to co-exist for one small moment in time.