Dan Slevin previews two more titles from this year’s Whānau Mārama New Zealand International Film Festival.
Photo: NZIFF
No Bears (Jafar Panahi, 2022)
It must really grind the gears of the Iranian government that a filmmaker they have banned from making films continues to find ways to get his work seen around the world, including the New Zealand International Film Festival. No Bears is the sixth film by Panahi since 2010 when he was prevented from leaving the country, writing scripts, making films (and sometimes imprisoned or placed under house arrest) and it is the most technically proficient – and entertaining – of them all.
Panahi plays himself, temporarily lodging in a remote village near the Turkish border. He is there because he is directing – via Skype – a film being shot in a border town over the mountains but he is being thwarted by the spotty internet and a growing involvement in a local dispute over an arranged marriage that a photograph he (may have) taken has put in jeopardy.
The first few scenes are very funny as the director – who always seems to have a frustrated ‘what did I do to deserve this’ demeanour – tries to negotiate the tribulations of village politics and tradition while keeping his remote actors – playing themselves in their own story – on track.
But the story takes on a tragic edge as we realise that the misbegotten lovers in the village and the couple in Turkey who are looking for refugee passage to Europe are both fighting forces that are bigger than they can cope with.
The fact that these Panahi films exist at all are a kind of miracle but we should count ourselves even luckier that they are so thoughtful, thematically ambitious and supremely well made.
Photo: NZIFF
Sisu (Jalmari Helander, 2022)
The only film I have previewed from the nine-film Incredibly Strange strand, Sisu is directed by Jalmari Helander who in 2010 was responsible for one of the first and best ultraviolent Christmas movies, Rare Exports.
This one is in a similar vein: high-concept and tightly executed tosh.
It’s the latter stages of World War II and the Nazis are being pushed out of Lapland in Finland and leaving scorched earth behind them. A former Finnish special forces hero (Helander regular Jorma Tomilla) is retired and panning for gold in the wilderness when his tranquility – and massive find – is disturbed by the retreating German thugs.
Looks like they messed with the wrong gold panner.
The Germans speak poorly-dubbed English (the Finns when they do speak are in subtitled Finnish) but that doesn’t matter as there is very little actual dialogue amongst all the inventive carnage.
Violently cathartic or cathartic violence, you be the judge. Sometimes this is just what you want from a big screen experience.
Whānau Marama New Zealand International Film Festival opens in Auckland on Wednesday 19 July and then travels around the country until September. You can read the first and second parts of Dan’s previews at Widescreen.
