REVIEWS FORUM


Czech Rep-Slovak Rep. 2010. 72mins Director/screenplay Erika Hnikova Production company Endorfilm International Sales Endorfilm, www.endorfilm.com Producer Jiri Konecny Cinematography Jiri Strnad Editor Jana Vlckova


Matchmaking Mayor REVIEWED BY DAN FAINARU


This gently humorous documentary looking at life in a small Slovak town is much better at observing the quirks and oddities of its inhabitants, all kept at arm’s length, than actually tackling such major themes as the solitude of bachelors past their prime or the worldwide tendency of populations to move from the provinces to the big cities. Shaped pretty much as a fiction film with a distinct plot,


Matchmaking Mayor (Nesvatbov) follows the efforts of an ener- getic mayor to convert the singles in his town into couples by organising a party where they will be paired together. Through director Erika Hnikova’s amused eyes, it looks like


some of the more endearing Czech comedies of yesteryear, with their colourful characters and ironic frame of mind. Soon to be released domestically as a theatrical feature under the title The Heart Can’t Be Commanded, this looks like a natural for documen- tary festivals and eventually arthouses specialising in the genre. Jozef Gajdos, a retired general, is now the beloved mayor of


FORUM


Jap. 2010. 90mins Director/screenplay Yoshida Koki Production company Pia Film Festival International sales Pia Film Festival, www.pff.jp Producer Amano Mayumi Cinematography Shida Takayuki Production designer Inoue Shimpei Editor Hayano Ryo, Yoshida Koki Main cast Minami Kaho, Taguchi Tomorowo, Kaku Tomohiro, Morishita Yoshiyuki


Household X REVIEWED BY FIONNUALA HALLIGAN


Yoshida Koki shines a limpid light on salary-family alienation in the Tokyo suburbs in Household X (Kazoku X), a return to the big screen after 2007’s Symptom X. His protagonists — bulimic mother Michiko (Kaho), distracted dad Kenichi (Tomorowo) and sullen teen Hiroaki (Tomohiro) — fail to connect with each other in their little pocket of Japanese suburbia, but they do not make much of a cinematic dent either, treading familiar ground with little new to say. Wandering silently around the streets of suburbia, their


house and workplace like a trio of zombies, the Hashimoto family could have some limited appeal for festival program- mers, though the story feels like entering a time warp in which ‘society’ is the villain and the film-maker has no response. Opening with a shot of a picture frame showing the family in


happier times (a later sequence will suggest it was taken as they first moved to suburbia), Household X is constructed as a vacuum of a film into which Koki allows no context. We never know how the Hashimoto has family moved to a


point of such deep unhappiness, but we are certainly made aware they are here to stay. Early subtleties, with Koki depicting each passing the other silently in the house, are repeated to the point where the viewer begins to feel the same depressed aliena- tion as the characters on screen. And on we all lurch, until Koki draws a somewhat arbitrary line under the whole affair. As depressed bulimic housewife Michiko, the home-maker


who Koki depicts as society’s true victim, actress Minami Kaho bears the weight of the film well, but it is a heavy burden. She is the non-expressive Asian counterpart to the kitchen sink wives of the 1950s in this silent and humourless affair. Spending much of her screen time chopping vegetables or


straightening mats in the kitchen, the ignored Michiko stands helplessly by as the food in her freezer rots and the water in her new cooler turns luridly mouldy. Worried about his future, silent dad Kenichi fails to even notice people speaking to him in the office, while son Hiroaki looks for full-time work and remains a cipher. Dialogue is minimal, to the point of extinction. Koki’s artistic take is livelier than the events on screen,


though occasional hovering handheld shots down the backs of the protagonists do more to jar than enhance the claustro- phobia. A long tracking sequence down a suburban street is a standout. Ultimately, though, Household X is a peculiar milieu for a young film-maker to explore, and Yoshida Koki never makes a compelling case on screen as to why he has chosen it.


February 17, 2011 Screen International in Berlin 9 n


Zemplinske Hamre, a little town he runs with the firm paternal hand of father who not only keeps his city spick and span but takes care of its inhabitants as if they were his own children. Whatever he has to tell them, he shares through the PA sys-


tem spread all over town, an inheritance of the inglorious com- munist era, which means that every once in a while he gives them a fiery speech about what they should or shouldn’t do, or about how despicable he finds all those louts on the street who are dead drunk in the morning, sleep it off until nightfall and then get drunk again. More than anything, mayor Gajdos cares about the future of


his town, its population depleted by those who go away to study and never come back or others who simply find more lucrative livelihoods in the big cities. His solution is to bring together all those thirtysomething singles — men and women — drifting around town or living with their parents, get them to marry and have children, pumping new blood into the old arteries. He immediately sends the message through the public


address system and then dispatches his cultural assistant, Dana Pasekova, to unearth all the potential candidates for a large party, bring in an orchestra and organise a raffle. This all may seem perfect in the mind of a former military


man, trained to see human units as pawns on a chessboard, but real life is not so simple. Zemplinske’s unmarried would rather make their own choices and while they do come to the party they are just as happy to head home by themselves. Perceptive camera work takes in not only the characters themselves but also everything surrounding them, from the interiors of their homes which often reveal more than anything they have to say, through to the lovely landscape which seems to invite much of their laid-back attitude.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24