REVIEWS PANORAMA Highway REVIEWED BYDAN FAINARU


This is the first Nepali film ever screened in the Berlinale and having it featured on the Panorama roster is a great achievement for the producers. A road movie set on a bus that twists its way down the Himalayas from Darjeeling to Kathmandu, Highway should be replete with exotic sights and personal stories of travellers who provide mean- ingful insights into the lifestyle of the Nepalese people.


Friends After 3.11 REVIEWED BYFIONNUALA HALLIGAN


Japan’s Shunji Iwai (Swallowtail Butterfly, Vam- pire) is a native of Sendai, the harbour town at the centre of the enormous earthquake and resulting tsunami of March 11, 2011. Deeply affected by events, he trains his camera in a very personal take on the political and emotional fallout of this cata- strophic event in Friends After 3.11, in particular the questions raised by the ongoing meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. As the title suggests, Iwai focuses on his friends


in this documentary, and it is hampered by his inability to cut their testimonies short across often repetitive interviews. However, this is a cumula- tively affecting film and an intriguing insight into what is becoming a growing struggle within the country. The pain of the tsunami and estimated 16,000 deaths is a powerful accelerant to the ongoing anger over Fukushima and nuclear power in general in this deeply felt piece. Premiering at Berlin in the Forum section,


Friends After 3.11 feels as if it may have raced to meet a deadline: subtitling is flawed and there is a lack of context to help a non-Japanese audience relate to either the geographic settings or the peo- ple Iwai interviews. With extra work, in particular a sharper edit on


the interviews, this could make a small impact on the festival circuit. It seems like a first sally in what


That, at least, is what the promotional material


seems to promise. But in truth, best intentions are squandered on a sadly unoriginal plot — or put more accurately, plots — which unfold in a disor- ganised and too often manipulated manner, leav- ing viewers indifferent and apathetic to it all. The bus passengers include an army lieutenant


(Dayahang Rai) on leave and supposed to return to his wife (Magarati) in Kathmandu after swal- lowing a magic fertility potion that will finally make her pregnant — without suspecting she has


Nepal-US. 2012. 80mins Director-producer Deepak Rauniyar Production companies Aadi Productions, Louverture Films Executive producers Lonim P Dixit, Sameer M Dixit International sales Seagull Films, info@ seagullfilms.com Screenplay Abinash Bikram Shah, Deepak Rauniyar based on a story by Rauniyar, Kedar Sharma, Khagendra Lamichhane Cinematography Apal Singh, Jyoti Kesar Simha Editors David Barker, Deepak Rauniyar, Rita Meher Production design Rajan Khatiwada Music Richard Horowitz, Vivek Maddala Main cast Dayahang Rai, Asha Magarati, Shristi Ghimire, Karma, Rajan Khatiwada, Reecha Sharma, Rabindra Mishra, Nirmala Rai, Eelum Dixit, Saugat Malla


already been impregnated by another man; a gay man (Dixit) on his way to meet his internet date and console him for the loss of his trans-sexual partner; and a girl (Ghimire), who has a lover in the mountains and is on her way back to the capi- tal, accompanied by her mother, to marry a man (Karma) who has returned from the US especially to meet her. The bus driver (Khatiwada) is supposed to rush


back to the city and bring his girlfriend, a night- club dancer (Sharma), the money she needs to care for her daughter. While general conclusions on life in Nepal


could eventually be drawn from all these disparate details, it all seems a bit too easy and superficial to be taken seriously and they evaporate under closer survey. If at all, these stories suggest that life in Nepal is not that different from the rest of the world, even if the country looks different: the same romantic entanglements, moral hang-ups and emotional crises. The one tempting filmic option left, the spectacular landscapes of the Himalayas that would seem inevitable in such a story, are too rarely exploited.


FORUM


Jap. 2011. 120mins Director Shunji Iwai Production companies Rockwell Eyes International sales Rockwell Eyes, aki@ rockwelleyes.com Producer Harada Miho Cinematography Tsunoda Shinichi, Kanbe Chigi Editors Shunji Iwai, Imai Daisuke, Ushiroda Yoshiki


could be a growing project for the director, who relates in the opening titles how he looked to his friends after the disaster to help him carry on. Many of them are new friends, and the surprise


of the piece is how political it gradually becomes. With the actress Matsuda Miyuki as ‘navigator’, Iwai talks to an unexpected array of individuals, from an anti-nuclear movement idol to a former architect of nuclear power plants, professors, activist journalists and film-makers, an outspoken


banker, and the charismatic actor Yamamoto Taro, who delivers impassioned speeches against nuclear power. Shot on HD and using videophone footage,


Friends After 3.11’s technical limitations are neither surprising nor a detriment to the overall power of the piece, which sadly has been diluted by having too wide a focus. Whether Iwai revisits this work remains to be seen; final footage indicates this may well be the case.


February 15, 2012 Screen International at the Berlinale 9 n


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