The 59th Chicago International Film Festival runs from October 11th to the 22nd. Most films will be shown at the AMC New City Theaters near North Ave and Halsted St. on Clybourn Ave (1500 N. Clybourn Ave). Some special presentations will be at the Music Box Theater (3733 N Southport Ave), and various other locations will be utilized as well – check the listing for venues and show times.
Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania works the story-telling in-betweens in novel fashion in her new feature film Four Daughters (Les Filles d’Olfa) (بنات ألفة). Her chronicle of single mother Olfa Hamrouni, and the present and past fates of her daughters, is related as part-reenactment and part therapy-session, with director Ben Hania barely bothering with any kind of fourth wall or objectifying fictionalization. Of the four daughters, the two youngest, Eya and Tayssir, play themselves, while the two eldest are portrayed by actors – Ichrak Matar as the oldest, Ghofrane, and Nour Karoui as Rahma. The absence of the two older sisters is one of the mysterious human behavioral quandaries that the film cumulatively explores; in the meantime, we see the actors collaborating with the daughters to flush out the personalities and inner workings of their absent siblings. They talk about boys and sex, the religion they’ve been raised with, whether they prefer scarves, or hijabs or niqabs, and the music they listened to (apparently, Ghofrane had a fervent Goth phase). Less typical is Olfa’s marriage, which got off to a bad start and barely improved over the girls’ childhoods. The husband was an emotionally unavailable layabout, and another of Mom’s paramours turned out to be a junkie. Olfa is given the option of sometimes portraying herself, and sometimes having Tunisian actress Hend Sabry do it when things get too heavy. Another clever conceit is having all of the male characters – husbands, lovers and boyfriends – performed by a single actor, Majd Mastoura who does nice work with a thankless range of mopes. Olfa, Eya and Tayssir’s reliving this stuff is sometimes hilarious, more often painful, and Olfa emerges as a complex and contradictory figure, sometimes haranguing and flat-out abusive, other times fiercely loving and protective. I suspect a great many Moms might fit that description, but what effect did her love and labor have on the other four? What effect did they have on each other, while contending with misogyny and religious extremism and absent fathers? Ben Hania is generous with her subjects, always treating them with kindness and empathy while successfully drawing out both confessions and truthful portrayals. It’s an impressive film that puts a unique twist on documentary structure and style.
Four Daughters, in its U.S. premiere, screens on Thursday, October 12th at 5:00 pm at the AMC New City #5 and Friday the 13th at 2:30 pm at the AMC New City #5 as well. (A $15 weekday matinee.)
A smart, complex and propulsive thriller, Joram (India, 2023) just keeps pulling away daunting layers of accumulating corruption and malice up until its abrupt ending. Roughly 8.6 per cent (104 million) of the total population of India is tribal indigenous, including the loving young couple we meet early on in our film, Dasru (veteran Manoj Bajpayee) and Vaano (Tannishtha Chatterjee). Their tribal community in Jharkhand may be isolated and somewhat primitive, but they’re tightly knit and self-sustaining. Much like American ranchers or railroads, enterprising industrial developers in India were anxious to exploit the inhabitants of these resource-rich lands to cheaply acquire mining, deforestation and agricultural rights, and when one particular iron company starts bullying Dasru’s neighbors and fellow tribespeople into selling their land and leaving, a small group of homies beats one of the more insistent exploiter/sales associates to death. Among their ranks is Dasru, who flees with Vaano that night to lose themselves in the anonymous big city of Mumbai. Five years later, they’re construction laborers and parents of a new baby girl, Joram. But that mining sales associate had a politically well-connected mother, Phulo Karma (Smita Tambe) who plays both the corporate interests and the locals against each other to her own lucrative, cold-blooded benefit. And for these last five years, she’s been avenging the death of her son on his perpetrators with the exception of the mysteriously vaporized Dasru. But one small slip-up leads to another, Dasru’s family is exposed, tragedy strikes and Dasru heads back to Jharkhand to end the vengeful cycle one way or the other.
Director Devashish Makhija, he of clearly abundant storytelling and filmmaking gifts, draws from a solid understanding of westerns, film-noir, melodrama, and I’d wager a deep appreciation of British filmmaker Carol Reed (Odd Man Out, The Third Man), as well as Alfred Hitchcock. He, no doubt, could edify me on the Indian filmmakers he draws from as well. But my primary points remain: this is a superb noir-tinged chase thriller conceived by a pro with dynamic variety and great characters we genuinely care about, including the straight-laced police inspector I haven’t even mentioned yet (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub). Superb nightime entertainment for a Thursday or Friday night. Highly recommended.
Joram, in its North American premiere, will be shown on Thursday, October 12th at 7:30 pm at AMC New City #5 and Friday the 13th at 8:15 pm. at AMC New City #5 as well.
Even when he’s the clear lead protagonist, canny veteran Mads Mikkelsen is very good at bringing his fellow actors along with him in the overall service of the story. And , more often than not, Mikkelsen teams up with his frequent Danish collaborators, the writer/directors Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair, Riders Of Justice) Anders Thomas Jenson (Adam’s Apples, After The Wedding, The Salvation) and Tobias Lindholm (The Hunt, Another Round). Nikolaj Arcel’s newest project with Mikkelsen, The Promised Land (Bastarden) (Denmark, 2023), may start out like some singular Danish historical saga, but at its heart, it’s a western, and a very good one.
Ludvig von Kahlen (Mikkelsen) is a retiring military officer who takes on a challenge from the king of Denmark (open to most retiring officers) to cultivate crops in Jutland, the barren main continental peninsula that makes up central and western Denmark. Succeed in cultivating Jutland, establish farming settlements thereof, and the King will make you, your family and/or business partners landowning royalty.
There is, however, incumbent landowning royalty already living nearby, and despite the King’s paperwork giving Kahlen rights and ownership of his plot of land, the bratty and oleaginous Frederik De Schinkel (Simon Bennebjerg) insists it’s all his. With the capital (and the King) 200 miles away, he insists on Kahlen’s giving up ownership rights to him and paying him 50% of the crops’ income. Two of De Schinkel’s servants, Ann Barbara (Amanda Collin) and Johannes (Morten Hee Andersen) run away from his estate to Kahlen and describe his lecherous and abusive treatment of the household. Kahlen takes them in, along with a child from a band of Romani highwaymen (Melina Hagberg), and successfully employs all of them to prepare the land for planting. But as Kahlen’s prospects improve, De Schinkel can spend money flagrantly on the pliable local authorities, making his life and enterprise spitefully miserable.
There’s an Outlaw Josie Wales feel to much of The Promised Land; it’s a resonant and well-structured narrative that surveys the shifts from corruption and greed to resourceful opportunism to principled determination. There’s also a colorful cast of supporting roles that Arcel is far more serious-minded about than Eastwood might have been, but the craft of each is certainly comparable. The cinematography of Rasmus Videbæk and Jette Lehmann’s production design are naturalistically evocative without being overdone. It’s a big, thrilling historical adventure that should be seen on the big screen, and I highly recommend it.
The Promised Land screens on Saturday, October 14th at Noon and Saturday the 21st at 5:30 pm, with each screening at the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N State St.).
Kleber Mendonça Filho has, with a number of early short films and three features, established himself as a world-class Brazilian filmmaker. His latest film is the enthralling documentary and memoir Pictures Of Ghosts (Retratos Fantasmas) (Brazil, 2023). Born and raised in Recife (in the state of Pernambuco, north of Rio de Janeiro at Brazil’s easternmost coastal port) by his beloved single mother, an historian and academic, Mendonça experimented early on with photography, video and Super 8 film, using schoolchums and neighbors as cast and extras. Like many filmmakers, he was a journalist and critic post-graduate, but always lived in the family home in Recife’s Setùbal neighborhood, surrounded by smart and creative friends and family. Both Neighboring Sounds (O Som ao Redor) (2012) and Aquarius (2016) were filmed in or near Setùbal, and this film is a terrific entryway into the depths of love and regard that Mendonça has for his experiences within that culture, and his needs to transform and share that through his films. But he has a great sense of civic anthropology as well, discerning how buildings he grew up with started out as movie theaters (always developmental landmarks for neighborhoods and kids) and were often transformed into shopping malls and/or relocated churches. His view of the slow demise of popular cinemas (and entertainments and rituals in general) is concise and heartbreaking, yet the film overall is infused with Mendonça’s industrious optimism and warm narrative company. It’s a small but quite wonderful film.
Pictures Of Ghosts will be shown on Saturday, October 14th at 2:45 pm at the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N State St.) and Thursday the 19th at 2:30 pm. at AMC New City #4.
Periscope In The Bathtub 