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.
Family sagas come in all shapes and sizes; our latest family saga, notably, happens in two full-length feature films, each of which happen over the exact period of time. Bad Living (Mal Viver) and Living Bad (Viver Mal) (Portugal, 2023) is the new two-part feature from Portuguese writer/director João Canijo. I think after nine features and two documentaries we can call Canijo a seasoned veteran, even though his films are tough to see in the U.S. Blood of My Blood (Sangue do Meu Sangue) (2011) is probably his best-known film here.
Canijo’s two new films can be seen in either order; Bad Living follows three generations of women in the same family who run a small but lush hotel in Northern Portugal. Living Bad shows us the point of view of the guests staying at the hotel. Each film’s story pokes in and out of the other, but never in an outrightly intrusive or distracting way. Sara (Rita Blanco) is the owner of the hotel, handed down from her late husband. Her daughter Piedade (Anabela Moreira), the hotel manager, is imperious and humorless, and clings to her small black dog for companionship. She’s a very good manager, and performs her own duties reliably well, but doesn’t have much use for Mother or her other charges. Fellow daughter Raquel (Cleia Almeida) is a housekeeper who seems to be romantically involved with the hotel’s very good cook, Ângela (Vera Barreto) (perhaps a relative as well), but Raquel, nonetheless, has no problem occasionally hooking up with various male guests. A recent addition to the family workforce, Salomé (Madalena Almeida), recently lost her father, Piedade’s long-estranged ex-husband. Salomé doesn’t have much affection for Piedade, but Sara is pleased that Salomé chose to be with the larger family.
Living Bad relates the stories of three groups of guests, and all three scenarios are loosely based on short August Strindberg plays. Playing With Fire, The Pelican and Motherly Love. The first episode involves Camila (Filipa Areosa), a social media influencer whose photographer boyfriend Jaime (Nuno Lopes) constantly provides her photos for Instagram posts and missives. The second gives us an alpha mother Elisa (Leonor Silveira) who, in reality, is grooming her daughter’s fiancé (Rafael Morais) for herself. The third features another forthright mother, Judite (Beatriz Batarda), coming between her daughter Júlia (Leonor Vasconcelos) and her girlfriend Alice (Carolina Amaral). For both mothers, it’s competition, control, and fear of abandonment. But besides the Strindberg templates, we’re in full-on Ingmar Bergman territory here, where repressed emotions are almost indistinguishable from held breath. Grandmas take it out on moms, who take it out on their daughters, and that’s before they have to deal with guys, who make them miserable in marriage. In the 50s and 60s, this was pretty heady stuff. These days many find it pretty tedious. But I like Canijo’s work here – it’s well structured, straightforward, and he gets terrific performances, especially from Anabela Moreira and young Madalena Almeida. It looks great, and it’s well-shot by Leonor Teles, getting evocative mileage from the hotel interiors and the massive outdoor pool area. I’m good with these slow, Freudian / John Bradshaw potboilers, especially when they don’t end well. Trust me, this’ll go on to streaming somewhere, though the big screen is best.
Periscope In The Bathtub 