The Marrakech International Film Festival is an annual festival showcasing films from around the globe. It takes place in a number of cinemas and converted government buildings around the city, including but not limited to:
Palais des Congrès...
and Cinéma le Colisée...
the two places closest to my house. Movies are free to the public, attracting an interesting array of people.The festival floods the city with Hollywood and Bollywood actors alike, making it almost impossible to leave the house without having a camera shoved in your face. Below are the synopses and reviews of some of my favourite and least favourite movies from the festivals.
Waltz for Monica –
Swedish
In the early 60’s Monica, a young, rebellious girl from small
town Sweden is determined to make it as a singer in the vibrant jazz clubs of
Stockholm and New York. She embarks on a singing career of her dreams, rubbing
shoulders with Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald and Bill Evans. But behind all the
glamour, Monica struggles to face the dark side of success.
Monica Zetterlund – the Swedish Marilyn Monroe – was a profoundly
unlikeable character (not the fault of the actress considering she’s based on a
real person), selfish, self indulgent, hypocritical and generally horrible to
everyone around her. Her tragic story feels so much less tragic because you
just can’t bring yourself to feel sorry for her. However, Monica’s distasteful
personality made the supporting characters all so much more sympathetic. Her
rigidly disapproving father would be one-sided if it weren’t clear how deeply he
loves his tragically understanding, neglected granddaughter. Her many love
interests are all relatively interesting, profoundly odd characters that play a
specific role in her life but still feel like real people rather than
caricatures.
Her triumphs are made beautiful and even tear inducing not
because of her reactions, but rather how they affect the lives of her friends
and family (the people we actually like).
However much I may have disliked Monica (quite a lot), I
have only praises for her voice and the soundtrack of the film. The music was
utterly wonderful and left me with a strong desire to learn Swedish, just so I
could sing along.
Fever – Moroccan /
French
Let me start off my opinion of this movie with a disclaimer:
It is entirely possible that I’m not worldly or intellectual enough to
understand this movie. Given that it was still in the running for best picture
when I saw it, it is possible, even likely, that there are people who recognize
Fever for the masterpiece that it
very well may be. However, I am not one of those people, and I would suspect,
that neither were any of the people in the audience with me.
Fever is the story of Benjamin, a chain smoking, graffiting
French delinquent who, when his mother is sent to prison, is given the choice
of foster care or living with a father he’s never met. He chooses his Moroccan
father and chaos ensues.
The cinematography was…different. I don’t necessarily mean
that in a bad way. There were some interesting shots, from angles that I’m not
accustomed to seeing, a lot of shakiness. While some would have made stunning
stills, the overall effect was dizzying and amateurish. Or perhaps I’m being
insensitive and the shakiness of the camera was a direct effect of a much lower
budget than I’m used to.
The story line was equally confusing. The themes that were
touched on, in rough order, include:
- Foster care
- Sex outside of marriage
- Ethnic conflict
- Generation gap
- Mental health
- Physical health
- Gender and sexuality
- Suicide
- Murder
Several of the themes, which were primarily illustrated by
the supporting characters’ relationships with Benjamin could have made for
interesting studies of human dysfunction had they been fully realised. We are
left feeling confused and wondering if the point of the movie was simply to
document a few days in the lives of some very strange people and if there was
any deeper meaning at all.
That’s not to say that there weren’t good moments. I thoroughly
enjoyed the beautifully delusional poetry of the lake hobo and there was a very
entertaining moment between the family members where Benjamin cleverly riffs on
cultural differences vis a vis pizza toppings. But those moments were few and
far between, and ultimately the movie was disjointed and bizarre.
However, I will give you that the end was chilling,
unexpected and ultimately the only logical way it could have ended.
2 women on the road –
Moroccan
Two women on the road
is the somewhat entertaining story of Amina, a young trophy wife on her way up
to Tetouan to bribe a judge to liberate her hash smuggling husband from jail. On
the drive north, her car breaks down and she meets Lalla Rahma, a very practical
and somewhat senile old woman who seems to spontaneously decide to follow Amina
north to find out whether her son has survived his attempt to cross the
Straits.
The movie was apparently intended as a Moroccan take on the
classic American road movie. It has all the right aspects: 2 conflicting
personalities thrust together out of circumstance become unlikely friends as
they overcome amusing obstacles.
The characters were pretty standard, Amina is young, pretty
and vain. She wears inappropriately tight revealing clothes at every point in the
film. I’ll admit I probably spent more time than I should have staring at her
butt. Lalla Rahma is, of course, the polar opposite: old, [polite synonym for
fat], and covered from head to toe in seemingly endless layers of fabric. Conservative
and disapproving to Amina’s frivolity and flashiness, Lalla Rahma was all big,
disbelieving eyes and huffily gathering up her never-ending skirts, the
Moroccan child of Charlie Chaplin and Lucille Ball.
There were funny moments (at least the Arabic speaking
audience seemed to think so, they spoke so quickly that I rarely had the chance
to read all of the French subtitles, which left me with a gist of the meaning,
but still feeling a little out of the loop), but it wasn’t a particularly funny
movie. It tried so hard to be funny that it ended up being a little sad and at
times a touch morbid. Perhaps the Moroccan sense of humour just isn’t
compatible with such an American story line.
How I Live Now –
British / American
Daisy, a Hot Topic patronizing American teenager has been
inexplicably sent to stay with oddball relatives in the English countryside on
the eve of World War 3. Initially withdrawn and alienated, she begins to warm
up to her charming surroundings, even falling in love. As the UK falls into a
violent, chaotic military state, Daisy finds herself hiding and fighting to
survive.
I must say, despite how lazy it makes me feel, it was
utterly refreshing to watch a movie in English (my first since I moved to
Morocco), which may have contributed to my enjoyment of this movie over others.
The acting was excellent as was the sound track. I had trouble
relating to Daisy, in all her insecurity, borderline OCD and sudden burst of
romanticism, but that’s probably because I’m no longer a 16 year old girl. Her
cousins were lovely and welcoming and wonderfully weird and I wish they were my
family.
A couple of distracting plot holes; including the voices in
Daisy’s head, why Eddie was telepathic (or was he just really in tune with her?),
what the political conflict that led to WW3 was and why the hell Daisy’s father
would have sent her, against her will, into such a politically charged
potentially fatal situation, but I assume these are explained in the book it
was adapted from [yes, Eliot, I ended a sentence with a preposition]. But my
main issue was that the love interest previously mentioned, the boy that she
flung herself into a whirlwind romance with, the boy that she willingly gave
herself to (think biblically, people) WAS HER COUSIN. HER FIRST COUSIN. Granted
he was cute, but they’re blood relatives. Close blood relatives. So very very
icky. Needless to say, the gross out factor detracted a bit from my sympathy
for their tragic love. Yuck.
One last irritation, which applies to all of the movies, but
to this one in particular, is how incredibly obnoxious the other movie goers
were. They acted like complete children any time there was physical affection
of any kind. They clapped, cheered and whistled inappropriately during tense,
emotional or romantic moments. I spent more time fighting the urge to stand up
and yell “shut the fuck up” than I did actually enjoying the movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment