Lebanon - Film Festival - Bertolucci
Nishee
Bertolucci’s brilliance on show at film festival
Peter Speetjens
Special to the Daily Star
If like many Lebanese, you like traveling but you don’t have the money, the
third Beirut International Film Festival has brought the world to you.
Lebanon’s film feast brings you fast-living youngsters in Tokyo and Glasgow,
love songs in European and African rhythms set in Rome and Czechoslovakia, and
the story of Algerian immigrants living in France in the early sixties.
The 1999 Festival continues the practice of bringing both new European films
and more seasoned, award-winning work which, incomprehensibly, never saw
general release in Lebanon.
Based on attendance numbers in the first few days, it might be a good idea to
make advance bookings.
• Tokyo Eyes
This Franco-Japanese co-production tells the story of a bored and rebellious
teenager and near-sighted computer wizard called K who is on a quest to make
the world a better place.
Whenever he comes across injustice, he puts on a pair of thick glasses and
pulls a pistol on the villain.
The police are desperate to arrest the gunman, dubbed 4-eyes, but they do not
have a clue as to who he might be.
It is Hikano, the lovely 17-year-old sister of one of the investigators, who
finds him. A love story unfolds that changes the lives of K and Hikano forever,
or at least until the end of the film.
Inspired by popular sci-fi comic books and video games, and set to some
excellent dance tunes, Tokyo Eyes is a sweet, modern fable of an unconventional
knight and his princess living in contemporary Tokyo.
• Besieged
In an old house in the center of Rome, Shandurai a young African woman who
fled her home country after the ruling military dictator threw her husband in
jail meets Mr. Kinsky, an eccentric and withdrawn English pianist who
inherited a villa from his aunt.
Kinsky falls desperately in love with Shandurai, but she does not seem to
understand him and at first rejects him.
Besieged is yet another beautifully made film by Italian master Bernardo
Bertolucci about attracting opposites and eccentric love, starring two
excellent actors: Thandie Newton and David Thewlis.
• Living in Paradise
This film, made by French Algerian director Bourlem Guerdjou, was a last minute
add to the festival program.
It was a wise choice, as the film was one of the highlights of this year’s
Cannes Junior Film Festival. It tells the story of an Algerian family that
emigrates to France in the early sixties in search of freedom and luxury.
Instead they find they have to build their own iron and wood barracks in one of
the many slums surrounding Paris, an environment where the police regularly
arrest “terrorists” who all too often tend to be of Maghrebi origin.
A sad highlight of the film is the notorious 1961 peace demonstration in which
more than 200 people were killed.
• Trainspotting
Music also plays a major role (check out Iggy Pop!) in Danny Boyle’s cult
classic Trainspotting, a two-year-old film that never made it to Beirut’s
cinemas.
Trainspotting, which put British actors Ewan Mcgregor and Robert Carlyle firmly
into the limelight, is yet another example of Britain’s vibrant alternative
film industry.
It tells the story of four “lost lads” who fill up their otherwise empty
lives with addictive pursuits sex, violence, and heroin.
The film is a portrait of the dropouts, losers and junkies living on the
margins of Scottish society, that manages to leave the viewer with a strange
sense of loathing and admiration for the characters.
• Kolya
Tired of those maudlin films about cranky, middle-aged men having to baby-sit
youngsters, only to discover they have feelings after all? So you should be,
but Czech director Jan Sverak’s Kolya is one of those rare films that follows
the formula without being formulaic.
The film depicts Frantisek Louka, a cellist who has had a falling out with the
communist government and is forced to play with a chamber group at funerals.
Louka is also a confirmed bachelor with a fondness for young musicians, but his
need for money leads him to make a deal with a grave-digger friend, one that
brings a surly Russian youngster into his life.
Kolya’s relaxed pace, inspired camera work, superb acting and directing,
blend to produce a film which is at once sensual, funny and even touching.