Paolo Sorrentino's "Youth" Named "Best European Film of 2015"

The European Film Awards recognize excellence in European cinematic achievements.  The awards are are presented annually since 1988 by the European Film Academy and are given in over ten categories, of which the most important is “European Film,” the best film of the year award.  The European Film Awards are restricted to European cinema and European producers, directors, and actors.

The winners of the 28th European Film Awards were announced at a ceremony on Saturday, December 12, 2015 in Berlin, Germany.

The 2015/28th European Film Awards winners:

EUROPEAN FILM 2015
Youth, dir: Paolo Sorrentino

EUROPEAN ACTRESS 2015
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years

EUROPEAN ACTOR 2015
Michael Caine, Youth

EUROPEAN DIRECTOR 2015
Paolo Sorrentino, Youth

PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD 2015
Marshland, dir: Alberto Rodríguez

EUROPEAN COMEDY 2015
A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence, dir: Roy Andersson

EUROPEAN DOCUMENTARY 2015
Amy, dir: Asif Kapadia

EUROPEAN DISCOVERY – PRIX FIPRESCI
Mustang, dir: Deniz Gamze Erguven

EUROPEAN ANIMATED FEATURE FILM 2015
Song Of The Sea, dir: Tomm Moore

EUROPEAN SHORT FILM 2015
Picnic, dir: Jure Pavlovic

EUROPEAN SCREENWRITER 2015
Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthimis Filippou for The Lobster

PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED:

EFA LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 2015
Charlotte Rampling

EUROPEAN CO-PRODUCTION AWARD 2015
Andrea Occhipinti

EUROPEAN SOUND DESIGNER 2015
Vasco Pimentel & Miguel Martins for Arabian Nights – Vol I-III

EUROPEAN COMPOSER 2015
Cat’s Eyes for The Duke Of Burgundy

EUROPEAN COSTUME DESIGNER 2015
Sarah Blenkinsop for The Lobster

EUROPEAN PRODUCTION DESIGNER 2015
Sylvie Olivé for The Brand New Testament

EUROPEAN EDITOR 2015
Jacek Drosio for Body

EUROPEAN CINEMATOGRAPHER 2015
Martin Gschlacht for Goodnight Mommy

EUROPEAN ACHIEVEMENT IN WORLD CINEMA (Honorary Award)
Christoph Waltz

HONORARY AWARD OF THE EFA PRESIDENT AND BOARD
Michael Caine

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Review: "The Act of Killing" Delves into Mass Murder and Mass Murderers

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 44 (of 2014) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Act of Killing (2012)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  Denmark/Norway/UK
Running time:  122 minutes (2 hours, 2 minutes)
DIRECTOR:  Joshua Oppenheimer with Christine Cynn and Anonymous
PRODUCERS:  Christine Cynn, Anne Kohncke,Signe Byrge Sorense, Joram ten Brink, Michael Uwemedimo, and Anonymous
CINEMATOGRAPHERS:  Carlos Arango De Montis, Lars Skree, and Anonymous
EDITORS:  Niels Pagh Andersen, Erik Andersson, Charlotte Munch Bengtsen, Ariadna Fatjo-Vilas Mestre, Janus Billeskov Jansen, and Mariko Montpetit
Academy Award nominee

DOCUMENTARY – History

Starring:  Anwar Congo, Herman Koto, Ibrahim Sinik, Yapto Soerjosomarno, Adi Zulkadry, Soaduon Siregar, and Sakhyan Asmara

The Act of Killing is a 2012 documentary film from director Joshua Oppenheimer.  A co-production of Denmark, Norway, and the United Kingdom, the film concerns the Indonesian killings of 1965-66.  In The Act of Killing,  former Indonesian death-squad leaders reenact the mass-killings in which they participated by imitating their favorite Hollywood films.  Acclaimed filmmakers, Werner Herzog and Oscar-winner Errol Morris, are executive producers of this film.

The genesis of the story told by The Act of Killing began in Indonesia in October 1965.  There is an intra-military dispute that leads to a failed coup.  The army overthrows the government.  It then uses paramilitaries and gangsters to form death squads to lead an anti-communist purge of Indonesia.  Anyone opposed to the new government could be accused of being a communist, and that included union members, landless farmers, intellectuals, and ethnic Chinese (according the the film's foreword).

From 1965 to 1966, death squads killed people, numbering in the hundreds of thousands.  The Act of Killing's director, Joshua Oppenheimer, places the number of deaths between one to three million people.  An accurate count of the actual number of deaths may never be known.

Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn began researching the Indonesian killings of 1965-66 over a decade ago.  Eventually, interviews Oppenheimer conducted led him to Anwar Congo, who had been a “movie theater gangster,” selling black market movie theater tickets to popular Hollywood films showing in Indonesia.  Congo and his partner, Adi Zulkadry, were promoted from gangsters to leaders of one of the most powerful death squads in the North Sumatra region of Indonesia.

Invited by Oppenheimer, Congo and his friends, especially a man named Herman Koto, recount and reenact their experiences killing people for the cameras.  The idea is to turn their memories into a movie in which scenes of torture and murder mimic their favorite Hollywood films.  However, the more he recollects his murderous deeds, the more Anwar is haunted by nightmares and guilt.

The word “shocking” is overused, but The Act of Killing is shocking.  The matter-of-fact and nonchalant way in which the death squad killers recall their murderous work can be off-putting.  The film takes the concept of the banality of evil and makes it mind-numbing.  The Hollywood-style reenactments of interrogation, torture, and murder are a collision of the absurd and the god-awful that could lead the audience to eye-rolling... that is when they aren't being repulsed and infuriated.

The problem for The Act of Killing is that after an hour of watching, all these recollections of the acts of killing become tedious.  At just over two hours in length, The Act of Killing is about a half-hour too long.  Honestly, I can see why some people think of this as a great film.  I think it tells a hugely important story, and the result is harrowing and intense.  I think it is an exceptional film and an important document (as far as documentaries go), but is it truly great? ... not quite.

8 of 10
A

Friday, September 26, 2014

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.


NOTES:
2014 Academy Awards, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Documentary, Features” (Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge Sørensen)

2014 BAFTA Awards:  1 win: “Best Documentary” (Joshua Oppenheimer); 1 nomination: “Best Film not in the English Language” (Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge Sørensen)

"The Great Beauty" Tops 2013 European Film Awards

by Amos Semien

Director Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty), an Italian and French co-production, was the big winner at the 26th European Film Awards.  The film won four awards, including best picture, director, and actor (for Toni Servillo).  This year’s Cannes winner, Blue is the Warmest Color, did not win any awards.  Although the European Film Awards are the European continent’s equivalent of the Academy Awards (Oscars), they have practically no bearing on the Oscar race.

26th European Film Awards (2013) – Complete list of winners:

European Film:
LA GRANDE BELLEZZA (The Great Beauty)

European Director:
Paolo Sorrentino for LA GRANDE BELLEZZA (The Great Beauty)

European Actress:
Veerle Baetens in THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN

European Actor:
Toni Servillo in LA GRANDE BELLEZZA (The Great Beauty)

European Screenwriter:
François Ozon for DANS LA MAISON (In the House)

European Comedy:
Love Is All You Need, Susanne Bier, Denmark

European Discovery - Prix FIPRESCI:
Oh Boy!, Jan Ole Gerster, Germany

European Animated Feature Film:
The Congress, Ari Folman, Israel, Germany, Poland, Luxembourg, France and Belgium

European Documentary:
The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer, Denmark, Norway and UK

European Short Film:
Dood Van Een Schaduw (Death of a Shadow), Tom Van Avermaet, Belgium and France, 20'

Carlo di Palma European Cinematographer Award:
Asaf Sudry for Lemale et Ha'Halal (Fill The Void), Israel

European Editor:
Cristiano Travaglioli for La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty), Italy and France

European Production Designer:
Sarah Greenwood for Anna Karenina, UK

European Composer:
Ennio Morricone for The Best Offer, Italy

European Costume Designer:
Paco Delgado for Blancanieves, Spain and France

European Sound Designer:
Matz Müller and Erik Mischijew for Paradies: Glaube (Paradise: Faith), Austria, Germany and France

2013 Oscar Nominations: "Best Foreign Language Film of the Year"

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year:

Amour (Austria)

War Witch (Canada)

No (Chile)

A Royal Affair (Denmark)

Kon-Tiki ((Norway)  

Original "Insomnia" Both Cold and Engaging

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 1 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux


Insomnia (1997)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Norway
Running time: 97 minutes (1 hour, 37 minutes)
DIRECTOR: Erik Skjoldbjaerg
WRITERS: Nikolaj Frobenius and Erik Skjoldbjaerg
PRODUCERS: Tomas Backström, Petter J. Borgli, and Tom Remlov
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Erling Thurmann-Andersen
EDITOR: Håkon Øverås

DRAMA/MYSTERY with elements of crime

Starring: Stellan Skarsgård, Sverre Anker Ousdal, Maria Mathiesen, and Bjorn Moan,

The thriller film, especially the kind mixed with the element of a murder mystery, is a venerable Hollywood genre. Seeing a foreign version of such a genre can be a jarring experience. Lacking the star power wattage, lavish production values, and the insistence that the screenplay explain every bit of action and leave no sense of mystery (not to mention the never-ending public relations campaigns to promote movies), many foreign films must rest the case for their quality on the art and technique of filmmaking and on storytelling free of high concepts. That is exactly the case with the Norwegian film Insomnia.

Two detectives cross the Arctic Circle into northern Norway to solve the murder of a young girl, Tonya Lorentzen (Maria Mathiesen), where during the summer daylight lasts for 23 hours. Jonas Engstrom (the sublime Stellan Skarsgard, Good Will Hunting) is the best at what he does, catch murderers, and with his partner of one year, Erik Vik (Sverre Anker Ousdal), Jonas guesses that he himself will quickly solve the crime.

The investigators find Tonya’s friends and classmates reluctant to cooperate, and Jonas, who is a Swede, has a tough time communicating with them. Initially Jonas and Erik suspect Tonya’s boyfriend Eilert (Bjorn Moan), but he is merely a distraction. The murderer, who took time to clean his crime scene, is someone smart. During a stakeout at the crime scene to catch the killer, Jonas accidentally shoots and kills Erik, mistaking him for Tonya’s killer, who did, in fact, walk right into the police’s trap.

Rather than admit his mistake, Jonas covers the shooting of his partner, blaming it on the killer. He soon learns that Tonya’s killer witnessed Jonas’s mistake. Now, as the police move in on the Tonya’s murderer, Jonas must protect him, cover up his own crime, and frame someone else. Meanwhile, Jonas grows steadily exhausted; in the near perpetual daylight, he cannot sleep, and his reality blurs just as his web of deceit becomes more desperate. And a bright, local detective assigned to Erik’s killing begins to find the flaws in Jonas’s story.

Directed by Erik Skjoldbjaerg and co-written with Nikolaj Frobenius, Insomnia is a quite, but intense thriller that harks back to old Hollywood. The location, the setting, and every character are important to the tapestry of the story. However, it is Skarsgard who owns the film; greasy and sullen, he stalks his sleepless world trying to save himself, his sense of self worth, and his sense of justice.

There are subtle shifts, sans special effects, in reality, or at least, in Jonas’s perception of it. His lack of sleep allows his dilemmas to incessantly haunt him. Because the thriller is told from his point of view, the audience must share Jonas’s vague and murky world. It is a testament to Skarsgard’s skill that he can draw us inescapably to his character.

The other great character is Tonya’s killer. Although the police peg him as suspect early on, we see him mainly through Jonas’s eyes. His relationship with Jonas should be troubling, and he is a murderer. But like Jonas, the audience is drawn to him. Why? There seems to be so many reasons that this killer makes us curious and dare I say…sympathetic.

Insomnia has a sense of vagueness that can be off putting at time, and the creators are somewhat clumsy with the filmmaking as the moves to its resolution. It is still a very good film - one that demands its audience’s participation and attention, all the while burying us in a world of ambiguity. It was fun to be entertained and to feel like a part of this story; I wish it happened more often.

7 of 10
B+