Below is our list of what we think were the best of the festival (at least from the set we saw anyway).

#1
This Is Not a Film
Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb | Iran | 2011
100 min

This Is Not a Film is both an honest title and an apt description of what directors Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb come up with when filming Panahi during a day at his residence following his 6 year prison sentence and a 20 year ban on filmmaking and travelling imposed by the Iranian government. A documentary about nothingness, it resonates in a way that very films have this year and leaves you marveling at the determination and insight of its makers. Read our full review here.

#2
Good Bye
Mohammad Rasoulof | Iran | 2011
100 min

A lawyer barred from practicing and expecting a child, goes through enormous government bureaucracy in her quest to obtain a visa to leave Iran. Under the formalist direction of Mohammad Rasoulof, the film is executed as a collection of brilliantly composed static shots and dialogues that unravel scene by scene to add up to an intriguing whole. Read our full review here.

#3
Kill List
Ben Wheatley | UK | 2011
95 min

Kill List is a fusion of the British gangster and horror. It doesn’t completely work, but is gripping and helmed with sure confidence by first time director Ben Wheatley who creates something frightening out of the familiar hitman genre. Read our full review here.

#4
Cut
Amir Naderi | Japan | 2011
132 min

Lamenting the death of cinema as an art form is the daring and fascinating film Cut from Iranian filmmaker Amir Naderi. A plea by its director using the story and its protagonist, it conveys the agony and frustration of finding peace in the never ending debate about cinema as art or entertainment. Read our full review here.

#5
Le Havre
Aki Kaurismäki | Finland | 2011
93 min

Le Havre is about an old man, a young illegal immigrant and the police investigator who doggedly pursues them. Despite seeming like a film that presents a dire situation, Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki mixes deadpan humour, verbal wit and sure fire optimism to make the experience both oddly chirpy and easily enjoyable. Read our full review here.

The last day of the film festival featured a gem from a debutante director and an average documentary by a master film-maker. It certainly could not have been more unpredictable than this!

Combat Girl
David Wnendt | Germany | 2011
102 min
Marisa is a 20-year old girl who identifies herself with a neo-Nazi group. Practicing extreme racism, the group propagates hatred towards anyone who appears of non-white ethnicity. One day, in a fit of rage, Marisa gets involved in an incident that makes her realize the real harm such hatred can cause. Also, in an astute move, the director does well to include in the movie the character of a younger, 15-year old girl inspired by Marisa and attracted to the group – in effect telling us much about Marisa’s probable backstory without employing the conventions of flashback. Combat Girl is director David Wnendt’s debut, as well as film-school graduation film, but this fact is not obvious from the excellent movie he has made. The performances, production values, script and the direction are on par with that of seasoned directors. More importantly, Wnendt’s film, although specific to one country and about one extremist group, presents the attraction to and effects of such hatred with universal resonance.

Into The Abyss
Werner Herzog | U.S.A. | 2011
106 min
Werner Herzog’s documentary on Capital Punishment, Into The Abyss is a look into the lives of two perpetrators and the families of the victims of a triple-murder crime. Michael Perry is on death-row and his accomplice Jason Burkett serves a 40-year life sentence. using interviews of the guilty, victims’ families and officials, the documentary provides in-depth information on the motive and details of the crime, it’s effect and the process of capital punishment. Herzog, though, seems apathetic to the plight of death-row inmate, yet concerned about the victims’ families. Hence, even though it doesn’t take any obvious sides (for or against the death penalty), the film sets up a sublime thought that the perpetrators are getting what they deserve. It also fails to dig deeper and ask the questions that needed to be asked – What drove the two boys to commit the crime? Why do they say they are innocent when they had confessed earlier? How wide-spread and frequent is this issue, and/or capital punishment? The documentary provides asks no such questions, provides no such answers, and therefore remains just a mediocre documentary – especially coming from a master director.

With that, the 8th edition of the Dubai International Film Festival comes to an end. Midway through, I was concerned that this year would not be as good as the past editions, but these last three days have elevated my experience. After a well-deserved rest for a few days the annual cycle restarts, waiting in anticipation for next year’s festival.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

You will have to wait very long and follow very intently the plot and dialogues of Once Upon a Time in Anatolia to catch onto what the film is really about. On the surface it presents itself as a simple police procedural, but the film has bigger ambitions, a darker undertone and more layered subtext that reveals itself using a slow boil approach.

You may remember the director’s previous film – the exquisitely shot but testing Three Monkeys from a few years ago. Nuri Ceylan Bilge has learned nothing of the art of brevity since then, but his filmmaking has also not lost any of its deft touches in creating painterly scenes, presented via fantastic looking shots using the magic of cinemascope. Scenery after all plays a major role in the plot, which follows a troupe consisting of police investigators, the town doctor, a prosecutor and the criminal in their midst, travelling the barren countryside together to seek out the burial spot of a murder victim.

What makes the film very watchable, and slowly gives way to its central themes (the film hints at a few) are the conversations that all of these men have with each other. Their topics – diverse, unstructured but never dull – range from being light-hearted (about buffalo cheese and Clark Gable) to morbid (death and its variations), but all of it adds up to reveal character motivations, prejudices and cynicisms shaped by living in a town where the folk cannot reason because of their small mindedness. The tell-tale signs of this are not immediately certain and this may frustrate viewers who look for more direct interpretations of situations that are seemingly uncomplicated. The director however is precise. His scenes function to draw you in (the autopsy towards the end being the prime example) and this sometimes works against the film because these scenes are set up in a way that gives them the mistaken air of being revelatory even when they are not.

Anatolia is certainly challenging – we don’t know who the central character is supposed to be (this is answered in the last thirty minutes) and know nothing about the crime either till about midway through the story – but the rewards outweigh whatever you have to invest in it as a viewer. The depth of the story keeps building as long as the men keep talking, and talk they do, in elaborate, stagey conversations that give you a sense of the self-perceived might that their position within society gives them. When it eventually ends, the film feels like a long journey, which in some ways it is. It stays with you long after the lights come on, and this is both its achievement and intended purpose. It becomes like a fable. You are almost expected to talk about it to others by starting with “Once upon a time…”

The stats in favor of good movies over not-so-good ones was not looking too good after the first four days of DIFF. But two days have changed that. Including the last two movies I watched on Day#5, I have now seen five movies consecutively that have won me over. Read on for my report on the three I watched today.

Las Acacias
Pablo Giorgelli | Argentina | 2011
84 min
The debut feature of Argentine director Pablo Giorgelli, Las Acacias is a road movie that observes the seeds of a new relationship between a truck driver and his erstwhile passengers, a mother & her infant daughter. Given the charge by his boss to bring a woman from Paraguay to Argentina on his trip, the lumber-truck driver initially sees this as a tepid inconvenience, eventually warming up to them. Directed with the patience and aesthetics of a mood-piece, the film does well to capture the journey the two adults make, on the road as well as towards each other. An observant start bereft of dialog sets the movie up nicely for a snug 84-minute experience of eloquent cinema, an experience easy to relish in.

In his full review, Faizan Rashid describes Las Acacias is “rhythmic in its pacing even when not a lot happens in the film itself.”

Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da)
Nuri Bilge Ceylan | Turkey | 2011
157 min
Unnecessarily long and self-conscious to a fault, Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon A Time In Anatolia is, on the surface, a police procedural of a murder.The murderer has confessed to his crime, and the movie begins with him leading a team of policemen, a doctor, the prosecutor and sundry to the scene where the body was disposed. It ends two and a half hours later with some insight into some of the people involved and a fair understanding of what may have transpired. While the movie is shot extremely well in the director’s recognizable style (numerous wide-angle shots of landscapes, many that include clouds), there is a deliberate formulaic feel to many sequences. Case-in-point: the ineffective final scene. By a less-recognized director, this movie would have been a commendable effort. However, for the well-regarded Ceylan, this is a step-down. The opening two-shot prelude of the movie though is a master’s work.

P-047 (Tae Peang Phu Deaw)
Kongdej Jaturanrasmee | Thailand | 2011
96 min
P-047 is a movie in the form of a jigsaw puzzle that gets the format mostly right. A key-maker and a film-continuity-assistant who aspires to be a writer team up to sneak into empty apartments during the day when the residents are away. They do this to observe and experience the varied lifestyles of people, thinking of it as borrowing their identities for a few hours. As expected, something goes wrong. The movie is about understanding these two characters, and the machinations of the plot that is told in a non-linear fashion. Without ever getting too complex, yet never really unraveling the entire puzzle, the movie works for the mental exercise it instigates, during and after the movie. The movie leaves itself open to multiple interpretations, yet neither is completely satisfactory as there will always be someone who will counter-debate a different but equally plausible interpretation. And therein lies the fun!

The festival is almost at an end. Just one day of two movies remain. Although I would prefer the last day to end on a high, suffice to say, my hunger has been satiated.

Las Acacias

Las Acacias is a film you can’t fault for its simplicity. A road trip movie about a trucker who helps transport a woman and her baby daughter from Paraguay to Argentina, it is rhythmic in its pacing even when not a lot happens in the film itself.

Ruben frequents the highway that connects Asuncion to Buenos Aires carrying logs and timbers. At the start of the film he meets up with Jacinta, who he has been tasked with providing passage to till Argentina by his employer, where she is to meet with her cousin. The two make brisk conversation at the start of their journey but soon Ruben gets irked by Anahi, Jacinta’s 5 month old daughter who cries, needs to be fed and is the cause of them slowing down. The film is largely a mood piece; dialogue is scant and the plot is mostly devoid of any formative development, except for some back story on Ruben which works in the films favour during its closing moments.

It’s obvious where the film heads from this point onwards and the generic quality of the script is lifted by the warmth and curious child in the midst of these two adults. First time director Pablo Giorgelli does a tremendously skillful job of shooting most of his film from inside the cabin of the truck and the droning hum of the engine almost becomes calming to listen to as you watch Ruben thaw to the charms of Anahi and eventually her mother. By the time the film reaches its resolution and you’ve accepted that there is going to be no major subplot, no big revelation, just an expected infatuation and an uplifting resolution you come to accept that the trip itself is the film.

Day 5 peaked in a way I could not have expected. It featured not one, but two stellar movies, one of which is easily the best movie I have seen all year as well as one of the most profound I have ever seen.

Tatsumi
Eric Khoo | Singapore | 2011
97 min
Billed as the biography of famed Japanese manga artist Yohihiro Tatsumi, the movie instead is an animated retelling of his works, book-ended with parts of the artist’s life. While this may seem an interesting enough concept, all it does is reproduce the books as they are on-screen (with voice-overs). While there may be a small segment of the audience that does not prefer reading the books instead of watching them on-screen, the movie is a gross injustice to the artist’s works. The stories are interesting enough, but do little to explain why Tatsumi is a celebrated artist. Therefore, on a fundamental level, the movie fails.

Under Snow (Unter Schnee)
Ulrike Ottinger | Germany | 2011
103 min
Under Snow is a movie made with a mix of two forms of cinema. The first is a documentary that shows the lifestyle of the people of Echigo, a mountainous region of Japan that experiences snow for six months in a year. The director does well to capture the life of the people who have learned to live with the extreme weather condition. But the director misses the better side of it: examining their basic lifestyle, or how they perform the simplest of tasks that are affected by the cold. Instead, we see New Year rituals, how they make crepe fabric, etc. This is interspersed with a fable that originates from the same place. Enacted by traditional Kabuki performers in their trademark exaggerated style, it tells the tale of a man who marries a fox (in the form of a human girl), their wanderings, their death and their son. This part of the story is completely amiss, as it has little relevance to the Echigo people, and in fact, even shifts the focus away to a remote gold-mining island. It would have worked better if this movie was purely a documentary focused on one aspect only, the lives of the Echigo people, much like Our Daily Bread, a documentary that played at DIFF in 2006.

This Is Not A Film (In Film Nist)
Jafar Panahi, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb | Iran | 2011
75 min
Iranian director Jafar Panahi was arrested some time back. When released on bail, he was barred from writing or directing films. What does a supremely talented and creative director do? He makes This Is Not A Film. Smuggled out of Iran on a USB flash-drive hidden inside a cake, the movie received a special screening at Cannes, and now at DIFF. With the cinema house-full, and the audience reaction to the movie, it is no surprise that Panahi has made another ground-breaking movie. This Is Not A Film is a documentary shot in Panahi’s apartment focused on the man himself. Many a times talking directly to the audience, and some just capturing the conversations of the moment, the movie depicts the director’s plight, and through it, becomes a subtle jab at the state of Iran. This Is Not A Film is a must watch for anybody who loves cinema and/or believes in the freedom of expression. For those unaware, it would do good to be aware of the background of the director first.

In his full review, Faizan Rashid says the movie “is loose, unconventional, spontaneous, but most of all, powerful and optimistic in a way very few films ever are”.

Magic Valley
Jaffe Zinn | U.S.A. | 2011
80 min
Set in the small town of Idaho, director Jaffe Zinn’s debut feature Magic Valley is a soulful film about how everyday life goes on until something out-of-the-ordinary happens. Beautifully shot with vivid natural colors, the movie takes place during the course of one day. Two children find a dead body, a mother is distraught at her missing daughter, a fish-farmer finds most of his fish belly-up and a young man is distraught. Magic Valley is about the distractions and pass-times people indulge in when faced with an everyday mundane life. It also shows how each generation has its own innocent and naive fascination with violence. This film is a very confident and promising debut by the director.

I cannot expect the last two days of DIFF to be anywhere as good as today’s, as that is expecting too much. Although I would be satisfied if I don’t see any more exemplary movies this festival, I do expect Day 6 to have some punch, owing to two acclaimed movies in my schedule. More tomorrow.

This Is Not a Film

This Is Not a Film is both an honest title and an apt description of what directors Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb come up with when filming Panahi during a day at his residence following his 6 year prison sentence and a 20 year ban on filmmaking and travelling imposed by the Iranian government. A documentary about nothingness, it resonates in a way that very films have this year and leaves you marveling at the determination and insight of its makers.

Set entirely within Panahi’s home while his family is away, we see him making calls to his lawyer to ascertain the outcome of his appeal, feeding his daughter’s pet Iguana and being followed around with a recording camera by his friend and documentarian Mojtaba Mirtahmasb. They have no strict agenda in mind and are not sure how the footage they are shooting will be used, but continue to shoot anyway. Panahi shifts the discussion to a script he was working on before he was slapped with the ban and tells us, in vivid detail, about the opening shot he had in mind. This leads to an enlightening sequence that goes into the mind of how a director thinks and this segment, one of many recurring ones, becomes a fascinating insight into the thought processes behind the gifted man.

Panahi is on screen for nearly the entire duration of This Is Not a Film, but it’s during the last twenty minutes, when he starts shooting himself, first with his iPhone and then using Mirtahmasb’s camera, following his departure for the evening, that the film really blurs the line between subject, artist, film, documentary, manipulation and message. The agenda gradually becomes clear – in the absence of any formal structure, plot or idea Panahi is documenting his own process of coming to terms with his situation, a sort of residential exile, but also using the opportunity to tease the government imposed limitation on filming. Does making a short home video using a mobile camera count as shooting a film? If he cannot direct, can he at least act? Using scenes from his own films, Panahi talks about his feeling and his frustration, but is never less than self deprecating, his wit clearly overcoming any other emotion. This becomes especially evident during the closing moments when he shifts to filming a self-important garbage collector in the film’s most unforgettable segment that ends the film on as perfectly timed a note as any you are likely to see this year. This Is Not a Film is loose, unconventional, spontaneous, but most of all, powerful and optimistic in a way very few films ever are.

Good Bye

A lawyer barred from practicing and expecting a child, goes through enormous government bureaucracy in her quest to obtain a visa to leave Iran. Under the formalist direction of Mohammad Rasoulof, the film is executed as a collection of brilliantly composed static shots and dialogues that unravel scene by scene to add up to an intriguing whole.

When we first meet the protagonist Noora, we know very little about her or her precarious situation. She visits clinics regularly (the first scene has her taking a blood test), followed by rounds of government institutions and a shady travel agent, who is assisting her with the paperwork required to obtain the visa. Her husband is nowhere to be seen and she tells everyone that after he lost his job at the newspaper, he went to the South for work.

In all of these situations Noora is constantly reminded about Iran’s patriarchal society where women need the company of male counterparts to either rent a hotel or undertake potentially risky tests at hospitals. Under Rasoulof’s observant direction, the significance of many scenes isn’t as obvious as when we see them at first. Noora for example gets on a train and spends the next few minutes with the camera focused on her standing inside, then reaching for her nail polish remover and working her nails. The realization of why she does this only becomes apparent in the next scene when we see her at the lawyers office, a government institution that would probably shun women in makeup. The rest of the film is made in the same vein, as a collection of brilliantly composed static shots where the camera’s unmoving gaze provides a vigilant perspective and whose position has been well thought out to provide the best vantage possible. These combine with tight crops to make Noora feel enclosed and subjugated.

To put things into perspective, it is important to note that the director was sentenced, along with fellow filmmaker Jafar Panahi, to six years in prison and slapped with a ban on making films or leaving the country. While this was later overturned and the director was free to travel, the film feels like a subtle act of defiance and one scene in particularly, where Noora is interrogated by plain clothes secret police when she gets into her apartment elevator and forced to travel up and down floors while the men ask probing questions about her activist husband, create a sense of personal despair. Even the symbolism of Noora’s pet turtle, which disappears one day from the house, after being shifted from its cracked aquarium to an open tray, serves to underscore the acts of subterfuge all around her. Subdued in its approach but leaving an enormous impact, especially during its closing moments, Good Bye is made extraordinary thanks to the films unique technique of being constructed as a puzzle where every scene and each dialogue fits together to form the whole.

Come Rain, Come Shine

Come Rain, Come Shine depicts a couple during the last hours of their relationship. She announces her breakup plan to him during the lengthy opening scene where he is driving her to the airport. Their conversation shifts from being about the mundane and ordinary to finally the revelation that she has found someone else and will leave when she returns. He remains composed throughout. This is not a film about passionate outbursts or hysteria, but about muted emotions.

The films concept is an intriguing one, even if it’s not entirely successful. On the eve of her departure they plan a goodbye dinner, but extremely heavy rains make sure they are unable to leave and the two find themselves spending their final day locked in their apartment. This naturally gives rise to a situation where neither wants to confront the other, but this unwillingness to talk about what is essentially the proverbial elephant in the room never results in any scenes of showy weeping or grief. Instead their conversations naturally bend and curve till they talk about it with reason and understanding. Even in its quieter moments (and the film is heavy on conversations), you can tell that both still depend on each other, him for her emotional support and her for his physicality.

As a mood piece, the films colours are muted and grey but the script feels paralyzed and unable to take this situation to a more intriguing place. The latter part of the film, where the neighbours come looking for their lost kitten, become unnecessary and forced and the abrupt ending, leaving it open to ambiguity, may not be as effective as it might have seemed on paper. Despite this, the film remains a watchable relationship drama that at least attempts to give us a new spin by way of Korean cinema’s never ending desire to be anything but conventional.

A day at DIFF when not one movie turned out to be bad is a successful day. Although Day# 4 featured just 3 movies, each of them was by a seasoned director which translated to quality on-screen. Here’s the rundown of the movies I saw:

The Woodsman and the Rain (Kitsutsuki to Ame)
Shuichi Okita | Japan | 2011
129 min
In a departure from the regular festival movies, The Woodsman and the Rain is a light-hearted story of a woodsman from a village in the mountains. Having lost his wife two years ago, he leads a disciplined humorless life with a teenage son who can’t stick to a job. When a film crew arrives in his small village to shoot a zombie-film, the woodsman gets unintentionally involved leading to a change in his life, as well as in the director of the movie. The director does a splendid job of infusing this tale with subtle humor throughout, and he has a winning performance in the male lead, Koji Yakusho. As the old woodsman, he does well to play the villager fascinated by being a part of the zombie-film. The film does stretch a bit – it has one too many humorous episodes – the comedic mood and lush-green setting makes for a fresh and fascinating watch.

Final Whistle (Soot-E Payan)
Niki Karimi | Iran| 2011
89 min
In Final Whistle, the director Niki Karimi also plays the lead role of Sahar, a documentary film-maker. Sahar comes across a woman whose mother has been given the death sentence for a murder. Believing the mother to be innocent, Sahar tries to secure her release by collecting the blood-money or convincing the murdered man’s family to forgive and take the case back. The movie plays as a regular drama, with adequate performances and competent direction. It is also short, therefore doesn’t take too long to get to the point and progress towards a realistic end. While there is nothing exceptional about the movie, it has nothing to be complained about either. A perfect filler movie for spare time.

Life Without Principle (Duo Ming Jin)
Johnnie To | Hong Kong | 2011
106 min
It is hard to fault the efficiency of a movie by Hong Kong director Johnnie To. His record proves it, and this new movie adds to that record. Life Without Principle is set in Hong Kong during the financial crisis, showing its effect on a diverse group of people: a bank executive, a police officer’s wife, a small time goon and the people around them. The story flows through these characters with a narrative only a good director can handle. His mastery shows in the taut editing, especially during the first act, and an absurdly funny scene of a stabbed man driving a car. Life Without Principle is an entertaining watch, in or out of the film festival.

On Day# 5 it gets as diverse as can be. I watch movies from Singapore, Germany, Iran and USA. Look forward to my report tomorrow!