Neighboring Sounds (O Som ao Redor)

Neighboring Sounds (2012) translates literally as ‘The Sound of the Surroundings’, or you might say the aura of a specific place. The atmosphere surrounding a middle class condo building in the coastal city of Recife, Brazil is definitely palpable in this enigmatic but fascinating new film.

The debut feature film by critic turned filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho takes place entirely in and around a tower block community of new condo buildings overlooking the beautiful ocean coastline of northern Brazil, and is a peek into the private lives and daily goings-on of a number of its residents. 

It’s a film where nothing really happens, but it kept me engaged with the eerie feeling that dangerous unsavory people are lurking just beyond the condo walls, and that people are living in fear of something that may be about to happen at any moment. Security seems to be foremost on everyone’s mind and with seemingly good reason. 

Most of recent Brazilian cinema has been preoccupied with the favelas and slums of Rio; City of God (2002), Lower City (2006), and Elite Squad (2008), but this movie is definitely a departure from those violent films. The violence we sense here is an unsettling feeling we get from the high walls, barbed wire fences and security cameras.

The neighborhood buildings are owned by a wealthy property owner, Seu Francisco, who has an old family estate house on land that was settled by some of the first Portuguese to arrive in the new world. He also lives in one of the condo buildings he owns in the city with his sons who rent units out to the residents. 

The fascinating aspect of this film is how the remnants of the old colonial times still survive today in the modern relationships between the poor and wealthy, the native population and European descendants in Brazil and South America. That sense of mistrust and co-dependence on both sides is an unspoken simmering tension.

A car is burgled one night on the street in front of the modern condo tower and the next day someone shows up soliciting their services as independent private security guards. It seems suspicious but the residents, feeling vulnerable, decide to go ahead and hire the guards in order to safeguard the street. 

The movie shows how the neighborhoods and the structures that we live in may have changed drastically over time, but people basically have not. We are still the same primitive beings with the same habits, prejudices, passions and fallacies as always, and no amount of security can protect us from that. 

The movie represents in many ways the colonial fear of being invaded, and how it still affects and influences us today. Throughout the film we are aware of how the modern high rise condo is infiltrated by outsiders due to the weaknesses of its residents. The suspicious events are like a pill that one resident plants in the meat that tranquilizes a guard dog. A drug dealer poses as a water delivery person, a maid bring her children to play in the safety of the apartment where she works, and as the newly hired street security guards gain access to the building, their true purpose is unknown but will be revealed in the final explosive moments of the film. 

This highly sophisticated and promising debut by a talented new film director makes some creative use of sound, and dream sequences that build additional layers of aura to the film. Kleber Mendonça Filho is one to keep an eye on in the future, and I will be watching out for his next film. This could be the beginning of a new era in Brazilian cinema.

JP

Babel

This visually sophisticated, thought provoking drama impresses with its striking photography, raw collision of cultures and seemingly unrelated events that captivate with their social relevance and universal human story.

Babel (2006) is named after the biblical tower of Babel from the book of Genesis, constructed by ambitious humans in an attempt to reach the heavens and thereby inhabit the realm of God. When God catches winds of this he decided to inflict on them a multitude of languages so that none could communicate or understand each other, thereby spreading mankind to all corners of the earth before they were able to complete the tower. 

The movie explores this same theme of people in places and situations that are completely foreign to them and how their inability to communicate results in tragic consequences. Made up of three separate stories that unfold in different parts of the world; Morocco, Mexico and Japan, it’s not immediately clear how they’re connected but eventually a thread begins to appear that seems to tie the people we’ve been following together. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle that we the audience must assemble in our mind.

The gifted Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, who also directed Amores Perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003) and Biutiful (2010), takes one incident and shows how the repercussions have a ripple effect that disturb three separate families from various distinct parts of the world. Each country has its own unique visual style that’s immediately recognizable from its authentic locations.

A hunting rifle is sold to a goat herder to protect his herd from jackals in a remote Moroccan village. A Mexican housekeeper working illegally in the US takes the two children she’s looking after to her home town in Mexico in order attend her son’s wedding, while their parents are on vacation. A deaf-mute Japanese teenage girl, who recently lost her mother, is desperately reaching out for affection and acceptance in a society that treats the disabled with indifferent and prejudice.

This is a unique film by a passionate director collaborating with an international crew using a mix of high caliber, big name actors and non-actors to achieve an unparalleled level of realism. As Brad Pitt once said about working with the non-professional cast, that they have an intuitive innate natural sense of what is real, and that he and Kate Blanchett had to work hard to match their performances. Other notable outstanding performances came from Rinko Kikuchi as the Japanese deaf teen and Adriana Barraza as the Mexican nanny. Both were nominated for Oscars. 

We see how American tourists in Morocco find themselves dependent on the kindness and resourcefulness of the very people they fear. In Mexico two American children find themselves lost and abandoned in the desert after a misunderstanding and clash of cultures at the border. In Japan a frustrated and lonely deaf teenager is unable to communicate her feelings to anyone. And two Moroccan village boys find themselves on the run from ruthless government authorities after a foolish game of target practice causes a tragic accident.

Babel won the Golden Globe for best picture drama and was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, winning one for best score, but lost out to Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (2006). In my opinion Babel was the better picture at the Oscars that year and deserved to win every award it was nominated for. 

JP

Life of Pi

Life of Pi (2012) is a visually awe-inspiring, dazzling tale of profound beauty, winning 4 well-deserved Oscars, the most of any film this year, including for visual effects and cinematography.

Based on the 2001 Booker prize winning novel by Yann Martel, Life of Pi is a fable of faith and survival as told to a Canadian author by the adult protagonist from India, Pi Patel, now a professor living with his family in Toronto (in the book), Montreal (in the film).  

During a trip to India, the frustrated writer was told of an extraordinary tale that will make him believe in God. To hear this tale he must seek out Mr. Patel, played by Irrfan Khan, who was also seen in The Darjeeling Limited (2007) and Slumdog Millionaire (2008), and ask him about his fateful journey across the Pacific Ocean.

The movie is a breathtaking digital achievement and although some of the animal behavior may be questionable, I never questioned the reality of what I was seeing. Life of Pi has definitely raised the standard of what can be done in films with CG animals. Visually the film goes from a sepia postcard, jungle book image of Pondicherry in the 1950s, to a glittering aqua blue seascape in glowing 3D.

As a child growing up at a zoo in the Botanical Gardens of Pondicherry, India, Pi experiments with and learns about various religions. His father, who is the zoo keeper there, decides one day to move his family and all the zoo animals to Canada by boat. But the journey goes horribly wrong when a storm sinks the cargo ship taking everyone including all the zoo creatures with it except for Pi, and a few wounded animals. 

This story was thought to be unfilmable for many years due to the main characters being a Bengal tiger and a 16 year old boy drifting in a lifeboat on the open sea. Also in the lifeboat are a zebra, a hyena, and an orangutan. These animals will eventually succumb to their basic instincts until only the boy and the tiger are left. But the story is an allegory of human behavior, survival and faith. 

Much like Cast Away (2000), the film focuses on how one person survives while battling against the elements and to keep his own sanity. It’s a gripping story that’s difficult to believe if you weren’t seeing it with your own eyes. But no matter how unbelievable the situations that transpire, there is nothing in the film that looks fake or unconvincing, thanks to some of the most complex and stunning photography and special effects ever created. 

Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee, known for directing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), and Brokeback Mountain (2005), for which he won his first Oscar, is extremely faithful to the book and won his 2nd Oscar for directing this movie. He has managed to create a visually stunning film that was mostly created with the aid of computers using a seamless blend of both real animals, and CG animation that gives the illusion of total reality. 

Among some of the more dreamlike and surreal visions of the ever weakening stranded boy on a lifeboat, constantly struggling to stay alive and keep from being eaten by his hungry companion, while also managing to keep it alive, are his encounters with flying fish, glowing jelly fish, majestic whales and an immense floating carnivorous mangrove island, inhabited by thousands of meerkats, where he briefly finds refuge from the punishing ocean. 

This extraordinary film can be enjoyed by all ages and will make you sit up and wonder at the spectacle of how it was accomplished. 

JP

The Host (Gwoemul)

The Host (2006), a delightful South Korean creature feature, is a bizarre often hilarious dysfunctional family drama of a passionate but clumsy clan of characters who become the Avengers when one of their own is kidnapped by a sea monster lurking in the Han River. An alien story with a big emphasis on family, it’s Little Miss Sunshine (2006) meets Super 8 (2011) in Korea. 

A lower middle class family with issues and few resources, living in a food stand on the banks of the Han River, becomes desperate when their young daughter is taken by an enormous genetically mutated sea monster that emerges from the murky water to feed on picnickers enjoying the hot summer days.

This movie is a fun romp that also happens to be incredibly well done using state of the art special effects that blend seamlessly with the live action.  For a movie that feels like a low budget send up of the Godzilla genre, it’s actually quite a dramatic and engaging film that’s beautifully and inventively photographed.

When little Hyun-seo comes home from school, she sits in front of the TV to watch her aunt compete in a professional target archery tournament. Meanwhile outside her grandfather’s food stand near the river, chaos is ensuing as a mutant sea creature emerges from the river and goes on a rampage in search of a meal. Disturbed by the commotion, she opens the door to find her father and everyone else in the park running for their lives.

This film reminded me in many ways of Attack the Block (2011), which was a low budget alien invasion film shown from the perspective of low income housing block kids that turned out to be much more fun and emotionally engaging than you would expect from an urban alien invasion fantasy for kids. Check out my alien creature film fest 2011 for more films in this genre.

Assuming little Hyun-seo is dead after being taken by the mutant creature, her devastated aunt and uncle reunite with the close knit family for the funeral. But while the military is quarantining the area and everyone who was exposed to the mutant creature, the family gets a call on their cell phone from Hyun-seo, who is still alive in a sewer somewhere under the city. 

Inspired by tales of the Loch Ness Monster, director Bong Joon-ho has created a suspenseful adventure film that’s both funny and creepy. Much of the movie takes place in the massive network of sewers under the streets of Seoul, Korea and towering bridge structures that span the great River Han, making the movie visually reminiscent of Alien 3 (1992), with its subterranean rainy industrial decay.

Unable to get any help from the Korean authorities the family breaks out of quarantine and form a search party to find their young daughter. Meanwhile the creature continues to attack and carry off unsuspecting victims to its lair for later consumption. Now fugitives pursued by the police, the family must battle the creature on their own but first they must find it and hope that it hasn’t eaten Hyun-seo yet.

Korean cinema has been producing internationally acclaimed films that have crossed over to foreign markets since 2002, with such fascinating directors as Kim Ki-duk, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring (2003) and Park Chan-wook, Vengeance trilogy (2002-2005), who has just come out with his first American film; Stoker (2013). 

Since The Host, Bong Joon-ho, has directed the highly acclaimed film, Mother (2009) and will be coming out with a new Sci-fi action drama called Snowpiercer (2013), coming to cinemas this year. Also look for a sequel to The Host, already in the works and scheduled for release next year.

JP