Aquarius

In the face of greed, human rights and decency are thrown out the window. Where there is the potential for profit, protection of those human rights and the environment is easily circumvented by government and corporate corruption. This is true anywhere in the world and especially in Brazil's political and business class but some filmmakers are protesting in creative, artistic and not so subtle ways.

Former film critic and director Kleber Mendonça Filho, who lives in the northeastern coastal city of Recife, where Aquarius takes place and where he also made his previous critically acclaimed film Neighboring Sounds (2012), has been making a name for himself with powerful films exposing the ruthless deceptive ways people employ to undermine the law and invade protected places.

Clara, (Sonia Braga) – Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), a renowned music critic now retired has lived in the same beachfront apartment since she was a young girl growing up in the 60s sexual revolution. Her home is a sanctuary where she nurtured her children to adulthood and where she has fond memories of the music and family events she experienced. She has a deep ancestral connection to her neighborhood.

Clara is now the only resident left in the building after a property development company has bought out every other tenant in order to make way for a new luxury condo building. But no matter how much they try to persuade her to sell, Clara resists the company’s offers against her family’s wishes.

Aquarius balances Clara’s past history as a cancer survivor, which formed her strong independent personality and the bond with her environment, and her present struggle with a corrupt developer who resorts to various nasty and illegal means to force her to leave. 

Like termites, human greed eats away at protected lands and forests of the world as well as our historic homes and buildings destroying much of our cultural identity. Clara is determined to take a stand but she has no idea who she is up against and to what lengths they will go. Her rival has much more sinister plans than she can imagine.

When Aquarius opened at the Cannes Film Festival this year, Brazil’s female President Dilma Rousseff was impeached for breaking budget laws without any proof of wrongdoing. Mendonça, Sonia Braga and the rest of the Aquarius cast quickly decided to stage a protest at Cannes to call international attention to what they saw as a coup d’etat by corrupt opposition ministers.

Considered one of the front runners to be submitted for Oscar consideration, Aquarius was snubbed by the new government committee presumably for its exposure of Brazilian government corruption and the controversial denunciation at Cannes. In protest, the Brazilian film community responded by withdrawing some of their high profile films from contention including Gabriel Mascaro’s Neon Bull (2015), and Anna Muylaert’s Don’t Call Me Son (2016), whose film The Second Mother (2015) was Brazil’s official Oscar entry in 2015.

Resonating strongly, as art sometimes does, with events in the real world, Aquarius has since taken on a new level of metaphorical meaning of resistance against Brazil's corrupt political class and undemocratic government dealings that have been plaguing Brazil.

Aquarius is a timely artistic expression of human dignity, powerfully portrayed by Sonia Braga, and bold resolve in the face of cruel unscrupulous tactics used by government and corporate agents. Truth and justice are at stake but art and freedom of expression may also be suffering in the wake of the scandal.

JP

A Death in the Gunj

From celebrated actress Konkona Sensharma, making her directorial debut, comes an Indian drama that’s a poignant and surprisingly powerful condemnation of the disturbing and destructive effects of emotional abuse that siblings and parents can unwittingly inflict on their own family members. 

Set in 1979, an extended family of brothers and their spouses gather to spend New Year’s with their aunt and uncle at their ancestral home among the decaying remains of the former Anglo-Indian settlement of McCluskiegunj in the jungle forest of Jharkhand north east India.

The film is based on Sensharma’s own childhood experiences and loosely based on her father’s short story ‘Death in McCluskie Gunj’, which was more of a supernatural thriller and fictionalized retelling of an actual incident involving a séance that took place at his parents vacation home.

As is often the case with large extended families, there’s plenty of aggressive peer pressure and boisterous playful teasing among the older siblings who all want to prove their male dominance. But one young nephew, Shutu (Vikrant Massey), a university student, seems to be less so inclined. He’s a withdrawn introvert and more of a sensitive artistic soul who is always the butt of everyone’s jokes and pranks. 

It’s clear he doesn’t fit in with the family, there’s a childlike innocence about him that no one seems to appreciate except Tani, the eight year old daughter of his uncle Nandu. Treated with disdain as a poor relative, he’s an outsider looking in and feels left out but wants desperately to be accepted as an equal member of the family. 

Relentlessly harassed by his cruel uncles, sent on trivial errands by his aunt and used as a babysitter, Shutu’s self-worth is eventually whittled away to nothing, setting the stage for the inevitable tragic consequences.

The abandoned ruins of bungalows in the lush Gunj forest make for a moody and ominous setting that seem inviting and beautiful enough on the outside, but where darker unsuspecting dangers may lurk.

Circumstances conspire that put Shutu in a more adult sexual situation, and he naively falls for a girl who’s toying with his feelings. When he realizes that he’s been taken advantage of yet again, the humiliation and realization that he will never be what others expect of him, lead to a tragic outcome.

This is not a Bollywood musical melodrama. A Death in the Gunj is very much in keeping with the tenets of a socially conscious realism style of cinema in the tradition of legendary Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s social realist dramas.

A Death in the Gunj re-creates perfectly the attitudes, fashion and visual design of late 70s India. Sensharma is also able to effectively create the social and class dynamics of a large upper-middle class Indian family with an excellent ensemble cast that will resonate with South Asian as well as international audiences. 

A Death in the Gunj played in Toronto at TIFF16 this September and will open the Mumbai Film Festival October 21, 2016.

JP

Indivisible

Near the ancient crime-ridden southern Italian city of Napoli, plagued by high unemployment, a ragtag family of musicians travel the countryside in an old van posing as a religious group with their conjoined twin daughters, Daisy and Viola, who were born attached at the hip and sing inspirational songs claiming to be holy saints.

The teenage twin sisters, despite their identical appearance, clearly have very different personalities and they share more than just their stunning voices. When one eats or drinks alcohol the other suffers from the digestion and drunkenness.

One day, while performing at a private birthday party, a doctor tells them and their controlling father that they don’t need to live their lives attached to each other. Modern medicine can perform a simple operation that can easily separate them and allow them to live normal lives.

Imagining their independence for the first time, as they were told they could never be separated, one of the teenage twins is immediately interested in this operation. But the family’s livelihood and the main reason that they are a popular attraction depends on their unique disability; a ‘miracle of god’ creation. Their father runs the show and books the gigs and has no interest in separating them, as it will spell the end of his lucrative scam.

When they learn that their father has been exploiting them for profit and gambled away all their savings, they are faced with the grim realization that they don’t have the money for the operation. But the girls become more determined than ever and decide to take matters into their own hands.

After escaping, they soon find themselves on a harrowing odyssey through rough and seedy regions alone for the first time to secure a better future for themselves. But as they approach their goal and ponder the prospect of not always being near each other, they may not be able to come to terms with the pain that separation will bring.

Filmed by director Edoardo de Angelis in the rundown dilapidated shores of Castel Volturno just north of Naples, we are shown the gypsy lifestyle of this close knit unscrupulous family as they are torn apart by greed and selfishness when the promise of a better life is offered to their unfortunate daughters.

One thing that Daisy and Viola do have plenty of is determination and drive. Despite their fears and insecurities, they never stop pursuing their dream of independence regardless of the dangers. That’s what keeps us rooting for them throughout the film.

Indivisible is a suspenseful and moving experience that immerses us in the desperate world of Daisy and Viola who represent all that is good and innocent in a world full of corruption. They are played with conviction and passion by the beautiful real-life identical twin sisters Angela and Marianna Fontana, who are making their feature film debut.

One of the best and delightfully surprising films I saw at the tiff16 festival this year, Indivisible is a crowd-pleaser that’s already generating award buzz and narrowly missed out by one vote of becoming the official foreign Oscar Entry for Italy. 

Be sure to run out and find this Italian treasure when it’s released in cinemas.

JP