05/12/2011

Two men, a road in the middle of nowhere, long chats about women and pop music. The winner of the 29th Turin Film Festival, which ended last Saturday, EitherWay [+see also:
trailer
interview: Hafstein Gunnar Sigurdsson
interview: Hilmar Gudjônsson - Shootin…
film profile], first work of Iceland’s Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson, might, on paper, have seemed rather unattractive - in the Iceland of the 1980s (a period during which, according to the director,"fashion and music have something of the naïve and the comical at the same time"), two road-maintenance workers spend their summer working on an isolated barren land North of the country, and practically nothing happens.

And still, the immediacy of the dialogue always borders on the surreal, the visual effectiveness of the landscapes and the shots and the actors’ expressions, make it an absorbing piece of work, almost hypnotising in the way it beats to the rhythms and motions of monotonous and repetitive work (planting poles, drawing lines) in a Beckett–like way that is also very reminiscent of Aki Kaurismaki’s early style. The title for Best film (which comes with 20 thousand Euros) was more than well deserved, awarded by a jury, let’s remember, presided by Jerry Schatzberg and comprising Valeria Golino, Michael Fitzgerald, Brillante Mendoza and Hubert Niogret. Either Way has, thus far, only been released in Iceland and is being sold to the rest of the world by Icelandic Film Center.

Just as well-deserved is the award for Best Actress, given to Germany’s Renate Krössner for her role in Andreas Kannengiesser’s Way Home (Germany). Krössner (seen in Children of the Moon) delivers a subtle performance as Hannelore, a middle-aged woman worn out by the daily sacrifice of taking care of her ill husband. One day, the woman decides to leave everything, head for the Baltic Sea and accept the hospitality of a neighbour, Günther (Dieter Mann), leaving her husband in the care of her equally unloving son Heiko. A woman divided between the call of duty and a desperate and irrepressible wish to escape, an important and delicate social theme, that of a wife who decides not to take care of her husband. It is an intense performance that conveys the nuances of a difficult inner conflict.

Inner conflict marks another much-admired performance in this edition of the TFF, that of Scotland’s Martin Compston in Craig Viveiros’ Ghosted (UK), which won him Best Actor. In this sophisticated and harsh prison drama, Compston plays Paul, a young man convicted of arson who has just been tranferred from a youth detention centre. He forms an unexpected friendship with the other main character John Lynch (Jack), which will help both to get through the detention and its ruthless laws, as well as the ghosts from the past. It is a story about loss, survival and redemption, in which two characters gain each other’s trust and tell each other’s stories, wavering between truth and unmentionable secrets, until they discover a tragic common past. For Compston (recently seen in Soulboy), it was a challenge of portraying a balance between ambiguity and vulnerability.

Finally, France’s 17 Girls [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Delphine and Muriel Coulin, about the shocking decision by a group of teenagers to get pregnant at the same time, and the ironic Ok, Enough, Goodbye by Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia (United Arab Emirates-Lybia), portrait of a Lebanese-style 'mummy’s boy', received a joint Jury’s Special Award of €8,000. For the complete list of awards (docs, shorts, Cipputi, Fipresci and collaterals) click here.

(Translated from Italian)