EPTUnfortunately, the film did not shake the rest of the audience as much. The calm dissection of the event is lost as we are thrown into a dramatic thriller with only one track. As the script writer states "To say that [...this film] is based on truthful events is a bit too much. Based on... It's a bit too strong word".
As it stands, Call Girl reaches out to portray the brothel scandal realistically, but devolves into a rather normative drama-thriller told in four different layers. The photo is however stylistically excellent and the actors impressive especially with regards to their inexperience.
Arbitrage . American dramatic debut director Nicholas Jarecki (Directed a minor documentary, The Outsider, 2005) here displays a classy Wall Street fraud thriller with Richard Gere as the main charismatic star. Not exactly a typical festival movie as it follows the Hollywood recipe without any flaws. Entertainment, nothing more, nothing less.
Aquí y Allá (Here and There) . Mexico. A husband reunites with his wife and two daughters after living in New York. He comes home with the hope of starting a band in the village, but the economical situation makes it difficult. A quiet, realistic film by debut director Antonio Mendez Esparza where all actors keep their real named. Mostly still camera to capture the hesitant, slightly awkward mood.
Water. Divided into 10 parts of short films by various directors, with the theme of water geographically located in the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Containing both dramatic and documentaries, the short films are difficult to sum up as one. Water is the method of describing the tension between the people. One documentary is about the water tanks in Palestine homes, an old man who works with distribution of the water. The last short was probably the most memorable one through sheer provocation. A Jewish girl afraid of strangers lets a Palestinian plumber in without seeing his face. She strikes up a conversation with him about her forced matchmaking and they get along nicely, until the pipe floods and they finally meet. "Why are you staring at me like that?" "Are you going to rape me now?".
Tabu directed by the relatively unknown Miguel Gomes. In Lisbon, a lady is concerned for the health of her old neighbor Aurora. Her crazy and somewhat amusing drivel about witchcraft and crocodiles shows to be true as we suddenly live through Aurora's youthful past in South Africa. Shot in black and white with the majority of the dialogue covered by the narrator, intellectually and witty. Reminiscent of the french new wave a la Truffaut - yet with a more humorous and romantic tone - Gomes certainly impresses with his artistry here. Sweet, charming movie concluding with love as it's main focus, with maybe a bit too much difference between the two parts. If there is dialogue, why mute it? Maybe The Artist is at fault here.
Compliance American dramatic movie by Craig Zobel in a realistic sense, based on (several) actual events. A prank call goes too far at a fast food restaurant, where a man is pretending to be a police officer. He accuses Becky, a 19 year old girl of stealing from a customer. Frightening and slightly provocative as the number of walk-outs during this film was high. Which means the director is at least doing something right. However, some disappointment at the way the events unfolded, which could have made a better impact being cold and analyzing. The perpetrator was unnecessarily portrayed (in person) and the only reflection of the drawn out phone call is being told by the supervisor near the end. "You think I'm at fault here?" "I am also a victim... We were all victims." As long as there is someone in authority to think for you, you can't be hold accountable for your actions. Human beings can so easily be cornered by their own fear.
