— by Jeff Schultz

[Special dispatch from the 27th annual Tromsø Film Festival]

> A funny, intelligent and straightforwardly told story of a reclusive Nobel Prize-winning novelist who travels back to his hometown after 40 years of self-exile. At first he is welcomed as a local hero, but he ends up — well, let’s just say things go terribly wrong. While basically a good man, the author is an intellectual prig, hidebound by his ideals and tone deaf to the sensibilities of “ordinary” people.
> The screenplay is filled with lively confrontations, oddball characters, and whip-smart dialog for Martinez, who beautifully underplays the part, giving the impression that his truest life is the life inside his mind, for which he ultimately pays dearly. And he’s got the scar to prove it. Or does he?

— by Jeff Schultz

[Special dispatch from the 27th annual Tromsø International Film Festival]

> This documentary follows the journey, both geographical and psychological, of a Norwegian actress, Gøril Mauseth, who is cast as the lead in a Russian stage production of ANNA KARENINA to be produced in Vladivostok. Just one problem: she doesn’t speak Russian. The film follows Mauseth as she travels by train with her little boy across the Motherland, immersing herself in Tolstoyan locales while struggling to learn the language. Once rehearsals begin, the daunting task of getting the lines right at the same time as properly interpreting Anna’s complex, tortured character becomes overwhelming.
> Too overwhelming, in fact, as the disappointing denouement reveals. The outcome is not what Mauseth had hoped to accomplish, but we are meant to see it as a triumph because by coming to understand (and to “use”) Anna’s tragic fate, she comes to terms with her own, suppressed childhood trauma, which almost, ahem, derailed her life at the age of 15. (Apparently, unhappy actresses, like unhappy families, are unhappy in their own way.)
> The novel, of course, involves Anna’s choice between the child she loves and the lover she is mad for — leading to rather strained comparisons between the boy in the novel, Seryozha, and Mauseth’s son, Baltazar. For me, the movie was more a portrait of actressy self-involvement than a melding of characters. But the Russian vistas are magnificent.

— by Jeff Schultz

[Special dispatch from the 27th annual Tromsø International Film Festival]

> A young man takes part in a medical research project to make extra money — and ends up half-man, half-fish. His predicament creates constantly shifting heroes and villains, each one subject to reversal, sometimes multiple reversals. Among this South Korean movie’s targets: pack journalism, Big Pharma, class snobbery, celebrity and the fickleness of crowds. Although the fish head “costume” moves only minimally, the artists behind it have invested it with tremendous pathos, mostly through the eyes. The resolution is so obvous, I may be the only one who didn’t see it coming.

— by Jeff Schultz

[Special dispatch from the 27th annual Tromsø Film Festival]

> Dramas about corruption and the enduring scars of Communism in former Soviet republics are something of a staple. Here, we’re “treated” to the story of Gana, an amoral, morphine-addicted, dead-inside health care worker who embezzles from her mostly dementia-ridden home care patients by stealing their cash and identity cards, which she sells on the black market. Gana takes no pleasure from this; nor does she need the money since she has no interests, personal or material. Her emptiness is an abyss, captured in endless long takes of her inexpressive face, which yet expresses the black chasm behind it. This, thanks to what almost counts as a silent movie performance from a remarkable actress named Irena Ivanova. (GODLESS appears to be her only credit.)
> The possibility of redemption arises by way of a patient who unexpectedly touches a chord (literally, through sacred music) in Gana. But you know from the outset this will not end well for either of them, and if you have the patience to stay through to the end (a number of the audience did not) you’ll see you were right– although the sudden change of scene in the final few minutes are so baffling, either I missed an earlier reference or the director simply went insane.

— by Jeff Schultz

[Special dispatch from the 27th annual Tromsø International Film Festival]

     Simply but appealingly drawn, it’s Robinson Crusoe reimagined as a lost (in many senses) year in the life of an 80-something French woman. She misses the last train of the summer season, leaving her stranded and alone in a Britanny beach town, where she teaches herself basic survival skills and quietly comes to terms with a past she had erased from memory. (Indeed, this is the quietest, most gently realized animated feature I’ve seen.) And just as Crusoe eventually met up with his companion “Friday”, so too does Louise find a helpmeet, only in this case it’s a wise old dog who can (sometimes) talk.
     Like a memory play, the movie flashes back to scenes from Louise’s youth, which solitude forces her to confront. The recollections bring a moment of despair which threatens to drown out any further memories. But it ends in, if not triumph, then something past mere acceptance. Call it grace. Just a lovely film.

— by Jeff Schultz

[Special dispatch from the 27th annual Tromsø Film Festival]

> This very funny portrait of a harried (to say the least) divorced dad and the accretion of mishaps, annoyances, insults, impositions and disaster with which he has to cope stars the wonderfully deadpan François Damiens, whose forbearance in the face of a psychotic attack (which severs his ear), outrageously impossible kids, multiplying unwanted houseguests, a terrorist escapade, and a yappy chihuahua that gets what it deserves, leads to an act of heroism (helped along by a little magical realism) and a happy ending.
> There are other fine performances from a large cast, especially Vincent Macaigne as the hatchet wielder who subsequently makes himself at home and young Tom Rivoire as the sullen son who comes to see, as do the rest, what a great guy his father really is.
> Other than at two American film festivals (Seattle and Philadelphia), MARS doesn’t seem to have a US release date. Which is a shame, because it’s a total crowd pleaser; all of its jokes “travel” well, its premise is totally relatable, and most of all, people here need to be introduced to Damiens’ dry wit.

— by Jeff Schultz

[Special dispatch from the 27th annual Tromsø International Film Festival]

> When you write, direct and star in a movie, its vision belongs to you for better or worse. Benjamin Dickinson’s morose tale of adultery and dissolving relationships, is a familiar one, goosed up by movies’ newest gimmick: augmented reality. Dickinson plays an ad agency executive named David, who is under pressure to deliver a winning campaign for Google Glass/Snap Spectacles-inspired eyeglasses, a pair of which is provided to him for brainstorming. He uses the glasses to create an avatar in the image of a woman he is intermittently screwing for real — whose own lover is David’s best friend — and in the process lines blur, many drugs are ingested, and a lot of sex is had
> CREATIVE CONTROL satirizes (yet again) our obsession with all things digital and the inhuman vice in which Silicon Valley companies place their employees to succeed. These are not fresh messages. Nor are the romantic entanglements of much interest because the characters are dull. And while the film is only slightly past an hour-and-a-half, it seems much longer. At the same time, the ending, with a twist that will surprise no one, is rushed and rings false. The only cast member who brings in a little life is the only one you’ve likely heard of: the always entertaining Reggie Watts (of tv’s “Comedy Bang! Bang!” and a thousand other projects), playing himself. When he (literally) goes out of the picture by way of a very funny video phone message, all hope is lost.

— by Jeff Schultz

[Special dispatch from the Tromsø International Film Festival]

TONGUE CUTTERS (which is the English translation) may be one of the greatest romantic comedies ever filmed, even though the boy is only 10 and the girl 9 and there isn’t as much as even a chaste kiss in it. Director Solveig Melkeraaen gets so much out of her two young leads because she invests them with the respect one accords to adults, coaxing out a developing maturity that is the opposite of precociousness. In fact, this a documentary, and these “children” (which they are, although it seems strange to call them that ) really have worked cutting out the tongues of cod in northern Norway, as do many others in a longstanding fish industry tradition there. And because it’s real, and because the world it shows us is so utterly postive and (forgive the cliche) “life affirming”, there’s no need to introduce fake conflict. From start to finish TONGUE CUTTERS is captivating to the point where I cried happy tears. For real.
As it happens, there’s been international coverage of a flap over a class of 5-year-old Norwegian schoolchildren who were taken on a field trip to a reindeer slaughterhouse. (They were not shown actual kills.) In TONGUE CUTTERS, kids that young, or just a little older, are not only put to work amid oceans of bloody and dismembered fish, it’s the kids who are doing the dismembering. With long sharp knives. And not only are they fine with it, they’re gloriously well-adjusted. Every helicopter parent in America should watch this movie and learn from it: the kids are all right.

— by Jeff Schultz

[Special dispatch from the 27th annual Tromsø International Film Festival]

> A loopy, unique, witty and profound mockumentary, KING OF THE BELGIANS has a far, far-fetched premise that the directors make believable (or at least possible) while weaving in a meditation on Belgium’s sense of itself as a country, its place in Europe, and ultimately, what constitutes “Europe”. The premise is that the King of Belgium is on a state visit to Turkey, when half his country (Wallonia) announces its independence. Unable to return home by plane, the King and his three close aides (and a filmmaker who was documenting the state visit) have a Ulysses-like odyssey making their way back to Brussels.
> The performances couldn’t be better, starting with Peter Van de Begin as the King. He’s physically perfect in the role, graceful and aristocratic, but at the outset somewhat feckless and hemmed in by protocol. The journey changes him into a man able to make the command decision that so delightfully brings matters to an end. As the chief of protocol, Bruno Georis is the Belgian Stanley Tucci (and that’s high praise), and as the filmmaker, Pieter van der Houwen is so convincing, I wondered while watching if he might actually be the director. I would see this again in a heartbeat.

— by Jeff Schultz

[Special dispatch from the 27th annual Tromsø International Film Festival]

This rather joyless Greek satire plays out on board a yacht, where six men who know each other in various ways (father/son-in-law, business partners, brothers) are on holiday and decide to enliven their time together by playing a game, the object of which is to decide which one of them is the best — at everything.
What follows pokes fun at male insecurities and middle-age crises and the urge toward Alpha dogdom that arises when guys get together. Since the game has no real rules, there isn’t anything these six do (or don’t do) that isn’t up for being scored; the winner is the one that gets the most votes (or the least demerits).
Penis size, morning erections, snoring, cholesterol levels, belching, karaoke skill, stamina — one slip in any category earns you a black mark. The game ends in a (comic) ritual bloodletting that puts paid to the absurdity, but instead of growing in intensity, the game merely seems to go on and on with too few moments of gleeful nastiness.