In this post I’m going to write a little about the movies we saw on Saturday, the second day of this year’s Maryland Film Festival. I wish I’ve had a bit more time to write earlier when my impressions were still fresh. But I still remember these movies well. One that especially moved me was

Mama

From Russia, by Yelena and Nikolay Renard with Ludmila Alyohina and Sergey Nazaro.

Ludmila Alyohina

With the film Mama, Russian husband-and-wife directing team Yelena and Nikolay Renard have achieved something quite remarkable: they have crafted an emotionally resonant and deeply insightful film out of the completely unremarkable lives of the two main characters, all without the use of dialogue. The story revolves around the complex co-dependent relationship between a mother and her morbidly obese 40-year-old son.

This spare film uses the camera to achieve an almost painterly quality in each shot. The static camera frames a scene and then waits patiently as the actors come and go, often leaving the scene devoid of characters, but never empty. In keeping the camera firmly rooted in one position and letting it dwell on the scene, the Renards achieve a smoldering intensity of feeling that many flashier films would die for. Exquisitely long takes, few edits and a complete lack of dialogue (although wonderful use of sound) allow the viewer to become engrossed in the lives of the two main characters and afford an almost extra-sensory glimpse into their thoughts and feelings. [...] (J. Scott Braid)

—from the Film Festival Guide

Mama was one of the most intimate and beautiful movies I have seen in a while. I’m eternally grateful the filmmakers allowed me the time to rest in these long scenes, and take in the images, details, mood and unspoken expressions. Continued…

Mundane History

The first movie we watched on the first full day of the film festival was Mundane History from Thailand, directed by Anocha Suwichakornpong:

Mundane History

Ake, a young man recently paralyzed from the waist down, sits sullenly in bed all day long in his family’s declining mansion, refusing even the little pleasures available to him. His mysterious and stern father Thanin hires a male nurse, Pun, to care for Ake and keep him company. But a jaded Ake rebukes and ignores Pun’s quietly good-natured attempts to cheer him up, challenging Pun to find new ways to distract his patient. When the thaw finally comes, secrets and changes emerge – both personal and cosmic.

—from the Film Festival Guide

The film community in Thailand was a completely unknown entity to me until we saw Syndromes and a Century in 2007. I enjoyed Syndromes and a Century a lot, and I had the feeling I might like Mundane History as well. Continued…

Prologue

The Charles Theater

During this year’s film festival I once again realized how much I love the Charles Theater and the Maryland Film Festival. I always appreciated classic, independent or international movies and documentaries and was eager to see them on the big screen, but when I grew up I didn’t have easy access to them. My hometown in Germany used to have a hand full of screens for the big mainstream releases, and everything used to be dubbed in German, so if I wanted to see something the way it was intended I had to import videos from other countries, and make sure my vhs-player was able to handle the foreign video-formats. In those days it would have taken years to download a video. Occasionally I could tune to arte, a French/German tv-channel that sometimes presented movies with subtitles and original audio tracks. This channel helped me discover a number of interesting and unusual movies, but I also imported many of my favorite movies and directors from the UK, Belgium, Canada, and the US.

When we attended the Maryland Film Festival for the first time in 2002 I knew what a priceless treasure we had found with the Charles Theater — not only during the film festival, but also all year long. Where else would you ever get an opportunity to watch a dozen Ingmar Bergman movies on the big screen? Where else could an event like the film festival take place if not at the Charles? Continued…