Afterschool
One may assume the film Afterschool simply tells the story of adolescence and boarding schools, or rather of our progressive, yet intrusive age of technology. Director Antonio Campos invites us all to come to our own conclusions.
24-year-old Campos mirrors himself with the main character, a confused teenage student at a New England private boarding school.
After the central character Robert (Ezra Miller) accidentally films the drug overdose of a pair of students at his school, he is asked to organize a video project to help the school heal. Through the camera’s lens, all of the school’s problems and conflicts are magnified, leading to an atmosphere of paranoia and hostility.
“I wanted to examine a community that has become accustomed over time to an almost abnormally sheltered and safe existence that has to confront the sudden impact of a violent death on its grounds,” said Campos.
Whether it’s an obsession with human interaction, the influence of drugs, a satirical glimpse of academia or a critique of the amount of surveillance in our daily lives, Afterschool provides a relatable snapshot of reality.
Afterschool plays at Ex-Centris Fellini on Oct. 17 at 11:15 and Ex-Centris Cassavetes at 21:00. It will also be screened at Cinéma du Parc on Oct. 19 at 13:00 as part of Festival du Nouveau Cinéma.
– Enrico Quilico
Two-Legged Horse
Two-Legged Horse, a new film by Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf, portrays daily life in poverty-filled Afghanistan, and the price of personal liberty. The film centres around a nobleman’s decision to hire a disabled boy, Giah, to carry around his severely disabled son for a dollar a day, as would a horse.
As the young son recaptures his mobility, he comes to see Giah more and more as a tool, and begins using and abusing the boy to reassert his power.
The story’s simple premise is astonishingly captured using non-trained actors and the barren set of Afghanistan’s harsh landscape. Giah’s role as a slave and as another’s key to empowerment provides motive force to this bleak portrayal of human nature.
We’ve all felt victimized, making it easy to empathize with Giah’s situation.
In one scene, Giah’s master gets him to collect rocks so he can throw them at him. In another, the two share a frantic dance like the best of friends. But later on, Giah is brutally fastened to a pair of horseshoes.
In Two-Legged Horse, Makhmalbaf does an excellent job exploring the often contradictory victim/victimizer dynamic.
Two-Legged Horse plays at Ex-Centris Cassavetes on Oct. 17 at 15:00 and at Cinéma du Parc on Oct. 18 at 13:00.
– Michael Connors
Still Orangutans
When Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Amores Perros exploded onto the scene in 2000, it blew moviegoers away with its chaotic multiple narratives. Now the Brazilian-produced Still Orangutans offers a visual journey along the same veins, but with notable differences.
For one, the film is presented as a single (simulated) long take which required painstaking rehearsal before making it to the final cut – director Gustavo Spolidoro worked with almost 200 people spread out across Porto Alegre for a week in order to get the final cut.
Still Orangutans is surrealistic. The opening scene deftly summarizes and sets the tone for the rest of the film. A Japanese couple is in transit on a train. Slowly, horribly, the man realizes the woman isn’t breathing. Distressed, he pleads in vain for help in Japanese. At the terminus, he bows to her, shoulders their bags, and abandons her on the train. The camera follows him to an indoor market, where he proceeds to sell a watch to a local boy – in perfect Portuguese. The focus then switches to the latter as he boards a bus, stringing the viewers along for the rest of the movie, and taking them for a fantastic ride.
Still Orangutans screens for the last time on Oct. 17 (11:20 a.m.) at Ex-Centris.
– Sijia Chen
