THE MOSQUITO PROBLEM AND OTHER STORIES (BULGARIA/2007/ANDREY PAOUNOV)

The residents of Belene, a small Bulgarian town, have been waiting for the construction of a nuclear power plant for over twenty years, and watch the cranes and clouds of smoke in anticipation. Aside from the sudden influence of industrialisation, the townspeople only seem to have one problem – a mosquito infestation. Some residents have found innovative ways to deal with them, such as switching on a high-power fan or vacuuming the air at random intervals, but before long it becomes clear that this fixation is a mask for a number of other problems which lie just beneath the surface. The camera takes on the role of casual observer, allowing each resident to tell their story to the audience.

Andrey Paounov’s shrewd documentary asks many questions and leaves the answers, if any, to the viewer, and as a result it is difficult to understand the intended effect. Each interviewee offers a unique perspective on the town’s many issues, and the cumulative effect is somewhat depressing. A sinister commentary is made on the town’s future when it is revealed that the ex-mayor, the man who was responsible for much of Belene’s city planning and industrial development, also played a key role in the local Communist-era labour camp. While the film does concern itself heavily with the impossibility of leaving the past behind, Paounov does not forget to balance his piece with humour and wit, and at times it feels as if Christopher Guest and his team have taken on small-town Eastern Europe.

HELSINKI, FOREVER (FINLAND/2008/PETER VON BAGH)

In the tradition of films such as Of Time and the City and My Winnipeg, Helsinki, Forever is a sedate mood piece paying tribute to the Finnish capital through fragments of the country’s visual arts. More than just a bricolage piece, the film takes on the structure of a metaphysical journey, links being made between shots, locations, time periods – trams enter screen in the 1930s and leave it in the 1960s. Commentary from a man and a woman (the man’s voice is director Peter von Bagh) propel the visual essay through its twists and turns, only interrupted by smatterings of Finnish pop music.

Peter von Bagh is better known by some as a film historian, and this project displays as deep a love for cinema as it does for Helsinki. Many of the films shown share superficial elements in common – long shadows, minimal movement – and while technical aspects of the film are never brought up, the film functions as a history of Finnish cinema. The one issue here is in the editing – given von Bagh’s access to previously unfamiliar films, one wonders if we’re seeing the clips that best fulfil the film’s intent or if the visual connections are too enjoyable to pass up. In this sense, Helsinki, Forever falls short of the likes of Sans Soleil in creating a compelling film essay, but it nonetheless manages to hold one’s attention. Wistful at times, joyful at others, Helsinki, Forever manages to brim with vivacity through a reconnection with the past.

BED OF PROCUST (MOLDOVA/2001/VIORICA MESINA, SERGIU PRODAN)

Based on the Camil Petrescu novel of the same name, Bed of Procust concerns a romantic relationship in 1920s Bucharest. Fred pursues a liaison with the vivacious Emilia, but an eventful night together has them lying together in bed, reminiscing about past loves and hidden truths. Fred, reading through love letters, recalls his romance with a young socialite named Madame T, an archetype of femininity, and through flashbacks we see what he gave up for love. Emilia looks back on her time with the deceased Ladima, an old friend of Fred’s, and remembers their incompatibility, and we also learn of her tendency towards promiscuity. In trying to recapture the past, Fred and Emilia are forced to reflect on the future of their current relationship.

With a premise that keeps its two protagonists in a bed for the present time, relating the story through vignettes, Bed of Procust expects a lot from its cast. Thankfully Petru Vutcarau and Tania Popa fulfil their roles as the protagonists, but it is Maia Morgenstern as the seductive Madame T who steals the show, her performance and image channelling the actresses of yesteryear. With the theme of love and romance repeating through the film, it gets a bit cloying at times, sentimental even, but there is a straightness to the whole product that keeps each memory relevant. Full credit must go to husband-and-wife directing team Viorica Mesina and Sergiu Prodan who, in their only film project, do a great job of bringing literature to screen.

THE NIKLASHAUSEN JOURNEY (GERMANY/1970/RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER, MICHAEL FENGLER)

A radical work even for Fassbinder’s hefty film catalogue, The Niklashausen Journey darts through history to tell the story of Hans Böhm, a lowly Franconian shepherd who had a visionary experience which instructed him to preach social equality to the masses, calling for the deaths of clergymen and members of the upper class. Böhm, resembling a brightly dressed, long-haired anarchist, finds himself surrounded by a variety of characters from different eras, who appear to be following his life story as it happens. Fassbinder himself plays the enigmatic leather-clad Black Monk, who speaks in curt maxims as he shadows Böhm in his egalitarian mission.

Fassbinder could never be accused of lacking ambition, and in The Niklashausen Journey he becomes his most politically direct. The film uses anachronisms to invite reevaluations of contemporary German politics, with particular resonance with the possible reunification of Germany. He also uses the presence of a medieval peasant amidst modern characters to underline the ridiculousness of revolutionaries comparing themselves to historical figures by dint of their ability to recite ideologies with conviction. One particularly mischievous example sees Böhm preaching Marxist slogans to anyone who will listen, before singing a paean to Lenin. Naturally, a film with such grand aspirations is bound to be uneven, and it is difficult to tell what Fassbinder wanted his audience to make of the characters’ contradictions. As such, it does not have the sincerity of Pasolini’s more overtly political works, sharing more in common with Derek Jarman’s later Jubilee. Uncompromising but unbalanced.

THE MARQUISE DE SADE (SWEDEN/1992/INGMAR BERGMAN)

Filmed for Swedish TV, Ingmar Bergman’s The Marquise de Sade, inspired by Yukio Mishima’s play Madame de Sade, places six women in the same room, all of whom had some form of connection with the Marquis de Sade. Despite the disapproval of her mother and sister, Renée de Sade often finds herself dreaming about her husband in an unusually favourable light, showing that her devotion has in some way blinkered her from his lasciviousness. La Comtesse de Saint-Ford, dressed in an androgynous yellow suit and jodhpurs, grills de Sade’s wife about their sexual activity with a sinister fascination.

The idea of evoking male dominance in sexuality through the accounts of women brings to mind de Sade’s The 120 Days of Sodom, which Pier Paolo Pasolini famously adapted in the seventies as Salò. Like Pasolini’s film, The Marquise de Sade is the result of countless revisions, keeping the Japanese music of Mishima’s play but reinventing the cast as Swedish noblewomen. In composing his play for television, Bergman balances theatre with cinema, taking advantage of close-ups to generate a sense of intimacy where necessary. There is a peculiar sensuality in the women’s dialogues which is echoed in the vibrant colour palette, and Dangerous Liaisons springs to mind more than once. De Sade’s absence is notable, but his hold over people is palpable as each woman deals with her individual morality. With superb performances by a familiar cast, The Marquise de Sade is further evidence that Bergman was a true master of dramaturgy.

HARVEST: 3,000 YEARS (ETHIOPIA/1975/HAILE GERIMA)

Despite its size, Ethiopia has never experienced a particular boom in filmmaking, with features only occasionally being released. Much of the Ethiopian film ‘industry’ has fallen on the shoulders of ex-pat Haile Gerima, perhaps best known in the West for his historical fantasy Sankofa. While studying at the UCLA, he produced four films, the last of which was a feature called Harvest: 3,000 Years. This film follows an impoverished family as they eke out a life working for a selfish landowner. Though most of the family endure his domineering ways, fully understanding that this may be the only employment that can keep them afloat, daughter Beletech is at odds with her situation, refusing to conform to the landowner’s expectations of her but never gaining fulfillment from doing so.

Harvest carries along at a slow pace, mirroring the endless labour carried out by the family. It is in this respect that the film loses some of its potential as, while the meditative style is beautiful and certainly appropriate, the unprofessional cast are unable to sustain the experience. Additionally, Gerima refined most of the film’s themes in Sankofa, adding a modern context to portray the idea that the suffering never ends. Nonetheless, this should all be forgiven, particularly as Gerima was still a student when the film was completed. The most significant aspect of Harvest is its provenance, having been completed just a year after the fall of Haile Selassie I, and those looking for an honest historical account will be satisfied.

GHOST OF HANGING IN UTSUNOMIYA (JAPAN/1956/NOBUO NAKAGAWA)

Ryutaro is a spy employed by the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu, who is the target of assassination attempts that aim to hand power over to his younger brother Tadanaga. Before learning of these plots, Ryutaro discovers himself in a predicament of his own when he rushes to the defence of a local girl who is caught between her boyfriend and a greedy businessman. The situation results in many violent one-on-one skirmishes between Ryutaro and the businessman’s many samurai defendants, one of whom enigmatically refuses to reveal his face or use more than just the one hand. Before long, Ryutaro’s top priority is not protecting Iemitsu as it should be, but rather unearthing the true identity of the mystery samurai.

Director Nobuo Nakagawa is well known for mixing the supernatural with diverse genres of film, and in Ghost Of Hanging In Utsunomiya, he does a sublime job of giving the chanbara (or samurai) genre a much-needed boost. While it may not be as subversive a work as some of its contemporaries, the film has a wonderfully simple premise, and Nakagawa uses the time to reinforce Ryutaro’s story with some colourful characters. With his bizarre hood and penchant for spinning walnuts in his fingers, the unnamed samurai walks the line between clown and sinister threat, and the scene where he reveals his true face is unusually tense. It may not be for everyone, but Ghost Of Hanging In Utsunomiya is a brilliant mix of history and the ethereal, making for great evening viewing.

THE ROMANCE OF ASTREA AND CELADON (FRANCE/2007/ÉRIC ROHMER)

Set in rural Gaul in the 5^th century, French directing legend Eric Rohmer’s swan song concerns the love between shepherd Celadon and shepherdess Astrea. The young lovers are blighted by the disapproval of Celadon’s parents, but when Astrea mistakes Celadon’s use of a pretend girlfriend for infidelity, the relationship buckles under the strain. Having witnessed Celadon run into the river, Astrea believes that he has drowned and finds herself inconsolable. However, Celadon is kept alive by a group of nymphs who give him the confidence to return to the village in the hopes of finding Astrea again and winning back her heart.

In essence, it’s a simple Romeo and Juliet story in a bucolic setting. Rohmer presents his youthful protagonists as victims of circumstance, their core emotions otherwise unshakable. But as pure as its message is, The Romance of Astrea and Celadon takes a long time to say ver little. Too much of the film is afforded to characters literally reading poetry. What frustrates most however is that the romantic hysterics see no representation in the mise-en-scène – with the beautiful sweeping backdrop of a verdant valley, it’s a disappointment that the battle of emotions is left entirely up to the young cast, who appear a little wet behind the ears. To put it bluntly, one could just as easily be watching an amateur production in the woods. An undercooked, inflated melodrama which often feels like Shakespeare manqué, The Romance of Astrea and Celadon should only be seen by Rohmer completists.

THE AGONY OF BYZANCE (FRANCE/1913/LOUIS FEUILLADE)

The Agony of Byzance depicts the Sack of Constantinople in the 13^th Century. Stood outside the city in full view of its terrified guards, Muslim soldiers prepare for battle. Emperor Constantine takes responsibility for his Christian subjects, arranging his own soldiers and comforting the rest of the citizens. Each opponent prays to their god for fortitude before the carnage begins, but while the Muslims seem strengthened with each prayer on the promise that their fallen soldiers will receive paradise, the Christian Byzantines feel they have been forsaken by God, and hold little hope for future battles. Emperor Constantine is only able to absolve his people before the city is inevitably taken over, an act which becomes more brutal than anyone could have imagined.

The Agony of Byzance, while ostensibly a war epic, places much of its attention on the religious aspect of the events. The power of prayer stands out as a central theme, and while it is a little unusual for a French film in the 1910s to appear to champion Islam over Christianity, the message of strong-mindedness is clear. Unlike many contemporary films, it is easy to forget that the entire film takes place on sound stages, or at least the enthusiastic battle sequences would have one believe. The scene in which the city is captured is particularly impressive, hundreds of extras trembling as they await their fate. The ending is slightly macabre, but the film is a reasonable delight if one watches it as a historical reenactment.

TOTEM: RETURN AND RENEWAL (CANADA/2007/GIL CARDINAL)

Continuing on from Totem: The Return Of The G’psgolox Pole, made four years earlier, Totem: Return And Renewal details the return of an important mortuary totem pole to its rightful home amongst the Haisla people of Canada. The pole had been sold by an unnamed individual to Sweden, where it formed the centrepiece of a museum of ethnographic curiosities. The film opens with an impassioned prayer celebrating its homecoming, and tears are shed at every stage of the pole’s journey from Sweden to the Haisla village of Kitimaat. The narrator recaps the history carved into the pole as it is repatriated to rapturous clamour. The pole is kept horizontally in the Kitimaat mall, in wait for the construction of a Haisla cultural centre where it will remain entombed.

The film’s title suggests that the pole’s importance goes beyond mere symbolism, as the totem refreshes the identity of its people and serves as a teaching tool for the next generation, although the children in the film appear mostly bemused by its presence. Gil Cardinal, the director responsible for both documentaries, understands the role of this second film, keeping it short at just over twenty minutes to act as a triumphant epilogue to the G’psgolox story. In this way Return And Renewal scarcely stands on its own as a film, although it does offer new insight on the future of the pole, as well as introducing the new icon of the pole’s circular yoke which is hung up in the local school.

SANKOFA (BURKINA FASO/1993/HAILE GERIMA)

In something of an unconventional story arc, an American supermodel named Mona travels to Ghana for a photo shoot, only to be transported back in time to the slave-trade era by a local mystic. In her new incarnation as house servant Shola, Mona encounters a world of injustice and suffering in complete contrast to her cosmopolitan lifestyle. Through contact with two other slaves, she begins to see life from the other end of the hierarchy, and shares their righteous indignation as they fight the system. Shango, whom Mona falls in love with, is not afraid to use physical intimidation, while Nunu’s battle is far more personal, her mixed-race son an icon of enforced assimilationism.

The film’s title Sankofa (also the name of the mystic) is a succinct Akan word meaning “to revisit to the past, remember it, and use it to understand the future”, and aptly summarises the film’s intent. Despite the farcical nature of the story (time travel and real world history nary a serious film make), Haile Gerima treats the subject of slavery with the utmost care, pairing the frightening image of Mona stripped almost to the bone with a raw soul soundtrack. His somewhat commercial treatment of the film is a reminder that not nearly enough films have been made about the Maafa, or the African Holocaust. But as emotionally affecting as it can be, Sankofa seems to be missing something, particularly in making the link between Mona and her need to discover the history of slavery.

RIKYU (JAPAN/1989/HIROSHI TESHIGAHARA)

Exploring the complicated relationships between the aesthete and the politician, Hiroshi Teshigahara’s penultimate film Rikyu is a respectful profile of one of Japan’s most revered masters of tea ceremonies, and chronicles his relationship with Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the contemporary daimyō who became remembered for uniting Japan’s politically diverse provinces. Having served the previous ruler with dogged diplomacy, Rikyu strives to focus on his role as tutor, but as he grows closer to Hideyoshi, his supposed political syncretism is pulled into question. When Hideyoshi asks for succour in his decision to occupy nearby China, Rikyu’s wavering is interpreted negatively by the daimyō’s other consultants, who plot to oust him from government.

Teshigahara, a master in the art of flower arrangement himself, approaches the subject with a delicacy which suggests where his sympathies lie, handling every scene as if it were a ceremony in itself. Legendary film composer and frequent Teshigahara collaborator Toru Takemitsu polishes sequences off with gentle flourishes of music, never stealing focus from the intimacy of the two lead characters. The film in some ways finds a modern sibling in Aleksandr Sokurov’s The Sun, which forms an uncritical portrait of Emperor Hirohito, or even Im Kwon-Taek’s Chihwaseon, which artfully explores the life of one Korea’s best-known painters. As with arthouse films in any country, Rikyu has an element of the alien that almost disallows outsiders access, but Teshigahara ensures that we do not see the film as just a cultural curio, and it serves as further evidence of his brilliance.

TOTEM: THE RETURN OF THE G'PSGOLOX POLE (CANADA/2003/GIL CARDINAL)

Raising questions about the commoditisation of minority cultures, this feature-length documentary concerns the Haisla people of British Columbia in Canada. The titular artefact is a large mortuary totem pole, commissioned by Eagle Chief G’psgolox in honour of his dead family. In the late 1920s, the pole mysteriously went missing, but was discovered some sixty years later to have been sold by an anonymous unauthorised tipster to the Swedish government, who had placed it in the centre of an ethnographic museum in Stockholm. The film traces the story of the Haisla from the formation of their modern identity to their contemporary struggles to protect their culture. Most of the interviewees hail from the Haisla Nation, specifically from the village of Kitimaat, from where the pole was taken.

Filmmaker Gil Cardinal is a Métis himself (that is to say, of mixed European and First Nation heritage), and the documentary consequently shows great respect for its subject. Cardinal shares the Haisla’s indignation at the revelation that the Swedish government agreed to return the pole under the condition that they house it in a museum themselves, in conflict with Haisla tradition. A short video sequence showing two Haisla dignitaries visiting the pole in Sweden is a poignant moment in an otherwise sedate documentary. Outsiders may feel that more of the Haisla culture should have been explained (for example, how its members feel about adopting European names), but the film otherwise fulfils its duty. A sequel was produced in honour of the pole’s triumphant return.