The year ends with the
sixth excerpt from the great internet magazine “Bright Wall/Dark Room,” this
one breaking our standard pattern of excerpts about individual films for a
personal piece. The theme for the December issue is “Reflections on
2014” and features essays on“Inherent Vice,” “Interstellar,” “Locke,” “Snowpiercer,”
“The Great Beauty,” “Under the Skin,”“Obvious Child,” “Whiplash,” as well as staff picks for the best films of
the year, and an essay on eschewing current films to watch a bunch of 1980s
films in the theater this year instead. You can buy
the magazine on your iPhone and iPad hereor sign up for the web-based online
version here.
“The
thing about Belgium,” I explain to an attic full of comedians, microphone in
hand, “is that it’s really a very normal place. It’s like the Midwest of
Europe. If Europe was America, Belgium would be Wisconsin and Ghent would be
Madison. There’s a ton of college students and one hill and everyone has a deep
appreciation for beer and cheese.”
People
laugh. I haven’t been back in the States for more than a whole day, but I’ve
already written jokes about my time in Europe.
After the
show, a guy comes up to me. “So, what, Belgium sucks?” he asks.
I’m
horrified. “No, no,” I explain, in the way one should never have to with their
jokes. “Fran Hoepfner, the persona, thought Belgium was ridiculous. Fran
Hoepfner, the human person, loved every second of being there.”
In July,
I found myself very much stuck where I’d been a year ago when I had graduated
from college. I still worked in the service industry. I had a dead-end
internship. I was writing, kind of, and I was a comedian, kind of, but mostly I
was just stuck. On a particularly frustrating day of my internship, I applied
to a workshop for young film critics in Ghent, Belgium. I hadn’t been to
Belgium. I wasn’t even sure if I qualified as a “young film critic.” But I
wasn’t doing anything and I wasn’t going anywhere, and even though I was sure
I’d be edged out by grad students and young professionals, I had nothing to
lose and everything to gain.
Then, in
September, several things happened in quick succession: I got a new job. I got
new glasses. I got into the workshop. I called my mom at seven in the morning
and said, “I think I have to go to Belgium in a few weeks,” and she said,
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
The
festival I attended is called Film Fest Gent (in Dutch, the ‘h’ is taken out of
Ghent, but either way, it’s pronounced with a mouth-y ‘g’ sound, like you’re
perpetually clearing your throat). Ghent is a relatively small city, with about
250,000 residents in total, quite a few of them students at the university.
Ghent is
beautiful, but not in the expected, larger-than-life European sort of way. It
was normal. It was quaint. Most mornings, I was up by 8am, stopping by the
corner shop for an espresso and a croissant before making my way to the
theater. For about twenty minutes (the length of most walks in Ghent), I walked
along quiet canals adorned by small trees, their leaves a perfect shade of
October orange. I didn’t get a lot of time off in Ghent, but when I wasn’t
writing or watching movies, I walked. I walked through the main square. I
walked past cathedrals. I climbed a tower (as one becomes accustomed to doing
in Europe).
During
the two week long 41st annual Film Fest Gent, I was responsible for
seeing fourteen of the competition films, as well as anything else I could
squeeze in. Besides me, there were four other young critics: one other
American, as well as critics from Canada, Belgium, and the Netherlands. I was
the baby of the group. Not only was I the youngest by almost a year, but I also
hadn’t seen any Godard films yet. There was a lot for me to learn. No one tells
you how tired you’ll be all the time when you’re at a film festival. It doesn’t
matter what time zone you’re in (though I’m sure the jet lag doesn’t help), you
are just very tired. From 9:30 am until about 2pm, I was in screenings. There’d
usually be some kind of break in the afternoon, during which I’d either carve
out a nook in a cafe to work on reviews or nap (and one time, both). By 7pm,
we’d be back at the theaters for screenings until the end of the night. The
next day everything would start over and we’d be back at it.
Festivals
are amazing, not because they take place in another country or because you get
up close and personal with directors and screenwriters and actors, but because
everyone is there to see films. It’s all anyone wants to do or talk about.
Everyone comes together over a mutual love of cinema, and it doesn’t matter if
you like or dislike a film as long as you want to talk about it afterwards.
The other
young critics and I met in the press lounge for a catered lunch every day. We
broke bread, quite literally, and found a way to disagree constantly about all
of the films we saw.
“It was
too melodramatic. Too soppy, too ridiculous,” someone would say.
“Are you
kidding me? It was completely devoid of any emotion,” someone else would argue.
“I’m sick
of movies about men,” someone else (me, almost always me) would say.
Because
all the films are part of a festival with some type of submission process, you
convince yourself everything is going to be good. Scratch that. They’re all
objectively good, no doubt, but just like any feature film experience, some
will be engaging and fantastic while others will have you rolling your eyes.
There
were three competition films that played on already tired, mean-spirited
anti-heroes: Waste Land, from Belgium, Stratos, from Greece, and Black
Coal, Thin Ice, from China. There was also the Danish film Jauja
with Viggo Mortensen as an 19th century military officer in Argentina.
This was shot in small, square frames with rounded edges, like an
Instagram photo, and while it could best be described as a Western, there was
more desert-wandering than gun-shooting. My dislike of these films, of course,
was completely subjective: Jauja won a special mention by the festival
judges.
But then
there was Leviathan: a beautiful and bleak Russian film clocking in at
almost three full hours. There was also an Israeli film, The Kindergarten
Teacher, which functioned almost as an anti-Dead Poets Society,
asking what happens when a teacher gets too close, too involved.Of the non-competition
films, I found myself head over heels with the impeccably charming Pride and
quietly romantic Love Is Strange. I also enjoyed Fury. “Did
Belgium turn you into a Shia LaBeouf apologist?” a friend from home asked. The
answer to that question is yes.
Force Majeure (a Swedish film which I saw under the title Turist)
will be one to talk about for years to come. It was both the best film I saw at
the festival and the best film I have seen this calendar year. Dark and
scathingly funny, it’s about a picturesque family on a picturesque ski
vacation.
About
twenty minutes in, the family experiences as traumatic event (which, though
evident in the trailer for the film, I don’t want to spoil for those who
haven’t seen it), and they cope with the emotional repercussions for the
remainder of the film. Lead actors Johannes Bah Kuhnke and Lisa Loven Kongsli
are equal parts wonderful and terrifying as Tomas and Ebba, the married couple
in question, who are pushed to the brink of their relationship. They experience
almost every possible emotion in their five day vacation. Their anxiety and
paranoia spread to other hotel guests, including their friend Mats and his
young girlfriend Fanny. Kristopher Hivju, who plays Mats, is perhaps best known
for his role as Tormund Giantsbane on Game of Thrones. He’s a comic
highlight of the film: big and strong with the self-confidence of a
middle-schooler. I would never describe Force Majeure as an outright
comedy, but it certainly has enough solid laughs for every moment of
cringe-worthy, passive-aggressive dialogue.
The whole
film is beautiful. The skiing sequences are overwhelmingly silent. I’m not sure
there’s been another film that so accurately captures both the beauty and
claustrophobia of skiing vacations. The surrounding mountains and cliffs are
immense, but at the end of the day, everyone is stuck in a lodge, forced to
cope with the people they came with. Force Majeure is a complete
experience, and it’s not one to be missed.
I
ultimately watched 22 films during the festival. I came back from Ghent on a
Friday afternoon, and by Sunday night, I was already back in a movie theater in
Chicago. “I’m sure you’re completely exhausted from movies,” my friend said as
we walked up to the ticket counter.
“Is that
some kind of joke?” I asked, and then bought my tickets.
