Nordic Film Days Lübeck 2014 (NFDL2014)

After having seen in San Sebastian a few movies from Latvia (filter with LV) and liking some movies from Scandinavia (filter for Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark) and Baltic countries (filter for Lituania, and Latvia), I [raf] was curious to see some more. Now I would like to share my impressions about this Festival. 

Still possible to have diner outside in Lübeck, JoRafCinema and Co 

 

Itsi Bitsi (2014)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Ole Christian Madsen
	Actors: Joachim Fjelstrup, Marie Tourell Søderberg, Christian Gade Bjerrum, Ola Rapace
	Country: DK
	Genre: Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 01.11.2014, Kolosseum, NFDL2014, OV Danish with English subtitles
Synopsis: Denmark, 1962. As protests against nuclear missiles and political imperialism grow louder, the activist Eik Skaløe (Fjelstrup) meets pretty Iben (Søderberg). Eik, who fancies himself a poet and author, is immediately taken with his new acquaintance. She's not only enthusiastic about literature, the latest music and drugs, but also about free love and lack of commitment and Eik has to share her with Christian (Bjerrum) and later with Vincent (Rapace). As they embark on an odyssey together from Copenhagen through Europe and on to Baghdad, Eik tries everything to win over Iben. In a last big push, he founds Steppeulvene, Denmark's first psychedelic rock band. However, he still doesn’t manage to achieve his romantic goal.
Review: The story is interesting and full of suspense even if the dive into drugs is foreseeable. Let's say that the romance is full of suspense and this romance story is beautiful as well with tops, flops, rivalities, lightness, many differents emotions and feelings. The musical part comes only at the end and as further element of the romance story.  The directing of drug sequences are slightly psychedelic having both images of the drugged person and the creative moment for Eik coming just after. He keeps writing the undless book all his life and this sounds a kind of real metaphor of his romance and this is again beautiful. As I did not found any poster of the movie, the picture is one LP of the Danish band Steppeulvene. I did not know at all this band before the movie but now I find it interesting and am curious to listen a bit more of this. The first CD I listened was ok, the song Itsi Bitsi being the highlight.
Rating: 7 /10

Blind (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Eskil Vogt
	Actors: Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Henrik Rafaelsen, Vera Vitali,  Marius Kolbenstvedt
	Country: N
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 01.11.2014, CineStar5, NFDL2014
Synopsis: Ingrid (Petersen) has recently gone blind. She remembers the way her familiar surroundings look, but the images in her head are becoming darker. Is her husband Morten (Rafaelsen) really going to work in the morning, like he says he is? Or is he staying in the apartment, secretly avoiding his wife? Is he typing emails to his colleagues or to a lover? Morten’s old friend Einar (Kolbenstvedt) is a cultural enthusiast; he treasures film and music. Yet he wastes time watching porn videos on the Internet and observing a Swedish woman Elin (Vitali) who lives in an apartment on the other side of the street. Elin has just gone through a divorce, and has lost her entire social environment. When something inexplicable happens, she can only turn to her ten-year-old daughter. And isn’t she being watched by somebody on the other side of the street?
Review: The story is complex. I had the impression to see three narrative phases. In the first phase I believed there were several stories. In the second it was confusing to me. In the third SPOILER I believed the stories were imagined or written by Ingrid. Finally the atmosphere of confusion is dominating within the friends having watched Blind as well. This confusion is interesting because it leads to different options and different points of views, different stories. Without the mystery of David Lynch movies, Blind brings the same strange feeling of confusion and suspense at the same time.  The acting is very good, convincing, although the roles have changing personalities. The scenery of the different appartments is interesting because they are quite neutral but with differences so that one knows that Ingrid is not always in the same appartment, as the other characters. This gives the impression that something is wrong. It could be that the times are different, or one part is real and the other is dream or imagination. That was also good.
Rating: 7 /10

En duva satt på en gren och funderade över tilvaron (2014)

	Also Known As: A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Eine Taube sitzt auf einem Zweig und denkt über das Leben nach
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Roy Andersson
	Actors: Nils Westblom (Sam), Holger Andersson (Jonathan), Per Bergqvist u. Solveig Andersson (Paar im Museum), Viktor Gyllenberg (Karl XII)
	Country: S
	Genre: Black comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 31.10.2014, CineStar3, NFDL2014, OV Swedish with German subtitles
Synopsis: As salesmen of novelty articles, Sam (Westblom) and Jonathan (Andersson) mean to spread a bit of joy among the people. The two take on their task without much success and with a tinge of melancholy, for it's a struggle to dispel gray loneliness from the world. With vampire teeth, canned laughter and monster masks in their luggage, Sam and Jonathan try to raise their fellow humans' spirits. But sales aren't really their thing, and often enough they're left holding the goods. Permanently broke, they argue about the best strategy for presenting their products.
Review: The movie is built with many episodes, some of them with the salesmen. Some others and actually for me the best ones are in a bar. Each episode is shot as a sequence-shot. Especially difficult for one scene with plenty of horses.  The colour and the picture (pale yellow, monotone, studio) reminds me strongly the previous movies by Andersson Songs from the second floor and You, the living and the humour (absurd things) looks a bit like the excellent Kitchen stories. This time I had even the impression that the faces were white painted to enhance this pale photography. Actually the producer explained after the movie that it has been shot exactly at the same location as the two above-mentioned movies by Andersson. The faces were painted also in the previous movies, but I did not notice at that time, or I just do not remember. The problem with the humour is that unlike Kitchen stories, it comes very seldom so that some it is hard to pay attention to the movie for long time but you have to, not to miss the few humourous peaks.
Rating: 4 /10

Pojken med guldbyxorna (2014)

	Also Known As: The Boy with the Golden Pants, Der Junge mit den Goldhosen
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Ella Lemhagen
	Actors: Lukas Holgersson, Olle Krantz, Nina Sand, Jimmy Lindström, Kurt Ravn
	Country: S
	Genre: Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 31.10.2014, CineStar2, NFDL2014, OV Swedish with German tone as well
Synopsis: Mats (Holgersson) finds a pair of trousers with pockets that are always filled with money. Together with his friend David (Krantz), he buys the whole toy department and lives it up without a care. But soon the trousers become an affliction. Large sums of money are disappearing from Sweden’s bank vaults without a trace, and the police are on the lookout for the financial terrorists. An evil weapon businessman William Otto (Ravn) kidnaps Mats’ father in an attempt to get the trousers. Mats, David and their new friend Livli (Sand) must face the danger and set things right.
Review: The story is based on a Swedish classical bestseller in 1967 by Max Lundgren. It feels like The goonies as the three friends have to make fun of the adults (police and bandits) also with the help of an adult, the homeless Zeke (Lindström). It mixes fun, picture of an absurd society ruled by money on one side (William Otto role) and totally independent from money on the other side (Zeke role and at some time the children). This aspect is interesting for a movie having children and youth as aimed public. The rythm is there. There is no directing mistake but it is not original. Maybe due to the aimed public.
Rating: 6 /10

Nordic Film Days Lübeck 2017

JoRafCinema will attend the 2017 edition of the Nordic Film Days in Lübeck, Northern Germany. This will take place from November 1st to November 5th 2017 in the Hanseatic city of Lübeck open to the Baltic sea.

We had since 2014 a lot of fun in this festival and experienced many excellent movies and events. You can select in JoRafCinema all the movies seen in NFDL2016 by searching NFDL2016. The same method works for NFDL2014 and NFDL2015.
This year JoRafCinema intends to share even more with you this festival. The movies, the venues, the side events. And maybe this will give you some motivation to watch Scandinavian and Baltic movies or to pass by Lübeck for the Film festival.

Kapitalisms Skersiela (2013)

	Also Known As: Capitalism at Crossroad Street, Kapitalismus an der Crossroad Street
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Ivars Seleckis
	Actors: -
	Country: LV
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 31.10.2014, CineStar6, NFDL2014, Latvian with English subtitles
Synopsis: Crossroad Street is like a small village in the middle of Riga. People know each other and they stick together. In this film, director Ivars Seleckis drops in on the odd residents for the third time. He has documented the lives of these simple people twice before; first at the end of the 1980s after the dissolution of the USSR and then at the end of the 1990s, after Latvia regained its independence, both times of change. The changes visible on Crossroad Street this time are a consequence of the financial crisis. We visit single mother Daiga, who barely makes ends meet, and mortician Aldis, who believes the apocalypse is coming and lost his Jacuzzi in the wake of bankruptcy. Seleckis lets a bit of irony shine through with his Crossroaders, as they reflect on their lives in uncertain times in short sequences combined with sequences from the past, which highlight the changes, but also much that has remained constant.
Review: The movie has been shot over three years in order to get enough peaks that are shown starting in Spring and ending in Winter. This is the daily life of the street inhabitants. Seleckis did already a similar documentary about the same street in the 80s and in the 90s. There is a birthday, the holidays of the son living in England, supper with a couple of homeless, a party. We see also how the people try to get enough income for those, the most, who do not have much. Collecting metals, selling the family belongings on the market. One has almost been married to an Italian but the egalitarian culture inherited from the Soviet times clashed against the traditional patriarchal Italian culture. This is an important point as I discussed afterwards with people from East Germany. They told me that it is the same in Eastern Germany, where women went to work. Since the reunification, they see that in Western Germany, the society is much more patriarchal. It is chocking and they are right! There is actually no point of view on the capitalism as the title could suggest. It is a picture of this microsociety. With indeed consequences of the capitalism or better said of the globalisation like having low salary, be forced to move far away from the family, know foreign people.
Rating: 5 /10

Ekskursante (2013)

	Also Known As: The Excursionist, Die Streunerin
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Audrius Juzenas
	Actors: Anastasija Marcenkaite, Raisa Ryazanova, Igor Savochkin
	Country: LT
	Genre: Drama, War
	Conditions of visioning: 30.10.2014, CinStar5, NFDL2014, OV Lithuanina/Russian with English subtitles
Synopsis: Following World War II and the establishment of Soviet power, there were mass deportations of residents of Baltic States to remote regions of the Soviet Union. The goal was to solidify Stalinist control and to prepare for a long-term population transfer. More than a hundred thousand Lithuanians were deported to Siberia. This fate also threatens 10-year-old Marija (Marcenkaite). Penned up in a crowded freight car with her heavily pregnant mother and other women, she finds herself on her way to the gulag. When her mother dies en route, Marija manages to escape.
Review: The story is based on the true story of a Lithuanian girl who managed to come back to Lithuania crossing 6000km (in the movie the girl makes about 900km). For the director, who answered some questions after the movie, the movie deals with the second world war, which stopped in 1968 with the death of the last deported soldier (i.e. resistant) chased by the Soviet Union, a long time after 1945. It is "a story on belief and power". It is the first time I see a movie from Lithuania working out their Second World War. Sociologically it is necessary to turn the page for the country to move on by catharsis. This is thus a road movie using car, train, plane, feet and meeting first Russian support with a grandma (Ryazanova) and her son (Savochkin) but also the soldiers. The atrocities that are shown or suggested are real. I saw the same in the Museum of the occupation of Latvia (other Baltic county) in Riga. The acting is right and has been for sure motivated by the story and the directing. The directing is indeed very good without being arty, for the camera, the natural lights, the scenery. Time to time the colours look like in the Technicolor of the 50s, especially when there is the coming back to Lithuania.  The Lithuanians have been chased because they were considered as Nazis by the Russians. The movie shows good and bad Russians (helping Marija or not) and almost only good Lithuanians, apart from the family who stoled one house. I do not know the History of Lithuania good enough and my quick search did not find any Nazi issues. But I guess, as any occupied country the y must have had people working for the Nazis and resistants.  The director Audrius Juzenas presented his movie in Moscow and in Lithuania. He explains that iIn both sites, "the reactions have been very polarised" and contradictory. Saying that it was both pro- and anti- Russian. In a time of tension between European Union and Russia, this political polarisation is easy. The movie was not polarised in one or the other direction and fulfills its cathartic job, normally for the best, that both countries can start again to work together.
Rating: 8 /10

He ovat paenneet (2014)

	Also Known As: They Have Escaped, Auf der Flucht
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: J-P Valkeapää
	Actors: Teppo Manner, Roosa Söderholm
	Country: FIN
	Genre: Drama, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 30.10.2014, CineStar3, NFDL2014, OV Finnish with English subtitles
Synopsis: Shy Joni (Manner) has to perform alternate military service at a home for problem youths in the country. There he befriends the unmanageable punk Raisa (Söderholm), who wants nothing more than to escape. One day the two of them take a car belonging to the facility and embark on a seemingly endless journey across the country. Joni hardly says a word, since he stutters. Still, the fire which extroverted Raisa wears on the outside burns inside him as well and she keeps urging him on. Free from any authority, they live every day to its fullest, though the emotional and physical shadows of their past catch up with them.
Review: The story merges a teenager/young adult drama in which both know each other and find a balance of their own behaviour and feelings; and a thriller part in which I was bluffed by the downhill of nihilism against both characters. There are not many dialogues but the communication to the viewer is done via other means, sounds, music and close-ups on the faces of the two main characters.  The directing is original with many good ideas in the story for events in the story or how to use the scenery (e.g. milk packs, masks, animals).
Rating: 6 /10

Kahdeksan Surmanluotia (1972)

	Also Known As: Eight deadly shots, Acht tödliche Schüsse
	Year of first release: 1972
	Director: Mikko Niskanen
	Actors: Mikko Niskanen, Tarja-Tuulikki Tarsala, Paavo Pentikäinen (Reiska)
	Country: FIN
	Genre: Melodrama, Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 30.10.2014, CineStar4, NFDL2014, OV Finnish with English subtitles
Synopsis: In the winter of 1969, Tauno Pasanen shot four policemen in a small Finnish village. This real event was the rationale for Mikko Niskanen’s work on an epic about the difficult lives of simple people in the countryside. At the beginning of Niskanen’s version, shots are fired by the farmer Pasi (Niskanen). The rest of the four episodes show in flashbacks what led up to this bloody deed. Niskanen doesn’t judge his protagonists, but rather portrays their situation in detail. Taxes and land reforms threaten the farmer’s existence so that he can no longer pay his bills, seeking refuge in the alcohol that will destroy his family life.
Review: The movie is not supposed to be really a documentary. But the way it is shot is so real. The real daily life on the countryside. That I claim the movie as a documentary. Pasi has a small farm with four cows, one old horse and a bit of land. With his best friend Reiska (Pentikäinen) and some others he used to make vodka in the fields or the woods while they are working. This brings difficulties with the police everytime he gets drunk in public, especially because home-made alcohol is prohibited in Finland. His wife Vaimo (Tarsala) does not support him that much because she is afraid of his violence when he is drunk and has four children to deal with. The difficulties of small farmers compared to large farms is well known everywhere now in the news, especially since the European policy supports more the large ones. This brings difficulties to Pasi with the tax administration that is forcing him to sell his horse. An initial version of the film ran twelve hours; this version, the remaining 300 minutes are considered by Aki Kaurismäki to be the best Finnish films of all time.
Rating: 7 /10

Miss Julie (2014)

	Also Known As: Fräulein Julie
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Liv Ullmann
	Actors: Jessica Chastain, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton
	Country: N
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 29.10.2014, CineStar5, NFDL2014, OV English without subtitles
Synopsis: On Midsummer’s Eve of 1890, the young aristocrat Julie (Chastain) dances with her father’s house servant John (Farrell). In the estate kitchen, Julie meets John, a valet. She invites him to another dance and, despite their class difference, perseveres in seeking out this educated, experienced man. The servant’s formal reticence soon gives way to the couple’s mutual attraction. During the course of the night, Julie and John circle around.
Review: The story has been written for the theater and this becomes clear as we mostly see one room, the kitchen  and seldomly the bedroom of Kathleen (Morton) or the stairs close to the kitchen and at the beginning and the end the beautiful park around the castle. The story is quite simple even if the evolution of the characters is not simple. The dialogues are very good and bring a lot of drama that Chastain manages to communicate subtly covering herewith many feelings along the movie. Colin Farrell's gestures are sometimes well mastered as well, but for several scenes completely and very exaggeratedly shaky when he should show an inner dilemma.  The light was well mastered but the focus not at all. Or I misunderstood something. For instance, during a dialogue between Julie and John the focus is done on a cup on the table and the rest is slightly blurred. And this happened often, that the focus is done on something during the whole scene and not on the one or the other character.
Rating: 4 /10

Nordic Film Days 2016 in Lübeck

After having experienced the Nordic Film Days in 2014 (read article here) and the opportunities to watch Baltic movies being almost null and very limited for Scandinavian movies, I am glad to visit this beautiful city and nice festival since then. This is then the third edition covered by JoRafCinema. 
You can select in JoRafCinema all the movies seen in NFDL2016 by searching NFDL2016. The same method works for NFDL2014 and NFDL2015. 

 

París norðursins (2014)

	Also Known As: Paris of the North, Paris des Nordens
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson
	Actors: Björn Thors, Helgi Björnsson, Nanna Kristín Magnúsdóttir
	Country: IS
	Genre: Drama, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 02.11.2014, CineStar2, NFDL2014, Icelandic with English subtitles
Synopsis: Hugi (Thors), a teacher, has gone to seek shelter in a village in the west of Iceland, where it’s nice and peaceful and predictable. He has an affair with Erna (Magnúsdóttir). This comes to an abrupt end when his father Veigar (Björnsson), from whom he’s heard nothing in years, suddenly announces a visit. Father and son are not exactly compatible. The only people messed-up, mid-30s Hugi can relate to are the other two members of the local Alcoholics Anonymous group. Veigar, freshly returned from Thailand, is more of a young-at-heart playboy, and also a passionate beer drinker. But after considerable start-up difficulties, they recognize they have something in common; they’ve both found ways to avoid facing up to themselves.
Review: The story is not very original. Alcohol issues. Father and son's lack of communication. We do not enter much in the personalities of neither the son nor the father. There are a couple of funny scenes and a first scene very well shot: Hugi is running for a few minutes and at the end come the dialogues, all this in one sequence-shot.
Rating: 3 /10

Hallåhallå (2013)

	Also Known As: Hallohallo
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Maria Blom
	Actors: Maria Sid, Johan Holmberg, Carl Jacobson
	Country: S
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 29.10.2014, Kolloseum, NFDL2014, OV Swedish with German subtitles
Synopsis: Disa (Sid) and Laban (Jacobson) were a happy couple with two children. But now Laban seems to have found not only a new love but also a new life. He looks good; his new style suits him. Disa, on the other hand, is still the same old Disa, stuck in their old apartment, always helpful and self-sacrificing, ordered around by her boss at the hospital and by her mother. But then one day, when she’s handing over the kids to her ex in the library, she meets unconventional Kent (Holmberg).
Review: Maria Blom comes back nine years after the good Masjävlar (aka Zurück nach Dalarna). Actually she did two other movies in the meanwhile (Nina Frisk and Fishy). I liked a lot Masjävlar at its release and therefore I had to watch this movie. The poster of both movies are similar. Same blue background, similar flowers and the main character face.  The story is authentic and also interesting as turning points for people in their 30's. The message in most of the stories told in the movies, the main one and secondary stories, is that it is good to see what is wrong in one's life, then to make something to change it is actually even better!  The directing is well done, with the movements of camera at the right time and place to generate a comical effect. There are a lot of daily objects and situations but the way to react on these situations makes the comedy in this movie. I do not know whether I was in a special good mood nine zears ago but this new movie does not let the same impression on me.
Rating: 5 /10