war

Canary (2018)

André Crous

Canary is a coming-of-age film set in apartheid-era South Africa that also marks the coming of age of contemporary South African cinema.

Kanarie-CanarySouth Africa
4.5*

Director:
Christiaan Olwagen
Screenwriters:
Christiaan Olwagen
Charl-Johan Lingenfelder
Director of Photography:
Chris Vermaak

Running time: 120 minutes

Original title: Kanarie

Johan Niemand (literally, “John Nobody”) likes fashion, music and Boy George. But he lives in a small town in Christian-heavy apartheid-era South Africa, and it goes without saying that, for someone like him, the road ahead isn’t going to be easy. To make matters worse, we meet him fresh out of high school, just as he is called up to serve in the military.

A bit like its Pied Piper‒inspired opening credits sequence, Christiaan Olwagen’s Canary (Kanarie) is a flaming, mesmerising piece of work that viewers will have a hard time resisting. The film deftly navigates the minefield of recent South African history, littered as it is by racial segregation, religious supremacy and repressed sexuality. And it is the latter that features most prominently, although the film frequently chooses creative and insightful discussion over easy wins.

In that opening scene, two friends bribe Johan to walk down the road of their provincial and presumably conservative neighbourhood decked out in a big white wedding gown. We later find out he’s made a habit of doing whatever he can to earn money in order to buy LPs so that he can escape his surroundings, even just for a moment, by listening to his Walkman. It is a scene that seamlessly combines the fear of being different with the elation of imagining a world where you don’t have to fit in but others will join you in expressing yourself.

But expressing oneself in 1980s South Africa often meant being separated from one’s peers. Johan, played by Schalk Bezuidenhout (who, in what seems like another life entirely, is actually a moustachioed, curly-haired stand-up comic in his native South Africa), is conscripted just as South Africa is about to mark 20 years of ongoing conflict in neighbouring Namibia and Angola. War and manhood, then as now, are perceived as two sides of the same coin. Johan rightly assumes that his only way of surviving the dreaded “national service” is to be selected as a Kanarie – one of two dozen young men who form the South African Defence Force Choir and Concert group. To his utter relief, he makes it through.

Although slightly out of his comfort zone at first, he quickly bonds with two fellow Canaries: the camp but stout Ludolf (Germandt Geldenhuys) and blond, bespectacled fellow country boy, Wolfgang (Hannes Otto). They tease and support each other, particularly when they are verbally abused by their superiors.

One such superior is the young “Corporal Crunchie” (Beer Adriaanse), nicknamed for his copious consumption of the oat-based delicacy Ludolf’s mother packs for her son. Addressing the recruits as “ladies” is the mildest of the insults he hurls at them, which often include an array of ever more creative epithets associated with both male and female genitals. Loquacious and vulgar, the corporal is a slightly out-of-control version of Full Metal Jacket’s infamous Gunnery Sergeant Hartman and easily rises to the challenge of using words as weapons to emasculate his recruits, despite many of them having developed a thick skin after years of being bullied at school.

When the Kanaries go on tour and stay with host families, Johan and Wolfgang often share a room and grow ever closer, which gradually tears the soft-spoken Johan apart. Swinging between exhilaration and despair, he struggles to accept himself as he is convinced God will punish him for what he desires.

From the very first moments, Canary sets itself apart from the rest of the flock. The audacious decision to shoot scenes in single takes (or to give them the appearance of being shot as such) is both a blessing and a curse. Director of photography Chris Vermaak utilises his Steadicam to full effect to have conversations play out in a coherent, inescapable space. During Johan’s audition, the camera makes a seemingly impossible move as it appears to be drawn to the singing by passing through a table – the inverse of a similar shot in Citizen Kane.

However, while there is no question Olwagen gets to show off his talents as a director and the cast gets to flaunt their acting skills, the incredibly mobile camera can become distracting, if not downright repetitive as it pushes in or out on static action while panning and tracking on more mobile actions. The same is true of the recurring breaking of the fourth wall, which would have been more effective had it been used more judiciously.

By contrast, one of the most memorable shots is also one of the simplest: a single minutes-long close-up on Johan’s face that expresses everything we need to know and will strike a deep emotional chord with many a viewer, not unlike Ingmar Bergman’s similar approach to a rape scene in The Virgin Spring. Another devastating moment emerges out of the palpable tension of Johan and his sister trying but failing to address a serious topic as they sit shoulder to shoulder in a doorway and the camera has nowhere to go.

Above all, Canary puts onscreen some of the best acting ever shown in an Afrikaans feature film. For once, the actors don’t sound like they belong on stage and, unlike almost every single Afrikaans television series or feature film out there, no scene opens with people laughing at a non-existent joke. They are immediately recognisable as characters fully rooted in and representative of the real world, with their conversations having the colour and texture to make them both layered and accessible.

Tackling nationalism, religion and sexuality in a single film and doing so without veering off into the territory of self-congratulation or pontification is above most filmmakers’ pay grade, but Olwagen and fellow screenwriter Charl-Johan Lingenfelder stay close enough to Johan to allow us a sense of intimacy while pulling back far enough to take in his immediate context. He is the centre of attention in every single scene, and this first-person perspective, which includes many a music-video-style fantasy, boosts our empathy for him as he comes not only of age but of identity.

Christiaan Olwagen has made his material sing, and it’s as good a harmony as anything his characters belt out.

Viewed at the 2018 Cape Town International Film Market and Festival.

Unbroken (2014)

André Crous

Story of Louis Zamperini gets sumptuous treatment in a dramatically uneven retelling of his World War II ordeal.

unbrokenUSA
3*

Director:
Angelina Jolie
Screenwriters:
Joel Coen
Ethan Coen
Richard LaGravenese
William Nicholson
Director of Photography:
Roger Deakins

Running time: 135 minutes

Life is what happens while some are just trying to survive. In Unbroken, Angelina Jolie’s epic, ambitious but also commendably restrained retelling of the life of Louis Zamparini, the canvas is vast and so, too, is the range of pain inflicted on a young man during wartime. Jolie proves to be enormously talented as a storyteller, but unfortunately, the film is preoccupied with showing us that everybody has their reasons. In so doing, and by watering down the violence and bloodshed, it also commits the indefensible sin of downplaying the horrors of war.

Zamparini’s life was filled with good fortune but also a great deal of physical suffering at the hands of his captors, and the desire to survive obviously makes him a heroic character that deserves the big-screen treatment. The film plays it safe throughout, making sure to achieve nothing higher than a PG-13 rating by having children-friendly dialogue and restraining its depiction of violence; however, in its final moments it goes for broke by clearly drawing a visual parallel to Jesus Christ on the cross, and the absurdity of this comparison leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

British actor Jack O’Connell does a fine job in the lead, his clean-cut face serving him well as both the romantic representation of the wholesome American and ultimately as the object of sadistic affection of one of his detention camp guards in Japan, the feared Matsushiro Watanabe, better known as “The Bird” (Takamasa Ishihara).

The first half of Unbroken opens above the Pacific Ocean, aboard a B-52 bomber during the Second World War, where Zamperini is in charge of dropping the bombs at exactly the right moments. There are some hairy situations with the boys in the aircrew nearly losing their lives, and at the most dramatic point in the scene, the film cuts back to Zamperini’s early childhood in Torrance, California, with his Italian immigrant family. He was headed towards teenage delinquency when his older brother noticed how fast he can run, and suddenly, in a jump cut that comes as no surprise, we see him running as a teenager who has turned into an athlete of some renown.

After a few more scenes during the Second World War, we get yet another flashback to Zamperini’s early years, during which he sets off to compete in the Olympics in Berlin, Nazi Germany. This section of the film is magnificent, not only because of the overwhelming success of director of photography Roger Deakins in recreating the feeling of being inside the enormous arena but also because of the subtle but powerful moment that is so brief the viewer might miss it on the first viewing: When all the athletes gather inside the stadium and the cauldron is lit, Zamperini looks behind him and sees a Japanese athlete looking back at him. They smile at each other in sportsmanlike camaraderie, both elated to participate at the highest level of their game. But as we watch them, the dramatic irony is evident as the bloody United States–Japan war scenes from earlier in the film still ring in our heads.

Once we return to the battlefield, we stay there, and it is a never-ending parade of misery for the poor Zamperini, who spends weeks on the open sea before being taken captive and held as a prisoner of war by the Japanese until after the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The quick pace of the first half slows down significantly in the second, as the screenplay focuses intently on Zamperini’s ordeal in the detention camps and the unjust treatment he receives at the hands of the androgynous Watanabe, whose ambiguous behaviour towards the Olympic athlete makes him a menace from whom we can only expect the worst. Viewers familiar with Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence will notice familiar traits in the Japanese sergeant, but unfortunately, Ishihara doesn’t bring much to his performance except sexualised menace.

In the film’s final moments, however, Jolie reveals the story behind Watanabe, and while this explanation in no way excuses his actions, the glimpse into his own story does offer us a way of recognising the humanity in some of the most malicious people we have ever come across. But perhaps it is a good thing Jolie decided not to show Adolf Hitler at the Berlin Olympics.

“A lifetime of glory is worth a moment of pain”, Louis’s older brother tells him in one of the film’s many trailer-ready snippets of dialogue. “If you can take it, you can make it” is another oft-repeated saying. The inspirational power of these two expressions is lost because the moment we hear them, very early in the film, we know they will be important later on.

Given Deakins is the film’s director of photography (the visual stalwart of the films of the Coen Brothers, who co-wrote the film’s screenplay), it should come as no surprise that the images are gorgeous, as all the yellows and browns are tinged with gold, and the blues of the sky and the ocean hew between azure and a clear green-blue, respectively.

As Russell “Phil” Phillips, one of Zamperini’s crewmen aboard the bombardier, who endures much of the same hardship throughout the film, Domhnall Gleeson delivers a poignant, highly memorable performance. By contrast, Zamperini’s parents are caricatures of Italian-Americans, and his mother in particular, who never learns a word of English, is maddeningly simplistic.

With Unbroken, her second feature film as director, Jolie plays it too safe. Despite the publicity around the film that stresses the personal importance of the project to her, we feel little passion, and only a handful of scenes have the visceral quality we expect from a war film. The notable exceptions come during the characters’ near-death experiences, when the tension is handled admirably without sentimentality or exaggeration.

On the whole, however, the film is rather disappointing, with dialogue that is often stilted and situations that, while perhaps historically accurate, have little credibility when they are stacked together like here. It remains to be seen what becomes of Jolie as a director; as a storyteller, she is very capable, but as a filmmaker, she still has some way to go.

No Man’s Land (2001)

André Crous

Bosnia and Herzegovina
5*

Director:
Danis Tanović
Screenwriter: 
Danis Tanović
Director of Photography: 
Walther van den Ende

Running time: 95 minutes

Original title: Ničija zemlja

No Man’s Land is a small yet devastating film about two soldiers from opposing sides stuck in a trench on the battlefield (no man’s land), somewhere near Tuzla in Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. The central action of the film takes place over the course of a single day, and in these few hours of sunlight, we get a very human take on the story of war and especially the lives affected by it.

One night, under thick fog, a group of Bosniaks forming a relief squad are led to their base, but the guide gets lost and they end up falling asleep. At daybreak, they discover that they are sitting ducks and when the Serb forces arrive in their tanks, the Bosniaks have to run for cover. Čiki (Branko Đurić), who wears a Rolling Stones “Tongue and Lip” T-shirt all the way through the film, initially appears to be the only one to survive, and he ends up in a trench halfway between the Bosniak and the Serb camps – in no man’s land.

When two of the Serbs are sent to the trench to make sure that all the Bosniaks had been killed, one is killed by Čiki and the other, Nino (Rene Bitorajac), a young inexperienced soldier, is injured. Nino and Čiki, both speaking the same language, Serbo-Croatian, have a heated discussion about the origin and the development of the war, and Čiki, his gun pointed straight at Nino, finally has to agree that the Serbs started all the madness. Many such admissions are made under duress, and Čiki doesn’t fail to remind Nino who has the gun.

But they are both stuck in the trench together for two reasons: Neither of them can be sure that the other side will respect a cease-fire if they are rescued or return to camp; and a bouncing bomb had been placed under a Bosniak soldier, who turns out not to have been dead, and unless a deminer saves the soldier, Ćera, his friend Čiki insists that they all stay in the trench. Since he has the gun, there is no use arguing.

Tanović’s script is light on action but heavy on tension and very incisive dialogue that clearly captures the human face of the drama of warfare. These are two people who often don’t know what to do next, but when one of them sees an opportunity to establish power over the other, he goes for it. Caught in the middle is Ćera, who can’t move for fear of setting off the bomb underneath him and blowing them all to pieces.

When UNPROFOR (the United Nations Protection Force) is called in to mediate and resolve the situation, we realise very quickly that they are out of their depth, somewhat willingly, and refuse to get involved because they are in Bosnia strictly for the purpose of delivering humanitarian aid. A French sergeant, Marchand (played by Georges Siatidis, who is fascinating in this role), is clearly frustrated by his superiors’ lack of compassion but manages to secure media exposure (and pressure on UNPROFOR), when he meets Jane Livingstone, a news correspondent out in the field.

Livingstone’s overly dramatic character, and her news broadcasts, are perhaps the only weak spot in the film and suffers from the film’s small budget, but her purpose is clear: Her presence at the scene compels the UN to protect lives instead of merely sustaining them, but she will also go to great lengths to interrogate all the parties implicated in the story without really grasping anybody’s point of view. From the outside, the whole setup seems like internal madness, but the subtitles provide the viewer with a very fine understanding of the different reasons for the soldiers’ actions.

The film shows the inadequacy of the UN and especially UNPROFOR during the war. This is understandable, given the international forces’ infamous timidity when faced with the situation at Srebrenica in 1995, which they allowed to happen because of such administrative restrictions as a mission of non-involvement.

No Man’s Land advances in a way that gives us a sickening feeling of inevitability, and a situation that is grim because we see people doing things they know to be wrong, but which they must do to save face or to obey the orders of their callous superiors. The humiliating effects of these decisions are visible in the close-ups of Ćera’s face. The film contains almost no extradiegetic music and makes important points in a subtle way, by means of a photo in someone’s hand or a story about a girl in Banja Luka whom both Nino and Čiki had known.

Tanović is a Bosniak himself, but his film treats the two sides with equal respect and is certainly one of the most poignant war films of our time. A comment by one of the men in the relief squad at the beginning of the film (“A pessimist thinks that things can’t get worse; an optimist knows that they can”) becomes more and more relevant to the situation the men find themselves in. These are not heroes: They are men caught in a war, and they don’t want to die. No Man’s Land‘s acknowledgement of this basic truth makes the film stand out from the crowd.