Waves made waves at the Hong Kong International Film Festival (Film review)

  

Advertising for the 49th Hong Kong International Film Festival

 

Waves (Czech Republic-Slovakia, 2024)

-  Jiří Mádl, director-scriptwriter

- Starring: Vojtěch Vodochodský, Ondřej Stupka, Tatiana Pauhofová, Stanislav Majer

- Part of the HKIFF's Global Vision program 

 

Another day; another Eastern European historical drama set in a time period which many people outside of the film's country of origin know was of major significance for its people, even if not knowing the exact details.  But whereas The New Year That Never Came (Romania, 2024) is set in the last days of a dictator's rule, Waves takes place over a longer period of time; one that saw both liberalisation and a political clamp down taking place.       

 

Jiří Mádl's film begins in 1967, when Czechoslovakia was firmly part of the Eastern Bloc and with hardliner Antonin Novotný as its president.  Repression is the order of the day but over at the International News Office of Czechoslovakian Radio, however, journalist Milan Weiner (portrayed by Stanislav Majer) is making waves by challenging the norm and seeking to broadcast the uncensored truth.

 

Before anything else, it should be made clear that Milan Wiener was a real life figure, and someone who -- this is not mentioned in the film -- was a survivor of Terezín and Auschwitz.  I think this is worth noting because it helps explain that he was a man who had already seen much horror in his life, and had experience with, as per the title of countryman Václav Havel's famous book, the power of the powerless.

 

Along with Weiner, the other journalists of the International News Office of Czechoslovakian Radio -- many of whom also were based on real people -- that he headed are presented as courageous individuals with no doubt that what they were doing was right.  And in all honesty, if Waves focused mainly on them, it would have made for a less complex film than that whose main character is a fictional Everyman who ends up working for there too pretty much by accident and, initially, actually against his will.

 

Tomáš (played by Vojtěch Vodochodský) is a technician and elder brother of Pája (essayed by Ondřej Stupka), an idealistic student who idolises Weiner and sought to work for him -- only for Tomáš to get chosen to do so instead!  Left orphaned after the untimely deaths of their parents, Tomáš worries that Pája will be removed from their home by the authorities.  And, in fact, Tomáš just comes across as someone who worries -- rather understandably, actually -- about a lot of things!

 

Tomáš' life gets more complicated after he is asked to leak information about his colleagues to the secret police.  Not doing so might affect his and his brother's living situation.  But doing so involved spying on, and even betraying, his colleagues -- whose work his brother thoroughly approves of and he does come across as actually also agreeing with, and being sympathetic to.  Adding to the moral dilemma that this involves, he gets into a romantic relationship with Věra (essayed by Tatiana Pauhofová), a worldly-wise -- she's returned from a stint in Africa -- colleague of his with a true passion, vocation even, for journalism.

 

Everything comes to a boil when the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia takes place in 1968. After he learns about the tanks coming to his country and city, Tomáš has to quickly make a fateful decision as to which side he's really on.  And, frankly, even though we know how things turned out then, and over the years and decades, the developments we see unfolding over the course of the movie make for thoroughly engrossing, gripping even, viewing.  

 

To judge from the enthusiastic rounds of clapping it received at the Hong Kong International Film Festival screening I was at, Waves' salute to independent journalism absolutely resonated with the audience I was with -- for good reason!  For the record: while it's common to hear clapping at the end of the fest screening, there were not one but three distinct waves of applause for this film.  Much deserved, really, for a cinematic work that's not only well made but also has messages that are admirable and inspirational.    

 

My rating for the film: 8.5          

A Czech film banned for close to 20 years viewed at the 47th Hong Kong International Film Festival (Film review)

  

A number of Hong Kong International Film Festival screenings

have sold out but tickets are available for some still

 

The Ear (Czechoslovakia, 1970)

- Karel Kachyna, director and co-scriptwriter (with two others)

- Starring: Jirina Bohdalova, Radoslav Brzobohaty

- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival's Restored Classics program 

Made in 1970, two years after the Prague Spring was ended violently when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia, this film by Karel Kachyna was only was released in Czech cinemas only after the Velvet Revolution that saw the Czechs peacefully depose their Communist government (whose regime is depicted in this politically critical work).  Upon viewing The Ear, it's easy to see why -- and it's actually quite surprising to learn that its helmer was not thrown in jail but "only" fired from his teaching position at the Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague!

 

The Ear begins with its protagonists returning home from an evening out at a party for the country's political elite and visiting senior Soviet military officers.  Ludvik (Radoslave Brzobohaty) is a deputy minister who finds out at the party that his boss has been deposed (and probably imprisoned).  His alcoholic wife, Anna, is oblivious for the most part to political shenanigans even while happy to be favored with such as a smile and being referred to by her first name by the nation's leader -- as was the case at one point in the evening.

 

It is Ludvik and Anna's 10th wedding anniversary; something which Anna is very aware of, and also aware that Ludvik has forgotten.  Although they have a young son that they both love, it is pretty clear from their treatment of each other that there's now very little love lost between them -- and may have indeed the case for years; with Anna implying at one point that Ludvik married her for the sizable dowry that her bar owner father paid out to his son-in-law.       

 

The couple spent the greater part of the movie bickering -- in ways which really don't show either of them in the best of light.  As they do so, it becomes clear that Ludvik fears far more Anna's loose lips divulging information than her disfavor or wrath.  Specifically, he worries that their residence has been bugged and prying ears are listening -- and will pounce on a secret that's indavertently revealed or anything that paints him in a bad political light, or that of the country's leader.

 

Such is life in a totalitarian regime that even those in power are liable to be "bugged" and perfectly able to be disposed as well as deposed at the whims of people more senior than them.  It is a great breeding ground for paranoia.  Also, you know what the proverbial "they" say: Just because you are paranoid it doesn't mean that they're not out to get you!  

 

This state of affairs is depicted very well indeed in The Ear.  What I appreciated less was the characterization of the film's two protagonists.  By this, I mean that both Ludvik and Anna don't come across as nice, sympathetic people.  So even while one feels disquiet and horror over the situation they are in, I have to admit to not having rooted as much for them as I perhaps should have!  And let's face it: watching people snap at and be nasty to each other for much of the film is something I don't find all that savory or entertaining!  Hence my lower rating for this work than otherwise would be the case.    

   

My rating for this film: 7.5

More agony for Hong Kongers on International Students' Day

Hong Kong is burning on the 30th anniversary

of the start of the Velvet Revolution :(

Messages on a cardboard mock-up of the Berlin Wall

erected this evening in Edinburgh Place, Hong Kong

What many Hong Kongers want

In a since superseded November protest schedule for Hong Kongers, there had been plans to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with a rally at Edinburgh Place on November 9th.  But the death of Alex Chow Tsz-lok on the morning of the day before put a stop to what would have been a happy as well as peaceful protest event.  

Although Hong Kong's troubles have continued into this week -- and, in the eyes of many (including myself) actually increased in intensity and seriousness -- no such decision was made to cancel a rally at Edinburgh Place this evening to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the beginning of Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution (and defacto beginning of the end of Communism in Eastern Europe).  And while public transport problems had caused me to abandon plans to attend a rally in support of, and to praise, Hong Kong's firefighters and ambulance workers on Thursday night, I arrived in Central this evening with sufficient time to peruse the messages written and plastered on a cardboard wall that had been erected there, and even add a couple of my own!   

A few minutes after 7pm, the rally officially began with announcements, including of the main themes of today's event, in Cantonese and English (with sign language interpretation also utilized at the rally).  A video was also screened which began with a look at Eastern Europe in the years immediately after the Second World War, included film footage showing the emergence and rise of Poland's Solidarity along with the creation as well as fall of the Berlin Wall, and ended with a recap of recent events in Hong Kong.

Also shown at the event were video recordings of what took place over in Mainland China in the summer of 1989.  And it once more tore at my heart to see idealistic students with little idea of what lay ahead for them and their country on June 4th of that year as well visual documentation of the massacre that Hong Kongers have continued to commemorate and mourn even while many Mainland Chinese can't, won't or are outright ignorant about.  

Three other things compounded the agony of this evening's re-watch of the massacre of students by the People's Liberation Army 30 years ago.  First was the fact that we were doing so just meters away from the Hong Kong headquarters of the same military force under the absolute control of the Chinese Communist Party.  Second was the same People's Liberation Army having ventured out into the streets of Hong Kong yesterday afternoon for what was clearly a propaganda stunt that I sincerely hope that the vast majority of Hong Kongers can see through (and thus react to with horror).  

Most upsetting of all was that midway through this evening's events, participants were sharing images posted online of Hong Kong Polytechnic University in flames (on the evening of what happens to be International Students' Day) and messages of the Hong Kong police having threatened the protesters there with the use of lethal force, resulting in an exodus of a good portion of the rally's crowd -- presumably to head over to try to help out the beleaguered protesters over across Victoria Harbour.  In all honesty, this was one of those occasions when one gets incredibly tempted to cease being a wo lei fei (peaceful, rational, non-violent) protester and one could sense the frustration and shame of people who elected to stay at Edinburgh Place and be so.  

A friend visiting from Germany invoked the protests led by Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King last night as examples of successful non-violent movements and why Hong Kong protesters should eschew violence.  But when I asked her if she thought Gandhi or King would have been successful against the Nazis, she fell silent.  

And yes, I know that it can seem like a cheap shot to some to compare Communist China to the Nazis.  On the other hand, one can't deny that Communist Chinese leaders have been responsible for a whole lot of atrocities and deaths, including of democracy-seeking university students and their supporters at Tiananmen Square.  Also, it can't be too much exaggeration to state that, after what happened over at the Chinese University of Hong Kong on Tuesday, people have good reason to fear that the Communist China-backed Hong Kong police may carry out their version of the Tiananmen Square massacre at Hong Kong Polytechnic University tonight. :(   

In the Intense Now and The China Hustle at the 2018 Hong Kong International Film Festival (Film reviews)

Chinese language banners for the Hong Kong International 

Film Festival and touting Hong Kong as "Asia's World City"

 

In the Intense Now (Brazil, 2017)

- From the HKIFF's Reality Bites program

- João Moreira Salles, director and scriptwriter

- Featuring: Daniel Cohn-Bendit

 

The late 1960s saw political turmoil in France (which saw a period of civil unrest that included labor strikes and students regularly taking to the streets to protest), Czechoslovakia (where the Prague Spring was followed by the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops led by the Soviet Union) and China (with the Cultural Revolution beginning and lasting all the way into the 1970s), among other territories.  

 

Born in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, in 1962, João Moreira Salles and his family were living in Paris in May 1968 but has no memories of those events even while retaining childhood memories of the holidays he spent back in Brazil during the same period.  Instead, he draws on the memories of others and a mixture of archival footage and precious "found footage" shot by unnamed private individuals (sometimes surreptiously, at what can be imagined to have been at no small amount of risk to their personal safety) to look at and consider how things were and must have felt to witnesses to history along with those who had a hand in making history in Paris and Prague while making use of amateur film footage that his mother shot while travelling in China the same year.

While there are some who might consider In the Intense Now lyrical, poetic, even profound, I feel obliged to admit my feeling disappointed by this essay film not being as, well, intense as I was expecting a documentary with that word in the title -- as well as the type of subject matter it addresses -- to be.  Also, I feel rather perplexed, even disturbed, by the way that Maoist China ended up serving as a bucolic backdrop for his mother's personal journey rather than be accorded the kind of socio-political analysis that was granted to France and Czechoslovakia in the documentary.

 

It's not just that this made In the Intense Now's China sections seem less interesting than the others in the film.  Rather, it shows up a cultural ethnocentrism that privileges the West over the East whose exoticism appears to overly enchant but also render less human and meaningful.  In this context, it says a lot that while individuals like French student activist Daniel Cohn-Bendit are explicitly named and focused on, along with then French president Charles de Gaulle and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, not a single Chinese person is actually named and otherwise rendered individually distinct at any point in this offering.

 

Then there's the matter of his perspective on Brazil in the film.  Serving in the main, like China, to tell a more personal story seemingly intended as a counterweight to historical events taking place around the same time in Paris and Prague, there's no mention of Salles' home country being under military rule -- a rule that came after a 1964 coup d'état and which only came to an end in 1985 with the election of its first civilian president since 1960.  In short: Even while much of what ended up being covered in In The Intense Now was intriguing watching, I found myself thinking of what Salles omitted and feeling the film suffered as a result of what he chose to leave unmentioned even while going on and on about events in other lands.

 

My rating for the film: 6.0 

 

The China Hustle (U.S.A., 2017)

- Also from the HKIFF's Reality Bites program

- Jed Rothstein, director and scriptwriter

- Featuring: Dan David, Matthew Wiechert, Carson Block, James Chanos, Soren Aandahl, Wesley Clark

 

Back in the 19th century, P.T. Barnum was moved to observe that "There's a sucker born every minute".  More than one hundred years on, we keep on being reminded of that, including by makers of documentaries such as Inside Job (2010), the Oscar winning work about the 2008 financial meltdown, and now also The China Hustle, which shows that various lessons have stayed unlearnt in the years since.

 

An economic suspense-thriller whose jaw-dropping last act effectively points to the show not being over yet by a long chalk, this documentary looks at American financial operators who conspire with businessmen in China to poach billions of (American) dollars from regular American investors who mistakenly place to much trust in their government and financial institutions, including big-name auditing firms and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.  But while it does feature a number of "talking heads", its use of film footage shot over in various parts of Mainland China as well as Hong Kong and American locations as diverse as Flint, Michigan, and Wall Street gives an idea of its ambition as well as reach.

 

Early on in The China Hustle, its de facto protagonist, investor turned short trader Dan David, announces that "There are no good guys in this story, including me."  In a story like this though, he and his fellow "bulls turned bears", including Matthew Wiechert, and the likes of fellow whistleblower James Chanos and his colleagues, are the fellows you'll find yourself rooting for -- even while what they do can destroy the fortunes and reputations of others (including personalities like General Wesley Clark, who, at first glance, seems to be the personification of a straight arrow guy) and financially enrich themselves.

 

Unearthing scams so large and bare-faced that it's a shock not only to realize that they're going on but that they're not punishable as a result of their perpetrators having figuring out how to take advantage of certain legal loopholes, The China Hustle is the kind of film that had me leaving the cinema all abuzz and eager to discuss what I had seen with somebody else who had seen it too.  Fortunately, in my case, I have such a friend -- whose review of the work had whetted my appetite to check it out even while admirably allowing for me to make my own discoveries along the way! 

 

My rating for the film: 8.5