One of the great things about the cinema, especially for those of us who aren't able to do as much traveling as we'd like, is its ability to bring the world to us. A perfect example of how this works is Global Lens 2005, a traveling program of 10 feature films from countries that used to be called Third World, but that are now apparently part of a more PC-friendly place known as "the developing world." You may not be buying a plane ticket any time soon to Angola, Algeria or Bosnia/Herzegovina, but a seat at any of these movies is the next best thing (and a good deal cheaper).
The icing on the cake is that not a single one of these films is less than first-rate, and some of them are flat-out amazing. The icing on the icing is that Global Lens, which makes stops in only 14 cities across the country (mostly heavy-duty culture centers like New York, Boston, Seattle and Chicago), is coming to Sarasota. Burns Court is the place and March 18 is the kick-off date.
There are so many good films in this 10-day cine-feast that it's hard to know where to start, so let's simply begin at the beginning. Global Lens gets going with one of its very best, Bosnian director Pjer Zalica's Fuse (Fri., March 18, 5:30 p.m.; Tues., March 29, 5:30 p.m.). A multiple award-winner that screened at Lincoln Center's prestigious New Directors/New Films series and snagged the Silver Leopard award at the most recent Locarno Film Festival, Fuse is tragi-comedy at its blackest and funniest, a worm's-eye view of bad behavior so extreme it becomes positively comical.
The film focuses on a corrupt little village on the Bosnian frontier as the inhabitants go through the motions of cleaning up their act in preparation for a visit from then-President Clinton. A sublimely preposterous vision of chaos, crime and ethnic strife in a backwater no-man's land, Fuse savors and celebrates life's absurdities with a nutty panache worthy of early Milos Foreman or Monty Python.
Global Lens continues on Sat., March 19, with a 5:30 p.m. screening of Lili's Apron, from Argentinean filmmaker Mariano Galperin. The film starts out broad, loose and loopy, the story of a middle-aged chef who loses his job and winds up masquerading as a woman in order to work as a live-in domestic. Lili's Apron turns darker and more unsettling as it unfolds, and as its characters become more desperate, its physical comedy (guys in dresses are always funny, right?) finally gives way to a scathing commentary on the psychological toll of Argentina's ongoing economic crisis. Still, the film is a treat on several levels, complete with plenty of sequences that make good use of mouthwatering Argentinean cuisine.
Another remarkable blending of humor and pathos is Whisky (Sun., March 20, 5:30 p.m.), an all but unclassifiable film from Uruguay about a glum, middle-aged factory owner and his equally dour, long-time employee posing as a married couple in order to impress a visiting relative. The movie takes a vaguely sitcom-ish scenario and mines it for all sorts of unexpected dramatic riches, playing even the comedic moments as low-key and deadpan, while painting a bittersweet and oddly touching portrait of aging characters adrift in a society where nothing seems to work. A gem of a film, Whisky snagged top honors at festivals from Cannes to Tokyo to Brazil.
Three of the selections in Global Lens 2005 will be presented as free screenings with discussions aimed at high school students and teachers: Daughter of Keltoum (Wed., March 23, 5:30 p.m.; Tues., March 29, 9:30 a.m.; Thurs., March 31, 9:30 a.m.); Hollow City (Tues., March 22, 5:30 p.m.; Wed., March 23, 9:30 a.m.; Thurs., March 31, 5:30 p.m.); and Uniform (Mon., March 21, 5:30 p.m.; Tues., March 22, 9:30 a.m.; Wed., March 30, 5:30 p.m.).
A film about a European-raised Algerian woman who returns to her birthplace to find her mother, Daughter of Keltoum is an engaging feminist tract that exposes the casual cruelty towards women that runs rampant in the Arab world. Hollow City shows us what it's like to grow up in an urban war zone through the story of an Angolan orphan on the run in a country wracked by decades of war.
Perhaps the best of the batch (and certainly the most challenging), the Chinese film Uniform is the minimalist tale of a young tailor who impersonates a cop for profit, power, sex and other, more inscrutable reasons. The film offers a mysterious but exquisitely realized glimpse of sullen, alienated youth caught between systems, in love with the modern world even as it crushes them under its boot.
Global Lens runs through March 31, with some of the program's very best stuff showing up during its second week. Don't miss Buffalo Boy (Fri., March 25, 5:30 p.m.), a poetic and primal Vietnamese coming-of-age film with an almost mystical devotion to its watery, rural landscape. Kabala (Sun., March 27, 5:30 p.m.), from Mali, is a Shakespearean drama of jealousy, revenge and witchcraft refashioned as the myth-drenched tale of a banished African returning to his village and finding himself caught between tradition and modernity.
Alejandro Chomski's award-winning Today and Tomorrow (Thurs., March 24, 5:30 p.m.; Mon., March 28, 5:30 p.m.) is another slice of devalued life from Argentina, a brutally authentic day in the life of an out-of-work actress who resorts to prostitution to pay the bills.
And last but certainly not least, the Turkish film What's A Human Anyway? (Sat., March 26, 5:30 p.m.) paints a gloriously odd portrait of the exotic flotsam and jetsam of daily life in modern-day Istanbul, as observed by a doughy amnesiac and his thoroughly eccentric inner circle. As with all of the other films in Global Lens 2005, this may be your one shot at seeing this rare treat, so pounce.
lance.goldenberg@weeklyplanet.com
This article appears in Mar 16-22, 2005.