Finishing School

Maybe some of you have come across the term Giallo before. A type of Italian thriller that bubbled up in the sixties, it became very popular in ‘The Boot’ at the beginning of the 1970s. Filmmakers and screenwriters fused noirish murder mystery and tense thrills – usually with high doses of violence and more than suggestive nudity to create a crime or horror leaning story that could both scare and titillate its audience. Think of it kind of like when pulp fiction meets slasher film. One example that actually shows ‘some’ restraint in both of the above categories is Luciano Ercoli’s 1971 motion picture, Death Walks on High Heels. With definite connections to Alfred Hitchcock (Vertigo, Psycho) and many other thrillers of the past, as well as bringing to mind the 80's work of Brian De Palma (specifically Dressed to Kill and Body Double), the sordid tale follows a sultry stripper by the name of Nicole Rochard (credited as Susan Scott, a model who used the stage name instead of her original Spanish one, Nieves Navarro).

A violent dystopic vision of the future, Kinji Fukasaku’s 2000 feature film Battle Royale sets up a scenario in which adults do not trust children – as a lack of jobs, student protests and many other ominous happenings have led to the government passing the controversial BR Act. Selecting one class each year, the students will be transported to an uninhabited island where they will have to duke it out until only one teen is left alive. A more intense, visceral example of The Hunger Games, it is set up to quash the idea of rebellion, dissidence and youthful exuberance – a horrific example of a totalitarian government with no scruples when it comes to curtailing the behaviour of its people.

The saying ‘the eyes are the windows to the soul’ is perhaps no better explored than in the Argentinian Academy Award winning (for Best Foreign Language Film) 2009 motion picture The Secret in Their Eyes. Though the face is often inscrutable, as many put on masks to hide their true feelings from those around them, the eyes truly show the love, hate, lust, passion, pain regret and confusion that lies just below the mysterious facade. Co-written, directed, edited and produced by Juan José Campanella, the story follows retired criminal investigator Benjamín Esposito (Ricardo Darín) as he contemplates the innumerable hours he spent on the Liliana Coloto (Carla Quevedo) murder case (it is his white whale) by way of writing a novel. Struggling with a proper beginning, he visits Judge Irene Menéndez Hastings (Soledad Villamil), who he worked with all those years ago (the murder took place in 1974).

Made with a surprisingly nuanced touch and a quiet grace by a first time filmmaker, Jean-Pierre Melville’s (Le Samouraï) 1949 drama Le Silence de la Mer is a philosophical study in how the lives of two individuals are affected when an occupying German soldier billets at their house, and, in turn, how living in their home changes him during World War II. Based upon Jean Bruller’s novel of the same name (which he published under the nom de plume Vercors), it became a symbol of resistance against the Nazi occupation of France (Melville himself was a part of the French Resistance, as was Bruller). As an interesting sidenote, Bruller discovered that Melville was planning on making the movie without the rights to his work. Meeting up with the filmmaker, he threatened to burn the negative if he did not like it, yet he allowed him to make the movie in his own home just outside of Paris. The pact was that Bruller would show his version to 24 former Resistance members and that they would have to unanimously give it their blessing (or Melville would burn the negative in front of the author). 23 of 24 voted in favour, the sole individual to go against the crowd did so not because he disagreed with the content of the film, but rather, how he found himself as part of the panel (as a last minute substitute – which offended him). Melville won out and Le Silence de la Mer became a huge hit in France.

It would be hard not to argue that the fall of the Berlin Wall was one of the most iconic moments of the last thirty years. Dividing families, separating a city, forming a chasm between the Western and Eastern world; the Berlin Wall was a symbol of the borders that we, as humans, put in our own way, blocking us from achieving unity and peace. The fall of the wall was an empowering and supremely positive event, and Wolfgang Becker’s 2003 film Good Bye Lenin! is a heartfelt motion picture that builds an intriguing family centred story around the iconic happening. Narrated by Alex (Daniel Brühl), a twenty-something who lives in Berlin on the east side of the wall, he transports us through a tumultuous year in his family’s life. With a father that fled to the West without his wife and children, Alex has grown up with a mother, Christiane (Katrin Saß), who has become married to the Socialist Fatherland. An idealist and ardent patriot, she is enamoured with the system that she lives within. Alex’s older sister, the quirky Ariane (Maria Simon) also lives with them (she has an infant daughter).