VarietyLA DVFLA021312 : Page 78 V ARIETY .COM/BERLIN MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2012 BERLINALE SPECIAL I, Anna (U.K.-Germany-France) A Global Screen and Exponential Media presentation in association with Greenstreet Entertainment, FFHSH and DFFF of an Embargo Films, Riva Film, Arsam Intl. pro-duction. (International sales: Global Screen, Munich.) Produced by Felix Vossen, Chris-topher Simon, Michael Eckelt, Ilann Girard. Executive producers, Paul Steadman, Thor-sten Ritter. Co-producer, Jo Burn. Directed, written by Barnaby South-combe, based on the novel by Elsa Lewin. Camera (color, widescreen), Ben Smithard; editor, Peter Boyle; music, Kid; production designer, Tom Burton; art director, Astrid Sieben; set decorator, Barbara Herman-Skelding; costume designer, Pam Downe; sound, Giancarlo Dellapina; stunt coordi-nator, Tom Lucy; assistant director, Mike O’Regan; casting, Gail Stevens. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale Spe-cial), Feb. 11, 2012. Running time: 91 MIN. Anna Welles ............... Charlotte Rampling DCI Bernie Reid ................. Gabriel Byrne DI Kevin Franks ................... Eddie Marsan Janet Stone ................................ Jodhi May George Stone ......................... Ralph Brown Stevie ..................................... Max Deacon Joan ................................. Honor Blackman Emmy .................................. Hayley Atwell (English dialogue) By JUSTIN CHANG N ot even a typically com-mitted performance by Charlotte Rampling can keep “I, Anna” from playing more like “Oy, Anna.” A risibly convoluted London noir about an aging divorcee whose severe case of the lonelyhearts sends her careening from one fatally bad decision after another, this feature debut by Rampling’s son, TV/theater helmer Barnaby Southcombe, does a predictable, preposterous story no favors by making it do non-sequential nar-rative cartwheels. Classy lead pairing of Rampling and Gabriel Byrne will ensure some offshore sales, but poor word of mouth looks to keep arthouse biz at a trickle. After an opening scene in which Anna (Rampling) makes an increasingly desperate phone call, the content and significance of which won’t be revealed until later down the road, the film winds its way back in time to the point where her troubles began. Still not quite over her divorce from a significantly younger man, Anna attends a speed-dating function in London, where she gets chatted up by bachelor George Stone (Ralph Brown). Some time later, it seems, Anna has a brief run-in with a detective, Bernie (Byrne), who is investigat-ing a bloody murder at a nearby high-rise. Despite this inauspi-cious beginning, Bernie can’t get the gravely elegant Anna out of his mind and winds up following her into another speed-dating event, where they bond over stories about their respective failed marriages in a moodily romantic sequence set to one of several soundtrack contributions by British singer-songwriter Richard Hawley. It’s at this point that the flash-backs start coming fast and thick, as the film (adapted from a 1990 novel by Elsa Lewin) begins to piece together details of the crime Bernie is trying to solve, never mind that even halfway attentive viewers will have solved it five minutes ago. Also in the mix are a troubled young lad (Max Deacon) and his mother (Jodhi May), whose connection to the dead man is nothing short of a red herring. Per-haps most egregiously, there are glimpses of Anna’s happy home life with her daughter (Hayley At-well) and granddaughter, scenes that seem to have been thrown in for the sole purpose of compound-ing tragedy with tragedy at the film’s overwrought climax. Through it all, Rampling tem-pers her usually steely affect with a heartrending vulnerability that keeps you watching, even when the film heaps so many indigni-ties and so much ill fortune on Anna that it starts to play like a demented cautionary tale about the potential pitfalls of looking for love in one’s twilight years. Thesp conjures a nice crackle of chemis-try with Byrne, although the script would have done well to make Bernie less of a sad sack. Moodily lensed in widescreen in London and Hamburg, Germany, the film at times goes for a deliber-ately blurred, impressionistic look, adding some widescreen smudges but little in the way of creepiness or tension. Editing scheme, how-ever dictated by the contours of the script, is misguided. Shota Matsuda stars as a violent young punk in Gu Suyeon’s “Hard Romanticker.” MARKET ning time: 108 MIN. With: Shota Matsuda, Sei Ashina, Kento Nagayama, Tokio Emoto, Atsuro Watanabe, Shidou Nakamura, Awaji Keiko, Kaname Endo, Kurodo Maki. Hard Romanticker (Haado romanchikkaa) (Japan) A Toei Co. release of a Hard Roman-ticker Prod. Committee (Toei, Kinoshita Group, Kadokawa Haruki Office, Toei Video, Nihon Shoumei, Molotov Cocktail) production. (International sales: Toei Co., Tokyo.) Produced by Kimio Kataoka, Ma-sahiro Harada. Executive producers, Naoya Kinoshita, Haruki Kadokawa, Shigeyuki Endo. Directed by Gu Suyeon. Screenplay, Mitsunori Gu, based on the novel by Gu Suyeon. Camera (color, widescreen), Hideyuki Bushu; editor, Kazuhisa Taka-hashi; music, Kaoru Wada; production de-signer, Tomoharu Nakamae; sound, Shin-suke Nagashima; Naruhiko Yanagisako. Reviewed on DVD, Berlin, Feb. 11, 2012. (In Berlin Film Festival — market.) Run-By MAGGIE LEE L ife in a Korean ghetto in Japan’s gang-infested Shi-monoseki city is no bed of roses, according to the cockily amoral and unsparingly violent “Hard Romanticker.” With stylistic pizzazz and humor as dry as a shooter, writer-helmer Gu Suyeon makes his firsthand recollections of delinquent hi-jinks gleefully anarchic and consistently entertaining. Add to that an incorrigible hero (Shota Matsuda, oozing bad-boy sex appeal) who’s roman-tic in his thuggery, and the pic should pummel its way unop-posed into genre fests and cult-action ancillary. Viewers of Gu’s sophomore feature, “The Yakiniku Movie: Bulgogi,” a feel-good escapist celebration of Japanese-Koreans’ culinary heritage, will be ill pre-pared for the hardboiled nature of his new outing. Putting a briskly paced, visually dynamic spin on Gu’s own semiautobiographical novel, the pic starts impressively in media res as bleached-blond South Korean punk Gu (Mat-suda) makes hair-raising leaps across rooftops with irate nas-ties in hot pursuit. Cut to another Turn to page 16 GENERATION KPLUS — OPENER The Children From the Napf (Die Kinder vom Napf) (Docu – Switzerland) A Xenix Filmdistribution release of a Cine production, in association with SF/ SRF Idee Suisse. (International sales: Atrix Films, Starnberg, Germany.) Produced, directed, written by Alice Schmid. Cam-era (color, DV-to-35mm), Schmid; editor, Caterina Mona; music, Daniel Almada. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (Gen-eration Kplus — opener), Feb. 11, 2012. Running time: 91 MIN. With: Kilian, Dario, Thomas, Erich, Robin, Michaela, Carolin, Jannic, Severin, Reto, Markus, Julia, Celine. (Swiss-German, German, English dialogue) “The Children From the Napf” covers a year in the life of Swiss tykes. 6-13, who attend a school in a mountainous region between Berne and Lucerne. Docu and kid-focused sprocket operas should take a look, though the padded-out running time and meandering narrative also allow for easy repackaging for the tube. Some kids have to walk for miles, while others have to take a cable car to get to their school on Mount Napf, an area accessible only on foot. Pic follows them for a year, with the passing of the sea-sons clearly visible when they help out their parents with farmwork on the slopes. Besides straightforward observational shots, the tykes also speak directly to camera, which yields a few pearls of child logic but otherwise fails to develop any sustained argument beyond the implicit contrast with other First World children. Digivid quality is mediocre, transfer to 35mm some-what wasted. By BOYD VAN HOEIJ H Charlotte Rampling and Gabriel Byrne star in “I, Anna.” andling scythes, gas burn-ers and heavy farming equipment is child’s play, but spelling is a whole different ballgame for the pint-sized pro-tags of “The Children From the Napf.” Like her medium-length docu work, this feature debut from Swiss helmer Alice Schmid focuses on children, this time a group of Helvetian pupils, ages Publication List Using a screen reader? Click Here |
