I wonder how the short films on the festival will compare to this

Chacun son Cinéma part 2

Instead of reading more Hetalia which is an amazingly beautiful parody of the WWII forces, with weak and stupid Italy as main character, I should continue commenting on “Chacun son cinéma” before I overload myself with an upcoming backlog due to the short film festival. (And since “Hetalia” has some heavy homosexual vibes, a group of mad girls is scanlating it, so check it out!)

Here we are, with the countries right to the Atlantic Ocean:

Manoel de Oliveira – Rencontre unique (Portugal)
It’s the pope and Khrushchev! The best part of it was when the pope patted Khrushchev’s belly (or was it the other way around?), saying that they have something in common after all, haha. So yeah, I liked it, but it didn’t make me laugh necessarily.

Ken Loach – Happy Ending (UK)
This story was pure brilliancy for me. It seems like I actually do enjoy British humor, and this one is quite a fabulous example. “Let’s go play football after all!” Ahaha.

Claude Lelouch – Cinéma de boulevard (France)
This is actually my favorite of the french ones. The reminiscence of ‘old times’ seems so typically french to me: It’s true that the great french directors are old, and the adoration of french people for the cinema (especially Hollywood screwball comedies) is definitely not for the contemporary Hollywood. Nothing seems as typical for the french cinema as tiny arthouse cinemas with obscure and old movies? So, this story seemed surprisingly sweet to me.

Olivier Assayas – Recrudescence (France)
How… stalker-ish! With that said, I wasn’t exactly fond of this story, especially because I didn’t see any relation to the theme ‘cinema’ besides that the whole thing played in a cinema.

Raymond Depardon – Cinéma d’été (France)
Another “what the heck” movie for me. I didn’t like the cinematography nor the atmosphere much, and my own perception of open-air cinemas surely are different from this short film’s, hmm.

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne – Dans l’obscurité (Belgium)
I have forgotten what happened, really. XXXD

Lars von Trier – Occupations (Denmark)
I have seen and commented on this before, and it probably will always stay one of my favorite short films. This is just how brilliant it is! XD

Bille August – The Last Dating Show (Denmark)
Somehow I didn’t like it (why is that idiot talking bullshit to her?), on the other hand, it was so subtly funny and nice (“There are three Goebbels inside there”, ahahaha). All in all, I have found this to be so beautifully danish XD

Wim Wenders – War in Peace (Germany)
Perhaps one might expect Wim Wenders to do something better, perhaps it would have been nicer if he did something about or in Germany, but considering how Germany actually had colonies, I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to set his story into Africa and showing a cinema as a symbol of peace. (The only thing I really disagreed with, however, was how he basically equals colonization and war.)

Nanni Moretti – Diaro di uno spettatore (Italy)
I liked his short film on the Cinema 16 European Shortfilms collection, and this one wasn’t all that bad either. Of course, I loved how the dialogue played the most important part in this short film too, and the close personal relationship with the cinema was nice.

Roman Polanski – Cinéma érotique (Poland)
Hahahaha! Polanski, I never thought you could also do something funny – and this one especially was. XD “Je suis tombé!” I liked it very much.

Aki Kaurismäki – La Fonderie (Finland)
Ah ah, Kaurismäki, what a communist you are. But, I really liked this portrait of those workers’ everyday life through their run-down cinema. And those facial expressions! I never actually saw a Kaurismäki movie but feel like his longer movies would exactly have the same atmosphere as this – just longer.

Theo Angelopoulos – Trois minutes (Greece)
What, this is Jeanne Moreau? Ahaha. Honestly I did not recognize her at all, she’s become pretty old, I guess. The dialogue was beautiful and well-executed, but the whole story made no sense for me unfortunately.

Youssef Chahine – 47 ans après (Egypt)
It started off really beautifully (Nice Matin nous a mentionné, hahaha!) and then it ended with the director getting his Cannes award, eek. That’s a little bit too much self-praising for my taste. And this “Be patient, it’s worth it” was kind of infuriating too; there are enough people in the world who work hard and are patient but it was not worth it.

Amos Gitai – Le Dibbouk de Haifa (Israel)
Uh, well, omigod, poor Israel being bombed. I think this film ranks last among all 33 of them, and perhaps deservedly so.

Elia Suleiman – Irtebak (Palestine)
Oh damn. I knew I liked this short film a lot, but I forgot why? Ah, but wait, it was the silver Peugeot! It was so great! So, is it a surprise that the palestinian entry was much better than the israeli one? Harr harr.

Andrei Konchalovsky – Dans le noir (Russia)
That woman was somehow… creepy. Apart from that, this is of course a beautiful tribute to Fellini’s “8 1/2” which I have yet to see, but perhaps I actually need to watch “8 1/2” to fully enjoy this one? Heh.

Abbas Kiarostami – Where Is My Romeo? (Iran)
Crying women, huh? Well, if that is all, I don’t really see the point. It’s too bad that this was the last of the short films we have seen.

In conclusion, I think that I typically prefer funny short films over those who are simply serious/meaningful or artistically and esthetically nice. If I ever wanted to make a short film, I’d also prefer to make it something subtly funny.

PS. Oh right, I have not thought of taking screenshots like I did for Cinema 16. Perhaps I will do so some day. XD