Movie reviews

And yet from before the lockdown (some more is coming shortly):

HER DOCS FILM FESTIVAL

ORGANIZING THE (IM)POSSIBLE

Watchable. The shaky animation distracts from the words. I'd rather see more of the rooms to clean and at least the maids' damaged hands - never shown even once. I'd like to see their faces too, not just off-screen voices. But the hazardous working conditions and employee selection based on their vulnerability are interesting.

LA VIE D'UNE PETITE CULOTTE (THE STORY OF A PANTY)

Watchable. About hazardous work conditions too. But also about the ease of getting in the "cotton expert" job and nearly impossibility of getting out. And again with most utterances from the off-screen. Too much rambling about nothing. Would work better as a short.

The festival had quite an audience - nice and perfumed, around 95% female.

GOD IS NOT WORKING ON SUNDAY!

Watchable. The first half an hour brings nothing new to the Rwandan subject, just some feminist cliches. But the documentary shot over 8 years (2007 - research, no camera, gaining trust, 2008-2015 shooting) follows the best possible structure, getting heavier and heavier with hard-hitting: "the rain used to be red", the chilling reconciliation scene or the talk about being unable to look in the eye the child from rape.

Extra info coming from the Q&A after the screening: It also shows 2 ways of dealing with the memory of genocide: Germans after the Holocaust didn't talk for 25 years.The silence in Germany, in the director's eyes, is the reason behind current attacks on foreigners, even killings by the secret service. The director went to Cambodia when she was 16 but people wouldn't want to speak. Rwanda's better off because now they live in peace. In Rwanda, the well-planned reconciliation process hastened the pragmatic coming to terms with it. The perpetrators' detailed description of their actions makes them realize their guilt as well as provides information to the victims. And forcing forgiveness seems to work. To judge all the perpetrators would take 400 years because most judges were killed. 10-15 people yearly are killed now, 25 years later, because the culprits are scared to go to prison if revealed. The victims forgive so that no one will come and kill them at night. It also explains how the colonial divide-to-rule approach initiated the tribal division which resulted in the war. It took 2 years editing, with the women having the final say in what stays in the film. The director Photoshopped her permit to stay 4 years longer. Before the genocide women had no power, now Rwanda boasts the most feminized parliament in the world (64% female). The military government is a dictatorship though. The rape children get no support, not even HIV treatment.

PARNING (MATING)

Watchable. Hard to follow. Overloaded with technical gimmicks. If you don't understand Swedish, you often have to read the text messages in English and their subtitled voice conversation simultaneously. I also often lost the track of who was talking to who and about who. I was shocked how lightly the youngsters treated sex. The girl appears scatter-brained and drawing the guy into her craziness.

In the Q&A, both participants sounded like they wouldn't have started using Tinder if it hadn't been on the director's request. The weekly interviews would take 1.5 hours for him and 3 hours for the girl. They hadn't seen the other person's clips until the movie premiere. They both look quite ordinary now, the experimental phase is probably over. She used to think she was cool but then she saw herself. Edvin was also surprised with what he really looked like. Edvin doesn't find people jaw-dropping on Tinder as he does in real life when someone enters and he'd like their number. The filming stopped in 2017 and that was the end of "dating" as Edvin put it. So they decided to cultivate friendship instead, in order to learn to understand other people. But they're bonded for life through the movie.

What a waste of time when a Q&A is translated. You have to listen to everything twice. No wonder so many people leave in the course of it.