features

Hans Weingartner

Germany, Austria | 2004 | 126mins | 35mm | Colour | Subtitled

Rebellion is difficult for today's young people when there's the feeling that everything has been done before. Jan, Peter and Jule have their own answer. These are young-sters who take their politics seriously, campaigning against Asian sweatshops that make high-priced brandname sneak-ers and desperate for ways to make their mark on a heedlessly capitalist world. Using a membership list from the city's yacht club and armed with Peter's knowledge of alarm systems, they break into expensive mansions in the middle of the night. But they don't steal anything. They stack furniture, put objets d'art in the toilet and stick the stereo in the fridge. And they leave a note, 'Your days of plenty are numbered', signed 'The Edukators'.

Complications follow when vulnerable Jule ends up falling for both young men. Reckless choices result in danger. An operation gone wrong and what was never intended to be a kidnapping brings the three young idealists face-to-face with the values of the generation in power.

A fresh and likable tale of youthful idealism - Screen International

One of the Best Films at Cannes 2004 - The Independent

The Pang Brothers

Hong Kong | 2004 | 94mins | 35mm | Colour | Subtitled

The Eye 2 follows the pregnancy of Joey Cheng, a disturbed young woman from Hong Kong. Distraught over her break-up with her married boyfriend, she attempts suicide and thereafter has strange visions of dead spirits, primarily those of a menacing female. Joey's supernatural sightings understandably leave her agitated. More a dark, psychological mood piece than a horror film, this is a story of deep depression, isolation and possible madness. The supernatural is almost a result of these social ills and the fact that no one else ever sees any manifestation of these ghosts makes you wonder how much of it is only in her own mind.

The Pang Brothers pace the film exceptionally well, and handle events with requisite suspense and visual panache. Like its predecessor, The Eye 2 is given to slow visual exposition and moments of quiet dread.

The Pang Brothers wrap the film up with a conclusion that is unexpectedly tender and thought provoking. It also provides a coda which ranks among the most interesting of any recent Hong Kong ghost story. - Screen Daily.

Barbara Albert

Austria | 2003 | 120mins | 35mm | Colour | Subtitled

A butterfly fluttering its wings in a rainforest, sets off a tornado above the gulf of Mexico which causes the crash of an airplane leaving for Europe. A single passenger, Manu survives. Six years later we meet her again, living in a small town in Austria, working in a local supermarket. The film's several interwoven stories chronicle a year in the life of Manu, her family, friends and others.

What emerges is a wry, witty, tough but sur-prisingly tender study of people striving to find happiness, love, and a modicum of hope in the face of loneliness, misfortune, the inevitable prospect of death and the sheer chaotic uncertainty of existence. The film sound depressing, but Albert's unsentimental compassion, dry humour and cinematic expertise make for an invigorating, even heartening, experience.

I have seen Free Radicals 3 times now and could surely watch it 10 times more, finding something else on each visit to salve the soul. - Newsday

Albert's movie, with its beady-eyed engagement with corroded modernity, has something in common with the novels of Houellebecq. Fascinating stuff. - The Guardian