Results of the 16th Film Festival in Marrakesh

The Red City of Marrakesh is outlandish gardens at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, ancient walls quoting the Qur'an with the help of Arabic scales, French signs, American advertising.

One of the main imperial centers of Morocco is called red by the color of clay, from which Medina is made - the oldest part of the city, surrounded by a fortress wall. In the maze of narrow streets, life flows like a thousand years ago. The invasions pull you to the mountains of spices, inlaid silver jewelry, carpets and mesh lace of lamps. Berbers scurry in dark cloaks with hoods, women-in velvet robes and Babusha slippers ... And you will remember Mironov in the "Diamond hand": you won’t get out of here without help. Help, however, will arise right away. For some 70 dirhams you will take you. I ask the local "conductor" than the city is dear to him. He answers: here not one of the past times has disappeared, it is nearby, laying and mixes with other times, other smells. But at the same time retains its color and sensation.

Behind the nondescript ancient walls are luxurious luxury. Many hotels resemble fairy -tale palaces. Among the paradise gardens, the most famous is Jardin Majorelle, named after its creator - the French artist Jacques Majorel. “Jardin Majorelle became famous thanks to Yves Saint Laurent, who built a home-made house here and in his secluded paradise, sown with exotic plants from Bugenvilles to banana trees, spent a lot of time.

Robocop on Jamaa-El-Fn

The film festival in Marrakesh fits seamlessly. On all highways, squares - festival flags, posters. The shows are not only in the glass geometric Haitecsky Palace of Congresses, but also in other halls. And in the evenings the city watches a movie on a large screen stretched right on the famous historical square of Jamaa-El-Fn in the heart of Medina. Here, as in the film about Aladdin’s magic lamp, dancers, snake spells, interpreters of the Qur'an, fortuneteller, healers, tatuers henna gather. Dagging in jackets and uggs (the temperature by night drops up to 10 degrees), the Moroccans watch Robokop. The film represents the legendary Paul Verkhoven (a separate page of the festival - “Dedication to Verkhoven” and the retrospective of his films). I don’t know if local spectators saw the “main instinct”, but they clearly like Robocop.

The International Film Festival was created at the beginning of the zero king Muhammad VI shortly after the events of September 11 as a bridge between civilizations. As part of his program of "development of human potential." Chairman of the film festival Prince Mulai Rashid, the king's brother. His royal Highness is the doctor of law, trained in the USA. At the reception of the prince, one could get used to the role of a “subject” - the Royal Protocol service strictly monitored compliance with the rules and etiquette. The festival is brilliantly organized by the French and Moroccan teams. Therefore, the largest directors and actors come here. Over the years, the review was accepted by Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Abbas Kiarons, Emir Kusturitsa, John Malkovich,

Claude Lelusha, David Lynch, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Bill Murray and almost all French movie stars. This year, the number one star was Isabelle Jupper. Immediately two excellent paintings with her participation (“She” and “Memory”) were presented in the competition, the actress handed the award to Paul Verkhoven on an evening dedicated to the Master’s contribution to world cinema. The jury was headed by outstanding directors, this year - Bela Tarr ("Curse", "Turin horse").

A little heart in transparent water

The competition program is surprisingly a lot of decent copyright works. These films, already marked by many festivals from Cannes, Venice, Locarno to Toronto, are unlikely to buy our distributors. But very soon, they can be found on the network, and see their firsthand - what the world author's cinema lives.

The “King of the Belgians ” is the mockier of Jessica Woodworth and Peter Brosens. During the official visit to Turkey, the Belgian king and his retinue are overtaken by the sad news: Wallonia is separated from Flanders, the country is cracking at the seams. Here begins the cascading voyage of the “royal circle” to the center of the European Union with an illegal crossing of borders. The king is dressed in the soloist of the Bulgarian folk choir "The Black Sea Sirens"; Svita participates in the competition for the best yogurt in one of the villages of Serbia; They meet yesterday’s sniper Dragan in Montenegro, today - the quietest peasant ... Transfigured by the road through problem -based Europe, the king and his advisers are completing a trip in an Albanian prison. One of the main characters of the film is the operator who at first was to shoot the official video of the king's visit. And he took off the "forbid." The comedy of Jessica Woodworth and Peter Brosens suffers from excessive constructiveness, which is more than compensated by the ease of intonation, the ability to self -irony, the ability not to look back at “higher comrades”.

“The Road to the Mandalay” is a modest, expressive social cinema about the ordeal of illegal emigrants. The heroine of the film Midi Zeda, dreaming of a bright future, plans to escape the car in the trunk of a car from the burma drowning in the Civil War to Bangkok. She offers her place in the cockpit in love with her, the Burmese. Then there will be her torment in Thailand. And all this burden of unsolved problems falls on the shoulders of a cute girl who compensated for a normal life. Zed retained the branded signs of his style - long plans, a melancholy sound environment, the documentary “portraits” of Bangkok, in which a person dissolves, is erased to the dust on the sidelines of the road.

"Fixer." In journalistic jargon, the so -called person who helps visiting journalists to establish ties with local residents. The film Adrian Sitarus has all the shades of Romanian cinema: unobtrusive intonation, attention to details, a rare sense of authenticity. Raud, a trainee in the French News Agency, solves problems for the Hedlinalist Hedlinalists. Work as work. It is necessary to interview a minor prostitute repatched from Paris and her mother mired in poverty. But Raud “hung” in the moral choice between rational career interest and uniforms of intangible values. The drama of the talented representative of the Romanian wave is good in the absence of any moralization. This ability to include the viewer in the stream of ordinary and unpredictable screen life is a sign of actual cinema.

In the " Stone Heart " of the Icelander Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson, there is no dynamic intrigue. A small village on the edge of the cold sea, where everyone knows each other. Teenagers catch fish, fight, stare at the girls. Games play with “desire or truth”, experience the first attraction ... Behind the facade of the “soft -aging” cinema, the drama of growing up is barking. The discovery of their bodily, sexual identity as an injury. A painful attempt to understand the inlaxation of another. And all this is on the shaky, like a short Icelandic summer, the border between unbearable happiness and tragedy. Each frame breathes in this film, and the figurative row does not protrude, visual poetry does not boast of itself, dissolves in the prose of life.

Among the best films of the competition - “ a knife in transparent water” Vanga Ksuebo is a minimalist parable about the indissoluble connection of life and death. According to the local tradition, the old man who buried his wife must sacrifice his old bull on the 40th day. In anticipation of the death, the bull sees a knife blade in the water ... and refuses to drink. Yes, and the old peasant how to decide to kill a close being with whom life is associated?

In the competition, Russia was represented by the “ Zoology” by Ivan I. Tverdovsky - one of the most unexpected copyright works of Kinoad. The pre -retirement age of the zoo Natasha (brave and tender work of Natalia Pavlenkova) goes to the clinic. From the therapist to the radiologist, from the radiologist to the surgeon. Soon, very unattractive atavism is discovered - a bald tail. Sur and everyday, animal and divine change roles in the film. The animals that Natasha take care of are similar to people. Natasha "Products" according to the zoo, on the contrary, purely animals. The references of the authors are not only for Gogol's reasons, but Balabanovsky “About freaks and people”, epics, like the Scandinavian legends about the mythical forest, tail of the Huldra woman, and, of course, the recent cartoon Svetlana Razguleeva “Why the banana snaps”. The tail is a metaphor of the other. Excommunicated. From the people shy away from Natasha. From the right to happiness. A tragifarsal story about shame, sin, about a monstrous fear ... to discover yourself true. And about love as a way of self -knowledge.

I must say, our film has perfectly fed into the landscape of modern young cinema (there are many debuts in the program, but more importantly, the films selected in the competition are distinguished by the search energy).

Duelian and Aladdina

Each year, the festival is arranged by the initiation of one of the world cinema. The 16th Forum paid tribute to Soviet-Russian cinema. An unprecedentedly large program - about three dozen paintings. The history of the country through the history of cinema (from the “Ivan the Terrible” by Eisenstein to the “dudes” of Todorovsky and the “fool” Bykov). Representative delegation (from Shakhnazarov to Mizgirev and Tverdovsky). Two air scarves - white and red - flew beautifully among the fans. Two dancers - Moroccan and Russian - were dancing in a squat. The eternal “Fam Fatal” Fanny Ardan uttered a solemn and touching speech about our cinema, which is the most “sincere”, “exciting”. And our film artists are free and brave (perhaps she had in mind the authors of previous generations). Then there was a cut of classics and modern cinema. Mostly militarized. The guns shot, the stroller rolled down the Potemkin staircase, the war in the films of Bondarchuk, Kalatozov, Klimov, Bodrov was glowing. Only closer to the finale beauty and love saved the world (“Russian ark”, “about love” and “dudes”). The final of the celebration was the “duelist” by Alexei Mizgirev - the “special event” of the festival. Emotional journey to mystical Petersburg, to literary -centric Russia of the 19th century. The story of a strap shooting at other people is a thick mixture of Lermontov, Kuprin, Pushkin and the adventures of the Rockbool. “Duel” fell to his liking not only to the Moroccans, vigorously applauding the film. Fanny Ardan extolled the ingenuity of the director and his picture, which reminded her of the “Count of Monte Cristo”, but with Russian emotion. Perhaps Muse Trufffo would not refuse to star in the next tape of our courageous Mizgirev.

The Sinefils who come to Morocco are interested in: is the same restaurant where the events of Kasablanka - melodrama, which became a legend, unfolded? In fact, the film in the military 1942 starred in Hollywood pavilions, and not in a distant Casablanca, surrendering to Vichy's regime. But nostalgia for your favorite movie is a strong thing. The American Katya Kreiger opened a vintage cafe in Casablanca with the same name as in the film: "At Rick." The club’s atmosphere recreated in it, where the nuar history of the heroes of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman unfolds. Here you can smoke, and, it seems, the smoke of cigarettes, with which Rick Blaine Bogart does not part, has not yet been dispelled. Truly, the dream factory whispers its names, smells, its rhymes, its own fairy tales.

I remember that the sorcerer from Maghreb in the Arab fairy tale appealed to the stars so that they told him the name of the new owner of a lamp capable of creating miracles. Bela Tarr and his jury called the names of the new authors. The new aladdins of a magic lantern, whose light, like the smoke of a cigarette of an impenetrable boar, does not disperse.

Marrakesh - Moscow