POSSESSION no stars

 My Turkey of the Year back in 1981 I've naturally avoided watching "Possession" again during the last 40 plus years but then it has built up something of a cult critical reputation and Isabelle Adjani did win both the Best Actress prize at Cannes and the Cesar for her performance so perhaps I was wrong? Let's just say that it's definitely an acquired taste and one that I didn't have back in the day. Now, having seen it again, I can safely say it's a taste I have yet to acquire nor one that I want to.

Back then I thought it was just a 'bad' movie but now it's almost like a parody of a bad movie, part horror film and part send-up of those deeply serious Eastern European or Nordic sagas of failed marriages, shot in English, (big mistake thought I'm sure subtitles wouldn't work any better), and appallingly acted by both Adjani, (Best Actress? What were the Cannes jury thinking of?), and Sam Neill. I can understand it having a cult reputation in the 'bad movie' stakes but I certainly can't understand the critical praise that's been heaped on it over the years. Yes, forty years on it still stinks to high heavens!

THAT THEY MAY FACE THE RISING SUN ****

 Joe, (Barry Ward), and Kate, (Anna Bederke), have returned from London to rural Ireland. He writes, perhaps a novel, perhaps not, while she sketches and makes little decorative pieces from twigs and bits of wood. The rest of the time they simply try to manage the small farm holding on which they live, mostly with the help of kindly neighbors. The seasons pass and nothing out of the ordinary happens; one neighbor marries and another dies and we simply observe the small details that make up these people's lives.

Based on John McGahern's novel, Pat Collins' really quite extraordinary and quite extraordinarily moving film "That They May Face the Rising Sun" could best be described as Ireland's answer to the films of Ermanno Olmi or maybe the Taviani Brothers. Gorgeously shot on location in County Galway this is one of the greatest of films about rural life and the day-to-day existence of people who have nothing and yet who want for nothing.

Director Collins is fundamentally a documentary film-maker and he brings a documentarian's eye to bear on proceedings here drawing extraordinarily naturalistic performances from his cast. Veteran Irish actors like Sean McGinley, Lalor Roddy, Ruth McCabe and Brendan Conroy are doing perhaps their best work here and it's hard to believe that Phillip Dolan as one kindly neighbor has never acted in a film before. Leads Barry Ward and Anna Bederke are also superb in their quietude and their empathy, outsiders who nevertheless feel like the backbone of their community, magnets drawing others to them for help or just for a listening ear. A masterpiece that simply has to be seen.

AFIRE ****

 I still tend to think of Christian Petzold as a 'new' director though he has made 10 feature films in the past 23 years. German born, you might say he's an art-house director who makes commercial films or at least films that are accessible to a commercial audience but which are intelligent and more cerebral than anything you are likely to see in your average multiplex.

"Afire" begins and remains something of a chamber piece as holiday-makers Leon, (a superbly sullen Thomas Schubert), and Felix, (Langston Uibel), are forced to share their holiday home in a forest on the coast with Nadja, (Paula Beer), a friend of the owner who happens to be Felix's mother. Initially not a lot happens as the two men bicker over work assignments, (Thomas is a writer and Felix is a photographer), and household chores while Nadja is having rather loud sex in an adjoining room while the forest fires that have been plaguing the area move closer.

Petzold's genius is for taking the banalities of everyday life and building them into a series of little dramas helped considerably by the brilliant performances of his small cast and by not giving too much away. Are Leon and Felix lovers or just very good friends and who is Nadja and why is she even there and is Devid, (Enno Trebs from "The White Ribbon"), Nadja's summer fling or something more?

Petzold only lets us get to know his characters gradually just like we might get to know them in life and they turn out to be affectionate and funny people in what is really an affectionate and funny film but also a very sad one. Life may deal us a bad hand but we make the most of it just like the people in Petzold's lovely, if ultimately tragic, new film.