Nothing Personal

Showing at the Mar del Plata Film Festival: Nothing Personal, directed by Urszula Antoniak

Synopsis from the festival's website:

A girl looks out the window of her apartment in Amsterdam. Her belongings are downstairs, on the street. All alone in the empty room, Anne -that’s her name- takes her ring off: this is the first scene of Nothing Personal and that’s all the information we’ll receive about Anne’s past because Antoniak´s first film focuses exclusively on Anne’s journey to faraway lands. The place chosen by Anne for her intimate exile is Connemara, an inhospitable district on the west coast of Ireland. We see her walking like an unsociable vagabond through the roads of this austere landscape, searching for food in the garbage and baring her teeth to those who try to disturb her solitude. But then she meets Martin, a widow who is much older than her but equally determined to defend his isolation. She agrees to work for him in exchange for food and something begins to change in Anne’s interior. Using very few dialogues and taking full advantage of the enigmatic beauty of the Irish landscape, Antoniak finds the precise tone and rhythm to portray Anne’s transformation and the chemistry between Rea (Neil Jordan’s fetish actor) and the fantastic actress Lotte Verbeek, the great discovery of Nothing Personal. When our contemporary world is busy with issues of unification and integration, the two characters of Nothing Personal choose a solitude they see as personal freedom and comfort. But isn’t they longing for human contact? What are the stages of coming together of two people? Nothing Personal is a cinematic experience asking and answering these questions.

The film's website is here.

Eamon

Showing at the Toronto International Film Festival: Eamon, directed by Margaret Corkery

Synopsis from the TIFF website:

Made for less than five hundred thousand dollars, Eamon plays like the most expensive low-budget film you've ever seen. The result is a fabulously fresh and highly entertaining first feature.

Selfish, bratty little Eamon (Robert Donnelly) shoos his father aside for a privileged place in his mother's heart. King of her bed and dictator of all things quotidian, he leaves no space in her affections for anyone but himself, having banished his father to what feels like a distant planet – a planet where touching your spouse is punishable and sleeping on the couch mandatory. Lonely and sexually frustrated, brooding Daniel (Darren Healy) covers himself head to toe while bikini-clad Grace (Amy Kirwan) actively pretends he doesn't exist. Though he might not look it, their son is well aware of the parental climate and does his best to keep amorous heat waves at bay. Sitting between them every chance he gets, he insulates one from the other to make it easier to get what he wants – which is just about everything. Monopolizing attention and eliminating sexual desire is what Eamon does best.

A bright, satirical drama with dark overtones, Eamon follows this idiosyncratic trio on a family holiday of sorts, intended to give them a break from their dire financial straits. Unfortunately, salvation does not sprout on the Irish coast, and sooner or later they come face to face with their problems. Too bad one of the three has no interest in seeing them resolved.

Unexpectedly granted funds and full creative control by Ireland's Catalyst Project, a government initiative designed to nurture budding filmmakers, Margaret Corkery stripped her first feature down to its bare essentials: three leads, an uncluttered narrative and the merest sprinkling of ancillary characters. The film's strength lies in the details. One of the most important elements in Eamon is the weather: it might be sunny outside, but it's certainly raining in the master bedroom.

Listicky (Foxes)

Showing today at the Venice Film Festival: Listicky (Foxes), directed by Mira Fornay

Synopsis from the Venice Film Festival’s website:

Alzbeta and Martina are two sisters who have immigrated to Ireland. When Alzbeta decides to live with Ducky, a drifter she has just met, Martina, in a relationship with an Irishman, tries to keep her out of trouble. But Alzbeta cannot help clashing with her sister because of a tragic event in their past.

Trailer (without subtitles):

Fifty Dead Men Walking

Opening this weekend: Fifty Dead Men Walking, written and directed by Kari Skogland

Synopsis from the movie's website:

Inspired by Martin McGartland’s incredible autobiography, Fifty Dead Men Walking is the stunning new action thriller by Kari Skogland about a secret agent working undercover for British security services in Northern Ireland in the late eighties. Over the course of four years, until his betrayal and subsequent discovery, it was estimated that McGartland was responsible for saving the lives of up to fifty men.