SEEFEST 2015: OPENING NIGHT WITH JAPANESE DOG

Costache (Victor Rebengiuc) in Japanese Dog.

The bite and the bark

By Ed Rampell

From April 30 through May 7, the 10th annual South East European Film Festival is putting features, shorts, animation and documentaries that are primarily shot and/or set in Southeastern Europe in the limelight. As such, SEEFest provides a beachhead for cinema from this part of the world, giving foreign films entrée to moviedom’s world capital, Hollywood. It also presents avid filmgoers undaunted by subtitles with the opportunity to view works they may not otherwise get the opportunity to see, especially on the big screen. In addition to screenings at several L.A. venues , SEEFest co-presented its 7^th Annual Business of Film Conference, “Connecting South East Europe and Hollywood,” on May 2 at the Goethe-Institut, which, among other things, dealt with the complex issue of distribution in the lucrative, if insular, U.S. marketplace, followed by a networking luncheon.

The April 30^th gala at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills was well-attended by filmmakers, moviegoers and dignitaries, such as a representative of the L.A. City Council and the Swiss Consul-General, Jean-Francois Lichtenstern. The office of L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti and L.A. City Council presented proclamations expressing appreciation to SEEFest and its artistic director, Vera Mijojlic, plus to actor-dancer George Chakiris, who scored a Best Actor Oscar for 1961’s West Side Story. Mijojlic also presented Chakiris, who is of Greek ancestry, with SEEFest’s inaugural Legacy Award. 82-year-old Romanian actor Victor Rebengiuc was given SEEFest’s inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award in absentia.

However, Tudor Cristian Jurgiu flew to L.A. for SEEFest, accepting the award on behalf of Rebengiuc. Their film, the oddly named The Japanese Dog, then kicked off the Festival’s screenings, followed by a Q&A with Jurgiu conducted on the stage of the Writers Guild Theater by Mijojlic, along with questions from the audience, which then enjoyed a feast of Eastern European cuisine in the lobby festooned with posters of classic movies, many of them with texts in various languages.

No Reservoir Dogs, The Japanese Dog could also be entitled “The Anti-Avengers Film.” Typical Tinseltown escapist mass entertainment equates drama with action -- the more violent, the more “dramatic”, rendered through head spinning rapid cutting by no talent, harebrained sociopathic dimwits like Michael Bay appears to be. Of course, this is an expression of a sick society suffused with and suffocating in violence, where youths get their necks broken for the new thought crime of “looking while black”; the national pastime is a sport causing concussions, brain damage, etc.; and far away countries get shocked, awed, droned and attacked at the drop of a hat. Hollywood’s over-reliance on violence to peddle tickets is also a reflection of extremely bad writing by screenwriters incapable of subtlety and expressing conflict without bombardments, AK-47s, vehicular homicide, ad nauseam.

These screenwriters, directors, producers, et al, are unable to express deep human truths, whereas films such as the enigmatically named The Japanese Dog do, represent the drama of everyday life -- all without a single, solitary screeching car chase, explosion, shooting and the like. (There is, however, a sort of robot -- so maybe there’s hope for transforming Bay after all?)

The protagonist of The Japanese Dog is the antithesis of the Hollywood hero -- 80-year-old widower Costache (Rebengiuc) lives alone in a flood ravaged, dirt poor Romanian village. Costache’s estranged son, Ticu (Serban Pavlu), who has emigrated overseas, returns to Romania, along with his foreign wife, Hiroku (Kana Hashimoto), and their young son, Koji (Toma Hashimoto).

Costache and Ticu are faced with the conflict of resolving their estrangement and reestablishing that Turgenev-ian relationship between fathers and sons. And Costache must decide whether familial or national bonds are more important to him.

By La-La-Land escapist standards, Romania's latest Oscar-entry for Best Film in a Foreign Language (it did not make the cut) is excruciatingly slow moving (a pejorative in Hollywood), thoughtful and always deeply human, with heartfelt acting by an Eastern European master and the supporting cast. But Jurgiu’s 85-minute directorial debut feature has more humanity than all those dreadful Transformers movies put together. And The Japanese Dog does it without firing a single shot. Imagine that! 

As for why this Romanian movie is mysteriously named The Japanese Dog -- well, you’ll just have to see it yourself, Dear Reader. And thanks to SEEFest, American audiences got that opportunity -- as well as a shot at breaking into the American movie market. It may not be as action-packed as Marvel’s The Avengers, but The Japanese Dog is marvelous in its own way.

 

 

The 2015 South East European Film Festival takes place through May 7 with works from Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Moldova, Montenegro, Turkey, Kosovo, Georgia, Germany, Macedonia, Spain, Albania, France, USA, Denmark, Italy, Bosnia Herzegovina, Belgium, Greece, Azerbaijan, etc. These screenings mark the North American and/or West Coast premieres for many of the works. For more info see: seefilmla.org.