As the festival gets underway, a quick look at a quintet of compelling international documentaries and narrative features.
With so many competing offerings at the Wisconsin Film Festival each year, it can be a formidable task to winnow things down or find the right film playing at a specific time. When the 2023 festival guide initially dropped on March 9, several of our writers colorfully offered their broad initial impressions on that announcement.
Today, on the first day of the festival’s 25th installment, which kicks off with the Ukrainian black comedy and family drama Luxembourg, Luxembourg (2022) at Shannon Hall (Wisconsin Union Theater) at 7 p.m., four of our writers have singled out five documentary and narrative features that hail from around the world—United States (Subject), Austria (Zoo Lock Down), Costa Rica (I Have Electric Dreams), Egypt (Cairo Conspiracy), and Japan (Love Life).
As we did last year in our efforts to build an eclectic itinerary, we hope these capsule reviews can help guide you if you’re still trying to finalize plans at any point during the festival—from films first hitting screens on early Friday afternoon, April 14 (I Have Electric Dreams), to some of the final shows on the final day of the festival, April 20 (Subject).
Catch up with our substantive coverage of the 2023 Wisconsin Film Festival here.
1. I Have Electric Dreams (dir. Valentina Maurel). Friday, April 14, 1:30 p.m. at Hilldale Cinema 5 and Saturday, April 15, 6:15 p.m. at Hilldale Cinema 5.
I have electric dreams / A pack of wild animals / Scream their love for each other / Sometimes with blows
Director Valentina Maurel’s debut feature derives its title—I Have Electric Dreams—from this early draft of a poem written by Martín (Reinaldo Amien Gutiérrez), a dissolute, hot-tempered translator and artist whose erratic behavior has estranged him from his family. As Martin’s rebellious, troubled 16-year-old daughter Eva (Daniela Marín Navarro) comes of age in modern San José, Costa Rica, the film centers on their complex relationship.
Unfolding in a strangely seamless succession of vivid fragments, Maurel’s 2022 film adopts a loose narrative structure and bold, exhilarating visual style to evoke Eva’s tumultuous inner and outer lives. The film’s restless vérité cinematography parallels the shifting, volatile connection between Martín and Eva with a strong undercurrent of anxiety and fear even in their most tender interactions. Maurel stitches together a rich tapestry of haunting images, fleeting impressions, and emotionally charged atmospheres, while gradually revealing a pattern of abuse and neglect.
I Have Electric Dreams touches on an array of weighty themes, including the cyclical nature of violence, the fragility of innocence, the boundless complexities of sex and love, the difficulty of transcending trauma, the therapeutic potential of art, and the contradictions of the human heart. As a recurring motif in the film, dreams serve to convey the nocturnal wanderings of multiple characters’ unconscious minds. For instance, Eva tells Martín about a dream in which she felt like there was magma underneath her. “That’s beautiful,” he says. “It’s threatening and soft at the same time,” a poignant metaphor for his personality.
A stark yet luminous portrait of a young woman on the verge of adulthood, I Have Electric Dreams dissolves the boundaries between pain and beauty, love and hate, right and wrong. Exploring the darker, hidden side of familial ties, it exhibits the rough texture of an experimental work in progress, which indeed amplifies the visceral power of its raw cinematic poetry. While the director claims that her film is not autobiographical, it nevertheless feels extremely personal, like the product of a survivor attempting to process childhood trauma and grief through creativity and expression. Although it may prove challenging for certain viewers due to its sometimes shocking depictions of mental, physical, and sexual violence, Maurel’s film strikes a delicate balance between honesty and restraint without in and of itself becoming a traumatic experience. —Jason Fuhrman
2. Zoo Lock Down (dir. Andreas Horvath). Friday, April 14, 5:30 pm at UW Cinematheque and Tuesday April 18, 1 p.m. at Hilldale Cinema 5.
The Salzburg Zoo is home to 150 species of animals, some of which you can meet and observe in the 2022 documentary Zoo Lock Down. Filmed during the early days of pandemic quarantine when the zoo remained closed to regular guests, Andreas Horvath’s documentary offers an exclusive, somewhat cheeky tour of the facilities and its bestial inhabitants with minor appearances from the humans who keep them fed, clean, and in one case, inseminated. With an unsettled bravado, Horvath leads an intrepid expedition back and forth from the primate house populated by lounging lemurs, squirrel monkeys, curious brown bears, flamingoes, and freshly shorn alpacas.
Although the creatures of the camera’s eye are mostly docile (save one shot of an alligator’s snapping jaws), the droning buzz of Horvath’s synth-based musical score leaves an ominous impression as seemingly benign daily feeding routines and activities play out through the course of the film. Although the ever-present music bed is somewhat exhausting, it does serve to apply a forward motion to the otherwise subdued and expected sounds of a zoo such as whirring aquarium tanks, rustling grass, and chirping birds.
Despite the somewhat forbidding nature of those sounds, soft yearnings of spring and lightness shine through with poetic pauses on the structural elements of the facilities—empty rain-soaked outdoor seating areas with chairs leaning almost expectantly on tables, or the freshly-budded green of the native Austrian vegetation lining the outdoor enclosures. Flashes of animal portraiture sneak into the zoo tour, leaving the viewer to take in the elements of the artistic representation of these creatures juxtaposed with their living and prowling presence. Overall, Zoo Lock Down accentuates a narration of fleeting presence by allowing exclusive access to the mundane and the relatively tame. —Hanna Kohn
3. Love Life (dir. Kōji Fukada). Saturday, April 15, 3:15 p.m. at Hilldale Cinema 6 and Sunday, April 16, 4 p.m. at Hilldale Cinema 6.
Inspired by Akiko Yano’s song of the same name, Love Life (2022), the new Japanese-French drama from Kōji Fukada, subtly dissembles any preconceived notions one may have about grief and how people express it. It’s a film so muted and restrained that audiences may not even realize they’ve been engaged in a transformational, two-hour exploration of life’s tragedies until they leave the theater feeling markedly changed.
The story follows Taeko (Kimura Fumino), her husband Jiro (Nagayama Kento), and her son Keita (Shimada Tetta) after their peaceful existence has been interrupted by a devastating accident. Taeko is forced to reckon with the reappearance of her ex-husband and Keita’s biological father, Park (Sunada Atom), as a result. To cope with intense pain and guilt, she decides to help her child’s deaf and homeless father, who abandoned both Keita and herself years earlier, get back on his feet.
Though this synopsis may come off as a bit “soap-y” to skeptics, Fukada manages to veer his creation into philosophical territory by treating unforeseen events with a mellowness that can be initially off-putting. This is not a film that sticks to the stereotypical pace, dialogue, or imagery of its genre. Instead, as Fukada directs the events, Taeko falls into hysterics once or twice over the aforementioned “tragic accident,” never quite giving in to viewers’ expectations of catharsis with frequent howling, ear-splitting sobs. But this subversion of narrative conventions makes Love Life a poignant and intriguing dissection of the oftentimes catatonic reality of grief. —Alisyn Amant
4. Cairo Conspiracy (dir. Tarik Saleh). Sunday, April 16, 1:30 p.m. at Shannon Hall / Wisconsin Union Theater.
In Tarik Saleh’s Cairo Conspiracy, Adam (Tawfeek Barhom), the son of a fisherman who simply wants to study the Quran to one day become a Sheik, wins a scholarship to the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo. However, he ends up embroiled in a political conspiracy instead. The Grand Imam, head of the University that’s described as the seat of Sunni Islam, dies shortly after Adam’s arrival, and the State Security service then wants to ensure that the newly elected Grand Imam will be the one favored by the current regime (think Berlusconi wanting to personally appoint the Pope).
To this end, Colonel Ibrahim (Fares Fares, collaborating here with Saleh for the fourth time) is tasked with finding new moles within the University to provide intel and influence events. Adam is ensnared by his association with a previous informant who died under mysterious circumstances. While Adam plays their game, his faith still guides him in the face of a corrupt government that wants to finally extend its power to the largely autonomous, 1,000-year-old university.
The film veers away from the sort of characterization that would typify a Western production, as Adam’s religiosity and knowledge permits him to navigate and avoid trouble, rather than suffer a crisis of faith or disillusionment when faced with institutional corruption. Despite holding the reins of power over Adam, Fares’ Colonel Ibrahim rather seems to be the one in over his head; he’s embittered about being passed over for a promotion because he isn’t quite ruthless enough.
Ibrahim’s closest analogue may be The Wire’s team of cast-out detectives getting results sometimes at the expense of their informants. The plot evokes espionage thrillers—Marathon Man (1976), Three Days Of The Condor (1975), or even something slightly more contemporary like A Most Wanted Man (2014)—where the protagonist is thrown into the story against their will.
Saleh specifically cites Umberto Eco’s novel The Name Of The Rose as an inspiration, but translates the setting to the Muslim world. Saleh has worked in both Europe (he was born in Sweden) and Hollywood (he also released the Chris Pine-led action movie The Contractor in 2022), which has perhaps led him to take a more direct approach to topics that often have to be addressed obliquely in Muslim cinema. But this marriage of sensibilities has unfortunately not been met with approval from the Egyptian government: Saleh was banned from entering the country in 2017. —Lewis Peterson
5. Subject (dirs. Jennifer Tiexiera and Camilla Hall). Wednesday, April 19, 8 p.m. at Hilldale Cinema 5 and Thursday, April 20, 3 p.m. at Hilldale Cinema 5.
Is the relationship between a documentarian and their subject(s) ever honest? Directors Camilla Hall and Jennifer Tiexiera seek to explore this question in Subject, the 2022 documentary about documentaries. Framed around analyzing consent and power dynamics between documentary filmmakers and the people whose stories they tell, the film features interviews from individuals involved in many acclaimed documentaries, as well as input from fellow filmmakers and cultural critics.
The retelling of their stories begins with an opening declaration by Margie Ratliff of The Staircase (2004), as she gives her consent and permission to be part of Subject, expressing an understanding of the intended use of the interview. As the film weaves purposefully through a carefully curated list of documentary features from the last few decades and beyond, interviewees appear relaxed, comfortable, and eager to share.
Even if you haven’t seen documentaries such as Hoop Dreams (1994), The Square (2013), Minding The Gap (2018), or The Wolfpack (2015), Subject is inherently refreshing. Hall and Tiexiera tell the stories of these subjects by showing each individual blossom as they explain how they have grown and changed both personally and professionally since the public release of films that revealed their very personal lives. Their stories are often triumphant, and sometimes devastating, yet they remain poignant in underlining the potential pitfalls of squeezing and shaping entertainment around lived experiences.
Subject seeks honesty through a critique of its genre and relationship to constructing narratives in an industry that has shifted more aggressively towards profitable and exploitative productions over the last decade. If you are looking to find truth and understanding through inquisitive cinema, Hall and Tiexiera’s film is for you. —Hanna Kohn
