MIFFed

Miami Film Festival and the Winter Party festivities are this weekend, and I'm stuck cramming for Physics and Finance tests. There are a few films that I'm going to make an effort to see eventually thanks to the alluring summaries in the Miami New Times.


Nobody Knows About the Persian Cats

In this rare Iranian entry to MIFF, Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi takes us through the underground music scene in Tehran, where all Western-style music is prohibited. Based on real people, places, and events, the film follows Negar Shaghaghi and Ashkan Koshanejad of the indie band Take It Easy Hospital (yes, a real band) as the members attempt to leave home to play a concert in London. They're escorted by a smooth-talking linchpin of the black market, Nader (Hamed Behdad), who promises to find them passports, visas, and additional bandmates Ghobadi switches to fast-cut music video montages as they audition musicians. Each genre matches up with a different side of life in Tehran: When the heavy metal sounds, we see breakneck traffic. Blues rock depicts refugee children sleeping on the streets. Yet Tehran's indie rock scene looks a lot like ours. Take It Easy Hospital exchanges secret copies of British music magazine NME with other bands, the musicians wear CBGB T-shirts alongside women in burqas, and at one point, Askhan says his greatest wish is to go to Iceland to see the band Sigur Rós play. The film, with its MTV-style music video montages and pop culture references, runs the risk of feeling like a lighthearted documentary. But in the final ten minutes, the tour through Iranian rock makes an abrupt and disturbing turn. The film, which won the Special Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, was co-written by Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, who was sentenced to eight years in jail in 2008 after the Iranian government deemed her a spy. Amanda McCorquodale



Blood and Rain

A few hours after midnight, a man and a woman meet randomly on the cold, wet streets of Bogotá. He's Jorge (Quique Mendoza), a taxi driver whose brother was mysteriously murdered. She's Angela (Gloria Montoya), a sexy but emotionally damaged party girl with out-of-control coke and liquor habits. Gradually, as chance events and targeted violence bring the pair closer, a strange but undeniable attraction develops.
In his first feature, director Jorge Navas leads the characters (and viewers) on a slow, methodical descent into the Colombian underworld, from after-hours clubs and strip joints to killing fields. Blood and Rain depicts a dark sphere of existence, where chaos reigns, outbursts of brutal violence are common, deeply irrational behavior is the norm, and drugs are eaten to erase bad memories.
But it's not bleak. One of the reasons is the luridly bright nightscape photography of Juan Carlos Gil, who soaks the streets of Bogotá in saturated blacks and warm yellows that make abandoned lots and trash-filled alleys seem beautiful. Then there's the acting: Both Mendoza and Montoya deliver human performances that redeem profoundly fucked-up characters. And finally, consider Navas's clarity of vision. At only 36 years old, he's a mature filmmaker with enough perspective to tackle the inexplicable. S. Pajot









25 Carat
Born into the itinerant life of a con artist, Kay (Aida Folch) is a sexy but street-tough young woman who has helped her father, Sebas (Manuel Morón), run scams since she learned to walk. For years, they've lived off small scores, skipping from one city to the next across Spain. But after 16 months in Barcelona, Kay and Sebas have begun to settle into a routine: She steals cars while he fences jewelry. It's almost normal.
Then, suddenly, Mexican gangsters return to collect an overdue debt. Sebas begins plotting a big job that involves a crew of crooked cops, a large bag of stolen jewels, an incriminating videotape, and a cable news network. Meanwhile, Kay gets caught stealing a BMW and escapes only with the help of Abel (Francesc Garrido), a fighter. Together, all three then chase the most monumental score of their lives.
Written and directed by first-time Spanish filmmaker Patxi Amézcua, this action thriller is more conventional than many of the other movies at this year's festival. In tone and style, 25 Carat draws from similar genre films such as Luc Besson's The Professional and Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run. However, Amézcua delivers his story with full knowledge of its sources, so it never seems derivative. Not to mention, 25 Carat is plotted so tightly, edited with such energy, and acted so deftly that it pays off in almost every way. It even has a happy ending. More or less. S. Pajot