February 21, 2018
Page 5
World Cultures
Resonate at PIFF
o PinionAted
J udge
by J uDge
D arleen
o rtega
There is still a full week to go
in the Portland International Film
Festival -- and some of the films
that have already finished their
screenings will appear in theaters
soon. Here are some of what I’ve
seen so far.
Love and good teaching connect
in ‘Miss Kiet’s Children,’ one
of the showcase films bringing
fresh perspectives on world
cultures at the Portland
International Film Festival,
continuing through March 1.
“Miss Kiet’s Children” has
garnered a lot of comparisons to
another wonderful film about a
classroom where love and good
teaching happen, the French film
“To Be and To Have.” Like that
film, this one, set in a classroom
in a small town in Holland, simply
observes the transformation of the
children in that setting. But this
particular classroom, for reasons
never explained, contains mostly
children of asylum seekers from
Syria and other parts of the Middle
East. The patient and clear-eyed
teacher, Kiet Engels, may or may
not always understand why a stu-
dent is crying or asking her to call
her mother or has his head down
on his desk. But she does provide
loving attention and good pedago-
gy, about math and the Dutch lan-
guage and also about kindness and
good boundaries and self-respect,
and she builds enough trust that
sometimes we learn the little bits
of truth that children can share that
provide concrete hints of the trau-
ma they all carry. The filmmakers
wisely and simply just invite us to
observe the transformations, big
and small, that are possible in such
a space—most movingly in brief,
patient interactions with Engels,
in little shifts toward kindness and
self-control with their peers, and,
especially, in physical movement
exercises that are such telling ev-
idence of what is happening in
a child’s heart. A final scene in
which the movement happens on
stage left me in a puddle, and re-
stored my hope. It screens again
on Saturday, Feb. 24.
“On the Beach At Night Alone”
is recognizable as the work of Ko-
rean director Hong Sang-Soo. It
veers toward angst, is low on plot,
and doesn’t necessarily present a
chronological narrative; it also fea-
tures Hong’s frequent muse, actress
Kim Min-Hee, with whom Korean
tabloids had been reporting he was
having an affair at the time this
film was made. Upon its release,
the director, whose marriage was
ending, confirmed that he and the
actress are indeed in love--and the
film is gutsy on both their parts in
that light. What story it contains fo-
cuses on a young actress in the af-
termath of an affair with a married
film director. Kim is, as always,
compelling in her quirky directness
and, as usual, has choice words for
those around her after a few drinks.
There is also a scene with the char-
acter of the film director -- and the
pain of each is evident, though not
necessarily sympathetic. An inter-
esting window into Korean culture
with a compelling lead perfor-
mance, it plays again on Wednes-
day, Feb. 21.
“Ice Mother” offers a rare op-
portunity to see a film centering on
a woman in her 60s who is inter-
esting and is undergoing a signif-
icant change in perspective. Hana
lives alone in the Prague home she
shared with her deceased husband,
and appears to be devoting all her
energy to maintaining his standard
of living and indulging their two
ungrateful grown sons. There re-
ally isn’t any room for her to have
opinions and interests -- and yet,
after a chance meeting with Bro-
na, an unpretentious and genial ice
swimmer, she finds a drive for in-
dependence and a group of friends.
Her sons don’t find either her new
friends or her activities up to their
standards, yet the shift in Hana
eventually requires a shift in them
too. In many ways this is a slight
film; the sons and their wives are
a bit crudely drawn as characters,
and the conflicts are consequently
a tad underdeveloped. But Hana is
the focal point here and, as played
by Zuzana Krónerová, she feels
refreshingly real.
There is a particularly strong
crop of films directed by women.
My favorite was “Tempestad”
(meaning “storm”), a mourn-
ful exploration of the emotional
journeys of two Mexican women
who have suffered profound in-
justices at the hands of those in
power. Each of them narrates her
inner journey with surprising clar-
ity, particularly Miriam, who was
wrongly imprisoned for human
trafficking in a jail controlled by
C ontinueD on P age 14