Upon Open Sky

Upon Open Sky sees a trio of teenagers head north from Mexico City on a mission to find the trucker who caused the accident that killed the father of the two lads. Promising enough premise, unfortunately, this is a slight film that was aiming for profundity. It opens with the build up to the accident, somewhere in the dusty Mexican bush, then the crash itself acts as a timeslip point to two years later. Fernando (Máximo Hollander) scours a car scrapyard, looking for something. His younger brother, Salvador (Theo Goldin), who was in the car when their father died, understandably mopes around the house, only rising to perv on their new step-sister, Paula (Federica Garcia) as she changes for bed. 

When mum and new step-dad announce they're off to Spain for a holiday, Fernando makes plans of his own to find (and maybe kill) the trucker. So off they go to a town on the US border in search of him.

Now, this film could have been much better, and I'm kind of at pains to work out why I didn't go with it. I think, ultimately, it's boring. But not just boring, I reckon it also has airs and graces, the hope of being something more substantial. It's pedigree offers clues here. The directors are sister and brother, Mariana and Santiago Arriaga, both pretty wet behind the ears as far as features go. No shame there. 

A bigger hint is that the writer is their father, Guillermo Arriaga, and perhaps the fattest sausage finger of blame needs to point his way. He wrote some films for Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel among them. While I didn't mind Amores (his first feature), the other two reeked of liberal pretensions and weightiness. 

Maybe this preeminence would have just been mildly irritating if it weren't for the sloppiness of the script. There's a knife introduced that goes nowhere, a gun also (Chekhov's weapons?). Characters do things that seem faintly unbelievable (see Paula's boyfriend getting out of the car on 'bugger all around' highway). And the questionable romance was completely unearned, though admittedly, could have been even more problematic. 

On the positive side, the young actors that play the leads are disarming and reasonably natural in their roles, as was the trucker, Lucio (Julio Cesar Cedillo). Sadly, this nepo-baby of a film was too perfunctory to be anything other than a calling card for the performers.

Upon Open Sky is showing around Australia as part of the HSBC Spanish Film Festival, in Perth at Palace and Luna cinemas. I'd be keen to see if other people thought differently on this one.

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Interestingly, the final third of this film takes place sort of near where the Coens shot some of the modern classic, No Country for Old Men (2007). The cinematographer, Julián Apezteguia, who doesn't do much wrong here, also shot the very fine, Carancho (2010), directed by Pablo Trapero.

Artificial Justice

This reality adjacent sci-fi thriller is a pretty timely look at one of the many possible uses of Artificial Intelligence - legal judgement. In the near future, somewhere in Galicia, Spain, a system called THENTE 1 is being used to assist judges in passing down their verdicts and sentences. It's only assist for now, as a referendum is coming to decide if the whole horse and cart should be put in the hands of AI. 

There's some sense to the proposal - the AI system usually makes the same decisions as most judges, and much quicker too. This would clear the backlog of cases that can clog up the courts. But obviously they are dangers to removing the human angle. With the referendum days away, the head of THENTE, Alicia (Alba Galocha) is killed in a self-driving car accident, mere hours after she proposed a  postponement to the launch of the new THENTE 2. Fishy? You bet. 

Meanwhile, judge Carmen (a fine performance from Verónica Echegui) is seconded to THENTE to analyse the new system and offer advice, her relative political neutrality noted as the key reason she was chosen. This fairness may come back to bite her on the arse, as both sides, yay and nay, want her to testify at the government hearing on THENTE 2's suitability. Added to this heady mix are Alicia's ex-husband and current CEO, Brais (Tamar Novas); COO, Alex (Alberto Ammann); and lawyers union boss, Goitia (Santi Prego). The only folk in Carmen's corner seem to be a colleague and an ex-crim she let off against the recommendation of the AI.

Director and co-writer, Simón Casal has form with thrillers, as well as with this particular subject - he made a TV doco about AI in the courts in 2022, also called Artificial Justice. While some aspects of the plot are a bit basic - not too hard to guess the key antagonist - the film has a nicely paranoid edge to it, and it's pretty well paced. Only the swimming scenes didn't really work for me, though there was some connection to character here. 

If you like your political thrillers with a theme of futuristic anxiety, have at it. You won't be disappointed. Artificial Justice is showing around Australia as part of the HSBC Spanish Film Festival, in Perth at Palace and Luna cinemas.

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The tension in the plot reminded me of Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer (2010), and the themes are vaguely similar to perhaps the Cruiser's best film, Steven Spielberg's Minority Report (2002). Oh, and one of the fellas in this (Tamar Novas) was also in the wonderful tear-jerker, The Sea Inside (2004), directed by Alejandro Amenabar.

The Convert

The year is 1830. A ship is on its way to New Zealand, the captain charged with delivering lay preacher, Thomas Munro (Guy Pearce) to Epworth, a British settlement on the fringes of Māori territory. Making landfall down the coast to pick up some lumber, Munro comes across some trouble between two tribes. Long story short, he becomes the ward of a young woman, and off they sail to Epworth.

Upon arrival, the snooty townsfolk don't take too kindly to Munro's 'inclusive' forbearance, but they have external issues to concern them as well. They are renting their land from the local tribal chief, Maianui (Antonio Te Maioha), whose daughter is the woman in Munro's care, Rangimai (Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne). As well as this, a hard-case chief, Akatarewa (Lawrence Makoare) - seen earlier meting out some rough justice to Rangimai's fella - has designs on Maianui's land. Tinderbox potential.

Director (and co-writer) Lee Tamahori has a really eclectic showreel, from his feature debut gem, Once Were Warriors, to the Anthony Hopkins survival thriller, The Edge, to a crack at 007 with Die Another Day. The fact that The Convert is only his tenth feature is pretty surprising, though he's dabbled in TV a bit, too. He seems at home in this vista. The story is well paced, believable and reasonably cliche averse. 

The performances are roundly solid. Pearce portrays the clenched stoicism of Munro well and it's good to see Jacqueline Mackenzie too, but the standout turn is Makoare's. His clownish menace is perfectly pitched, and the scene where Munro goes to his camp to propose a peaceful solution is superb stuff. Ginny Loane's cinematography is another match-winner. There's a lush, damp feel to the film and the moist New Zealand air is easily evoked.

The climactic battle plays out like a rushed Seven Samurai, but with six mercenaries fewer - ONE Samurai or its remake, The Magnificent ONE. Rather than focus on Munro as the 'white saviour', though, it reinforces his total repudiation of the British authority, his conversion to the native way. 

The Convert opens at the Luna and Palace cinemas on Jun 20th.

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The unforgiving setting is reminiscent of Hlynur Pálmason's Godland (2022), as well as John Hillcoat's fantastic The Proposition (2005) (also with Guy Pearce), but the character of Munro mirrors Peter O'Toole's Lawrence in David Lean's epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

The Teacher Who Promised the Sea

This was the film chosen to preview the Spanish Film Festival for 2024 and it's quite the heart-wrencher. Based on true story, from a book by Francesc Escribano, it tells the story of Antonio Benaiges (Enric Auquer), an idealistic teacher from Catalonia, who takes up a position in the small town of Bañuelos de Bureba in 1935. This town is probably like many others of the time - conservative, religious and fearful of outsiders. It's also full of kids who haven't seen the sea, which brings us to the title. Discovering that his charges have no idea about the sea, Antonio promises to take them on a trip to the Catalan coast, and much of the film is about his attempts to get permission from their inflexible parents.

The depressing backdrop to all this is the impending Spanish Civil War between the Republicans and the Nationalists. Antonio ruffles a whole pelican's worth of feathers, from the politically pragmatic mayor, Alcalde (Antonio Mora), to the Snape-ish priest, the suitably named Padre Primitivo (Milo Taboada). This doesn't help his cause when the fascists come sniffing around. The kids that slowly roll up to be taught Antonio's modern methods appear to be his one bulwark, save for the cautious old cleaner of his house, Charo (Luisa Gavasa). 

The framing device for the story is that a young mother in nearly current-day Catalonia, Ariadna (Laia Costa) gets a call from a group who exhume human remains. Apparently, her grandfather registered his interest in finding his father many years ago, and now there's a chance he may have been unearthed. As her grandfather has lost most of his faculties and is living in a care home, Ariadna decides she needs to look into it. When she arrives in the province of Burgos, she meets an old classmate of her grandad's, Emilio (Ramón Agirre) and they start to piece things together, with handy flashback assistance.

This is dripping in sentimentality but it mostly finds the right balance of mawkishness and sincerity, the final scene being the peak example. In pairing the stories of Antonio and Ariadna, the film gives us a handhold to the past, a reminder that this horrible fucking regime only ended with the death of Franco in 1975. The reactions of the villagers to Ariadna and the exhumers shows there's still a lot of baggage to deal with, even in the 21st century.

The Teacher Who Promised the Sea is a touching, rage-inducing drama, well delivered by director, Patricia Font. It's screening as part of the HSBC Spanish Film Festival from June 13th to July 3rd at Palace and Luna cinemas.

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This film reminded me of Claude Lelouch's version of Les Miserables (1995) in its forward-backward timelines. An excellent film about unorthodox teaching methods is Laurent Cantet's The Class (2008).