You can sense the freedom and celebration of people right from the start of this one. For the first 20 minutes or so you're in the crowd, not knowing where to look exactly. It's little uncomfortable looking at all this faces interact in the way you probably interact. You can feel your dumb face expressions and than, after a while, you're becoming proud of your dumb self. Nowadays, the image everyone has about themselves is pure fantasy and they try their best to look good. Sounds like people are constantly auditioning, even when they're walking down the street. For that matter it's really hard to see naked face in the cinema today. Authors are vain and public is even more. So here it is, Apart From That, the film that gives it to you raw, beautiful and real. There's a scene at the beginning (while you still don't know who's who and who you're about to observe through the rest of the film) where we see an old woman in hospital bed, right there on the dying sheet. Her face is a life of its own. Normally, the scene would be about her. Than bunch of kids come in with their guidance and they're supposed to sing and dance to make an old dying woman feel better. Everybody is doing what they're told, under a mask, except this one boy. He doesn't feel like singing. He's being punished by his teacher to wait outside because he's hurting the old woman's feelings by not dancing for her. "You think, just because she's old and sick, she can't see what's going on?" And than camera stays on him while everybody is having a "good time" in the hospital room. Switching the position of who is hurt in just a few seconds of the film's time is something I admire very much because there stands no judgments on part of anyone. Everyone is innocent and everyone is guilty. All you have to do is LOOK and you'll see nobody's in control of their behavior even when they think they are. Who's doing right and who's doing wrong? It backfires from second to second. Later in the film that same kid will be more mature than his super-dad. Peggy, other character in the film, is too old to waste time on "auditioning" and she throws herself in the arms of strangers and close-ones right to the bone, with no shame in her wild behavior, but only when she's prepared to be that open. Catch her by surprise and she's vulnerable as a 10-year-old. She is bored and she doesn't quit life. She really doesn't have anybody by her side and yet she tries more than anybody else (besides the little boy) to live to the fullest, with no apology. Everybody else is apologizing most of the time, but don't even care (let alone think) about the people who they were apologizing to when they're spending their time apart from them. Ulla has apology. The only time she lets her mind go in uncontrolled fashion, speaking what's really on her mind, is when she's acting in the fake intervention hosted by her co-workers for her co-worker. In that acting she's more honest than ever. But, after the acting is finished she apologizes for maybe going too far. It's interesting seeing how that device of agreed acting is getting across to other characters in that scene, because you know how hurt would they be if it was unprepared with not knowing the origin of that bluntness. Later in the film, little boy and his super dad will catch the highest level of their relationship through the acting. Little boy plays his father's co- worker who was fired from the job by him. It's like a safe territory for testing honesty. After those experiences they feel a little bit stronger. (something similar, but not that worked out, can be seen in "In The Mood For Love" by Kar-Wai) I can go on and on about what went through my mind about these characters, and myself for that matter, and all the time I wasn't feeling betrayed by the possibility of filmmaker's manipulation. They put it on the surface, made it strong and open. Style is vulnerable as their characters. But all the way you can feel the good arm is leading you through the experience of watching the people. Honest, fresh and a must-see.
Review of Apart from That
