Rose of Nevada
That location is the English county of Cornwall, which is where “Rose of Nevada” – a film written and directed by Mark Jenkin and starring George McKay and Callum Turner – is set. The title refers to a fishing boat that has seen better days, its rusty mechanisms looking as if they haven’t been serviced in a decade or three. That might provide a clue as to what is going on because writer-director Jenkins isn’t interested in explaining anything, not in any detail anyway. Let’s just say that McKay and Turner, who in one unfolding plotline play, respectively, Nick and Liam. But then when each is hired to head out on the Rose of Nevada for what is supposed to be a couple of days fishing, they return to a world – and a life – that is far different from the one they left. How and why that happens is what Jenkins offers as a plotline, though as I say he gives us clues but never fully explains anything. So what we’re left with is a film, shot in a film ratio that resembles old-school home movies, and a lot of acting by McKay in particular that has him appearing as befuddled as the rest of us. “Rose of Nevada” is an interesting film experiment, but it’s not likely to satisfy those who prefer narrative substance over style steeped in mysterious imagery.
The Love That Remains
Many, many movies have been made about divorce and the effects both on the parents and the children who get caught in the middle. Few, though, do so with such an offbeat sense of narrative sensibility that Icelandic writer-director Hlynur Pálmason puts into his film “The Love That Remains.” For one thing, he provides virtually no exposition, so we’re forced simply to try to keep up as we watch an extended family deal with their everyday lives. Only slowly do we come to realize that the parents in question, Anna and Magnus, are separated, still have affection for one another but definitely aren’t getting back together. Pálmason might have given us a film similar to, say, the American films “Kramer vs. Kramer” or “Shoot the Moon.” But he follows no real storyline and fills the frames with shots that tend to break the fourth wall, inviting us to be as much a part of what’s going on as the actors playing characters themselves.
Fiume o Morte!
The documentary is titled “Fiume o Morte!” which is Italian for “Fiume or death.” Fiume is both the Italian word for river and is the name of a town on the northeastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. Or, anyway, was the name of the town back in the years following World War I when for 15 months it was an independent city-state known as the Free State of Fiume. Because of its deep-water port, the town was targeted by several countries, and during what was an international stand-off an arch Italian patriot named Gabriele D’Annuzio paraded in, proclaimed the town as the Italian Regency of Carnara and proclaimed himself its leader – or Il Duce – until the Italian government ended up invading and after a short, bloody struggle, ousted him. Croatian filmmaker Igor Bezinović tells the story of how D’Annuzio – a noted Italian poet and politician – took charge in an unusual and sometimes humorous manner. Bezinović casts various actors as the man, and then he re-enact what happened by having them walk through the streets under the gaze of today’s residents of the town – now called Rijeka – many of whom have no idea who D’Annuzio was. The result is an original stab at capturing a bit of the past that would otherwise be little more than a historical footnote.