Tag: svenskt

Crossing

BFI Flare

An ageing Georgian woman travels to Istanbul in search of her trans niece.

Levan Akin brings beauty to the back streets and back waters of the Bosphorus in Crossing, an elegy of travel and trans life which ebbs and flows between Georgia and Istanbul. Dream-like even as it cruises through a purposefully-shaped narrative, this fourth feature from Akin opens the Berlinale’s Panorama sidebar with a visual elegance and an eloquent vision of acceptance.

Picked up by Mubi (for UK, North America, Germany and LatAm) prior to Berlin, this is prestige cinema to touch imaginations while tapping into some deeper truths. Swedish-national Akin, whose last feature And Then We Danced represented the country at the Academy Awards while also dealing with his Turkish/Georgian heritage and LGBTQI issues, takes his characters and viewers on a voyage together. It’s seductive, fragmented, involving. It also always bends to his will, as a heart-breaking final act attests.

Not precisely a crowd-pleaser but so very pleasing to the eye, Crossing – which is partially based on a real-life story – follows an older woman from Batumi in Georgia across the Black Sea to Istanbul in search of her missing trans niece, known as Tekla. Crusty former history teacher Miss Lia (Mzia Arabuli) needs help fulfilling a promise to her dead sister, and it appears in the unlikely – and somewhat untrustworthy – guise of Achi (Lucas Kanvava), a young scrounger who squats with his brother in a cottage by the sea in Batumi. Claiming to have Tekla’s address, and also to speak Turkish and English, he persuades the raki-loving older woman to bring him with her to Istanbul. (She’ll need some money for food, at the very least, as he can’t ever cram enough into his mouth. Everyone in this film is looking for some sort of sustenance.)

Miss Lia, as played by 72-year-old veteran actor Arabuli with appropriate intelligence and hauteur, is stern and disapproving. “Georgian women have lost all their dignity,” she sniffs on the ferry from Batumi at the glimpse of a bare leg, even though she’ll out-drink any man who’s paying. She refers to Tekla as having made a ‘choice’. “I hardly think it was a choice,” counters young Achi, as they begin to discover the options open to Tekla in Turkey’s ancient, sprawling former capital. They are not what anyone would choose, although there’s a camaraderie and support within the community which would undoubtedly better anything Tekla received at home in Batumi from her mother or aunt. 

After the journey to Istanbul, the cast begins to open up and the film switches to Everim (Deniz Dumanl), a trans activist working for the NGO Pink Life in Istanbul who will cross the path of this odd couple. Akin’s allegiances waver as well: is Miss Lia, clearly a former beauty, his embittered heroine, or does she represent the past? And is the positive force-of-life Everim, chasing her sex-change certificates and a foothold as a legal advocate for the disadvantaged, the way of the future for Turkey? As a writer, Akin has created two fierce female characters and his film treats them both responsibly – even if it’s harder to find a path to truth for Miss Lia, and he must resort to a poignant fantasy which may make or break the film for some viewers.

Akin’s characters are always on the move. For Everim, it’s in and out of taxis and restlessly towards acceptance and sexual fulfilment. On the ferries, whether they be on the Bosphorus or gliding through the Black Sea, Miss Lia and Achi are Georgia past and present silhouetted against some of the unchanging wonders of Istanbul, accompanied by mostly traditional music which strikes a plaintive note. Moving through the city’s dirty back streets, Lisabi Fridell’s camera makes much use of the unique, bathing Golden Hour light of Istanbul, “a place people come to disappear”. Imagery here is fluid too: it can also sway with the water or hold still to capture a dawn.

And Then We Danced was a love story between men which provoked protest in Georgia. Crossing, at pains to inform the viewer that Georgian and Turkish language is gender neutral, is less directly confrontational even as it faces issues head-on. Yet it is all lot about love as well, even if the people in it come late to that realisation.

From Screen Daily

Little Dragon

Little Dragon live @ HMV Forum

Little Dragon @ Guardian

Jam packed, a combination of hysterical pub night & school party. Extremely noisy, thousands of girls dancing and shouting aloud. Boys sending facebook updates and pages and pages of text messages. And the sound, dear HMV forum, was a disaster, particularly towards the edges of the basement. I wish I could have enjoyed it more. But didn’t even stay to the very end.

Loney, Dear: Dear John (2008)

Loney Dear is the work of one man, multi-instrumentalist Emil Sanangen. Since 2003, he’s been quietly releasing albums to a gradually building word-of-mouth fanbase, and with Dear John – his fifth – Emil has made what he considers to be his masterpiece.

Emil’s music as Loney Dear operates in the area marked ‘lovely’. As is mostly the case with his fellow Swedish acts, he shares a sweet melancholy that you can cuddle up to. Dear John is the fifth and final part of his odyssey so far – it’s billed as both a love letter to himself and a goodbye note to his loved ones – with delicate thoughts and gestures throughout. Those concerned for Emil’s state of mind should relax however, as it doesn’t spell the end for Loney Dear, just the ‘first phase’.

Dear John sees Emil singing of life, and why it’s worth living. Offering 11 doses of ever-evolving magic pitched somewhere around the worlds of Flaming Lips and Brian Wilson – an area that’s been reasonably well ploughed over of late – Emil manages to find fresh new magic with which to melodically beguile.

It’s fairly perfect throughout with the gentle shuffling urgency of Everything Turns To You, the soft focus dramatics of I Got Lost and the perfect haze of Summers. Under A Silent Sea calvacades into a light rave crescendo that could be mixed up and have shapes thrown at it, while the album closer and title track emits a slow dazzle of martial drums and brass giving you a pleasing send off into the night.

Dear John is Loney Dear’s moment. It’s the sound of an artist starting to fly. It’s also an invitation to you to discover what came before, and a chance to envelope yourself and investigate a whole new world of a new favourite artist.

Ian Wade for BBC Music

Juvelen 1 [2008]

What would Prince sound like if he worked with Michael Jackson, a great funk jam band, and some of the hottest writers and producers Sweden has to offer? I’m pretty sure he’d sound a lot like Swedish pop star Juvelen. The 31 year-old star, whose voice sounds young and fresh but whose lyrics and passion betray the actual life experience to mean what he’s singing, serves us up a hot dish of immensely catchy and sometimes truly memorable electro-pop funk.

Juvelen is no stranger to the industry with some rock bands and success in his past, but a revelation involving the pure genius and mastery of funk icon Prince altered the course of his music career. Now with his solo debut album, 1, Juvelen is working with some of the best, like Patrick Berger, whose resume boasts the impressive Robyn, and has already shown Sweden just how funky sexy he is, but can he tackle the rest of the world?

The album bursts with “Don’t Mess,” a sleek and sexy bass guitar & synth track that is as much of an 80s throwback as it is the first in many an homage to Prince. Not only is Juvelen’s voice perfect to take on such a task, but he strains in all the right places, something I will delve into a little later. “Hanna” is definitely more of a modern dance rock track, xylophone notwithstanding, and continues to showcase this man’s considerable talents with a catchy chorus and regretful lyrics. Following that track is “Baby, When You’re Gone,” the equivalent to modern porn music. Late night drums and bass, a slow, sexy beat, and flighty staccato electronic noises all assuage your senses before Juvelen himself oozes in with a silky smoothness that is surprising with his voice but also quite welcome.

Juvelen’s voice is different from most you will hear anywhere you go. We’re all used to the attitude of pop stars and the soft vulnerability of indie stars; we’ve heard the aggression of hip-hop stars and the power of the dance divas, but when hearing Juvelen, I hear something I’m not entirely used to. I didn’t grow up with Prince so this *may* be a new phenomenon for me but an old one for others, I can’t really say. Juvelen already sings in a near-falsetto voice, something that drives the music on it’s own really, but you can tell when he pushes his voice higher and higher, straining and pleading, that he means it. He isn’t doing it because the music calls for it, he isn’t doing it for fun, there’s real emotion there. I feel more comes from him in those brief parts than the rest of the album, which is saying something. The reason I bring this up is because he does just that in “They Don’t Love You,” desperately trying to get the girl of his affections to realize that he’s the only one that loves her right, physically and emotionally, and he wants to start a family with her. It’s definitely an odd sentiment coming from a pop star, but also an extremely fresh and refreshing one. It doesn’t hurt that “They Don’t Love You” is one of the more upbeat and impressive songs on the album.

Other standouts include “Watch Your Step,” (purchase/download) a song so utterly memorable that I surgically removed the first few seconds and threw them on my phone as my ringtone. The instrumentation is sparse and simple, the opening piano notes and trills only adding a backdrop to the beats and vox during the chorus, an effect that works to great effect. “Money Don’t Talk” is another purely dance rock number with a truly captivating collection of lyrics, bass, beats, and miscellaneous electronic noises. Juvelen goes all out to get you to dance on this track. “Summer – Spring” (purchase/download) brings up the rear of the album, grating synths alongside plinking piano while Juvelen once again serenades us in a slow groove.

Summary: The perfect summer groove album. Whether you’re dancing, driving, or doing the naughty, Juvelen provides the soundtrack.

Juvelen’s self-titled EP is available both through iTunes and the Swedish label’s website, http://www.hybrism.com. The new album 1 will be available on iTunes very soon, so keep an eye out!

Released April 2008 on Hybris Records

Ben Norman for About.com