2009-2010 Winter &
Spring Festivals Journal
All ratings are based on **** being best.
Films in BLACK type are AFI Film Festival films
Films in RED type are Palm Springs International Film
Festival films
Films in GREEN type are Los Angeles-Italia Festival
films
Films in ORANGE type are Methodfest Festival films
Films in PURPLE
type are City of
Lights/City of Angels Festival films
LONDON RIVER (d. Rachid Bouchareb)
This film
was originally submitted by Algeria to the Academy for the foreign
language film Oscar competition. It was rejected because it was
deemed to be more than 50% in English. Since it was playing at
the AFI film festival, I thought in the interests of completion that I
should watch it. I'm actually glad I did. This is the quite
well acted and moving story of two disparate strangers who meet in
London after the subway bombings of 7/7/2005, each searching for their
offspring who seem to have disappeared. One is a widow from
Gurnsey (played by the still luminous Brenda Blethyn) whose daughter
isn't returning her phone calls. The other is the great Malian
actor, Sotigui Kouyaté, who emigrated to France when his son was
5 and never returned... yet nevertheless promises the boy's mother
still in Africa that he would go to London to search for their missing
son. The film is an excellent character study; but also a moving
tribute to those lost to England's traumatic terrorist attack, that
nation's 9/11. *** 1/4
GUY AND
MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH (d. Damien Chazelle)
Chazelle is a young Bostonian who set himself the difficult task of
re-inventing the American film musical in grainy 16mm black &
white. The story, what there is of one, is about a young jazz
trumpeteer and the two women he interacts with rather aimlessly over
the course of a week or so. The musical numbers mostly revolve
around parties and jazz gigs, and there's a lot of incidental tap
dancing and fantasy. It's all reminiscent of recent (and not so
recent) French cinema, works from Jacques Demy, Christophe
Honoré, Alain Resnais. But for all the director's laudable
ambition, I fear he failed to pull it off, for me at least, since he
lacked something those other directors have, a coherent narrative
sense. Still, the original music and nifty dancing made for some
enjoyable moments. **
RED
RIDING: 1974 (d. Julian Jarrold)
This is the first film of a trilogy made for Channel 4 television in
England, but shot like real theatrical releases with great casts and
high production values. The setting is Yorkshire in the north;
and the main theme throughout the trilogy is exposing a web of
corruption spreading throughout the police departments of the
region. The first film follows an ambitious young reporter
(played with elan by the wonderful actor Andrew Garfield so memorable
in Boy A,
but here a tad callow for this role) as he attempts to make sense of a
series of child abductions terrorizing the area. Each film in the
trilogy has a different director, and the stylistic differences are
quite telling. The first film sets the tone for the trilogy; but
Jarrold's style tends toward visual bravado at the cost of narrative
cohesion...or perhaps it's just that the trilogy format leads to a lot
of loose ends which account for some of the confusion. Plus I
found some of the Yorkshire accents difficult to understand...so some
crucial dialog got muddled. Nevertheless, this is powerful stuff,
on a par with the best conspiratorial procedural series like The Shield; and
certainly head and shoulders above the usual run of tv series. ***
RED
RIDING: 1980 (d. James Marsh)
Part two of the series picks up six years after the events of part one,
and involves an ongoing case of serial murders by a fiend who goes by
the nickname "The Yorkshire Ripper" who preys on prostitutes. The
already disclosed (from the first film) Yorkshire constabulary is
riddled with corruption; so the Home Office, alarmed by the lack of
results, sends a crackerjack inspector who has a reputation for
probity, to run a special operation charged with solving the Ripper
case. The new cop is played in a truly remarkable performance, by
Paddy Considine. And this film, for my money the most successful
of the three, is mainly about an honest cop up against a web of
conspiracy and deceit in his attempt to fulfill the mandates of his
job. This episode was subtitled throughout, which helped a lot to
make things clear. But it also had the advantage of being
directed by the non-flashy James Marsh who brought a sense of narrative
clarity which the other two episodes somewhat lacked. *** 1/4
RED
RIDING: 1983 (d. Anand Tucker)
Part
three is set nine years after part one (obvious from the title); but
returns to the child abduction case of the first film when another
little girl disappears in a manner eerily reminiscent of the original
cases, which were thought to have been solved (albeit not
really). It centers around a bad cop from the original two films
who is undergoing a crisis of conscience, another fine lead
performance, this time by David Morressey. This film concludes
the original story satisfactorily, if somewhat predictably; but it does
leave the overall disappointing impression that business in the corrupt
Northland goes on with the really evil police conspiracy not
addressed. All in all this was an absorbing series with some of
the finest acting I've seen in films of this kind. But it seemed,
in the end, incomplete somehow. ** 3/4
AFI
is trying an experiment this year...reducing the number of films and
giving away tickets to all the screenings. They're still not
selling out the shows I've
watched the first weekend; but all in all the festival at its new
venue, the Mann's Chinese multiplex, is remarkably well run. I
particularly like the little short film they've made to introduce each
screening...a classy gem of editing bits from old films which promises
not to become stale after many viewings. I like the theaters,
too...maybe not as plush as the Arclight...but the screens are huge,
the sound systems fine and so far the projection has been flawlessly
handled. Nice job, AFI.
I KILLED MY MOTHER
(d. Xavier Dolan)
Dolan was 19 when he wrote, directed and starred in this amazing howl
of adolescent angst. To call him a wunderkind would be
understating the case (we just may be witnessing the debut of a
youthful auteur of Wellesian stature). His character, Hubert, is
16 at the start
of the film, a sensitive boy embarrassed by his bourgeois, single
mother (a heartbreaking performance of maternal tough love by Anne
Dorval); and their constant bickering as he castigates her is quite
unpleasant to watch. Hubert hides his gay side from his mother,
at the same time he is fantasizing about escape from his mother's
supposed tyranny. I don't ever recall seeing a film like this
before: a probing, masterfully filmic look at being a teenager from the
inside. *** 1/2 (second viewing even more impressive:
*** 3/4)
CITY OF
LIFE AND DEATH (d. Lu Chuan)
Rumor had it that this was the film China should have submitted to the
Academy this year rather than Forever Enthralled.
Actually, there's no contest in my mind. City of Life and Death
is an epic masterpiece of which time will only enhance its reputation.
Shot in stark black & white, with a huge cast and jaw dropping
scope, the film graphically presents the conquest (and let's not mince
words) rape of the Chinese capitol Nanking by the Japanese in
1937-38. But, and this is the crucial but, it does it in a
completely unexpected way, mostly from the point of view of the
Japanese soldiers...and with a strangely neutral politic which replaces
wholesale castigation with a humanistic, if ultimately unforgiving,
point of view. I must present the caveat that personally I can't
give this film the **** that it probably deserves. I had problems
watching it: for one, throughout the film I, as a Caucasian, had
difficulty separating the Chinese from the Japanese. And in spots
my attention flagged, maybe from emotional overload. But I don't
wish these personal quirks to affect my overall feeling that this is
one hell of an important, timeless film, reminiscent visually of some
of the great past war epics from classic filmmakers like Dovzhenko,
Eisenstein and Kurosawa. *** 1/4
WOMAN
WITHOUT PIANO (d. Javier Rebollo)
This is an arch comic take on modern life in today's Madrid.
Carmen Machi plays a middle-aged, middle-class married Madriano matron
(how's that for "M" alliteration) who, probably out of boredom with her
life as a professional laser hair remover, sets off on a one night
excursion to anywhere but where she's at. During the evening of
comic encounters, her always taciturn character drinks more than a few
brandies and interacts with various strange people and situations,
especially a Polish gentleman on the lam. The film is shot like a
constantly evolving Hopper painting, and has an emotionally reserved
point of view which reminded me of absurdist comic filmmakers like Tati
and Keaton without the evident humor of their slapstick. I
enjoyed this film, mostly for the mood it engendered; but I didn't love
it. ** 3/4
VINCERE
(d. Marco Bellocchio)
"Vincere" means victory in Italian...and this large scale historical
film purports to tell the story of Benito Mussolini's early days, his
dalliance with his mistress, Ida Dalser (who spent most of her life in
mental institutions), and his son by that supposed bigamous marriage,
which may or may not have ever happened. The film is mostly about
Ida, played magnificently, with amazing emotional strength, by Giovanna
Mezzogiorno. But one must also give mad props to Filippo Timi,
who plays the dual roles of the young Il Duce and his grown son with
just a hint of overdoing it. In fact, the entire project is so
operatic in scope, that it constantly threatens to devolve into
bathos. But in the final analysis, the sheer bravado of the
acting and mis-en-scène carry the day. *** 1/4
PERPETUUM
MOBILE (d. Nicolas Pareda)
A couple of guys own a moving truck and wander aimlessly around Mexico
City encountering a series of people. Nothing much happens, and
the film looks ugly. The actors are all pretty terrible.
Sometimes this kind of nihilistic cinema works. This time it
didn't...a complete waste of time. * 1/4
YOUTH IN
REVOLT (d. Miguel Arteta)
Michael Cera is given an opportunity to expand his range as he plays
the dual roles of nebishy Nick Twist and dashing alter-ego Fernando
Dillinger; and he hits it out of the ballpark. The film is a
comedy about a kid from a zanily dysfunctional broken home who is
determined not to remain a virgin. In other words, it's not all
that original. But the witty script and spot on characterizations
raise the level. We're not talking great art here; just an
entertainment which ought to please its intended audience. ***
EASIER
WITH
PRACTICE (d. Kyle Patrick Alvarez)
Two 20-something brothers take to the road on the "intellectual" one's
book tour reading passages from his self-published short stories.
The writer is drawn into a phone sex relationship with a mysterious
woman after a random call to his motel room. This
based-on-a-true-story is particularly fine in its surprisingly
sensitive characterizations, with a cast of relatively unknowns whose
naturalistic performances are quite true to life...especially the lead,
Brian Geraghty. Maybe it goes on a little too long for its
slender premise; but this nifty little film is a true audience
pleaser. ***
LOOKING
FOR ERIC (d. Ken Loach)
This is a very non-Loachian film about a guy who fantasizes the
presence of a famous soccer star who advises him in some life
lessons. It's a little confusing and not very entertaining, for a
supposed comedy. ** 1/2
PAULISTA (d. Roberto Moreira)
The eponymous Paulista refers to a main street of Sao Paolo where two
women live in a high rise apartment. One is a lawyer with a vital
secret, who gets involved with a nice guy at work. The second is
an aspiring actress, new to the city, naive, but open to new
experiences, which includes a lesbian affair. The film is about
the bitter-sweet nature of romance in the big city. It's
involving up to a point; but I couldn't get past its pessimism.
Still, the actors are attractive and the story involving and modern
enough to keep my interest. ** 3/4
INSIDE
HANNA'S
SUITCASE (d. Larry Weinstein)
Hana Brady was 11 and orphaned when she was sent along with her older
brother to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and eventually to
Auschwitz. The suitcase that she was supposed to have carried to
her final destination ended up in a Holocaust museum in Japan, where it
became a symbol to millions of Japanese children. This enormously
moving documentary is told mostly by school children, and is about the
gradual uncovering of the life and times of this young girl who became
famous only because her suitcase just happened to arrive in Japan in
2000. It is Anne Frank without the diary, although a surprising
amount of history comes to life thanks to what amounts to a miracle of
happenstance. This film proves that there is still an enormous
emotional vein to be mined out of the Holocaust, as more original
stories are found to be told. *** 1/2
A BRAND NEW LIFE (d. Ounie
Lecomte)
An adorable young Korean girl is left by her father in a Christian
orphanage in the 1970s. At first she is defiant, rejecting the
notion that her father has deserted her. This isn't a Dickens
story, rather an uplifting story of good people doing good work with
children. It has the feeling of truth; and I wouldn't be
surprised if it is at least partially the director's own life
story. ***
THE
BALIBO
CONSPIRACY (d. Robert Connolly)
In 1975 the Portuguese left their colony on the island of Timor (just
north of Australia) and the independent state of East Timor was
founded, only to be overrun by an invasion of the Indonesians from the
west part of the island. This film is the true story of five
Australian journalists who went missing as they were covering the
invasion, and a sixth journalist (played by the outstanding Anthony
Lapaglia) who followed their trail to attempt to uncover the truth of
their disappearance. The film is tense and has the feeling of
authentic history unfolding, although it never is quite clear on the
reasons that the Indonesians were so villainous. *** 1/4
BIG GAY MUSICAL (d. Andreas
& Caruso)
One would expect a film touting itself as a big gay musical would be in
trouble; but the fact is that this is a minor miracle of a film:
fun and well written with some good original songs and a talented
cast. It's basically the story of the preparation for the opening
of an off-Broadway musical about gay oppression. But it is also a
solid portrayal of big city gay life as led by the attractive actors in
the play within the movie. We're not talking great art here; but
I have to say that as a musical it was far better than the current
magnum opus "Nine", better songs, a more involving story. ***
EYES WIDE OPEN (d. Hair
Tabakman)
An ultra-orthodox Jewish butcher, living an exemplary life in
Jerusalem, married with four children, hires a young man as his
assistant. He is warned that his young hire was kicked out of his
former congregation and made apostate for the sin of
homosexuality. However, there is something going on in the older
man's emotional life which draws him to the younger man. The film
is beautifully acted and somewhat shocking in its truthful portrayal of
its strange cult-like lifestyle. I felt gratitude that I wasn't
brought up in the judgmental and ascetic world of this film; but found
it fascinating, even as its anti-erotic tone repelled me. *** 1/4
MIRACLE SELLER (d. Boleslaw Pawica
& Jaroslaw Szoda)
An alcoholic, loser Polish man has remade himself as one questing for
redemption, conning funds from supporters to travel to Lourdes to be
cured by the Virgin. On his road trip, he picks up two lost
Chechen waifs, a brother and sister who are attempting to be reunited
in Lyon with the father they can't remember. The trip to the west
is fraught with perils. This is a pretty good road picture with
consequences. ** 3/4
1981
(d.
Ricardo
Trogi)
This is another French Canadian trip down memory lane, in this case the
director's own story of his 11th year, when he enters a new school and
decides to become a liar to make friends and downgrade his unsuccessful
parents. It's a one-joke, slender premise. The film is
marred by its narration, which is the writer/director's way of telling
his story; but it would have been better to have found a way to tell
the story without the constant droning of narration. Certainly
the boy actor was up to the job and the film does a good job of
representing the early '80s accurately. But I just didn't
care. ** 1/4
EAMON
(d.
Margaret
Corkery)
Eamon is an adorable 6 year old, hyperactive Irish boy whose
rambunctiousness is kept in check only by denying him sugar. His
parents are in over their head trying to raise him: his mother
selfish and irresponsible, his father a good man overwhelmed and
sexually frustrated by the strange mother/son dynamic. The three
of them head for a vacation at the seashore; and their adventure
provides some comedy and quite a bit of revelation into human
nature. Nicely done film; but the ending almost ruined the effect
of the film for me. *** 1/4
DIFFERENT FROM WHOM (d.
Umberto Carteni)
This is a semi-romantic, issue oriented comic farce about a liberal gay
politician, running for mayor of an Italian town along with a zipped
tight conservative woman running on the ticket as deputy mayor, who
must find common ground to get elected. That common ground
involves an affair with each other, despite the gay man's supposedly
happy home life cohabiting with has chef partner. The film is
slickly done; and despite some very weird sexual politics which turned
me off, I couldn't help liking the film and feeling very entertained.
***
PLAN
B (d.Marco Berger)
Two young Argentinian men vie for the same woman. One of them,
the ex-boyfriend goes to Plan B to win back his girl, seducing the very
straight new boyfriend somehow. Apparently there's nothing quite
as erotic as two straight boys fighting a mutual attraction. This
film has almost no production values at all...dingily shot, sort of a
meandering script. But the two main actors are very personable;
and the tone of the film is completely ingratiating, original and
enjoyable. Almost without seeming to try, this is a superb gay
film. *** 1/4
MEDITERRANEAN FOOD (d. Joaquin
Oristrell)
A young woman is born to cook, growing up working for her parents at a
small Spanish seaside restaurant. She gets married to a good man,
has an affair with a not-so-good man, a waiter on the rise. She
studies cooking with a French master; and along with the two young men
from her home town opens a fine cuisine restaurant in her old
town. Along the way, the film goes for an unconventional three
way love affair and presents enough delicious looking food that I am
glad I wasn't hungry when I watched the film! Apparently the word
got out that this was a delightful film, as every screening after the
first was a sellout. The film looks fabulous; and this film goes
a long way to add to Spain's increasing reputation for producing really
wonderful and original romantic comedies. *** 1/2
THE BIG DREAM (d. Michele
Placido)
Placido is telling his own story as a student in 1968-9 involved with
the worldwide youth revolt, in this case in a Madrid university.
The film suffers from being the nth iteration of this theme, and is
rather diffuse and a little hard to follow. But the actors are
attractive; and there is a certain ring of truth to the story.
Maybe Placido was too personally involved to hone his script to
perfection. ** 1/2
FORTAPASC (d. Marco Risi)
Before the film, people in line were speculating about how to pronounce
the title in Italian. Somebody gave it the Croatian "ch" sound at
the end and thought maybe it should sound like "Fort Apache".
That turned out to be exactly right, as the film is an extended
metaphor of the American film: a depiction of a crime beleaguered
city, in this case transferred to Naples in the mid-1980s. It's
the true story of a sympathetic journalist-journalist for a small town
newpaper trying to uncover the truth about the Camorra's deep, but
hidden, infiltration of all the underground activities in his Bay of
Naples town, and the government corruption which reached to the highest
levels. It's a complex story with a large cast and the potential
for a very powerful exposé; but I don't think the director was
quite up to the task of making a fully coherent narrative. ** 3/4
THE ECLIPSE (d. Conor McPherson)
Ciaran
Hinds is a widower with two children living in a seaside Irish town
which is holding an international literary festival. As a townie,
he is charged with driving two authors around town, one a lady
who writes true stories about ghosts (the always interesting Iben
Hjejle). Coincidentally, Hinds is being haunted by his
not-quite-dead father-in-law's ghost. I'm not really into ghost
stories...but this one did have a little fright to convey, although the
love story was sort of conventional. But Aiden Quinn, playing a
rotten, philandering author, overacted; and the film just went nowhere.
** 1/2
IS IT JUST ME? (d. J. C. Calciano)
I
think I can literally count the number of successful gay romantic
comedies on the fingers of one hand. As a genre, it is apparently
an almost impossible task to present one which can compete on a level
playing field with the straights. Calciano, in his first
directorial effort, managed to make one of the best I've seen...I
laughed, I cried, I felt that I learned some truths about young gays
that needed to be said. Not that it was a perfect film, I don't
want to oversell it. The characters were rather stock:
bright young man, insecure about his looks; his trick-a-night,
go-go-dancer roommate; the fag hag best friend; the internet
chatroom hick. But
Calciano delivers the goods with a clever script (an adaptation of
the Cyrano story), along with a sure talent for casting actors who
interact
with real chemistry and sell their roles perfectly. A couple of
actors to watch for in the future: Nicholas Downs, who combines
smarts and acting chops in one attractive package; and David Loren, who
is quite
ingratiating in an almost impossible role as the cute, insightful hick
from
Texas with a good heart. *** 1/4
BROTHERHOOD (d. Nicolo Donato)
This
is a Danish film about a cult of neo-Nazi skinheads who beat up on gays
and Muslims. A closeted gay ex-soldier joins their ranks despite
all, and a passionate gay affair with one of the committed members
ensues
which wrecks havoc. I had the feeling of having seen all this
before (eg. Danish hyper-violence as in the Pusher trilogy); but the
film was well acted enough to hold my interest. ** 3/4
THE SICILIAN GIRL (d. Marco
Amenta)
A
12 year old girl witnesses her father's assassination by the
Mafia. She seeks vengeance, and for 5 years keeps a diary of the
criminal enterprises in her Sicilian town; and ultimately becomes a
witness in a large scale Mafia trial. That's the bare bones
description of what happens in this true story (the director already
had made a documentary on this subject a decade ago; but this film
examines the same story with actors). What Amenta achieves here
is a towering expose and a riveting story of the Mafia in action, and
one brave girl who dared to stand up to them. Veronica D'Agostino
is astonishingly real in a non-actressy way in the lead role. The
script is a model of clarity which personalizes the issues and really
brings home the difficulties of bringing down the Mafia in a culture
which has supported it for centuries. It's hard to overpraise
this excellent film, probably the best Italian film I've ever seen
about their criminal syndicates. *** 3/4
GLORIOUS 39 (d. Stephen Poliakoff)
Glorious
is her brother's nickname for luminous Romola Garai's character, a
young lady adopted as an infant into one of Britain's high class ruling
families. The 39 in the title refers to the lovely English summer
of 1939 where war clouds are forming. Bill Nighy,
understated and acerbic as always, plays the diplomat father who is
quietly leading a pro-German faction intent on keeping Britain out of
the war. The film features lots of surreptitious scheming, fake
suicides, murders, murky conspiracies reaching to highest levels of
government. These seem like preposterous plot contrivances; but
maybe it was really like this. In any case, this is a lush
production with fine actors and gorgeous settings. ***
QUEEN TO PLAY (d. Caroline
Bottaro)
Sandrine
Bonnaire plays a chambermaid in a Corsican resort inn, whose humdrum
life and working class husband aren't quite enough. She watches
an American couple play chess and becomes obsessed with the game.
She reaches out to an elderly American ex-pat (played by Kevin Kline
with more than serviceable French) to be her chess mentor.
Bonnaire is an actress of uncommon stolidity who expresses everything
with her eyes, which is perfect for a film which mainly consists of
watching people play chess. But the film didn't quite work for
me, predictable and boring with its unrealistic and frankly
unsatisfying obsession with the chess games. ** 1/2
OVER THE HILL BAND (d. Geoffrey
Enthoven)
Three
seventy-ish Flemish ladies were a rock 'n roll trio in their
youth. One of their sons is a failed musician; and by a series of
plot devices the three reunite with the son and his musician friends to
try out for a musical talent tv show. This is another of those Full Monty,
fish-out-of-water films, only it does go to a darker place as the film
progresses. But along the way it's a feel-good film for seniors
which didn't make me feel all that good. ** 1/2
ANGEL AT SEA (d.
Frédéric Dumont)
Louis
is a bright, happy 12 year old French kid living with his parents and
older brother in Morocco. His father, the always reliable actor
Olivier Gourmet, while succumbing to bi-polar clinical depression
confides to his loving, favorite son a terrible secret which no 12 year
old should ever have to hear. It amounts to mental child abuse,
and I noticed a lot of audience members leaving the theater, probably
in disgust at the father's behavior. It so happens that when I
was in college my own father started to exhibit serious bi-polar
symptoms, so I can attest to the realism of this film. But I
wasn't an impressionable 12 year old then; and my heart broke for this
boy played by the enormously talented young actor Martin Nissen.
This is one tough to watch film; but it expresses its truths with
remarkable fidelity. *** 1/4
BRIDE FLIGHT (d. Ben Sombogaart)
Sombogaart made one of the best films of the last decade, Twin Sisters,
and
this
film proves that that film was no flash in the pan. This
is the film that Baz Luhrmann's Australia
could have been (only in this case it would have been about New
Zealand.) It's the story of a planeload of immigrants on the KLM
plane which won the 1953 race from London to Christchurch, centered on
one man and three women with whom he interacted. The film
successfully manages two time lines: the present day when the
three women get together at the funeral of the man (a successful
vintner played by Rutger Hauer in the present day and sexy Waldemar
Torenstra in the '50s story), and the flashback to the formation of
their rocky relationships. This is romance and melodrama taken to
the highest level, wonderfully acted and photographed in wide screen
which captures New Zealand and an era perfectly. Sure, it's a
little soap opera-ish...but the story had some original twists and
turns which took it out of the ordinary. *** 3/4
HIPSTERS (d. Valery Todorovsky)
A
dazzlingly visual Russian musical about the Soviet '50s? Who
woulda thunk it. I have no idea how realistic this film is; but I
have to say it is one of the most entertaining musicals I've
seen...combining the zany, super-saturaturated colorful visual panache
of Yes Nurse, No
Nurse
with a story right out of the '30s American musical tradition...young
communist boy meets rebellious girl and changes his stripes, literally
in this case since the wild clothes of these " hipsters" are
their trademark. Maybe the film went on a bit too long for its
slender story; but its visual inventiveness, wonderfully lively song
and dance treatments, and unexpected Western tradition brio made for a
unique film experience. And the young couple, played by Anton
Shagin and Oksana Akinshina, were fine and had nice chemistry together.
*** 1/2
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
(d. Niels Arden Oplev)
The film which won the audience favorite award at Palm Springs is a
wide screen thriller based on a famed Swedish novel. I almost
didn't watch the film because the book is next on my to-read
list. But I'm glad I did. It's quite well made, with a
fairly original and unpredictable plot about a journalist and a young
hacker girl who form an unlikely alliance to expose a serial killer in
the midst of a rich industrial family with Nazi connections.
Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace are perfectly cast in the lead roles;
and now I'm ready to read all three novels in this series! *** 1/2
ALIVE! (d. Artan Minarolli)
A
college sophomore (played with star quality by a charismatic young
Alain Delon lookalike, Nik Xhelilaj) from a small, remote mountain
village is called back home to attend his father's funeral when he
learns that he's now in mortal danger, the object of a blood feud that
he hadn't heretofore even been aware of. This is an tension
packed, involving and even enlightening view into a mysterious foreign
culture which seems so strange, yet so real. I'd rate this film
even higher; but its narrative arc is just a little too diffuse. ** 3/4
SAMSON AND DELILAH
(d. Warwick Thornton)
The
setting is a threadbare New South Wales aboriginal settlement where a
disaffected pair of teenagers are marking time. Samson is a
gasoline sniffer with an abusive big brother, Delilah cares for her
aging primitive artist grandmother. Their lives are really
unpleasant, as is the film, although it is almost redeemed by the
bittersweet ending. ** 1/4
FOR A
MOMENT, FREEDOM (Ein Augenblick Freiheit) (d. Arash T.
Riahi)
The plight of refugees from tyrannical regimes has become a popular
topic for filmmakers. This film tells the tension packed story of
three groups of Iranians who make it to Turkey and suffer through the
procedures to become legal emmigres. Two of the stories involve
young children, and the film is loaded with sympathetic, heart tugging
scenes. It is quite well written and the acting is
naturalistic...almost documentary like in its realistic depiction of
these deprived and endangered refugees. *** 1/2
THE MISFORTUNATES
(d. Felix Van Groeningen)
Young Gunther is a 13 year old boy, son of an alcoholic father and
absent prostitute mother, raised in a household of rowdy lower class
wastrels. His story is being told in voice-over and extended
flashbacks by the present day Gunther, 27, budding novelist, who is
living a life perilously close to repeating the mistakes of his
father. I found the constant loud carousing of the 1990s family
to be annoying, and to be honest I almost walked. But then
somewhere, maybe 2/3 through, the connections between past and present
started to make sense and I realized I was somehow emotionally involved with these unlikable
characters. I'm glad I persevered. ** 3/4
THE WORLD IS BIG AND
SALVATION LURKS AROUND THE CORNER (d. Stephan Komandarev)
This ungainly title is a quote that 7-year old Sasha is told early on
by his backgammon playing grandfather. The film opens in the
present day with a terrible automobile accident where the grown-up
Sasha is the sole survivor. He's the son of Bulgarian refugees
living in Germany; and the accident leaves him with retrograde
amnesia. His grandfather (played by the great Serbian actor Miki
Manojilovic) travels to Germany to try to help his grandson recover his
memory. Through flashbacks and an extended road trip by tandem
bicycle, we're told the story of this plucky family which somehow
survived the Communist era. It turns out that the process of
recovering from amnesia is a particularly effective narrative device
here. This is one heck of an emotionally satisfying film which
scored highly with the Palm Springs audience. *** 1/2
DAWSON ISLA 10 (d.
Miguel Littín)
When Salvador Allende was overthrown by Pinochet's junta, the former
government ministers and other major leftist supporters were rounded up
and sent to what amounted to concentration camps on islands in the
frozen far south of Chile. This film is essentially a prison
story of the first years of the incarceration of some of those
men. It's a very bleak look at the best and worst of human
nature, shot in muted tones with a documentary feel and with a strong
leftist political agenda; yet a humanistic and in a strange way
uplifting story, too. ***
DONKEY (d.
Antonio Nuić)
A
dysfunctional extended family reunite in their bucolic village home at
the tail end of the Serbo-Croatian war. Very gradually, almost
glacially slowly, past secrets are revealed. The animal of the
title, a cute little donkey tethered to a tree and ostensibly for sale,
is both incidental to the plot and the fulcrum of the resolution of
much of the tensions which divide the family. This bleak film,
shot in muted tones, represents the dark side of country family
gatherings. ** 1/2
PROTEKTOR (d.
Marek Najbrt)
Emil is a popular radio announcer married to a Jewish actress when the
Germans are ceded Czechoslovakia after Munich. The film is about
the moral dilemma that Emil is forced into trying to accommodate both
his job and his temperamental wife during the war years which
follow. This is a fundamentally interesting concept; but the film
is stylistically tricked out to the point that it seems contrived, when
it could have been emotionally powerful. ** 1/2
LETTERS TO FATHER JACOB (Postia Pappi
Jaakobille) (d. Klaus Härö)
Härö directed one of my favorite films of the decade, Mother of Mine,
an
emotionally
devastating
film. This current film is a much
smaller affair, an intimate story of spiritual awakening...but just
about as moving for all of that. It's the story of an elderly
blind pastor who hires a paroled woman murderer to read his
correspondence. The two actors are especially fine, their subtle
performances play against each other perfectly. The film is
beautifully shot, austere interiors, lush exteriors; and the
soundtrack, featuring a haunting piano musical score, is
remarkable. Yet somehow I didn't quite reach the emotional
catharsis that the film promised. Maybe it was just a tad too
austere. *** 1/4
A
PROPHET
(Un
Prophete) (d. Jacques Audiard)
Tahar Rahim is a star. What? Never heard of him?
Don't worry, you will. In Audiard's near masterpiece he plays
Malik, a 19 year old Arab/Frenchman, an orphan raised in a state
facility who at the start of the film has been sentenced to 6 years of
hard labor for attacking a cop. By an accident of fate, the
naive, illiterate newcomer becomes involved with the Corsican gang
which effectively runs the prison...especially the elderly gang leader
Cesar, played by
Niels Arestrupin
in a tough guy performance worthy of Jean Gabin. Malik
progresses magnificently as a character over the course of his prison
term; and the whole film works as a thriller and a really interesting
character study. There's a bit of spiritual mumbo jumbo as Malik
becomes best buddies with the ghost of a guy he killed. And lots
of intrigue between various factions which becomes a little
confusing. But all in all this is a superbly made film which
plays a lot shorter than its 155 minutes. *** 3/4
THE WHITE RIBBON
(d. Michael Haneke)
Of course this film won the Palm D'Or at Cannes.
Haneke is a master of the enigmatic plot. This film is shot in
simply stunning b&w and takes place in the period immediately
before World War I in a small German town where most of the inhabitants
work for a rich baron and are more or less dissatisfied with the status
quo. When strange, horrifying things start to happen in the town,
the social order starts to break down. This film is a lot more
subtle than many previous films by Haneke, more in the world of Caché
than Funny Games.
I
was
also
surprised that for all its slow plot development that the 2
1/2 hours had passed in a flash, I was that much involved with the
story and characters. *** 1/2
CHAMELEON
(Kaméleon) (d. Kristzina Goda)
An attractive con man preys on needy women until he and his accomplice
from their ophanage upbringing encounter a woman more savvy than his
usual conquest. This sets up a caper film with more complexities
and invention than the usual film of this type. Slick,
involving, well acted. But I'm not sure that by the end all
the loose ends are tied satisfactorally. *** 1/4
REYKJAVIK-ROTTERDAM (d. Oskar
Jonasson)
Baltasar Kormakur, who has been sticking to directing lately, comes
back to acting in this clever, comic, caper/thriller from
Iceland. Kormakur plays an ex-con smuggler, married with two cute
young sons, in AA, and trying to go straight. He's drawn into one
last smuggling trip to Rotterdam by his incompetent brother-in-law, and
a comedy of errors ensues. It's the kind of mad plot that
Hollywood will probably steal and ruin. Lots of trivial fun and
quite well directed to keep all the balls in the air at once. ***
1/4
AJAMI (d. Yaron Shani
and Scandar Copti)
This is a multi-character, multi-ethnic Israeli thriller centered
around
a Palestinian family who have become the hunted victims of a blood
feud; but it also meshes Christians, Jews and Bedouins in its complex
mosaic. It's very dark, very densely plotted, with a structure of
gradually propelling the story forward in four chapters each of which
shifts back in time disclosing important (and startling) additional
information from a different point of view. It is so well written
and naturalistically acted that the technique doesn't feel artificial,
rather the means to ratchet up the tension all the more. This is
a superb film on every level, with characters I cared about and could
empathize with despite their obvious flaws. But I wish I had paid
better attention to one crucial detail early in the film which remained
a seemingly loose end by the conclusion. *** 3/4
BAARIA (d.
Giuseppe Tornatore)
Baarìa is the nickname for the small Sicilian town where
writer/director Tornatore grew up. This sprawling, lickety-split epic
is the life story of Peppito (played by several child actors,
culminating with Francesco Scianna as the grown up version), child of
poverty in pre-WWII fascist times who grows up to be a Communist
activist while the town develops and grows around him. This is
Tornatore's Amarcord,
emotionally resonant evocation of a town, but adding layers of life
experience through decades of events. It's a technical tour de
force, with a flawless re-creation of the eras the film passes
through...beautifully photographed in wide screen and with another of
Ennio Morracone's recognizable and evocative scores. The film is
a wonder of filmic transitions, years pass with a single brilliantly
conceived edit. It plays much faster than its almost 3
hours. I was impressed by the scope of Tornatore's vision...but
after all that, surprised that I remained more emotionally distanced
than with his previous films. Still...if only for the bravura
filmmaking: *** 1/2
NOBODY TO WATCH OVER
ME (Dare Mo Mamotte Kurenai) (d. Ryôichi Kimizuka)
Japan's cinema has excelled recently with social realism stories which
go
a long way towards illuminating Japanese society, warts and all.
This current film is a police thriller of sorts, one that explores
the culture of shame which affects the (supposedly, at least in Western
culture) innocent family members of murderers. In this case, the alleged
(apparently a term unknown in Japan) killer was an 18 year old boy,
considered a minor in Japan. By law the police are supposed to
protect family members (who face a lifetime of shame and social
stigmatizing) from suicide. But in the age of voracious media and
internet, that task is difficult, if not impossible. This is the
story of a policeman charged with protecting the alleged
killer's 15 year old sister. The film is fast paced, nicely
acted, informative, insightful, even emotionally resonant and
touching. In other words it really worked for me. *** 1/2
KELIN: THE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW
(d. Ermek Tursunov)
It takes cheek to make a film with zero dialog. But Kelin is
uniquely up to the task. It's the 2nd Century story of a girl
sold by her father to a husband and taken by him to live with his
family (mother and teen-age brother) in wintry, mountainous
Kazakhstan. The film reminds me a little of The
Fast
Runner in
the way it seems to accurately represent the lifestyle of winter bound
herdsmen. The film is absolutely gripping, authentic, wonderfully
realized, with amazing cinematography and naturalistic acting.
Masterpiece is a word I rarely use; but here it just may be
applicable. ****
VORTEX (Duburys) (d.
Gytis Luksas)
The film takes place at some unspecified, but Sovietized time in rural
Lithuania, where a farm boy from a struggling family is traumatized by
the accidental death of his father. He grows up; and despite an
almost Candide like goodness, lives and loves through a troubled
life. Shot in glorious black & white (a real trend this year
with some of the best cinematography of recent years), the film has its
problems: overlong, confusingly episodic, with a draggy 2nd
act. Still, the direction is outstanding, the acting throughout
assured. I was absorbed by the hero's life and times, even while
cringing at the unmitigated miserablism. *** 1/4
DRAFT DODGERS (Réfractaire) (d. Nicolas Steil)
Réfractaire
is translated as "dissidents" in the sub-titles; but
its title at the Palm Springs film festival is "Draft Dodgers", which
might be more apropos. It refers to a group of young
anti-Nazi Luxembourgeois men during World War II who would be
conscripted into the German army and sent to the Russian front if they
didn't instead hide out in a deserted underground mine aided by the
Resistance. The film centers around François, son of a
Nazi collaborator, but himself a drop out from a German college which
teaches Aryan racism. He's nicely played by one of my favorite
French actors, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet. This is yet
another original take on WWII, which continues to dominate foreign
films as no other historical event of the 20th century does. But
it simply isn't as emotionally resonant as other films of its
type. Despite an authentic look and some fine acting, the film
failed to cohere as drama. ** 3/4
BACKYARD (El
Traspatio) (d. Carlos Carrera)
In
the late 1990s the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juárez, across
the river from El Paso, experienced a series of rapes and murders of
women. This well made, gritty, based-on-a-true-story procedural
is about the gradual realization that serial murders are occurring; and
follows the efforts of one courageous woman cop to overcome systemic
inertia and corruption in the pursuit of the culprits. The wide
screen production is first class slick. If it all seems a little
predictable, maybe it's because I watch too many similar tv procedurals
like Criminal
Minds and CSI.
But
kudos
for acting to Ana de la Reguera as the beset cop and Jimmy
Smits reprising his character in Dexter (I do watch too much tv).
*** 1/4
CASANEGRA (d.
Nour Eddine Lakhmari)
This film takes place in Casablanca (which means "white house").
The title here is a play on that name: "black house" because it
takes place in the dirty underbelly of pimps, whores and thieves in
Casablanca. It's the story of two young friends on the make, one
from a family with an abusive step-father who longs for the clean snows
and blond women of Malmö, Sweden; the other from a working class
family where the father is suffering from Parkinson's. Their
hapless quest for licit or illicit dough might have been the stuff of
comic melodrama, if the over-long narrative weren't so
unrealistic. One thing I did like about this film was that we
were drenched in the atmosphere of modern day Casablanca, a city of
beautiful vistas slightly reminiscent of Madrid. Much of the film
is composed of tracking shots, the camera placed at street level
looking up with the exotic architecture of the city's high rises in the
background. But that's the most admirable feature of this film
which just misses the mark as an effective narrative. ** 1/4
MAX
MANUS (d. Joachim Roenning & Espen Sandberg)
So many films have been made about World War II that it is amazing when
one comes along which has something fresh to add to the common lore,
and one that does it with such emotional resonance and panache.
As with last year's Danish film Flame & Citron
and this year's Hollywood film Inglourious Basterds
this is a story of the resistance...in this case in German occupied
Norway. The film is ostensibly a biopic of the true life
decorated resistance fighter Max Manus (superbly played by Aksel
Hennie). But it is also a tale of friendship, heroism, and especially
the terrible cost of war on those who live through it. The large
scale production is just about flawless in its depiction of time and
place. This is an impressive piece of filmmaking, one that
transcends its genre. *** 3/4
WINTER IN WARTIME (Oorslongwinter)
(d. Martin Koolhoven)
This is yet another look at World War II, in this case from the point
of view of a teenage boy, son of a small town mayor in German occupied
Netherlands, who becomes involved in the hiding of a downed British
bomber pilot. This is a gripping thriller, beautifully directed,
which develops in truly original and surprising ways. Young
Martijn Lakemeier is an actor to watch. *** 1/2
THE MILK OF SORROW
(d. Claudia Llosa)
A young woman watches her mother die. The mother is singing a
song about how terrorists abused her and her baby, the sorrow passed
through her mother's milk to her daughter along with other horrors too
terrible to mention in this review. The girl now lives with her
uncle's family in a poor shanty town and in order to obtain the funds
to bury her mother she goes to work as a domestic for a rich lady.
This exercise in miserablism is artfully, even beautifully shot
with compositions making fine use of light and shadow. One has to
admire the sad truths of the film, even though its slow pacing and the
lead characters impassivity was ultimately hard to take. An
interesting sidelight of the film was a recurrent theme of the
regenerative quality of weddings in the impoverished village. As
an exotic slice of a hard life, this was an interesting film...it just
wasn't my cuppa'. ***
GRANDPA IS DEAD (Ded
Na Si Lolo) (d. Soxie H. Topacio)
A woman amongst her immediate family is notified that her father has
died. She faints, being a drama queen. She's not the only
drama queen in this large extended family which gathers together for
the week-long wake. What we have here is a raucus family comedy,
a farce about a dead man and his many squabbling children and their
families. I found it virtually unwatchable...the acting was so
overdone as to be extremely annoying. I stuck it out as long as I
could (about half way) and then walked. W/O
REVERSE (Rewers)
(d. Borys Lankosz)
The year is 1952, and black and white stock footage from that time in
Warsaw seamlessly segues into a beautifully shot B&W film about a
bourgeois family of three generations of women caught up in the terrors
of the encroaching police state. The center of the film is the
dogged, unattractive daughter, an office functionary in the poetry
department of a publishing house. Her mother was a druggist
before the war, and her feisty, aristocratic elderly grandmother is
approaching death with pluck. Together they bravely face their
new lifestyle through a series of events comprising a deliciously
satiric black comedy of sorts, one which captures the tone of an era
perfectly even as it goes to gristly extremes. The only flaw is
that it intercuts occasionally events in modern day Poland, shot in
color for contrast, events which detract a bit from the suspense of the
1952 story. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed this beautifully
realized gem of a film. *** 1/2
POLICE, ADJECTIVE
(d. Corneliu Prumboiu)
A plain clothes policeman is charged with tailing a trio of high school
students that are suspected of smoking marijuana in order to find the
source of the drugs. In keeping with recent films from Romania
(especially 4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days,
which
it
resembles
on the surface, but without that film's thematic,
dramatic tension) this film was a rigorous exercise in story telling at
the speed of life. What do I mean by that? It is made with
a deliberate rhythm, long static takes with little action other than
the seemingly trivial (endless walking scenes as the policeman tails
the kids by foot, long static scenes of quotidian actions like eating
solitary meals, reading a dictionary aloud for two reels). This
comes off to an American audience used to the artificial quick editing
rhythms of tv and films as tedious. The film also focuses
entirely on the policeman, his job and his personal moral quandary,
leaving the subjects of his surveillance as complete
ciphers...irrelevant to the film's theme (which is the status of the
law in an ostensibly free post-Communist Romania). I found the
thematic core of the film fascinating, and was never bored, despite the
provocative editing schema. ***
WARD NO. 6 (d. Karen Shakhnazarov)
Russia had one of the best films I've seen this year with Wild Field. That
film would have almost certainly been in the running for a foreign
language film
Oscar®. Instead they sent this talky, pseudo-documentary
based on
a Chekhov play brought up-to-date. It's the story of an ancient
monastery which has been turned into a mental institution; and how the
doctor running the place undergoes a breakdown and is incarcerated in
his own mental ward. The juxtaposition of the actors reading 19th
century Chekhovian dialog with 21st century big-head closeup
documentary style interviews with real mental patients is an
interesting technique. But the film overly intellectualizes, is
much too talky and provides zero emotional catharsis. **
BROKEN PROMISE (d.
Jirí Chlumský)
Even 65 years later the Holocaust is still providing fodder for stark,
illuminating and involving dramas. This film has a familiar ring
to it: the based on a true story of the WWII experiences of a
large Slovakian Jewish family. The narrative is centered on
Martin, bar mitzva boy in 1938, whose luck and pluck and athletic
prowess on the soccer field took him through the war. His sojourn
through work camp, TB sanitarium, and as a partisan resistance fighter
makes for a grandly involving epic. The film is very well
directed, and Samo Spisák is particularly fine and convincing as
he ages from 13 to 20. This film joins a handful of really well
made, young man centered Holocaust personal stories, such as Europa, Europa,
the recent Defiance
and particularly the 2005 Hungarian film Fateless,
which still have the power to enthrall despite their similar and
familiar themes. *** 1/2
LANDSCAPE NO. 2
(Pokrajina St. 2) (d. Vinko Möderndorfer)
The
premise of this film is that in the days following WWII there were
large-scale summary executions of German sympathizers by Communist
partisans, the mass graves of which are today being uncovered.
When two men, in the course of a theft of a stolen painting (by a
retired Communist general) accidentally steal a document which blows
the lid off the heretofore secret orders for those executions, it sets
in motion a series of events beyond anybody's control. This film
is sexy, super bloody, relevant...a thriller with some elements of
satire. It's totally absorbing as a film, even as it goes over
the top into very black comedy at times. *** 1/2
WHITE WEDDING
(d. Jann Turner)
An upscale black couple are planning to wed in Capetown. But the
groom has to make the journey by bus and car from Johannesburg before
the ceremony. This turns into a comedy road trip as he and his
best friend encounter a series of adventures involving a hitchhiking
Englishwoman, some angry Boers and various other setbacks on the
road. It's an opportunity to humorously explore the reconciled
social fabric of the new South Africa. But the situational comedy
comes off a tad light, and for all its popular appeal, I couldn't get
very involved. ** 1/2
MOTHER (d.
Bong Jong-ho)
The film opens with a mysterious shot of a seemingly demented middle
age woman dancing wildly to inappropriate music in a field of wild
grasses. What is happening here? Immediately we are
transported to a shop where the woman is cutting herbs with a cutting
board, her attention dangerously set on a grown boy and a dog across
the street as the chopping blade cuts closer to unsuspecting fingers, a
clever mechanism for the kind of suspense this film exhibits
throughout. This boy/man turns out to be her slightly retarded
son; and the relationship of this mother and her son turns out to be
the crucible for a surprising series of events surrounding a teenage
girl's murder. The film is magnificently shot in wide-screen
color. The acting is impeccable, especially Kim Hye-ja as the
mother whose obsessive love for her strange son takes her to some
amazing places. I was impressed by the originality and
unpredictability of the screenplay; but the film raises a series of
difficult, culturally specific moral quandaries which are hard to
swallow. *** 1/4
BEST OF TIMES (d.
Youngyoot Thongkongthun)
Two best friends in college, one gets the girl, the other secretly
longs for her as his first love. Ten years later, the film picks
up as a bittersweet story of that relationship along with a September
romance of two elderly people, one of whom is starting to suffer the
effects of Alzheimers. The film is wide-screen, nicely produced,
beautifully photographed. But the overdone music and the bathos
inflected story was just a little too much for me. Too bad,
because at heart there are some touching elements here. ** 1/4
I SAW THE SUN (d. Mahsun
Kirmizigül)
This is a
based-on-a-true-story of people caught up in government forces beyond
their control. In this case it is an entire Kurdish village,
surrounded by the long-term war between the Kurdish nationalists (read
terrorists) and the Turkish army. The people of the village,
along with (as the film tells us in an epilogue) 2.5 million others,
are displaced, exiled from their village and traditions. After
establishing their life in the village, the film diverges into two main
story threads. One family buys its way to Norway in a difficult
passage. Another settles in Istanbul and encounters the horrors
of fish truly out of water...including one central story of a gay son
discovering himself in the big city while being ruthlessly
treated by his conservative family which has never really left their
village with regards to their attitudes. The film features
spectacular production values: beautiful, colorful wide-screen
vistas, a huge cast, widely divergent actual locations. The story
is affecting enough; but the acting style tends toward the
over-dramatic to the point that I found myself rolling my eyes on
several occasions. The film is
overwhelmed by its ambitious, over-the-top earnestness. ** 3/4
BAD DAY TO GO FISHING
(d. Alvaro Brechner)
A dissolute con-man is the manager of an aging former world champion
wrestler. Together they are touring small South American towns
offering $1,000 to anybody who can stay in the ring for 3 minutes
against the champion. That's the set-up for this entertaining, if
ultimately somewhat pointless, slice of life caper flick, as the two
men arrive in the one town where their flim-flam is going to encounter
some problems. The characters are, for the most part, interesting
and well played; the wide-screen cinematography and sense of time and
place quite nicely realized. ***
ENRICO MATTEI: THE MAN WHO LOOKED AT
THE FUTURE (d.
Giorgio Capitani)
This Italian television biopic has as its subject Enrico Mattei, a
truly interesting and historically important person I'd never heard of
before. The film covers his life starting post-WWII, even though
his wartime experience with the anti-fascist resistance would probably
make a film in itself. Mattei was a successful businessman, who
was charged by post-war prime minister De Gaspere to clean up the
government owned Italian oil company, a scam which never produced any
oil. Instead, he turned it into multinational ENI Group. He
married a former ballet dancer, and the film discloses episodes of his
personal life; but its study of oil geopolitics and Mattei's fight with
the American oil companies from the Po region to Iran to Libya to
Sicily is very informative and quite well written. This is a tv
movie, and the dingy digital projection was not great (the Chinese
theater here is using the wrong aspect ratio making everything look
wider than actuality...but one gets used to that.) ***
MEMORIES OF ANNE FRANK (d. Alberto Negrin)
Hannah Gosler was best friends (apparently) with Anne Frank before the
war. Their lives diverged; but this film purports to be "freely
adapted" from Gosler's book which culminates with the two reunited
briefly late in the war at Bergen Belsen. What this film attempts
is to reconstruct Anne's life after she and her family was sent to
Auschwitz in 1942. One must give points for good intentions; but
the actual fact is that this English language tv film is
dreadful...poorly acted, preposterously written, eye-rollingly overly
sentimentalized. It's not even very Italian, with an American
lead (bright 13 year old Rosabelle Sellers) and mostly Hungarian cast
and crew. Even Ennio Morricone's rare current musical score was
inferior by his standards. There must be a good film to be made with
this subject matter; but for sure this isn't the one! * 1/4
INGLORIOUS BASTARDS
(1978) (d. Denzo Castellari)
Tarantino obviously borrowed the title, if little else, from this 70's
spaghetti war flick. It featured mostly American actors, and was
probably post dubbed to the current English language version.
It's the story of a rag-tag bunch of WWII American soldier deserters
and criminal types being transported to prison when their truck is
strafed and they escape. Their adventures trying to make their
way to Switzerland and out of the war make for a fun comic drama with
an enormous casualty list and bodies blowing up every which way along
with huge explosions every few minutes. In some ways it follows
the plot development of the current Tarantino film...the group stumbles
into doing a heroic anti-German deed behind enemy lines. But
mostly it goes its own ridiculous kill-everybody-in-sight way; but all
with tongue in cheek and quite entertainingly well played. Plus
the current wide-screen color film print is well preserved...the film
looks great. ** 3/4
THE YOUNGEST SON (Il figlio più)
(d. Pupi Avanti)
An Italian business man, played by Christian De Sica, is pulling off a
gigantic scam with fake companies and multiple tax dodges. It all
started when he married his mistress years before to legitimize their
two boys; and then deserted her on her wedding day with nothing.
In the present day the boys are grown and the father, in trouble with
the authorities as his business empire is crumbling, involves his
rather simple youngest son in a scheme to transfer all assets to the
young man. It's all rather over-complicated with a plot which is
frankly hard to follow (maybe some of the fast paced Italian dialog
escaped the subtitling?) However it did look great on the
gigantic Grauman's Chinese screen...the large budget and high
production values did show well. ** 1/2
THE VICEROYS (I Vicerè) (d.
Roberto Faenza)
The Uzedas were a noble family descended from Spanish viceroys who
actually existed in mid-nineteenth century Italy. This superior
costume drama is adapted from an Italian historical novel and works on
almost every level. The story starts around 1850 with the death
of the mater familia whose will starts a war for dominance among her
progeny. The plot revolves around the young prince Consalvo,
whose martinet father schemes to take over the family fortune and soon
banishes his rebellious son to a monastery. The film covers the
next several decades, including Garibaldi's social revolution and the
many internecine rivalries inside this family ruled by hatred and power
lust. The film is superbly set in its period; and the acting,
direction, and cinematography are flawless. Why this 2007 film
has languished in obscurity is a mystery...I can easily compare it with
Visconti's The
Leopard in its scope and affect. *** 1/2
EIGHTEEN YEARS LATER (18 anni dopo)
(d.
Edoardo
Leo)
I was sort of enjoying this dramedy about two estranged brothers who
embark on a road trip to deposit the ashes of their recently departed
father. They drive off in the splendid Morgan auto that the
father had restored in
secret. But I was only going to watch the entire film if it
captivated me utterly, since I had a personal errand to run. As
presented here with a dingy video print, and with a plot that failed to
impress me as anything out of the ordinary, the film just didn't
justify spending more than an hour. Oddly enough, this film was
eerily similar to an American indie which opened just this week
called Easier
With Practice. W/O
AS GOD COMMANDS (Come Dio comanda)
(d.
Gabriele
Salvatores)
Wow! Salvatores hits a new high with this 2008 film, a strong,
viscerally affecting family drama and Gothic thriller. It centers
around a working class father and 11 year-old son. The father is
out of work and blames blacks and foreigners for his plight,
effectively as a neo-Nazi. Their friend "Four Cheeses" was left
mentally impaired by a work accident, and this is one of Elio Germano's
best performances, more than fulfilling the promise I saw in last
year's The Past is a Foreign
Land. The film unfolds almost as an operatic
tragedy with a horrendous rape and murder and the consequences. I
really cared about the characters in this film for all their flaws, and
was enthralled and emotionally wrung out by the conclusion.
*** 1/2
QUO VADIS, BABY (d.
Gabriele Salvatores)
Salvatores seems to specialize in channeling other directors.
Last night (with As
God
Commands) he did a pretty great job of doing Gaspar
Noé. Today's film was Michael Haneke's Caché...but
not
quite
as
issue oriented. In this film a woman working for her
father as a private investigator receives several videos which were
made by her rebellious older sister, who may or may not have committed
suicide years earlier. The videos provide a rationale for an
investigation into the past which leads to some intriguing
revelations. It's all done at a slow, even lugubrious pace; but
the film works because it rations out its surprising discoveries with
an unusual depth of character development. ***
RAISE YOUR HEAD (Alza la testa)
(d.
Alessandro
Angelini)
Moro is a single father obsessed with living vicariously through his
teenage son's skill as an amateur boxer. The father is
controlling, and the kid (a convincing performance by tyro actor
Gabriele Campanelli) is rebellious: keeping in contact with his
estranged Albanian mother and having an affair with a girl that his
father feels is a distraction. The film develops in surprising,
unpredictable ways...which is the mark of a very fine script.
It's not often that boxing and transgender issues get equal treatment
in a film. I really cared about the characters in this film...it
got under my skin. *** 1/4
TEN WINTERS (Dieci inverni) (d.
Valerio Mieli)
Boy meets girl cute. They seem to be destined for each other; but
their paths merge and dissolve over the course of ten frustrating
winters split between gorgeous Venice and frigid Moscow. The boy
is played with unexpected romantic charisma by Michele Riondino, the
other lead actor (along with my fave, Elio Germano) in the wonderful The Past is a Foreign
Land.
The girl is played by Isabella Ragonese, an actress I don't recall
seeing before; but I predict a bright future for her as she is the
entire package, acting chops and looks. The film is a tad
predictable; but its combination of fateful romance and beautiful
settings make for a beguiling experience. ***
THE CÉZANNE AFFAIR (L'uomo nero)
(d.
Sergio
Rubini)
This is another estranged father and son film, a running theme in this
year's Italian films. In this case the father is a train
stationmaster whose own father forbade him studying art when
young...his lifelong passion. He is played by the director,
Sergio Rubini,
whose performance here tends to go over the top. The film is a
mess of flashback structure, to a time when the
stationmaster is obsessed with
painting a copy of a famous Cézanne painting which is housed in
a museum in Bari, a city within a short train ride from the provincial
village where he lives. Rubini is attempting something like Amercord
in dissecting the varied inhabitants of the village. But it
didn't work for me. I figured out the trick ending too early, and
was frankly bored by the film. Only a really fine kid performance
by young Guido Giaquinto as the stationmaster's son in the extended
flashback (and
the film's "point of view" character) kept me in my seat. ** 1/4
HAPPY FAMILY (d. Gabriele Salvatores)
Salvatores owes a lot to Pirandello and Charlie Kaufman with this
"world premiere" comedy which played before a rare sold-out house at
the Italian film festival. It's the story of a screen writer who
sits at his computer and writes, becoming part of his story about an
eccentric extended family. It plays as a clever
film-within-a-film farce just this side of sit-com. It's been my
experience that comedies don't cross cultural barriers all that well;
but I have to make an exception for this film. The foibles of the
characters in the families of this film are universal. Good fun,
and somebody should remake it in English. *** 1/.4
WE ALL GET OUR SHARE
(Ce ne è per tutti) (d. Luciana Malchionna)
A young man climbs up to a ledge at the Roman Coliseum and ruminates on
life and why he should jump while his family and friends make their way
through the Roman streets having various non-humorous comic adventures
on the way. Comedies and farces often don't translate into other
cultures; and this boring, almost unwatchable film just goes to prove
that point. *
I'M NOT SCARED (Io non ho paura)
(d. Gabriele Salvatores)
Second time around for this beautiful film. My 2003 review can be
read here.
***
1/4
TRICK IN THE SHEET, THE (L'imbroglio nel
lenzuolo) (d. Alfonso Arau)
This film reminded me of the Giuseppe Tornatore films Starmaker and to
a lesser extent Cinema
Paradiso in that it takes
place in Southern Italy around the turn of the last century. An
upper-class
gentleman becomes so enamored of a lower class maid and fortune teller
that he makes her the unknowing subject for his film, showing her
bathing au natural in a local lake. This was in an era when films
were at their infancy and projected onto a white sheet, and audiences
couldn't separate the filmed scene from reality. It's an
intriguing premise, and the film is lovely to look at and quite
authentic as to period. But I just couldn't get interested in the
characters or the story, as the narrative was all over the place and
confusingly constructed. ** 1/2
JUST MARRIED (Oggi
sposi) (d. Luca Lucini)
Four disparate couples are on the way to the altar in separate, but
interconnected stories which ultimately come together. The film
is a comedy; but in this case it works despite the cultural differences
as the stories are universal and quite entertainingly written and
acted. ***
I AM LOVE (Io sono l'amore) (d. Luca
Guadagnino)
Guadagnino is a young director of great promise. This film is the
story of an haute bourgeois family of mill owners, whose fortune has
led to a sumptuous life style, although though the two sons and
daughter of the current generation have problems. The film
reminds me of the huge family sagas that Olivier Assayas is so good at
staging, particularly Les destinées
sentimentales. And Guadagnino has gathered an exceptional
cast and has
used a strong musical score by John Adams to good effect. There
are sequences (including a sex scene montage) of enormous filmic beauty
and originality. However, there is also a feeling of excess and
pretentiousness...the filmmaker's ambition may have gotten ahead of his
ability to produce. It also seems a little overlong and
ponderous. But I have to say I was totally involved in the story;
and despite some flaws this was an extraordinary film. *** 1/4
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