WINTER 2011-2012
FESTIVAL FILMS
FILMS IN RED are seen at the AFI Film Festival
FILMS IN BLACK are seen at the Palm Springs International Film Festival
FILMS IN BLUE are seen at the Los Angeles, Italia festival
FILMS IN GREEN are seen at the City of Lights/City of Angels French film festival.
FILMS IN PURPLE are seen at the Newport or San Francisco International film festivals
Films seen at the Seattle International Film Festival (starting for me on May 7, 2012) will have their own separate file.
All
films are rated on a scale of **** (A+), *** 3/4 (A), *** 1/2 (A-), *** 1/4
(B+), *** (B), ** 3/4 (B-), ** 1/2 (C+), ** 1/4 ( C), ** (C-) , * 3/4 (D+), *
1/2 (D), * 1/4 (D-), * (F)
LE HAVRE (d. Aki Kaurismaki, Finland)
This film tells the story of a teenage African refugee trying to smuggle
himself into England to join his mother. On the journey, he gets
stranded in the Normandy port of Le Havre, and hooks up with sympathetic
townspeople who aid him to evade the authorities. In many ways it
is quite similar to the much superior 2009 film Welcome,
but with a feel-good narrative softness. Kaurismaki has an eye
for unique camera set-ups; but the film is too earnest, lacking the
director's usual flair for whimsy. ** 1/2
PATAGONIA (d. Marc Evans, United Kingdom) +
I had forgotten that I had seen this forgettable film 18 months
prior (see here). Still, my reaction this time was precisely the same:
of the two parallel stories one worked (the old lady and her young
neighbor traveling in Wales); and the other one (a turgid story of a
couple's relationship problems set in Argentina) didn't. ***
FOOTNOTE (d. Joseph Cedar, Israel)
A father and son are both famed Talmud scholars in present day
Israel. One of them is announced by mistake as the winner of the
prestigious Israel Prize for scholarship which causes all sorts of
problems for the other (who actually won the prize). This is a
film of supreme intelligence and raises issues of status and conflict in
intellectual circles that I've never seen portrayed quite as well
before. Such a subtle film, filled with subtext and family rivalry
below the surface isn't going to be universally admired. But I
was entranced. *** 3/4
THE PRINCE & THE PAGODA BOY (d. Luu Trong Ninh, Viet Nam)
This is a plodding and simplistic historical epic, which tells the story
of a ruthless prince who wins succession to the crown by evil acts, and
the low-born boy who grew up in a pagoda among priests that became a
warrior who ultimately brought the country together around 1000
AD. Some good action and martial arts set-pieces can't make up for
the overacting and cliché ridden plot. * 1/2
A SEPARATION (d. Asghar Farhadi, Iran)
Present day Tehran...a married couple are breaking up over her desire to
take their 12 year old daughter and emigrate, and his need to stay and
take care of his elderly Alzheimer's inflicted father. When the
wife initiates a separation, the husband hires a devout woman as
caretaker for father and daughter which precipitates a series of
calamities. The film is talky, with much acrimony. But it
also is a fascinating look at domestic life (and the legal system) in
present day Iran. The ultra-realistic acting and rapid fire dialog
are superbly played, making up for rather pedestrian technical credits.
*** 1/2
BACK TO YOUR ARMS (d. Kristijonas Vildzunas, Lithuania)
The setting is Berlin in the weeks prior to the construction of the
Wall in 1961. An American-Lithuanian girl is in Berlin to
meet her father, who had missed the opportunity to escape the Communists
in 1944 while his wife and small daughter made their way out.
That's the set-up for this quasi-thriller about the heating up of the cold war and
the way that families were affected by the growing tension between the
superpowers in Berlin. The film held my interest, even if it
somewhat misfires as drama. ** 1/2
PUNK IS NOT DEAD (d. Vladimir Blazevski, Macedonia)
An ecumenical group of deadbeats (Macedonians, Serbs, Bosnians,
Albanians) re-form their decades old punk band and travel to Albania to
perform in an ad hoc concert. The film is all about the violent
political tensions in the region; but it suffers from unappealing
characters and a plot that barely exists. **
TATSUMI (d. Eric Khoo, Singapore)
Yoshiro Tatsumi is an elderly Japanese writer/artist who helped found
the genre of adult themed manga (which he called "gekiga".) This
is a 2D animated film which utilizes Tatsumi's artwork to present his
autobiography (adapted from the graphic novel "A Drifting Life")
combined with animated vignettes from his stories over the years. I
had never heard of Tatsumi, nor ever seen any of his graphic novels;
but his art is stunning in its simplicity of line and depth of feeling
of his stories. It took me a while to get used to the way the
autobiography blended with the fiction; but once I grasped the structure
I was impressed. *** 1/4
SUPERCLASICO (d. Ole Christian Madsen, Denmark)
Hoping to save his marriage, a Danish man and his teenage son travel
from Denmark to Argentina. Paprika Steen plays the errant wife,
who has deserted her family to become involved with a dashing Argentine
soccer star (who scores two goals in the eponymous "superclasico" soccer
match). What follows is a wry fish-out-of-water romantic satire,
which works for a while but finally bogs down in protracted, unrealistic
comic tropes. Still, the acting is fine and Madsen is a skilled
story teller. I just don't respond all that well to his
over-obvious satire. ** 3/4
CIGAN (GYPSY) (d. Martin Sulik, Slovak Republic)
A teenage gypsy boy, fundamentally a good kid, is caught up in an
ethical dilemma when his father is probably murdered and his mother
marries her crooked gangster brother-in-law. The depiction of the
impoverished gypsy life style is gritty and quite well presented.
The actor playing the boy is especially impressive with his inner life
so well expressed despite his stoic mien. He's like a male version
of Rosetta in the seminal Dardenne brothers film. This isn't
flashy filmmaking, rather somewhat flat and ploddingly paced; but I was
totally involved with the plight of the main character. ***
ALOIS NEBEL (d. Tomas Lunak, Czech Republic)
This is an animation film for grown-ups: a story about a railroad
worker named Alois Nebel working at a mountainous border station during
the 1989 transition period from Communism to free elections. Nebel
is a witness to the ramifications of certain horrors done in the
previous transition: June, 1945 when the Germans were evicted from
Czechoslovakia by cattle car. The story is a little hard to
follow, jumping back and forth in time and highly politically
charged. However the high quality black and white rotoscoped
animation (reminiscent of techniques used in Richard Linklater's Waking Life)
is quite well done and artistically rendered. However, I'm not
sure why this wouldn't have worked just as well as a traditional
live-action film. ** 3/4
VIOLETA WENT TO HEAVEN (d. Andrés Wood, Chile)
Violeta Parra was a notable Chilean singer, songwriter, visual
artist and annotator of folk music who died in 1967. This biopic
follows the course of her rather novel and interesting life and features
an extraordinary performance by Francisca Gavilán in the title
role. The film follows all the familiar tropes of film biography,
jumping back and forth through time and showing the influence of
Violeta's alcoholic teacher father, her interaction with her own
children and Swiss lover, and various episodes from her erratic
career. Unfortunately, the clichéd film didn't make me care
at all about Parra, who despite her genius was quite an unpleasant
character. ** 1/2
IN DARKNESS (d. Agnieszka Holland, Poland)
There doesn't seem ever to be an end to Holocaust films...and this film
is one reason why there shouldn't be. It is yet another unique
story of the WWII events from a different point of view: in this
case the based on fact story of a group of Jewish refugees from the
destruction of the Lvov (Poland) ghetto who spend 14 months living in
the dark, rat infested sewers of that city with the aid of at least one
reluctantly heroic Pole. Holland has produced something of a
directoral tour de force, an emotionally powerful examination of human
nature at the extremes. *** 3/4
WHERE DO WE GO NOW? (d. Nadine Labaki, Lebanon)
This is a film about an isolated Lebanese town split down the middle
between Christians and Muslims. While the country undergoes civil
war, the women of the town band together to attempt to more-or-less keep
the peace. From my point of view the film was overly stylized,
with strange musical and dance-like interludes reminiscent of Bollywood
films. It tries very hard to be an audience pleaser...and I guess
it succeeds since it has won awards. But too often the lack of
subtlety pinged my innate cynicism and made me cringe. ** 1/2
BEAUTY (d. Oliver Hermanus, South Africa)
An Afrikaans speaking family man has a dark secret. Turns out he
lusts after a handsome young man; and this is an atmospheric character
study of obsessive stalking, rather like an update of Mann's "Death in
Venice". The film is gorgeously shot, the acting impeccable, a
truly impressive job of direction. The story rang true, which is a
sad commentary on human nature. This is a tough film to watch at
times; but it is definitely one of the finest politically incorrect gay
films of recent times. *** 1/4
SONNY BOY (d. Maria Peters, Netherlands)
Yet another WWII story from a new angle. This one starts in the
South American Dutch colony of Suriname where a young black boy grows up
fatherless and leaves for Holland to attend college. He becomes
involved with an older Dutch woman, they have a child; and initially
this is the story of how a racially mixed extra-marital relationship is
particularly hard in pre-war Holland. But the story segues into
serious depredations during the German occupation of Holland. The
film is convincing as a historical epic. I had some trouble with
some rather pat screen writing, particularly a central metaphor of a
black-face Al Jolson singing "Sonny Boy" as symbolic of the relationship
of parents to their mixed-race child. But the film's enormous
scope and beautiful production did justify the 2 1/2 hours. ***
THE SILENT HOUSE (d. Gustavo Hernandéz, Uruguay)
The film starts with a long tracking shot following an older man
and a girl through a field as they approach a dilapidated wreck of a
house which they have been hired to clean up for sale. When they
enter the house without an edit, it's clear that this is going to be a
stunt film...one long, real-time take with no cuts. Then it
becomes clear that this is a typical festival "midnight movie", as an
escalation of bloody, creepy slasher things start to happen to the
father and daughter. This isn't my sort of genre; but I have
to say it was rather well done, even though the trick of doing it all
in one take made for some strange narrative cheats (or else I was just
not following the story entirely). **
EXTRATERRESTRIAL (d. Nacho Vigalondo)
A couple on a one night stand wake up to discover that gigantic alien
spaceships are hovering over their city (and apparently over the rest of
the world). This is the set-up for a somewhat incoherent and
unlikely romantic comedy which is more farce than science fiction.
**
BURNT BY THE SUN 2: THE CITADEL (d. Nikita Mikhalkov, Russia)
Most of the characters from the original Oscar winning film appear in
this WWII epic production. The film starts in the trenches where a
company of Russian prisoner-soldiers are about to storm a huge,
impregnable German fortress called the Citadel. The war scenes
have a satiric, comic overtone...but are spectacularly achieved.
The people stories, taking place in a forested mansion and at the
Kremlin, are far less successful, with much overacting and a story which
doesn't make a lot of sense (it's been too long since I saw the
original Burnt By the Sun to understand enough of the back story.) ** 3/4
LETTERS TO ANGELS (d. Sulev Keedus, Estonia)
A man who apparently had deserted from the Russian war in Afghanistan is
searching for a lost daughter in present day Estonia. Frankly, I
could not make heads or tails of the story, which meandered back and
forth in time with no discernible pattern. I would have fled the
screening in most circumstances as I had zero investment in the
characters or the plot. 3/4*
THE COLORS OF THE MOUNTAINS (d. Carlos César Arbeláez, Colombia)
A young boy and his farming family are caught between a guerrilla band
and the authorities in their tiny, troubled Colombian mountain
village. The film is quite effective at showing the villagers'
plight from the boy's naive point of view. This is a powerful film
with minimal production values, but nuanced, realistic acting.
***
MICHAEL (d. Markus Schleinzer)
A 30-something, unassuming Austrian bureaucrat is holding a 10-year old
boy prisoner in his basement, using him for (thankfully off-screen) sex,
but otherwise trying to relate paternally with the intelligent,
personable kid. It's all done very low-key and matter of fact
which makes it all the more terrifying and fascinating. I figured
out pretty early how the story would resolve; but the filmmaker has
succeeded brilliantly in making suspenseful this story of banal
evil. *** 1/4
TERRAFERMA (d. Emanuele Crialese, Italy)
The plight of refugees from the third world attempting to escape to the
2nd or 1st worlds is a dominating theme in world cinema, threatening to
overtake World War II eventually. Crialese's film, like his superb
2002 film Respiro,
takes place among southern Italian islanders. Here it is a
fishing family who rescue an illegal, pregnant African woman and become
enmeshed in her drama. The film is a somewhat predictable
melodrama, with occasionally striking visuals. ** 1/2
LIGHT OF MINE (d. Brett Eichenberger)
A photographer is going blind from a rare inherited disease. He
and his wife embark on one last journey to Yellowstone so that the last
images the man has are beautiful ones. This is the slender thread
of a story which holds what is, frankly, a travelogue, together.
The super-16mm images are fine; but the story just didn't work for
me. ** 1/4
JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME (d. Jay & Mark Duplass)
Jason Segel shines in this slacker comedy, playing Jeff, a slothful
30-year old boy/man who embarks on a journey of discovery with his OCS
brother (another fine comic performance by Ed Helms). In what
seems to be a separate film, the boy's mother (Susan Sarandon) is having
a strange office romance of sorts. The film is a tick up in class
for the Duplass brothers, with some clever comic riffing by the
talented cast and a script which mostly holds together. *** 1/4
OSLO, AUGUST 31 (d. Joachim Trier)
Trier made one of my favorite films of the 2000s, Reprise, and
here he again uses the outstanding actor Anders Danielsen Lie to tell
the surprisingly moving story of a depressive heroin addict on day leave
from rehab, who wanders through his former haunts in Oslo searching for
some reason to continue living. Trier avoids the sophomore jinx
and proves that the smart script of his first feature wasn't a
fluke. I was reminded of early Antonioni in the way the film
observed its milieu from the point of view of its protagonist.
Also, Trier gave one of the best Q&As I've seen. He's
remarkably well spoken and astute. *** 3/4
LONELIEST PLANET (d. Julia Loktev)
A young couple, she's German, he's Mexican, embark on a pre-wedding
guided tour of the Georgian Caucasus mountains and find out more about
themselves than they expected to. For me, this was another
overlong travelogue (e.g. Light of Mine
above) with gorgeous scenery, but ultimately only a slender plot to
carry its length. Gael Garcia Bernal, an actor I usually love, and
the reason I chose to see this film, is wasted here, given little to do
but walk through the scenery. ** 1/4
DECLARATION OF WAR (d. Valérie Donzelli, France)
An attractive married couple have their world turned upside down when
their baby boy is diagnosed with a rare malignant brain tumor. The
film is written by actors playing the central couple
(Jérémie Elkaïm and director Valérie
Donzelli), and I suspect that it is based on their real-life
experience. If so, it is a remarkably honest and harrowing
depiction of parenthood, and ultimately a wonderfully life-affirming
story nicely brought to celluloid. *** 1/2
ATTENBERG (d. Athina Rachel Tsangari, Greece)
Don't ask me. I was mystified and turned off from the first image
of two women dancing in the street giving tongue to each other,
and after 45 minutes I was still unable to figure out what the film was
about. So I walked. W/O
MONTEVIDEO: TASTE OF A DREAM (d. Dragan Bjelogrlic, Serbia)
The setting is 1930s Serbia where a ragtag group of street soccer
players are put together to attempt to form a national team to compete
in the first World Cup in Montevideo, Uruguay. The film has epic
scope and the 2 1/2 hour playing time to expand on the usual sports-film
clichés. Bjelogrlic has an eye for detail and the soccer
scenes are especially well blocked. But the script, with a
breathless narration by a young boy observer in retrospect, is totally
predictable and yet fails to pay off in its resolution. ** 1/2
BEYOND (d. Pernilla August, Sweden)
A woman gets news that her estranged mother is dying, and along with her
husband and children embark on a journey of discovery of long hidden
secrets. Noomi Rapace plays the present day wife with affectless
stolidity, while in frequent flashbacks we're witnesses to a child
forced to become responsible for the depredations of her alcoholic,
immigrant parents. The script was fairly predictable: a
miserable childhood and parental irresponsibility have
consequences. Still, the acting was fine, and I responded to the
pathos, even if by the end I was exhausted by the miserablism. **
3/4
THE ORATOR (d. Tusi Tamasese, New Zealand)
A Samoan dwarf somehow overcomes his handicap and may (or may not)
become chief of his village. I was so uninvolved after an hour
that I didn't feel like waiting around to find out. W/O
POSTCARD (d. Kaneto Shindo, Japan)
A Japanese share-cropping family during World War II sends two sons to
war with dire (if often unintentionally amusing) consequences.
This is mainly the story of the gritty wife left behind. It's
interesting enough as melodrama; but the overwrought acting detracts
from the affect. ** 1/2
HAVANASTATION (d. Ian Padrón, Cuba)
A teenage boy, spoiled son of privilege (in a supposedly classless
society), gets lost with his Sony Playstation (thus the pun in the title) in
an impoverished part of Havana and learns valuable lessons from a poor
classmate on how the other half lives. The kids are good; but the
transparent political agenda of the film and some overacting by the
adults didn't help. ** 1/4
PINA (d. Wim Wenders, Germany)
Pina Bausch was a modern dance choreographer whose international dance
company used the performers as props for extremely innovative
productions. Wenders uses 3D photography to show long sequences
from several of Pina's creations. He mixes this with interviews
with the dancers and some old 2D historic footage of Pina performing
inventively projected into the 3D plane. The film is notable for
the fine use it makes of 3D, bringing the viewer right into the midst of
the dances as a participant. The one criticism is that the film
is just a tad too long and repetitive. However, I can't deny that
the dancing itself was quite exhilarating; and I was never bored.
*** 1/4
RUMBLE OF THE STONES (d. Alejandro Bellame Palacios, Venezuela)
This is a family saga set among the miserablism of the modern day
Caracas slums. Delia, with the help of her going blind mother, is
raising two sons, a 17-year old "bad" boy who is getting involved with
gangs; and an 11-year old "good" boy, excelling in school and helping
mom with her side business. The film struggles to find any
redeeming features in the slum...and manages ultimately to be hopeful
despite unremitting downers along the way. It's surprisingly
moving. ***
MONSIEUR LAZHAR (d. Philippe Fatardeau, Canada)
The title character is an Algerian refugee in Montréal who finds
work as a temporary teacher in a progressive elementary school.
He's replacing a former teacher who hung herself in the classroom at the
start of the film, which traumatized the children. This film
joins a rare group of wonderful views of the elementary school classes,
which somehow seem to all be French language films (from Zéro de Conduit to Entre les murs, and several in between.) *** 1/2
ELITE SQUAD 2: THE ENEMY WITHIN (d. José Padilha, Brazil)
This is a sequel to an outstanding film, Elite Squad.
It continues the story of the special forces militia formed to fight
the gangs of the Rio slums. But in this case the war is the BOPE
against corrupt police and government men who are conspiring to take
over the crime syndicates throughout Brazil. The film is
confusing...it's hard to separate the bad guys from the good guys
(except for the BPOE captain played by Wagner Moura). However, it
does build to a powerful, suspenseful conclusion in the best thriller
tradition. ** 1/2
OCTOBER (d. Daniel Vega Vidal, Peru)
A 2nd generation pawn broker/money lender, ministering to his poor Lima
neighbors, finds a baby girl in his apartment. She had been
deserted and left with the putative father by a prostitute he once
frequented who has disappeared. The baby's care eventually falls
to a spinster neighbor lady who is enthralled by a month long religious
pageant which occurs yearly in October. The film is an interesting
character study, convincingly acted, slow to develop. But
ultimately it lacks a payoff. ** 3/4
THE FRONT LINE (d. Jang Hun, Korea)
At the bitter end of the Korean war, the final armistice position
depends on which side holds a crucial hill. This is an epically
produced war film, the story of one platoon involved in the often
repeated taking and losing of the hill. It centers on a seasoned
officer sent to the front to investigate the mysterious death of the
former platoon captain...possibly killed by his own men. What
occurs is an enormously involving anti-war film stressing the futility
of continuing war for political advantages with a cast of characters so
well written that the audience cares about them to an unusual
degree. It's also has a completely convincing series of battle
scenes that comprise some of the best directed such scenes I've
watched. *** 1/2
BREATHING (ATMEN) (d. Karl Markovics, Austria)
Roman is a basically a good, if troubled, boy who has been incarcerated
in a borstal type facility, having been deserted by his teenage
mother. As the film begins he now is 18 and being day furloughed
to apprentice work at a mortuary. Thomas Schubert gives an
excellent, if subdued performance as the boy, given little chance to
succeed in life, but having enough pluck to root for. The film is
suspenseful and involving, and seems particularly truthful. It's
comparable to a similar Romanian film from last year, If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle, but more positive. *** 1/2
RETURNING TO THE "A" (d. Egor Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky, Kazakhstan)
A veteran of the Soviet Afghan war, probably suffering from PTSD from
evidence of flashbacks, returns in present day to the scenes of the
war. Very confusing transitions and a story virtually impossible
to follow. W/O (but watched long enough to know it is a
stinker) *
THE FLOWERS OF WAR (d. Zhang Yimou, China)
Like the fine B&W film from last year, City of Life and Death,
this is a story from the 1936 Japanese conquest and "rape" of
Nanking. It's told from the point of view of an American mortician
(played by Christian Bale who is monumentally unsuccessful at reading
some of the poorest dialog ever) who arrives at a Catholic church hired
to bury the dead priest and instead gets involved with the children and
refugees who inhabit the compound. The first half hour features
some excellent war footage of the Japanese conquest, featuring a Chinese
sniper soldier almost single handedly decimating a Japanese
platoon. But when the story of the happenings inside the church
starts, it's all downhill from there. Yimou is a fine action
director; but the script is unsubtle and cliché riddled. **
1/4
A SIMPLE LIFE (d. Ann Hui, Hong Kong)
Ah Tao has been working as a treasured domestic servant for the same
family for 60 years. Most of the family has emigrated to the U.S.;
however at the start of this film Ah Tao is still cooking and cleaning
and generally taking care of Roger, the bachelor business man she helped
raise from birth, who remains in Hong Kong. The relationship of
these two is at the center of this gentle, beautifully conceived
domestic family drama. Deannie Yip is quite marvelous as Ah Tao,
kindly, efficient, loyal to a fault until old age catches up to
her. Chinese action star Andy Lau is subdued and quite wonderful
playing the sympathetic Roger, whose clockwork life is turned around by
happenstance. The film is slow to build; but ultimately one of the
most satisfying, emotionally fulfilling films of the year. *** 1/2
72 DAYS (d. Danilo Serbedzja, Croatia)
This film is about a ne'er do well family subsisting on a government
pension which is dependent on an aging, senile grandmother. The
head of the family is played by the director's father, familiar actor
Rade Serbedzija...an avaricious, evil man capable of any chicanery
including murder to save the family's pension. The film is a black
comedy with several story details which add up to very little of
interest (and are somewhat confusing to a non-Balkan.) * 1/2
THE TURIN HORSE (d. Bela Tarr, Hungary)
The film is apparently based on an anecdote involving Frederich
Nietzsche who casually noted the mistreatment of a balking horse by some
random carter on the streets of Turin. This film takes off from
that, and in stark black & white photography examines a few days in
the life of that horse and its owners, an elderly man and his spinster
daughter living in a bleak, remote, wind-tossed hovel. The film is
unremittingly pessimistic in its attitude towards life's
hardships. Tarr outdoes himself in the complete lack of montage
(extremely long takes with a constantly moving camera, only seeming to
end with a fade-out at the end of a full reel.) Yet, the utter
despair of these lives hold some fascination which makes the 160 minutes
of the same four-notes of music and constant wind sound effects pass by
with only a little tedium. ** 3/4
JOSÉ AND PILAR (d. Miguel Gonçalves Mendes, Portugal)
José Saramago was a Portuguese Nobel Prize laureate for
Literature who died in 2010. This documentary shows his struggle
to complete his last story despite the infirmities of old age. It
showed in exhausting detail his whirlwind life of international travel
from about 2006-2008 which included various appearances, among them an
interesting one with Gael Bernal at a Mexican book fair. It is
also the story of his love affair with his wife, Pilar, more than a
companion...his Spanish translator and muse. Saramago was an
inherently interesting curmudgeon who never lacked for bon mots.
But I could never warm to the subject, and the documentary flagged a
little for me. ** 3/4
BULLHEAD (Rundskop) (d. Michaël R. Roskam, Belgium)
Belgium consistently makes the strangest, darkest thrillers. This
film is the complex saga of, among other things, a conspiracy to overly
steroid the Flemish beef population. The film's antihero is a beefy
rancher, Jacky (played with utter conviction the Matthias Schoenaerts),
who suffered a childhood attack which left him drug dependent. The
actual machinations of the plot got so out of hand that frankly I
couldn't follow it all. But that hardly mattered, since the film
is basically the wonderfully stylized depiction of a tortured soul which
never ceased to fascinate. *** 1/4
VOLCANO (Eldfjall) (d. Rúnar Rúnarsson, Iceland)
Hannes is an elderly, curmudgeonly man who has been retired from his
school principal job. His two grown children blame him for being
neglectful to his doting wife, Anna. He briefly considers suicide,
but decides to soldier on as a part-time fisherman. Then disaster
strikes and he's forced to face difficult changes in his life.
This isn't the first Icelandic film which absolutely nailed the
experience and pathos of old age (the fabulous 1991 film, Children of Nature
comes to mind.) But it's hard to imagine it done very much
better. Both Theodór Júlíusson and
Margrét Helga Jóhannsdóttir excel in the roles of
the elderly couple. This is reflective, moving filmmaking at a
high level. *** 3/4
ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA (d. Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey)
The film starts out with distant headlights on a bleak country road, and
it's soon clear that a convoy of police are accompanying a perp trying
to find the body of a murder victim that has been buried along the
road. At first the film reminded me of a more animated version of
Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry;
but Ceylan has a more ambitious agenda, to examine the Turkish police
system CSI style. For me the film just ambled along too aimlessly,
despite some nicely written dialogue exchanges. But having made
it to the end of an overlong film, I had to admire the gruesome sound
effects of the final scene. ** 1/2
WARRIORS OF THE RAINBOW (d. Wei Te-Sheng, Taiwan)
In the early part of the 20th century, China ceded Taiwan to the
Japanese empire which proceeded to exploit the island's resources and
subdue the warring indigenous jungle tribes. This film is mainly
the story of the chief of one of these tribes, who led an extended
guerrilla war against the foreigners in 1930. It's a 4 1/2 hour
wide-screen epic film which tells the story of this revolt in remarkably
lucid and stirring fashion. Never boring, often sublimely
beautiful, this is a true-life Avatar like drama from the native's point-of-view. The more I ponder it, the greater the achievement looms in my mind. *** 3/4
MISS BALA (d. Gerardo Naranjo, Mexico)
A reluctant participant in the Miss Baja beauty pageant becomes
embroiled in a Tijuana drug war between a fearsome gang and the often
corrupt authorities (including the American DEA). What ensues is
an unlikely, but fascinating series of violent set-pieces, as the girl
is stoically buffeted between the warring sides, where it is often
unclear who the real baddies are. Naranjo's films (such as the
excellent Drama/Mex)
seem to focus on passive characters whose fates are decided beyond
their control. He is one of my international filmmakers to
watch. *** 1/4
AMNESTY (d. Bujar Alimani, Albania)
A woman monthly makes conjugal visits to her husband in prison on the
same day that a man does the same for his wife. They eventually
meet, and in the fashion of ancient Greek tragedy, interact. The
film is involving despite its bleak view on wasted lives. Until
the surprising final shot, the film feels predictable and unrelenting.
** 1/2
LUST (El Shooq) (d. Khaled El Hagar, Egypt)
This film is about the various goings on by the inhabitants of a street
in Alexandria. It failed to hold my attention for long, with
over-the-top acting and too large a cast of under-developed
characters. After about an hour I walked. W/O
CHANTRAPAS (d. Otar Iosseliani, Georgia)
A Georgian filmmaker, discredited in his country, goes to France to
continue filmmaking. In inept comic fashion, he manages to round
up backing; and makes a terrible film. This strange, over-the-top
film just goes from bad to worse. * 1/2
ELENA (d. Andrey Zvyagintsev)
This third feature by the excellent Russian filmmaker of The Return examines
contemporary Russia by telling the story of Elena, a working class
woman who has married a wealthy older man. Both she and her
husband have problems with their respective children...he with his
spoiled daughter, she with her wastrel son and his struggling
family. The film develops slowly, with long duration static shots
reflecting the contrasting atmosphere of wealth and poverty in
contemporary Russia. This is a character study and social
commentary mixed into a story that might have been a James M. Cain novel
had he been Russian. ***
LAST WINTER (d. John Shank)
A young cattle herder, son of the founder of a collective which raises
meat cows in the bleak landscapes of mountainy central France, is faced
with multiple difficulties making a go of modern ranching with limited
means. Vincent Rottiers, a very interesting young French actor who
seemed to be in every French film last year, plays the lead with stoic
solemnity. This is another slow, reflective film with minimal
dialogue...but one which raises issues of the viability of modern day
ranching. Interestingly enough, the director is an American from
Indiana who has managed to make his first film a memorable, French
one. ** 3/4
SIMON AND THE OAKS (d. Lisa Ohlin)
This wonderfully executed family epic starts in 1939, when a dreamy
young boy from rural Sweden starts school and meets a Jewish chum whose
family has narrowly escaped from Nazi Germany. It covers life of
these two intertwined families for the next 13 years...years which
gradually disclose secrets, underscores rifts, encapsulates the
era. This is great filmmaking, beautifully directed and acted
(young Bill Skarsgaard carries on the family acting tradition
admirably). I was fascinated and moved...the film reminded my of
one of my favorite films of the last decade, Mother of Mine, in its setting and mood. But Simon is its own compelling story, and certainly one of the best films of the past few years. *** 3/4
FOREVERLAND (d. Maxwell McGuire)
The hero of this film is a young man coping with cystic fibrosis, which
usually kills by age 30. The film is a heartfelt tribute to his
spirit, written and directed by a man who also has the same
disease. Max Thieriot, a fine young actor whose work I've followed
with interest for several years, is quite convincing, even charismatic
in the role. There's real chemistry between him and the girl
(played by Laurence Leboeuf) who accompanies him on the road trip that
the film develops into. If the film has any flaw, it's that the
dialogue tends to be a little too clever. But this is an involving
story, an audience pleasing film which entranced me, and left me
feeling uplifted by the humanity of the effort. *** 1/4
MORGEN (d. Marian Crisan, Romania)
One theme that recurs most often these days is the plight of 3rd world
refugees trying to storm the ramparts of the developed world, especially
the European Union. This is the third such film that I've seen in
the past couple of months, including Le Havre and Terrafirma.
Here it is a Turkish man who sneaks into Romania on his way to visit
his son in Germany. He is aided by a local supermarket security guard
who can't understand a word the Turk says; but is sympathetic
anyway. The film is a satire, with the authorities serving as
Keystone Kops types. It's rather slow and predictable. **
1/2
ABALLAY (d. Fernando Spiner, Argentina)
This might well have been a Sam Peckenpah western. Its a story of a
young boy who watches his father killed in a stage-coach robbery, who
10 years later returns to the wild-west like country to exact revenge
against the bandits (especially Aballay, a charismatic
super-villain). It is hyper-violent...but also a film that I've
seen before. * 3/4
MY BEST ENEMY (d. Wolfgang Murnberger)
Set in Austria during WWII, this is the story of a wealthy Jewish family
of art dealers who own a valuable Michelangelo sketch which is coveted
by the Nazis and the Italians. It's a clever script, filled with
humor and tricky maneuvers; but I figured out the mystery probably too
soon. Still, watching Mauritz Bleibtreu (an always interesting
actor) flummox the Germans is quite a lot of fun. *** 1/4
THE SALT OF LIFE (d. Gianni Di Gregorio)
This is another "old folks" comedy from the director of Mid-August Lunch.
It's the story of a put-upon retired man who has to contend with his
deceptively clever, spendthrift mother, and the rest of his slacker
family. It's a gentle farce which borders on tedious after a
while...just not sufficiently original or interesting to me, even though
I'm about the same age as the protagonist. ** 1/2
NORTH SEA TEXAS (d. Bavo Defurne)
Pim is a quiet 15-year old boy with a flighty mother, who develops a
crush on a neighborhood boy from a more normal family. This is a
poignant, involving film which gets adolescent gay issues right, with
age-appropriate actors and a positive spin on unrequited love.
*** 1/4
THE MONK (d. Dominik Moll)
Vincent Cassel is superb playing an ultra-religious zealot monk who grew
up in a 17th century Spanish monastery, having been left as a foundling
baby at the monastery's door. He undergoes a crisis of faith (to
understate it a bit) when he finds himself sexually attracted to a
hideously burned, masked young novice. Much drama and angst ensue.
This is a gothic period piece which wouldn't work without
Cassel's mesmerizing performance. ** 3/4
COUSINHOOD (Primos) (d. Daniel Sánchez Arévalo)
A young man gets dumped at the altar and, accompanied by two of his
cousins, embarks on a road trip to the town he grew up with to try to
connect with his first love. This is a pretty much unfunny Spanish
romantic comedy which left me cold. **
SAL (d. James Franco)
Val Lauren is quite good playing Sal Mineo as a 30-something during the
last day of his life. From waking up, going to the gym, to
rehearsing for a play, this is slice-of-life filmmaking, and somewhat
aimless (but rather like real-life, after all). Franco's take on
the murder is plausible, if not exactly scintillating. ** 1/2
MY AUSTRALIA (d. Ami Drozd)
I'm not going to do justice to this film. It's the story of two
brothers, young boys growing up in 1960's era Poland, who buy into the
anti-Semitic climate of their neo-Nazi acquaintances. But it turns
out that they are Jewish, without knowing it, sons of a Holocaust
survivor. The boys' mother takes them to Israel (not the Australia
that the younger one dreams of), and they must adapt to kibbutz living
(or not.) The film creates a convincing and involving story of how
immigrants to Israel coped in the '60s. *** 1/2
THE PROFESSOR (Il camorrista) (d. Giuseppe Tornatore)
Tornatore made this first film in 1986, a story loosely based on the
biography of an actual Camorra gang boss. Ben Gazzara, dubbed into
Italian with a voice several notches lighter and higher than his
natural voice, plays a man sentenced to 30 years for the rage murder of a
young man who insulted his sister. After 10 years he is
transferred to prison near his Vesuvian home town, where he proceeds
with guile and savagery to take over the Camorra from his cell.
Like later Italian gangster flicks such as Gomorra and Crime Novel,
this is an outsized epic, almost 3 hours long and quite absorbing, if
not totally convincing. But I couldn't help thinking that Gazzara
was somewhat miscast...too lightweight for the role. In
retrospect, this was not typical of future Tornatore films...nary a hint
of emotional resonance or bathos; but it's a genre that the director
did return successfully to with the amazing Baaria, and as such it is an essential forerunner of this major director's career. ***
20 CIGARETTES (d. Aureliano Amadei)
Vinicio Marchioni, apparently an Italian tv actor breaking into features
with this 2010 film, is quite splendid playing a callow young man who
signs onto a documentary film crew going to Iraq to film during the 2003
occupation. The character, named Aureliano since this is a
re-creation of the experience that the film's director had, is almost
killed when a truck bomb destroys the Italian enclave. The film is
largely shot as found footage from the pov of the character shooting
with a video camera. The film was slow to start; but once the
attack happens it becomes a harrowing, propulsive story of the physical
and mental challenges debilitating injury and redemption with some of
the most convincing up-close-and-personal scenes of the chaos of
terrorism that has been put on film to date. ***
SOME SAY NO (C'è chi dice no) (d. Giambattista Avellino)
Three go-getter 30-somethings, passed over for promotion by nepotism,
get together at a school reunion and plot a revenge against the corrupt
system. The film plays like a farce, only it is really an issue
film with three attractive leads (I'm especially going to follow the
career of handsome Luca Argentero, whom I recall from the frenetic
comedy Different from Whom.) This film reminds me of another Italian issue comedy from 1999, one of my all-time favorites But Forever on My Mind, with the same characters 15 years older fighting a more contemporary battle. ** 3/4
THE EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE WORM (Il mattino ha l'oro in bocca) (d. Francesco Patierno)
Elio Germano, one of Italy's rising stars, shows his mettle playing a
rock dj for an underground Florentine radio station in the 1970s who has
a serious gambling problem. I found the film totally involving, I
cared about the screwed up protagonist whose character arc seemed
particularly realistic. *** 1/4
THE INDUSTRIALIST (d. Giuiano Montaldo)
An upper class factory owner is facing ruin. The bank refuses to
refinance him. He's unwilling to accept financial aid from his wealthy
wife. So he schemes. The film has elements that remind me of
O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi", irony abounds. The look of the
film is dark and foreboding. The film is cleverly written; but I
just couldn't love it. ** 3/4
TALK TO ME ABOUT LOVE (Parlami d'amore) (d. Silvio Muccino)
Silvio Muccino, brother of the fine director Gabriele and also one of my
favorite actors, tried his hand in 2007 at actor/director with this
lush, romantic potboiler. It's the story of a poor orphan who has a
crush on a spoiled rich girl, who grows up and somehow becomes
romantically involved with her. As a director, Muccino is quite
derivative. However as an actor he remains one of the most
charismatic male actors around. I loved this film, gladly
submitted to its off-the-charts romantic bathos...all the while knowing
full well that this was pretty bad. ** 1/2
INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION (d. Elio Petri)
This film won the Oscar for best foreign language film in 1971 and also
was nominated the next year for best screenplay. The film is about
a newly appointed police chief of homicide (played loudly and one-note
by Gian Maria Volonté) who kills his mistress and dares the
police to bring him to justice. The film has a wonky score by
Ennio Morricone, very different for him, and one which adds a strange
comic element to some over-the-top dramatic scenes. Also, the dubbed
dialogue was particularly poorly done. I understand why this film
is an ironic, muckraking classic of sorts; yet I still found its raucous
dialogue and seemingly unmotivated actions to make for unpleasant
viewing. ** 3/4
ON THE SEA (d. Alessandro D'Altari)
A happy-go-lucky young man lives on the picturesque island of Ventotene
(west of Naples) ferrying tourists around the island during the summer
and working construction on the mainland during the winter. He
falls for a fickle tourist woman, and the film turns into a lush
romantic interlude about two beautiful young Italians amidst lovely
seascapes (Castiglio Darius, apparently in his first film role, is quite
effective as the boy). I thought at first considering the blue
sea milieu, that this was going to turn into a youthful Plein Soleil;
however that isn't what the filmmaker had in mind, which was a softer
and sappier story. Still I enjoyed the film more than it deserved.
***
EARLY ONE MORNING (De bon matin) (d. Jean-Marc Moutout)
Jean-Pierre Darroussin, portly, middle-aged (the French are
kind to their male movie stars), plays a buttoned down international
investment bank executive caught in a wave of office intrigue and
recriminations from the sub-prime meltdown. He's a family man; but
more to the point work obsessed. The film starts out with a
shocking revelation and then proceeds in leisurely fashion to skip
around somewhat confusingly in non-chronological flashbacks to finally
catch up to the present...and in the process only partially (for me) to
explain the psychology leading to the film's conclusion. I was
reminded of the films of Laurent Cantet (for instance Time Out):
somber studies of organization men in extreme situations. But
despite the fine central performance, there was an emotional void at the
center. A note to myself to watch the career of Laurent
Delbecque, who plays Darroussin's late-teen son and manages to extract
some emotional resonance out of the meager role. ** 3/4
MICHAEL PETRUCCIANI (d. Michael Radford)
This is
a documentary about a late French jazz pianist, Michael Petrucciani who
died in 1999 after what appears to be a fabulous career in France and
America (even if I had never heard of him before.)
Petrucciani was born with a genetic disorder leading to fragile bones
which left him a 3 foot tall misshapen dwarf. But it also gave him
full size, lightweight fingers which were able to play notes on the
piano faster than humanly possible and a soaring musical sensibility to
go with it. His personal life, well portrayed by interviews with
his (at least) 3 wives and fellow musicians, was unsettled (although he
was obviously a genius, learning accentless English in mere
weeks). Michael Radford, who made Il Postino,
among others, does a wonderful job of bringing diverse elements of his
subject's story together...never ignoring the incredible music.
Fortunately there are a lot of performances recorded on film, although
the documentary actually left me wishing for even more exposure to this
remarkable musician. *** 1/2
THE ADOPTED (d. Melanie Laurent)
When actresses try their hand at writing/directing/acting in movies, the
outcome is not always certain. Here Laurent takes a vital
secondary role in the love story of her sister (Marie Denamaud) and her
sister's fiancé (Denis Menochet) before, during and after a
disaster affects the family. The film started out as a typical
chick flick: couple fated for love meets cute etc. It was so
clichéd that I felt like walking. However, at a certain
point the film started to involve me emotionally; and even though it was
overlong and tortuous getting to its destination, I was moved to
genuine tears by the end. A lot of the credit goes to the terrific
acting ensemble (including a super-cute 5-year old kid who steals every
scene he's in, Théodore Maquet-Foucher); and the director's
ability to have her actors both underplay and get at an emotional truth
which isn't cliché. ***
17 GIRLS (17 filles) (d. Delphine & Muriel Coulin)
In 2008 an actual event happened in Gloucester, MA: 17 high-school
girls got pregnant together. This story, moved to an actually
more plausible (in my opinion) Breton seaside town in France, is the
basis for this film. An alpha girl (played by the luminous
girl/woman Louise Grinberg) becomes pregnant after a "condom accident";
and her friends and hangers-on deliberately set out to do the
same. This is high concept stuff; and the film is psychologically
convincing even when it gets bogged down in individual teen girl stories
which didn't interest me very much. There's enough young French
teenage girl flesh exhibited to fill several films. This is a
mostly benign version of The Virgin Suicides: implausible script...except it really happened. ** 3/4
WELL DIGGER'S DAUGHTER (d. Daniel Auteuil)
There's been a trend for venerable actors to try their mettle as
directors. Few have made the transition as artfully as Auteuil in
this luminous adaptation of a Marcel Pagnol novel. Of course the
director has portrayed many Pagnol characters in the past (for instance Jean de Florette);
and he's scheduled to actor-direct a future Fanny trilogy. If the
Well Digger film is any indication, then I can't wait to see what
Auteuil offers up next year. In the meantime, Auteuil makes use of
a flawless southern French accent as the proud, lowly, well digger
widower with six daughters, the eldest of which gets in trouble with the
son of a wealthy local merchant at the start of WWI. The plot is
fairly predictable; but Auteuil has cast it flawlessly and shot it with a
painterly eye which makes full use of the lovely southern French
countryside. Frankly, the film got to me emotionally: the
starcrossed lovers (beautifully portrayed by Astrid
Bergès-Frisbey and Nicolas Duvauchelle), the stubbornly proud
pater familias with a big heart. I laughed, I cried...what more
can one ask for in a film? *** 3/4
THE MINISTER (d. Olivier Gourmet)
In a story seemingly ripped from today's headlines, yet another actor
turned director has a go at filmmaking, in this case in the political
thriller genre. Here Gourmet plays a clever Minister of Transport
who is under pressure from the fiscal crisis to bow to political
expediency. The film is impressively mounted with a sense of the
enormity of governing. However, I wish I knew a little more about
French politics, as I found myself at sea trying to figure out which
side was which and what the salient issues were. Yet rarely has
such an inside view of the ugliness of the political process been shown
on film. Michel Blanc is notable playing the minister's chief of
staff...hard working, meticulous, loyal yet something of a tragic
figure. The film is viscerally affecting at times, and Gourmet's
pragmatic minister is a great characterization; but its cynical look at
the political process is also unsettling. This is a film more to
be respected than enjoyed. ***
AMERICANO (d. Mathieu Demy)
This Demy is, of course, the son of Jacques and Agnes Varda. Here
he plays the lead in a film quite reminiscent of his father's Model Shop,
where the beloved (at least by me) filmmaker made a foray to Venice,
California in 1969...except this Demy is no Gary Lockwood (or for that
matter, no Jacques Demy.) Americano
is the story of a grown man, raised by his scornful father in France;
but whose mother has lived for years in a shabby condo in Venice,
CA. He once lived with his ex-pat mother there until he was 8
years-old and now is charged with settling her affairs in the U.S. (that
he dislikes) after her death. The film also contains a tribute
to his father's film Lola,
which is the name of a mysterious woman that Demy's character follows
to Tijuana to abide by his mother's wishes. The film is a sordid
character study, the road-trip plot comes off as contrived; and even
though I found the character's actions ludicrously unmotivated and
stupid, I still found them interesting. Up to a point. ** 1/2
GOODBYE FIRST LOVE (Un amour de jeunesse) (d. Mia Hansen-Love)
Camille is 15, Sullivan 17 in 1999. Despite their youth, they fall
in love...she to the depths of her being, he maybe not that
profoundly. In any case, Sullivan drops out of school and leaves on a
protracted trip to South America and gradually stops writing. She
is depressed and devastated; but grows up as the film progresses
through seven years of her life until chance brings them together
again. As played by pretty, gamine actress Lola Créton and
reasonably attractive young actor Sebastian Urzendowsky, the romantic
chemistry sizzles. The moral being that one never really grows out
of an all consuming first love. However, the film goes on too
long without a satisfying resolution of its meager premise. **
3/4
THE ART OF LOVE (d. Emmanuel Mouret)
I think of Emmanuel Mouret as the young, French version of one aspect of
Woody Allen...a consummate auteur of well constructed, sophisticated
comedies of manners. Here Mouret is doing complicated farce in
small connected vignettes. Its major theme is how people can
delude themselves in matters of love. I can see a huge
Molière influence here in the creation of certain characters
(particularly François Cluzet's Achille) and how disparate
threads of the farce are eventually brought together. Mauret takes
only a very minor acting role in the film; but as usual, it is his
incredibly clever plotting which makes the film so easy to watch and so
involving. The only misstep is the throw-away story of a doomed
musician (played by the wonderful Stanislas Merhar from Dry Cleaning)
which opens the film and seems disconnected from the rest of the
film. Perhaps somebody more clever than I am can figure out how
this story relates. *** 1/4
LITTLE DANCER (d. George Jecel)
In a small rural village in some unspecified, Russian speaking Eastern
Euro country in the aftermath of civil war, a pretty and vivacious
teenage girl (played with luminous star quality by Stesh Seymour) dreams
of entering a ballet academy in the city. Her poor family is in
thrall to local gangsters...and this is a patriarchal culture where
girls are commodities. The film is slow to unfold its sordid
story, but strong on atmosphere and character development. The
beauty of the nicely photographed locale contrasts with the venality of
most of the town's inhabitants, save for a compromised priest and a
sympathetic orphaned gypsy boy. It's a strong indictment against
the prevailing culture of its milieu, profoundly pessimistic and
viscerally disturbing. ** 3/4
POLISSE (d. Maïwenn)
Here is yet again a film by an actress turned director (definitely a
trend in movies this year). This is a slice of life, cinéma
verité type of policier about a group of Parisian vice cops who
perhaps fill the role of child protective services in the U.S. In
any case, they deal with perps and victims: child abusers and deserters,
pederasts, child prostitutes etc. The film concentrates on the
stories of the various cops, many of whom have their own children and
relationship problems which contrast with their jobs. I was
totally absorbed by the film, even if the dialog occasionally was so
fast and furious that the sub-titles obviously weren't keeping up.
Only an unresolved, seemingly unmotivated ending prevented me from
rating of the film higher. However, it's the nature of this sort
of film that real life just is not like a movie: that narratives
are not neat with
beginning-middle-end. That the film manages to project this
successfully is definitely praiseworthy. *** 1/4
38 WITNESSES (d. Lucas Belvaux)
I think Belvaux is my favorite living director. Certainly he makes
subtle films that challenge the mind. This film is another French
film based on an American event transported across the pond (and like 17 Girls,
it takes place in a seaside milieu, in this case the port of Le
Havre.) Belvaux based this story on a non-fiction book about the
infamous Kitty Genovese syndrome: where a woman was murdered in Queens
in the 1960's and none of the witnesses acted in her defense. In
the current film, such a stabbing occurred late at night in an apartment
lined street, and none of the 38 neighbors would cop to have heard it
happen...except one whistleblowing man who suffers greatly from
self-guilt for his inaction and universal opprobrium for his coming
forth to break the wall of silence. Yvan Attal is remarkable in
the lead role, a performance of stoic inner torment which is all the
greater for its subtlety. But what is really remarkable is
Belvaux's mastery of sound and space, where the port and city of Le
Havre take on a sinister menace, and the audience is made a participant
in the culpability of the characters. This is a difficult film to
watch, one which gathers in strength as it lays out its thesis.
The only reservation I have is that the film's psychological reality,
while reasonable in a fiction film, is suspect when transferred to
modern life as I believe it really is. Thus, *** 1/2 instead of a
higher grade.
A HAPPY EVENT (d. Rémi Bezançon)
A young couple meet cute in a video store, fall in love, and decide on
the spur of the moment, with little thought to the consequences, to
embark on parenthood. The girl (current French it-girl Louise
Bourgoin) is studying for her PhD and not quite ready to be a mom (her
coldly analytical mother, another great performance by Josiane Balasko,
is not helpful). The guy is nurturing, but also somewhat
adolescent. He's played by attractive Pio Marmaï, who made
quite an impact as the "perfect" dead ex-husband in the recent hit film Delicacy.
Rarely has a film gone into the intricacies of pregnancy, birth and the
stresses that come after the (absolutely adorable) child is born the
way this film does. It's adapted from an autobiographical novel by
a woman (Etiette Abécassis), and thus is quite realistic (at
least as far as I could tell). In fact, for me maybe it imparts
too much information. I have a feeling that I wasn't an ideal
audience for this quite well done film, and others could probably derive
more pleasure from its achievements. ***
GUILTY (Présumé coupable) (d. Vincent Garenq)
This film is based on a true story which happened in France in the early
2000's. A middle-class, working, married couple with three kids
are rousted in the middle of the night and arrested for child
molestation and other crimes. As played by the superb French actor
Philippe Torreton, Alain is clearly innocent...but caught in a catch-22
nightmare of deceitful conspiracies and a self-righteous
prosecutor/judge who ignores exculpatory evidence. The cogs of
French justice work excruciatingly slow, and Alain is degraded to the
lowest tier of society as he spends years in prison, apparently
"presumed guilty", even before any trial. This was a famous
scandal in France, an all encompassing failure of the judicial
system. And the director and lead actor
nail the feeling of personal powerlessness in the face of power run amok
with kitchen-sink realism. Viscerally affecting. *** 1/2
FREEWAY (Voie rapide) (d. Christophe Sahr)
A young car and video game obsessed man (played by Johan
Libéreau, a favorite actor of mine who isn't looking so great in
this film), has a traumatic and life changing event happen while
speeding on the freeway. His inner guilt and torment causes his
life to fall apart, "Crime & Punishment" style. I found the
main character's actions, while convincingly played, to not quite add up
psychologically. But worse, although I wanted to, I just couldn't
make myself care about these unpleasant characters. The car action was
exciting...but again just missed being adequately impactful.
Unfortunately, this was nothing more than a disappointing
disaffected-youth story which left too many unresolved issues. **
LE SKYLAB (d. Julie Delpy)
A woman traveling with her family by train is reminded of a similar trip
back in 1979 when she was 11. Most of the film is a flashback to a
large family gathering to celebrate her grandmother's 67th
birthday. It takes place entirely in the bucolic rural family home
in Brittany where sheep are being raised; and for the occasion a lamb
is roasted on a spit and the family dines and talks (and talks and talks
and goes to the beach and flees rain showers and talks and
talks.) The film is clearly made from the point of view of the
11-year old girl...also clearly modeled on the reminiscences of the
director's youth. This was the summer that Skylab fell from the
sky (memorable because it was originally thought to fall over western
France); and I suppose that is meant to be a metaphor for the outside
world affecting the insular extended family. Frankly, I was bored
for most of the film. The family members individually (especially
the children) were well portrayed, if insufficiently differentiated; but
the observations and incidents were rather banal and
clichéd. Especially unsuccessful were the present day train
scenes which bookend the main story. They needed to somehow tie
in with the family reminiscences; but they fall flat. This sort of
French summer family get-together has been done so much better in the
recent past (e.g. Assayas' Summer Hours). Delpy should stick to more intimate casts, since the complexity of this script got away from her. ** 1/2
LOUISE WIMMER (d. Cyril Mennegun)
The character Louise Wimmer (played by Corinne Masiero) is a 50ish,
mousy woman down on her luck. She's separated from her ex-husband,
homeless and living out of her automobile, deep in debt and working
thankless domestic jobs. The film is a slice of her miserable
life, and one of the longest 80 minutes I've spent watching a
film. Still, the outstandingly realistic acting, and portrayal of
an indomitable spirit trumps the unrelenting miserablism. I
admired the filmmaking without really liking the film. ** 3/4
PARIS BY NIGHT (d. Philippe Lefebre)
Simon Weiss is a Captain in the Paris vice squad whose beat covers the
sex clubs, bars and rackets of the city by night. This noirish
(literally, since it is shot almost entirely in dark places) film covers
one drizzly night's shift as Captain Weiss and his newly assigned
female driver drive from club to club following a trail of drugs, gangs
and corruption. As portrayed by Roschdy Zem, Weiss is a hardened,
possibly compromised cop, being hounded by Internal Affairs, but
determined to do his job. The real star of the film is the seedy
underbelly of Paris at night...rarely has a film devoted such loving
care to photographing the City of Lights in such geographic
detail. The film builds suspense by the menace of possible
violence; but in fact develops as a complex web of subtle
interactions. Maybe it's even too complex to follow in one
viewing. But Zem's quietly powerful performance is strong enough
to carry the film. *** 1/4
I WANT YOUR LOVE (d. Travis Mathews)
[Seen at 2012 OUTFEST] This was a film in the same
realistic mode as WEEKEND: real looking, scruffily bearded,
30-something non-actors, rudimentary story, authentic San Francisco
setting, brittle dialog, copious gay sex of all varieties (nothing left
to the imagination, but shot anti-porno style with all the fumbling and
messiness that is usually air-brushed out in modern gay porno films).
The screening sold out the Directors Guild main theater; but I had the
feeling that even with this audience there was some discomfort watching
it. Or maybe it was that the rudimentary story was so uninvolving that
it dragged. On the other hand, the film was artfully shot, with lovely
scenes of fog-bound S.F., and there were moments of clever dialog which
were genuine and funny. ** 1/4