Abel Ferrara’s Padre Pio

According to reports, Padre Pio (a.k.a. St. Pio of Pietrelcina) exhibited the stigmata, healed the sick, bi-located, and faced multiple investigations from the Vatican that were intended to discredit him. However, none of those things are in this film, because why would they interest Abel Ferrara? Instead, viewers will witness many of the future saint’s long dark nights of the soul. If you thought he was tortured and tormented before, wait till you see him get the Abel Ferrara-treatment in Padre Pio, which opens tomorrow in New York.

WWI has ended and the men of San Giovanni Rotondo are making their triumphant homecoming—but not all of them. This is the first example of how capricious and unfair fate can be to the villagers. After the armistice, the land-owners expect life to return to normal, but socialist rabble-rousers are organizing to defeat the elite’s hand-picked candidate for mayor. Where is Padre Pio in all this? Back at the monastery, wrestling with the Devil and his personal demons.

Is that disconnection Ferrara’s whole point? Is this a statement on the Church’s divorce from average people’s struggle to survive. That is certainly a valid interpretation, but it feels somewhat at odds with the genuine (if somewhat eccentric) Catholic spirituality of his best religiously themed film, Mary.

Even by Ferrara’s raggedy standards, Padre Pio is a rather disjointed film. There are moments of brilliant cinema, such as opening scene of the soldiers’ homecoming. You can see Ferrara’s operatic fervor in all the secular passion play sequences. However, whenever Padre Pio rages against the darkness, you half expect Shia Labeouf to start baring his bottom, like Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant. Evidently, Ferrara was struck by the coincidence Padre Pio started experiencing the stigmata around the time of the San Giovanni Rotondo massacre, but the connection he makes in his mind is not reflected on screen.

Ferrara also picked a heck of a time to stop working with Willem Dafoe. Labeouf makes a poor substitute, even though it was Dafoe who recommended him to Ferrara. There are some nice performances in Padre Pio, especially Cristina Chiriac, as a recent war widow who refuses to grieve, and Salvatore Ruocco as the veteran, whose advances she spurns, because he works as a foreman for the town’s noble family. However, Labeouf just cannot find the right key or pitch for Padre Pio, which is a big problem, since the film is ostensibly about him.

Abel Ferrara’s Zeroes and Ones

During the height of the global Covid-19 lockdowns, not everybody stayed inside. Crime skyrocketed in New York and other American big urban centers. However, in Rome, it is a shadowy terrorist network that is capitalizing on the empty city streets. At least, that is the cover story an American military commando has been told. For reasons that are never fully revealed, he believes his radical revolutionary twin brother has information that can avert their imminent attack in Abel Ferrara’s Zeroes and Ones, which releases today in theaters and on-demand.

That might sound like an explosive international thriller, but just so there are no misunderstandings, it should be understood from the outset that this is Abel Ferrara at his most Abel Ferrarish. In fact, he went back to his gritty street cinema roots, shooting Z&O on the fly, defying civic curfews, in Covid-era Rome’s ghost town-looking back alleys. It is not exactly clear whether his story unfolds during the current CCP viral outbreak or the next one, but the vibe is certainly similar.

The hardnosed J.J. is convinced Justin holds key intel. It also seems like he wants to find his radical brother to make an eleventh-hour effort to mend their estranged relationship. Unfortunately, agents of the terrorist cabal (which clearly includes a lot of Russians) already know he is in Rome.

Honestly, the only straightforward segments of Z&O are the wrap-arounds, wherein lead actor Ethan Hawke talks directly to the audience, discussing the process of collaborating with Ferrara. It doesn’t sound like he really knows what the film is about either, but he is still more or less okay with it.

He is also very good playing JJ—technically it is a dual role, but the respectable military twin gets the overwhelming lion-share of the screen-time. Right from the start, he looks sufficiently haggard and haunted to imply more than enough backstory. It is up to Hawke to carry this film and he does, if you can buy into Ferrara’s fractured perspective and hallucinatory aesthetics.

There is plenty of pretentious theological symbolism and frequent expressionistic representations of Ferrara’s tortured psyche, but at least we never see Harvey Keitel’s naked butt in this one. Nevertheless, Z&O could fill a bingo card full of Ferrara hallmarks, including a weird sex scene featuring his wife, Christina Chiriac, holding a gun and a video camera on J.J. as he acquiesces to the Russians’ incredibly unsubtle honey trap. Apparently, sometimes a spy has to do what a spy has to do.

Abel Ferrara’s Siberia

Siberia is not just a region of Russia. It is a whole state of mind. It is a psychotic and delusional state, as envisioned by Abel Ferrara. We will see it through the eyes of a lone American bartender, who is growing increasingly alienated from people, society, and his own sanity in Ferrara’s Siberia, which releases today on DVD.

Clint does not understand whatever Siberian Mongolic, Turkic, or Tatar dialects his occasional customers speak and for those of us who don’t either, Ferrara declines to subtitle them. That still does not stop Clint from sleeping with some of them, but sex always builds to a twisted, nightmarish climax in Ferrara’s Siberia.

After a few weird encounters, Clint lights off on a spiritual trek through the tundra, with his trusty sled dogs looking just as confused as viewers uninitiated in Ferrara’s quirks. Arguably, there is the seed of an interesting story in the journey, when Clint periodically seeks out practitioners of the dark arts, presumably in hopes of acquiring the forbidden knowledge necessary for a Faustian bargain that would ease his existential regrets. Of course, Ferrara is not about to spoon-feed us Jack Straw.

There is no sense complaining or arguing over the film’s murky narrative, because Ferrara isn’t playing by those rules. He is taking us through a rabbit hole into the darkest corners of his subconscious. If you are uncomfortable with that than so much the better. Really, this is a film for critics to watch, so they can file bits away to draw on later when Ferrara releases something more accessible. Nevertheless, cast-members like Simon McBurney and Dounia Sichov add a lot of depth and texture playing the shadowy “Magician” and Clint’s wife (seen through dreams and illusions).

NYFF ’14: Pasolini

In 1926, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s father foiled an attempt to assassinate Benito Mussolini. Unfortunately, there would be nobody to intercede when Pasolini fils was murdered, most likely by a gay hustler, but the Italian auteur’s death has almost spawned as many conspiracy theories as the Kennedy assassination. The filmmaker’s final days are now the subject of Abel Ferrara’s speculative passion play, Pasolini (trailer here), which screens during the 52^nd New York Film Festival.

Ferrara’s affinity for Pasolini makes perfect sense, given the penchant they share for sexually and religiously charged subject matter. As Ferrara’s film opens, Pasolini is wrapping post-production on his Marquis de Sade opus, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. To this day, it remains one of the most controversial and difficult films ever produced by a prestige filmmaker. Of course, Pasolini was always an extreme figure, politically and aesthetically (holding the dubious distinction of having been expelled from the Italian Communist Party on moral grounds).

Ferrara builds an atmosphere of foreboding and paranoia, clearly inviting the audience to suspect anyone so uncompromising must be a danger to the powers that be. Yet, Pasolini recklessly indulges in the hedonistic lifestyle that will ultimately kill him. Ferrara intercuts his prowling about Rome’s seedy night spots with scenes from the outlandish allegory that would have been his next film: Porno-Teo-Kolossal, a sort of riff on the Biblical Three Wise Men, in which an old Holy fool’s pilgrimage takes him to Sodom’s traditional orgy, where the city’s gays and lesbians come together to procreate.

Truly, Pasolini reflects both the absolute worst and best of Ferrara’s instincts. It is talky, pretentious, and features more explicit gay sex than any non-homophobic straight cineaste ever needs to see. Yet, the operatic sweep of it all is rather overwhelming. Ferrara creates a pungent sense of 1970s Rome, simmering with crime and ideology. Dark and sleazy, it all radiates malevolence thanks to cinematography Stefano Falivene.

Frankly, Willem Dafoe, a frequent Ferrara co-conspirator, makes a downright spooky Pasolini stand-in. He is so gaunt and dissipated looking, the audience might throw him an intervention if he appears at a screening. Watching him play out Pasolini’s final days is like watching a ghost. For better or worse, it is his film and perhaps his career role, but it is also quite eerie to see Pasolini favorite Ninetto Davoli wayfaring through the “Maestro’s” unmade film.

Pasolini is bold auterist filmmaking and a quality period production. It is also rather a mess, but it should not be lightly dismissed. Despite or because of Ferrara’s myriad excesses, when you walk out of his Pasolini, you know you saw a film. Recommended for fans of Ferrara and Pasolini at their most Ferrara and Pasolini, Ferrara’s Pasolini screens this Thursday (10/2) at Alice Tully Hall and Friday (10/3) at the Gilman, as Main Slate selection of this year’s NYFF.

Abel Ferrara’s Ms .45: Back to Clean Up New York Again

You know any film that gives a shout out to the Guardian Angels in its closing credits is the product of a very specific time and place.  Obviously, this is New York, but not just pre-Giuliani. It is also pre-Dinkins during the first Koch administration.  Things are pretty rotten, but they will improve a bit, only to get considerably worse before America’s Mayor turned the city around.  However, one violent crime victim does not have twelve years to wait for the City to become livable again.  She is determined to clean the town up, one male predator at a time, in Abel Ferrara’s exploitation favorite, Ms .45 (trailer here), which Drafthouse Films re-releases tonight in New York at the IFC Center.

Thana is an apparently mute seamstress who simply wants to be left alone to live her modest dormouse existence.  Then one night after work, she is sexually assaulted on two separate occasions.  The second was a home invader, whom she successfully fights off.  He will now be leaving her apartment in pieces.  She also takes possession of his gun and its seemingly endless supply of bullets.  The first time she uses it out of panic, but killing lowlife scum soon gets to be a compulsion for her.

Right, so let the body count begin.  Frankly, it is easy to see both why critics initially loathed Ms .45 and how it subsequently developed a rabid cult appreciation.  The film shows Ferrara’s gritty street level aesthetic at its absolute rawest, he also displays a surprisingly keen eye for visual composition.  The concluding conflagration’s Texas-sized Freudian imagery is especially bold.

Ostensibly, Ms .45 functions as a feminist-empowerment vigilante exercise, yet the film’s gender politics are rather slippery on closer examination.  Always a little off, the increasingly agitated Thana begins to conflate any innocent expression of male sexuality with violent sexual aggression, which holds potentially horrific implications.  It is tempting to interpret her choice of Halloween costume—a nun’s habit—as a commentary on feminist Puritanism.  Or perhaps Ferrara was just trying to offend Catholics.  Regardless, you have to respect a film with something to appall everybody.

Ferrara’s future Bad Lieutenant co-writer Zoë Tamerlis Lund fits the part of Thana disturbingly well (especially given her sadly premature end). She projects all kinds of vulnerability but is simultaneously spooky as all get out. Despite the film’s deliberate sleaziness, there are fine dramatic moments in 45, particularly Lund’s tragically ironic scene with a bar patron played by Jack Thibeau.

When watching Ms .45, it is hard to shake the uneasy feeling we are looking two years into the future of the de Blasio administration.  At least the music is funky, featuring some first class studio cats, like Artie Kaplan. Amusingly, the instrumentation heard on the soundtrack does not always match the musicians seen on-screen, but so be it.  This is not the sort of film where one should obsess over small details.  Instead, it is opportunity to see Ferrara truly in his element, serving up the vicarious guilty pleasures of street justice.  Recommended for cult film connoisseurs, the lovingly restored Ms .45 screens this weekend (12/13 & 12/14) midnight-ish at the IFC Center in New York and a tad earlier at the Alamo Drafthouse in Yonkers.

4:44 Last Day on Earth: Armageddon on the Lower East Side

Abel Ferrara is determined to vindicate Al Gore. He will have to destroy the world to do it, but surely that is a small price to pay. Armageddon indeed comes to the Lower East Side in Ferrara’s 4:44 Last Day on Earth (trailer here), which opens today in New York at the IFC Center.

The details are vague (for obvious reasons), but we are told Gore was more right than even he knew. Global warming has become so severe, all life will end at 4:44 am in some sort of great microwaving, but of course women and children will be hit the hardest. At least it is not daylight savings, because it would be a real bummer to lose an hour tonight. Cisco and his girlfriend Skye will spend their final hours together, as New York prepare for the end.

Frankly, Ferrara’s set up is surprisingly effective. During the first half hour or so, New Yorkers will be reminded of the empathic solidarity that swept over the City on 9-11 and to a lesser extent during the blackout. He really creates a convincing sense of what it would be like to knowingly experience the apocalypse in New York.

As the day progresses, Cisco and Skye frequently make love in between her creative bursts of painting, which is perfectly appropriate given the dramatic context. However, viewers will start to wonder where Ferrara is taking it all. Frankly, nowhere.

Essentially, 4:44 shows us scene after scene of Cisco puttering about his apartment, wrestling with the mother of all existential crises. Late in the day, Ferrara makes a half-hearted attempt to gin up some phony drama, but it quickly subsides. We also get one cheesy montage before its Hasta time.

During the long stretches of Wilem Dafoe gamely channeling his inner Ferrara as Cisco, we hear intrusive excerpts from an old Gore appearance on Charlie Rose and several streaming lessons from the Dalai Lama and other Buddhist teachers. It is as if the secular faith of environmentalism is battling Buddhism for the soul of the apartment. Considering how clumsily Ferrara tilts the playing field in favor of the former, most viewers will want to throw their lot in with His Holiness.

Strangely, despite the Dalai Lama’s archival appearance, 4:44 is largely unconcerned with the religious ramifications of the end of the world. Indeed, it never speculates on the implications for the cycle of reincarnation so important to the Buddhism, but viewers might as their attentions start to wander. In another piece of good local color, 4:44 also shows the final broadcasts of NY1 anchor Pat Kiernan. He might not be particularly well known outside New York City, but that is okay, considering ninety-nine percent of the film’s audience will come from a handful of Brooklyn and lower Manhattan neighborhoods.

As you would expect from such a quintessentially New York filmmaker, Ferrara nails the City vibe, but that is about all 4:44 has. Quite skippable in theaters, it might be worth sampling the first twenty minutes on cable eventually, but do not make any special effort. For Ferrara’s die-hard fans, it opens today (3/23) at the IFC Center.

Ferrara at AFA: Happy Life

It looks like “Recovery Summer” passed over the techno specialty record shops, just like the rest of the nation’s economy. Feeling the financial pinch, an aging DJ plans to throw an old school rave to raise money for his ailing store in Michael M. Bilandic’s Happy Life (trailer here), which Anthology Film Archives has unofficially side-barred into the Abel Ferrara in the 21st Century series, since the filmmaker served as the project’s executive producer.

Keith is a true believer. He will argue passionately about the deeper sociological significance of early 90’s techno-house-whatever music and the original rave scene it fueled. Unfortunately, those glory days are gone. Kids want rap now rather than trance and Keith’s plan to wait for the world to revolve back to him does not seem to be working. Attempting a Hail Mary pass, he signs DJ Liquids, a not-so rehabbed superstar from the era gone by, to play his fundraiser-happening. At least he is finally doing something. In fact, Keith’s preparations give him an opportunity to problematically put the moves on a seventeen year-old drop-out who haunts the stoops of the neighborhood with her slacker friends.

Bilandic and his cinematographer Sean Price Williams both worked at the late lamented Kim’s Video on St. Marks. They really capture the right look and feel of the formerly funky East Village. Visually though, Happy is deliberately grungy to the point of distraction. In fact, Williams is probably better represented by his striking work on Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo and Beijing Taxi.

While there is no need to belabor the point, the real problem with Happy is the evidently unprofessional cast. Stand-up comedian Tom McCaffrey delivers deadpan sarcasm rather effectively, but he is essentially out to sea in the film’s more dramatic moments. Still, he fairs somewhat better than many of the supporting players.

Without Ferrara’s imprimatur, it is doubtful hardly anyone would give Happy a second look. Those who know their way around City record stores will want to like the potentially endearing story, but the film is just not professional grade. It screens this coming Tuesday (1/11) as an official selection of Newfilmmakers NY and unofficially as part of the ongoing Abel Ferrara retrospective, which continues through January 18th at Anthology Film Archives.

Ferrara at AFA: Mary

Abel Ferrara’s Passion of the Christ? Lord, have mercy. Actually, those prayers were partly heeded, if not fully answered. Despite his delicate subject matter and a proven willingness to offend, Ferrara’s Mary (trailer here) is nothing like the outrage one might expect. Perhaps that is why there has been so little theatrical love for the film, even with its Venice and Toronto festival credentials. Fittingly, it screens tonight as part of the Anthology Film Archives’ Abel Ferrara in the 21st Century retrospective of the director’s recent unreleased or under-distributed films.

Juliette Binoche plays actress Marie Palesi playing Mary Magdalene in risky new cinematic life of Jesus directed by and starring the self-absorbed actor Tony Childress. However, when production wraps, Palesi refuses to snap out of it. Since she already has a form of Jerusalem Syndrome, she sets off for Israel rather than returning to Hollywood.

Loving the sound of his own voice, Childress hits the publicity circuit hard on behalf of his film. He accepts an invitation to appear on Ted Younger’s television talk show, a Charlie Rose for liberal theologians and religious writers. Though he discusses faith every night, the TV host has lost his own, succumbing to a myriad of worldly temptations. Of course, this being an Abel Ferrara film, he is in for a long night of the soul.

Though there are potential warning signs all over the place, the ultimate implications of Mary are arguably not overtly hostile to Christian faith. In fact, Ferrara rather explicitly tackles themes of redemption and forgiveness. In a way, it is much like Bad Lieutenant without any of the creepy, disturbing parts.

Still, Ferrara hardly embraces Evangelical Christianity here. There are frequent references to the knuckle-dragging rabble protesting Younger’s film, though Ferrara often seems to conflate the very different controversies surrounding Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ and Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. There is also a fair amount of speculation about Mary Magdalene’s role as a privileged disciple supposedly covered up by the sexist early Church. Frankly, this might have seemed bold a few years ago, but after scores of Da Vinci Code inspired books and films, this seems like pretty ho-hum stuff today.

Befitting Ferrara’s style, Forest Whitaker’s work as Younger is emotionally raw and in-your-face immediate. It is a shoot-the-moon turn he thankfully pulls off. Also, his no-holds-barred on-camera take-down of Chisholm is just really good cinema. Binoche is perfectly cast as the Palesi, the ethereal paragon of awakened spirituality. Refreshingly, she conveys a sense of dignity through faith, never portraying the actress as a religious nut. Though often associated with wishy-washy parts, Matthew Modine actually does arrogant creeps like Chisholm rather well, entertainingly repeating his Freddy Ace shtick from Alan Rudolph’s Equinox here.

There is nothing shy about Ferrara’s go-for-the-throat approach to Mary, but cinematographer Stefano Falivene gives it a shockingly polished look. However, Francis Kuiper’s overly portentous score is somewhat counterproductive at times. It might be self-contradictory and messy, but Mary is probably ten times better than anticipated. For bold souls and curious heathens, it screens tonight (1/7), January the 11th and the 17th at Anthology Film Archives as part of its focus on the director’s largely undistributed recent films.

Ferrara at AFA: Chelsea on the Rocks

Last year saw the passing of the great Dennis Hopper, a true Hollywood icon and maverick. Not surprisingly, he was also once a resident of the (in)famous Chelsea Hotel, along with the likes of Jack Kerouac, Dylan Thomas, Sid Vicious, and Arthur C. Clarke. Controversial director Abel Ferrara also lived at the Chelsea while filming Chelsea on the Rocks (trailer here), a documentary about the venerable Manhattan landmark, which screens during the Anthology Film Archives’ Abel Ferrara in the 21st Century retrospective of the director’s recent unreleased or under-distributed films.

The Chelsea started out as a conventional upscale hotel, which is how the new management intends to operate it now. However, during its heyday under Stanley Bard’s laissez-faire supervision, the Chelsea became a magnet for the artistically inclined, including both the celebrated and the anonymous alike. Bard was famously indulgent about collecting rent, and illegal activity, like drug dealing and prostitution, was reportedly widespread. As a result, it became a congenial home for Beatnik poets, hippie rock stars, and members of the Warhol Factory. For the soon-to-be former residents Ferrara interviews, these were indeed the “good old days.”

As an interviewer, Ferrara is absolutely awful in Rocks. Often sounding completely out of it (as usual), he has a habit of mishearing something a subject says and then fixating on it, taking the discussion in a random direction his interlocutor never intended. However, in his defense, the Chelsea denizens seem comfortable opening up to the filmmaker as a both fellow resident and eccentric, relating to him some fittingly strange anecdotes.

Almost in spite of himself, Ferrara effectively captures a sense of what the Chelsea was like during the height of its notoriety. He elicits some very amusing commentary from many well known former residents, including Miloš Forman and a surprisingly funny Ethan Hawke. Unfortunately, his brief dramatic recreations of infamous episodes in Chelsea history, including the death of Vicious’ girlfriend Nancy Spungen, are ill-conceived (often approaching outright cheese), despite the participation of talented actors like Giancarlo Esposito.

Ultimately, Rocks is strongest when Ferrara simply revels in the Chelsea’s bohemian spirit. It might be raggedly uneven, but for a documentary about an institution as unconventional as the Chelsea Hotel, directed by an idiosyncratic filmmaker like Ferrara, Rocks is surprisingly cohesive and entertaining. A likable exercise in hipster nostalgia, it screens January 10th, 14th, and 18th at the Anthology.

Ferrara at AFA: Napoli Napoli Napoli

It was the seat of its own Renaissance-era kingdom and a cultural center of the Roman Empire. Yet, amid a country of former city-states, Naples has been largely left behind. Abel Ferrara returned to his ancestral roots to witness how far the once glorious city has fallen in his hybrid documentary Napoli Napoli Napoli (trailer here), which screens this Saturday as part of Anthology Film Archives’ Abel Ferrara in the 21st Century series of the director’s recent unreleased or under-distributed films.

Collaborating with screenwriter-producer Gaetano Di Vaio, a former criminal turned filmmaker, Ferrara set out to interview some of the women and young men of the Pozzuoli prison, interspersing their traditional documentary footage with dramatic vignettes inspired by the convicts’ experiences. Certainly the most substantial would be Di Vaio’s story of two Camorra gangsters taking on a friend on a road trip to his eventual execution—an an episode reportedly based on his own life.

Frankly, thin would be a generous description for most of the original narrative sketches, and frankly they are not really necessary. Ferrara vividly captures of a sense of the squalid life on Naples mean streets and elicits more compelling testimony from his interview subjects. He shows an intuitive understanding of those profoundly unlucky to have been caught up in the Neopolitan web of drugs and vice. Though his interviewing skills in Chelsea on the Rocks often seem somewhat suspect, here he shows a knack for asking probing questions, simply and directly. In the case of a Nigerian immigrant lured into the drug trade, he asks how she feels about Italians. He also asks several young inmates if they have ever read a book. Of course, the 64,000 Euro question is whether they think the Camorra has been good or bad for the community.

Napoli 3 even has a hero or two, like the dedicated social worker and an elderly business man who refuses to pick up stakes and leave town. However, the film is not particularly sanguine about the region’s future. The local politicians certainly do not have any answers, though they do their best to point their fingers at the national government. Evidently, personal responsibility will not be starting with Naples’ elected leaders. Despite its odd combination of filmmaking strategies, it is a sobering look at a once great city’s decay that would be a good companion film to Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah. It screens during AFA’s 21st Century Ferrara retrospective January 8th, 9th, 13th, 15th, and 16th.

Ferrara at AFA: Mulberry St.

Why hasn’t anyone signed up Abel Ferrara for a reality TV show? Just watch this clip of the indie cult filmmaker on the old Conan show to get a sense of what it could be like. Indeed, Ferrara presents himself as quite a character in his documentary Mulberry St., which screens this Saturday as part of Anthology Film Archives’ Abel Ferrara in the 21st Century series of the director’s recent unreleased or under-distributed films.

If you had not guessed, Ferrara is Italian. He was also a resident of Little Italy. In fact, many of the nabe’s old school residents turn up in his early films. In Mulberry, Ferrara turns the camera on himself and his neighbors as they gear up for the annual Feast of San Gennaro. Of course, it is not like it used to be the old-timers tell us. They blame Giuliani for booting out the mob and the after-hours gambling. Reform is a drag.

Watching Ferrara kvetch and reminisce about his first film (a grungy porno that ironically was probably his most widely distributed) would be enjoyable television, but as a feature film, it is a bit thin. Still, Ferrara’s cronies like Butchie the Hat certainly have their charm. The frequent impromptu business confabs with Ferrara and his manager (and frequent co-star) Frankie Cee also go a long way toward explaining why so many of his films have such spotty distribution. Yet, that same eccentric Ferrara is evidently able to talk his way onto Danny Aiello’s label with only a brief cell phone introduction from the clearly bemused actor-singer.

Like Chelsea on the Rocks and to an extent Go Go Tales, Mulberry is Ferrara’s ode to the New York of yore, glorious in its grunginess. However, he never makes an overwhelming case for the superiority of the good old days. At least he is bizarrely watchable trying.

Obviously, Ferrara is wired a bit differently. Given his peerless indie cred, the IFC Channel ought to have their cameras follow him around the festival circuit. Frankly, Mulberry should be the pilot, not a theatrical documentary. Surely entertaining for his friends, but nothing resembling a breakout-comeback-whatever, Mulberry screens during AFA’s 21st Century Ferrara retrospective January 8th, 9th, 12th, 15th, and 16th.

Ferrara at AFA: Go Go Tales

Indie auteurs are not always distribution friendly. Such has certainly been the case with Abel Ferrara. Still, it is a bit of a head-scratcher that a star-studded, accessibly goofy comedy that takes full advantage of its strip club setting never got more of a theatrical look. Anthology Film Archives addresses that oversight with Abel Ferrara in the 21st Century, a retrospective of the director’s recent unreleased and under-distributed films, anchored by the straight-up commercial Go Go Tales (not quite sfw trailer here), which begins its two week run of screenings this Friday.

Ruby seems like an unfortunate name for a strip club proprietor, but Ray Ruby has no time for historical ironies. He is busy going broke as a joke. Tourists just are not coming like they used to. Fortunately, he and his bookkeeper Jay have a responsible, proactive solution: playing the lotto. Of course, they have a system devised by some dodgy computer nerds in the local bodega. Yet, when their numbers come up, the born losers cannot recall where they stashed the ticket. Mad scrambling mayhem then ensues.

Naturally, Ruby’s Paradise is well stocked with colorful characters, including the hilariously foul-mouthed landlady Lillian Murray, who constantly threatens to evict them to make way for a Bed, Bath and Beyond, while draped over their bar. There is also plenty of flesh and jiggle, surely just to satisfy the demands of on-screen realism.

As Ruby, Willem Dafoe hams it up like Jim Carrey, but at least his energy never flags. Sylvia Miles is a profane joy as the acid-tongued Murray and Roy Dotrice brings a touch of crusty class as the impossibly Irish Jay. Italian horror diva Asia Argento is also well cast as eye candy with an edge. (Unfortunately, Asian action star Selena Khoo is somewhat under-utilized in this respect.) Although his gruff character is underwritten, Bob Hoskins still growls out some of the film’s best lines as the club’s greeter. The director’s fans will also be happy to see Ferrara regulars like Nicholas De Cegli and Frankie Cee on staff at the Paradise. Only Matthew Modine seems out of place as Ruby’s cash flush brother Johnnie.

Though filmed in Rome, production designer Frank DeCurtis nicely creates an environment of New York seediness. It is definitely a Ferrara milieu, but the filmmaker keeps things light rather than indulging in Bad Lieutenant style violence and law-of-the-jungle naturalism.

Frankly, with its Cannes credentials, Go Go has considerably more going for it than so many of the films that are inexplicably picked up by independent distributors. Though hardly perfect, if viewers can get past the sheer knuckleheadedness of its set-up, it is quite the entertaining naughty farce. Along with other films in the retrospective, like Chelsea on the Rocks, it is something of a valentine to old school, sleazy-in-the-right-way New York. Go Go screens at AFA at 7:00 every night of the Ferrara series, beginning this Friday (1/7).

Ferrara’s Chelsea on the Rocks

I have only been in the Chelsea Hotel once, to buy an LP record (it was Benny Carter in Paris, won on ebay for the princely sum of $1.00). Of course, the Chelsea always had a certain reputation as the frequent site of much less innocuous transactions. For years, it was also the preeminent bohemian address, boasting a cultural who’s who as occupants, including Jack Kerouac, Dylan Thomas, Dennis Hopper, Arthur C. Clarke, and most notoriously Sid Vicious. Controversial director Abel Ferrara also lived at the Chelsea while filming Chelsea on the Rocks (trailer here), a documentary about the venerable Manhattan landmark, which finally opens in New York this Friday, following the cancellation of its previously scheduled opening this past March.

The Chelsea started out as a conventional upscale hotel, which is how the new management would like it to operate now. However, during its heyday under Stanley Bard’s laissez-faire supervision, the Chelsea became a magnet for the artistically inclined, including both the celebrated and the anonymous alike. Bard was famously indulgent about collecting rent, and illegal activity, like drug dealing and prostitution, was reportedly widespread. As a result, it became a congenial home for Beatnik poets, hippie rock stars, and members of the Warhol Factory. For the soon-to-be former residents Ferrara interviews, these were indeed the “good old days.”

As an interviewer, Ferrara is absolutely awful. Often sounding completely out of it, he has a habit of mishearing something a subject says and then fixating on it, taking the discussion in a random direction his interlocutor never intended. However, the Chelsea denizens seem comfortable opening up to the filmmaker as a both fellow resident and eccentric, relating to him some fittingly strange anecdotes.

Almost in spite of himself, Ferrara effectively captures a sense of what the Chelsea was like during the height of its notoriety. He elicits some very amusing commentary from many well known former residents, including Miloš Forman and a surprisingly funny Ethan Hawke. Unfortunately, his brief dramatic recreations of infamous episodes in Chelsea history, including the death of Vicious’s girlfriend Nancy Spungen, are ill-conceived (often approaching outright cheese), despite the participation of talented actors like Giancarlo Esposito.

Ultimately, Rocks is strongest when Ferrara simply revels in the Chelsea’s bohemian spirit. It might be raggedly uneven and frankly the execution might at times be a little odd, but for a documentary about an institution as unconventional as the Chelsea Hotel, directed by an idiosyncratic filmmaker like Ferrara, Rocks is surprisingly cohesive and entertaining. Appropriately, it opens this Friday (10/2) at the Chelsea Clearview Cinemas.