ND/NF ’12: Twilight Portrait

In Moscow, you can never find a cop when you need one—if you’re lucky, that is. While ostensibly nonpolitical, a scathing picture of the Putin era’s petty corruption, casual cruelty, and moral malaise emerges in Angelina Nikonova’s Twilight Portrait (trailer here), which screens this week during the 2012 edition of New Directors/New Films.

Initially, Marina appears to be a woman who has it all: a career she is ambivalent about, a husband she cannot respect, and a lover she despises. Unfortunately, after another unsatisfying tryst, the wheels come off Marina’s life. A stolen handbag, a broken heel, and a bit of dishevelment later, the cops pick up Marina on the assumption she is a prostitute and therefore fair game. The details are kept deliberately obscure from the audience, but we know some combination of the three officers rapes her in their patrol car.

Twilight’s second act might be the most realistic, bluntly unvarnished portrayal of the aftermath of such trauma yet rendered on film. Marina’s depression and anger manifest themselves in ways that are sometimes understandable, but often perplexing and off-putting. However, Twilight is just getting started. When Marina takes up with Andrei, one of the cops from that fateful night (who apparently does not recognize her in a different context), the film gets even darker. Is this part of an elaborate plan for revenge or compulsive self-debasement? Perhaps it is both or neither. Indeed, part of her seems drawn to Andrei’s unapologetic masculinity in much the same way Russia collectively submits to an authoritarian strongman, like Putin. Twilight keeps its cards close to its vest, but it is safe to surmise their relationship is deeply twisted.

At this point, it might be helpful to point out Twilight was co-written by Nikonova and her lead actress, Olga Dihovichnaya. Nonetheless, some might find the film’s sexual dynamics, as described above, considerably troubling, which is perfectly reasonable. This is not a film for everyone, just like Bad Lieutenant is not a film for the masses. However, like Ferrara’s arguable masterwork, there is always a point to the degradation. Frankly, Twilight is not very explicit, in terms of what it shows on-screen, but the implications of the character’s words and actions are undeniably disturbing.

Beyond visceral, Dihovichnaya gives a phenomenal performance that will make viewers squirm in discomfort. Film patrons will not see better work on-screen this year, but it is so brutally honest and tightly controlled, Dihovichnaya is unlikely to get the accolades she deserves, at least around these parts. (We will probably just shower our awards on Meryl Streep’s next shticky impersonation.)

Nikonova masterfully controls what the audience sees and what it thinks it perceives, keeping them off-balance and edgy throughout the film. It is not an easy film to watch, but it has some real arsenic to it. Recommended for those who fully understand what they are getting into, Twilight screens this Friday (3/30) at MoMA and Saturday (3/31) at the Walter Reade Theater, as the 2012 ND/NF wraps up a particularly strong year.

ND/NF ’12: Generation P

Only a bold film would invoke the name “Ishtar,” but Victor Ginzburg is clearly a bold filmmaker. The context is much different here of course, but Elaine May’s notorious box office dud might have been quite popular in the old USSR, since it co-starred Reds helmer Warren Beatty. As it happens, Soviet era nostalgia plays a significant role in Generation P (trailer here), Ginzburg’s adaptation of Viktor Pelevin’s Illuminatus!-esque novel of late Yeltsin-era Russia, which screens this week as part of the 2012 New Directors/New Films.

Eventually viewers learn the Babylonian goddess Ishtar has a special relationship with Russia and its secret history. Though previously oblivious to the byzantine machinations of the behind-the-scenes power players, Babylen Tatarsky has always felt a kinship to all things Mesopotamian because of his name, originally conceived as a hybrid of Yevtushenko’s poem Babi Yar and Lenin. A failed poet working in a kiosk owned by the Chechen mob, Tatarsky falls backwards into a “creative” gig at one of the upstart Russian advertising agencies catering to the nouveau riche industrial class.

Tatarsky specializes in calibrating campaigns to appeal to Soviet nostalgia. He does not believe in it himself though, because he does not believe in anything. That ideological flexibility allows him to advance to larger, more connected firms. However, he has a spiritual advisor in the person of Gireyev, a Buddhist mystic and expert harvester of psychedelic mushrooms.

The “P” in Generation P is an ironic reference to Pepsi, the cola of Glasnost. Though it never outright glamorizes terrorism, P is not that far removed from V for Vendetta, exhibiting similar anarchistic inclinations. However, the closest comparison might be Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, giving viewers a hallucinogenic tour of Russia worthy of Hunter S. Thompson.

P arguably peaks halfway through. At its most inventive, it mixes Mesopotamian and Soviet imagery to evocative hint at ancient mystic secrets. However, once Tatarsky reaches the inner circle, the film gets bogged down in rather standard dog-wagging conspiracy rigmarole.

Beyond its heavy-handed critique of consumerism, it is hard to get a bead on P’s exact ideology. While Tatarsky’s cynical nostalgia campaigns are clearly intended to be problematically simplistic, the only real reference to Russia’s Communist past are the fondly remembered Pioneer Days, which are presented with a Norman Rockwell like patina of lost innocence.

The film also has little love for Yeltsin, but plot developments ironically absolve him of much of his buffoonery. Likewise, there is constant white noise equating all capitalists with oligarchs, but they constantly wind up assassinated for running afoul the mob or the government. Yet, the similarities between a blunt-talking nationalist “reformer” literally created on a hard-drive and the current Russian president who refuses to relinquish his grip on power are difficult to miss.

Amidst the maelstrom of satire and metaphysics, Vladimir Epifantsev somehow creates a memorable, multidimensional portrait of Tatarsky, the everyman turned insider. Ginzburg also keeps viewers’ feet solidly on the ground, giving them plenty of narrative handles to guide them through the complicated and surreal storyline. It is a very accomplished work, but it is not clear what it all adds up to, particularly for those coming from what the film somewhat mockingly refers to as a “Soviet mentality.” A strange, sometimes dazzling film certainly worth attempting to decode, but in no way should be considered the final word on the immediate post-Soviet years, Generation P screens this Friday (3/30) at the Walter Reade Theater and Sunday (4/1) at MoMA, as this year’s ND/NF concludes in New York.

ND/NF ’12: Huan Huan

China is a man’s world and becoming ever more so. In addition to making young girls increasingly less common, China’s One Child policy poisons the personal relationships of several working class provincial villagers in Song Chuan’s Huan Huan, which screens during the 2012 New Directors/New Films, jointly presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and MoMA.

Huan Huan has not taken control of her own life. She passively married a habitual gambler and acquiesced to the advances of “Doctor” Wang, a dodgy practitioner of “Chinese and Western medicine” married to Chunfeng, the village’s government enforcer. When their ill-concealed affair becomes public, Chunfeng starts harassing Huan Huan’s family, while Wang starts paying a monthly consideration to her deadbeat husband. Huan Huan’s eventual pregnancy complicates matters tremendously, particularly in light of the One Child policy and Chunfeng’s infertility.

Indeed, given the harsh procreation laws, everyone is interested in Huan Huan’s baby, hoping for a son of course. As a result, what might be a passionate infidelity melodrama in the West becomes a study in cold calculated decisions for Huan Huan’s circle. The frank matter-of-factness with which Song Chuan addresses the One Child policy and the petty corruption of local officials is nothing less than stunning. He also clearly argues contemporary Chinese society is sexually objectifying women, most notably in the low pop culture it imports.

Unfortunately, though Song’s social criticism is undeniably trenchant, his unprofessional cast largely acquit themselves as such. Actually, lead Tian Yuefang is rather convincing in a true to life way as the sullen and self-destructive title character. However, the supporting cast is guilty of frequently awkward line readings and a clumsy fight scene that would not pass muster in most dinner theaters.

In addition, Song follows in the aesthetic tradition of independent Chinese filmmaking initiated by the Digital Generation (or DGenerate) School. As a result, Huan Huan features the long static shots and unhurried ground level naturalism that are hallmarks of the movement, but can be distancing for undisciplined viewers. He displays a strong sense of composition though, vividly conveying the hardscrabble environment of Yunnan.

Ultimately, Huan Huan is more interesting for what portrays than as a fully engaging drama for audiences to submerge themselves into. According to Deadline Hollywood, Song was denied a visa to attend ND/NF, so it worth seeing on those grounds alone. A bold undertaking, but quite a mixed bag cinematically, Huan Huan screens this Tuesday (3/27) at the Walter Reade Theater and Wednesday (3/28) at MoMA.

ND/NF ’12: The Raid—Redemption

Law enforcement is a noble calling. One rookie SWAT cop will be doing a heck of a lot of enforcing. Unfortunately, he is assigned to a decidedly dodgy mission in Gareth Huw Evans’ spectacularly awesome The Raid: Redemption (trailer here), which screens today as part of the 2012 New Directors/New Films in advance of its Friday opening in New York.

Tama the kingpin rules the Indonesia underworld from atop his high-rise fortress. He rents apartments and immunity from police harassment to any cutthroat willing to pay rent. However, Rama’s squad is supposed to change all that. They are to systematically secure the building and capture Tama. Of course, it turns out Tama has the drop on them. Since no reinforcements will be coming for their off-the-books operation, Rama and a handful of survivors will have to fight their way out in the same manner they came in—floor by machete-wielding floor. Or in other words: Hell, yes.

The Raid is the sort of film that could turn the prim and proper into martial arts fanboys. Evans maintains an absolute breakneck pace and stages some massive action sequences. Yet, the film is at its absolute best during its many scenes of extended close quarters combat, choreographed by its breakout lead Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian, who co-stars as Tama’s self-explanatory henchman, Mad Dog.

Indeed, The Raid should catapult Uwais to the ranks of international superstardom. As Rama, he does something stilted indie films, didactic imports, and vapid reality shows have failed to do: provide a sympathetic Muslim protagonist with broad cross-cultural appeal. By the same token Ruhian’s Mad Dog is a most satisfyingly ferocious villain.

Many action film trailers just dice up some of their best scenes and spit them out at viewers machine gun style. In contrast, The Raid’s trailer is perfectly representative of the film’s hyper-charged energy (if anything, it is toned down a notch). Evans also shrewdly capitalizes on Tama’s seedy and imposing building, further boosting the tension through the claustrophobic setting. Frankly, the film is somewhat reminiscent of early John Woo, simultaneously gritty and operatic.

The Raid is the real deal. Packed with carnage, it is an old school martial arts shootout, with genuine art-house credibility. Highly recommended, it has been a major crowd pleaser at this year’s Sundance, when it was known simply as The Raid. In truth, the subtitle is unnecessary and somewhat ill-fitting, but who cares? Some also find it a bit odd such monster cinematic badness found a home with Sony Pictures Classics, but (as the trailer points out) the art-house distributor previously released Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle, as well as Wong Kar-wai’s Ashes of Time Redux, Zhang Yimou’s House of Flying Daggers and his criminally underappreciated Coen Brothers’ remake, A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop, so they certainly recognize something cool when they see it. Highly recommended, it screens at both MoMA and the Walter Reade Theater today (3/22) as part of ND/NF, before opening for real tomorrow at the UA Union Square in New York and the AMC Metreon in San Francisco.

ND/NF ’12: The Rabbi’s Cat

It is a time in Algiers when Jews and Muslims lived together harmoniously. It is also an animated fantasy with a talking cat.  Nonetheless, there is a distinctive mix of gentle nostalgia and broad comedy in Joann Sfar & Antoine Delesvaux’s The Rabbi’s Cat (trailer here), which screens as part of the 2012 New Directors/New Films.

The time is the early 1920’s, after the Russian Revolution, but before World War II. We know this because Rabbi Sfar regularly gets shipments of Russian Rabbinical texts sent to him for safekeeping from the Bolsheviks. He has a cat with no name, known only as “le chat du rabbin.” While his identity comes from the Rabbi, it is the Rabbi’s voluptuous daughter Zlabya whom the cat loves best. However, the Rabbi temporarily forbids the cat to see his mistress when he mysteriously begins talking one day.

Actually, the talking thing comes and goes to the Rabbi’s befuddlement. He will have even more to puzzle out when through a turn of magical realism, a Russian refugee is found alive and well in his latest cargo from the Soviet Union. Of course, nobody can understand his Russian, except the cat, who inconveniently is currently amid one of his speechless stretches.

There are enough Jewish identity jokes in Cat to fill Billy Crystal’s next Catskills set. Yet, there is also something seductively exotic about this cat’s eye view of Algiers. Sfar and Delesvaux earnestly want to present a picture of interfaith tranquility, perfectly represented by the Rabbi and his Sufi cousin, Sheik Mohammad Sfar, two branches of the same but diverse family. They even skewer the unrehabilitated and pre-Spielbergized Tintin in one rather random scene. Yet, they do not completely burry their heads in the Kumbaya sand, depicting the touchy intolerance of an Islamist Bedouin clan, whose hospitality quickly becomes somewhat precarious for the inclusively motley Sfar expedition.

Considering Cat adapts non-sequential volumes of Sfar’s popular graphic novel series, it is hardly surprising the narrative jumps around quite a bit. In an odd way though, that hop-scotching gives the film its energy. Those looking for something to offend them will probably find it here, but Cat is mostly just harmless fun. Though a bit spicy at times, it is probably okay for older kids, but parents should probably decide on a case by case basis.

Evocatively rendered, Cat’s animation captures the spirit of the original comic art, while conveying the allure of the Middle Eastern locales. It also represents a bit of festival history, holding the distinction of being ND/NF’s first 3D selection and their first screening deliberately intended for family viewing. Recommended for animation fans, particularly admirers of Sfar’s work, and kids who can handle subtitles and more advanced thematic material, but still enjoy talking animals, The Rabbi’s Cat screens this Sunday (3/25) at MoMA and the following Tuesday (3/27) as ND/NF continues at both venues.

ND/NF ’12: Romance Joe

Even in Korea, the movie business is a tough racket. It disillusions people something fierce. However, the characters in Lee Kwang-kuk’s directorial feature debut might have been that way before they got into the industry. They also might be each other or possibly just passing their stories off as their own. Let the narrative games begin when Lee’s Romance Joe (trailer here), screens at the 2012 New Directors/New Films.

This will get complicated. Our first narrator will be Seo Dam, but as an aspiring screenwriter, his storytelling skills cannot compare to someone who has seen a bit of life, like Re-ji, who works for a coffeehouse, whose motto might as well be “coffee, tea, or me.” The parents of a long struggling assistant director have come to his friend Seo Dam fearing their absent son may have committed suicide, just like Woo Joo-hyun, a popular actress with whom he once worked.

As they mill about wondering what to do next, Seo Dam tells them the story of his new screenplay, in which a young boy arrives at Re-ji’s establishment looking for his long lost mother. Simultaneously, Re-ji delivers coffee and hard sells her services to Lee, a screenwriter-director in need of inspiration. She gets him to bite with the tale of “Romance Joe,” a depressed filmmaker who previously checked into the same hotel with suicidal intentions. She had inadvertently walked in on the man while making a delivery with the young boy from Seo Dam’s screenplay. As Romance Joe warms to her, he tells her an episode from his youth, when he fell in love with the haunting Kim Cho-hee after unwanted notoriety drove her to also attempt suicide.

Is Re-ji also the long lost mother of the boy in the screenplay, because they both once tried to end it all by cutting their wrists, just like Kim Cho-hee? This question will be definitively answered. Is Woo Joo-hyun also Kim Cho-hee? Is Re-ji Kim Cho-hee as well? No, most likely not (but don’t take my word for it). It appears safe to assume Re-Ji is Re-ji, whether appearing as subject or narrator and then subject again. Likewise, the missing assistant director is pretty clearly established to be Romance Joe. As for the sequestered director Kim, since Re-ji compliments him on his ironic approach to narrative, he seems the more likely fictional analog to Lee Kwang-kuk than Romance Joe.

That took more time to distill than you want to know. Yet, RJ is a tragic love story at heart, presenting an unlikely vehicle for such bravura postmodern gamesmanship. In contrast, a cerebral mystery like Mariano Llinás’ head-reeling Extraordinary Stories leads itself to such an approach quite well, because viewers do not resent have information withheld from them and perspectives fiddled with.

In a way, RJ is like a set of deliberately mismatched Russian dolls that do not quite fit within each other. Yet, the drama is so genuinely earnest, particularly that of the young lovers, it still pulls viewers in, even with the constant narrative shifts. Lee Chae-eun is quite remarkable, equally convincing and heartbreaking as the teenaged and thirtysome Kim Cho-hee. Yet, it is Shin Dong-mi who really makes the film sing. It is a star-making turn, appealingly wry or saucy, depending on the circumstances. Unfortunately, the relative blandness of several male cast members does not help viewers looking for hooks to grab onto, but impressive young David Lee develops some poignant chemistry with the older Lee Chae-eun.

No matter how viewers respond to RJ, it is a film that will stick with them, daring them to make conclusions about what they saw and when it happened. Lee Kwang-kuk rather subversively deconstructs Korean tearjerkers like Il Mare (ill-advisedly remade by Hollywood as The Lake House), but it is Shin and the other Lees, David and Chae-eun, who really make it work. Recommended for adventurous film snobs, Romance Joe screens this Saturday (3/24) at MoMA and Monday (3/26) at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of New Directors/New Films 41.

ND/NF ’12: The Minister

Imagine Jonathan Lynn’s Yes, Minister played deadly seriously, in French. Such is the morality tale director-screenwriter Pierre Schöller has to tell. Bertrand Saint-Jean is a dull technocrat, but he does not lack ambition. He has built up his portfolio through the help of his loyal secretary, a respected veteran of the civil service. However, a series of political crises will shine a harsh light on his flawed character in Schöller’s The Minister (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 New Directors/New Films, jointly presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and MoMA.

The transport minister is woken from a wildly Freudian dream with grim news. A charter bus was involved in a severe traffic accident, killing many school children returning from a class trip. Saint-Jean heads to the crash site to lead the investigation and keep the media at bay. It will be his finest hour in the film, as a politician and a human being.

Subsequently, Saint-Jean’s public standing gets a nice little bump, but it is short-lived. Soon thereafter, he is a pulled into a controversy involving the privatization of train stations. Like his secretary Gilles, he is adamantly opposed, but the finance minister is in favor. In fact, it seems to be required by the EU, but Saint-Jean would prefer to kick the can down the road for his successor to deal with. Yet, it seems he will be forced to make some difficult choices, for the sake of his political career.

It is hard to think of a more cynical depiction of “the art of compromise” than Schöller’s Minister. As a former idealist, Saint-Jean’s self-contempt is palpable. Viewers watch some rather brazen pandering, including the temporary hiring of a long-term unemployed blue collar working as a ministerial driver, purely for PR purposes. Yet, despite the central role played by the privatization plan, Schöller’s screenplay sidesteps the issues of its normative and qualitative economic merits quite nimbly. Instead, it is treated simply as the MacGuffin to test Saint-Jean’s principles and loyalties. However, the Minister’s long drunkenly patronizing visit to his new driver’s home rings distractingly false.

For the most part though, Dardenne Brothers regular Oliver Gourmet raises blandness to levels of epic tragedy as Saint-Jean. Yet, there is something downright Clintonesque about his insecure need for approval. It is a shrewdly restrained but neurotic performance. Conversely, Michel Blanc makes mousiness dignified as the old school bureaucrat, ever loyal to his boss, as the embodiment of the system he has always served.

For those who really want to follow the specific issue at hand, the film’s treatment does not always make sense. Regardless, Schöller wields it effectively to cleave divisions in Saint-Jean’s staff and party. What emerges is a sort of modern Faust, as Saint-Jean makes the same awful bargain over and over again. Rare among political films, The Minister forthrightly depicts the psychological baggage of politicians in a way that can be appreciated by audiences across a wide ideological spectrum. Recommended for intelligent, slight jaded patrons, it screens this Friday (3/23) at MoMA and Sunday (3/25) at the Walter Reade Theater.

ND/NF ’12: Goodbye

It is not exactly a common cultural zeitgeist, but immigration has become an increasingly frequent topic of both American and Iranian films. In the case of the former, viewers are asked to identify with those trying to enter the country illegally. For the latter, audiences watch as desperate everyday people try to get out, by any means necessary. Needless to say, getting into America is much easier (and safer) then leaving Iran. One expecting mother-to-be struggles with this grim reality in Mohammad Rasoulof’s Goodbye (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 New Directors/New Films, jointly presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and MoMA.

Noura was a human rights attorney in Tehran. Disbarred for obvious reasons, the only work now available to her is gift-wrapping. Her husband has been forced into an ambiguous exile up north, leaving her alone to deal with her pregnancy. This makes life particularly challenging, since Iran requires a man’s authorization for even the simplest medical procedures. Her baby is important part of the immigration scheme hatched by a dodgy passport broker. However, she is having doubts whether she should keep her. Yet, there is little to be done about it, without a husband’s permission.

Goodbye ought to be hailed as the international feminist watershed film of the decade. Yes, it directly addresses abortion, but the issues in question are far more fundamental than that single hot-button issue. As an unaccompanied woman, Noura is unable to undergo an ultrasound or check into a hotel on her own. Yet, she faces more than just gender oppression, which becomes clear when the police confiscate her satellite dish.

Facing a year in prison and the loss of his film production business, Rasoulof can clearly relate to such travails. Yet, he could at least authorize his own medical treatment—a fact clearly not lost on him. While he previously employed layers of allegory to obscure his social critique in the visual arresting White Meadows (edited by his colleague Jafar Panahi, with whom he was arrested in late 2010), Goodbye is a bold exercise in street level realism. Still, from time to time he conveys Noura’s psychological state with powerfully impressionistic moments more in keeping with the tone of Meadows (an insufficiently heralded modern masterwork).

Considering Marzieh Vafamehr was sentenced to ninety lashes for her thematically similar role in Granaz Moussavi’s My Tehran for Sale (reduced on appeal to three months in prison), Leyla Zareh’s performance is courageous on multiple levels. Rather than play to audience sympathies, she portrays Noura emotionally guarded to an almost soul deadening extent, for the sake of self-preservation. It is a harrowingly convincing turn.

Of course, Goodbye ends as it must, to keep faith with those who experienced what happens to Noura. As a result there are no real surprises in the film, just tragedy compounded. In truth, this will be somewhat familiar ground for those who have seen Moussavi’s film and Panahi’s The Circle, but Rasoulof’s execution is quite compelling and sensitive, nonetheless. Important as a document of contemporary Iranian life and as an aesthetically distinctive work of cinema, Goodbye is one of the clear highlights of this year’s ND/NF. Earnestly recommended, it screens this Thursday (3/22) at the Walter Reade Theater and the following Saturday (3/24) at MoMA.