ND/NF ’16: Happy Hour

People complain with some justification, there are not enough quality film roles for women in their thirties. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi will darn near solve the problem single-handedly with his three hundred seventeen-minute interpersonal character drama, showcasing four remarkable lead actresses and a host of distinctive supporting players. It is about friendship. It is about trust. It is about five hours, plus. Granted, that is a serious time investment, but the emotional realism never drags in Hamaguchi’s Happy Hour (trailer here), which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Akari, Fumi, Sakurako, and Jun all look happy, especially when sharing each other company on picnics or similar outings. Yet, they are dealing with bitter disappointments in their personal lives. Akari the super-confident RN is a divorcee, but the other three appear to be satisfactorily married. However, it is soon revealed Jun has been engaged in a protracted legal battle to divorce her cold fish husband Kohei. Her decision to confide only in her childhood friend Sakurako temporarily causes dissension within the group, but they eventually rally behind Jun, even showing their support in court.

It turns out they might identify with Jun’s problems only too well. Both Fumi and Sakurako have become increasingly frustrated with their own spouses. Marriages and friendships will be put to the test when Ukai, a hipster self-help guru-gadfly performance artist enters their world. He lectures on balance and “finding one’s center,” but he is clearly a destabilizing influence.

Five hours and change might sound mighty long, but it gives Hamaguchi and screenwriter Hatano Koubou time to fully develop three extended centerpiece sequences that will dramatically change the characters’ trajectories. Through Ukai’s touchy-feely workshop, an overnight trip to the hot springs of Arima, and a public reading-Q&A featuring the young precocious writer Fumi’s editor husband is so suspiciously devoted to, we see the four women interact with each other in telling ways and witness their epiphanies.

Hamaguchi and his closely collaborating cast (alumni recruited from his own workshops presented in a Kobe arts collective) play it as straight as you ever can in life. For instance, there is a fair amount of Marin County Serial-style humor during Ukai’s workshop, but the quartet also get something out of their shared experience.

Sachie Tanaka, Hazuki Kikuchi, Maiko Mihara, and Rira Kawamura are all terrific as Akari, Sakurako, Fumi, and Jun, respectively. It is easy to see why they shared the best actress award at Locarno. They develop some richly complicated chemistry together, but they have several equally intriguing associations with supporting characters, such as Sakurako’s relationship with her mother-in-law, Akari’s mentorship-by-fire of a timid trainee nurse, and Jun’s auntie affection for Jun’s teen son, which truly deepen and enhance the film.

Hamaguchi and company capture the epicness of real life, while maintaining a grounded perspective. Yoshio Kitagawa’s cinematography favors naturalness over dazzle, but the four leads still absolutely light up the screen, while Umitaro Abe’s lovely chamber score gives it all a classy sheen. Yes, it is over five hours, but they are quality hours. Those who do not take the plunge will lose their standing to complain about women’s roles in cinema until the next five-hour film with four well developed leading parts for mature adult women comes around. Highly recommended for patrons of relationship dramas and Japanese cinema, Happy Hour screens in its entirety this Saturday (3/26) at MoMA and Sunday (3/27) at the Walter Reade, as part of ND/NF 2016.

ND/NF ’16: Demon

In S. Ansky’s archetype-establishing stage play The Dybbuk, it is the bride who is possessed by the titular spirit on her wedding night. This time, it will happen to the groom. That is what happens when you ignore the past in the late Marcin Wrona’s Demon (trailer here), which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

His name was Peter, or “Python” to his old drinking buddies, but the Englishman now goes by Piotr. He is ready to become more Polish than a Pole for the sake of his fiancée, Zaneta. Her father has his reservations, but he will not stand in the way of their union. In fact, he is giving them the old family country home as a wedding present. It is there that the ceremony and reception will take place—and what a party it will be.

While impulsively excavating his proposed swimming pool, Peter-Piotr unearths an ancient skeleton. Not wanting to put a damper on the next day’s festivities, he reburies the remains, which will lead to some massively bad karma. Python is clearly a little jumpy before the ceremony, but everyone assumes it is just nerves. For a while his increasingly erratic behavior is blamed on the free-flowing vodka. When he breaks out in fits, the father of the bride assures everyone it must be epilepsy. However, when the clearly unwell groom starts speaking in Yiddish, the old-timers know something profoundly bad is afoot.

One of the cool things about Demon is its cultural specificity. It would be impossible to remake this film in an American setting without losing most of its meaning. Centuries of Polish history went into its making. However, it is absolutely never dry or didactic. In fact, Wrona managed to incorporate some wickedly caustic humor, while maintaining an atmosphere of ominous dread.

Sadly, the eerie vibe is further echoed by Wrona’s tragic fate. Despite Demon’s enthusiastic reception at Toronto, Wrona apparently took his own life days after the premiere. It is a terrible loss in many ways, including for movie lovers who will not have the chance to see further films from the filmmaker. Indeed, this is the sort of film that could only be hand-crafted by a massively talented artist. It is wonderfully bold and ambitious, yet is also succeeds smashingly on pure genre terms.

Fortunately, as Python, Israeli actor Itay Tiran brought the passion and commitment Wrona needed. It starts out as a rather grounded and street smart performance, but blossoms into a spectacle of convulsive madness. It is completely nuts, but in a good way, almost reaching the level of Isabelle Adjani in Possession. Agnieszka Zulewska is terrific counter-balance as the level-headed Zaneta. Adam Woronowicz, Wlodzimierz Press, and Cezary Kosinski also add salty seasoning as the doctor, teacher, and priest who are not nearly as helpful as they ought to be.

Wrona’s unfortunate end will probably add an additional layer of intrigue for some horror fans, but Demon needs no curse to be compelling. It ends like no horror film has ever ended, but goodness gracious, does it ever pack a punch. As a result, Demon is easily one of the most distinctive and unsettling genre films you will see all year. It is also a regrettable reminder how serious and potentially lethal depression can be. Judge not, just try not to ignore warning signs in your friends and associates. Very highly recommended, Demon screens this Saturday (3/26) at the Walter Reade and Sunday (3/27) at MoMA, as part of ND/NF 2016.

ND/NF ’16: The Fits

It could be worse. When teenaged girls starting having convulsions in Salem, half the town was accused of witchcraft. In this case, it might merely be environmental toxicity or perhaps peer pressure. The emotional tangle that comes with puberty probably also plays a role in Anna Rose Holmer’s The Fits (trailer here), which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Young Toni trains alongside her Golden Gloves contending brother Jermaine and helps him finish his chores around the recreation center near their home in the Cincinnati projects. She is one tough eleven-year-old, but her socialization is a little underdeveloped. Understanding her need for belonging, her brother encourages her to try out for the Lionesses, a competitive dance team that also trains in the center.

Toni duly makes the cut for their preteen auxiliary, despite her dubious sense of rhythm. Of course, she brings the same determination to her practice routines that she did in her sit-ups and pull-ups with Jermaine. However, the team suffers a setback when the captain breaks out into a fit of spasms. She will not be the only one. Several other team members will have similar seizure-like episodes. Unfortunately, there will be enough incidents to force the Lionesses to drop out of what would have been her first competition.

First and foremost, it should be established both Royalty Hightower and Da’Sean Minor are terrific as Toni and Jermaine. Hightower just commands the screen with an intensity beyond her youthful years. Some might overlook Minor’s first-rate work as a result, but he is enormously charismatic and gives a finely nuanced, completely grounded performance.

Frankly, all the kids are spot-on in their roles, which makes the narrative flatness of Holmer's screenplay so agonizingly frustrating. Basically, there seem to be elements of The Breakfast Club mashed together with Todd Haynes’ Safe, but it doesn’t seem to have much to say about the kids’ social and cultural milieu. Adults are conspicuously absent in this world, but it is unclear how much we are supposed to read into that. Far from running amok, both the dancers and the boxers appear to lead very disciplined and structured lives.

Still, Holmer shows admirable restraint handling the fits themselves. There are just enough of them to be a legitimate cause for concern, but not enough to trigger skepticism from the adult coach who belatedly turns up in the third act. As a work of slice-of-life naturalism, Fits is quite successful. Viewers come to understand Toni’s universe is entirely circumscribed by the projects, the rec center, and the bridge connecting them (which happen to be great for stair-step work) and we feel like we know every inch of the latter two.

There are at least two future stars in The Fits and possibly a whole lot more. Unfortunately, the deliberate ambiguities give the film a feeling of incompleteness rather than mysteriousness. Frankly, it wears its first film status (of the narrative feature variety) on its sleeve, but that also makes it a logical fit for New Directors/New Films. Recommended with considerable reservations solely for the performances of its talented, in-the-process-of-being-discovered cast, The Fits screens tonight (3/19) at MoMA and tomorrow (3/20) at the Walter Reade, as part of ND/NF ’16.

ND/NF ’16: Life After Life

Ghost stories have rarely been so matter-of-factly workaday, but this salt-of-the-earth family in provincial Shanxi can hardly afford to indulge in a lot of dramatics. Frankly, it will be quite sporting of Mingchun if he fulfills his late wife’s request to move a significant tree to more fertile ground. It will be a tiny step to counter the environmental devastation so obvious throughout Zhang Hanyi’s Life After Life, which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Mingchun has had a hard life, but his thirteenish son Leilei is not making it any easier. Like most kids of his generation, he has turned against the rural life and traditional values. However, after their latest row, Leilei’s body comes back possessed by the spirit of his mother, Xiuying. Mingchun accepts this claim at face value, but there will be no tears or kisses for their supernatural reunion. We quickly get the sense their union was one of convenience that sort of evolved into something like friendship, but that was about the best they could hope for on their rung of the economic ladder.

For reasons we never fully understand, Xiuying needs Mingchun to move a tree planted near their former quarters to a more hospitable location. That will be easier said than done. The local environs have been badly scarred and desiccated by industrial overdevelopment and unsustainably agriculture. Cinematographer Chang Mang often dwarves the father and son amid the lifeless vistas. Hs compositions often resemble traditional Chinese watercolors, but the backdrops are eerily lifeless and barren rather than lush and verdant.

Mingchun and Xiuying’s spirit will also have to contend with her family’s callous indifference and the frightening state of provincial infrastructure. Clearly, there is no support system for rugged peasant stock such as themselves. While Zhang maintains an elegiac tone, the social and political implications of their situation are unmistakable.

Life is a subtle and distinctive film, but it is not what you would opt to watch after an all-night bender. Zhang’s aesthetic is downright ascetic. His pacing is deliberate and his tone is rather severe, even compared to the films of executive producer-mentor Jia Zhangke. Yet, it would be foolish to dismiss Life as just another naturalistic Chinese indie. Zhang Mingjun’s performance as Mingchun in particular is deeply compelling precisely because it is so realistically square-jawed and straightforwardly unfussy. This is a man who takes a beating from life every day, yet keeps plugging on.

It is also striking to see how Zhang depicts spiritual developments in such gritty, down-to-earth terms. There is nothing like Demi Moore’s pottery wheel scene in Ghost here. Yet, when Xiuying guides Mingchun towards encounters with his reincarnated parents, it hits us on a far deeper level, probably because it really seems real. Recommended for mature and well-rested cineastes, Life After Life screens this Saturday (3/19) at MoMA and Sunday (3/20) at the Walter Reade, as part of ND/NF ’16.

ND/NF ’16: Neither Heaven Nor Earth

Nobody should be better prepared for the unexpected than a heavily armed company of soldiers, but the supernatural operate under different rules of engagement. When some unknown agency starts preying on a contingent of French troops deployed near the Pakistani border, it hits them at their weakest point—their need to understand and control any given situation. Denial will give way to metaphysical anxiety in Clément Cogitore’s Neither Heaven Nor Earth (formerly The Wakhan Front, trailer here), which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Like the soldiers of the Second Platoon documented in Sebastian Junger’s Restrepo and Korengal, the French soldiers doggedly fought to maintain their toe-hold in the remote mountainous region, only to learn they will soon be pulling out (presumably for political reasons). Yet, in the meantime, they must carry on usual, despite the absurdity of the circumstances.

Captain Antarès Bonassieu’s role is not to reason why. The hardened veteran is not the best at winning hearts and minds, but he keeps his men in peak battle condition. Similarly, he is not well equipped to deal with the mysterious disappearance of several men. What evidence there is suggests they were not abducted or assassinated. In each case, they just seemed to vanish into thin air. Following his initial instincts, he tries to shake some answers out of the local village he has long suspected of harboring insurgents. However, he will find himself forging an unlikely short-term truce with a highly suspicious warlord when they find they are both facing the same apparently paranormal crisis.

There is so much ambiguity in Neither, it is hard to definitively classify it as a horror movie, a psychological thriller, or even a war film. That kind of intentional vagueness can be too clever for a film’s own good, but in the case Cogitore’s screenplay (co-written with Thomas Bidegame), it is deeply disquieting. It is not the threat of death that unnerves Bonassieu’s men, it is uncertainty. In specific terms, nothing disturbs them more than the presumed dead body that remains unrecovered.

In some ways, Neither also acts as a corrective to our less than flattering image of the French military as the paratroopers who are constantly jumping into Algeria whenever its government does something to annoy Paris. Bonassieu and his men, like the PTSD-rattled Denis, might be have their flaws, but they are considerably more helpful in battle than an accordion on a duck hunt.

Dardenne Brothers regular Jérémie Renier is quietly intense as Bonassieu, falling apart rather spectacularly down the stretch. To a man, the ensembles sound and carry themselves like a military unit. However, it is the sense of place that really sets the film apart. The harsh mountain vistas are incredibly cinematic and the lonely eagle’s nest outposts (vividly recreated by the design team) heightens the feeling of vulnerability.

Although there is more left unresolved than duly explained in Neither, everything unfolds according to its grimly inevitable internal system of logic. It is an eerily effective film that successfully aims to unsettle viewers on a deeper level than mere jump scares. Highly recommended for fans of sophisticated genre films, Neither Heaven Nor Earth screens this Saturday (3/19) at the Walter Reade and Sunday (3/20) at MoMA, as part of the 2016 ND/NF.

ND/NF ’16: Kill Me, Please

Kids will be kids. This dark pseudo-horror story is set in Brazil, but you could just as easily find girls similarly struggling with peer pressure, craving attention, obsessing over grisly crimes, and somewhat repressing latent lesbianism in Uruguay. There is a head fake towards old school genre filmmaking, but thrills and chills are too crass and bourgeoisie for Anita Rocha da Silveira’s Kill Me, Please, which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Bia has a morbid fascination with the victims of a serial killer striking on the outskirts of Rio, but she is sort of entitled, given they all bear a striking resemblance to her. Her anti-social brother would be the prime suspect in most films, but da Silveira has no interest in such tawdry thriller business. We have no idea where their parents might be. In fact, we hardly see hide nor hair of any parental unit in Kill Me, Please.

Before long, Bai and her social circle start to view everything through the prism of the murders. Some their classmates take up old time religion, like the ex-boyfriend Bai recently deflowered. Perhaps not surprisingly, the girls will start to act increasingly erratic an occasionally violent.

The instructively titled Kill Me, Please is maddeningly frustrating, because it has all the raw ingredients of a nifty little exploitation film. Unfortunately, da Silveira refuses to go there. Although several scenes initially evoke a John Carpenter vibe, she chokes off all suspense before things get the slightest bit messy.

It is a shame, because the world can always use another twisted cult film that finds its audience over time. Instead, the self-consciously mannered will come and go from the festival circuit, without hardly making a ripple. The youthful cast is mostly adequate, but there is an important distinction to be drawn between looking bored as demanded by the dramatic context and the ill-disguised boredom of the cast.

Throughout Kill Me, Please, there are flashes of the Kevin Williamson film it could have been, particularly with respect to da Silveira’s use of music. Unfortunately, she seems rather sheepishly guilty when it comes to her genre inspirations, opting to give the world a warmed over art film instead. Disappointing by most standards, Kill Me, Please screens this Thursday (3/17) at MoMA an Saturday (3/19) at the Walter Reade, as part of the 2016 ND/NF. 

ND/NF ’16: Behemoth

Just for the record, China’s leading documentarian has explicitly likened the country to Hell through a deliberate and unmistakable extended cinematic metaphor. Zhao Liang takes viewers on a guided tour of the environmental devastation wantonly inflicted on Inner Mongolia, with only Dante’s Inferno provided for commentary. The Divine Comedy becomes a Communist tragedy in Zhao’s Behemoth (trailer here), which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Zhao will take us to three specific locations, or rings of Hell if you will. The first is in the east, where the coal industry gives strip mining a bad name. The nomadic herders almost find themselves outrunning the collapsing earth under the feet, like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon rendered, well yes, in Hell.

The furnaces and blackened faces of the western iron forges could not could well be what inspired Zhao’s poetic use of Dante. It is literally a subterranean inferno. Just watching this section might cause lung damage and burn trauma.

The concluding segment takes in the spectacle of the Kangbashi New Area, the eerily empty sprawling residential high rises and office buildings that stand like a monument to hasty overdevelopment in Ordos City. Evidently, some recent documentaries have suggested Kangbashi is no longer as uninhabited as once reported. However, it still looks pretty darn desolate in Zhao’s recent footage. Maybe it still is not yet the right time to pursue that Kangbashi Quizno’s franchise after all.

Zhao, who serves as his own cinematographer, captures some striking, stunning, and altogether staggering images. However, he consciously de-emphasizes the human element, which makes Behemoth a much more challenging viewing experience than his profoundly powerful Petition or the daring muckraking of Crime and Punishment. Indeed, the film has an experimental ethos, in the most forbidding sense of the term.

Nevertheless, Zhao just sends truth cascading over the audience. It is impossible to watch Behemoth and not conclude the Communist government and its oligarchical cronies have recklessly plundered the provincial environment past the point of criminal negligence, directly and perhaps deliberately endangering the regional ethnic populations that depend on the land for their livelihoods. Zhao’s visuals stand as an overpowering indictment, but they might also overwhelm less adventurous viewers. Recommended for sophisticated cineastes, Behemoth screens this Thursday (3/17) at MoMA and Friday (3/18) at the Walter Reade, as part of the 2016 ND/NF.