NYJFF ’13: Life in Stills

Though it dates back centuries, the modern State of Israel has only been recognized internationally for the last sixty-four plus years.  Yet, Israelis are justifiably proud of their relatively short history.  That is one reason why the Photohouse in Tel Aviv became such an institution selling prints of Rudi Weissenstein’s photos documenting the country’s founding era.  However, Weissenstein’s ninety-six year old widow Miriam and her superhumanly indulgent grandson will have a fight on their hands to carry on in their current location.  Tamar Tal documents their efforts as well as their complicated relationship in Life in Stills (trailer here), which screens during the 2013 New York Jewish Film Festival, co-presented by the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

One has to admire Weissenstein’s approach to customer service.   To her, a potential patron is just another “pain in the ass.”  That clearly frustrates her grandson Ben, the family diplomat and business manager.  While their bond is strong, there are tensions between them, stemming from some painful family history.  When Ben was a just boy, his father killed his mother and then committed suicide.  The young man always grieved both his parents, but Weissenstein’s bitter words directed at his father makes that difficult.

Rudi Weissenstein’s photos are both aesthetically pleasing and historically significant.  He had an eye and happened to be present at landmark events, including the signing of Israel’s Declaration of Independence.  Unfortunately, it seems the Mayor of Tel Aviv is determined to force out Photohouse for the sake of a large development.  Grandmother and grandson will not leave without a fight though, launching petition campaigns and accepting high profile invitations to exhibit Weissenstein’s work abroad.  Actually, Miriam Weissenstein needed a bit of convincing on the latter.  Poor Ben is a real trooper alright.

Stills tellingly illustrates the tolerance Tel Aviv is so well known for, both in Weissenstein’s acceptance of her grandson’s private life and Tal’s conscious decision not to make too big a deal of it.  Yet, given the power of Rudi Weissenstein’s images, viewers might feel shortchanged by the somewhat limited coverage of his career in the film.  Nonetheless, those who appreciate photography as a form of art and a means of recording history will find the many stills illustrating Tal’s documentary quite fascinating. 

Sadly Miriam Weissenstein passed away several months after Stills’ premiere, but Tal’s film should further codify her husband’s international reputation.  Recommended for photography buffs and Israeli cinema patrons, the hour-long Life in Still screens twice with Let’s Dance this Thursday (1/24) as the 2013 NYJFF continues at the Walter Reade Theater.

NYJFF ’13: The Art of Spiegelman

After the release of his Pulitzer Prize winning Maus, Art Spiegelman was dead set against becoming the self-appointed Stephen Spielberg of the graphic novel world.  Such a problem would be unimaginable for a comic artist when Spiegelman began his career.  Clara Kuperberg & Joëlle Oosterlinck profile the graphic novelist in the European television documentary, Art of Spiegelman (clip here), which screens during the 2013 New York Jewish Film Festival, co-presented by the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Spiegelman’s tragic family history has been his greatest source of inspiration and depression.  The son of Holocaust survivors, Maus is almost entirely based on a series of interviews he conducted with his father.  It just happens to feature mice and cats, much like An American Tale (Spielberg rears his head again), which is why Spiegelman rushed out the first six chapters, lest he be accused of copying his suspected copycat.  Whether the director of E.T. was really looking to magpie the work of the co-editor of RAW seems rather debatable, but it is clearly a subject to avoid Spiegelman.

Even before Maus, Spiegelman produced the intensely personal Breakdowns, which directly addresses his mother’s suicide. Casual comic readers may also be surprised when they recognize some of Spiegelman’s work-for-hire projects, including the original Topps Garbage Pail Kids trading cards and some of the more controversial New Yorker covers (including the hot button Hasidic Jew and West Indian couple kissing), commissioned by his wife Françoise Mouly, the magazine’s art editor.

Aside from a lame throwaway joke aimed at President George W. Bush (that now sounds painfully dated), Kuperberg & Oosterlinck largely steer clear of Spiegelman’s politics.  This is a wise strategy that serves the interests of their subject.  As a result, Art of is a reasonably pleasant portrait/survey of the artist and his work.  However, real indie/underground comix fans will be disappointed it leaves out all the early naughty bits.  Mainly of interest to Spiegelman fans and those looking for further context on the Maus books, The Art of Spiegelman screens with Castaways this Monday (1/21) and Tuesday (1/22) at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of this year’s 2013 NYJFF.

NYJFF ’13: Cabaret-Berlin, the Wild Scene

What is the first word that mention of the Weimar Republic brings to mind?  Is it “decadent?”  If so, that would please the National Socialists.  Although we won the war, our popular consciousness has thoroughly absorbed this element of their propaganda.  Oddly, it even seeps into a well-intentioned documentary tribute to Weimar’s cabaret culture.  Nevertheless, there are plenty of wonderfully elegant images and musical selections in Fabienne Rousso-Lenoir’s Cabaret-Berlin, the Wild Scene, which screens during the 2013 New York Jewish Film Festival, co-presented by the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Constructed exclusively of archival newsreels, films, soundies, and stills, C-B chronicles the emergence and inevitable fall of the Weimar government, against the backdrop of the largely Jewish and almost entirely leftwing Bohemian arts scene, especially the torch-singing club performers.  These vocalists were not afraid of some political content or the odd risqué lyric.  Indeed, full performances from the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Lotte Lenya, and Margo Lion are the real attraction of C-B.  In these well selected clips viewers see them manhandle audiences in a converted flat and thoroughly beguile a smitten Peter Lorre.

Rousso-Lenoir intersperses the glory of the cabaret scene with the concurrent political developments, narrated by actor Ulrich Tukur in the style of malicious master of ceremonies.  Rousso-Lenoir’s blinders are readily apparent here.  For instance, the role played by trade unions in the rise of the National Socialists is scrupulously ignored and the full name of Hitler’s party is conspicuously never used.  Still, C-B conveys with maddening clarity how divided and ineffectual the opposition was.

One does get a strong feeling for the tenor of the times in C-B.  Yet, the film somewhat bolsters the stereotype that every artist in Weimar Germany was at least slightly naughty.  In contrast, the Jewish classical musicians of the era, like Vienna-based Bronisław Huberman (founder of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra), surely shared similar political views but were more aesthetically conservative.

There was some truly extraordinary music and visual art created during the Weimar era.  It was not all produced by androgynous manic-depressives.  While C-B pays tribute to the likes of Kurt Weill, Kurt Gerron, and the Comedian Harmonists in the closing titles, it deliberately plays on the image of Kander & Ebb’s Cabaret.  Frankly, for those of us living in Twenty-First Century New York or Los Angeles, Weimar Germany just doesn’t look so very “decadent.”  Recommended (with the reservations explained above) for fans of Cabaret performance, Cabaret-Berlin, the Wild Scene screens Monday (1/21) and Tuesday (1/22) at the Walter Reade Theater as part of this year’s NYJFF.

NYJFF ’13: The Fifth Heaven

It is late 1944, several years before the declaration of the State of Israel.  By the same token, the generous Israeli social welfare system has also yet to be established.  A remote desert orphanage is the only refuge for a group of cast-off girls and their damaged caretakers.  However, secrets from the director’s past raise doubts for the institution’s future in Dina Zvi Riklis’s The Fifth Heaven (trailer here), which screens during the 2013 New York Jewish Film Festival, co-presented by the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Maya’s father never was much, but he sinks even lower when he delivers her to Dr. Markovski’s orphanage.  The director, who apparently has some ambiguous history with the family, understandably protests, since Maya is not, strictly speaking, an orphan.  Yet, the father has evidently fixed matters with Markovski’s tight-fisted patron.  We quickly deduce Markovski once had an affair with Maya’s mother, who has long since deserted her family, running off to America.  Maya is a bit slower on the up-take.

Markovski’s history with Maya causes friction with his demur colleague and potential lover, Frida.  The orphanage’s new cleaning woman Berta, the disowned daughter of an Orthodox family scandalously carrying on with a British officer, further destabilizes the staff.  Yet, it is the cache of arms stashed on the roof by Duce, a staff-member’s Italian lover deeply involved in the underground liberation movement, represents greater danger for the institution.  Maya discovers his secret, but she has fallen for his inappropriate charm offensive.

Fifth nicely captures the strange duality experienced by Jewish residents of the British Mandate.  On one hand, they bitterly resented their colonialist rulers, while raptly following the British war efforts against the National Socialists.  Like many films set in isolated private schools, there is a whole lot of repressed sexual tension in the orphanage (almost entirely of the straight variety, though).  Yet, the big revelations are almost entirely given away in the opening scenes.

There are small flashes of devastating power in Fifth.  In contrast, the big confrontation scenes are almost entirely drained of passion.  Never melodramatic, Riklis’s restraint is something of a double-edged sword.  Nonetheless, Yehezkel Lazarov’s understated but deeply humanistic portrayal of Markovski perfectly suits her approach.  Rotem Zisman-Cohen also stands out as Berta, getting the film’s one big episode of acting-out.  Oddly, the lead is rather icily stand-offish, while the rest of the young ensemble is largely indistinguishable.

A finely crafted period production, Fifth is sensitively underscored by the original themes and classical piano interpretations of Josef Bardanashvili.  It might be a mixed bag, but it has its moments.  Recommended for patrons of Israeli cinema, Fifth Heaven screens this Thursday (1/17) and Sunday (1/20) as part of this year’s NYJFF, now underway at the Walter Reade Theater.

NYJFF ’13: The Black Cat

It should have been the start of something big.  Czech immigrant director Edgar G. Ulmer helmed Universal’s biggest hit of 1934. He also launched an affair with the wife of the studio chief’s nephew, who he would ultimately marry.  As a result, Ulmer was doomed to become a cult director.  Ulmer’s strange and fateful The Black Cat (trailer here) screens as part of a special presentation on Jewish horror films at this year’s New York Jewish Film Festival, co-presented by the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Although supposedly inspired by Poe’s short story, Peter Ruric’s screenplay is about as faithful to “The Black Cat” as it is to The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Golden Bowl.  There is a noir feline who shows up at inopportune times, but that is about the extent of it.  It does not matter.  U’s Black Cat is quite bizarre and surprisingly twisted for its time.

A boring American couple is honeymooning in Hungary for no good reason.  When Joan Alison is injured in a bus accident, their traveling companion, Dr. Vitus Werdegast, whisks her off to the home of his nemesis, Hjalmar Poelzig, to recuperate.  Werdegast is one of the few survivors of a Russian massacre of Hungarian soldiers, facilitated by Poelzig’s betrayal.  Prospering after the war, Poelzig has built his ultramodern home over the ruins of the notorious Fort Marmorus, the site of the wartime atrocities.

One of the intriguing aspects of Cat is the way it apparently tries to explain human manifestations of evil.  Poelzig, the turncoat war criminal, is also a Satanist (who happens to be measuring Mrs. Alison for his cult’s next human sacrifice).  Pre-dating the Spanish Civil War and the Moscow Show Trials, The Black Cat has a decidedly Hobbesian perspective on the world and human nature.  Of course, Ulmer was a product of the Old Europe, where wars and even pogroms were still very real dangers.

Odder still, Poelzig’s architecture is transparently modeled on the Bauhaus school, many members of which were avowed Communists.  His very name is a dubious tribute to architect Hans Poelzig, with whom Ulmer claimed to have worked on sets for The Golem (clips of which could well turn up in Hoberman’s presentation this Thursday).  Regardless, the striking International-style sets look fantastic, perfectly suiting the dramatic light and shadow of John J. Mescall’s moody black and white cinematography.

As a further distinction, Black Cat has to be Boris Karloff’s most sexualized screen appearance.  The audience first sees him in silhouette, rising in bed, with another body clearly lying beside him.  When the tables turn on his Poelzig, we see his shirt ripped from his body, as Werdegast proceeds to flay his skin.  You do not have to be a strict Freudian to read some funny business into that scene.

The Black Cat is easily one of the most stylish films from the golden age of Universal horror.  Granted, it shares some of shortcomings of its brethren.  The local cops are cartoonish buffoons (where’s Lionel Atwill when we need him?), whereas David Manners is impossibly chipper and guileless as Peter Alison.  Nonetheless, it is a very cool looking and unusually sophisticated in the themes it addresses.  It even features a life-and-death chess game decades before The Seventh Seal.  A wonderfully eccentric work of 1930’s creepiness, genre fans are definitely advised to rediscover The Black Cat.  Available in Karloff-Lugosi DVD collections, it screens as part of J. Hoberman’s consideration of Jewish horror films this Thursday (1/17) as the 2013 NYJFF continues at the Walter Reade Theater.

NYJFF ’13: The Ballad of the Weeping Spring

Musicians hate requests.  Yosef Tawila is particularly disinclined, but he cannot refuse the dying wish of his former friend and band-mate.  However, he will have to recruit some high caliber Mizrahi musicians to play the ambitious title symphony and time is running short in Beni Torati’s The Ballad of the Weeping Spring (trailer here), which screens during the 2013 New York Jewish Film Festival, co-presented by the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Tawila has not touched his tar since his glory days in the Turquoise Ensemble.  Riddled with guilt, he is not a man who wants to be found.  Nonetheless, Amram Mufradi tracks him down, bearing the Weeping Spring score.  His father Avram is quickly succumbing to lung cancer and wishes to finally hear the extended composition he co-wrote with Tawila, as it was meant to be performed.

Unfortunately, Tawila cannot simply get the old band together again.  Two members died in a car crash he was found responsible for.  Their singer Margaret is now confined to a wheel chair, but she passed on her talent to Tamara, the daughter Tawila never knew.  That is hard recruiting stop for the absentee father to make, but Mufradi and the young singer hit it off rather well.  For the rest of the band, it just a matter of haunting the right dive bars and red light districts.  In one case, they will have trouble with a blind flutist’s Fagin, but people just seem to want to help the Tawila level his karma.

 While not essential for cineastes, Weeping Spring could easily be the biggest hit at this year’s NYJFF.  There is plenty of camaraderie, redemption, and some elegant music, but Toraty never excessively milks the sentiment.  In fact, the father-daughter rapprochement is surprisingly matter-of-fact and the attraction between the second generation Turquoise musicians is mostly hinted at.  Of course, it ends with a big emotional concert, but again Toraty resists overplaying his hand.

Looking like the weight of the world rests on his shoulders, Uri Gavriel (the blind prisoner of the pit in The Dark Knight Rises) has gravitas to spare as Tawila.  Established Israeli pop-star Ishtar displays a warm cinematic presence as Margaret and her voice nearly steals the entire show during the big climatic concert.  For the most part, the large supporting cast of actor-musicians look appropriately colorful and slightly seedy, except for Dudu Tassa (seen during last year’s festival in Iraq ‘n’ Roll), here very earnest and clean-cut as young Mufradi.

While dubbed a Mizrahi Magnificent Seven, Weeping Spring actually includes an obvious riff on Marion Ravenwood’s drinking contest from Raiders of the Lost Ark, so it has that going for it.  A modest but appealing drama with a striking soundtrack, Ballad of the Weeping Spring should have a long and fruit life on the festival circuit and in specialty distribution.  Sure to be a crowd pleaser, it screens this Saturday (1/12) and Thursday (1/24) at the Walter Reade Theater as part of this year’s NYJFF.

NYJFF ’13: How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire

Who has a harder time adjusting to the capitalist system: a former Soviet republic or a documentary filmmaker?  Needless to say, it is the latter, but he still has his mind set on importing Ukrainian vodka into the British marketplace.  He feels a special connection to the distillery, because his family used to own it, up until the 1917 Revolution.  Soviet, Ukrainian, and even Northern Irish history are explored from a decidedly personal perspective in Dan Edelstyn & Hilary Powell’s How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire (trailer here), which screens during the 2013 New York Jewish Film Festival, co-presented by the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Edelstyn knew little of his father’s side of the family, because he died when the filmmaker was quite young.  His first real introduction to his Ukrainian heritage came through the letters and journals of his grandmother, Maroussia Zorokovich, shunted away in his mother’s attic.  He discovered his grandmother was the progressive daughter of a well-to-do land-owning family.  Regrettably, all her efforts teaching the local peasantry to read and write meant little to the conquering Bolsheviks.

Zorokovich’s story is truly remarkable, including stints entertaining the White resistance forces as a dancer, which is how she met Edelstyn’s grandfather.  From her diaries, Edelstyn gleaned a sense of the family’s house and sugar factory.  Drawn to his roots, Edelstyn was disappointed to find them in a state of disrepair and off-limits.  However, he discovered another family holding that was still up and running—a vodka distillery.

Zorokovich never mentioned the family vodka empire, but with good reason Edelstyn presumes.  Communist propaganda often demonized Jewish Russians as predatory purveyors of alcohol, constantly tempting the stolid peasants into drunkenness.  It would be a lot easier for the Jewish Zorokoviches to identify themselves with the sugar plant rather than a booze pipeline.

Disurbed by the town’s economic stagnation in the wake of the sugar factory’s closure, Edelstyn takes it upon himself to become the vodka company’s British agent.  Of course, he knows nothing about importing spirits, but how hard can it be?

Edelstyn might be ridiculously naïve throughout Empire, but his instincts on how to help his ancestral Ukrainian home are surprisingly on-target.  It is too bad he and his wife Powell were the ones behind the camera though, because there was probably considerably more comedy to be mined from his attempts to navigate British customs bureaucracy.

As a result, probably the strongest sequences involve Grandmother Zorokovich.  Blending various styles of animation with family heirloom photos, Edelstyn & Powell craft some Guy Maddinesque dramatic recreations of Zorokovich’s life.  To their credit, they bring home the fear and arbitrary violence of Lenin’s reign of terror (that is Lenin, not the subsequent tyrant, Stalin) with full force, as well as chronicle the Zorokovich’s complicated years in Belfast.  It is an epic story that they do justice.

While Edelstyn undeniably went out on a limb on behalf of the former family vodka company, there is still an awful lot of him in Empire.  He is not a bad chap at all, but he is not exactly a riveting cinematic presence. Regardless, How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire documents a fascinating intersection of commercial, political, religious, and family history that goes down rather smoothly. 

It is preceded by Jack Feldstein’s brief but powerful Shards.  An expressionistic, almost abstract representation of Peretz Markish’s similarly titled poem, Feldstein’s neon-animated short film serves as a stark elegy to the poet and the other twelve Yiddish writers murdered by Stalin’s minions of terror in 1952.  While only two minutes long, it powerfully conveys the essence of the Soviet experience.  Both films are highly recommended when they screen this Thursday (1/10) and Saturday (1/12) as the 2013 NYJFF gets underway at the Walter Reade Theater.