Tribeca ’10: The Lottery

In New York City, parents who want their children to receive a decent education have to rely on chance. For this sad state of affairs, they can thank the local teachers’ union, the UFT, which places its own special interests above those of New York’s children at every opportunity. Indeed, one can draw no other conclusion based on the screening and subsequent panel discussion involving the filmmaker and subjects of The Lottery, Madeleine Sackler’s documentary which had its New York City premiere as part of a special Tribeca Talks event during the recently completed 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.

Eva Moskowitz was one of the few relatively moderate Democrats in the New York City Council. After earning union enmity for holding hearings on the teachers’ contract, she was defeated by a vastly less talented candidate for the Manhattan Borough Presidency. Supporting her opponent might have been the union’s biggest mistake. After the election, she moved back to Harlem, where she opened the Harlem Success Academies, a series of public charter schools that dramatically out-perform the local zip-code schools. Much to the embarrassment of the union and local administrators, over five thousand parents attended a legally mandated lottery to enroll their children in Harlem Success. The Lottery tells their story.

There are many differences between the parents featured in Lottery. Some are single parents, some are immigrants, and some are union members themselves. However, they have two things in common: they all want their children to have greater opportunities in life than they did, but they do not think that is possible if their children attend their failing zip code-zoned public school. For their children to be successful, they will have to be lucky in the Harlem Success lottery.

As a charter school, Harlem Success cannot choose its students. There is no skimming cream off the top. By law, if total demand exceeds their total registration, they must hold a lottery for all new incoming students. Of course, demand is enormous, overflowing the cavernous Harlem Armory Center.

None of this pleases the union, though they declined to explain why on-camera. The only interview participant willing to shill for the UFT is former New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, but she does not make a good spokesman for their interests. Appropriately, we also see the “community organizers” formerly known as ACORN show up to intimate Harlem Success parents and staff at public hearings. Karma seems to have caught up with them.

While Sackler scrupulously avoids the “V” word (vouchers), she leaves no doubt which side the union is on regarding reform. However, as a clear attempt for bipartisan support in Navy Blue New York, she frequently stresses Obama’s ostensive support for charter schools. How that has manifested in tangible benefits for the charter school movement is conspicuously unaddressed throughout the film. Still, Moskowitz and Newark Mayor Cory Booker (also seen in the film) are definitely Democrats and deserve tremendous credit for embracing educational reform. In fact, watching Moskowitz face the current city council’s education committee is some of the most disgusting low comedy you will ever see on film.

The audience’s respect for Moskowitz should have grown further during the post-screening Q&A panel. She proved willing to challenge New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein over parental access to the city’s public schools. When asked about a supposedly moderate splinter group within the UFT, she responded with words to the effect that she was on a first name basis with most of them, because they regularly attempt to blockade her schools.

While Lottery does not go as far as Bob Bowdon’s The Cartel in advocating reforms for the broken educational system, it is definitely an important companion film. Its profiles of engaged but geographically (and economically) disadvantaged parents are heartbreaking and its depiction of union-inspired demagoguery is scandalous. Perhaps even more importantly, it is also an inspiring tribute to Harlem Success’s educators and their students’ academic achievements. A highlight of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, The Lottery is a worthy film that deserves a wide audience.

Tribeca ’10: Moloch Tropical

The “Priest of the Slums” lives in a heavily reinforced citadel. He is not Aristide. He just happens to be a Haitian dictator restored to power by Bill Clinton. Jean de Dieu also seems to be going mad in Raoul Peck’s Moloch Tropical, which had a special screening to benefit Handicap International at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

To satisfy his vanity, de Dieu has planned a gala celebration to mark the anniversary of Haiti’s independence and his own ascension to power. The nature of his anniversary is highly controversial, since he refuses to count his years in exile against his duly elected term of office. Nearly the entire population disagrees with him, but the dictator only hears what he wishes to hear. Unfortunately, the developed world is largely skipping the shindig, including France whom he has antagonized with an unrealistic demand for colonial reparations. Hollywood is there in force though, with several big name stars playing in a didactic historical play written by his ex-mistress.

The President is clearly a monster. Past merely being out of touch, he is slowly sinking into a madness marked by a pronounced martyr complex. He believes all the exaggerations the leftist press once wrote about him and now tortures those who dissent from his rule. He desperately entreats the Clintons and the Kennedys to intercede on his behalf with the Bush administration, but they know a loser when they smell one.

Peck is a hardcore leftist filmmaker reportedly at work on a Karl Marx bio-picture, but he loses control of Moloch’s political implications—and the picture is much the better for it. The parallels between de Dieu and Jean-Bertrand Aristide are inescapable, as are the atrocities he commits in the name of the people. Even Hollywood activists take a skewering, as the African American actors marvel at the beauty of his palace, while willfully blinding themselves to the suffering of the Haitian people.

As an apparent attempt at ideological purity, Peck probably tries to draw a parallel between de Dieu and President George W. Bush by including occasional news footage from the Iraq War, but it is far from convincing, unless viewers are so dogmatically rigid, they need it in order to appreciate the film.

Indeed, the film itself is remarkably accomplished. Jean Luc Le Floch’s production design creates a presidential fortress worthy of a gothic horror movie and Eric Guichard’s cinematography viscerally evokes the burgeoning madness within its walls. As de Dieu, Zinedine Soualem brilliantly brings to life one of the worst kinds of monster: an ideological monster who is absolutely convinced in his own moral superiority, even while hassling the domestic servants with his pathetic advances. His steady slide into insanity becomes the logical extension of his character.

Visually striking and possibly more nuanced than Peck intended, Moloch is a richly intriguing film. An interesting choice for Tribeca’s benefit screening, it is film likely to inspire quite a bit of debate. Further information about Handicap International, which has been very active in Haiti in the wake of the recent hurricane, can be found here.

Tribeca ’10: Spork

Sure junior high school years are usually challenging, but it is hard to think of a disadvantage this kid is not burdened with. Parentless, the socially awkward Spork lives in a trailer park with her white trash brother, while enduring taunts about her intersexual birth condition. Yes, poor Spork was a hermaphrodite and the kids at school are not about to let her forget it in J.B. Ghuman’s Spork, which won the Virtual Best Feature Film Award at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Spork does not get a lot of joy out of life. She is tormented by a popular clique of rich girls led by the frighteningly plastic-faced Betsy Byotch. Her only friend is Tootsie Roll, the African American girl who lives in the trailer next door. However, an upcoming dance competition might be the opportunity Spork needs to assert herself.

While Spork follows in the tradition of many square peg high school stories, it has a sharper edge than most. The first thing that really stands out in the film is the young cast. These kids really do look like kids, which makes their frequently cutting and at times explicit dialogue quite effective (and sometimes disturbing). Given her age, Savannah Stehlin particularly deserves credit for her brave performance as Spork, finding the dignity within the bullied pre-teen.

Ghuman nicely fleshes out the story with some clever details, like Spork’s obsession with the movie musical, The Wiz. Perhaps the strongest scenes in the film though, involve her relationship with her guardian brother. However, one would think she would have more social standing from her friendship with Tootsie Roll. After all, any white junior high school kid regularly patronizing the “Booty Ballroom” ought to have some kind of street cred with her classmates.

Spork definitely has heart and an old school hip hop soundtrack that will be nostalgic for many viewers. While the climatic big dance-off might provide a familiar plot structure, there is a good deal of fresh material to be found along the way, truly earning the film’s sentimental payoff. Endearing in its own eccentric manner, Spork screens again today (5/2) as the Tribeca Film Festival concludes.

Tribeca ’10: The Arbor

At the age of fifteen, Andrea Dunbar’s first play debuted at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Thirteen years later, she was dead, a victim of the self-destructive behavior she chronicled in her dramas. The lasting effects of her deficiencies as a mother are illustrated in Clio Barnard’s The Arbor, a radically self-conscious departure from traditional documentary forms, which won the Best New Documentary Filmmaker Award at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Deliberating blurring documentary and dramatic filmmaking, Barrnard recorded extensive interviews with the Dunbar’s family and friends. However, instead of showing them on camera, she filmed a cast of actors lip-synching their spoken words. She also staged a production of Dunbar’s first play, The Arbor, in an open space near the low income housing estate that inspired the playwright’s work. Barnard’s only bow to convention are clips from a BBC profile of Dunbar interspersed throughout the film.

Obviously, Dunbar’s plays were largely based on her experiences and observations of life on the Bafferton Arbor Estate. However, the theatricality of Barnard’s approach completely blurs any distinction between author and character. As biography, this might be problematic, but as cinema, it is fascinating.

It quickly becomes apparent Dunbar was never mother of the year. While her son and younger daughter might have survived her parenting with relatively few emotional scars that was clearly not the case for Lorraine, her bi-racial eldest daughter. Unfortunately, as Arbor shifts its focus to Lorraine, its unorthodox format loses some of its power. While Andrea Dunbar was a true enfant terrible of British drama, Lorraine’s story is hardly remarkable. She might be a tragic figure, but she is hardly the first to succumb to drug addiction as a result of a chaotic family environment.

Though it is often devilishly difficult for Yankee ears to decipher the thick Yorkshire accents, it is often hard to tell the cast is lip-synching. Indeed, their mannerisms and body language seems perfectly matched to their disembodied words. Manjinder Virk is particularly convincing as the problematic Lorraine.

Given the intentionally artificial nature of Arbor, it arguably pushes its luck, running a bit longer than it should. Still, it is bold filmmaking. In fact, it is probably the fullest, most successful manifestation of post-modernism in documentary filmmaking. As a Tribeca award winner, it screens again today (5/2) as the festival concludes.

Tribeca ’10: Monogamy

A Brooklyn photographer’s new gig is sort of cool, but also kind of creepy. He calls himself the Gumshooter. For a reasonable fee, he discretely follows clients at a pre-arranged time and place, shooting surveillance style photographs. He also shoots weddings, which can also be upsetting for more conventional reasons. Unfortunately, he lets a mysterious client distract him from his own relationship in Dana Adam Shapiro’s Monogamy, the winner of the best New York narrative award at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Theo and Nat are a very Brooklyn couple. He scrapes by as a photographer, while she aspires to be a singer-songwriter. Happily engaged, neither is particularly keen on wedding planning details. Everything seems perfect between them until they suddenly hit a rough patch. Unexpectedly, Nat is hospitalized with an infection, while Theo finds himself preoccupied to the point of obsession with Subgirl, an increasingly exhibitionist repeat Gumshoot client.

Those waiting for the great American Staph Infection movie will probably have to keep waiting. Much like its protagonist, Monogamy has a hard time committing, constantly vacillating between a psychological thriller and an intimate relationship drama. Frankly, at times it just feels like a lazy walk through Brooklyn’s parks.

Unquestionably, Monogamy’s greatest shortcoming is its weak protagonist. As written, Theo is immature and boring—generally not an engaging combination. Chris Messina does not exactly breathe life into this underwritten character, coming across as rather shallow and whiny. As Nat, Rashida Jones brings a certain spark to the proceedings, but it is hard to understand what she sees in the underwhelming Theo.

Monogamy’s characterization might be problematic, but it knows the County of Kings. We see both its old neighborhood charm and hipster grunge in Theo’s endless rambles. Sensitively lensed by Doug Emmett, it really is a valentine to Brooklyn. Even the music, including an original score by avant-garde jazz-experimental crossover artist Jamie Saft sounds borough appropriate.

There is definitely the germ of an original idea in Monogamy. Indeed, it has an impressive look and vibe. Unfortunately, it never really gets anywhere. However, it is a Tribeca award winner, so it screens again today (5/2) on the final day of the festival.

Tribeca ’10: Blood and Rain

Colombia has made great strides fighting leftist terrorism, but cocaine fueled street crime is still a fact of life. No one knows this better than Jorge, a cabbie whose brother was recently killed in an act of not-so random gang violence. Unfortunately, he has a late night appointment with the crooked cop most likely responsible for the crime in Jorge Navas’s Blood and Rain (trailer here), which screens during the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.

In their previous lives, Jorge’s brother had a gift for planning operations against the guerillas, which he recently applied to a vicious gang operating on the streets of Bogota. Shortly thereafter, he was murdered in a clear act of retaliation. Angry and grieving, Jorge is in no mood for a shakedown from the crooked Lieutenant González’s henchman. Unfortunately, he winds up on the receiving end of a savage beating and invitation to a 4:00 AM meeting with the Lieutenant that is a blatantly obvious set-up.

Not thinking clearly, Jorge picks up hardcore partier Angela before passing out from his injuries. Much to her own surprise, she does the right thing, taking him to the hospital and tending to his wounds while they wait. Even after he is stitched up, Angela is reluctant to say goodnight, accompanying Jorge as he enlists the help of Don Hector, a shadowy businessman who was once his commanding officer.

Blood and Rain is an aptly named noir, since neither commodity is in short supply throughout the film. Much like the best film noirs of Dassin and Lang, Rain immerses viewers in a hardboiled world unto itself. It is fascinating to watch Don Hector’s paramilitary cab fleet closing in on Lieutenant González’s crew, as they in turn tighten the noose around Jorge.

Yet Rain is truly a moody, quiet film that forgoes many of the genre’s typically action-oriented plot devices. While cinematographer Juan Carlos Gil nicely captures Bogota’s late-night netherworld with sinister elegance, the key to the film’s success is the nuanced chemistry between its leads, Gloria Montoya and Quique Mendoza, as Angela and Jorge, respectively. Personifying world-weary romanticism, they are like ships passing in the night that cannot let go of their brief encounter, though they understand only too well the danger in holding on. Montoya’s work is particularly impressive, investing her character with considerable depth and sympathy, despite her problematic lifestyle.

While Rain is compelling as a crime drama, it has surprising substance. In the tradition of great noirs past, it employs themes not out of place in classic tragedy, like loyalty, revenge, and redemption. It also creates a visceral sense of Bogota’s nightlife, using the city as an effective backdrop for its morality play.

As Navas’s feature directorial debut, Rain is a remarkably assured work. An unusual blend of lyric tragedy and gritty naturalism, Rain is a relatively unsung highlight of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Enthusiastically recommended for mature audiences, it screens again today (5/1) and tomorrow (5/2).

Tribeca ’10: Loose Cannons

Tommaso Cantone has two bombshells to drop on his family: he is gay and wants to quit the family pasta business to become a writer. The latter will only be slightly less scandalous to the traditional Cantone patriarch than the former. Unfortunately, a funny thing happens on the way to Tommaso’s coming out in Turkish-born Italian film director Ferzan Ozpetek’s Loose Cannons (trailer here), which was awarded the Special Jury Mention in the World Narrative Competition at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Tommaso wants out of the Cantone family business. He has his literary aspirations and a lover waiting faithfully in Rome. He realizes coming out will result in irreparable break with his father, particularly in such an embarrassing forum—a formal dinner to celebrate the Cantone merger with another powerful corporate family. However, much to everyone’s surprise, especially Tommaso’s, his brother Antonio beats him to the punch.

With his father suffering a heart attack shortly banishing Antonio, Tommaso finds himself stuck in the life he was trying to avoid. Obviously conflicted in this role, he develops a strangely intimate platonic relationship with Alba, the emotionally damaged daughter of their new business partners.

As befitting a big Italian family, the Cantones supply plenty of subplots, some of which work better than others. The Grandmother’s mysterious past is an intriguing framing device, beautifully realized by Ozpetek and cinematographer Maurizio Calvesi. Perhaps the strongest scenes involve the ambiguous friendship between Tommaso and Alba. Unfortunately, when Marco and three friends are forced to “play it straight” while visiting Tomasso, Cannons basically recycles old La Cage Aux Folles material that just seems awkward and dated here.

While several of Ozpetek’s recent films, like A Perfect Day and Facing Windows, have been almost oppressively tragic, the mood of Cannons is much lighter, more bittersweet than unremittingly sorrowful. It is a welcome change. While there is heartbreak in Cannons, there is also love (romantic and familial) as well as hope, just like real life.

Ironically given the subject matter, the head-and-shoulders standout in the cast is the beautiful Nicole Grimaudo as Alba. Tempestuous and vulnerable, it is a highly nuanced, fully dimensional performance. She also shares real screen chemistry with Ricardo Scamarcio, who brings an earnest likability to Tomasso.

Balancing laughter and tears quite adeptly, Ozpetek mostly hits the right marks throughout Cannons. The picturesque locations in and around the Italian town of Lecce also set a nice La Dolce Vita vibe, which is never a bad thing. It screens again tonight (5/1) at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Tribeca ’10: Last Play at Shea

Shea Stadium was old and creaky, but according to former Mets, they used to feel a mystique playing there that gave them a legitimate home field advantage. So, how’s that new Citi Field working out so far? To be fair, the team’s early years at Shea were an exercise in abject futility, but then in 1969 everything suddenly changed. In addition to sports history, a fair amount of music history happened there too, like a 1965 concert featuring young band from Liverpool. Fittingly though, it was Long Island’s native son Billy Joel who closed the stadium with a post-game concert that is lovingly documented in Paul Crowder’s Last Play at Shea, which screens during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Partly a Behind the Music-like profile of Joel, partly a chronicle of the Mets and the stadium in which they played, with a dash of borough history thrown in for context, Shea is a paean to all things Queens. Built by Robert Moses to be a modern day equivalent of the Roman Coliseum, aesthetically Shea fell fall short. The team William Shea found to inhabit it was also an initial disaster, but fans came anyway.

As a Mets fan, the Levittown raised Joel clearly understood the significance of playing Shea’s final gig. The film revisits the ups and downs of his long career, interviewing many of his close associates. Based on her segments, Joel clearly still seems to be on good terms with his ex-wife, Christy Brinkley which speaks well of both. However, wife #1 and her brother, the ex-manager who allegedly robbed him blind, are conspicuously absent. Overall, one definitely gets an appreciation of his longevity and resiliency in Shea. His instincts for structuring the set also seem right-on-target, starting with a respectful, on key rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner.”

Shea is hardly innovative filmmaking, but as nostalgia it is totally effective and surprisingly entertaining. A flood of memories will come back to Mets fans watching Crowder’s film, including the black cat incident, the infamous Buckner error, and their recent painful late season collapses. However, the one glaring omission are the J-E-T-S, who played their most celebrated seasons at Shea before leaving for the Meadowlands.

As a concert film, Shea is also pretty solid, especially for Billy Joel fans. There are also several very cool musical guest artists, including Tony Bennett, joining him for a duet performance of “New York State of Mind.” Frankly, you have to give Joel credit for still bringing the energy, obviously connecting with the enormous audience on a personal level.

A thoroughly entertaining concert documentary, sports history, and an elegy to glory days gone by, Shea should be a real sleeper hit at Tribeca. Even Yankee fans from Manhattan have been charmed by it. A great New York doc, it screens during the festival today (4/30) and tomorrow (5/1).

Tribeca ’10: Dream Home

Maybe slasher pictures are not the best source for economic stats, but according to a Cinemania selection at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, Hong Kong’s cost of living has gone up fifteen percent since the Chinese handover, but income has only increased by a miserly one percent. That makes Hong Kong’s housing market even more prohibitively expensive than that of rent-control distorted Manhattan. It also leads to a series of spectacularly grisly murders in Pang Ho-Cheung’s Dream Home (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Cheng Lai-sheung would kill for an apartment with a waterfront view—seriously. She makes decent money as a telemarketer for a “predatory lender,” but not enough for the flat of her dreams. In a series of flashbacks, we come to understand how the traumatic events of her childhood created this obsessive need for her just-so home. After a great deal of heartache and a bit of cold-blooded sacrifice, Cheng finally has her dream apartment within her reach, only to have the sellers back out at the last minute, intending to hold out for a better office. Of course, there is nothing like a rash of killings in the building to drive down the asking price of units.

Dream’s frequent flashbacks and time-shifts can be quite confusing. However, the centerpiece of the film is a big, gory, extraordinarily messy sequence of killings that should have something to offend everyone. There is voluminous blood, nudity, and people slip-sliding through entrails. However, by genre standards, it is all quite impressively choreographed.

A more ambitious production than its splatter patterns would suggest, Dream is visually striking thanks to the stylish work of cinematographer Yu Lik-wai, a frequent collaborator with Chinese art-house auteur Jia Zhangke. A popular Hong Kong actress, Josie Ho’s portrayal of Cheng’s descent into madness is also chillingly impressive. Indeed, Pang’s patience establishing character and the setting the scene for the inevitable horror show also sets it apart from inferior genre hack-work. Yet, there is no getting around its blood and guts. Dream most definitely is what it is.

As a high-end gore-fest, Dream will definitely appeal to a particular die-hard audience. You know who you are. It screens again tonight (4/30) during the Tribeca Film festival.

Tribeca ’10: The Killer Inside Me

Born in Oklahoma when it was still a territory, Jim Thompson perfected the hardboiled, hardscrabble small town crime novel, but would only be recognized as a master after his death. His critical renaissance was accelerated by a series of French and Hollywood film adaptations of his dark stories, the most notable being Stephen Frears’s The Grifters. Already generating plenty of controversy following its reception at Sundance and the Berlinale, the latest Thompson movie treatment, Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me is currently screening as a selection of the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.

Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford is supposedly from a good family, but his upbringing has mentally twisted him, particularly with respects to his relationships with women. When sent to mildly roust Joyce Lakeland, a working girl plying her trade just outside city limits, his dark inner urges are suddenly uncorked. Although it seems creepy, Lakeland falls for Ford, despite his rough treatment. Though his attraction borders on obsession, Ford seems to know their relationship is unsustainable, so when he has the opportunity, he plots to kill her and the son of the town’s wealthy developer, with whom he holds a grudge.

Of course, killing just begets more killing, but Ford doesn’t seem to mind much. He is a classic snake-charming sociopath, but as the film’s narrator and POV character, his omnipresence is a double-edged sword throughout Killer. It is compelling to get inside his head, but the cumulative effect of his violent nihilism eventually becomes tiring.

Evidently quite faithful to the source novel, Killer nicely evokes the harsh desolation of the West Texas setting to heighten the noir atmosphere. Winterbottom shows a strong affinity for the one-terrible-thing-after-another pacing of Thompson’s hard-edged noir. However, his lurid fascination with Ford’s violent hang-ups is more than a bit excessive.

Casey Affleck is perfectly cast, outwardly looking the picture of “aw-shucks” rectitude, but convincingly reveling in Ford’s narcissism and thuggery. Somewhat playing against type as well, Jessica Alba does her best with Lakeland’s almost indefensible choices, while Kate Hudson is surprisingly credible as Amy Stanton, Ford’s respectable long-term girlfriend. Elias Koteas and Bill Pullman also supply some genre appropriate color to the proceedings in small but memorable supporting turns.

There is just a bit too much in Killer. As a general rule, suggestion is always more effective than illustration on the big screen, but Winterbottom leaves little to the imagination. A well crafted but grueling film noir, Killer screens again today (4/29) and Friday (4/30).

Tribeca ’10: Earth Made of Glass

Only the second country to join the Commonwealth that was not a former British territory, Rwanda has also changed its official language from French to English. This de-Francophonization of the former Belgian colony was not an accident. Information has recently come to light suggesting France’s partial culpability in the 1994 genocide, causing a major rift between the nations. In lieu of justice, the search for truth takes on paramount importance for two very different Rwandans in Deborah Scranton’s documentary Earth Made of Glass (trailer here), which premiered at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.

Glass’s title is both obscure and inapt. It refers to the Emerson quote: “Commit a crime and the Earth is made of glass.” However, under the leadership of President Paul Kagame, Rwanda has foregone formal criminal prosecutions of the Hutu genocide of the minority Tutsis. Instead, survivors like Jean Pierre Sagahutu must console themselves with the truth, as determined by informal community-based courts. Hardly a fugitive scrambling to hide on an Earth of glass, the man who murdered Sagahutu’s father lives openly without fear of legal repercussions.

Perhaps as a result of international guilt, Kigali is Africa’s reining boom town, swelling with foreign investment. It has also been extraordinarily stable, considering its recent history. In large measure, this is due to Kagame’s policies, which have discouraged retribution and banned ethnic identification on government documents. Tellingly, both Kagame and Sagahutu call themselves Rwandan instead of Tutsi, proclaiming their national identity rather than asserting a sense of ethnic aggreivement.

The one area of turbulence for the Kagame government has been its foreign relations with France. Shortly after Kagame released documents outlining the collusion of Mitterand’s Socialist government with the former ruling Hutus leading up to and during the genocide, France arrested top Kagame aide Rose Kabuye on dubious terrorism charges, while on a formal state visit.

Glass is practically two movies shoehorned into one, but they are both very compelling, so it works out quite well regardless. The segments with Kagame are truly eye-opening, but the exact nature of the French involvement should have been more clearly detailed. However, he comes across as a genuinely humane and forward-thinking leader. It is Sagahutu’s story though, that packs the emotional punch, as he seeks closure when finally confronting his father’s killer face-to-face.

Scranton captures every intimate detail of Sagahutu’s difficult homecoming, including the evil banality of the likely murderer. She also relies on many interview sequences with him and Kagame, filmed with vivid clarity by cinematographer P.H. O’Brien against vibrant white backgrounds. As a result, what could have been rather straightforward talking-head segments lend the film a surprisingly interesting visual aesthetic.

Earth Made of Glass is a terrible title, but it is a great film. While there have been several well received documentaries on the 1994 genocide, Scranton finds fresh material to mine. Heartfelt and informative, it is one of the best documentaries at Tribeca this year. It screens again Friday (4/30) and Saturday (5/1).

Tribeca ’10: My Brothers

With three films in the festival, Don Wycherley must be Mr. Tribeca 2010. Evidently, he appeared as a henchman in Neil Jordan’s Ondine and took a more memorable comedic turn as a slightly demented policeman in John and Kieran Carney’s Zonad. Yet, it is his relatively small but pivotal role as the dying father in Paul Fraser’s My Brothers that will leave the strongest impression of the actor during the Tribeca Film Festival.

Noel’s father is dying. There is nothing to be done, except keeping him comfortable during his agonizing decline. However, when the beloved watch his father won in an arcade game is destroyed through his actions in a humiliating chain of events, Noel sets off to the resort village to replace it. Hoping to sneak out with his employers decrepit van, Noel has to take along his two younger brothers, in order to ensure their silence.

What follows must be the most tragic, mournful road movie you would ever hope to see. As played by Timmy Creed, Noel is a genuinely earnest and responsible a young man. In contrast, his younger brothers, Paudie and Scwally, are not simply immature. They are aggressively irritating throughout the film. However, Wycherley is quite touching as his Da, seen either in impressionistic flashbacks, or ravaged by feverish pain as the inevitable approaches.

Despite the occasional slapstick element, Brothers is as far from a quirky feel-good comedy as a film can get. It evens throws in an encounter with a sexual predator late in the film, just to make sure the audience is suitably depressed for the expected heartbreak to come. Good times all around.

Creed’s likable screen presence has an unassuming power that mercifully gives the audience something to grab onto. Paul Courtney and TJ Griffin are at least convincingly bratty as his brothers, but a little of them goes an awful long way. Regardless, Fraser’s unremittingly dour mood gets to be a bit much.

Achingly well intentioned, Brothers features a star making turn from newcomer Creed and impressively evocative work from Wycherley (the new Colm Meaney, appearing in nearly every prospective Irish cinematic import) in a role almost with dialogue per se. Yet the dreariness and predictability of its story are serious drawbacks. It screens again this Friday (4/30) during the Tribeca Film Festival.

Tribeca ’10: Record (Short)

Consider this review a 45 among LPs. While only five minutes, Dylan Reibling’s short short Record deserves a formal recommendation, but a detailed discussion of its merits would inevitably give the game away for those who screen it during the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.

Three late middle-aged Russian émigrés happen by an outdoor record mart. The proprietor decides to spin an old Russian LP for their benefit. However, Reibling cleverly plays with the audience’s expectations from a hipster short film presumably set in Brooklyn or the lower Eastside.

Record is a cool little film made possible by the perfectly calibrated performances of the Russian gentlemen. It is definitely nice to see a representation of vinyl culture tempered with a realistic perspective on life. It screens as part of the Identity Theft block of shorts today (4/28), Saturday (5/1), and Sunday (5/2).

Tribeca ’10: Please Give

More gentrified than edgy, affluent Manhattan neighborhoods like the Upper Westside and the Village proper remain bastions of kneejerk liberalism. Reflecting the insular world view of its subjects, Nicole Holofcener’s mild satire, Please Give (trailer here), screens today as part of the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival, just ahead of its imminent Friday opening in New York.

Kate and Alex have purchased the apartment of their elderly neighbor, the thoroughly unpleasant Andra. As soon as she dies, they can start remodeling and expanding into her space. If truth be told, they can hardly wait for the mean old lady to go, but they pretend otherwise to keep up appearances.

To assuage their guilt, they try to befriend Andra and her two granddaughters, the mousy Rebecca and the superficial Mary. The results are definitely mixed. Andra is as caustic as ever, but for truly inexplicable reasons, Alex starts cheating on Kate with the much younger Mary, who would be attractive if it were not for her jaundiced looking fake tan.

Give is supposed to be a cutting statement on guilt. As vintage furniture dealers, Kate and Alex make their livings scoring bargains from the recently bereaved. To compensate, she ostentatiously gives to the panhandlers in her neighborhood. Yet, whenever she tries her hand at legitimate volunteer work, she chickens out, because old people are creepy and the intellectually disabled make her uncomfortable. Give presents this as one of life’s ironies, whereas most Americans, who are natural volunteers by inclination, will find her hang-ups rather nauseating.

Indeed, one of the greatest problems of Give is its lack of ironic distance. The comedic potential of its rich underlying premise, the Manhattan apartment Death Watch, should be nearly foolproof, yet Holofcener lets it die on the vine. Instead of mercilessly skewering the hypocrisies of well-heeled Manhattan liberals, she presents a bland comedy of manners that is only occasionally amusing. It is also wildly inconsistent in tone veering between neurotic comedy in the Woody Allen tradition and peculiarly upper-class melodrama, with a random dash of fantastical expressionism thrown in to further muddy the waters.

While Give features an intriguing cast, they are largely squandered in shallow and annoying characters. Rebecca Hall probably fares the best as the essentially decent granddaughter, since she is somehow able to scratch out an arc of character development. In contrast, it is sad to watch Catherine Keener saddled with Kate’s woefully overblown angst and insecurities.

Despite a few memorably pointed lines, Give is an overall mish-mash. Holofcener might indeed accurately hold up a mirror to a small segment of the City’s population, but its focus is too narrow to hold much cultural currency with audiences living west of the Hudson River or east of Fifth Avenue. It screens again today (4/28) during the Tribeca Film Festival and opens theatrically in New York this Friday (4/30) at the Loews Lincoln Square and Regal Union Square.

Tribeca ’10: Gainsbourg, Je t’Aime . . .

Serge Gainsbourg did it all: jazz, pop, rock, and a reggae version of “La Marseillaise” that was not nearly as well received as Jimmy Hendricks’s “Star Spangled Banner.” For the singer-songwriter, it was just one more controversy in an eventful career dramatized with idiosyncratic flair in Joann Sfar’s Gainsbourg, Je t’Aime . . . Moi Non Plus (trailer here), which screens during the Tribeca Film Festival.

The feature directorial debut from one of France’s leading graphic novelists, Je t’Aime not surprisingly begins with a cool animated title sequence. However, Sfar has far bolder imagery in store for viewers. As the film opens, Gainsbourg (then Lucien Ginsburg) arrives early to pick-up his yellow star from the collaborationist authorities. His Jewish heritage would continue to haunt Gainsbourg in the form of a giant anti-Semitic propaganda cartoon come to life, as if it were a Macy’s Thanksgiving balloon, dogging the boy throughout his formative years. Yet, Sfar is only getting started with his fanciful twists on the old bio-pic formula.

Throughout Je t’Aime, Gainsbourg interacts with what he calls his “mug,” his Tyler Durdenesque id, who inspires all his bad boy excesses. One could argue though, Gainsbourg does alright following his lead. After all, he would become one of the most influential figures in French music.

Despite Sfar’s stylistic eccentricities, he still shoehorns in most of Gainsbourg’s musical highlights and notable personal scandals. We see Gainsbourg as a young man dabble in jazz piano, make his mark as a pop songwriter, and recklessly carry on with the married Brigitte Bardot. The heart of the film though, involves his stormy marriage to British actress-singer Jane Birkin, with whom he recorded the suggestive duet “Je t’Aime moi non plus.”

Tragically, British actress Lucy Gordon committed suicide shortly after Je t’Aime wrapped. Though she will probably be remembered by more film goers for her work as reporter Jennifer Dugan in Spiderman 3, she was truly beautiful and compelling as Birkin, unquestionably delivering the film’s standout performance.

In contrast, Je t’Aime’s weakest link is a rather bland Gainsbourg. Eric Elmosnino simply does not convey the strange charisma of the musical legend. Fortunately, there are many strong supporting performances that largely compensate, most notably Razvan Vasilescu as Gainsbourg’s traditional but nonetheless proud father.

Sfar’s surreal devices might sound distracting, but they actual give Je t’Aime a sense of energy that helps the film avoid the lulls which typically plague cinematic biographies. Fresh and entertaining, Je t’Aime is a real highlight of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. It screens again today (4/27) and Friday (4/30).

Tribeca ’10: Doctor Zhivago

In 1958, Boris Pasternak was forced to renounce his Nobel Prize for Literature, when the Soviets made it clear he would not be allowed back in to the country if he traveled to Stockholm to accept. However, seven years later, they were only too happy to allow Central Committee member Mikhail Sholokhov to receive the honor they had denied Pasternak. Yet today, hardly anyone reads And Quiet Flows the Don aside from a handful of Russian majors, but Doctor Zhivago remains widely read throughout the world.

Of course a considerable measure of that enduring popularity stems from David Lean’s truly classic cinematic adaptation of Pasternak’s novel. Considered the last great MGM epic, Lean’s Doctor Zhivago (trailer here) will screen Wednesday at the Tribeca Film Festival in a newly restored high-definition print, in advance of the release of its 45th Anniversary Blue-Ray edition next week.

Zhivago is a poet, a healer, and a lover. He is not a fighter or an ideologue. Unfortunately, that puts him at odds with the tenor of his time and place—Revolutionary Russia. Initially, Zhivago is sympathetic to the revolutionary cause. Unfortunately, when he returns from World War I, he quickly discovers the difference between Bolshevik rhetoric and reality.

The biographical parallels between Pasternak and his Nobel Prize winning character have been often noted. Both were poets whose work ran afoul of Communist ideology, yet they loved Mother Russia too much to leave her, even when offered the opportunity. They also loved two women simultaneously, their faithful wives, and in Zhivago’s case, Lara, the women who inspired the character’s most famous poem and composer Maurice Jarre’s lushly romantic theme.

It is hard to imagine a film like Zhivago coming out of Hollywood today. While it is truly a sweeping wide-screen epic, it is character-driven. Certainly, it would be impossible to assemble a comparable cast of legitimate movie stars who offered intriguing screen presences as well as their marquee names. Omar Sharif conveys the soul of a poet as Zhivago, while Julie Christie is quite haunting as the beautiful and fragile Lara. Yet, perhaps the greatest performance comes from Sir Alec Guinness in the trickiest part, Zhivago’s half-brother Yevgraf, a hard but strangely sympathetic Bolshevik enforcer. Throw in Rod Steiger, Tom Courtenay, Sir Ralph Richardson, Geraldine Chaplin, Rita Tushingham, and Klaus Kinski in a bit part, and you have a cast for the ages.

Though justly renowned for its spectacle, Zhivago is also the work of a genuine auteur. Lean’s perspectives and transitions have a visual excitement that still seems surprisingly bold. While Robert Bolt’s script avoids wallowing in the terrors of Revolutionary Russia, he never whitewashes the constant purges and executions. Indeed, it is a fitting reflection of its author and protagonist, rebels by virtue of being apolitical in a time of ideological madness.

Zhivago is a great film, worth seeing at any time, under any circumstances. Without screening the new high def print, one can only assume it was well done, because messing up this film would be one big, conspicuous scandal. It screens tomorrow (4/28) as part of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Tribeca ’10: Billy and Aaron (Short)

As an audition, a young Billy Strayhorn wrote “Take the A Train,” which quickly became Duke Ellington’s beloved theme song. Yet until only recently, many jazz fans were unaware of the nature and extent of his contributions to the Ellington band’s book. The trade-offs Strayhorn made in his career are the subject of Rodney Evans’s short film, Billy and Aaron, which screens as part of the “Hard Core” programming block at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Duke Ellington took the bows and most likely a disproportionate share of the credit for his “collaborations” with Strayhorn. In return, he offered the musician-composer financial security and protection to live relatively open, despite the homophobic prejudices then not uncommon on the jazz scene. It was a bargain Strayhorn evidently made an uneasy peace with, as he explains to his friend-colleague-lover Aaron Bridgers on the eve of the latter man’s departure for Paris.

Evans uses Strayhorn’s standard “Lush Life,” a lyrical expression of worldly disillusionment, as the fitting touchstone for B&A. Performed by Aaron Diehl, a talented young jazz pianist with a strong affinity for Ellingtonia, it sets the perfect tone of elegant regret. However, the film’s somewhat coarse look is a bit at odds with the sophistication of its subjects. Still, it is a well conceived portrait of the musicians, featuring strong performances by Brandon Delagraentiss and Ignaro Petronilloia as Strayhorn and Bridgers, respectively.

Thanks to David Hajdu’s biography, a PBS documentary, and a host of tribute CDs, Strayhorn’s contributions to American music are generally well known by most jazz listeners today. Strayhorn, who would eventually join Bridgers in Paris, died tragically early. One of the best tributes to “Strays” was indeed the first, And His Mother Called Him Bill, recorded by the still grieving Ellington and his Orchestra. Everyone should become acquainted with the music of Strayhorn (and Ellington). Hopefully, B&A will intrigue Tribeca patrons to seek out further listening. It plays again as part of the “Hard Core” program on Thursday (4/29) and Sunday (5/2).

Tribeca ’10: The Two Escobars

In the wake of the scandals that rocked the game of baseball, it is impossible to pretend the illicit drug trade never intersects the world of sports. After all, if you believe Jose Canseco’s memoir, his blood must have serious street value. However, the extent to which drugs have corrupted American athletics pales in comparison to recent Colombian sporting history. In chronicling the violent destinies of two very different Columbians who happened to have the same surnames, Jeff and Michael Zimbalist expose the corrupting influence of drug money on the Colombian national football (soccer) team in their documentary The Two Escobars, which premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Though unrelated, Andrés and Pablo Escobar both were born in Medellín, the city which the latter man would make infamous as the seat of his cocaine empire. By contrast, Andrés Escobar gained notoriety for his brilliant defense and genuine sportsmanship on the football field. However, he could not avoid the world other the other Escobar, who secretly funded the national team with his blood money.

While Pablo basically got what was coming to him, Andrés Escobar’s death was senselessly tragic. Unfortunately, he was the player who scored the own goal during the Colombian team’s ill-fated 1994 World Cup tournament. Soon thereafter, he was gunned down outside a Medellín nightclub by underworld figures probably associated with a faction aligned against Escobar’s cartel.

Although the scrappy American team was the beneficiary of Escobar’s mistake, watching his own goal in Escobars will make audiences cringe several times over. Yet, the film is more a tribute to the footballer Escobar rather than a true crime examination of the drug lord’s rise and fall. Indeed, the film is strongest when depicting the athlete’s life and legacy. Whereas, the Pablo Escobar material is somewhat undercut by thin, unconvincing conspiracy musings that detract from the overall film. In fact, its biases against the Colombian government seem rather off-base, considering what they sacrificed to join the international battle against narco-terrorism, not the least being a competitive national football team.

Still, when Escobars sticks to straight reportage it is informative and its interviews with Andrés Escobar’s family are frankly quite moving. Andrés Escobar set a graceful civic-minded example for Colombia, both on the field and in the difficult days leading up to his murder (the circumstances of which remain murky). Fortunately, his country has come a long way since that fateful night. Escobars is worth seeing to get a sense of Andrés as an athlete and as a national symbol of something greater. It screens again as part of the Tribeca Film Festival on Saturday (5/1).

Tribeca ‘10: Metropia

Even in the future, it is depressing in the subways. At least one could expect increased efficiency in an authoritarian speculative dystopia. However, the Trexx Group, the company that operates Europe’s continent-wide metro system, is up to something decidedly nefarious down there in Metropia (trailer here), Tarik Saleh’s animated science fiction feature for adults now screening during the Tribeca Film Festival.

Roger is an unremarkable Winston Smith, living a mostly anonymous existence in a world not unlike the 1984 Macintosh commercial. Some of his coworkers think he is crazy though, because he often illegally bikes to work, rather than taking the Metro. He also thinks he might be crazy because of the voice in his head. However, a chance encounter with his dream woman, Nina, the model on the label of his dandruff shampoo, leads to some revelations about its parent company, the all-powerful Trexx. Initially intimated when confronted by the woman of his fantasies, he is even more taken aback when she bluntly asks about Roger’s “inner voice.”

Metropia is definitely animation for adults, with advanced themes, terrorist attacks, and a fair amount of cartoon nudity. Yet despite its reliance on the standard evil corporation cliché, it still manages to put a fresh spin on traditional dystopian science fiction. Indeed, it is refreshing to see a film extend its paranoia to sacred cows like the European Union and public transportation.

However, it is the darkly compelling signature look of Metropia’s animation, perfectly suited to the grim bleakness of the scarred urban future world, which truly distinguishes the picture. While eschewing strict realism, its figures, based on original photos heavily distorted through the computer animation process, are oddly expressive. To complete his strange characterizations, Saleh called on some unconventional voice talent, including the surprisingly effective Vincent Gallo as Roger.

Though the general trajectory of Saleh’s story is relatively predictable, there are some clever bits along the way. Visually dazzling, Saleh, animation director Christian Ryltenius, and art director Marti Hultman produced an intriguing vision of the Fabian EU utopia gone to seed. Wisely, it also resists the urge to explain every last detail, leaving future avenues to explore should they return to Metropia’s world for future installments. Smart, mature science fiction, Metropia is worth checking out during the Tribeca Film Festival. It screens again on Wednesday (4/28), Thursday (4/29), and Saturday (5/1), as the festival continues, mostly at the Village East and Clearview Chelsea Cinemas.

Tribeca ’10: Heartbreaker

Even in France, any man who tells a woman he also loves George Michael’s Wham! and the movie Dirty Dancing is lying. At least Alex is not doing it for lecherous reasons. It is strictly business for him. Hired by clients to break-up the dysfunctional relationships of their loved ones, Alex’s business is seduction. Yet, he will face his greatest professional and personal challenge in Pascal Chaumeil’s Heartbreaker, which screens during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Alex has one hard-and-fast rule: he never breaks up happy couples. However, his impatient loan shark provides sufficient incentive to break that rule in the case of Juliette and her apparently perfect fiancé. Working undercover as her bodyguard, he gains access to the betrothed wine expert, but even with the inside information assembled by his sister Mélanie and her loving doofus husband Marc, the break-up specialist has trouble closing the sale. Instead, it is Juliette who inspires Alex to break his other unstated but clearly implied rule when he starts to fall for her himself. Obviously, complications ensue.

There is a fair amount of broad farcical humor in Heartbreaker, much of it supplied by his sister and brother-in-law. However, Heartbreaker is an unapologetically sentimental rom-com at heart. Fortunately, it all more or less works thanks to the strong chemistry between the two leads. Romain Duris (Juliette Binoche’s brother in Paris) is a thoroughly likable cad, while Vanessa Paradis is not just a striking beauty, but also charismatic in a mature and sophisticated way. They look good and dance well together, when they recreate the climatic Dirty Dancing number during one of Alex’s seduction attempts.

Chaumeil cut his teeth with AD and unit work on Luc Besson films like The Fifth Element and The Professional. Despite radical differences in genre and subject matter, he seems to have picked up a good sense of pacing through those gigs, because Heartbreaker never loses momentum. Its light and frothy atmosphere is further heightened by the beautiful Monte Carlo settings, which glisten through the lens of cinematographer Thierry Arbogast. Indeed, the film makes the most of its exclusive locale, even throwing in a cameo by model Victoria Silvstedt for added glamour.

Heartbreaker is like a French film trying to be a Hollywood movie, but doing a better job of it. It has an engaging charm that might not offer many surprises, but delivers plenty of satisfaction. A pleasing little film to spend time with, Heartbreaker is well worth seeing when it screens again today (4/25) and tomorrow (4/26), as part of the Tribeca Film Festival.