Sundance ’12: Wish You Were Here

Southeast Asia really is not the wisest place to go on a drug and booze-fueled bender, particularly if you are parents and even more so if you are pregnant. Nonetheless, the Flannerys decides you only live once in Kieran Darcy-Smith’s cautionary tale, Wish You Were Here (trailer here), which screens as part of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Dave and Alice Flannery have two kids, with a third on the way. Despite her advancing pregnancy they cannot say no when her sister Steph McKinney’s new boyfriend offers to treat them all to a vacation in Cambodia. A sketchy import-exporter, the fast-talking Jeremy King claims he can deduct it all. Evidently, Australia must have quite an indulgent tax code. At first, the quartet has a blast, as the audience can plainly see from the long opening montage. However, only three of them came back. Somewhere along the way, they lost King.

Actually, quite a bit went down in Cambodia that threatens to break their family ties. Since they all assume King’s disappearance involved his stash of XTC, they have trouble deciding just what they should tell the Australian authorities. Needless to say, there are probably lingering dangers from that fateful night they should also worry about.

At times, the Flannerys can just be hair-pullingly dumb. An iota of communication would have spared them so much grief. Still, the slow reveal of King’s fate is rather effective (though the resolution of the mystery is somewhat underwhelming). The Cambodian locales are also quite cinematically exotic and seedy. Yet throughout Wish, it is impossible to shake the notion the Flannerys got off easy. Haven’t they seen Midnight Express? Drug use in a less than transparent country is usually a distinctly bad idea.

Poised to succeed Russell Crowe as Hollywood’s favorite square-jawed Australian, Joel Edgerton definitely has the right intense screen presence and everyman quality for Dave Flannery. Granted, it is a stressful set of circumstances, but Felicity Price’s Alice Flannery often comes across as somewhat overwrought and irrational. In contrast, even though he draws the short straw, Anthony Starr is rather memorably dynamic as the ill-fated King.

Wish is a serviceable thriller-slash-family drama, but it holds no real surprises in store for viewers. It probably will not do much for Cambodian tourism either, even though the beaches look inviting. Not a special priority, Wish screens tonight (1/21) in Odgen and this coming Wednesday (1/25) and Friday (1/27) in Park City, as this year’s Sundance swings into high gear.

Sundance ’12: Where Do We Go Now?

Isolated and picturesque, the Lebanese village of Taybeh offered the perfect locations for the country’s official submission for this year’s best foreign language Academy Award. The church and mosque built side by side will be particularly significant in Nadine Labaki’s stylized musical, Where Do We Go Now? (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Accessible only by an impossibly torturous bridge, the Christian and Muslim inhabitants live in peace, or at least the women do. The men are uneasy in their truce as news of fresh violence in the outside world vaguely drifts in. Tired of their perpetual mourning, Amale, the Christian widow who operates the town café, organizes the women like a Lebanese Lysistrata. They sabotage the television and radios, while doing their best to distract the restive men. When all else fails, they bring in a troupe of Ukrainian strippers, in a bit of a departure from the film’s classical Greek forerunner.

In a bit of a twist, the women’s few real male allies include the village’s priest and imam, whom the film presents as friendly colleagues rather than hateful zealots. Of course, Labaki and co-writers Jihad Hojeily, and Rodney Al Haddad strenuously avoid taking sides. Indeed, the whole crux of the film is the interchangeability of the two faiths.

The occasional musical number certainly helps liven-up the proceedings. Some are rather somber, like the funeral procession taking a slight Fosse-esque detour. However, Amale’s fantasy dance with Rabih, her Muslim handyman, is pretty hot stuff. As Amale, Labaki is also rather alluring, but her smart and sophisticated presence seems at odds with the rest of the largely matronly townswomen. Indeed, she seems distinctly out of place in this town full of stock characters.

Still, the choreography is striking and Christophe Offenstein’s cinematography is often quite arresting, soaking up all the scarred beauty of the weathered village and the rugged surrounding landscape. Though well meaning, Where remains a minor film that ultimately lacks the gravitas it presumes to have by virtue of its subject matter. Pleasant for those who enjoy an unconventional movie musical, but hardly a priority at Sundance, it screens today (1/21), Wednesday (1/25), and the following Saturday (1/28) in Park City, as well as this Sunday (1/22) in Salt Lake.

Sundance ’12: The Conquerors (short)

They are sort of like the Swiss Family Robinson, except more archetypal. They also must learn to share their bizarre new world with fantastical insectoid creatures in Tibor Banoczki & Sarolta Szabo’s unusually ambitious, genre-defying animated short film The Conquerors (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

Amidst a roiling sea, a man and a woman become castaways on a forbidding island. Since she is pregnant, their situation is particularly dire. Yet, after some initial days of hunger, the man learns how to tame the smaller beetle-like creatures and hunt the larger ones. The woman safely delivers her baby and several more follow. Eventually, their family becomes a small community. For the most part, they live in harmony with their macabre environment, but danger is ever present. Then outsiders arrive and everything changes.

Rendered in a distinctive photorealism style of animation, Conquerors has a striking look truly unique unto itself. Its evocative black-and-white images suggest the influence of both German expressionism and 1930’s adventure serials in equal measure, while the strange world owes more to the surrealists. Yet, in terms of tone, its closest comparison might be René Laloux’s Fantastic Planet, for their bold use of Biblical motifs and brutally naturalistic representation of the rule of the jungle.

Conquerors screens as part of the short program in Sundance’s New Frontiers track, which is sort of a catch-all for work that is experimental or tech-driven. While its animation might be cutting edge, it is still perfectly accessible from a narrative standpoint. In fact, Banoczki and Szabo tell quite an epic tale in an economic twelve minutes.

So richly detailed and loaded with allegorical significance, Conquerors is definitely the sort of film that rewards multiple viewings. Visually, it is absolutely absorbing, even when depicting unsettling events. A co-production of the National Film Board of Canada, it would be a highlight of most any short film program. Highly recommended, it screens during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontiers shorts block this coming Monday (1/23), Wednesday (1/25), and next Saturday (1/28) in Park City and this coming Tuesday (1/24) in Salt Lake.

Slamdance ’12: Buffalo Girls

There are no participation medals in boxing. One fighter wins and the other loses. Audiences will be acutely aware of this fact while watching Todd Kellstein’s documentary Buffalo Girls (trailer here), an up-close and personal glimpse into the lives of two eight year-old girls who fight to support their families. Be forewarned, it is a real heart-wrencher, which screens during the 2012 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.

Technically, the child Muay Thai boxing circuit operates underground, but nobody seems too concerned about being caught. Young Stam Sor Con Lek is widely known as a champion in her age and weight division. Pet Chor Chanachai is the leading contender. Both sweet-tempered young girls are their families’ primary breadwinners. In hope of a better life, they train like professionals and give it all in the ring, without the benefit of head-gear.

Although both girls insist they want to fight, one has to wonder. Granted, there are not a lot of options in rural Thailand (where peasants are derogatorily called “buffalo” for their stoic fortitude, hence the title) and a successful child fighter can make thousands of Baht in a match. However, that is an awful lot of stress for an eight year-old to carry, not to mention the physical toll.

Largely filmed observational-style with only the occasional on-camera question asked through interpreters, Kellstein follows the girls through three bouts, culminating with the title fight for all the marbles. Unlike nearly every other boxing film ever produced, it is impossible to pick a side to root for. Stam and Pet are equally bright and engaging. (Their parents are a different matter though. Some viewers might want to see them go a few rounds with the Klitschko brothers to see how they like it.) Clearly, the young girls ought to be in school studying for a productive future rather than the ring, but in Thailand that is much easier said than done.

Gaining intimate access to the two girls’ home and training programs, Kellstein gives viewers a visceral sense of their daily living conditions and prospects. It is impossible not to care deeply about them after the first two or three minutes. Hopefully, if Buffalo Girls gains traction, there are mechanisms already in place for Stam and Pet to benefit, because they unquestionably deserve it. Recommended for those who can handle raw reality, Buffalo Girls screens this Sunday (1/22) and the following Tuesday (1/24) as part of this year’s Slamdance Festival in Park City.

Slamdance also has a full slate of narrative features, including Kristina Nikolova’s sensual and cerebral Faith, Love + Whiskey, which vividly captures a sense of the displacement experienced by a Bulgarian expat on her return home from America. Its depiction of Bulgarian nightlife (with its surprisingly catchy club music) ought to well suit Park City audiences when it screens tonight (1/20) and Wednesday (1/25). Slamdance will also screen Final Curtain, a never before seen television pilot, written, produced, and directed by the now legendary Ed Wood that cries out to be seen with an appreciative and slightly ruckus audience this coming Monday night (1/23).

Sundance ’12: Searching for Sugar Man

Sixto Rodriguez, a.k.a. Rodriguez, a.k.a. Jesus Rodriguez was considered the Bob Dylan of inner city soul. His voice even had a vaguely similar nasal quality, but was much richer and sonorous. Despite positive reviews for two albums, Rodriguez quietly slipped into obscurity in America. Yet, unbeknownst to him, his music would be embraced by a generation of anti-Apartheid Afrikaners. Two South African music lovers’ dogged investigation into Rodriguez’s fate is documented in Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man, which screens during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Due to his musical tastes and mispronunciations of his name, Cape Town record store owner Stephen Segerman has been nick-named “Sugar Man” since his army days. As any anti-apartheid white South African coming of age in the 1970’s knew, “Sugar Man” was one of Rodriguez’s greatest “hits.”

Though he never sold in America, it seems the visiting daughter of naturalized South African Americans brought a copy of his debut album Cold Fact with her and it just caught on, or so the legend goes. First bootleg copies circulated, but eventually legitimate South African labels started licensing it from future Motown honcho Clarence Avant’s Sussex Records. The money part of the story remains hazy (Bendjelloul lets Avant off rather easy in their on-camera interview), but none of it ever made its way to Rodriguez.

With no biographical information on his record sleeves, Rodriguez became a man of mystery to his hundreds of thousands of South African fans. Wild legends sprang up regarding his spectacular demise. However, the truth is worth staying for.

Sugar is a really well put together documentary. Camilla Skagerstrom’s cinematography vividly conveys the spirit of Rodriguez’s native Detroit and the Cape Town of his number one fan, as do the seamlessly integrated animated passages. Nonetheless, it is Rodriguez’s songs that truly give the film such a distinctive character. Extremely soulful and lushly orchestrated (nobody can fault Sussex for their production quality), they speak for themselves.

While the collector’s label Light in the Attic has reissued Rodriguez’s catalog, he remains far from a household name in America. Still, Bendjelloul’s documentary could possibly deliver scores of new fans. Wisely, he includes extensive selections from Rodriguez’s body of work, which are well served by the film’s excellent sound quality. Despite the singer’s politically charged lyrics, Bendjelloul also shrewdly avoids ideological partisanship. As a result, Sugar is a very accessible and satisfying film. Highly recommended (especially for Soul listeners), it screens in Park City today (1/20), Wednesday (1/25), and Friday (1/27), as well as this Sunday (1/22) in Ogden.

NYJFF ’12: Incessant Visions

One of Jewish German architect Erich Mendelsohn’s final projects in Berlin served as an SS prison during the National Socialist era. Wisely, he did not stay long enough to get a look at their renovations. Often dubbed an “expressionist” pioneer but frequently associated with the Bauhaus movement, his architecture would be very influential in pre-war Europe and post-war Israel. Duki Dror’s Incessant Visions: Letters from an Architect (trailer here), a documentary survey of the architect’s life and work, based on Mendelsohn’s collected correspondence and his wife’s memoir, screens during the 2012 New York Film Festival.

Like many Jewish Germans, the Polish-born Mendelsohn proudly served his country in WWI, frequently sending letters and drawings home to his wife Louise. A man resolutely of the left, Mendelsohn maintained his ideological leanings even when his wife’s affair with Communist poet Ernst Toller nearly scuttled their marriage. After the reception of his Einstein Tower observatory, Mendelsohn became one of the most successful and stylistically identifiable architects in Germany. He would be closely identified with the department stores he designed for Schocken, only one of which survives today.

Recognizing the prevailing winds, the Mendelsohns left Germany while that option was still open to them. Leaving everything behind, Mendelsohn never attained the same level of prominence in exile, but still produced a striking body of work, particularly in the once and future Israel.

A friendly admirer of Frank Lloyd Wright, Mendelsohn’s work could be considered a link between the American’s distinctive modernism and the more austere International Style of Mies van der Rohe. Featuring dramatically curved prows, set-back terraces, and circular interior staircases, his work looks sleekly modern, but comfortably livable.

Dror captures the personality of the buildings quite well, often finding a hospitable host to provide a tour for viewers. It helps that Mendelsohn’s architecture is considerably more photogenic than that of his International colleagues. Incessant sufficiently covers biographical matters as well, but never obsesses over the couple’s infidelities and politics. As a result, the documentary moves along quite briskly, keeping its focus where it should be.

Indeed, Incessant is a rather smartly executed documentary. Saving the introduction of its talking heads for the final credit is a nice little touch, like a curtain call (after all, it is clear enough who they are from the context of their comments). Combining a fairly interesting story with some striking structures, lovingly shot, Incessant is a very solid architectural documentary. It screens this coming Tuesday (1/24) and Wednesday (1/25) at the Walter Reade Theater as part of the 2012 NYJFF.

Sundance ’12: About the Pink Sky

Izumi Kawashima is like the Japanese live action version of MTV’s Daria, except way more mordant. Indeed, she is down-right caustic at times, but in a sort of charming way. She will still has plenty of coming of age moments in store for her in Keiichi Kobayashi’s appealingly subversive About the Pink Sky (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

A chance discovery of a wallet loaded with 300,000 Yen precipitates a series of ethical crises for Kawashima. Contemptuous of the lazy local patrolman, the compulsive newspaper reader researches the owner, Koki Sato, learning he is the son of a corrupt (in her judgment) politician. Considering it “dirty money,” she lends 200,000 to a middle-aged fishing acquaintance about to lose his business, who mysteriously disappears (for real) shortly thereafter.

Making the mistake of treating her friends, mean girl Hasumi (or Haruko depending on her mood) Ono and the hard-working Kaoru Mayuzumi, Kawashima finds herself potentially deeply in debt when they insist on returning the wallet to Sato. Not coincidentally, the assertive Ono is quite taken Sato’s picture. It turns out, Kawashima can handle him pretty easily, but his inconsistent stories confuse the innocent cynic.

Using largely neophyte actors, Kobayashi hits the jackpot with his talented and wildly charismatic young cast. Utterly credible and completely unaffected, they all look and sound like teenagers observed surreptitiously in real life, but can deliver deadpan zingers like seasoned pros. Quiet but electric, Ai Ikeda truly commands the screen as Kawashima, conveying both her keen intelligence and age-appropriate immaturity. We can tell she is smart, but not quite as smart as she thinks, which plays out in intriguing ways throughout the film.

Likewise, Ena Koshino is completely convincing as the bossy but fragile Ono, while Reiko Fujiwara is rather endearing as Mayuzumi, the weakest drawn character of the trio. However, Sky is more than mere teen angst. Visually arresting, its black-and-white cinematography is inspired by traditional Japanese ink painting. Yet, Kawashima and her friends would be interesting regardless of Kobayashi’s stylistic choices. Though it occasionally suggests comparisons to Lynch and Jarmusch, his film is never macabre or in any way unpleasant. Indeed, Sky is gentle in its eccentricity.

Don’t call Sky quirky. It is much more than that now dreaded indie cliché. Often very funny but also quite heartfelt, Sky is a wonderfully fresh and sharply written film with an unforgettable debut lead performance. A clear highlight at Sundance this year, it is enthusiastically recommended when it screens tomorrow (1/20), Saturday (1/21), Thursday (1/26), and Friday (1/27) in Park City, as well as this Sunday (1/22) in Salt Lake.

Sundance ’12: Madrid, 1987

It is a timeless question: which has the upper hand, age and guile or youth and vitality? It usually depends on how you score. One such Spanish generational tête-à-tête takes on a whiff of the zeitgeist, coming after the various coups and political circuses of the immediate post-Franco era. One curmudgeonly columnist has seen it all and has definitely ideas about scoring during his encounter with an admiring journalism student in David Trueba’s Madrid, 1987 (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

Miguel is so smugly self-satisfied, he can hardly stand himself. To Ángela, he is a legend. A Spanish Mencken who skewered generals and politicians for years in his daily column, it was something of a coup to land an interview with him. The old soldier has outlived his battles though. Feeling like a relic, the columnist hopes to regain some youth by seducing the student. He is not exactly the smoothest of old foxes, but he gets an assist from fate when the two are inadvertently locked naked in the bathroom until Miguel’s artist friend returns to his flat. It is certainly awkward, but eventually they begin to talk about nearly everything, but particularly Spain, art, sex, and the passage of time.

Those who think of Madrid as a nude My Dinner with Andre might be right to an extent. Yet, Trueba never lets his characters or viewers get too comfortable with the situation. Never completely hot or cold to the older man, Ángela’s emotional responses crest and fall with his near monologues. He can be charming, but he can also be insensitive. He certainly is pleased with the sound of his own voice though, so he might not be one’s first choice to be locked in a bathroom with.

Yet, for those who enjoy a talky movie, Madrid is quite sharply written and delivered. Trueba really digs into some meaty themes. Granted, some topics will have far more resonance for Spanish audiences, but there are plenty of universals any viewer can relate to.

Trueba’s two leads definitely deserve credit for their fearlessness, essentially appearing nude for the bulk of the film with only a handful of strategically placed towels for cover, while chewing on some heavy lines. Guys will surely notice María Valverde is quite healthy, but José Sacristán’s splotchy body is not likely to do much for the ladies. Still, he has a rare flair for pointed dialogue. In fact, it is rather fascinating to watch them play off each other.

Deftly helmed by Trueba (brother of Fernando Trueba, whose outstanding Chico & Rita opens in New York February 10th), the more-or-less two-hander never feels stagey, despite the necessarily claustrophobic setting. Ultimately, this dichotomy of a New Spain without experience or baggage vs. an Old Spain that jealously nurses its bitterness will appeal to a self-selecting audience. It is smartly realized by its two principals, so they will be satisfied with the results. Recommended at this year’s Sundance Film Festival for those appreciate Spanish cinema or dialogue-driven films, Madrid, 1987 screens in Park City tomorrow (1/20), Saturday (1/21), Sunday (1/22), next Friday (1/27), and Saturday (1/28), as well as Tuesday (1/24) in Salt Lake.

Sundance ’12: The Debutante Hunters (short doc)

They are no Scarlett O’Haras. As long as these Southern ladies have ammunition, they will never go hungry. Challenging Southern Belle stereotypes, Maria White follows five South Carolinian women as their pursue their game in the short documentary Debutante Hunters, which screens ahead of We’re Not Broke during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Lest there be any confusion, they do not hunt debutantes. They are debutantes who hunt, quite well in fact. The term “debutante” might be overstating the matter for some of the hunters, but regardless whether they are in the social register, they shoot straight and can acquit themselves with grace in the wild. Indeed, most learned to track and shoot from their fathers, or in the case of Sara Frampton, from her mother Susan.

Unlike many current reality shows, Debutante never plays into cultural stereotypes. Although never asked directly, it seems a pretty safe assumption these hunters are firm advocates of gun owners’ rights to some extent. However, they are all very family-oriented and deeply attuned to the environment. In fact, Susan Frampton is rather eloquent comparing hunters and gardeners as fellow conservators. Never wasteful, the women also always cook what they kill, often feeding their families for weeks with delicious looking venison burgers.

At just a whisker over twelve minutes, the respectful Debutante delivers a fair amount of hunting action along with a measure of psychological insight into its subjects, but it seems to cry out for a longer treatment. Frankly, this would make a perfect series for the History Channel, perhaps following Top Shot. It boasts a telegenic, well-spoken cast shooting guns. There is a certain undeniable appeal to that. They could even do cooking segments. Highly recommended (though the same does not necessarily apply to the film it is paired with), Debutante screens this coming Sunday (1/22), Tuesday (1/24), Thursday (1/26), Friday (1/27), and Saturday (1/28) in Park City and Wednesday (1/25) in Salt Lake as part of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

BBC America’s Road Trip: Louisiana

Chef Jamie Oliver, the vocal champion of organic ingredients, gets so hammered his last night in New Orleans, he binges on junk food on the way to Cajun country. He is certainly not the first and he will not be the last. At least Oliver came to play during the Louisiana episode of Jamie’s American Road Trip (promo here), which airs this coming Tuesday on BBC America.

Sort of a punkier British alternative to Anthony Bourdain, Oliver set out to understand America through our regional cuisine. Obviously, it would have been a crime to skip New Orleans. Oliver could not ask for a better guide than Kermit Ruffins, the Louis Armstrong-influenced trumpeter and vocalist, whose band is not called the Barbeque Swingers for nothing. Well known for grilling outside his gigs, the Treme co-star takes a quickly sobered Oliver on a tour of the still deserted Lower Ninth Ward. It is a timely reminder work remains to be done. Yet disappointingly, Road Trip never features any of Ruffins’ music. Come on, help an artist sell some CDs.

Thoroughly hung-over, Oliver trenchantly observes on his way up to David Allemond’s hurricane ravaged restaurant, McGee’s Landing, the surrounding Bayou region was ravaged far worse by Gustav than New Orleans was hit by Katrina, but scrupulously avoids the loaded implications. Before cooking for Allemond’s symbolic reopening, Oliver hunts gators with grandmother and former State Representative Sydney Mae Durand, a Democrat appointed by Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal to the State Pharmacy Board, who sadly recently passed away. Much to the consternation of PETA, but to the credit of Oliver, he kills them and grills them.

Naturally, all the Creole and Cajun food looks delicious, most definitely including the alligator. It is also entertaining to watch gumbo legend Leah Chase lay down the law with hipster Oliver. Frankly though, fifty-some minutes is simply not sufficient to do New Orleans justice, let alone the entire Pelican State. Still, it is pleasant enough as far as armchair culinary tourism goes when it airs on BBC America this coming Tuesday (1/24). To support the Jazz Foundation of America in its continuing efforts to aid musicians whose homes and livelihoods were badly damaged by Katrina and subsequent hurricanes, viewers can also check out their website here.

(Photos: Freemantle)

Submitted by the ROK: The Front Line

When a South Korean officer is killed with one of his troops’ weapons, someone has to investigate. It is also a convenient way to move a trouble-making lieutenant out of the way. Indeed, war is brutal, messy, and soul-deadening in Jang Hun’s The Front Line (trailer here), Korea’s official best foreign language Oscar submission, which opens this Friday in New York.

A vocal critic of the drawn-out peace negotiating process, Kang Eun-pyo is assigned to investigate irregularities reported within the “Alligator Company” dug-in around the pedestrian looking but strategically prized Aero.K hill. In addition to the suspicious death of a despised commander, several letters from North Korean soldiers have been posted to family members in the south by someone in the company. A mole is suspected.

However, when Kang arrives, he discovers the situation is murkier than that. There has been a form of communication flowing between the two sides, but it is born of survivors’ fellowship rather than espionage. Still, he maintains suspicions regarding Kim Su-hyeok, a comrade from the early days of the war long presumed to be a POW, but evidently serving as the Company’s lieutenant.

Over the course of the film, Alligator Company will take, lose, and regain the fateful hill over and over again. It would get somewhat repetitive if not for the intense warfighting scenes, rendered by Jang in a take-no-prisoners style. Line’s sense of place is so strong, audiences will feel they know every inch of that crummy nub of a hill.

Do not get too attached to any characters in Line. Jang will call up their numbers at the most arbitrary of times, as befits the nature of war. Nonetheless, there are many strongly delineated characters. In fact, the self-medicating Captain Shin Il-yeong and the darkly brooding Lt. Kim, memorably played by Lee Je-hoon and Ko Soo respectively, clearly bear the spiritual scars of war. As the film’s only substantial female character, Kim Ok-bin also hints at a host of inner conflicts as the soon-to-be not so mysterious woman often seen foraging near the battlefield.

Like Jang’s previous film Secret Reunion (which screens February 15th in New York as part of the Korean Cultural Service's regular cinema showcase), Line not very subtly advocates for reunification, arguing divisions are merely an arbitrary matter of hills and parallels. Of course, it ignores the grim reality of the DPRK, in which famine is commonplace and the gulags are so extensive, they are the only features of the country that can be seen from space. While the soldiers could easily lose sight of it in the carnage surrounding Aero.K, there were indeed real stakes and consequences to the war. Whether it was also prosecuted competently, is an entirely fair and separate question.

Regardless, Jang masterly stages some of the most realistic, decidedly unheroic battle scenes viewers will see at the theater this year. It is a powerful, draining statement, recommended for connoisseurs of war movies, including the anti-war variety. Line opens this Friday (1/20) in New York at the AMC Empire and in the Bay Area at the AMC Cupertino.

NYJFF ’12: Lea and Darija

Lea Deutsch’s very name is a cruel historical irony. She was also known as the “Croatian Shirley Temple.” It could have been a hard title to live down later in her life, but Deutsch never had the chance. Branko Ivanda dramatizes the story of the ill-fated Jewish superstar and her German friendly rival in Lea and Darija (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 New York Jewish Film Festival.

Deutsch ruled benignly over the Children’s Realm, her father’s youth theater ensemble. A huge star in Zagreb, Pathé even filmed her for their Parisian newsreels. The only performer who could keep up with her was Darija Gasteiger, a young German expat with a ferocious stage mom. Despite the friction between their mothers, the girls become fast friends. Together, they triumph on stage as Hansel and Gretel. Shortly thereafter, Croatia follows the lead of its German ally, enacting a series of anti-Jewish laws. At this point, the Deutschs’ fortunes suffer a dramatic reversal, while Gasteiger’s star continues to rise.

Although Croatia did not exactly cover herself with glory during WWII, it seems like everyone in Zagreb wanted to save young Deutsch. Yet, for reasons the film cannot explain due to gaps in the historical record, every effort failed. At one point, a rendezvous was arranged with the partisans to take Deutsch and her mother to relative safety, but their contact never showed. They also had a slightly creepy but potentially life-saving marriage proposal from a young fascist soldier acting as their protector, which they do not outright reject, but for unknown reasons, it never comes to fruition. One thing is known for certain: Deutsch would perish in the bloody madness unleashed by the National Socialists.

L&D has far more singing and dancing than the typical Holocaust drama. As Deutsch and Gasteiger respectively, Klara Naka and Tamy Zajec are dynamic and polished performers. They also look awfully young, which is grimly historically accurate. Given the circumstances, Naka logically has the meatier role, painfully watching her sheltered world implode. She is certainly engaging, coming across a bit immature in a believably human way. Zajec in contrast, largely just dances, but she does it quite well. Yet, it is Sebastian Cavazza who really gives the film its soul as Deutsch’s reserved but deeply humane father, Stjepan.

As a conscious strategy on Ivanda’s part, L&D never shows the actual horrors of the camps. Instead, he uses symbolic interlude represent Deutsch’s final moments. It might be expressive, but it has the effect of whitewashing the reality of what happened. To be fair though, the film is never ambivalent or in any way problematic in the way it depicts the anti-Semitism of the NDH puppet regime.

L&D is not the exactly most absorbing Holocaust drama ever, but it is perfectly respectable, well produced and intentioned period production. It also offers a relatively rare (for American audiences) examination of the wartime experience of a minor ally of the Axis Powers. Indeed, the “Ž” worn by Jewish Croatians rather the notorious star is somewhat jarring, but no less ominous. A fascinating and tragic story, L&D is a solid selection for this year’s NYJFF. It screens this Sunday (1/22) and Monday (1/23) at the Walter Reade Theater.

NYJFF ’12: A Bottle in the Gaza Sea

A teenaged French-Israeli girl learns you have to have a partner in peace. A young “Palestinian” man burns out on hate. They might make some small hopeful gestures, but there will be no choruses of “Kumbaya” in Thierry Binisti’s better-than-you-expect A Bottle in the Gaza Sea (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 New York Jewish Film Festival.

Tal Levine has trouble comprehending the hatred that led to a recent terrorist bombing killing a bride and her father on her wedding day. She asks her brother Eytan serving his military service in the Gaza to send a message in a bottle asking how anyone could be so hell-bent on carnage. Naim and his bitter unemployed cousins find her note, resulting in several sexually violent emails. Yet, for some reason, Tal and Naim bug each other enough to continue trading insults. Yes, eventually, they discover they are not so different after all.

Still, Naim has trouble letting go of all his deeply ingrained grievances. Simultaneously, Levine tries to live a normal high school life, but has trouble acclimating to the constant presence of terrorist attacks. Of course, the mere act of emailing with an Israeli is dangerous for Naim, whose suspicious time spent at the internet café gets him interrogated and beaten by the local Hamas militia (right, let’s put them in charge a full-fledged state post-haste).

Adapted by Binisti and Valérie Zenatti from her young adult novel, Bottle bends over backwards to show no favoritism to Israel or the so-called “Palestinians.” Both societies we are assured are held captive by the more extreme and recalcitrant elements within them. Nevertheless, it is obvious if the “Palestinians” were to unilaterally foreswear violence, the bloodshed would be over, yet every time Israel calls a unilateral cease-fire, the terror continues unabated.

Despite its dogged moral equivalence, Bottle does not have its head completely in the clouds. Levine and Naim’s relationship is significant to them, but will not bring imminent peace. Indeed, it explicitly suggests the best thing for him is to get out of Gaza.

Frankly, Mahmoud Shalabi’s Naim looks somewhat more than just three years older than Agathe Bonitzer’s Levine, but they are more or less evenly matched in terms of maturity. Bonitzer has a keen cerebral screen presence that helps sell her idealism. Shalabi is also rather intense and even dynamic as the moody Naim, convincingly charting what is a significant arc of character development, given the toxicity of his environment.

Bottle is a small film with pretensions of greater meaning, but what it does well, depicting young people learning to think for themselves under trying circumstances, it does very well indeed. Recommended not as a teaching tool, but for two nice lead turns, Bottle screens this Sunday (1/22) and Monday (1/23) at the Walter Reade Theater as part of the 2012 NYJFF.

Dante Lam’s Viral Factor

Sure, it is more than 24 hours, but two weeks is not a lot of time for international counter-terrorism agent Jon Wan. That is about how much time he has left before the bullet lodged in his brain finishes the job. During those final days he will have to recover a killer mutant virus and reconcile some tricky family business in Dante Lam’s The Viral Factor (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York and San Francisco.

The spectacular opening action sequence shows exactly how Wan became a dead man walking. He is part of an ambushed convoy escorting a mercenary germ warfare scientist looking to cut a deal. It was not the rpg’s that got him, but a traitor in his ranks. Unfortunately, the doctor of death and his new smallpox strain were lost to their attackers. Tragically, Wan has several more personal scores to settle with Sean the turncoat (and exposition mouthpiece). However, a brief visit to his ailing mother sends Wan on a detour to Malaysia. It seems he has long lost father and brother there, scratching out a meager living through dubious means.

In fact, Wan Yang is a notorious thug for hire, sub-contracted by Sean’s crooked cops to kidnap Dr. Rachel Kan, a specialist working for the Asian CDC. When the gangster brother is also betrayed by the gang, the two Wans team up to recover the virus, rescue assorted friends and loved ones, and do their best to patch up a fraternal relationship interrupted by their parents’ quarrels decades ago.

Somewhat like last year’s Legend of the Fist, Viral feels a bit unbalanced, because its most ambitious action sequence comes right up front. Of course, that also means viewers do not have to wait for it. Wisely shunning shaky cams, Lam’s action scenes have a refreshing precision and clarity, despite the frequent explosions and whizzing projectiles, so viewers can appreciate the mayhem. Jay (The Green Hornet and True Legend) Chou and Nicolas (Shaolin and Bodyguards and Assassins) Tse have all kinds of action cred, but also handle the familial drama well enough, as Jon and Yang, respectively.

While marinated in testosterone and lacking a conventional romantic subplot, Viral also features two strong female characters. Though she appears all too briefly, Bai Bing shows considerable screen presence and action chops as Wan’s former fiancé and fellow agent, Ice. In a somewhat more traditional damsel-in-distress role, Lin Peng at least brings a sense of intelligence and resiliency to Dr. Kan. Young Crystal Lee is also quite poised and endearing as Yang’s responsible daughter, Champ.

Though a big budgeted production, Viral is appealingly old school, with a slick, glossy look reminiscent of Tony Scott’s glory days of high concept action pictures, via the lens of cinematographer Kenny Tse. Lam blows stuff up really nicely and both Chou and Tse certainly know how to handle a fight scene. Add in the cinematically exotic locales of Jordan and Kuala Lumpur and the attractive support of Bai and Lin and you have a solidly entertaining action film. Definitely recommended for genre fans, Viral opens this Friday (1/20) in New York at the AMC Empire and Village 7 as well as in San Francisco at the AMC Metreon and Cupertino, courtesy of China Lion Entertainment.

Global Lens ’12: Pegasus

Most girls love horses, but not Zineb’s patient. The young pregnant teen is deathly afraid of the “Lord of the Horse.” Her case will disturb the hospital psychiatrist on several levels throughout Mohamed Mouftakir’s Pegasus (trailer here), which screens as part of the 2012 Global Lens showcase now underway at MoMA.

Thoroughly burned out, Zineb does not want to take on such a demanding patient, but she has no choice in the matter. When not binge-drinking or sparring with her strict but smitten boss, Zineb slowly wins the girl’s trust. Her fate appears to be intertwined with the story told in flashbacks, in which the only child of a Bedouin chief contends with thorny gender roles and an initiation ritual involving a fierce black thoroughbred. It is a childhood lived in the shadow of the Lord of the Horse, a mythical figure used to inspire and cow in equal measure.

Sort of like a sinister cousin to Carroll Ballard’s The Black Stallion, Pegasus presents some of the most ominous equine imagery seen on film in quite a while. Though billed as a psychological thriller, its revelations will probably not shock anyone who has seen a fair sampling of M. Night Shyamalan, David Lynch, and Stephen King movies. However, this is more about the roots of the emotional fracture than the big twist at the end. In fact, Pegasus forthrightly depicts the misogyny faced by young Bedouin women, deliberately kept illiterate and subservient by their traditional Islamic society.

Mouftakir creates an eerie vibe, tapping into something rotten at the core of the characters’ collective psyche. He freely blurs the nature of ostensive reality, but some social actualities are inescapable. Cinematographer Xavier Castro also nicely captures the mysterious atmosphere of the exotic Bedouin environment and the coldly ominous clinic. Frankly, Pegasus looks exactly like what one might expect of a Moroccan film.

It also relies on a strong ensemble of varying ages, convincingly playing characters whose relationships to each other are often kept obscure. Saadia Ladib is quite compelling as the haunted Zineb, while Abdelatif Chaouqui develops some intriguing ambiguities as her severe boss. However, the accomplished Moroccan actor Driss Roukh really delivers a punch to the solar-plexus as the abusive Bedouin chief.

Despite sharing a visual kinship with dark fantasies, Pegasus is a tragedy more than a genre picture. Yet, it is quite unsettling and rather chilling at times. Definitely for discriminating cineastes, it is a powerful cinematic statement, highly recommended when it screens this Saturday (1/21) and next Thursday (1/26) as part of this year’s Global Lens, now underway in New York at the Museum of Modern Art.

NYJFF ’12: Daas

“Daas” was a term used to signify a utopian ideal in the teachings of Jakob Frank, a self-proclaimed Judaic messiah who built a fiercely loyal following during the eighteenth century. The vagueness of its meaning is surely intentional. While obviously a charlatan, Frank had protectors highly placed in the court of the Austrian Emperor, who perniciously complicate the investigation of a crusading imperial attorney in screenwriter-director Adrian Panek’s Daas (trailer here), which has its American premiere at the 2012 New York Jewish Film Festival.

Frankists were expected to convert to Catholicism (but not observe its tenets), participate in sexualized rituals, and seek healing through faith rather than medicine. Jakob Goliński used to be part of the flock, but the death of his daughter, despite all his fervent prayers, profoundly disillusioned him. However, his wife stayed with Frank. Not kindly disposed to apostates, the Frankists set out to ruin Goliński. Spurned by his former royal patron, the Frankist defector sends an appeal to the Imperial court, where it eventually comes to the attention of junior clerk (think prosecuting inspector) Henryk Klein.

Though ambitious, the clerk is rigidly principled. Nor has his wife’s recent incapacitating stroke dulled his commitment to justice. However, it certainly exacerbates his feeling of isolation when Frankists within the court conspire against his investigation.

The well produced Daas might be aesthetically conventional, but thematically it is a decidedly idiosyncratic costume drama. The narrative center of the film is preoccupied with the Frankist conspiracy, presented as a secret history in the Dan Brown tradition. Yet, it ultimately subverts its own subversion. Oddly, Panek seems decidedly uninterested in the mysticism and false prophesies that would seem to lie at the film’s core. Viewers who really want to understand Frankist doctrine, especially in the context of the widespread anti-Semitism faced by Continental Jewry in the 1700’s, will find it all rather obscure.

As the tortured (literally and figuratively) Goliński, Andrzej Chyra (so memorable in the Solidarity-era drama All That I Love) is a forcefully compelling everyman. Mariusz Bonaszewski is steely enough as Klein (though his fainting is less than convincing), but Olgierd Łukaszewicz’s Frank lacks an appropriately malevolent presence. He also vaguely resembles Chyra, like an older relation, which might confuse international audiences who will not necessarily recognize the two actors.

Throughout Daas, Panek tries to have his enlightenment and eat his mysticism too, deliberately muddying the waters of ostensive reality with several ambiguous scenes. Still, he packs in an eccentric hodge-podge of fascinating historical detail. There are insights to be found, including the noteworthy use of the American New World as a recurring motif. Panek makes it clear the Old World power structure was definitely on edge and it was largely our fault.

An ambitious oddity, the strangely dispassionate film has its moments, but what they add up to, viewers must tabulate for themselves. Considering nearly every Jewish character is a convert to the Frankist cult, it is more than a bit of a ringer at this year’s NYJFF. The flawed but undeniably intelligent Daas screens this Saturday (1/21) and the following Thursday (1/26) at the Walter Reade Theater.

Feature Anime: Fullmetal Alchemist—The Sacred Star of Milos

Lead into gold is small potatoes. Alchemists young and old practice a far more Faustian version of their craft in Kazuya Murata’s Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos (trailer here), the second full length feature set in the popular anime universe, which opens this Friday in New York.

For the uninitiated: A risky rite intended to resurrect their late mother cost alchemist Edward Elric an arm and leg. It cost his brother Alphonse his entire body. With Al’s soul imprinted on a Doctor Doom like suit of armor and Edward spruced up with some Skywalker prosthetics, the two lads became more judicious in their alchemy. Appointed official State Alchemists of Amestris, the Elrics have a license to snoop. For fans this is all ancient history.

Sacred’s story kicks off with a mysterious prison break. Previously unbeknownst to the authorities, the fugitive is an alchemist, who quietly served over four years of five year sentence, but then suddenly up and left. The Elrics track him to Table City, a fortress-like metropolis currently under Amestris control within the militaristic Creta state. Table City is surrounding by a deep canyon, known as “The Valley,” where Creta banished the people of Milos, the original city occupants during their brief possession of the city. While they no longer control Table City, they still oppress the descendants of Milos. That includes Julia Crichton, a young alchemist involved in the resistance, whose long lost brother evidently just broke out of an Amestris jail.

Set between the cracks of the anime series, Sacred’s world resembles a steampunk Flash Gordon. Indeed, the architecture of Table City and the network of canyons and elevated train tracks surrounding it are cool looking, particularly by series anime standards. The winged Black Bat freedom fighters are also reminiscent of Prince Vultan’s Hawkmen, giving it further retro appeal for first time viewers.

Depicting a fight for freedom and the destructive lure of absolute power, Sacred addresses some worthy themes. It also gives the prodigal brother trope a bit of a twist. Of course, since it is anime, the responsibility of saving Milos naturally falls to three thirteen year-olds, more or less. However, the often immature and rather loud fan-favorite protagonist Edward Elric must be an acquired taste.

Aside from a fairly standard standoff featuring alchemists hurling the usual energy bolts at each other, Sacred is a satisfying, largely self-contained anime feature. For fans, it reveals another hidden corner of a richly detailed world. For newcomers, it is a lot like 1930’s space serials, with steam engines. A respectable anime fix for genre fans, Sacred opens this Friday (1/20) in New York at the Cinema Village.

NYJFF ’12: My Australia

While not the worst of times, the 1960’s were a difficult period for Polish Jewry. Conditions would eventually reach intolerable levels during the Communist Party’s anti-Semitic purges in 1968. For one mother, more than her livelihood is at stake in 1960 Łódź. Concern for her sons’ moral compasses necessitates a dramatic move in Ami Drozd’s My Australia (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 New York Jewish Film Festival.

It is important to note that the Poland of today is not reflective of the Communist Party’s values. Poles are represented more than any other nationality among the names of the righteous. Post-Communism, the Polish government and leading cultural institutions have taken an active role preserving the nation’s Jewish heritage. Danny Gold and Matthew Asner’s excellent documentary 100 Voices, which also screens during the 2012 NYJFF, addresses this phenomenon directly. Unfortunately, Halina does not live in such times.

A Holocaust survivor, she has chosen to raise her two sons, teenaged Andrzej and the bratty Tadek, as Catholics unaware of their family history. She comes to rue this decision when they fall in with a gang a violent anti-Semites. Talking their way out of prison, she decides to avail herself of the only advantage Jewish Poles had under Communism. It was the only Soviet bloc country that allowed free immigration to Israel. For expediency’s sake, Tadek is told they are going to Australia, a place the young boy considers a utopia with kangaroos (hence the counterintuitive title of the Israeli-Polish co-production).

Obviously, Andrzej and Tadek are in for a rude awakening, which the younger boy handles particularly churlishly. Indeed, the former thugs soon come to understand what it is like to be cultural outsiders and religious minorities. The boys’ secret otherness manifests itself in numerous ways, but Australia focuses on the circumcision issue. Frankly, the film’s preoccupation with the young boy’s junk borders on the outright icky.

Essentially presented from Tadek’s POV, Drozd maintains Halina’s secrets, without making the young boy a clueless blockhead. Nor does the writer-director overplay the shoe’s-on-the-other-foot moral of his tale. However, his two featured principled are not particularly engaging screen presences. At least he earns points for honesty, showing all their acting out and petty resentments. A quality period production, Australia also nicely captures the look and spirit of the golden age of the kibbutz movement, in all its coed communal bathing glory.

For those who missed it during its spotty theatrical go-round, 100 Voices is highly recommended when it screens twice this Thursday (1/19). Though well intentioned and largely free of sentimentality, Australia never delivers a big payoff and has a few too many unnecessary tighty-whitie scenes. Basically recommended for nostalgic former kibbutzniks, it also screens this Thursday (1/19) as well as this Saturday (1/21) at the Walter Reade Theater, but only standby tickets are available, so good luck.

Bresson at Film Forum: Four Nights of a Dreamer

Robert Bresson arguably remains the greatest Roman Catholic auteur to forthrightly explore the themes of his faith on film. Never one to tell a simplistic morality tale, he also had a strong affinity for Russian literature. While characteristically Spartan in his approach, Bresson adapts Dostoevsky’s short story “White Nights” with a warm, colorful lyricism that makes angst strangely appealing. An artful, underappreciated minor masterwork amid his all too small filmography, Four Nights of a Dreamer screens this coming Thursday as part of the Bresson retrospective now underway in New York at Film Forum.

Jacques would appear to be representative of late 1960’s and early 1970’s French youth. Viewers are first introduced to the painter hitchhiking to the countryside for a day of frolicking in meadows, returning in the evening to soak up the ambiance of Left Bank nightlife. There he spies Marthe, a respectable young woman of modest means, on the brink of taking a suicidal plunge. Predisposed to romantic fixation, Jacques immediately falls in love. Over the following three nights, Marthe will confide her heartaches to Jacques, while he courts her with all due devotion.

A film largely heretofore experienced from copies of dubious quality and legality, Film Forum will screen a brand new, completely legit 35m print of Dreamer. It is indeed a welcome development, considering the richness of the film’s visuals. Bresson’s striking use of color motifs and cinematographer Pierre Lhomme’s luminous scenes of Paris by night are exquisitely seductive. Indeed, Bresson masterfully establishes the mood and setting through evocative ambient noise and a wide variety of diegetic music played by street performers. In a dark theater, it vividly transports viewers to nocturnal Paris, teeming with young people who have not yet run amuck.

Jacques and Marthe are truly two peas in a pod. They are both unusually earnest young people who feel their emotions deeply, though they are perhaps subject to abrupt change. Of course, were it not for Bresson’s dreamy vibe, they might be somewhat difficult to endure. Both Guillaume des Fôrets and Isabelle Weingarten emphasize their characters’ self-absorbed romanticism. Still, the former displays admirable conviction when delivering Jacques’ long obsessive monologues.

Dreamer recreates the fleeting feeling of late night in-the-moment chance encounters with subtle but potent immediacy. While that might sound like a small feat, it is actually quite powerful. Highly recommended, it screens this coming Thursday (1/19) in New York during Film Forum’s ongoing Bresson tribute.

NYJFF ’12: My Father Evgeni

Evidently, during the Stalinist era the term “Cosmopolitan” served as a euphemism for Jewish. It might sound relatively benign, but its usage was far from polite. It was an ugly fact of Soviet life Ukrainian documentarian Andrei Zagdansky’s parents were all too aware of. The letters of his state filmmaker father provide a window into the history of his family and his country in My Father Evgeni (teaser here), which screens during this year’s New York Jewish Film Festival.

Born two years after the Russian Revolution, Evgeni Zagdansky would outlive Communism as the official state ideology, only to bemoan Russia remaining under the rule of “criminal mediocrities.” The great Zagdansky family secret was his mother’s Jewish heritage, a dangerous inheritance during the time of Stalin’s Doctors’ Plot anti-Semitic show trials. It would be even worse for the Zagdansky family, considering his father’s bourgeoisie roots. Scandalously, Zagdansky’s grandfather Peter made women’s shoes in a modest storefront before the new regime confiscated his property and exiled him to the provinces.

Somehow during the war, Evgeni Zagdansky cleared his record to the extent he could work with the state system. For eighteen years, Zagdansky père served as editor-in-chief of the Kiev Popular Science Film Studio, where he earned his spurs producing propaganda pictures about the triumph of scientific materialism over superstitious notions of God.

Clearly, filmmaking is a generation-bridging bond for Evgeni and Andrei Zagdansky. Drawing on home movies and film archives, the junior Zagdansky captures the sweep of Russian and Ukrainian history as well as documenting the ebb and flow of his family’s standing. Particularly valuable are the topics of furtive family conversations in each successive era. Oftentimes, these are well known figures and events, such as the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and celebrated dissidents like Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn. However, he also includes important figures now largely faded from short-term Western memories, like dissident Ukrainian poet Vasil Stus and oppressed Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov in the honor role of discussion subjects.

Father is a bit slow and unfocused out of the blocks, but once Zagdansky gets into the rhythm of it, the film is a parade of striking images. War, famine, and propaganda campaigns all factor prominently, but sometimes the little details are the most telling, like the frequently changing street names, ever reflecting the political tenor of the times. For film programmers, it would be a fitting companion film to either Mikhail Zheleznikov’s short For Home Viewing or Sergei Loznitsa’s Revue. Recommended for Cold War students and scholars, it screens this coming Tuesday (1/17) at the Francesca Beale Theater and Wednesday (1/18) at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of the 2012 NYJFF.