Goddess: Two Stage Sisters

Only a handful of films were produced in China during the Cultural Revolution.  While cinema was generally considered another manifestation of western decadence, it is not like people had the time for them anyway while they toiled in re-education camps.  At least, one of the final films leading up to the Gang of Four’s ascendency was an ideologically charged crowd pleaser, featuring a memorable star turn from era survivor Xie Fang. Fittingly, Xie Jin’s Two Stage Sisters screens this coming Tuesday as part of the Asia Society’s continuing film series, Goddess: Chinese Women on Screen.

Life on the road with an itinerant opera company was a hard proposition in 1930’s provincial China, but it still beat the alternate for a young indentured tongyangxi widow.  Desperate to escape her in-laws, Chunhua signs on with the Yue Opera, thanks to the support of Yuehong and her father, the company’s artistic director.  Unfortunately, illness exacerbated by stress cuts short the master thespian’s life, leaving the two sworn sisters vulnerable to the schemes of the company’s oily business manager, A’Xin.

Pretending it is a great opportunity for the two stage sisters, A’Xin sells their contract to Tang, a Shanghai theater owner, who recognizes exploitable talent when he sees it.  In due course, the duo becomes a popular attraction, but they eventually grow apart.  Yuehong tries to make the best of the situation by marrying Tang, while Chunhua falls in with a revolutionary leftist clique.  While her politics cause Chunhua no end of grief in the short term, being intimately associated with Tang and his cronies turns out to be more dangerous over the long run.

Stage is a strange film, starting off much like a traditional Hollywood backstage melodrama about competing ingénues.  However, it segues into some decidedly unsubtle political propaganda.  The exploiters and the exploited are presented in no uncertain terms and we are told by Chunhua’s Marxist mentor the only remedy is revolution.  Yet, Xie Jin still found himself facing criticism for implying reconciliation can be possible between the classes.  How scandalous—and perilous.

Without question, Stage is a reflection of the times and turbulent conditions during which it was produced.  Still, it has a spark of something typical propaganda grind-em-outs lack.  Dare we call it a soul?  Indeed, the evolving relationship between Xie’s Chunhua and Cao Yindi’s Yuehong is genuinely complex and ultimately rather touching.  As Sang Shuihua, the fading diva Tang spurns, Shangguan Yunzhu also defies stereotypes, getting some of the film’s juiciest moments of tragedy.

Surprisingly for a film produced under extreme artistic restraints, Stage is rather visually stylish, boasting some impressive period sets and strikingly colored skies.  Granted, it is hard not to scoff when Chunhua pledges only to perform revolutionary operas, because let’s face it, she will not have any choice in the matter.  Yet, there is an unlikely gentleness to Two Stage Sisters that could make it a compatible pairing with Ozu’s Floating Weeds.  Recommended for China watchers and those with a fondness for sweeping morality plays, Two Stage Sisters screens this coming Wednesday (11/28) as part of the Asia Society’s wonderfully rich Goddess series.

ADIFF ’12: Toussaint Louverture

Toussaint Louverture was a freed slave, an abolitionist, and a onetime slave-owning plantation master.  He led an epic life dramatized in all its messy glory throughout Philippe Niang’s two part French miniseries, Toussaint Louverture (trailer here), which screens in its entirety as the centerpiece selection of the 2012 African Diaspora International Film Festival in New York.

Told in flashbacks, viewers know right from the start Napoleon will eventually have his fill of Louverture, consigning him to prison, where his lackeys interrogate the Haitian general for the whereabouts of an apocryphal buried treasure.  In a way, Louverture was lucky to be there.  Having watched a cruel slaver murder his father, the young Louverture would have been next had Bayon, a more humane plantation holder, not interceded (evidently, this scene involves some dramatic license, but so be it).  Recognizing the boy’s talents, Bayon somewhat reluctantly teaches Louverture to read and even grants him his freedom as a young man.  The evolving, cliché-defying relationship between the two men is one of the strongest elements of the bio-drama.

Eventually, Louverture takes arms, but again it is complicated.  Serving as an officer first for the Spanish and then the French, Louverture fought against every European power in Haiti at one time or another.  Although he is an abolitionist, Louverture strives to maintain strategic ties to the colonial landlords.  The Louverture Niang shows the audience is not a class warrior.  He wants to keep their capital in Haiti—he just doesn’t want to be considered part of it.  However, this inevitably brings conflict with hotter heads intent on score-settling.

Indeed, the tragedy of Niang’s Louverture is the way cynical white, black, and mulatto Haitians exploit racial resentment to further their power games.  It is also fascinating to see how the chaos of the French Revolution shaped events a hemisphere away.  However, given Louverture’s reputation as one of history’s great revolutionaries, many viewers will be surprised there are no battle scenes in Niang’s production, just the anticipation and consequences of armed conflict.

Something of a throwback to the epic historical minis of the 1980’s, Louverture is sweeping, melodramatic, and ennobling in a very satisfying way.  As one might expect, Jimmy Jean-Louis’s dynamic lead performance is the key.  He is suitably intense, without allowing Louverture to degenerate into a fire-breathing revolutionary stereotype.  Likewise, Philippe Caroit genuinely humanizes the French old guard as the decidedly un-Legree-ish Bayon.

A French television veteran, Niang’s tele-movie Prohibited Love (which screened at the 2010 ADIFF) also dealt with racial themes pointedly, but without wallowing in didacticism.  Louverture is even better.  In fact, it should appeal to audiences across the ideology spectrum, aside from any odd remaining Bonapartists out there.  Appealingly old fashioned, Toussaint Louverture is a well produced period drama, recommended for history buffs and Francophone audiences when it screens next Saturday and Sunday (12/1 and 12/2) as the centerpiece of this year’s ADIFF.

ADIFF ’12: T’Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness

Every six or eight months or so, one of the major jazz magazines runs a story about how difficult it is for jazz artists to come out of the closet.  The usual suspects are duly interviewed and everyone bemoans the lingering uber-machismo inherited from big band era.  Yet, many of the true pioneering women of the blues, almost all of whom have significant jazz crossover appeal, were evidently either bisexuals or lesbians.  Robert Philipson explores their largely unknown but not necessarily secret sexual identities in T’Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: Queer Blues Divas of the 1920s (trailer here), which screens as a selection of the 2012 African Diaspora International Film Festival in New York.

Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith could be bawdy yet sophisticated performers.  They were also bisexual.  As one of Philipson’s interview subjects explains, as blues singers, they were automatically marginalized by the Church-centered mainstream African American society of time.  Ironically, this was somewhat liberating in an in-for-a-penny kind of way.  As a result, Rainey and Smith carried on rather openly with lovers of all varieties, while they maintained their careers and straight public images—for the most part.  The same was true for Ethel Waters and Alberta Hunter, who were not really closeted or open lesbians, but something in between.  In contrast, patrons would have to be pretty dense to miss the significance of Gladys Bentley’s defiantly lesbian nightclub act.

If you adjust for inflation, Rainey, Smith, and Waters are among the biggest recording acts frankly ever.  It is quite extraordinary how such a significant aspect of their lives has been so widely overlooked. Yet, Philipson never overstates matters.  At one point Bizness’s narrator argues it was not their sexual identity that made Rainey and company such great artists, but it was an important part of who they were as people.

Philipson also makes some shrewd musical selections, ranging from “hmm, that’s an interesting double entendre” to “gee, how could anyone not pick up on that?”  However, viewers familiar with Waters’ long association with the Billy Graham Crusade in her later years will wonder how these two halves of her persona fit together.  Yet, Philipson never goes down this avenue.  Of course, there is only so much that can be addressed in Bizness’s thirty minute running time.

Philipson balances scandal and sensitivity quite well and features some great music.  Informative and briskly entertaining, T’Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness is highly recommended for jazz and blues fans.  It screens this coming Tuesday (11/27) as part of the Gay Theme Film Program at this year’s ADIFF.

ADIFF ’12: Hopeville

Hopeville is the sort of town that will drive you to drink.  It is probably not the place for a recovering alcoholic granted provisional custody of his estranged son, but Amos Manyoni does not have a lot of options in John Trengove’s Hopeville (trailer here), an original feature film adaptation of the popular South African miniseries, which screens as part of the 2012 African Diaspora International Film Festival in New York.

Pools play in important role in the life of Manyoni’s son Themba.  He was a champion swimmer, but his mother tragically died in an accident en route to one of his meets.  Clean and sober for over a year, Manyoni regains his parental rights, as long as he adheres to three conditions: stay away from alcohol, hold down a steady job, and provide Themba access to a pool.  Hopeville sounds perfect.  He has a gig lined up there with the municipal government and there is a pool, except not really.

Drained and in a state of disrepair, the pool now serves as a garbage dump.  The corrupt Mayor and his council cronies are planning to develop it into a booze drive through, but they are reluctant to tell Manyoni their plans forthrightly.  Instead, they do their best to secretly undermine his efforts to single-handedly fix up the pool.  Much to their frustration though, Manyoni’s work begins to inspire the depressed town.

Hopeville is the sort of film tailor-made for feel-good festival play.  There is redemption, family values, spirited old folks, and triumph over adversity.  Manyoni even develops a romance with Fikile, the mayor’s ice cream vendor mistress, but it is decidedly chaste—just an odd kiss and a bit of handholding.

Of course, you cannot spell “Hopeville” without “evil.”  That might be too strong a term, but Desmond Dube’s venal mayor is definitely a pointed portrayal of post-apartheid political opportunists.  Yet, by and large, Hopeville is about inclusion and multi-racial community.

Themba Ndada is painfully earnest but still reasonably down to earth and credible as Manyoni.  While there are all kinds of manipulation going on, viewers will still find themselves caring about his trials and tribulations.  While Dube plays the mayor like a caricature of graft, Hopeville boasts several appealingly colorful supporting turns, including Jonathan Pienaar as the Fred, the not as bad as he looks barkeep.

On one hand, Hopeville is competently produced, likable, and well-intentioned.  It is also predictable and sentimental.  Sometimes, that is all rather comforting.  Recommended for patrons in the mood for reassuringly inspirational cinema or interested in contemporary South African film, Hopeville screens this Saturday (11/24) and the following Thursday (12/6) as part of the ADIFF in New York.

The Mystical Laws: The End is Near, Meditate Quickly

An expansionist Eastern regime is dead set on war with Japan, at a time when America’s defense capacity and influence in the UN are both at all time lows.  They say it’s the near future, but it feels only too near.  Still, there may yet be hope in Isamu Imakake’s apocalyptic anime feature The Mystical Laws, created by executive producer Ryuho Okawa (founder of the controversial Japanese religious fusion movement, Happy Science) which opens this Friday in New York (trailer here).

In an authoritarian country not identified as China, a shadowy military science officer named Tathagata Killer assumed power in a coup.  Now known as the Godom Empire, his kingdom becomes the dominant super-power, thanks to the remarkable technology provided by the beautiful but mysterious industrialist Chan Leika. 

The world slept while the demonic dictator consolidated power, except Hermes Wings.  Partly a Doctors Without Borders style NGO and partly a secret society dedicated to preserving free democratic values, Hermes Wings is considered the greatest threat to the Godom overlord, so he targets them accordingly.  Through tragic circumstances, Sho Shishimaru rises to the top of Hermes Wings.  There is a reason people have confidence in him.  According to prophecies, he might be both the savior and the second coming of Buddha, which is an awful lot for any dude to live up to.

Mystical Laws could be described as a Buddhist Left Behind, with generous helpings of Christian symbolism thrown in for good measure.  It is also anime.  In truth, just about every conception of divinity is covered in Mystical, including the embodiment of the “Spirit of Japan,” who looks rather attractive.  Some of the symbolism is impossible to miss, such as the swastikas the Godom army marches under, or the crosses on which they crucify enemies of the state.  Still, if the slightly odd film represents an attempt to proselytize, it is dashed hard to tell what for.

Okay, so subtly really isn’t Mystical’s thing.  Nonetheless, the first two acts constitute a rather intriguing end-of-the-world sci-fi conspiracy thriller.  The relationship between Shishimaru and Leika is also nicely developed and the Buddhist elements give it all a distinctive flavor.  Unfortunately, the third act is largely given over to a Harry Potter-esque clash of fireballs and god-rays.

You have to take satisfaction from a Japanese film that bemoans the lack of American military bases.  Indeed, it takes notions of faith, freedom, and sacrifice profoundly seriously.  With art and characterization well within the anime industry standard, perhaps even slightly higher, it might be the most effective end-of-days religious thriller, well maybe ever (for what that’s worth).  It certainly puts to shame impassioned but clunky Evangelical films, like Jerusalem Countdown.

Mystical probably is not your Cheetos-eating fanboy’s anime.  However, anyone interested in a film arguing religion plays an essential role in a healthy society (and also implying a need for a strong military) might just get sucked in, in spite of themselves.  Recommended for fans of challenging anime, aesthetically adventurous Evangelicals, and nontraditional Buddhists (collectively a woefully underserved market), The Mystical Laws opens this Friday (11/23) in New York at the Cinema Village.

ADIFF ’12: Times Like Deese

The looming liquidation of Hostess Brands represents 185,000 jobs likely lost.  That is a whole lot of blues in the Obama era.  Ever mindful of the significance of an African American president in the White House, Marteen Schmidt & Thomas Doebele take a Lomaxian journey into deep southern blues country to find out how blue the traditional bluesmen’s blues still are in Times Like Deese: You Can’t Keep a Man Down Always (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 African Diaspora International Film Festival in New York.

Rarely is heard a discouraging word about the 44^th president, but L.C. Ulmer’s first blues is dedicated to James Meredith, the civil rights pioneer who integrated Ole Miss and later became a high profile staffer for Sen. Jesse Helms.  His lyrics end before that point, making it exactly the sort of song Schmidt and Doebele were hoping to record.  “Blind Mississippi” Morris Cummings seems the readiest to oblige with political material directly addressing current controversies.  Less topical but still on-point for the Dutch filmmakers, musicians like Josh “Razorblade” Stewart, Chester “Memphis Gold” Chandler, and Charlie Sayles often sing blues about their experiences serving in Viet Nam.

Times Like Deese (a problematically condescending attempt at approximating rural Southern vernacular) has some deeply felt music, but its economic analysis is rather shallow.  Regardless, it is nice to see the blues is alive and well as a form of musical statement.  Perhaps Stewart has the most memorable performance, with a decidedly ribald take on “Trouble in Mind,” but most of the old school bluesmen acquit themselves in style.  However, the occasional nods to hip hop are consistently underwhelming.

It might shock New Yorkers to learn B.B. King’s Blues Club in Memphis actually books blues artists, unlike the 42^nd Street club that largely presents vaguely blues-influenced rock bands.  Indeed, it is quite cool to see Cummings play a set there.  Co-director-co-editors Schmidt and Doebele make storied Blues capitals like Clarksdale appear almost completely untouched by time or economic development.  Granted, profound change might well be due there, but there also seems to be a bit of the blues collectors’ notorious poverty fetishism going on as well.

Arguably, the blues gets less financial love and support than even jazz, so any blues doc treating the music with respect earns a recommendation for fans.  TLD would have served the music better if it were not so desperate to make political points, but Schmidt and Doebele are sure to impress plenty of festival programmers that way.  Recommended for traditional blues devotees, Times Like Deese has its American premiere this Saturday (11/24) at the Columbia Teacher’s College Chapel as part of the 2012 ADIFF in New York.

At the Tel Aviv Opera: Gottfried Helnwein and the Dreaming Child

Austrian born artist Gottfried Helnwein hosted the wedding ceremony of Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Teese, presided over by Alejandro Jodorowsky.  That fact alone sets off plenty of alarm bells.  Nonetheless, Helnwein has produced an impressive body of work, largely informed by the horrors of the Holocaust.  It was the themes and sensitivities of his oeuvre that inspired the Israeli Opera to commission Helnwein’s designs for an ambitious new production.  Lisa Kirk Colburn documents the visual artist’s sometime dramatic collaborative process in Gottfried Helnwein and the Dreaming Child (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

In a telling historical irony, Helnwein was accepted by the art academy that famously rejected Hitler.  Coming of age at a time the Holocaust simply was not discussed in Austria, Helnwein discovered the truth on his own.  The revelation profoundly influenced his work both as a student and a mature artist.  Images of children in various states of vulnerability reappear over and over in his photo-realist paintings.  Not surprisingly, Helnwein had a deep affinity for Hanoch Levin’s allegorical play, The Dreaming Child and its Helnweinesque title character.

When Helnwein designs a stage production, he does not dash off a few set decorations and call it a day.  Essentially, he takes over the show, at least to judge by the evidence of Dreaming Child.  Director and co-librettist Omri Nitzan comes across like an evenhanded mediator, but some of the Opera’s creative crew clash repeatedly with the celebrity artist.  That’s just what you get when you bring in a design auteur.

Leading up to the premiere of Dreaming Child, Helnwein also mounts a new showing of his large scale public installation piece, Selektion.  Frankly, the story behind that piece (and its rather rocky debut in Cologne) might be even more documentary worthy than the Dreaming Child production.

Fortunately, Colburn’s film shows us more than Helnwein puttering about his studio.  In fact, he is an artist with something to say and he takes advantage of the opportunity to do so.  To her credit, Colburn does not leave any obvious questions unaddressed, showing her subject’s high-handedness as well as his passion and empathy.  Viewers should note, there is also a brief but humanizing post-credits stinger.  It looks like a cool shot Colburn fell in love with, but could not figure out any other place to put it.

An engaging art documentary comparable to recent releases like Bel Borba Aqui and Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters, Dreaming Child also offers additional social-historical significance by forthrightly exploring the themes of Helnwein and Levin’s work.  Recommended for Helnwein’s fans and patrons of Israeli culture, Gottfried Helnwein and the Dreaming Child opens this Friday (11/23) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

ADIFF ’12: Tango Macbeth

It is like the Bewitched version of the “Scottish Play.”  Two identifiably different actors will play the murderous general, due to complicated circumstances.  It is all part of the backstage drama brought to the fore in Nadine M. Patterson’s meta-postmodern-experimental-musical-docudrama Tango Macbeth (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 AfricanDiaspora International Film Festival in New York.

Unconventional in many ways, this Macbeth will be choreographed.  Yes, there will be tango, as well as some vaguely Fosse-esque steps, but that is the least of Patterson’s gamesmanship.  While the play itself is shot in stylized music video-style black-and-white, the ostensive behind-the-scenes rehearsal will be filmed in Wiseman-like color.  There will be nearly as much fireworks going on amidst the cast and crew as in the presumptive play within the film.

Hopefully, it is all a bit of meta-meta fun, or else Macbeth #1 will be in for some indigestion when he finally screens Tango.  Yet, the Shakespeare is still in there and the cast is often quite good bringing out the flavor and dynamics of Shakespeare’s most perilous tragedy.  In fact, Brian Anthony Wilson is absolutely fantastic as Macduff (and himself as Macduff), blowing the doors off the Thane of Fife’s big scenes.  Based on his work in Tango, most viewers will probably be up for watching him tackle the title role in a more traditional production.

Alexandra Bailey also has some powerful scenes as Lady Macbeth, apparently developing some nice chemistry with both Macbeths.  If Carlo Campbell, Macbeth #1, always appears in character[s], than it is a really fearless performance.  Ironically though, Eric Suter’s best scene comes not as Macbeth #2, but when he was still a swing player, appearing as Lady Macbeth’s assassin.

It might seem hypocritical to criticize Anna Karenina for Joe Wright’s stylistic excesses, but praise Patterson’s explicitly avant-garde approach.  Yet, they are coming from two very different places.  While Wright is just tossing in a distracting bit of hipster pretension, Patterson is fundamentally deconstructing both Shakespeare and traditional notions of stage drama.

The talented ensemble makes quite a mark in Tango, yet it is likely to disappoint anyone hoping to see actors in classical costume, dancing about with roses in their teeth (perhaps bitterly so).  However, for the aesthetically adventurous it is a fascinating production.  Recommended for frequent patrons of the Anthology Film Archives, it screens Saturday (11/24) and Sunday (11/25) as part of this year’s ADIFF.

Goddess: Daybreak

Like Ruan Lingyu, Li Lili was a true diva of silent Chinese cinema.  If you think former diva status would not be particularly convenient during the Cultural Revolution, your suspicions are correct. Having upstaged Madame Mao in the 1930’s hardly helped either.  Yet, there should have been no complaints with the ideological content of Sun Yu’s Daybreak, which screens this Tuesday as part of the Asia Society’s current film series, Goddess: Chinese Women on Screen.

Ling Ling is a fresh faced country girl, who comes to Shanghai with her man in search of employment.  Briefly, things look promising when they find work at a yarn factory.  Unfortunately, trouble with the law forces him to ship out as a merchant seaman, leaving her vulnerable to the city’s predatory elements.

First, Ling Ling is drugged and raped by the playboy factory owner.  Later, when wondering lost through the city, she is sold into a brothel by an ostensive protector.  It might be a bad business, but Ling Ling adapts to it, reasserting command of her illicit destiny as a high-priced prostitute, but with both a heart of gold and a raised political consciousness.  Dispensing aid to her struggling neighbors while conspiring with subversive elements, Ling Ling truly becomes a new woman.

Of course, it ends tragically.  All the best propaganda does.  Although Daybreak is not as stylishly realized as Wu Yonggang’s The Goddess, the revolutionary hooker is certainly a much more attractive radicalizing agent than the clenched-fist factory worker.  The camera absolutely loves her, and just like Ruan, she knew how to milk a death scene for all its worth.

It is not hard to see why Li was such a Diva of the silent era (in fact, she was once part of a theatrical tandem known as the Four Divas).  Her Ling Ling is cute, innocent, and eventually saucy, but nobody’s dummy.  Despite all the wrongs done to Ling Ling, she is never a mere victim in Daybreak, which is a major reason why it remains such a notable work.

A product of its time, Daybreak is an interesting but imperfect film, whereas Li’s story is absolutely fascinating.  China’s last living silent film star, she led an epic life ways both great and terrifying.  Indeed, it raises a great historical “what if” question.  In the way we wonder about Hitler’s artistic frustrations, perhaps if Lan Ping (a.k.a. Jiang Qing) had been a better actress, the suffering of millions might have been avoided.  Recommended in its own right mostly for Li Lili’s luminous presence, Daybreak screens this Tuesday night (11/20) at the Asia Society, as their can’t miss Goddess series continues.

Submitted by Finland: Purge

Finland and the Soviet Union shared some complicated history over the last hundred years or so.  They fought at least two wars against each other, give or take, and then brought the world the term “Findlandization.”  In contrast, Estonia and the U.S.S.R.’s relations were more straight-forward.  The latter forcibly dominated the former and the Baltic Republic did not like it one little bit.  Although it tells an Estonian story, Sofi Oksanen’s novel has had great resonance for Finnish readers.  In fact, former East Carolina University basketball recruit Antti J. Jokinen’s adaptation of Oksanen’s international bestseller Purge has been selected by Finland as their official foreign language Academy Award submission (trailer here).

One fateful night, Zara, a sex slave fleeing her Russian mobster captors, seeks refuge at Aliide’s remote farm house.  The old woman is instantly suspicious, but she takes in the exploited woman nonetheless.  As it happens, Zara did not make her way there by accident.  Their tragic histories are intertwined, as the audience learns in a series of flashbacks.

Aliide was always a little strange.  While she fell head over heels for the dashing Hans Pekk, it is her sister Ingel who turns his head.  Yet, Aliide is more than willing to help Ingel shelter her former freedom fighter brother-in-law from the Soviet authorities.  Frankly, she kind of likes knowing exactly where he is at all times.  Decades later, that secret hiding space under the floor boards will come in handy again.

In a case of ironic symmetry, both women will suffer tremendously at the hands of Russians.  Even though Aliide eventually marries a true believer, she still cannot avoid seeing the inside of a Communist torture chamber.  Despite all the humiliations Zara endures as an unwilling prostitute, Aliide’s torments are probably even worse.  As a result, Purge is often a difficult film to watch, but it is never exploitative or moral ambiguous in the ways its presents such horrors.  Whether motivated by ideology or sadism, the reality of rape and assault remain the same.

Laura Birn gives an incredible performance as the mid Twentieth Century Aliide.  A twitchy young woman in an apparent state of arrested development, she is not the sort of victim figure viewers can easily embrace.  In truth, she has a bit of a Machiavellian streak, yet she still experiences more pain and degradation than anyone could possibly deserve.

Jokinen is not afraid to confront his audience with all manner atrocities.  Nonetheless, he also shows a deft touch with the quiet moments occasionally stolen by the Estonian lovers.  He clearly differentiates each time period without resorting to distracting visual gimmicks, balancing each narrative relatively evenhandedly.

Purge might be a dark horse contender, but Jokinen has Hollywood ties, having directed Hillary Swank-Kadyrov and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in The Resident, so who knows?  It is certainly a quality period production, which often counts for something with Academy voters.  It might be a bit too honest for their tastes though.  Regardless, Purge would be an enormously worthy nominee, definitely recommended for patrons who have a chance to catch it on the festival circuit.

Submitted by Poland: 80 Million

They called it a heist, but it was really withdrawal.  They were union dues in an account the Solidarity representatives were the rightful signatories for.  Yet not surprisingly, the Communist regime preferred to keep all funds under their control, so they could be immediately frozen should the need arise.  On the eve of martial law, a handful of workers-turned-activists anticipate a looming need for that money in Waldemar Krzystek’s factually based drama 80 Million (trailer here), chosen by Poland as their official submission for this year’s foreign language Academy Award, which screens as the closing night selection of the Skalny Center’s 2012 Polish Film Festival at Rochester University.

Winter 1981 will be a cold one.  Despite promises made, the Communists are not about to let Solidarity operate freely.  So far, they have waged a war of small ball provocation, desecrating Soviet war graves and the like in the guise of Solidarity activists.  However, when four real Solidarity supporters bust them in the act, in front of cameras, the stakes precipitously rise.

Perhaps too conveniently, there is a source offering government information to the Lower Silesia branch, but the dissident workers are not convinced they can trust him.  Still, his information always pans out.  Essentially warning them to expect a long siege, the quartet convinces each other high liquidity is in order.  Of course, it is never a good time to plan a major operation in a police state.  Staszek’s very pregnant wife is an obvious vulnerability.  Her high-ranking father can only protect her within limits.  While Maks does not have the same concerns when he takes up with Natalia, a French journalist of Polish heritage, she is something of a distraction.

How refreshing is it to see a film that uses the word “Commie” as a term of denigration.  It is equally appealing to see members of the Catholic Church playing a heroic role in the struggle to attain freedom and dignity for the people.  In many sad ways, 80 Million is actually a timely film, reminding viewers of the consequences of a media too closely aligned with the state.  Still, it is largely optimistic in tone, more intent on celebrating Solidarity’s triumphs than mourning those lost during the dark days of Communistic oppression.

Indeed, there is no nostalgia for the old regime.  At various times viewers see inside Communist torture chambers and eavesdrop on their ruthless scheming.  Piotr Głowacki is particularly detestable as the serpentine SB Captain Sobczak. Not to be spoilery, but the manner in which he gets his is quite satisfying.

Frankly, Krzystek’s severe docudrama style limits the time for character develop, but he sure can stage a massive protest.  The tenor of the times certainly comes through loud and clear.  Still, there are some memorable performances, most notably from Głowacki and Mariusz Benoit as “Kmicic,” the Deep Throat figure.  Emilia Komarnicka also turns up the heat in a variety of notable ways as Natalia.  Of our main co-conspirators, Wojciech Salarz’s worried father-to-be makes the strongest impression.  Unfortunately, Olga Frycz, whose earnest presence and youthful good looks helped make Jacek Borcuch’s All that I Love so special is almost criminally under-employed as Marta, an ex-girlfriend sheltering one of the fugitives.

Although Krzystek’s approach can be distancing now and then, he gives audiences more than enough to keep them emotionally invested in the not-really caper.  Marek Warszewski’s design team convincingly recreates Jaruzelski era Poland.  Again, that is nothing to be nostalgic for.  New Yorkers take note—this includes gas rationing lines.  A well crafted recreation of a fascinating historical episode, 80 Million would be a worthy Oscar nominee.  Recommended with a good deal of enthusiasm, it screens this coming Monday (11/19) as the closing night film of the Polish Film Festival at Rochester, which will also show Wojtek Smarzowski’s excellent Rose on Saturday (11/17).

MOMI Korean Cinema Showcase: Choked

With so many folks on the make, somebody ought to be making money, yet everybody in Kwon Youn-ho’s world keeps falling further and further behind.  Life is grim but the performances are first rate in Kim Joong-hyun’s Choked (trailer here), which screens this Sunday as part of the Museum of the Moving Image’s Korean Cinema Showcase.

Kwon has issues with his mother Hee-su.  Calling her nutritional supplement business a pyramid scheme would do a disservice to pyramid schemes.  She simply absconded with her investors’ money, leaving her son to face the music.  Unfortunately, he inherited none of her smooth talker charm.  Still hoping to start a new life with his materialistic fiancée Se-kyung, Kwon must dodge debt collecting thugs after hours, while doing his own thuggery during the day as an employee of a real estate developer determined to clear the tenants from a block they have their sights on.

What can you say about a film whose most sympathetic character is a psycho-stalker.  Her name Seo-hee and she is truly pitiable.  While she entrusted Kwon’s mother with money she could not spare, it is really the emotional betrayal that torments her.  Watching her make new mistakes that compound old ones is an excruciatingly true to life viewing experience.

Indeed, Park Se-jin gives a bravura performance, tapping into all kinds of emotional anguish and vulnerability, while keeping Seo-hee’s manifest shortcomings relentlessly front-and-center.  In contrast, Um Tae-goo’s painfully reserved work as Kwon sneaks up on viewers after the fact.  Coming in somewhere in the middle, Kil Hae-yeon brings a subtle twitchiness to Mother Hee-su that is just right in context.

International critics have fallen all over themselves to praise Choked as a commentary on the financial crisis and the various resulting austerity programs, but there is something deeper afoot here than recessionary woes (though granted, those are not helping anyone).  Even with bulging bank accounts the principle characters would still have trouble maintaining honest and healthy relationships, especially those involving intimacy.

Lee Jin-keun’s HD cinematography is not out to razzle dazzle, but it reflects a sense of the metaphorical twilight in which the characters perpetually operate.  A grim but powerful work of cinematic naturalism, Choked is recommended for the impact of its three very different yet equally effective leads when it screens this Sunday (11/18) at MOMI in Astoria, Queens.

La Rafle: France, 1942

Conveniently, the infamous Winter Velodrome no longer stands in Paris.  Yet, perversely, cycling races were still held in the venue as late as 1958, well after it served as a temporary holding facility for 13,000 Jewish Parisians, forcibly “rounded up” at the request of the occupying National Socialists.  It was an episode of history France preferred to forget, since it was the Vichy authorities doing the rounding-up.  While the actual event went scrupulously undocumented, Rose Bosch dramatizes the tragic events in La Rafle (The Round Up), which opens this Friday in New York (trailer here).

The fatality rate of those imprisoned in the Velodrome was nearly one hundred percent.  Viewers will have no illusions where the captives are ultimately headed, but those in the Velodrome held out hope their next accommodations would be better.  We come to meet many of the roughly detained, including children like Joseph Weismann and his friends, the Zygler brothers.  While they used to run free through the streets of Montmartre, the boys suddenly find themselves enduring the heat and inadequate water and sanitation of the Velodrome.  Fellow prisoner Dr. David Sheinbaum is the sole extent of the medical treatment available until the arrival of solitary Protestant charity nurse Annette Monod.

Based on years of research, Bosch takes pains to show both the good and bad sides of the French national character.  While the Weismann’s anti-Semitic neighbors cheer their deportation, the Parisian fire department reacts with shock and empathy, struggling to improve conditions in the Velodrome, against the gendarmerie’s express wishes.

Those who have seen Sarah’s Key or read the novel on which it is based will be familiar with the 1942 Roundup.  Designer Olivier Raoux’s recreated Velodrome has the look and feel of a real life, slightly past its prime building, collapsing under the weight of its involuntary guests.  Bosch’s scenes within its confines have a visceral you-are-there impact.  However, the intermittent depictions of Hitler and the craven Petain lack the same power, only serving as a wan indictment of their banal evil.

In a bit of a surprise, it is Jean Reno who masterfully serves as the film’s moral center, portraying Dr. Sheinbaum with a profound spirit of world weary humanity.  The impossible romantic tension that develops between him and Mélanie Laurent’s Monod is also deeply touching.  That sense of “if only thing were different” palpably hangs in the air between them as they labor to ease the suffering around them as best they can.

Post-Schindler’s List, there have been a number of well-meaning dramas that have addressed the Holocaust, with varying degrees of success.  La Rafle ranks as one of the more accomplished due to its technical merit and Reno’s assured anchoring performance.  Recommended for connoisseurs of French cinema and WWII films, it opens this Friday (11/16) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

Shortlisted Short Doc: Paraiso

Maybe this really is the sort of work Americans just won’t do.  Every day immigrant window washers make some of Chicago’s tallest skyscrapers sparkle.  It is a well paid gig, but one with obvious risks.  Three such workers ruminate on their job and wider issues of mortality in Nadav Kurtz’s Paraíso (trailer here), which is one of eight films to make the Academy’s short documentary shortlist.

Paraíso is sure to have its champions amongst those who see it as a handy tool to use to advance this or that piece of immigration legislation.  However, none of Kurtz’s subjects ever mentions the Dream Act.  In fact, they have no real complaints about America, nor do they explicitly establish their legal employment status.  Their concerns, as recorded by the Israeli-born Kurtz, are deeper, more metaphysical.  It is questions like the existence of god and life-after-death that preoccupy them, especially as they are about to dangle themselves hundreds of feet in the air.

Whether or not their philosophizing engages the viewer, Paraíso can be enjoyed on a level similar to one of the History Channel’s extreme jobs reality shows.  The aerial cinematography, credited to Kurtz, Christopher Markos, Jay Patton, and Andrew Wehde, is pretty spectacular.  Frankly, it is worth reviewing just to have an excuse to post some of the cool stills.

Technically, Paraíso is quite an achievement, but it is unlikely to radically shift anyone’s perspective on life or the hereafter.  Still, it certainly suggests Kurtz may well be a filmmaker worth keeping an eye on, especially considering he co-edited Dan Pritzker’s hopefully forthcoming Bolden!, the companion film to his under-appreciated silent jazz bio-pic Louis!

The short documentary category often produces underwhelming slates of nominees, so the Academy could probably do far worse than Paraíso.  At least it is easily watchable, clocking in with a ten minute running time.  Cool looking but hardly revelatory, Paraíso should have plenty of festival life ahead of it.

First Winter: It’s the End of the World, but Hippies Still Smell

When the end of the world comes, Manhattan will be the first to go.  That is truly a blessing.  In contrast, it would be a fate worse than death to be trapped with the yoga hippies communing upstate in Benjamin Dickinson’s slightly apocalyptic First Winter (trailer here), which opens in Williamsburg (of course it does) this Friday.

There is only one reason Paul’s yoga groupies should not be considered a cult.  It would simply imply a degree of organization they lack.  Basically, he leads yoga sessions in between getting stoned and sleeping with the women of his choice, until the world ends.  Caught up in their own little universe, the yoga minions sort of miss the big bang when it happens.  They just see a bit of smoke and wonder what happened to their friends who never came back from town.

They try to carry on as usual, but sexual issues threaten to spoil the scene.  For some reason, Paul dumps the cute (particularly for this group) Jen in favor of Marie, a comparatively drab old flame, who reappeared after the apocalypse.  Oh, and their supplies are dwindling.  Will the hippies be able to become self-sufficient? They live on a farm, after all.  Or will they die a cold, hungry death?

Frankly, it is real hard to care and why should we?  Nobody ever seems to be too broken up about the unfathomable human tragedy that presumably happened around them.  You might think the prospect of no more Phish tours or Deepak Chopra books would get them down, but everyone is more concerned about who is in Paul’s bed, including the jealous but drug addled Matt.

Why anyone would be attracted to the pasty white, scraggly haired bargain basement guru remains a mystery throughout the film.  It certainly cannot be explained by his self-absorbed personality.  Unfortunately, the narrative does not offer much snap to distract viewers.  In fact, the big climax comes and goes without viewers even realizing it at the time.  Ordinarily, this would be a major dramatic shortcoming, but for First Winter, an abrupt ending is a happy surprise.

In all truth, the most interesting thing about First Winter is the controversy surrounding a deer the production reportedly shot out of season for the big hunting scene, without a proper license.  Featuring shallow characters and a listless pace, First Winter is a hard, unpleasant slog.  Jennifer Kim and Haruka Hashimoto bring some charisma to their namesakes, but it is arguably out of place amongst the rest of the dull cast of characters. 

A failure on multiple levels, First Winter makes the presentable but not classic The Road seem like a masterpiece in retrospect.  Both films are vague about the nature of “the end,” but in the case of John Hillcoat’s adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel, it works in context.  In contrast, the Brooklyn hipster’s lack of curiosity is a conspicuous strain on viewer credibility.  Not recommended in any way, shape, or form, First Winter begins a six day run at Videology this Friday (11/16) in the County of Kings.

Keira Knightley as Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina won the game of Russian birth roulette.  Born into privilege, she initially enjoyed all the benefits of her well structured life, but lost everything due to a reckless love affair.  Such was the price of offending Russian society at a time when it was trying to act French.  Notions of  social role-playing have now inspired the hyper-stylization of Joe Wright’s take on Tolstoy’s classic Anna Karenina (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Everyone is playing their socially expected role you see, so why not set Anna Karenina in a creaky old theater?  From time to time, Wright will break away from the stagey confines, particularly when checking in on Levin, the rustic landowner and long suffering friend of Karenina’s ne’er do well brother.  Of course, there are also trains, like the one taking the title character to Moscow, where she hopes to provide emergency marriage counseling for said brother and his justly aggrieved wife Dolly.  It is sort of pleasant trip spent in the company of the Countess Vronsky, whose cavalry officer son meets her at the station.

The mutual attraction between Karenina and Vronsky are immediately evident, only intensifying at an eventful Moscow society ball.  Having thrown over the plodding Levin in hopes of landing Vronsky, Dolly’s younger sister Kitty is deeply hurt when the officer ignores her in favor of the married Karenina.  Spooked by the prospect of scandal, she hastens back to St. Petersburg and her husband Karenin, a progressive but culturally traditional government official.  As everyone should know, Vronsky follows her—and so does scandal.

There have been enough movie and television treatments to support a lengthy compare and contrast session.  In many ways, Tom Stoppard’s adaptation is quite distinctive, establishing a strong contrast between country simplicity and urban hypocrisy, while finally giving Levin his due.  However, Wright’s stylistic conceit is far too distracting, taking viewers out of the story time and time again.  The theatrical device is not even particularly original, having been used to greater effect in Manoel de Oliveira’s Satin Slipper, Louis Malle's Vanya on 42nd Street, and several Shakespearean films.  Frankly, it is a rather baffling aesthetic choice, considering the whole appeal of a novel like Anna Karenina is the big messy sweeping grandeur of it all.

Nonetheless, there are several outstanding performances in Wright’s film, especially from his lead, Keira Knightley.  It is hard to think of anyone else with the same brittle beauty and aristocratic bearing, who can convey burning self-destructive passion and guilt-ridden anguish with comparable power.  Yet, the real surprise of Wright’s Karenina is Jude Law’s performance as Karenin, the wronged husband.  Even though he looks considerably younger than the Karenin described in the source novel (about twenty years older than his wife), Law creates a deeply sympathetic portrait of a fundamentally decent man, trying to act accordingly, despite the painful embarrassment of the circumstances.

In contrast, the casting of Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Vronsky is a head-scratcher.  In truth, Wright lets his Vronsky off rather easily.  In previous versions, Vronsky is something of a shallow cad, but here he is more or less a dumb kid who fell in love too young, but that creates a host of dramatic problems.  Essentially, Anna Karenina is supposed to fall for Vronsky, because he is manlier than her husband, not vice versa.  What she sees in this Vronsky is hard to fathom.  I got stuff in the fridge that looks older than Taylor-Johnson and I’m not ready to throw it out yet.

Granted, Wright’s visual approach lends itself to some dramatic transition shots, but it never lets the film settle in and put down roots.  Watching it makes one wonder what the director had in mind.  Perversely, it is like Wright elicited award caliber performances from Knightley and Law, but then deliberately undermined them the postmodern theatricality and a maddening case of miscasting.  There is room for some experimentation when tackling Tolstoy, but it should serve the interests of the picture.  For instance, Sergei Solovyev’s relatively recent Russian production of Anna Karenina was considerably more expressionistic than traditional costume dramas, while staying true to the novel’s tone and story. 

It is a shame Wright had to be so showy, because there is quite a bit of good stuff in Stoppard’s screenplay and the mostly impressive work from the accomplished ensemble cast.  Recommended mostly for Knightley and Law’s diehard fans, Wright’s frustrating Anna Karenina opens this Friday (11/16) in New York at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square.

DOC NYC ’12: My Amityville Horror

Long Island used to be considered a great place to settle down and raise a family. That was before Buttafuoco and Frankenstorm.  However, the thing that really freaked people out was the incident known as The Amityville Horror in a raft of books and movies.  Now a grown man, the eldest son of the terrified Lutz family finally breaks his silence on their twenty-eight days spent at the notorious Ocean Avenue address in Eric Walter’s My Amityville Horror (trailer here), which screened last night at this year’s DOC NYC, closely following word it had been acquired by IFC Midnight.

Daniel Lutz is a heck of an interview subject.  Not afraid of a little salty language, he sounds a lot like a typical Long Island knucklehead, until you hear his story.  Although there is a fair amount of skepticism expressed by others in the film, no one doubts his sincerity.  Clearly, he never enjoyed being known as the kid from The Amityville Horror.  Listening to him unburden himself in what appear to be staged counseling sessions, audiences might surmise the subsequent notoriety was as traumatic for him as whatever might have happened in the house itself.  The same may well be true for the circumstances surrounding his mother’s marriage to his stepfather, George Lutz, whose name he was forced to adopt.

New Yorkers will be especially interested to learn the extent to which local channel five (now Fox 5) owned the Amityville story before Jay Anson’s “true story” novel and the release of the films.  Marvin Scott (now with the City’s CW affiliate) even helped introduce the film and appears at length, along with his former colleague, Laura DiDio.  Having spent a mostly uneventful night there, Scott remains largely incredulous, whereas DiDio sounds like she gives it all considerably more credence.

Scoring a series of interviews with Lutz was certainly a coup, but it is precisely that tension between belief and skepticism that really distinguishes Walter’s film from a History Channel special or DVD extra.  Yet, the documentary still has plenty of creepy moments (particularly with regards to George Lutz and his reported background with the occult), despite Walter’s level headed approach.  Many viewers will likely conclude there was definitely something evil in that house, but whether or not it was supernatural is an open question.

Even for us doubting materialists, My Amityville is fascinating stuff, featuring a truly compelling central character in Daniel Lutz.  An intriguing nonfictional twist on the horror genre, it would make a strange but fitting double feature with either Rodney Ascher’s Room 237 (as a one-two examination of the cultural impact of well known horror movies) or Joshua Zeman & Barbara Brancaccio’s Cropsey (as the Long Island-Staten Island axis of real life horror stories).  Eerie but entertaining and always open-minded, My Amityville Horror is definitely a satisfying doc for genre fans.  Recommended accordingly, it should be coming back to the IFC Center relatively soon, courtesy of IFC Midnight.

SLIFF ’12: Zarafa

It was an unusual instrument of statecraft and a case of outside-the-box thinking from Egyptian Pasha Muhammad Ali, a relative modernist in his time.  To curry favor with French King Charles X, he sent the rare gift of a young giraffe.  Getting a giraffe across the Mediterranean was a bit of trick it the early Nineteenth Century.  That journey inspired Rémi Bezançon & Jean-Christophe Lie’s defiantly 2D Zarafa (trailer here), one of twenty-one animated features submitted for Oscar consideration, which screens this Sunday as part of the 2012 St. Louis International Film Festival.

Le Vieux Sage has gathered the village children to tell them the story of their ancestor, Maki.  It is a tale that does not start auspiciously.  Abducted by French slave traders as a young boy, Maki escapes with the help of a herd of giraffes.  Nearly recaptured by the head slaver Moreno, the boy is saved by the mysterious Bedouin Hassan’s timely intervention, but unfortunately not before the cruel Frenchman murders the mother of a two year old giraffe.  Pledging to look after Zarafa, as she will be dubbed, just as the giraffes looked after him, Maki will dog Hassan all the way to France, who in turn will attempt to fulfill his duties to the Pasha.

You have to love the 2D.  Bezançon and Lie have a lush visual sense, clearly inspired by their Arabian and Mediterranean locales, not unlike some of Michel Ocelot’s films, but with a more muted color palate.  Their vistas and cityscapes are particularly lovely, but their animals are not as expressive as viewers might expect.  There is a bit of anthropomorphism, but it is rather restrained.  For Francophone audiences, the voiceover cast is also quite impressive, including Simon Abkarian (fantastic in The Wedding Song) as Hassan and Ronit Elkabetz (genuinely smoldering in the Israeli film The Band’s Visit) as the sultry Greek pirate Bouboulina.

Based on an intriguing historical footnote, Zarafa largely avoids the sins of sentimentality and manipulation that often mark animation produced expressly for children.  Still, there is an unmistakable political correctness, particularly in the film’s determination to ignore the demographic realities of the African slave trade, both then and now.  Nonetheless, most parents will welcome the underlying principles of the film, such as the value of freedom and the importance of keeping one’s word.

Slightly sad in a traditional Disney way, Zarafa is old fashioned animation in several appealing ways.  One of the more artistically rendered animated features to throw its hat in the Oscar ring, Zarafa would be a worthier nominee than many of the better known contenders.  Reasonably engaging for parents as well as children, it should be a crowd pleaser when it screens this Sunday (11/11), for free, courtesy of this year’s SLIFF.