NYTFF: Love and Honor

The modernization of Turkey is generally considered a positive development, but there is a dark-side to such social progress. The rise of organized crime would be one such unwelcomed innovation, as would the disrespectful nihilism of the next generation of criminal entrepreneurs. It is such forces that come to the fore in the very contemporary drama Love and Honor (Kabadayi, trailer here), screening Tuesday at the New York Turkish Film Festival.

Do not call Ali Osman a Mafioso. He was a gangster who ran his operations on his own terms, without the patronage of the mob or corrupt officials. A true man of respect, at the height of his power, what he said went. Eventually, he did his time and lived to tell his stories. However, he will not remember them much longer, as his mind is giving way to the ravages of age.

The widower Osman’s twilight years are quiet, spent drinking with old comrades or managing the charity soup days at his club. His best friend Haco can see he is slipping, but Osman is essentially resigned to his fate, until his past intervenes. On her deathbed, his lost love reveals he fathered her estranged son Murat before serving his prison sentence. At first, the annoyingly petulant Murat is less than overjoyed to meet his real father. However, when Devran, an unstable gangster obsessed with his girlfriend Karaca, shoots up their hipster club murdering the owner, Murat finds himself in need of Ali Osman’s protection.

Devran is a rabid animal, fraying from the stress of his unreciprocated passion and the blackmail of an unscrupulous racketeering cop. When he snaps, it gets ugly, but as an ostensible informer, he is protected from arrest. Finally in Osman, he encounters a foe who does not respond to threats or intimidation, because the former boss’s own body is fatally betraying him.

Şener Şen gives a richly nuanced performance as Osman. He is Keyser Söze with a social conscience, but Şen’s portrayal is completely humane and believable. Director Ömer Vargi shows a deft touch with much of the drama, playing down business like the Polaroids Osman takes in anticipation of his impending memory failure, rather than making them overwrought “acting” moments. As Osman, it is Şen’s film, but he has effective support from the Turkish character actors playing his old cronies, particularly Rana Cabbar as Haco. Still, this is not a Turkish version of Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster winking their way through Tough Guys. The stakes are high, but life is cheap in Honor, with the tragedy quickly compounding.

Ali Osman is one of the great screen characters of recent years. We never learn precisely why he carries such terrible guilt with him, but we come to understand him perfectly. In a powerful screen performance Şen dwarfs the rest of the cast, elevating the crime drama to the level of high tragedy. Like Bliss, Honor is quite an effective representative of contemporary Turkish cinema. It screens at the Anthology Film Archives on Tuesday.

Sounding Salsa

Sounding Salsa: Performing Latin Music in New York City
By Christopher Washburne
Temple University Press

Although AMG categorizes Christopher Washburne as a jazz musician and he is known for leading the Latin jazz band Syotos, the trombonist and Columbia University academic has worked as a sideman in New York salsa bands for many years. As a result, Washburne has a unique part-insider, part-outsider vantage point on the music, which informs his new scholarly analysis of the music, Sounding Salsa.

In truth, Sounding has elements of two separate books for very different audiences. Much of Washburne’s sociological analysis of Salsa is preoccupied with issues of racial authenticity and exclusion. Most familiar with the Fania glory days will probably have some idea of how salsa expresses Hispanic empowerment in general, and Puerto Rican pride in particular. Washburne dedicates much of his time to such discussions, which quickly become repetitive.

However, Washburne deserves credit for his unvarnished description of the business practices and working conditions salsa musicians face. For instance, most jazz and classical musicians in New York are eligible to join Local 802 of the musicians’ union, but for some reason salseros are excluded. Washburne includes a transcript of a phone conversation with a union rep threatening to picket an avant-garde classical session he was to perform on. Washburne countered that they should have been picketing at his last non-union studio session instead, eliciting the following exchange:

“UNION REP: Who was the producer and what label was it for?
CW: Ralph Mercado, RMM and Sony Records. Isn’t Sony a union signatory company?
UNION REP: Oh, well then. Sony does have a recording contract with us, but . . . ah . . . Ralph Mercado is insulated. [ellipsis in Washburne]
CW: Insulated. What is that supposed to mean?
UNION REP: He’s insulated. I’m not personally aware of the details of our relationship with him.” (p. 99)

While links between salsa labels and the Columbian drug trade might be well known among musicians, I have not read it in print before. Sounding might even be newsworthy when Washburne describes business associations between Fania Records founder Larry Masucci, RMM label head Ralph Mercado, and Columbian drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). Washburne writes:

“Both men established relationships with DTOs in order to arrange these and subsequent tours [of Columbia]. Moreover, this symbiotic relationship between the salsa business and DTOs was not confined within Columbia’s borders, but extended well beyond into U.S. cities. Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980, numerous salsa venues opened in New York City that served as money laundering fronts.” (p. 138)

Washburne is most revealing when writing about his personal experiences as an eye-witness to violence when playing with salsa bands. He opens the book with a particularly dramatic story of a rehearsal interrupted by a would-be hitman and relates several other such stories, leading him to reflect: “The ease with which I adopted an attitude of ‘We might as well play, get paid, and go home’ was unsettling.” (p. 117)

Clearly, Washburne loves the music and respects his fellow musicians, so he would be uncomfortable writing a book that might be uncharitably described as an expose. However, revealing secret union deals and dangerous working conditions should benefit the musicians, who find themselves in the literal line of fire, yet do not receive the proper residuals for their studio work. After reading Sounding I would very much like to see Washburne write a book for wider audiences that explores these issues in more depth. The book he has written is somewhat uneven, but at times extremely eye-opening.

Allah Made Them Think They’re Funny

After the violent protests and death threats provoked by the publication of a handful of relatively benign Danish cartoons satirizing (Heaven forbid) Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, it is safe to say fundamentalist Muslims do not have a reputation for a sense of humor. However, three practicing American Muslim comedians have banded together for a series of comedy albums and tours, documented in Allah Made Me Funny (trailer here), opening today in select cities for a limited one week release window.

How funny you find the comics seems to depend on how closely you share their world views, which suggests their stand-up routines are less about getting laughs and more about hearing an “Amen” from the audience. The three comics of AMMF are logically presented in increasing order of mirth. I laughed exactly once during Mo Amer’s set, twice during Azhar Usman’s, and a respectable nine or ten times for Preacher Moss.

Clearly, Moss, a former SNL writer, is the class of the film and tour. His strongest material describes his family experiences during his conversion to Islam. It worked so well because it is an experience somewhat unique in the particulars, yet involving the sort of family drama everyone can relate to.

Much of Amer and Usman’s material by contrast, offered up stale Bush jokes that could have come from anyone on MSNBC. They also treat us to jokes about “flying while Muslim,” which even Amer referred to as “obligatory.” Particularly after screening Bliss, the Turkish honor killing film, their frequent riffs on how ferocious Muslim women really are in private seemed disconcerting in a “doth protest too much” kind of way. Though benign, much of their slice-of-life material sounded fairly shop-worn. Amer’s olive oil routine for instance, suggests strong parallels with Chris Rock on his father’s use of Robitussin as a cure-all.

There is no question Islam desperately needs a satirist—one capable of casting a gimlet eye inward as well as outward. At times, Moss showed hints he might have that in him. However, his colleagues were content to simply preach to the choir.

Even with a brief running time under ninety minutes, AMMF still feels padded. The material here would work better edited down for an hour long cable special, if the majority of the time was allotted to Moss. As it is, AMMF never feels like a special event, rather just another night on the tour. It opens today in New York at the Quad, with Moss in attendance for a Q&A following tonight’s 8:00 screening.

NYTFF: Bliss

The UN estimates 5,000 Muslim women are murdered each year by their families in so-called “honor killings.” Their perceived crimes range from simple flirtation with a man the family deems inappropriate, to being the innocent victims of rape. The latter is the case in Abdullah Oğuz’s Bliss (Turkish trailer here), a bold examination of honor killings in provincial Turkey, screening this Sunday at the Anthology Film Archives as part of this year’s New York Turkish Film Festival.

As the film opens, a shepherd finds young Meryem badly beaten and violated, lying unconscious near a lake outside her remote village. He carries her home not to a sympathetic family, but a cruel step-mother and weak father, who automatically blame her for her condition. The village Agha, her father’s cousin, decrees that Meryem must die for the dishonor she allegedly brought upon the family. When she refuses to do the job for them, the Agha charges his son Cemal, recently discharged from the army, with the horrific task.

Though a dutiful son, Cemal has no taste for cold-blooded murder. Although he is conflicted, uncertain whether he is truly doing the right thing, Cemal spares Meryem. As they take flight from their wrathful family, Meryem and Cemal must turn their backs on their family and former village lives. On the run, they find refuge as crew members on the yacht of Irfan, a sociology professor who dropped out of academic life, hoping to find peace of mind through life on the water.

Clearly, Irfan represents the secular modernist impulse of Turkey. He is an educated man, who can talk to a former student wearing a bikini without thinking anything of it. Cemal by contrast, nearly goes into shock. A bit free-spirited, but no idiot, Irfan starts to suspect the rough outline of his young crew’s troubles and does his best to help them find their way.

The three main characters of Bliss are sharply drawn and well nuanced, raising it above the level of a mere issue film. Özgü Namal gives an understated, but moving performance as Meryem, a woman abused all her life, only now starting to assert herself after suffering an unspeakable trauma. Murat Han brings seething intensity to the role of Cemal, conveying the bitterness and resentment of a man forced to confront the injustice of traditions he had always uncritically accepted. As the silver-maned professor, Talat Bulut comes across as realistically flawed but deeply humane, rather than a caricature of nobility.

Oğuz and Bosnian cinematographer Mirsad Heroviç use their isolated locations to create some striking visuals. Well paced, the tension is quite acute at times, growing organically out of the story. Bliss is a film that needs to be seen by a wide audience for honestly addressing the peril faced by far too many Muslim women in world today. Even discounting the importance of its subject matter, it holds up well as a film in pure cinematic terms.

Seeing Bliss when it screens at the NYTFF on Sunday the 5th is highly recommended. The Fest runs from Friday the 3rd to Saturday the 11th at the Anthology Film Archives. On Friday the 10th, Ümit Ünal and Selen Uçer, the director and star of Ara, will appear in-person to introduce and discuss their film. They will be followed by a screening of Riza featuring a Q&A with director Tayfun Pirselimoğlu. Look for further NYTFF postings here in the coming days.

Schroeder at BAM: Six in Paris

Part of New York’s charm (on a good day) is its distinct neighborhoods. Go a few blocks and the look and feel can change dramatically, but at its core, it is still the same City. That is sort of the idea underlying Six in Paris, a French New Wave anthology film produced by Barbet Schroeder, screening at BAM this Friday, as part of their Mad Obsessions Schroeder retrospective.

The six stories of Paris are each associated with a particular Parisian neighborhood and were helmed by different directors. Schroeder is actually not one of the six. He served as producer and appears in a supporting role in the second installment. However, Paris does boast three of France’s most renowned directors in Eric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard, and Claude Chabrol.

It begins in Jean Douchet’s “Saint-Germain-des-Prés,” the city’s cultural district. While the story of an American art student seduced by a French player is a bit slight, its opening narration, accompanied by the sound of jazz and brief guided tour of the neighborhood, effectively sets the film’s people-watching ambiance.

Jean Rouch, whose anthropological documentaries influenced the Nouvelle Vague movement, directed the “Gare du Nord” story. Odille (Nadine Ballot) is unhappily married to the all too content Jean-Pierre, played by Schroeder. After an argument over real estate and their less than prestigious neighborhood (which New York audiences will relate to), she meets a wealthy stranger in the street, who appears to be her ideal man come to tempt her away from married drudgery. However, what starts as a claustrophobic domestic drama becomes a meditation on chance meeting and random tragedy.

Jean-Daniel Pollet’s “Rue Saint-Denis” vignette is more in the people-watching vein again, showing the chaste foreplay between a shy dishwasher and the prostitute he hired for the evening. However, Rohmer’s “Place de L’Etoile,” is the most successful segment of the film, telling the tale of a mild-mannered shop clerk’s fear and paranoia following a fateful metro commute, with the style and economy of a great French short story. Jean-Michel Rouzière is straight-laced perfection as the nervous Jean-Marc, and Rohmer’s witty narration on the nearby Arc de Triomphe as place only tourists visit will again ring true for New Yorkers.

Godard’s "Montparnasse-Levallois" also relies on the ironic twist for dramatic effect, but details like characterization do not bear close scrutiny. It is still an interesting example of early pre-Maoist Godard, with cinematography by the celebrated documentarian Albert Maysles. Claude Chabrol’s concluding “La Muette” is possibly the darkest story and the strongest entry following Rohmer’s contribution. As an unsettling tale of family dysfunction, it is the kind of disturbing subject matter Chabrol continues to mine in his recent films with rich results.

While Paris has a deceptively light tone, the events it depicts are in fact quite heavy for its characters. Like all anthology films, Paris is a tad uneven, but overall its strengths (particularly in Rohmer, Chabrol, and Rouch) predominate. Starting Friday, it plays for a week at BAM along with a program of vastly different Schroeder films, like the recent Devil’s Advocate, a fascinating documentary on French attorney Jacques Vergès, the Zelig of international terrorism, and La Vallee and More, which became his stoner movies thanks to their Pink Floyd soundtracks.

Bley’s Black Orchid Big Band

Appearing Nightly
Carla Bley and her Remarkable Big Band
WATT/ECM Records

The website for Carla Bley’s WATT label (distributed by ECM) is pretty funny. It represents WATT Records as a prison, with Bley and longtime musical partner Steve Swallow as the inmates, and web designer and frequent musical collaborator Karen Mantler as the warden. That sense of humor and all three musicians are also present on Bley’s newest release, Appearing Nightly.

Nightly consists largely of festival commissions which, though modern, are informed by and deliberately suggestive of 1950’s big band jazz. The opening “Greasy Gravy” for instance, has hints of a Basie vibe, particularly in Bley’s use of the trombone section. At times tagged with a reputation for playing "arranger's piano," Bley fits nicely into the Basie mold—supportive and swinging, but stylistically economical in her own solos.

The following “Awful Coffee” came out of the same culinary themed festival commission that produced “Gravy.” For one passage of the somewhat more caffeinated track, Bley throws in quotes from “Salt Peanuts,” You’re the Cream in My Coffee,” Watermelon Man,” “Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries,” “Hey Pete Let’s Eat More Meat,” and “Tea for Two.” The food theme seems to come naturally to Bley, who penned six different Banana compositions for last year’s release with her “Lost Chords” group and Italian trumpeter Paolo Fresu.

The heart of Nightly is “Appearing Nightly at the Black Orchid,” a twenty-five minute suite commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival, named after a Monterey lounge Bley gigged at early in her career. Its movements allude to elements of the nightly jazz gig: “40 On / 20 Off,” “Second Round,” “What Would You Like to Hear,” and “Last Call.” It may sound a bit self-referential to compose a jazz suite to represent a jazz gig, but these are post-modern times.

Introduced with an elegant piano prelude from Bley, “40 On” then segues into a fine example of Steve Swallow’s melodic approach to the electric bass, as the band slowly swells up underneath him. The brass comes out swinging in “Second Round,” particularly featured trombonist Gary Valente. “Like to Hear” is more subdued, maybe reflecting musicians’ constant trepidation a patron might request some dreaded chestnut like “My Melancholy Baby.” Muted horns wail plaintively and Bley takes a brief but meditative solo, before the bands comes in building up towards the hard charging finale, “Last Call.”

Rounding out the program with one standard, “I Hadn’t Anyone Till You,” and “Someone to Watch,” an original which germinated from the seed of a Gershwin tune, Nightly is most definitely a swinging affair. Bley has assembled a first-rate band and her originals have a vigor that is refreshing. For some reason, her music seems to have a reputation for being less accessible than it really is, but Nightly ought to be warmly received by both jazz modernists and big band fans.

Rural Route: Island of Lost Souls

The Danish selection in the Rural Route Film Festival’s Scandinavia House film series might be the ringer of the program. Following her mother’s divorce, fourteen year-old Lulu suddenly finds herself in a community that might better be described as boring, rather than rural. Perhaps, for a budding young mystic, there is little distinction between the two. However, in Nikolaj Arcel’s Island of Lost Souls (partial trailer here), the nearby Monk Island proves the perfect desolate setting for an undead Necromancer to wage war against the forces of light.

In 1871, a lodge of mystics dedicated to fighting evil wages a pyrrhic battle against an evil Necromancer, thinking they have defeated him at great personal cost. Obviously, they haven’t killed him dead enough, just deferred the final battle to our time. Now the reconstituted Necromancer is wresting dead souls from their eternal rest, holding them captive on Monk Island. Each has a clue to the location of a page from the powerful Lodge Book which temporarily overpowered him some hundred years prior. However, Lulu’s Ouija board diverts one such lost soul, lodge member Herman Hartmann, who inadvertently takes possession of her annoying younger brother Sylvester.

Together with the help of Oliver, the awkward rich kid, and the questionable adult supervision of Ricard, a failed psychic researcher, they investigate the evil happenings on Monk Island. Amongst the scares they find there is an evil scarecrow, whose effects are surprisingly well done. Indeed, the production values of Island are quite strong throughout.

As Lulu and Sylvester/Hartmann, Sara Langebæk Gaarmann and Lucas Munk Billing both look age-appropriate, and Billing is reasonably credible when channeling the older character. Lars Mikkelsen is a creepy screen presence as the Necromancer. Unfortunately, the other adults are mostly stereotypes, including a mom straight out of John Hughes movies, who recognizes no behavioral changes when her son is possessed by a thirty-nine year-old from the nineteenth century.

In terms of tone, Island’s scenes of supernatural horror might be too intense for young viewers, but the early teenaged anxiety of Lulu and Oliver probably skews more towards that audience. If you were at Anime Fest this weekend, you should love it and normal film fest patrons could find it an interesting diversion, leading up to Halloween. Universal is developing a remake of Island, also to be helmed by Arcel, so in the future it could conceivably secure some sort of American distribution. For now, it screens at Scandinavia House this coming Wednesday and Saturday.

NYFF: Waltz with Bashir

War is Hell, but context is important. In the case of Waltz with Bashir, screening at the New York Film Festival October 1st and 2nd, in advance of a December 25th theatrical opening (trailer here), one might assume the Israeli audience is only too familiar with the context surrounding events chronicled in the film. However, international audiences primed on anti-Israeli propaganda might interpret it as confirmation of the narratives they have constantly been fed. The Israeli Consulate is pushing Bashir hard, promoting its NYFF screenings in two emails, during the relatively short time I have been on their list. Having seen the film it seems a bit odd they would work so hard to promote an often unflattering portrayal of the Israeli military.

This review will be expanded when Bashir opens theatrically, but in brief, it is an animated pseudo-documentary illustrating writer-director-producer Ari Folman’s efforts to awaken suppressed memories from his military service in Lebanon. Much of what he has forgotten involves the deaths at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. In retribution for the assassination of Bashir Gemayel, the Lebanese president-elect, Christian militia attacked the camps. Perhaps initially looking for PLO terrorists who had indeed been harbored there, events quickly deteriorated. While not directly involved, the Israeli military is thought to have had a pretty good idea of what was happening as it went down.

In Bashir, these events haunt Folman and his comrades. Of course, we see the Sabra and Shatila massacres in graphic detail, including the only non-animated archival footage included in the film. What we do not see is the Gemayel assassination or the constant bombardments and terrorist attacks the PLO staged from Lebanon, which precipitated 1982 invasion in the first place. These are only perfunctorily referenced through dialogue.

Still, of recent anti-war films (broadly defined, not conflict-specific), Bashir is probably the best. Admittedly, the bar has been set pretty low, but Folman and director of animation Yoni Goodman have created some striking visuals. The opening sequences involving the dogs that haunt a fellow Beirut veteran’s dreams are powerful stuff, forming a most compelling case against the dehumanization of war. Folman also gets surprising mileage from structuring the story as a psychological investigation.

Bashir has been well received in Israel, where it recently won their equivalent of the Academy Award for best picture, making its selection assured as their official selection for the Academy’s best foreign language film. Its Oscar campaign should be interesting to watch, given recent history. Last year, France unsuccessfully submitted the animated Persepolis for best foreign language picture, but did snag a best animated nomination. Israel’s original best foreign language selection, The Band’s Visit, was disqualified for having too much English content, but its replacement, Beaufort, another revisionist Beirut drama, beat out Persepolis and other highly touted releases for a foreign language nomination. Though technically well made, Bashir lacks the heart of either Band or Persepolis, but it may well find an appreciative audience at the Academy.

NYAF: Machine Girl, Eventually

The Japan Society’s booth seemed a little out of place at this year’s New York Anime Festival. Evidently, they have an exhibition of bamboo art opening October fourth, but I am not sure how many of the costumed patrons will be showing up at Turtle Bay for that show. Friday night, there were plenty of kids wearing anime ears at the Javits Center—plenty of adults too. There were a lot of women dressed up as maids as well. Sometimes that was okay. Sometimes, not so much.

I have a hard time relating to all that so I thought I check out the screenings, figuring that would be familiar territory. Anime and manga can be a little weird, or at least what I sampled was. The live-action screening room was also serving up decidedly mixed fare. Like everyone else, I walked out of zero-budget alleged manga spoof that was truly unwatchable. The one thing I responded to (as a guilty pleasure) was Machine Girl (trailer here).

This is not exactly a lost Kurosawa film. It is basically girl in school uniform with large gun. If you are looking for a gory actioner this may actually exceed the bill. The plot is the basic vigilante story amped up on amphetamines. Ami is a terribly put-upon college student, but she can fight. Her parents committed suicide, unable to bear the shame of a false accusation of murder. Now Ami’s only family left in the world is her younger brother, Yu. When the vicious son of the ninja yakuza boss murders Yu and his friend, it sets Ami on a blood-spattered quest for vengeance. When captured by the yakuza, her arm is sliced off in a gruesome torture session. No worries, after escaping, the grieving parents of Yu’s friend mount a powerful machine gun in its place. Of course, once you have artillery for an appendage, you have to use it.

Machine is essentially the film Tarantino’s retro-exploitation movies want to be. People at the screening likened it to a Japanese Troma picture, and that is not far wrong. As Ami though, Minase Yashiro brings more humanity to the picture than is ever on display in Troma fare. Still, Machine is only about one thing: killing. Writer-director Noboru Iguchi never lets the lunacy slacken, showing the kind of frenetic energy and odd black humor that marked Sam Raimi’s early pictures. It is what it is.

NYAF continues throughout the weekend, with the Japan Society giving introductory lessons in Japanese on Sunday. I might possibly make it back for another report, but make no promises.

A/P/A: Koryo Saram

It was a massive displacement of innocent civilians motivated by a baseless suspicion they might sympathize with the Japanese during World War II. Few have heard of it, because the offending government was the Soviet Union. Known as Koryo Saram, they were Soviet Koreans, forcibly exiled to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on Stalin’s orders. Their story is told in Y. David Chung and Matt Dibble’s documentary, Koryo Saram: The Unreliable People (extended trailer here), which screened last night as part of the film series sponsored by NYU’s Asian/Pacific/American Institute.

Largely, but not exclusively from the Northern provinces of Korea, many of these Soviet Koreans were refugees from the occupying Japanese. However, they were not deemed sufficiently loyal by Stalin, who dubbed them “Unreliable People.” Victims of the Great Terror, an estimated 180,000 Koryo Saram were rounded up and deported in cramped boxcars to the Central Asian Steppe. Kazakhstan in particular became Stalin’s dumping ground for various undesirable ethnicities, where the combination of harsh winters and little or no shelter led to a high mortality rate among deportees.

Inevitably, comparisons were made in the Q&A to FDR’s Japanese interment policies, but the brutality of the Soviet was in a league of its own. Thousands died in-transit in what became known as “Ghost Trains,” with their bodies callously tossed out at each stop, in violation of Korean tradition requiring proper burial for the peace of the spirit. However, credit is given to the formerly nomadic Kazakhs for showing a compassion which saved scores of deportees officially designated “enemies of the state” by the Communists.

Koryo is as much about Kazakhstan’s contemporary Koryo Saram community as it is with their tragic history. They usually have Russian names and speak Russian, as well as Korean dialect dating back to the early twentieth century. Reasonably well integrated, they maintain their own traditions as best they can in a rapidly changing Kazakhstan. As a twice diasporized people, their experience is deeply entwined with issues of cultural and ethnic identity.

Chung, Dibble and co-writer Meredith Jung-En Woo provide a succinct history of a largely ignored episode of Soviet terror, incorporating some rare archival footage and revealing oral histories. An informative installment in A/P/A’s film series, Koryo is screening on several campuses and the Library of Congress on October 9th. It is worth checking out if you have the opportunity.

Gilroy’s Characters

Desperate Characters
Directed by Frank D. Gilroy
Legend Films DVD

Writer-director Frank D. Gilroy’s was a onetime amateur jazz musician with notions of turning pro. His later film The Gig, is a loving valentine to the music, so it is not surprising he looked to jazz greats Ron Carter, Lee Konitz, and Jim Hall to supply the original music for his 1971 film Desperate Characters. However, there is little joyful noise to be heard in Gilroy’s quiet and sober drama, recently reissued on DVD.

The Bentwood’s Brooklyn neighborhood is changing, reflecting demographic changes and the unchecked social pathologies of the early 1970’s. Their stylish home no longer feels so secure and their personal relationships offer no solace. For Sophie Bentwood, those anxieties result in feelings of dread and isolation. For her husband Otto, frustration and disappointment increasingly manifest themselves in rage and contempt for the world around him. It makes for a tense Friday night dinner for the couple. Against Otto’s warnings, Sophie feeds a stray cat on the fire escape, only to be bitten by the ungrateful beast, adding a potential case of rabies to her worries for the weekend.

Everyone in Characters is scared and miserable, but they employ vastly different methods to cope. One of Sophie’s friends clings to her ex-husband, a literature professor afraid of being drugged by his counter-culture students. Another friend has adopted the empty philosophy and jargon of the time, sounding like a borderline self-help-cultist from a Tom Wolfe book.

The precipitating crisis of the film is the dissolution of Otto’s law partnership with his lifelong friend Charlie (Gerald S. O’Loughlin making the most of a small, but important part). Yet over a late-night coffee with Sophie, it does not sound like Charlie’s worries are so different from Otto’s, he simply tries to ingratiate himself with those Otto is loathe to suffer. In a telling exchange, he decries to Sophie: “the having children business, the radical business, the culture business, the decline of old values business, the militant business, the failure business.”

As Sophie and Otto, Shirley MacLaine and Kenneth Mars are uncomfortably convincing as the troubled married couple. They were helped by Gilroy’s screenplay, featuring banter that would probably be funny in a lesser film, but is only too serious in the context of Characters. MacLaine’s Sophie is a portrait of quiet desperation, while Mars is able to find nuance in a difficult role. Though thoroughly unsympathetic, Otto has the virtue of at least saying out loud everything their liberal friends are thinking but are afraid to verbalize. Insensitive and ultimately brutish, he is also the only character attempting to reassert control over his life.

The music of Carter, Konitz, and Hall is only heard during party scenes. For the rest of the film, only disconcerting silence accompanies Gilroy’s sharply pointed words. Truly, Gilroy’s dialogue cuts like a knife, holding its power more than thirty years later. Rich but unremitting in its gloom, Characters is an extremely well written film, that captures the fear and pessimism of pre-Giuliani, pre-Koch New York, when the City seemed to have only darker days ahead.

2 X Eri Yamamoto

Redwoods & Duologue
By Eri Yamamoto
AUM Fidelity

It is quite an accomplishment for a jazz artist these days to record on a legitimate label, be they even the smallest of independents, as opposed to essentially self-producing. To have two label releases within the span of about three months time is really getting someplace. That is the enviable position Eri Yamamoto is in, following up the early summer release of Duologue, with her new trio release, Redwoods.

Yamamoto has a regular Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night gig with her trio at Arthur’s Tavern in New York, when she is not touring (which she probably does at least one week out of the month). However, she seems to take inspiration from the road, frequently returning to home base with new compositions. Dropping by Arthur’s is a great way to hear her abundant new material taking shape.

Indeed, Redwoods had its genesis in the Muir Woods of Northern California. The title track is an elegant meditation on nature, featuring the sensitive brush work of Arthur’s stalwart Ikuo Takeuchi. Reverence for natural beauty is a theme for the session, also inspiring the stately but sensitive “Magnolia.”

The opening “This is an Apple,” referring to her initial English lessons (she is now picking up Italian too), nicely illustrates her talent for composing strong melodic hooks, as well as her mastery of dynamics though her powerful attack on the keys. It is followed by a spritely groover, “Wonder Land,” that nicely captures her strong rhythmic drive and sense of humor. It is the sort of tune jazz D.J.’s used to choose as their theme songs, back in the day when there were such creatures.

Of her now six CDs, Duologue is the first to break from the trio format, featuring two duo performances a piece with guest artists reedman Daniel Carter, percussionists Federico Ughi and Hamid Drake, as well as bassist William Parker, with whom Yamamoto has worked as a sideman. Starting with the beauty and graceful simplicity of “Thank You” and concluding with the wit and verve of “You are Welcome,” Duologue is a series of friendly, but eloquent conversations between the leader and her guests.

With the rock solid support of Parker, she brings a certain Monkish charm to “Subway Song,” whereas “Violet Street,” featuring Carter on tenor, is both simultaneously soothing and searching. Throughout Duologue Yamamoto takes us through a variety of moods, but the most dramatic might be the trance-inducing “Circular Motion,” featuring Drake’s gently hypnotic frame drum.

Both are thoroughly entertaining releases, but if you want to start with just one, Redwoods probably gets the nod, capturing the highly tuned empathy of Yamamoto’s working trio. There are plenty of talented jazz pianists in the City, but while they sound quite nice, I could never recognize them blindfolded. However, I am pretty confident I would know Eri Yamamoto’s playing by ear. She really has honed an individual sound all her own, which is why I have recommended her recordings here before, and do so again with Redwoods and Duologue.

The Multinational from London

Although Belgian Georges Simenon’s crime fiction often had a strong psychological component, his novels still might seem to be unlikely source material for Hungarian art-house director Béla Tarr. Indeed, some will surely wish Simenon’s most famous character, Inspector Maigret, was on hand to spur the action along in Tarr’s painstakingly deliberate adaptation of The Man from London, screening this week at MoMA.

In an exquisitely filmed opening tracking shot, we see the nocturnal world of Maloin, the railway switchman at a seaport station. Given the late hour and foggy ambiance, it seems like anyone about must be up to something nefarious. Indeed, the two shadowy figures moving in and out of Maloin’s field of vision eventually scuffle over a suitcase, sending one permanently into the drink. When the coast is clear, Maloin ventures down to fish out their suitcase, which he discovers is full of British pounds. So we have our MacGuffin and the game’s a foot, right? Not exactly.

London is a master class in the use of light and shadow, but not in breakneck thriller pacing. Tarr’s shots are meticulously composed and Fred Kelemen’s black-and-white cinematography is arresting. Every still of the film is worthy of framing. However, pulling viewers through the story is clearly not their priority.

For the most part, the actors, like Czech Miroslav Krobot as Maloin, are just props for Tarr, walking in and out of his scenes as needed. American audiences will recognize Tilda Swinton as Maloin’s wife, Camélia, but it is a largely thankless role. However, Hungarian actor István Lénárt provides the film’s only spark of energy as Morrison, an elegantly sinister British investigator, reminiscent of the sort of roles Alec Guinness excelled at late in his career.

Tarr plays games with perception and implies more than he shows. Yet, London adopts enough of the trappings of a film noir mystery that it is not unfair to judge it in that context. Though never explicitly stated, the setting seems vaguely French, shot on location in Corsica. A notoriously cursed project, there may have been more intrigue behind the scenes of London, than on the screen. The suicide of the original French producer led to a long hiatus in production, as the Hungarian-French-German-U.K. financing became even more complicated. The result is a fascinating exasperation of a viewing experience that screens at MoMA through Sunday.

Rural Route: Quiet Storm

It can be pretty lonely up north. As the land of fields and fjords Scandinavia has its share of rustic countryside, which explains the programming collaboration between the Rural Route Film Festival and the Scandinavia House, presenting a series of films set in rural Scandinavia. Evidently, the American belief in the virtues of country living as an antidote for delinquency also had currency in Scandinavia, or at least the early 1970’s Iceland dramatized in Quiet Storm (Veðramót, Icelandic trailer here), the first film in the series, which screens this Wednesday.

At the Veðramót juvenile detention facility, the hippies are literally running the prison. Selma has run away from her respectable middle class home to join her boyfriend Blöffi as caretakers of a remote prison farm for highly disturbed teens. With paintings of Marx and Che on the wall, they oversee their charges with scrupulous respect for their self-esteem. Knowing nothing about their past, they encourage the teens to open up in their rap session group meetings. Do not bother rolling your eyes, because the kids do it for the audience.

Obviously things go bad, because the film is told as a flashback precipitated by a letter sent by Disa, one of the former Veðramót kids, now serving time for murdering her abusive step-father. Fishing for clemency, she writes to the middle-aged Selma (who returned to her bourgeois roots to become a judge), explaining what really happened during their fateful time on the farm.

Veðramót really is in the middle of nowhere. The vistas are impressive, but the isolation exacerbates Disa’s emotional problems. Although some of the troubled teens show initial progress in their new environment, she is a destabilizing influence in the house, determined to sabotage Selma and Blöffi’s relationship.

While far from a celebration of rural living, Storm makes effective use of its remote location, arrestingly filmed by cinematographer Svein Krovel. Surprisingly, the younger actors are the more convincing in the cast. Hera Hilmarsdottir is the stand out as the manipulative Disa and Jörundur Ragnarsson is just plain creepy as the highly disturbed young Sammi. However, Tinna Hrafnsdottir never looks right as Selma, appearing too young to be a magistrate and too old to be college drop-out.

Writer-director Guðný Halldórsdóttir displays little sentimental attachment for the era, dramatically illustrating the consequences when good intentions collide with reality. Never send a hippie to do Father Flanagan’s job seems to be the moral. Storm is a legitimately edgy film that could probably never get picked up by politically correct art-house distributors, so catching it at Scandinavia House is recommended. It screens this Wednesday and Saturday.

Singles from Argentina

Maria Puga Lareo
In a Sentimental Mood
Beijo Partido with Quique Sinesi
My Keter Records downloads

Welcome to the post-album future. This is the first time I have reviewed EP’s available only online, but I suspect it might become an increasingly widespread practice. Truly, the downloading revolution ended the days of bulking up albums with mediocre tracks, so more and more singles and EP’s are turning up exclusively at online retailers. Such is the case with Maria Puga Lareo’s single “In a Sentimental Mood” and her two-song EP recorded with Quique Sinesi.

Though released earlier in the year, the publicity campaign is evidently just ramping up. Despite some overdubbing effects, all three tracks express the spare intimacy of a duo setting. During “Sentimental” Lareo is primarily accompanied by the sensitive playing of pianist Frank Collett, an American jazz pianist probably best known for his work with Carmen McRae and Louis Bellson. Producer Fernando Gelbard, a jazz pianist countrymen of Lareo’s, adds a tasteful solo of his own, in nice wistful take on the Ellington standard.

With Argentinean guitarist Quique Sinesi, Lareo also recorded two Brazilian songs of a distinctly romantic flavor. Here Lareo’s delivery is breathier, caressing the lyrics of “Beijo Partido” and “Atras Da Porta.” Probably best known to American audiences for recordings with Pablo Ziegler, Sinesi is delicate and expressive in support, getting a nice little solo turn on “Beijo.” Through over-dubbing, Lareo harmonizes with herself before taking the track out. While slower in tempo, “Atras” might frankly be a bit too similar in theme and tone for the purposes of an EP. As background listening, they blend together in the ear. Lareo’s vocals on “Atras” express even greater yearning and are quite pretty, but more variety might have showcased her range to better effect.

These are three nice tracks, proving Lareo can certainly do the dreamy Brazilian thing. According to the “liner notes” an album with Eddie Gomez on bass is forthcoming. It will be interesting to hear if she stretches in new directions with its release.

Rissient: The Cannes Doctor’s Doc

Emerging from a film festival with strong buzz and a distribution deal is the dream of every filmmaker. If it seems like the fix is in for certain films, you need to find your own fixer. At Cannes, that would be Pierre Rissient, the subject of Todd McCarthy’s Pierre Rissient: Man of Cinema (trailer here), now screening at the MoMA.

Essentially, Rissient is the Clark Clifford of international cinema. If your film is screening at Cannes, you need to be talking to him. In his often overlapping roles of critic, publicist, and distributor, Rissient has championed films that fired his passion. He has worked behind the lens as well, even directing two reasonably well received films of his own. However, his greatest influence seems to come through his unspecified (by McCarthy) role as an advisor to the Cannes Festival.

French director Bertrand Tavernier describes Rissient’s legendary arm-twisting, having seen it firsthand as his longtime partner in film publicity. Unfortunately, we never see Rissient get down to business with a difficult critic. We also hear Rissient is a fount of scandal regarding the international filmmaking scene, but the film never gets past the “oh, the stories he could tell” tease.

Primarily, Rissient is a tribute to the film guru by directors who have benefited from Rissient’s boosterism. This is accompanied by clips from their films, which makes Rissient something of a Chuck Workman film for the international arthouse scene (Werner Herzog! King Hu! Jane Campion!). At the time, Rissient raised some eyebrows when he campaigned on behalf of Clint Eastwood, who was then still widely dismissed as an action star. Rissient is effusive in his praise of Bird, Eastwood’s Charlie Parker bio-pic. Just as French critics were early defenders of jazz’s artistic merits, French critical reception led the way for Eastwood’s re-evaluation as a serious filmmaker, thanks in large part to Rissient’s nicely symmetrical efforts on Bird, a jazz film.

There are entertaining stories sprinkled throughout Rissient, but it does not delve much below its subject’s placid surface. While the film convinces audiences Rissient has led an interesting life, it never really makes the case that people outside of his rarified world should care about his career. Clearly, Rissient made a lot of great future films possible through his early efforts on behalf of important directors, which is undeniably a significant contribution. (Conversely, we can also blame him for paving the way for Tarantino’s Grind House.) However, this is not a point the film presses.

Rissient is the ultimate film festival film, being about festivals, as well as the people and films that are a part of them. MoMA is probably the perfect venue for it, and if you are a member it is a diverting way to spend some time, but far from revelatory. It screens through Wednesday.

Jasny at AFA: Gladys

New York is the last frontier. Like Matthew Broderick’s character in Election, it is here that people come when they need a fresh start. For Czech filmmaker Vojtech Jasny, New York became his first real home after he found it prudent to relocate following the 1968 Soviet invasion of his homeland. Once in New York, Gladys St. John Colegrove, an elderly neighbor with reported psychic abilities would become part of his adopted family. She would also be the title subject of Gladys, a documentary assembled from footage Jasny shot on Hi-8 over the course of several years, which screens at AFA as part of their Jasny tribute.

Twice widowed, Ms. Gladys explains to Jasny that she has been in constant contact with her husbands from beyond the veil. It is clear that she misses them very much, particularly number one, St. John. Most of this contact seems to come through automatic writing, some of which was collected in a published book (Listening Across the Border, Vantage 1981, as Gladys St. John).

We see several birthday celebrations including the big 100 and after, so it is understandable that she is somewhat physically infirm. However, Jasny and his friends are able to coax her out of her apartment for the first time in twelve years for a walk in the park. It might sound trite, but she looks pretty good, all things considered. Despite her general frailty, she sounds feisty and opinionated when interviewed by Jasny’s friends and students. Her answers are not always politically correct either, sounding downright Lou Dobbsian on the subject of immigration.

While Gladys is very definitely about its central character, Jasny’s love for New York suffuses the film. During his introductory narration, Jasny states: “Here I soon lost my home-sickness that I couldn’t lose in Europe. New York became my passion.” Though seen obliquely, audiences get a sense that Jasny and his friends are smart, decent people, who genuinely care about their elderly neighbor.

Gladys nicely fleshes out AFA’s Jasny retrospective, giving a sense of his life in America. However, of the films playing in the series, it is probably the slightest. His classic narrative films, like All My Good Countrymen and Cassandra Cat in particular, should appeal to a wider audience. Still, Gladys is a pleasant look at the improvised families that make New York the capital of new beginnings. It plays at AFA this coming Sunday and Wednesday.

Dead Sea Scrolls in New York

Nearly everyone has heard of them, but what is actually recorded in the Dead Sea Scrolls is not widely understood. Given the kind of wild religious conspiracy theories floating through popular fiction in recent years, it is extremely welcome to have an exhibit that really explains the historic and theological significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Those with a healthy interest in either Jewish or early Christian theology are likely to be fascinated by the Jewish Museum’s upcoming exhibit, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Mysteries of the Ancient World, carefully curated to resist taking sides in related academic controversies.

In addition to material providing helpful historical context, six fragments of the priceless scrolls are on display. They come from The Book of Jeremiah of the Hebrew Bible, the Words of the Luminaries prayer book, the Aramaic Apocryphon of Daniel, The Book of Tobit (considered apocryphal in Judaism but canonical for Catholics and Orthodox Christians), and two writings evidently pertaining to an ancient sect, the apocalyptic War Rule and the governing regulations of Community Rule.

Discovered in the Qumran caves of the Judean desert, the Dead Sea Scrolls are arguably the most important archaeological discovery of the last century. They were first unearthed in 1947 when a Bedouin boy tossed a stone into a cave, shattering one of the scroll vessels, whose contents he sold to a dealer for relative pocket change. Over all, the Qumran scrolls date from 300 BC to 100 AD, but of those be displayed in New York, only the Tobit possibly dates to the early decades of the Common Era (evidently the Museum’s preferred semantics), with the other five originating sometime during the first three centuries BCE. Some consider the scrolls the former holdings of a specific group (the Essenes are most frequently suggested), whereas others consider it a non-sectarian Jewish library or a cache deliberately hidden from marauding Romans. The exhibit draws no conclusions.

Jewish Museum visitors will only have a ninety day viewing window, a limit strictly enforced by the Israeli Antiquities Agency (IAA) to protect the scrolls, three of which, Jeremiah, Luminaries, and Tobit, will be displayed for the first time here in New York. This exhibit and another currently underway in North Carolina are part of a commitment by the IAA to always have scrolls on view somewhere outside Israel at all times. It is clear from the remarks of the IAA representative at the press event and the exhibit’s video loop that the agency, working in concert with the international experts, including the Dominican order of Jerusalem, considers their work preserving the scrolls to be a sacred trust.

The area of Qumran Caves has since been turned over to the PA. Wisely, the IAA conducted an exhaustive final search of the area for additional scrolls before the land was transferred. Evidently some interesting artifacts were unearthed, but no scrolls. One shudders at the thought of such an important archaeological legacy entrusted to Israel’s neighbors (who of course would consider the scrolls heretical).

The centerpiece of the Jewish Museum’s exhibit is of course the scroll fragments—documents dating back 2,000 years. These time-battered scraps dramatically illustrate the fragility of human learning. Thankfully, the IAA is determined to preserve them another 2,000 years. New Yorkers will have a chance to see them for themselves when the Jewish Museum’s exhibition officially opens this Sunday.

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers Starts Today

Imagine you just divorced your husband when your estranged father announces he is visiting you help straighten everything out. Oh, the joy. Such is the parental visit Yilan must endure in Wayne Wang’s quiet but emotionally heavy A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (trailer here), opening in New York today.

The fissures between Yilan and her father Mr. Shi are not just generational, but also geographic and cultural. He has traveled from mainland China, where he may just be the last surviving true-believing Communist. Conversely, Yilan has acclimated to the lifestyle of suburban (or exurban) America, now more comfortable expressing herself in English than Chinese.

Over the years a significant chasm has opened up between father and daughter, with roots in Mr. Shi’s past that Yilan never fully understood. Though ostensibly polite, she did not want him to come and withdraws further and further the longer he persists in staying. Confused by her cold response, Mr. Shi finds himself increasingly alienated in a strange country, only able to forge a human connection with Madame, a gregarious Iranian matriarch he often encounters at a nearby park.

Madame emigrated following the Iranian Revolution, to escape the repression which followed. Mr. Shi, a loyal servant in Mao’s revolution, now finds himself in America only out of a sense of familial duty. Neither has a strong command of English, yet they successfully communicate almost telepathically, using fragments of three dissimilar languages.

Something happened in the Cultural Revolution that derailed Mr. Shi’s life. Yet like an excommunicated sinner, he holds onto his love for his faith. Thousand subtly shows the continuing influence of seemingly far-removed tumultuous historical events on its characters, but not at the expense of its central family drama.

Based on a short story by Yiyun Li, featuring just four characters with significant dialogue, Thousand is uncompromisingly intimate. Yet, it never seems stagey thanks to Patrick Lindenmaier’s cinematography. Wang takes his exquisite time telling that story, but there are real emotional payoffs. Henry O is quite touching as Mr. Shi and Faye Yu gives a frankly remarkable performance as Yilan, expressing the quiet tragedies of life's bitter disappointments.

Thousand is an elegantly thoughtful film that lingers in your consciousness long after screening. It is part of a one-two punch coming from director Wang, author Li, and the distributor. While Thousand opens today at the Lincoln Plaza in New York, Princess of Nebraska (trailer here) debuts on youtube’s screening room about a month from now on October 17th. Having made the festival circuit, Nebraska has legitimate arthouse credentials, so it will be interesting to see how this distribution experiment works. As for Thousand, it might not be appreciated by those with limited attention spans, but it is an understated and rewarding film, that is definitely recommended.

Jasny at AFA: Why Havel

Vaclav Havel’s longest stint in a Communist prison lasted about four and a half years. Nearly six years later he was elected President of Czechoslovakia in the country’s first free and fair election in over fifty years. Vojtech Jasny captured the exceptional role played by President Havel during those heady days of newly won freedom in his documentary Why Havel, screening as part of the upcoming Jasny retrospective at AFA.

How does a playwright become one of the world’s most respected statesmen? Jasny’s film literally asks why Havel, quickly answering its own question. We see candid footage of a President more comfortable laughing and joking with the kitchen staff than with the power and ceremonial trappings of office. A portrait emerges of a man of conscience, imprisoned for his activism and avant-garde writing, who earned the respect of both his dissident colleagues and his fellow citizens.

Why Havel begins with the President’s first state visit to America, attending an all-star tribute in New York at the Cathedral of St. John’s the Divine. Amongst those paying tribute are Joseph Papp, his American producer; director Milos Forman, Jasny’s celebrated colleague in the Czech New Wave; Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel; and musical guests, including Dizzy Gillespie (the rest of his band is not credited, but it looks like Mike Longo at the piano).

Jasny directs Forman as the film’s narrator and on-camera guide, who brings a great deal of charm to the role, sounding downright giddy at times. Considering the enormity of the changes under weigh, his euphoria is understandable. In one such exercise of the newly granted right to free speech, Forman mocks “the favorite pastime of the former rulers: giving each other medals—they loved it.”

Although there are some interesting transitions between scenes, Jasny seems much more interested in serving his subject than flexing his cinematic muscles. However, he clearly had remarkable access and a good amount of luck, filming Czech history as it happened.

Over the course of the film, Jasny and Forman give an unequivocal answer to the question why Havel. Only a man so uncomfortable with power could be trusted with it at such a delicate time in Czech history. Watching these events unfold through Jasny’s lens really is inspiring. While the Velvet Revolution was not so very long ago, many seem to have already forgotten its lessons, which is why Jasny’s film will always be a valuable document (that also happens to be quite entertaining). It screens at AFA this coming Saturday and Tuesday.