Festival Alert: IndioBravo

Any film festival programming a seven and a half hour film deserves credit for its ambition, particularly in its inaugural year. Beginning tonight at the MoMA, the IndioBravo Film Festival will be screening an intriguing cross-section of Filipino cinema, including Lav Diaz’s nearly eight hour Melancholia, as part of a slate of fifteen features and eleven shorts.

Wisely, Melancholia will be split in half, with part 1 screening this Saturday and part 2 following on Sunday. Most features will be far more manageable in terms of time commitments, like the festival opener 100, one of two features which directly address love and impending mortality. Whereas 100 is a dramatic story of a woman given one hundred days to live, My Only U clearly takes the romantic comedy approach to its tale of a woman born into a family whose members never live past the age of twenty-five.

Donsol, which was the official Philippines submission for the 2007 Best Foreign Academy Award, should represent Filipino art cinema, as will Tirador, directed by Brillante Mendoza, who recently won the Best Director Award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Mendoza’s Serbis was recently released in America and is also definitely worth catching up with. As the story of a decrepit family-run adult movie theater, Serbis is provocative, but never prurient. Mendoza’s restless camera and sharply observed scenes of urban squalor mark him as a major international filmmaker to watch.

After tonight’s MoMA opening, most screenings will be at the School for Visual Arts Theater or the Millennium Film Workshop. Look for individual reviews here in the coming days.

BIFF ’09: Cryptic

They are considered white elephants: those obsolete cell phones stashed in drawers and closets, seemingly waiting for phantom signals. Jessie Graver’s first clunky cell was her last birthday gift from late mother, so she keeps it for sentimental reasons. However, it might offer her an opportunity to undo wrongs of the past in John Weiner & Danny Kuchuck’s Cryptic (trailer here), which screens during the twelfth annual Brooklyn International Film Festival.

Shortly after giving Jesse her ninth birthday gift, Jesse’s mother died in a freak accident. Soon thereafter, her father remarried the flirtatious neighbor lady, greatly straining his relations with his daughter. The next ten years would be difficult for the increasingly bitter and alienated Jesse. Spending a moody nineteenth birthday with her pseudo-boyfriend, Jessie comes across her old phone. When she punches in the phone number of their old house, somehow her nine year-old self answers it.

When Jesse realizes she is talking to herself on that fateful day, she desperately tries to convince her not to let her mother in the pool. As she explains the impending disaster, her younger self notices her father’s dubious behavior, which the older Jesse then consequently remembers. Suddenly, Jesse must contend with her suspicious father at ages nine and nineteen, with both timelines in a state of flux. Time is going to get messy, and so is her family life.

Though it makes no serious attempt to explain its magic cell-phone Macguffin, Cryptic navigates the minefields of time-travel’s inherent logical contradictions reasonably well. Unlike the thematically similar Frequency, Cryptic is far more convincing in its treatment of Jesse’s substantial revisions of history.

Though obviously shot on a shoestring, Cryptic makes a virtue of necessity. Its stark HD look actually helps ground the film in reality. The sound quality of her calls is also effectively modulated, clear enough to be understood, but with a level of distortion sufficient to maintain a degree of mystery, particularly with regards to that unsettling third voice nineteen year-old Jesse thinks she hears during her calls to the past.

As Jesse Graver, at ages nineteen and nine respectively, Julie Carson and Jadin Gould both give smart, intense performances nicely selling the film outlandish circumstances. Toby Huss is also suitably creepy as dear old dad. Unfortunately, Johnny Pacar is a dull, petulant screen presence as Jesse’s on-again-off-again boyfriend (depending on the timeline).

Cryptic’s premise is obviously preposterous, but Weiner and Kuchuck have constructed a tense, character-driven science fiction thriller around it. It is a clever film that will probably appeal more to indie audiences than genre fans. It screens again at BIFF this Friday (6/12).

Betty Blue Uncut

Betty is mentally unstable and Zorg is an enabler. Isn’t love grand? After exploding on the scene with Diva, Jean-Jacques Beineix followed-up with Betty Blue, the turbulent love-story of the passionate Betty and her handyman boyfriend. Despite bringing renewed international buzz to French cinema with its initial 1986 release, Beineix's definitive cut never screened theatrically in America, though it was briefly available on home video. Happily, Betty Blue: the Director’s Cut will finally hit American screens, beginning with its New York opening this Friday.

After just one week together, it is clear to Zorg being with Betty is an intense experience. She is beautiful, but her behavior can be erratic. Things are usually fine when they are alone, but when outsiders intrude, like Zorg’s leering boss, she lashes out at provocations, both real and imagined. While hurling Zorg’s possessions out their shack window during a periodic fit, Betty stumbles across his long abandoned novel. Convinced of his genius, she types up his notebooks and begins submitting them to publishers, beginning a long chain of disappointments that will further destabilize her mental condition.

Life with Betty seems to follow a pattern. Things start out great, but then something upsets her, leading to an episode of acting out, like burning down their shack or attacking a publisher who rejected Zorg’s dubious manuscript. Eventually, calm returns, but the cycles continue, becoming more dramatic each time.

Beineix’s film is most definitely intended for adults. As Betty and Zorg, Béatrice Dalle and Jean-Hugues Anglade have no secrets from viewers, since neither of their characters seems to own a robe. Dalle is also frequently in a state of extreme emotional exposure, simultaneously violent and vulnerable. It is a harrowing, unforgettable performance.

Betty Blue is a dark, disturbing love story, but not a cynical one. There are some tender moments that seem to make all the chaos worthwhile for the couple, evidently more of which are to be found in the extended director’s cut. They are quite effectively underscored by Gariel Yared’s haunting theme. In a particularly poignant scene, Zorg and Betty even play it on-screen as piano duet during the wake for a friend’s mother.

With a running time just over three hours, Betty Blue is longer than most historical epics, yet it never feels padded or excessive. Like Betty herself, the film varies drastically in mood, swinging from slapstick comedy to realistic tragedy, but there is always logic to its mania. It is an exhausting film, more for its emotional ups and downs rather than its considerable length, which deserves it critical acclaim and notoriety.

It opens Friday in New York at the Cinema Village, with subsequent openings set for Los Angeles’s Nuart July 3rd, Denver’s Starz Film Center August 21st, the Landmark Kendall Square in Boston September 11th, and the Landmark E-Street in D.C. on October 2nd.

BIFF ’09: The Last Lullaby

When a retired hitman suffers from insomnia, is it due to boredom or a guilty conscience? Perhaps a little of both for “Price,” the mysterious former assassin created by Max Allan Collins, the prolific writer of crime fiction, including the Road to Perdition graphic novels on which the Tom Hanks film was based. Now Price (a.k.a. Quarry in Collins’s books) has also made the jump to the big screen in Jeffrey Goodman’s The Last Lullaby (trailer here), which recently screened during the Brooklyn International Film Festival.

Price could use a good night’s sleep, but he will settle for a nice payday. During his regular nocturnal ramblings, he happens across a kidnapping underway. After making short work of the original lowlife abductors, Price makes the exchange himself. Easy money, or so it seemed at the time.

Sometime later, the father of the kidnapped woman tracks down Price to lure him out of retirement. Again, it sounds like easy money: one million dollars to kill a librarian. However, it has to look like an accident and happen within the next ten days, neither of which should be a problem for a man with Price’s skills. Yet, there is something about the marked Sarah that gets to the contract killer. So when her stalker ex-boyfriend starts getting physical, Price puts a stop to it—permanently.

It turns out the two have something in common as kindred insomniacs. As an unlikely relationship blossoms between the two, the hunter becomes the protector, setting up an inevitable conflict with Price’s employer. While there are certainly scenes of Price going about his old profession with ruthless efficiency, Lullaby is not an action film per se. It is more in the tradition of moody film noirs, spending more time on character development than gunfire and car chases.

In a case of perfect casting, Tom Sizemore plays the hardened criminal in need of redemption. Regardless of his notorious off-screen life, the character actor has the right brooding screen presence to carry the film as its flawed anti-hero. Lullaby also boasts an intriguing supporting cast, including the believably down-to-earth Sasha Alexander (formerly of Navy N.C.I.S.), who brings out both the vulnerability and resilience of Sarah. 24 viewers will also note the presence of Sprague Grayden (or First Daughter Olivia Taylor), again playing a spoiled daughter of privilege, in a small but memorable part.

Although Lullaby clearly addresses themes of conscience and redemption, Goodman wisely never overplays those emotional cards. The surprisingly subtle script co-written by Collins and Peter Biegen mercifully spares viewers any trite scenes of tearful confessions. More than anything, the characters are simply tired, in every sense.

Lullaby might be too quiet and discrete for genre fans, but not edgy enough for the hipster art-house scene. Still, it ought to find an in-between audience as a thoughtful, well-conceived little crime film. Following its East Coast premiere at BIFF, Lullaby opens this Friday (6/12) in San Jose, as part of its targeted release strategy, while the festival continues through this Sunday (6/14).

Coppola’s Tetro

Francis Ford Coppola would like to introduce you to La Boca, the Buenos Aires neighborhood with a storied history as an artist colony and the traditional home of the city’s Italian immigrant community. It is easy to understand how its old world heritage and bohemian spirit would appeal to Coppola, serving as a distinctive backdrop to his latest family drama, Tetro (trailer here), which has an unconventional midweek New York and Los Angles opening this Thursday, in honor of the birthday of Coppola’s father.

In truth, Tetro seems like a strange paternal tribute considering it presents such poisoned father-son relationships. Carlo Tetrocini might be a great conductor, but he has been a lousy father. For reasons initially shrouded in mystery, the oldest son Angie ran away from home, leaving behind Benny, the kid brother who idolizes him. As soon as he looks old enough (barely), Benny takes a job as a cruise ship waiter to follow his brother’s example. When the ship docks in Buenos Aires for repairs, Benny sets off in search of his prodigal brother, but finds him less than welcoming. Now simply known as Tetro, the elder Tetrocini brother is coldly dismissive of Benny, but at least his sympathetic girlfriend Miranda does her best to console the disappointed brother.

Snooping around the flat, Benny finds a suitcase full of Tetro’s unfinished stories, which seem to hold clues to the Tetrocini family’s secrets. Again due to the influence of his long absent brother, Benny also harbors literary ambitions and sees genius in his brother’s furtive work. However, Tetro’s stories and the truth they conceal might ultimately divide the brothers permanently.

Tetro is a lovingly crafted, stylistically distinctive film, featuring the striking black-and-white cinematography of Mihai Malamaire, Jr. In a deliberate reversal of customary practice, Coppola reserves the use of color photography solely for flashback scenes, which gives them a strange vitality, emphasizing their continuing influence on the characters’ present lives.

Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov’s lush symphonic score effectively combines a myriad of influences, including traditional Argentine musical forms, including milonga, the predecessor to the tango, and features Dawn Upshaw as his vocal soloist. Unfortunately, the story itself, Coppola’s first original screenplay in thirty years, is often burdened with obscure motivations and a parade of barely distinguishable minor characters.

For his Italian and Argentine characters, Coppola recruited an international cast, the most famous being Vincent Gallo as Tetro, whose unsettling screen presence well suits the haunted title character. The Austrian Klaus Maria Brandauer will also be recognizable as the Mephistophelean father. Rounding out the damaged Tetrocini family, American newcomer Alden Ehrenreich is surprisingly effective as Benny, bearing a strong physical resemblance to Leonardo Dicaprio, but displaying greater emotional directness and far less affectation in his performance than typically seen from the Blood Diamond star.

Tetro is an ambitious work, even incorporating an original ballet choreographed by Ana Maria Stekelman, in homage to the films of Powell & Pressburger. Coppola’s legions of admirers will be relieved to learn Tetro is a pretty engaging film, but it is not the new masterpiece they are still waiting and hoping for. However, Coppola addresses themes of family and artistic development in such a dark, psychologically tempestuous context, it will be impossible to ignore the film in any serious study of his work. Though at times it borders on outright melodrama, Tetro is consistently fascinating viewing. It opens in New York at the Sunshine Cinema this Thursday.

BIFF ’09: Landscape No. 2

Unlike the Balkan states, Slovenia’s independence from Communist Yugoslavia was nearly bloodless. However, Slovenian history was not always so peaceful. During WWII, Slovenia was wracked by civil war, which culminated in the notorious Bleiburg Massacre immediately following the triumph of Tito’s Communist partisans. The discovery of the 383 mass graves continues to haunt the country, appearing as the omnipresent focus of Slovenian media in Vinko Moderndorfer’s dark crime drama, Landscape No. 2 (trailer here), which screens as part of this year’s Brooklyn International Film Festival.

Criminal improvisation is always a bad idea. Veteran thief Polde and his young apprentice Sergej have a good racket going. They steal art plundered from the national museum by the former elites of the old regime, only to ransom them back to their wrongful owners for a pretty penny. However, as the thieves liberate the national treasure Landscape No. 2 from a former Communist general, Sergej spontaneously decides to crack the safe and grab the cash inside. Inadvertently, he also scoops up documents that would incriminate the men behind the 1945 massacre.

The old corrupt officer is not about to wait for Polde’s ransom call. He calls in the Instructor, a rather pedestrian looking killing machine to recover and destroy the incendiary document. Of course, the immature Sergej is oblivious to the chaos he has set in motion, off-handedly stashing the unexamined papers at one girlfriend’s flat, before sneaking off for a night of passion with the other. However, his romantic two-timing is rudely interrupted by the shocking news of Polde’s suicide. Suddenly, things get very real for Sergej.

Altthough Moderndorfer uses the conventions of the crime noirs, Landscape is more about the corrosive influence of Slovenia’s national secrets. Years of Communist rule kept the truth of the massacre tightly under wraps. Clearly, many would like to prevent further historical inquiry into such a delicate subject. Yet, for Damjan, Sergej’s archivist neighbor, and presumably Moderndorfer, the truth must be exposed to bring closure to a painful episode in Slovenian history.

The Slovenian cast-members all seem to project a sense of world-weary resignation that well serves Moderndorfer’s naturalistic style. The positive exception would be Maja Martina Merljak’s energetic performance as Sergej’s well-heeled, vivacious girlfriend Jasna. As Sergej, Marco Mandic is a convincing lowlife lothario, whose cad-like behavior makes him a less than sympathetic rooting interest. Regrettably though, Jaka Lah’s supporting turn as Sergej’s infatuated neighbor Damjan comes off as an unfortunate gay stereotype.

Moderndorfer and cinematographer Dusan Joksimovic create a dark, dank vision of contemporary Slovenia, where it seems to be perpetually raining and the sins of the past still exert a malicious influence on the present. Landscape is a smart, but pessimistic film that challenges comfortable Western historical preconceptions of World War II and Tito’s partisans. It screens again Sunday (6/14), as the Brooklyn International Film Festival continues at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema.

BIFF ’09: The Man Who Would Be Polka King

Consider it a Behind the Music for AARP members. This unlikely music documentary follows the spectacular rise and fall of Jan Lewan, who built a polka empire with Bernard Madoff-style financing, only to see it inevitably come crashing down around him. Although it seems like a mockumentary, Joshua von Brown & John Mikulak’s The Man Who Would Be Polka King (trailer here) is evidently a real deal doc, which screened last night during the 2009 Brooklyn International Film Festival.

Music has always been Jan Lewan’s life, but it was not always set to a polka oompah beat. When he defected from Poland, Lewan first sought his fame as a romantic balladeer in the hotels of provincial Canada. Migrating to Pennsylvanian coal country in search of work, he found a Polish community that still took its polka seriously. Before long, he had a band and a growing following.

Lewan would become a Grammy-nominated star of the polka circuit, marrying a would-be beauty queen. However, when his wife won the 1998 Mrs. Pennsylvania pageant under suspicious circumstances, it signaled the beginning of the end for Lewan. The polka king had been financing his empire with high interest bonds. It was a classic ponzi scheme that began to unravel when bad publicity from the Mrs. Pennsylvania controversy scared off new potential investors/marks.

Things quickly went from bad to worse, following the disastrous pattern of many ill-fated metal bands. Lewan would contend with a spiteful former band-member stirring up discord with his investors, as well a tragic bus accident that killed two of his musicians and badly injured his son. Basically, the Lewans are what the Osbornes would be if Ozzy played polka.

Lewan’s story is so bizarre it seems like parody. It is hard to believe the corny world of polka music and beauty pageants could produce such drama. However, having recently been released from prison, where he suffered a violent physical attack, Lewan’s story is as real as it gets. Yet von Brown and Mikulak only heighten viewer incredulity with their casting of actor Greg Korin to host the film as Stan Tadrowski, a fictional authority on Northeastern Pennsylvania polka.

Expanded from a shorter film which aired on Court TV, the current festival cut of King is a thorough but lively examination of the dark side of polka. To their credit, the filmmakers are quite even-handed and clearly had access to most of the key figures of Lewan’s epic implosion. They keep things moving along at a good clip and bring the necessary ironic sensibility so obviously needed for such a strange story. At times, they are victims of the own success, documenting events which seem too odd to be true. Its next BIFF screening will be this coming Thursday (6/11) at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema.

BIFF ’09: Pig Hunt

Northern California can be a dangerous place. There are a lot of things to worry about in those woods, including pot growers, violent hillbillies, freaky hippies, and wild boar. It all turns into a perfect storm for John and his loser buddies in Jim Isaac’s Pig Hunt (trailer here), which screens as part of the twelfth annual Brooklyn International Film Festival.

It has been a longtime since John returned to his backwoods home and it’s not hard to see why he stayed away. Originally conceived as a weekend hunting trip with the guys, his girlfriend Brooks convinces him to let her tag along. Again, it is not hard to see why he agreed. Not only is she beautiful, she can shoot straight and is the only character on the excursion worth talking to.

Arriving at his late uncle’s cabin, they discover it has been defaced with weird, menacing graffiti. Also adding to their anxiety is the sudden arrival of two of John’s former hick friends, who seem to harbor a lingering resentment against him. Still, they seem to have a knack for finding game, so everyone heads out into the woods together. After all, what could go wrong? Besides encountering the legendary Ripper, a three-thousand pound wild pig they were warned about in town, that is.

It is not giving away much to reveal the Ripper turns out to be quite real and very much worthy of his name. Needless to say things go very bad, very fast. Isaac builds the tension quite effectively, leaving clues that there may well be more threats out there than just the killer hog. As is usually the case in horror films, the less the audience actually sees of the Ripper, the scarier he is. Unfortunately, the periodic attempts to draw an analogy between the hunt for the Ripper and the War in Iraq are clumsy, ill-conceived distractions from the gory business at hand.

In general, Pig Hunt’s cast is at least adequate to the genre. However, Tina Huang is a charismatic standout as Brooks. Whether firing off rounds or needling John’s idiot friends, she is just what the doctor ordered for a bloody horror-actioner. She completely outshines the rest of the cast, including the bland Travis Aaron Wade as the characterless John. Also noteworthy is a small but effective cameo by blues mouth-harpist Charlie Musselwhite as the general store owner who issues the fateful warning about the big pig in the woods.

Happily we also get to hear Musselwhite perform the all too brief “Booneville Crossroads.” The balance of Pig Hunt’s soundtrack, largely composed by Les Claypool of Primus (who also appears as Preacher, the head of the redneck clan and a dead-ringer for Richard Petty) and featuring additional percussion by jazz drummer Eric Harland, really brings a down-home vitality to the picture.

For audiences receptive to the exploitation-horror genre, Pig Hunt is an energetic film, with some cool sounds and a really appealing action performance by Huang. It is the sort of blood-splattered picture that would have been a good fit for the late lamented Two Boots Theater. Pig Hunt screens again during the BIFF this Friday (6/12) at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema.

Phil Woods Plays A.A. Milne

The Children’s Suite
By Phil Woods
Jazzed Media

Considered the truest heir to Charlie Parker on the alto saxophone, Phil Woods even married Bird’s widow, Chan Parker. However, his latest CD is a definite change of pace for the bop titan that has actually been a longtime coming. Chancing across his children’s A.A. Milne books in 1961, Phil Woods was inspired to write several songs based on his Winnie-the-Pooh stories and verse, but rights difficulties prevented him from recording them for well over forty years. Previously only heard in private performances, Woods’s Milne compositions can now be widely heard on his recent CD, The Children’s Suite.

British actor and Milne family friend Peter Dennis would finally make the project possible, facilitating permissions from the Milne estate and the Disney Company. Sadly, Dennis recently passed away, but his narration can be heard throughout Woods’s Suite. Both a jazz fan and the only actor allowed to interpret Milne’s work on-stage in his one man show Bother!, Dennis clearly had enthusiasm for the project. While many jazz fans will probably find themselves skipping his solo readings like “Sneezles,” younger listeners might well be captivated by them.

Both audiences are likely to be thoroughly charmed by Bob Dorough’s twangy idiosyncratic vocals. Famous for his long stint composing and singing for Schoolhouse Rock, Dorough’s credits also include work with Miles Davis and Allen Ginsberg. He makes a tune like “Pinkle Purr” sound hip and sly rather than cutesy, also contributing a funky electric piano solo. On several tracks he is joined by vocalist Vicki Doney for duets clearly inspired by his Schoolhouse sessions with Blossom Dearie. Doney rises to challenge quite well, bringing a mischievousness to “The Good Little Girl” that Dearie probably would have approved of.

Woods is still a force to reckon with on alto, soloing with power and sensitivity on the ballads “Come Out with Me,” “Solitude,” and “Buttercup Days,” where he shares the spotlight with fellow alto Nelson Hill and baritone Roger Rosenberg. Woods and Hill also spar good-naturedly on the swinging “Us Two.” While the string quartet often gives the session a lush vibe, there is still plenty of swing throughout the Suite, particularly the up-tempo bop number, “The Morning Walk.”

Composer-conductor Woods has assembled a fine ensemble, including his frequent associates, drummer Bill Goodwin and bassist Steve Gilmore, who swing the band nicely. Doney’s husband Eric rounds out the rhythm section on acoustic piano, also providing tastefully supportive accompaniment to Dennis’s dramatic recitations.

Woods’s musical settings of Milne would be a great introduction to jazz for young people that should not drive their parents to distraction when forced to endure incessant listening. Children’s Suite also happens to be a legit jazz session, with plenty of rewarding moments for Phil Woods fans. In addition, it should be noted a portion of the proceeds from Children’s Suite will go to Pocono Area Transitional Housing (PATH), a 501(c)3 non-profit providing shelter to families in need.

Hearts of War

Hearts of War
Directed by Damian Lee
Image Entertainment

Most poets consider themselves lovers rather than fighters. For Oskar Koenig, a sensitive German writer, serving the Nazi war machine is a thoroughly unpleasant experience, particularly when he falls in love with a beautiful Jewish woman. Such are the misfortunes of love and war in Damian Lee’s Hearts of War (formerly known as The Poet, trailer here), the winner of the 2007 Staten Island Film Festival's Best Film Award, which is now available on DVD.

Oskar Koenig has always had a strained relationship with his strict father, a general in the German Army. To toughen up the poet, General Koenig sends his son to Poland as an intelligence officer, charged with infiltrating the local Partisan groups. One snowy evening riding through the forest, he finds Rachel, the young daughter of a rabbi, unconscious and near-dead. Taking her back to his cottage, he nurses her back to health, at which point they immediately fall in star-crossed love.

Not only is Rachel Jewish, she is also betrothed to another, making their relationship extremely problematic. When the Germans attack her village, Koenig deliberately sends Rachel away with her fiancé Bernard, in an act of sacrifice. However, events conspire to draw all parties to Russian border, where German troops are massing in preparation for the Soviet invasion.

Though not exactly Doctor Zhivago, Hearts is also essentially a sweeping romance set during a tumultuous period of history. Using the Holocaust in melodrama is a dicey proposition, but to their credit, director Lee and screenwriter Jack Crystal never seem exploitative in their treatment of such material. Since most of the action occurs with the Partisans in the forest, the concentration camps are never seen on-screen. However, there are several massacre scenes that are reasonably realistic, leaving no doubt as to the evil nature of the National Socialists.

Primarily known for television roles, Jonathan Scarfe and Nina Dobrev are surprisingly credible as the separated lovers. However, the real standout performance comes from Zachary Bennett, who brings a real human dimension to the noble but jilted Bernard. In addition, Hearts boasts a notable supporting cast, including Roy Scheider in one of his final screen roles as a Rabbi in hiding with Rachel and Bernard. Daryl Hannah makes a memorable appearance as Koenig’s sympathetic mother, the kind of part that is still hard to envision for the star of Splash and Roxanne. 24 fans should also note Colm Feore (a.k.a. First Gentleman Henry Taylor) has a small supporting role as a Nazi officer.

Hearts might be melodrama, but as such, it is relatively restrained. While some might object to its historical backdrop on general principle, it is always respectful in its handling of the Holocaust. Thanks its likable leads—all the three sides of its tragic love triangle—most viewers will find it a perfectly satisfying DVD experience.

24 City Party People

A funny thing happened on the way to the Workers’ Paradise in Chengdu. The state factory turned into a luxury condo. It was known as Factory 420, but it will soon be 24 City, a high-rise hotel and apartment complex, which takes its name from a classic poem that extolled the city’s beauty. A traditional staple of Communist propaganda, the factory story gets a subversive twist in Jia Zhang-Ke’s 24 City (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Some proud veterans of Factory 420 refer to it as a place where they fought “American Imperialism.” They produced munitions and airplane parts for China’s Communist allies during both the Korean War and Viet Nam, but recent years were not kind to the state enterprise. After several rounds of layoffs, management has decided to pull up stakes, selling the Chengdu factory to a real estate developer.

Many former workers tell their stories in 24 City, but Jia throws the audience some curve balls, mixing in fictionalized interviews filmed with professional actors, several of whom would be quite recognizable to Chinese audiences. For Americans, there will be at least one familiar face: Joan Chen, well-known for her work in The Last Emperor and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. In a bit of self-referential casting, Chen plays a woman supposedly nicknamed after the title character of the film Little Flower, because of her resemblance to its young star—Joan Chen.

In both the real voices of Factory 420 and Jia’s fictionalized interviews, we hear tangential references to the dramatic upheavals of Communist-era Chinese history. The Cultural Revolution is mentioned in passing. A relative’s homecoming from the countryside is remembered, but not elaborated on. Although nobody states it directly, many former workers of 420 clearly seem to be wondering why they went through all that chaos, just to get to this point.

Jia, the skillful cinematic gamesman, matches the look and tone of his scripted sequences to that of his legitimate interview footage quite well. Generally though, the more attractive the talking head, the more likely it is to be a professional ringer. Joan Chen in particular is still a strikingly luminous screen-presence. Post-modern playfulness aside, her segment is a touching dramatization of alienation in contemporary Chinese society.

24 City fittingly concludes with its other standout dramatic performance, which encapsulates all of the cultural and generational divides at play in Chengdu. Zhao Tao plays Su Na, the grown daughter of factory workers who makes her living as a personal shopper for the nouveau riche. Though her relations with her parents were long strained, a chance visit to her mother’s workplace opened her eyes to the difficulties they endured. In gratitude for their labor, she resolves to make her fortune so she can buy them an apartment in that future capitalist Mecca: 24 City.

Although Jia’s pacing can be a bit languid at times, he effectively captures China’s mood of uncertainty. His use of nostalgic music and film clips helps evoke a sense of a past which failed to live up to its promises. 24 City is a subtle, intriguing film freely mixing fact and fiction to represent its own subjective truth. It opens Friday (6/5) at New York’s IFC Film Center.

A Portrait of the Outsider Artist: Seraphine

In the early Twentieth Century, terms like naïve and primitive were often used to describe Outsider Artists. Outsider was a truly fitting label for Séraphine Louis (a.k.a. Séraphine de Senlis), a lowly middle-aged cleaning lady, who shared with Picasso the distinction of making her first sale to the celebrated German art critic Wilhelm Uhde. Though celebrated in retrospect, her life was one of toil and tragedy, as dramatized by Martin Provost in the French César Award winning Séraphine (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York and Los Angeles.

By 1913, Uhde had become an acknowledged champion of Naïve Primitives, like Le Douanier Rousseau, whom he discovered. Yet Uhde was only seeking some peace and quiet away from the Parisian art scene when he rented a summer house in the provincial town of Senlis. However, when attending a dinner party at the home of a pretentious local family, his eye is caught by a small still life painting, seemingly cast aside by his hosts. To his surprise, the painter is none other than Séraphine Louis, his rather rustic cleaning lady.

Louis is a deeply devout Catholic, who finds equal spiritual inspiration in nature. Unfortunately, she is also a bit off, demonstrating a marked tendency for anti-social behavior. As a result, her genius has gone unrecognized until Uhde’s arrival. With the German dealer happily buying her paintings, Louis’s prospects would seem to be looking up, until outside events intervene. As World War I breaks out, Uhde must make a hasty departure from France and his new discovery.

Provost consistently resists the urge the pretty up Séraphine de Senlis’s story Hollywood-style. The misunderstood painter is never sanitized or romanticized to make her more sympathetic, and neither is Uhde portrayed as a noble savior. In fact, he essentially forgets her after his flight from France, only to rediscover her years later, still painting compulsively and eking out a less than subsistence living. Provost also refrains from even the slightest hint of romance between artist and patron, suggesting that even if Séraphine were more desirable, Uhde still would not be interested.

Yolande Moreau gives a brave performance as Séraphine, projecting the religious fervor that motivated her painting, as well as the painful vulnerability of a woman largely shunned by society. It is a decidedly unglamorous turn, featuring a distinctly unenticing nude scene. Ulrich Tukuar’s Uhde is also a fascinating picture of sophistication and willful self-deception, particularly with regard to his support for his discoveries, and the extent to which it conveniently coincides with his own self- interests.

Séraphine is an elegantly crafted film, capturing both the beauty and the meanness of her world. The Senlis countryside sparkles through the lens of cinematographer Laurent Brunet. While it is a quiet film, ECM recording artist Michael Galasso also won a César Award for his brief but stirring string themes.

A traditional period drama, Séraphine was clearly produced for adults, featuring characters well into middle-age. Wisely, Provost always brings his focus back to Louis’s art, showing her ecstatic creative process. Ultimately it proves to be a very effective showcase for her paintings, two of which are part of the MoMA’s permanent collection. Graced with a rigorous central performance from Moreau, Séraphine is an unvarnished portrait of an outsider artist is uncompromisingly honest. It opens Friday (6/5) at New York’s Angelika and Lincoln Plaza Theaters.

Equilibrium

Equilibrium
By Mikkel Ploug, Sissel Vera Pettersen, Joachim Badenhorst
Songlines

Suddenly wordless vocalizing is cool again. When Louis Armstrong first started scatting in the 1920’s it was a true revolution, but during the 1960’s overly commercial producers often sweetened up perfectly good sessions with the “oohs and ahs” of cheesy background singers. Things have come full circle recently, with groups like the Ploug, Pettersen, and Badenhorst trio performing some very hip, intelligent music that combines harmonically-advanced vocalizing into a unified group concept. The result is frequently ethereal music, like that which can be heard on their new CD Equilibrium.

Formed in Copenhagen, the trio consists of the Danish Mikkel Ploug on guitars; the Norwegian Sissel Vera Pettersen on vocals, soprano saxophone, and electronics; and the Belgian Joachim Badenhorst on reeds, clearly bringing a host of Nordic and Continental influences into their genre-blending group. “Chorale I,” the first of four such motifs, offers a brief introduction to PPB, effectively illustrating the aptness of the title Equilibrium, in which voice, reeds, and strings are so seamlessly integrated together, it is difficult to distinguish one from the unified whole.

The following “November” elevates Pettersen’s voice more prominently in the mix, but its momentum is driven by Badenhorst’s whirling clarinet. It is a hypnotic, otherworldly piece that should allay fears that this will be a set of mere mood music.

At times the trio’s music can be a bit diffuse, as it is in the effect-dominated “Fri,” which only starts to take concrete form from Ploug’s guiding guitar in the final minute and a half or so. Still, Equilibrium is often quite melodically accessible, like the pure instrumental “Soft Spoken,” featuring an impressive soprano solo from Pettersen. In fact, the close harmonies of the horns are so in keeping with the dynamics of her voice intertwined with Badenhorst’s reeds, the change in instrumentation still sounds perfectly in keeping with the preceding vocal tracks.

The vibe of Equilibrium shifts radically, from the peaceful “Chorales I-III” to the darkly unsettling, overtly electronic “Takt” and “Chorale IV.” Yet, the most dramatic evolution probably takes place within Equilibrium’s standout instrumental track “Warmth,” which steadily builds in intensity from its initial mournful strains into a soaring climax.

Employing unusual instrumentation, electronic distortion, and unearthly noises, Equilibrium is about as far from mood music as one can get (unless you have some really strange moods). Yet PPB’s group conception and musical rapport is so cohesive, they draw listeners in with their surprisingly seductive sounds. It is a consistently intriguing session that still maintains its power after repeated listening.

The Legacy Project: Echoes

For her latest project, choreographer Carolyn Dorfman has attracted truly world-class collaborators, including Norwegian Yiddish vocalist Bente Kahan, and Greg Wall, who holds the distinction of being both a distinctive jazz saxophonist and an ordained rabbi. However, her troupe of dancers, the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company (CDDC), is just as impressive in The Legacy Project: Echoes, an evening of dance and live music inspired by her Eastern-European Jewish ancestry, which concludes its two night engagement at the 5th Floor Theater of the Tisch School for the Arts this evening.

Legacy has a strikingly cinematic look, beginning with a moving set of solo vocals by Kahan, as she faces the glowing back wall. Dramatic use of light and shadow also enriches the following Odisea, which vividly interprets the events surrounding the immigration of the first Jews to America in 1654. At that time, the Brazilian Jewry of Recife found it advisable to leave for New Amsterdam, following the Dutch surrender of Brazil to the former Portuguese colonial masters. While at times darkly ominous, it builds to a stirring conclusion, evoking hope and resolve. Featured dancers Mica Bernas, Jacqueline Dumas, Mark Taylor, Sarah Wagner, and Jon Zimmerman set a rather spectacular tone for the evening, which the entire company maintains quite well throughout the program.

As a welcome respite from Legacy’s often serious subject matter, “First Look” is an absolutely joyful blast of energy. Excerpted from Dorfman’s Mayne Mentshn, which tells the story of Jewish assimilation in American told through dance, it could have been a showstopper from a Broadway musical like Grease if not for the decidedly swinging soundtrack composed by Wall. Again, Dorfman’s dancers nicely display their athleticism and charisma in a true crowd-pleasing number.

The centerpiece of the program is Silent Echoes, a dance adaptation of Kahan’s Voices from Threresienstadt about the concentration camp “beautified” by the Nazis for an inspection by the International Red Cross and the production of a propaganda film. It features some of the most intricate choreography of the evening, employing wires and precariously stacked benches. It also includes some particularly pointed lyrics describing the Potemkin village camp as the “‘As If’ Town.”

Legacy concludes with the premiere performances of Tikkun (To Repair), probably the most powerful sequence of the program. Dorfman’s inventive choreography makes haunting use of common-place shoes that suggests the arresting visual impact of the shoes of the Danube Promenade memorial.

The impressive CDDC is frequently quite thrilling in Legacy. It is a deeply human production that synthesizes some painful history into a rousing theater experience. It also benefits from a surprisingly diverse soundtrack, including the Wall’s klezmer and avant-garde influenced music, a composition by the genre-defying jazz-classical cellist David Darling, and Kahan’s traditional repertoire, including the classic “Dona Dona” popularized by Joan Baez, as well as Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) songs.

Legacy’s lineup of performances might sound a bit disparate, but in fact their thematic connections are strong enough to produce a logically organized, cohesive show. Boasting some of the best dancing to be seen on the New York stage (most definitely including Broadway) and some consistently intriguing music, largely performed live by musicians refreshingly visible to the audience (and not buried in a pit or hidden off-stage), the Legacy program should not be missed. The CDDC perform it again tonight at Tisch, before concluding their current tour with stops in New Jersey, Michigan, and Massachusetts.

Foreign Language Oscar Winner: Departures

Given the sheer volume of true masterpieces created by legendary filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa and Kon Ichikawa, it is hard to believe Japanese cinema had only won the best foreign language Academy Award three times prior to this year’s ceremony. However, in perhaps the biggest upset of the 2009 Oscars, Yojiro Takita’s Departures became the fourth Japanese winner. Despite ever-present controversies surrounding the nominating process, the Academy’s foreign language division got it right this time. Easily the best nominated foreign film of the year as well as one of the highlights of the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, Taika’s Departures (trailer here), begins it regular theatrical run today in select cities.

Life has been a mixed bag for Daigo Kobayashi. As soon as he fulfills his lifelong ambition of joining a symphony, the orchestra disbands. Realizing he is a mediocre talent unlikely to secure another such position, Kobayashi gives up music, convincing his attractive wife Mika to move back to his provincial family home. In truth, besides their house, there is little there for Kobayashi to move back to. His mother died while he was on tour and his father deserted the family when Kobayashi was a young boy.

Looking for work, Kobayashi answers an ad deceptively using the word “departures.” He assumes it is a travel agency, but it is actually an “encoffination” agency that performs the ceremonial preparations before laying the recently deceased in their caskets. Naturally, he is put off by this, but Mr. Sasaki, his prospective employer, plies him with cash until he reluctantly agrees to try it. Of course, it is a difficult line of work to adjust to, but Kobayashi finds he has a talent for it. His wife though, is less than understanding when she discovers the truth about his new job.

Once again, the shunned encoffineer must deal with the abandonment of a loved one, as well as the rejection of former friends. Yet in Sasaki and his assistant, he finds a surrogate family. He also starts playing his childhood cello again. Music had been Kobayashi’s ambition, and then the symbol of his failure. By returning to his home, he starts reconnecting with what music originally meant to him. Logically, the soundtrack plays a crucial role in the film and probably the film’s biggest gamble was the use of primarily original compositions. Fortunately, Jo Hisaishi’s haunting light-classical themes are absolutely pitch-perfect for the story.

In the hands of a lesser director, Departures could have been painfully schmaltzy. However, Takita has crafted an elegant, deeply felt film. The key to his approach are the encoffining ceremonies he patiently and reverently films, movingly capturing the multiplicity of emotions experienced by the bereaved and the humanity of the encoffineers. Once you understand the importance of the ceremony, you understand Kobayashi.

A film dominated by funereal rituals might sound depressing, but in fact, it is quite the opposite. It does pack a heavy emotional punch, but it is ultimately life-affirming and hopeful. Departures is definitely about loss and regret, but also redemption and how one lost man finds his place in the world. Takita’s sensitive direction always finds the right note and the cast is uniformly excellent. Masahiro Motoki covers a wide emotional range as Kobayashi, expressing the musician’s great empathy as well as the insecurities and resentments deeply rooted in his childhood. Likewise, Tsutomu Yamazaki plays Sasaki with understated wit and grace, without coming across as the stereotypical wise old mentor.

Every element of Departures works together beautifully. It is a richly crafted, highly satisfying film. It is also genuinely moving, with no cheap tears, but a real emotional pay-off earned through its superior performances and character development. It opens today in New York at the Lincoln Plaza and Landmark Sunshine Theaters.

On-Stage: Vieux Carre

It is probably the first play a Tennessee Williams biographer should read as part of their research, but it has not been produced on the New York stage in twenty-five years. Although Williams’s 1977 Vieux Carré might be infrequently revived, its biographical significance is undeniable, right down to the address of the squalid boarding house in which it is set: 722 Toulouse Street—Williams’s own address in the late 1930’s. Now Vieux Carré has the additional distinction of being the first Tennessee Williams play undertaken by the Pearl Theatre Company, as well as their last production at their current home on St. Mark’s, where it officially opened last night.

The residents of Mrs. Wire’s Toulouse Street boarding house are the dregs of New Orleans. Frankly, most are waiting to die, but one is still trying to find his place in the world. The Writer has recently moved to New Orleans from his native St. Louis, to pursue his literary career and come to terms with his homosexuality. Does that sound like any great American playwright?

There is plenty of raw material to inspire him in 722, including the shrewish landlady, two destitute elderly women, and Nightingale, an old consumptive lecher who seduces the writer during a moment of vulnerability. He finds a friend in the understanding Jane, a young lady from a proper Westchester family, who has been tragically diagnosed with Leukemia. Unfortunately, it is awkward for him to be near her lover Tye, a brutish strip club bouncer, who seems to protest too much when making crude homophobic remarks.

Williams first started Vieux in the late 1930’s, but he did not complete it until the late seventies with its brief 1977 Broadway production. Granted, it might not be Streetcar, but it is certainly a meaty play, prefiguring most of the themes and motifs of his acknowledged major works. It is also a great depiction of the Crescent City’s seedy glory, in which the promise of freedom is fittingly represented by Sky, a jazz musician.

Sensitively directed by Austin Pendleton, himself an actor often seen on the New York stage, the Pearl’s production effectively evokes the atmosphere of death and decay that looms over the doomed residents of 722. The wall-less set design also nicely conveys the claustrophobic environment and the lack of privacy experienced by Mrs. Wire’s boarders.

The cast is quite strong, particularly George Morfogen, who brings out the complex humanity of the problematic Nightingale. Sean McNall is also notably impressive in the role of the Writer, coming across as an intelligent, multifaceted young man, rather than a mere narrator or a stand-in for the famous playwright.

Like most of Williams’s plays, Vieux might sound depressing, but there is something reassuring about the dramatically messy humanity on view. In fact, Williams was a very humane writer, depicting deeply flawed characters, like Nightingale, with great compassion. It is definitely a strong production of a rewarding play, well-worth catching during its surprisingly rare revival (though parents should be cautioned there are distinctly adult situations and brief full frontal nudity). Its limited engagement at the Pearl ends June 14th, and look for the company’s upcoming 2009/2010 season in their new home at New York City Center.

Teen Angst: What Goes Up

A burned out New York Times reporter falsifies a series of stories out of whole cloth—not exactly a shocking premise. Yet we are not supposed to judge Campbell Babbitt too harshly, because his motives are noble, well sort of. Aside from the fact that he has one of the greatest movie names in recent years, it is hard to get a handle on the troubled and troubling protagonist of Jonathan Glatzer’s pseudo-comedy What Goes Up (trailer here), opening this Friday in New York.

Babbitt has broken one iron-clad rule of journalism after another. The first was falling in love with a woman he was covering: “Angela,” the anonymous mother of young son murdered in a senseless street crime. When the crusading Angela takes her own life out of despair, Babbitt cannot bring himself to report the truth, fabricating multiple stories about her campaign against crime.

A complete basket case, Babbitt’s irritated editor assigns him the kind of human interest story he seems to specialize in: New Hampshire’s Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher in space. However, in this fictionalized treatment, McAuliffe’s high school has already suffered the untimely loss of one teacher when the broken-down Times scribe arrives. In a twist of fate, the late teacher was Sam Calalluci, an old friend of Babbitt’s.

Sensing a story, Babbitt exaggerates his relationship to Calalluci to win the trust of his grieving homeroom class. It works only too well, as his class of misfits adopts the morally comprised reporter as their new mentor figure. However, he is only too willing to get close to one student, Lucy Diamond, played by teen-aged “It-Girl” Hilary Duff, in one of Up’s several highly questionable subplots.

Up sees itself as a meditation on the reality and perception of real life heroes, which becomes painfully obvious from the ubiquitous presence of David Bowie’s “Heroes” in the soundtrack. Of course, the inevitable fate of Christa McAuliffe and the rest of the shuttle crew hangs over the film, putting a damper on the would-be comedic moments. It is a reality Glatzer never brings himself to deal with, ending the film shortly before the tragic launch.

Clearly, Glatzer and co-screenwriter Robert Lawson want to say much about the nature of heroism, but Up’s tone is so wildly inconsistent, the picture is ultimately a complete muddle. Steve Coogan seems to specialize in films that feature pivotal high school stage productions, but unlike Hamlet 2, he is allowed to keep his British accent here. In fact, he is quite convincing as the world-weary Babbitt. Unfortunately, he is often forced into smarmy situations which border on the outright criminal. Aside from Coogan and a surprisingly effective Duff, Up’s promising cast is largely wasted on stock characters, like the shrewish Penelope Little, played by SNL alumnus Molly Shannon.

At times, Up tries to be a thoughtful examination of the need to be inspired, particularly at a young age. However, it often degenerates into exploitative scenes of teenaged sexuality. While it has one or two interesting moments, Up just does not work as a film. It opens this Friday (5/29) in New York at the Quad.

soloNOVA: Piccola Cosi

Italians have always been quite hospitable to American expat jazz musicians, perhaps most notably with Chet Baker in the 1960’s (at least before jailing him on drug charges). The fragile romanticism of “My Funny Valentine,” a standard closely associated with Baker, would indeed be a fitting trial-by-fire for an American neophyte jazz vocalist. Aja Nisenson relates that fateful debut live performance, as well as the men and music she encountered in the Bologna jazz scene, with words and music in Piccola Cosi, which opened last night at the DR-2 Theatre as part of the soloNOVA Arts Festival of solo shows.

Unlike other soloNOVA selections, Nisenson has back-up on-stage, in the form of her able jazz trio, led by director Brian Dilg on keyboards, with Joe Nagle on drums and Pete O’Connell on bass. Of course, the only talking they do is through their instruments, which is appropriate since music plays such an important role in Nisenson’s story.

As she presents herself, Nisenson arrived in Italy a shy, inexperienced college student, who had performed opera and musical theater, but never jazz—at least not in front of a live audience. Her first time tackling a jazz standard is a bit of an adventure, as one might expect, but fortunately the piano-player leading the band is indulgent. After a false start, Nisenson demonstrates why she set out on her jazz excursion. It turns out she really has quite a voice, and even shows some scat chops she did not know she had, when cajoled into it by the encouraging band leader.

As Nisenson explains, Italy was a liberating environment for her. She claims she would not have had the nerve to sit-in with an American group, but in Italy everyone seems more inviting, particularly the men. Much of the show involves Nisenson’s attempts to deflect the advances of several prospective Italian lovers, with varying degrees of success. Again, the attractive Nisenson explains she always perceived herself as a geeky sneaker-wearing kid, but in Bologna, she had more romantic attention than she really wanted.

While the roster of would-be suitors sort of blend together for the audience, Nisenson infuses Piccola with a hip jazz sensibility that suggests she really does know of what she speaks. She cleverly integrates classic standards like “Take the A Train,” “Just Friends,” and “I’m Through with Love” into the show to help advance her story. As a crowd pleasing bonus, she even ends with a swinging “Mambo Italiano.”

Nisenson has a charismatic stage presence and legitimate vocal talent. Each standard she performed on opening night (even those intended for comic effect) earned a hearty round of applause. Combining jazz, musical theater, and solo performance, Piccola is an entertaining night of hybrid-theater. It runs at the DR-2 through May 30th, concluding the 6th annual soloNOVA fest.

Japanese Cinema: The Burning

The Burning
Directed by Kenta Hayashida
Pathfinder Home Entertainment

Twins tend to be an unsettling presence in dramatic films, such as The Krays, Dead Ringers, and of course Village of the Damned. Evidently, the Gemini effect also holds true in Japanese cinema, but while Minako and Hinako are indeed deeply disturbed twins, they also happen to be the sympathetic protagonists in Kenta Hayashida’s The Burning (a.k.a. Brulee, trailer here), now available on DVD.

Minako and Hinako have been separated for thirteen years, since they set the fire which killed their abusive father. Hinako was taken in by her uncle, a pastry chef in a seaside resort town, where she lives a relatively normal high school life, aside from her escalating fire-starting compulsion. One day, Minako arrives unannounced, carrying an urn she claims holds the ashes of their grandmother. However, it turns out the urn is for her. The shy Minako (usually distinguishable by her long scarf) has a malignant brain tumor and her time is short.

Together again, the twins obviously share an unusually deep bond. Hinako considers her sister a calming influence on her, yet her arsonist instincts remain unabated, resulting in the burning of her uncle’s shop. Suddenly on the run, the twins are determined to stay together, but Minako keeps her secrets, fearing the truth would lead to loss of Hinako in her last remaining days. Real life twins Rika and Mika Nakamura are quite effective as Minako and Hinako respectively. Rika Nakamura is particularly touching as the tragic Minako, conveying all the unfair pathos of her circumstances.

While much of Burning might lend itself to a macabre treatment, Hayashida seems to consciously resist the conventions of horror films. Rather than build suspense around the arson scenes, he always presents them well underway. Although at times the twins do act more than a little creepy, there is never any doubt where viewers’ sympathies should be. They are after all unquestionably victims in the context of the film. Appropriately, Hayashida maintains an elegiac tone throughout, dramatically underscored by Toshihiro Mizuno’s melancholy classical soundtrack.

Unfortunately, the live-in-the-moment theme of Burning would be tragically fitting for Hayashida, who passed away just as the film was released in Japan. While a relatively brief seventy minutes, Hayashida’s haunting film certainly feels like a complete emotional journey. It is definitely well worth checking out on DVD.

Canadian Zombie Flick: Pontypool

Generally, Canadians are good neighbors, but some annoying aspects of the country’s culture have drifted south of the border, like the music of Celine Dion and a nearly religious devotion to socialized medicine. In true South Park style, we can also “blame Canada” for literally infecting the English language in Pontypool (trailer here), Bruce McDonald’s nifty little genre thriller opening this Friday in New York.

Pontypool is a friendly little village in southern Ontario where people rely on CLSY Radio for weather forecasts, crop reports, and school closings. For shock-jock Grant Mazzy though, it represents the end of the line of a controversial career. Driving into work one typically snowy morning, he has an odd encounter with a woman who appears to speaking gibberish. It seems weird, but at least it will be a good bit for the show.

However, as the show progresses, strange unconfirmed reports start coming in suggesting his experience was part of a wider epidemic. Evidently, a mob of people speaking incomprehensibly has turned murderous. The provocative Mazzy wants to run with it, but his by-the-book producer Sydney Briar insists on proper verification before they report such outlandish stories. As a result, Mazzy must conduct a surreal interview with the cast of the local community theater’s production of Lawrence of Arabia, while Pontypool burns.

As its gimmick, Pontypool posits a new form of disease carried by language, which proves deadly to those who understand the infected words. Of course, the French language is uncontaminated, which is a real drag for the questionably proficient Mazzy. While the language-as-carrier premise might not stand up under the scrutiny of post-screening logic, McDonald holds it all together rather well in his cleverly conceived production.

Pontypool is a brilliantly staged genre film, which brings to mind the claustrophobia of the classic Night of the Living Dead. Rather than relying a makeup and special effects, McDonald draws suspense from the uncertainty felt by CLSY’s skeleton crew as the world seems to be falling apart outside their windowless studio. Shrewdly adapting his own novel, Tony Burgess’s screenplay could easily be produced theatrically, using a small principal cast confined to the few small rooms of the CLSY studio. Yet, McDonald’s direction never feels stagey.

Stephen McHattie turns in one of the best genre performances in recent years as the Imus-inspired Mazzy. He is a crusty curmudgeon with deeply human flaws, whose reactions to the exceptional events of Pontypool elevate it well above standard apocalyptic-zombie fare. Lisa Houle is also quite believable as the responsible Briar, who must contend with Mazzy’s ego as well as the plague of zombies.

Pontypool effectively capitalizes on its outlandish MacGuffin, engaging in some inventive linguistic games, while nicely maintaining the tension. It is a cool little zombie movie that will appeal to the audience for smart, character-driven horror films, like Let the Right One In. It opens this Friday (5/29) in New York at the Cinema Village.