ND/NF ’12: Goodbye

It is not exactly a common cultural zeitgeist, but immigration has become an increasingly frequent topic of both American and Iranian films. In the case of the former, viewers are asked to identify with those trying to enter the country illegally. For the latter, audiences watch as desperate everyday people try to get out, by any means necessary. Needless to say, getting into America is much easier (and safer) then leaving Iran. One expecting mother-to-be struggles with this grim reality in Mohammad Rasoulof’s Goodbye (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 New Directors/New Films, jointly presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and MoMA.

Noura was a human rights attorney in Tehran. Disbarred for obvious reasons, the only work now available to her is gift-wrapping. Her husband has been forced into an ambiguous exile up north, leaving her alone to deal with her pregnancy. This makes life particularly challenging, since Iran requires a man’s authorization for even the simplest medical procedures. Her baby is important part of the immigration scheme hatched by a dodgy passport broker. However, she is having doubts whether she should keep her. Yet, there is little to be done about it, without a husband’s permission.

Goodbye ought to be hailed as the international feminist watershed film of the decade. Yes, it directly addresses abortion, but the issues in question are far more fundamental than that single hot-button issue. As an unaccompanied woman, Noura is unable to undergo an ultrasound or check into a hotel on her own. Yet, she faces more than just gender oppression, which becomes clear when the police confiscate her satellite dish.

Facing a year in prison and the loss of his film production business, Rasoulof can clearly relate to such travails. Yet, he could at least authorize his own medical treatment—a fact clearly not lost on him. While he previously employed layers of allegory to obscure his social critique in the visual arresting White Meadows (edited by his colleague Jafar Panahi, with whom he was arrested in late 2010), Goodbye is a bold exercise in street level realism. Still, from time to time he conveys Noura’s psychological state with powerfully impressionistic moments more in keeping with the tone of Meadows (an insufficiently heralded modern masterwork).

Considering Marzieh Vafamehr was sentenced to ninety lashes for her thematically similar role in Granaz Moussavi’s My Tehran for Sale (reduced on appeal to three months in prison), Leyla Zareh’s performance is courageous on multiple levels. Rather than play to audience sympathies, she portrays Noura emotionally guarded to an almost soul deadening extent, for the sake of self-preservation. It is a harrowingly convincing turn.

Of course, Goodbye ends as it must, to keep faith with those who experienced what happens to Noura. As a result there are no real surprises in the film, just tragedy compounded. In truth, this will be somewhat familiar ground for those who have seen Moussavi’s film and Panahi’s The Circle, but Rasoulof’s execution is quite compelling and sensitive, nonetheless. Important as a document of contemporary Iranian life and as an aesthetically distinctive work of cinema, Goodbye is one of the clear highlights of this year’s ND/NF. Earnestly recommended, it screens this Thursday (3/22) at the Walter Reade Theater and the following Saturday (3/24) at MoMA.

Gerhard Richter Painting (and Scraping)

Perhaps no artist represents the force of creative destruction better than Gerhard Richter. Not surprisingly, such a Schumpeterian painter was ill-suited to the Social Realist doctrine dominant in the former DDR. Finding refuge in the West two months before the construction of the Berlin Wall, Gerhard’s work has reached dizzying prices at recent auctions. Filmmaker Corinna Belz documents the artist at work in Gerhard Richter Painting (trailer here), now showing in New York at Film Forum.

For some, Richter’s work probably confirms their uncharitable preconceived notions about modern art. The Dresden-born artist is best known for his large abstract paintings and photo-realistic work that would seem to be stylistically at odds with each other. Throughout the film, Belz captures the increasingly self-conscious Richter at work on two canvases in the former style.

After seeking asylum in West Germany in 1961, two Richter murals in the East were painted over out of dogmatic spite. Ironically, Richter deliberately subjects his work to similar treatment, roughly scraping his canvasses with paint squeegees to see how it alters their character. This process might continue past the point paintings are hung for exhibition. Indeed, there is something very Darwinistic about his approach, causing his assistants to openly speculate whether certain paintings will be able “to hold their own.”

GR Painting follows in the tradition of similar documentaries from Kino Lorber-Alive Minds, observing an artist or craftsman at work in their studio-space. However, the portrait of Richter is considerably more engaging than Gereon Wetzel’s El Bulli: Cooking in Progress or Sophie Fiennes’s Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow, because Belz brings a more visually dynamic approach to bear on her subject, without the same hushed reverence. However, Richter and his colleagues do not offer the sort of witty commentary heard fly-on-the-wall style from photography book publisher Gerhard Steidl and his roster of artists in Wetzel & Adolphe’s shockingly entertaining How to Make a Book with Steidl.

While Belz touches briefly on Richter’s fateful flight west, her focus falls squarely on his creative process. Frankly, for those with more traditional aesthetic inclinations, each successive scraping often renders the two canvasses in question less interesting, blurring the color contrasts and breaking down the paintings’ implied compositional structure. That is just the reality of his working method. Many will find it fascinating, many others will not. At least Richter is a rather interesting figure to spend time with. Recommended for patrons well steeped in the contemporary art world, GR Painting screens through Tuesday the 27th at Film Forum in Manhattan’s eternally chic West Village.

Seeking Justice: Nicolas Cage Keeps Digging a Deeper Career Hole

In some evil alternate universe, “the hungry rabbit jumps” is about to become a massive catch-phrase. Thanks to a benevolent creator, we do not live in that world. In our reality, Nicolas Cage keeps sinking to lower lows with each new b-movie he appears in. The lowest yet, is Roger Donaldson’s Seeking Justice (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Happily married Will Gerard’s life crumbles when his much smarter and more attractive wife Laura is attacked. While anxiously awaiting news in the hospital, Gerard is approached by a suspicious man. Simon, as he will be called, tells Gerard his associates know who did it and can “take care of him” if he agrees to do them a favor in the future. After an agonizing period of hand-wringing, Gerard agrees. The deed is done, his wife begins her recovery, and life appears to right itself. Then Gerard gets the call with those magic words: “the hungry rabbit jumps.” That means it is time to collect.

Evidently, the mystery man represents a shadowy cabal of vigilantes (encompassing just about everyone in the city of New Orleans) based on the principal of paying vengeance forward. It is now Gerard’s turn to off someone. However, his target is not who he was represented to be. It seems the conspiracy forgot about the private justice aspect of their business and became all about killing.

Only Cage would make a self-loathing vigilante movie. Face it, this is what he does. However, why a quality filmmaker would helm such depressing vehicle is a mystery. Roger Donaldson’s last film The Bank Job was smart, sophisticated, and lively. What happened? It is also baffling how January Jones’s management could let her squander her Mad Men capital in a Nic Cage picture. In truth, she is perfectly fine as Laura Gerard, but it is not exactly a part of great depth.

At least in Trespass, Cage’s previous blink-and-you-missed-it release, Ben Mendelsohn understood how to chew the scenery as a larger than life villain. In contrast, Guy Pearce looks physically uncomfortable as Simon, like he was suffering from a bad case of food poisoning during production. The only spark in the picture comes from Xander Berkeley, doing his shtick as the corrupt Lt. Durgan with a ridiculous New Orleans accent, presumably to help stave off boredom.

It is great that Justice was shot in New Orleans, but it is frustrating that the production did not take advantage of the Crescent City’s richly diverse music scene. That would have at least helped offset some of the film’s blandness. Altogether, the film lacks character, energy, and conviction. Highly skippable, it opens today (3/16) in New York at the Village East and AMC Empire.

Extreme Private Ethos: Embracing & Tarachime

Film has clearly been a form of therapy for Naomi Kawase. Though experimental in nature, her documentaries have addressed some highly personal and painful family issues. While her themes are universal, the treatment and wincing pain of the search for her birth father and her complicated relationship with her adopted “mother” make the double bill of Kawase’s Embracing and Tarachime (roughly translated as “Birth Mother,” trailer here) arguably the least accessible program of Extreme Private Ethos, the Asia Society current series of acutely intimate Japanese documentaries.

Kawase has also made several acclaimed narrative features, including the quiet but deeply moving Cannes award winning Mourning Forest, but her reputation was forged with her documentary work. Essentially abandoned by both her long missing father and the birth mother who relinquished Kawase to her great aunt Uno (whom she calls Grandma), the filmmaker struggles with a sense of rootlessness in Embracing. Having traced her father’s whereabouts, she would like to re-establish contact, but her great aunt-grandmother-mother is against it. Somewhat conflicted, Kawase reconstructs her early childhood, but all she really has are a few old photographs and official census registrations. Ultimately, such evidence makes notions of family seem rather arbitrary, especially through Kawase’s warped lens.

Following the birth of her own child, Kawase examines her relationship with her adopted mother, directly rebuking the elderly woman’s emotional distance on-camera at critical juncture in Tarachime. Indeed, Kawase turns her focus away from nothing, including her son’s delivery, scenes of her great aunt in the ambulance and emergency room during a health scare, as well as brutally up-close shots of the ninety year old woman’s naked body.

Whereas Embracing exhibits some intriguing avant-garde stylistic devices, Tarachime is more visceral and discomfiting. It is a hard film to watch on several levels. In contrast to her later narrative work, which might be deliberately paced but have a stately beauty deserving a considerably wider audience, these short docs should probably be reserved for cineastes whose tastes run towards non-narrative experimentalism. Brutally honest, they are still quite appropriate selections for Extreme Private Ethos. About forty minutes each, Embracing and Tarachime screen together this Sunday (3/18) at the Asia Society on New York’s fashionable Upper Eastside.

The Dardenne Brothers’ Kid with a Bike

Cyril Catoul might be a hard kid to love but his father never really tried the nurture thing. However, a hairdresser might offer the sense of belonging he always lacked, unless he succumbs to the mean circumstances of his environment. Steeped in their familiar working class milieu, the Dardenne Brothers (Jean-Pierre and Luc) invite viewers to look at the world through the eyes of a child fast losing his innocence and wonder in The Kid with a Bike (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

When viewers first meet young Catoul, he is throwing a tantrum of sorts. It is hard to blame him though. Entrusted to an orphanage for what was supposed to be a short term basis, his father has apparently disappeared, leaving no forwarding information. In addition to the obvious abandonment issues, Catoul is quite upset over the apparent lose of his bike and the freedom of mobility it represents.

Inadvertently walking into the boy’s drama, Samantha buys back his bike from the neighbor his father sold it to. Almost as a dare, he invites her to become his weekend guardian, which she accepts in much the same spirit. Of course, the kid still has a lot of resentment and denial regarding his father, but he begins to trust Samantha. However, a local drug dealer also has his eye on the boy, left highly vulnerable to his overtures by his father’s excuses of dire poverty.

Bike is a tough film, but it is also highly compassionate. Despite depicting a tremendous amount of young Catoul’s lashing out, the Brothers Dardenne never condemn him. Viewers, like Samantha, keenly understand the cause of his rage. It is not a fairy tale world, but a typically naturalistic environment from the Dardennes. Nor is Samantha a fairy godmother, which makes her character rather heroic by everyday real world standards.

As Samantha, Cécile de France (recognizable to American audience for her turn in Eastwood’s Hereafter) brings a matter-of-fact earthiness to the film that really cements her relationship with her difficult but sympathetic ward. For his part, Thomas Doret’s performance as young Catoul is natural in a good way, convincingly projecting his anger, insecurity, and vulnerability.

The Dardenne Brothers do not let audiences off the hook easily. There is a severe internal logic to the film they scrupulous observe at all times. Yet, it stands as an unusually humane cinematic rendering of humanity, nonetheless. Highly accessible for general mass market audiences, Bike is strongly recommended when it opens this Friday (3/16) in New York at the IFC Center.

Detachment: Adrien Brody Looks Sad

Do not blame teachers for their students’ behavioral problems. The fault lies with irresponsible parents argues the latest Blackboard Jungly social issue drama. Yet perhaps some kids are just soulless punks, who need a sub like Tom Berenger in the unabashedly politically incorrect The Substitute. What they get instead is Adrien Brody in Tony Kaye’s Detachment (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Henry Barthes is the long reliever of substitute teachers. He can come in for an extended stretch and then leave with no emotional attachments holding him back. He is not a terrible guy. In fact, he seems to care about his addled grandfather’s well being. At least he is interested enough to bully the nursing staff whenever he feels necessary. However, his students are another matter entirely, particularly at his new school.

All his fellow faculty members feel downtrodden and the cynical board is scapegoating the principal. Yet, somehow Barthes makes an impression on students by keeping his cool, except of course, when he talks about “No Child Left Behind.”

Detachment is an overstuffed traffic jam of a movie, but some of the conflicting parts are quite good. Every member of the all-star ensemble gets their solo spotlight and most of them nail it. It sounds highly unlikely, but James Caan and Lucy Liu have a particularly moving moment of consolation together.

Frankly, Detachment might have worked better as a theater piece, stitching together dramatic monologues. Structurally, it is better suited to such an approach, using sociological interviews with Barthes as the narrative framing device. There are also twee hipster graphical transitions that rather clash with the gritty vibe Kaye is otherwise going for.

Barthes’ story is sort of all over the place too. He gradually reveals some dark family history fairly deftly, but a major subplot is bit much to swallow. For murkily defined reasons, Barthes invites a teenaged junkie prostitute to crash in his apartment, but not his bed, giving her free access to the place, with no adverse consequences. Right, maybe he should leave his bank card and PIN number with her, just for emergencies.

We understand Kaye likes teachers. That is all well and good. However, his diatribes against NCLB are a bit off point. The purpose of the tests Barthes inveighs against is simply to gauge teacher performance with respect to their students’ proficiencies. The terrible pressure to perform on said tests comes solely from the teachers trying to save their bacon.

Without question, Barthes is the sort of sad sack character Brody was born to play. Indeed, his morose screen persona works well in this context. Nearly everyone has memorable moments in the film, but they are often not given adequate space to breath. Strangely too cute around the margins, Detachment earns a fair measure of respect, but never really pulls it all together. It opens this Friday (3/16) in New York at the Village East.

Free Men: the Paris Mosque Breaks Ranks

As with all faiths, there were both demons and angels among Muslims during World War II. King Mohammad V is widely hailed for sheltering Moroccan Jewry in open defiance of Vichy. In contrast, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem broadcasted vehement anti-Semitic propaganda on behalf of the Germans and recruited volunteers for a special Muslim division of the SS. Indeed, there was a reason the National Socialists were surprised when the Mosque of Paris broke ranks to protect North African Jewish immigrants. Director Ismaël Ferrouki (and co-writer Alain Michel-Blanc) dramatize and somewhat fictionalize that relatively rare story of interfaith solidarity in Free Men (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The Nazi occupation of France is well underway, but all it means to the Algerian Younes Bendaoud is a chance to make some money on the black market. That quickly changes once he is pinched. Being conveniently Muslim, a Vichy-connected inspector recruits him as a snitch. He is to attend Mosque regularly and report on suspicious visitors. Of course, the Mosque rector Si Kaddour Ben Ghabrit’s most frequent guest is Major von Ratibor of the occupying German forces (played by Horst Buchholz’s son, Christopher). However, the inspector is more interested in Salim Halali, an Arabic singer whose true heritage has become the subject of rumors.

As a spy, Bendaoud is pretty incompetent, immediately drawing Ben Ghabrit’s attention. Yet, as they allow him to observe the Mosque’s underground activities, he becomes increasingly committed to the resistance.

If one were to judge solely on the basis of the many well meaning Holocaust dramas produced over the last ten years, one would conclude nearly everyone throughout Europe and North Africa was secretly harboring Jewish countrymen from the National Socialist-Vichy authorities. Unfortunately, the Paris Mosque was rather exceptional in every respect.

Free Men definitely engages in similar revisionism, while justly celebrating those who did risk life and liberty for the sake of their fellow man. Respectfully conservative in its approach, it follows the traditional arc of rescuer pictures: the awakening of conscious, the building of trust, a late war crisis, and the culminating post-VE Day resolution.

While the film takes few narrative risks, it looks and sounds quite refined. Though set entirely in France, Ferrouki embraces the color palate of North Africa, where Free Men was partly filmed. Inspired by the life of Halali, who would become a leading impresario and popularizer of Arabic music, only to disappear into obscurity in his senior years, Free Men has an appropriately rich, percussion heavy Arab-Andalusian soundtrack. In addition, Bendaoud’s brooding interludes are underscored by the distinctive themes improvised in the tradition of Tomasz Stanko’s film and theater work by Beirut-born French-based jazz trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf.

As Bendaoud, Tahar Rahim is undeniably a paragon of tough masculinity. However, most of the supporting players come across as rather coldly calculated. As a result, the film lacks the emotional punch one might expect. Still, it is a classy period production, featuring some passionate music. Often intriguing, but never genuinely surprising, is recommended for those who enjoy the underground milieu best typified by Melville’s Army of Shadows.  Free Men opens this Friday (3/16) in New York, uptown at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and downtown at the Quad Cinema.

Sundance ’12: Killing the Chickens to Scare the Monkeys (short)

Chinese dissidents are extraordinarily brave and thoughtful, but a Chinese Communist Party aphorism refers to them as chickens. Presumably said chickens are harder to kill than monkeys, which is why the reported saying advocates slaughtering the one to intimidate the other. Whether they are “guilty” or not, hardly matters. In this context, it is not great to be the latter, but even worse to be the former. Swedish filmmaker Jens Assur dramatizes a shocking everyday application of the pacifying policy in his short film Killing the Chickens to Scare the Monkeys, which somewhat recently screened at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival (and will be covered slightly after the fact now, thanks to the good graces of the Swedish Film Institute).

Though writer-director-producer Assur divides his time between Stockholm and Los Angeles, he filmed Chickens in Thailand, employing a style in keeping with the so-called Digital Genenration, or dGenerate, school of independent, largely underground filmmaking. It opens with an unbroken fifteen minute tracking shot more thoughtfully composed and rendered than Silent House, in its entirety.

Given the title, it is not much of a spoiler to reveal the first act recreates an execution. Yet, the circumstances surrounding it stand as a disturbing commentary on Chinese society. However, Chickens is just getting started, even though the story has ended. In subsequent scenes, Assur rewinds the narrative, showing viewers just how one school teacher came to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, as well as just what sort of person she was. While the tone is clinically detached, the sense of tragedy still compounds exponentially with each temporal shift.

Technically, Chickens is quite a polished work, conveying the sensation of observing China’s dirty “justice” system Frederick Wiseman-style. Cinematographer Marek Septimus Wieser dramatically frames each sequence, most particularly the continuous opening shot. Although uncredited (for reasons one might easily speculate), the work of the lead protagonist is frighteningly convincing and ultimately quite poignant, in realistically grounded way.

Forthrightly addressing some serious issues within its twenty-four minute running time, Chickens is definitely a fully realized and engaging work. Indeed, it should be thought of as a film in the fullest sense rather than a spec short or a sketch. Challenging and chilling, Chickens deserves a wide international audience following its screenings as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

Delicacy: French Rebounding

Markus Lundl might look a little goofy, but he is Swedish, so give him a break. Granted, he is far from faultless, but for one young French widow that is rather the point. She had perfection and now it is time to move on. She will deal with her bereavement and unlikely rebound in David and Stéphane Foenkinos’ Delicacy, adapted from the former filmmaker-brother’s novel, which opens this Wednesday in New York (trailer here).

Nathalie Kerr’s first husband François was ideal in every way, including their fate-blessed meeting. Unfortunately, fate would soon rip him away. For three years, Kerr closes down emotionally, throwing herself into her work. Then one day, she notices the goofy Swede on her project management team. Almost in spite of herself, she begins a halting courtship with the surprised Lundl. Their implausible relationship definitely raises eyebrows around the office, particularly with Kerr’s sexually harassing boss. (It is a Scandinavian company, so one would think they would be accustomed to contemporary workplace protections.)

While Delicacy spends a fair amount of time with Kerr’s initial happiness and subsequent mourning period, it really starts to click when Lundl enters the picture. As her unexpected love interest, Belgian born François Damiens looks Swedish enough and projects the perfect sad clown aura. Though Audrey Tautou largely gives her sprightly Amelie persona the deep freeze, she plays off Damiens quite well.

Yes, we have been down this road before. Indeed, the Foenkinos brothers freely mix elements of the goony guy wish fulfillment fable with a female recovery story worthy of the Lifetime network. Yet, they give it an eccentric charm and the occasional mad flourish to keep more discriminating viewers hooked.

Delicacy has nice chemistry, which counts for a lot with this sort of film. The Brothers Foenkinos are also somewhat more willing to plum their characters’ dark angsty places, helping differentiate the film from the rom-com pack (making it more of a truffle than a bonbon). Still, it remains haunted by inevitable comparisons to Tautou’s thematically related prior films. Ultimately, it is quite a pleasant if not essential viewing experience. Recommended for Francophiles and unqualified romantics, it opens this Wednesday (3/14) in New York, uptown at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center and downtown at the Landmark Sunshine.

Korean Rom-Com: Cyrano Agency

There is a reason Byung-hoon is emotionally damaged. He once studied in France. At least the trip inspired a way to make his acting chops pay the bills. The former stage thespian now runs a rag tag service that helps the romantically inept win the objection of their affections. However, things get a bit complicated when their next assignment turns out to be his ex. Far more romantic than farcical, Kim Hyeon-seok’s Cyrano Agency (trailer here) is a strong kick-off for the Korean Cultural Service’s It’s a Fine Romance film series, when it screens this Tuesday in Tribeca—for free.

First, Byung-hoon and his co-conspirators show the audience how it is supposed to be done, effortlessly guiding a clueless schlub into winning the heart of an attractive coffee barista. Their next client, hedge fund manager Sang-yong, is more of a challenge, but he has some real money. He is also unusually awkward socially and has a bad habit of drifting away from the script.

To make matters even trickier, he has retained the agency to help him woo Hee-joong, with whom Byung-hoon has some short but intense history in Paris. His right hand accomplice Min-young quickly suspects he is actually trying to undermine their mission. Indeed, she seems quite ambiguously attuned to her boss’s emotional state.

Yes, viewers probably expect they know exactly where Cyrano Agency is headed and they are right, to an extent. However, writer-director Kim hews surprisingly close to the vibe of Rostand’s play, before capping it off with a rather cleverly endearing ending. Worry not—there is still plenty of madcap door-slamming, as the Cyrano Agency troupe scrambles to keep their scripts on track.

The ridiculously attractive cast does not hurt either. As Hee-joong, Lee Min-jung projects the right balance of sass and vulnerability. Even her caustic wine-bar owner sister is hot. However, Park Sin-hye’s Min-young out cutes just about everyone, anywhere. Uhm Tae-woong certainly looks like a tragic hero, whereas Daniel Choi actually humanizes the Sang-yong, the tongue-tied suitor, far more than most Cyrano pastiches.

A huge hit when released in Korea, Cyrano Agency probably also sold quite a few CDs for Greek diva Agnes Baltsa, using her “There Will Be Better Days, Even For Us” to beautifully set the love triangle’s tone early in the film. This is way better than your average rom-com, from any country. Recommended with affection, Cyrano Agency screens tomorrow (3/13) in New York at the Tribeca Cinemas, as part of the Korean Cultural Service’s long running free showcase of Korean Cinema.

Pray for Japan: Hope and Healing One Year Later

The numbers are staggering: 319,000 individuals evacuated, at least 269,000 buildings destroyed, roughly $325 billion in damages, and over 20,000 souls missing or confirmed dead. It happened today, exactly one year ago, when the Tōhoku coast of Japan was devastated by a cruel earthquake and tsunami tandem. Yet, the enormity of the tragedy was matched by the resiliency of the average Japanese citizenry. Tokyopop founder Stu Levy pays tribute to the heroes and victims of the 3/11 disaster throughout his documentary Pray for Japan (trailer here), which screens today in New York as part of the Japan Society’s anniversary programming, in advance of a special national screening this Wednesday at participating AMC Theaters, followed by a weeklong New York theatrical run starting this Friday.

Last year, 3/11 was a Friday. It happened to be the Ogatsu Middle School’s graduation day. As a result, their students had already gone home when the 2:46 earthquake hit. As they made their way to shelters, the Ogatsu faculty reconstructed their class rosters from scratch and set about verifying their students’ safety over the following hours and days. Miraculously, none had been killed. However, little else remained of their school.

In alternating segments, Levy focuses Pray on four groups dealing with the quake-tsunami’s impact: school, family, shelter, and volunteers. Each features inspirational and heartbreaking stories, but the rebirth of Ogatsu Middle School is truly emblematic of the courageous rebuilding process. What viewers do not hear is any finger pointing or complaining. However, the grief remains raw and painful. Even the most jaded viewer will be deeply moved by one teenager’s koi-nobori tribute to his little brother on children’s day.

Indeed, Pray is a film that will make you cry repeatedly. Anyone of good will would be deeply moved by the stories Levy documents. To his credit, he has the good sense to stay out of the picture himself, letting the survivors tell their stories directly. Yet, the evocative animated title sequence and Okuda Tamio’s theme song “jp” greatly contribute towards setting the elegiac but empowering tone right up front.

Though undeniably harrowing for many, compared to 3/11, Katrina was a mild spot of flash flooding. Yet, the breadth and severity of the Japanese disaster seem lost on our media and elected leaders, who appear more interested in obsessing over the words of a radio talk show host they disagree with, than marking our close friend and ally’s solemn anniversary. That shows us all we need to know about them.

In contrast, Levy and a handful of filmmakers, like Lucy Walker (whose Oscar nominated The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom also screens today at the Japan Society), recognized an important human story, which continues to develop. Unfortunately, the Japanese people’s fundamental decency and modesty works against them when it comes to grabbing the global media’s attention, yet seeing that spirit manifest itself in acts of compassion and volunteerism is not just inspiring, but ennobling. Both films capture that impulse, making them important and stirring works of cinematic reportage.

Highly recommended, Pray for Japan screens today (3/11) at the Japan Society and Wednesday (3/14) at select AMC Theaters nationwide, including the AMC Empire in New York and the AMC Cupertino in San Francisco, with a further weeklong theatrical engagement set for the Empire and the Burbank Town Center, starting this Friday (3/16).

Immediately following the events of 3/11, the Japan Society took the lead spearheading relief efforts in New York. You can learn how to support their laudable efforts here.

Hallstrom’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Water is the new oil. It has been for years. Many therefore question allocating the considerable water resources needed to create a salmon fishing reservoir in the arid highlands of Yemen. A socially inept British fishery civil servant has plenty of issues with the scheme, but he is stuck implementing it in Lasse Hallström’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (trailer here), now playing in New York.

Dr. Fred Jones writes his little papers about fish and grumblingly accepts the abuse of his blowhard boss and domineering wife. Yet, when Harriet Chetwode-Talbot, the British business agent of a fly fishing Sheik, contacts him about creating a salmon run in Yemen, he gives her an unequivocal “no.” However, Patricia Maxwell, the majority party’s press flack needs a good news story in the Middle East. She says yes.

Against his better judgment and free will, Dr. Jones commences work on what he considers a folly, but soon discovers nearly unlimited resources go a heck of long way. He also finds himself increasingly attracted to Chetwode-Talbot. It is not exactly reciprocal, at least at first. While gung-ho at the start the of the venture, the ominous disappearance of her Special Forces lover in Afghanistan sends her into an emotional tailspin.

Just try not to think of Raiders of the Los Ark whenever someone calls the fish researcher “Dr. Jones.” Clearly, screenwriter Simon Beafoy couldn’t, since his adaptation of Paul Torday’s novel includes a throwaway reference to the Ark of the Covenant. Ewan McGregor is no Harrison Ford (and he is absolutely not Sir Alec Guinness), but he and Emily Blunt display some entertaining Tracy-Hepburn-lite bickering-bantering chemistry. Once again reveling in the sort of role she was born to play, Kristin Scott Thomas is also a true delight as the acid-tongued imperious Maxwell.

In truth, SFITY’s project management scenes are surprisingly engaging. Indeed, it is quite interesting to watch the unlikely creation of a salmon habitat in such an exotic locale. Nor does the film bury its head in the sand with regards to Middle Eastern terrorism. In fact, the local Islamists vehement oppose the Sheik’s ambitious development scheme on the grounds anything progressive must necessarily contradict the spirit of Islam. Strangely though, their plan of attack is distinctly unambitious compared to what their brethren have proved capable of. Likewise, the security precautions are ridiculously lacking, amounting to little more than security guard patrolling the dam.

Still, Beafoy’s screenplay has a lot of wit and charm. However, it is periodically interrupted by heavy-handed New Agey sermons about the efficacy of faith (and a rather faithless faith it is). Dr. Jones is a fisherman, you see. He keeps drowning flies, even though anglers leave empty-handed more often than not. If that isn’t faith, than what is? Get it?

Despite its occasional excesses, SFITY is considerably smarter than most films, featuring some refreshingly punchy dialogue. Of course, it is always great fun to watch Thomas boss around a pack of journalists and bureaucrats. Rather appealing on balance, SFITY is now playing in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

Extreme Private Ethos: Dear Pyongyang

In the 1960’s and 1970’s, Japan’s Korean population sharply divided into camps aligned with the North or the South. At the time, the DPRK supporting Chongryun ran circles around their counterparts, convincing many Koreans in Japan to “return” to the North. As a co-founder of Chongryun, Yang Yonghi’s father encouraged many such “returnees,” including her three older brothers. In retrospect, this was a mistake. Yang examines the disconnect between the ideology she was born into and the reality of life for her North Korean family in Dear Pyongyang (trailer here), which screens this Sunday as part of Extreme Private Ethos, the Asia Society’s latest film series surveying provocatively intimate Japanese documentaries.

Yang was truly a red diaper baby, raised by her ardently Marxist father to revere the “fatherland” and the “Great Leader.” Although she attended one of the DPRK funded “Korean” schools in Japan, she was also a young person coming of age in an open society. As a result, she had some context to help her question the propaganda she was steadily fed in class. However, her first class trip to Pyongyang and her brief reunion with her brothers clearly began her ideologically questioning in earnest. As the years passed, her parents would ship more and more provisions to their sons, simply to keep them alive. Yet, they never backed down from their allegiance to the rogue state.

Without question, Yang is profoundly disturbed by her parents’ apparent self deception, but she is rather circumspect in pressing the issue on-camera, for obvious reasons. Indeed, it is fascinating to read between the lines in Dear Pyongyang. She implies quite a bit about the miserable conditions there, but leaves much unspoken. After all, she has family in the North. On a more personal level, she also worries her father will consider any criticism of the DPRK as a rebuke of his life’s work. Just the same, she cannot ignore what she sees with her own eyes on each trip to Pyongyang.

Evidently, Yang successfully walked her tightrope, since she was able to make a follow-up film focusing on her niece Sona, whom she identifies with for living the life she might very well have led, had her parents also “returned.” She also was able to get her father to seriously take stock of many fateful decisions he made, on camera, before his health issues put an end to such discussions late in the documentary.

Understandably, an atmosphere of regret hangs heavily over the entire film. While Korea remains divided by circumstances beyond their control, Yang’s family is divided by choices they made. To her credit, she examines their implications as forthrightly as was prudent, given the nature of the Communist regime. Deeply personal but also highly relevant, it is an intriguing, frustrating, and forgiving film. Definitely a highlight of Extreme Private Ethos, the respectfully recommended Dear Pyongyang screens this Sunday afternoon (3/11) at the Asia Society in New York.

Silent House: Indie Darling Turns Scream Queen

The multiplex kids probably have never seen Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (let alone Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark), so the supposed single continuous “real-time” tracking shot making up the latest indyish-genre outing from Open Water co-directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau might seem like a fresh gimmick to them. Remaking the recent Uruguayan horror movie (including the aforementioned uninterrupted take), they show fewer seams than Hitchcock but more distracting narrative issues come to the fore in their remake, Silent House (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Sarah’s family had some good times in their lake house, but vandals and weather damage have taken a toll. Her father and Uncle Peter are trying to restore it, but their bickering makes the going slow. It looks peaceful outside, but with the windows boarded up and the power kaput, the house is pitch dark inside, even during high noon. It would be a scary place to be locked in with a psycho killer, which will be the case for Sarah. After she establishes the lack of phone lines and cell service with an old childhood chum she cannot remember, her menacing begins.

When it comes to the mechanics of skulking about the old dark house, Silent is more than competent. However, when it drops its clues, they clang like anvils. Frankly, anyone who isn’t on to the big twist by the half hour mark must be remarkably guileless, even if they have not seen the Uruguayan original. Unfortunately, this makes it devilishly difficult to buy into Silent as a funhouse ride. Instead, viewers will more likely feel as if they are watching the film play out the string.

Still the toast of the indie circuit for her work in Martha Marcy May Marlene, Elizabeth Olsen handles the screen queen duties rather capably. There is actually more to Sarah than the typical teens chased through slasher movies, which Olsen evokes quite convincingly. However, Adam Trese and Eric Sheffer Stevens are just glaringly miscast as Papa John and Uncle Peter respectively, looking more like aging hipsters on a photo shoot for Restoration Hardware than adults with any kind of connection to the real world.

Ironically, the one take device is the least distracting aspect of the film. Indeed, the filmmakers should avoid the game of poker, because they display all kinds of “tells.” As a result, the creepy vibe and some nice work from Olsen, duly framed to maximize viewer leering, largely go to waste. For the curious, Silent House opens today in New York at several theaters, including the Regal Union Square.

French Rendezvous ’12: Last Screening

Sylvain is like a little Hugo Cabret who grew up to be a serial killer. Raised on classic films and angst by his overbearing mother, he now manages a revival cinema, but not for long. As one might expect, Sylvain does not handle its imminent closure well in Laurent Achard’s Last Screening (trailer here), a selection of the 2012 Rendezvous with French Cinema in New York.

Sylvain has a thing for Renoir’s French Cancan and dangling earrings. Both can be traced back to his mother, as is so often the case with psycho killers. Though he is supposed to be shutting down the theater, Sylvain seems to be operating in a state of denial, which somewhat annoys his boss. On the upside, Sylvain actually talks to a girl: Manon, a young actress who lost her earrings during French Cancan. Despite showing the classic signs of an anti-social loner, she seems sort of-kind of interested in him. Likewise, Sylvain is interested enough not to kill her.

He kills plenty of other women though, but not in an especially tightly scripted way. Rather, he just seems to drift into killings, after closing up the theater for the night. Indeed, Screening is aces when it comes to atmosphere and set-up, but it does not have much of a third act. Lacking a clear-cut antagonist for Sylvain, the film essentially invites viewers to watch him press his luck.

Still, there is something appealing subversive about Screening’s premise, particularly when it screens at a festival like French Rendezvous for an audience full of hardcore cineastes. As Sylvain, Pascal Cervo sells it quite well, with all the appropriate twitchy awkwardness. Charlotte van Kemmel is also quite solid as the innocent Manon. For French audiences though, the presence of film critic-actor-director Noël Simsolo as a loyal patron adds a bit of sophisticated irony.

In a film like Screening, the madness ought to accelerate, but instead it essentially plateaus. Nicely realized by its game cast, but not exactly fulfilling its promise, Screening is still the closest thing to a midnight movie at Rendezvous 2012. For intrigued genre fans, it screens today (3/8) at the IFC Center and Saturday (3/10) at the Walter Reade Theater.

Extreme Private Ethos: Death of a Japanese Salesman

They were not Mad Men, they were Salarymen. Tomoaki Sunada was part of the postwar generation of professionals who rebuilt Japan into a leading world economic power. Unfortunately, just as Sunada begins to enjoy his sunset years, he is diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer. True to methodical form, Sunada develops an action plan for his impending demise, as his youngest daughter, director-cinematographer-editor Mami Sunada documents in Death of a Japanese Salesman (a.k.a. Ending Note, trailer here), which opens Extreme Private Ethos, the Asia Society’s new film series surveying provocatively intimate Japanese documentaries, this Saturday in New York.

While the current title sounds like an echo of the Miller play that is purely accidental (or inappropriate). When Sunada retires from his chemical company, he is a well respected member of the board. He has good relations with his son and two daughters, while absolutely doting on his granddaughters when he visits America. Though the Sunadas’ marriage had been increasingly strained, they had reconciled mere months before his diagnosis. Sunada’s end will be a happier tragedy than Willie Loman’s, dying before his aged mother, but leaving with few regrets.

Intimate hardly begins to describe Sunada’s documentary. She filmed some of the most private moments a family can have, frequently exasperating her father. Yet, somehow it does not feel voyeuristic or exploitative. Through her narration, in her voice but her father’s words, she seems to come to terms with his passing in a way that is quite touching.

DOAJS will interest cineastes beyond its up close and personal drama. It was produced by Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda, on whose recent films Mami Sunada worked as a production assistant, including the thematically related Still Walking. Yet for many, the bittersweet relationship between the salaryman and his vexing single daughter will more readily bring to mind the Ozu canon.

For obvious reasons, DOAJS is often hard to watch, but much like GONTITI’s soundtrack for Still Walking, alt-folker Hanaregumi’s music helps keep the tone more wistful than maudlin. Nowhere near as manipulative as one might expect, it still packs a tremendous emotional punch. As a result, it is rather earnestly recommended to those currently in a good mental place. Indeed, all but the most jaded viewers are certain to get choked up when it kicks off Extreme Private Ethos this Saturday afternoon (3/10) at the Asia Society.

French Rendezvous ’12: Headwinds

Paul Anderen is a writer, so he must be impossible to live with. His wife Sarah seemed to think so. After a particularly spiteful argument, she might have walked out on him and their two children. While her fate remains a mystery, Anderen will have to become the responsible parent he never was in Jalil Lespert’s Headwinds (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Rendezvous with French Cinema in New York.

Though initially a suspect, Anderen was eventually cleared of any involvement in her disappearance. That provides him little closure, but allows him to move on with his life, at least to extent. Returning to the old family cottage in the coastal city of Saint Malo, Anderen accepts a job with his more dutiful brother Alex. He still has issues, but he begins to make the odd human connection here and there. However, when he befriends one of the laborers who helped move him in, he finds himself once again under police suspicion when the man kidnaps his own son as part of a custody dispute.

Headwinds is sort of like a French version of The Descendants without the entitled sense of Noblesse oblige. It also has the hint of a crime drama sprinkled in here and there, but the focus falls squarely on Anderen and his steadily developing parental chops.

The biggest star in Headwinds disappears after the first ten minutes, but one can easily believe a guy like Anderen would have a hard time getting over the apparent loss of Audrey Tautou. As the bereft husband who will not allow himself to grieve, Benoît Magimel is convincingly human in a myriad of insecure and self-defeating ways. Yet, he also has some rather brutally honest confrontations with Antoine Duléry, quite nicely nuanced as his resentful older brother. The kids are just alright. Descendants probably has the advantage over Headwinds on that score. However, Isabelle Carré adds an intriguingly compassionate note as Josée Combe, the local copper.

Arguably, Headwinds does not hold a lot of surprises in store for viewers, except its willingness to face every difficult scene head-on, without copping out. It is melodrama, but pretty good melodrama. Again, if Alexander Payne’s film had the perfect level of sentimentality for you, then by all means check out Headwinds. It screens as a selection of Rendezvous with French Cinema tomorrow and Friday (3/8 & 3/9) at the Walter Reade Theater.

French Rendezvous ’12: Guilty

It would become the French equivalent of the McMartin Preschool case, except arguably more tragic. Fourteen people were unjustly accused of participating in the notorious Outreau pedophile network, serving years behind bars awaiting their dubious day in court. One of them was Alain Marécaux, a former bailiff. Adapting his own memoirs for the screen, the former court officer tells his story in Vincent Garenq’s Guilty (trailer here), which screens as part of this year’s Rendezvous with French Cinema in New York.

As Guilty opens, Marécaux works hard at his writ serving practice, perhaps too hard to see as much of his family as he might like. Unfortunately, he is about to get an extended period of time off. When the cops arrive in the dead of night, he has no idea why. Eventually, it becomes clear Marécaux and his wife stand accused of participating in pedophilic orgies by the very same parents who sold their children to the ring.

The first two acts of Guilty are more Kafka than Grisham, as the case against Marécaux gets ever more lurid and incredible. It takes a physical and mental toll on the man, eventually rupturing his marriage and sowing emotional discord amongst his children. It is not until the third act that viewers finally see a proper courtroom, but it hardly redeems the French justice system when they do.

Guilty is a very well executed film, but it is not an easy watch. Indeed, it is genuinely harrowing to witness the injustices and humiliations meted out on Marécaux by the reckless prosecuting magistrate, Fabrice Burgaud, a villainous bureaucrat if ever there was one. As the screenwriter, he spares us nothing he endured (or so it feels). Fearlessly throwing himself into the role, Philippe Torreton portrays Marécaux’s disintegration in starkly intimate terms.

At least he had a good lawyer. In fact, Wladimir Yordanoff’s work as Hubert Delarue goes a long way towards cementing the film’s credibility. Rather than a crusading advocate, he comes across as a competent, relatively well-heeled attorney, who becomes increasingly aghast at the systematic injustice perpetrated throughout the Outreau case. On the flip side, Raphaël Ferret’s Burgaud is the personification of clammy weaselness.

Sure, wrongly accused docudramas are a dime a dozen and often play it rather fast and loose with the truth. However, Guilty withstands a reasonably earnest internet vetting and should hold viewers riveted throughout. Garenq keeps the outrage mounting exponentially, forcing the audience to confront the reality of Marécaux’s plight, up close and personal. It is often manipulative, but it works.

After preening across the world stage as one of Saddam Hussein’s erstwhile apologists, Jacques Chirac would personally apologize for the Outreau case, which he called a “judicial disaster.” Actually, apologies were what he did best. At any rate, Marécaux will get the final word with scores of readers and viewers through his memoirs and Garenq’s film. They certainly have a lot to say. Recommended for sophisticated true crime audiences, Guilty screens again tomorrow (3/8) at the IFC Center as part of 2012’s Rendezvous with French Cinema.

Sound of Noise: Music for Chaos

Leave it to the anarchist drummers to give avant-garde improvised music a bad name. Of course, to paraphrase Sean Connery in The Russia House, have you ever met an experimental drummer who wasn’t an anarchist? Six radical percussionists hatch plans to perform an ambitious suite for the unsuspecting public, but one counter-terrorism cop really doesn’t want to hear it in Ola Simonsson & Johannes Stjärne Nilsson’s Sound of Noise (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Amadeus Warnebring is the tone deaf black sheep in an illustrious musical family. Listening to his conductor brother’s command performances is absolute torture for him—and that is conventional symphonic music. He would prefer to find a time bomb at a crime scene than a metronome, but that is exactly what underground musicians Magnus and Sanna leave behind after a little warm up stunt. The former has bigger plans though: a four movement opus titled Music for One City and Six Drummers. As he explains, it is kind of conceptual, involving found sounds with space for improvisation. Warnebring is going to hate it.

Indeed, freely mixing large scale performance art with a driving beat, Magnus’s piece pushes Warnebring to his breaking point. Yet, he still manages to make a strange connection with Sanna that could ultimately save both of them.

For those who frequently read Signal to Noise magazine, this film was produced with exactly you in mind. Anyone who has sat through their share of avant-garde music performances, enthusiastically or reluctantly, will Horshack laugh all the way through Sound. If you have no idea what all that means, you can still enjoy the movie’s inventiveness anyway. Sure, you betcha.

There might be an inclination to co-opt Sound of Noise on behalf of the Occupy This-or-That thugs, but Sanna and her comrades really are all about the music. Indeed, their ideology is their music. As for Warnebring the copper, he unambiguously serves as the film’s sympathetic protagonist. Indeed, Bengt Nilsson is rather shockingly engaging as the neurotic music hater.

Cleverly scripted by Simonsson and co-director Nilsson (well known online for their slightly creepier forerunner short, Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers), Sound of Noise concludes on a note of truer poetic justice than seen in most any film of recent vintage. Getting there is quite a trip too. Highly recommended, it opens this Friday (3/9) in New York at the Cinema Village.

French Rendezvous ’12: Paris By Night

Simon Weiss knows a side of Paris few tourists see. Well, some do. In fact, the clubs the vice captain polices might be the ultimate purpose of many visits. Whether high-end or low-rent, there is definitely something brewing in the city’s nightspots during the fateful night chronicled in Philippe Lefebvre’s wickedly stylish Paris By Night (trailer here), which screens tonight as part of the 2012 Rendezvous with French Cinema in New York.

The ambiguously corrupt Weiss knows someone is trying to jam him up with internal affairs. He intends to find out whom as he makes his nocturnal rounds. As he explains to Officer Laurence Deray, he must engage in a different sort of policing. She will be his driver tonight. It is considered a difficult assignment no cop wants to do twice. She will soon learn why. Indeed, it will be an eye-opening night for them both.

Granted, much of the film consists of Zem’s Weiss strutting through the red light district like a shark, smacking around punks as if they are little girls. Of course, that is also why it so seductively entertaining. Yet, Lefebvre steadily raises the stakes, slyly revealing details of the frame-up job Weiss is trying to slip out of.

Frankly, Weiss is the sort of role Roschdy Zem was born to play. Easily the baddest hard-nose making films today, Zem already has mucho street cred for his manly turns in films like Point Blank, 36th Precinct, and Outside the Law, but he kicks it up to a whole new level in PBN. This is not Eastwood coolness, this is McQueen coolness. While he could carry the film on his own, Zem still gets a head-turning assist from Sara Forestier as the somewhat incredulous but impressively poised Deray. Together, they are quite a dynamic pair.

True to its title, PBN gives viewers a memorable tour of after-hours Paris, whilst unfolding its surprisingly cerebral crime story. Cinematographer Jérôme Alméras vividly captures the glitz and grime, conveying the late night vibe in spades.

While the French-Moroccan Zem is already a major star in France, he is overdue for widespread acclaim in America. PBN is the sort of vehicle that could get the job done. It is a perfect showcase for his stone cold flintiness. Slick, taut, and brooding, PBN is one of the clear highlights of this year’s French Rendezvous. Highly recommended, it screens again tonight (3/6) at the IFC Center.