Submitted by Hungary: Son of Saul

In National Socialist concentration camps, Jews who served as “Sonderkommando” were afforded modest privileges and allowed comparatively free movement within the confining walls. Yet, it was undeniably hellish duty. Charged with escorting prisoners into the gas chambers and cleaning up after the mass executions, their first order of business was often to dispatch their predecessors. The new Sonderkommando’s families frequently followed soon thereafter. Consequently, they had no illusions about their ultimate fate. It is rather understandable why the most significant uprising at Auschwitz-Birkenau was planned by the Sonderkommando. Saul Ausländer is part of the rebellion’s inner circle, but he will be distracted by an even more profound crisis in László Nemes’ Son of Saul (trailer here), Hungary’s official foreign language Oscar submission, which opens this Friday at Film Forum.

Frankly, Son of Saul might be most effective if viewers are not fully briefed on what to expect. It is safe to confirm, this is indeed a Holocaust story, incorporating a very real event, executed with unusually personal immediacy. The resulting viewing experience is not merely bracing. It is sort of like being Tasered. However, judging from some colleagues’ reactions, it may well be that the more forewarned you are, the less potent Nemes’ approach will be, so proceed with caution.

It starts as just another day in the National Socialist death factory for Ausländer, until he sees a body that cracks his defensive shell. Like Ausländer, we see him only after his death. While not strictly adhering to Ausländer’s as-seen-through-his-eyes POV, Nemes largely limits his shots to what would easily be within his field of vision. As an experienced Sonderkommando, he is somewhat desensitized to the horrors that would have been horrific centerpieces of other Holocaust films. Instead, we get a sense of the kinetic maelstrom of death he must navigate.

To further emphasize its restrictive scope, Son of Saul was composed expressly for the pre-widescreen Academy aspect ratio. The audience is immediately aware just how much they are not seeing, necessarily feeling disoriented as a result. Nemes forces the audience to figure out Ausländer’s relationships to other Sonderkommando through the dramatic context of what follows. This is a remarkably physical film that is just as choreographed as any musical or martial arts extravaganza.

Evidently, Ausländer reluctantly agreed to help scrounge supplies for the revolt, because he understood how little he had to lose. However, when he thinks he recognizes the body in question, he starts recklessly improvising a scheme to prevent the requisite autopsy and find a Rabbi to say Kaddish. He will knowingly jeopardize the imminent uprising, but his mission is equally defiant in its way.

For most of the cast, simply surviving the non-stop bedlam constitutes quite a performance. However, Géza Röhrig is quietly devastating as Ausländer. Essentially, he shows us the stirrings of a long dormant soul struggling to assert itself. It is a painfully honest, desperately lean performance that will shame this year’s histrionically indulgent award-seeking performances (we’re looking at you, Carol).

Son of Saul is not exactly immersive, but it gives the audience a visceral sense of the confusion and dehumanization necessary to make the gas chambers run. This is an exhausting film, but also a uniquely powerful one, unlike almost any other well-meaning holocaust narrative. Highly recommended, it opens this Friday (12/18) in New York at Film Forum.

Dreams Rewired: Retro Future Shock

If Guy Maddin set out to adapt a ten year-old Wired magazine article, the result would probably look a lot like this, but the resulting film would not be so smugly assured of its insightfulness. That must be the difference between the Canadian and Austrian temperaments. Martin Reinhart, Thomas Tode, and Manu Luksch suggest our current digital era is only one of many successive information revolutions that constantly recalibrated the speed of Twentieth Century life. They will illustrate their point through the collage of rarely seen but suitably ironic early cinema clips that constitutes Dreams Rewired (trailer here), opening this Wednesday at Film Forum.

So perhaps the more things change, the more they stay the same—or rather maybe the only constant is change? One of those is the general gist of Rewired. The trio of co-directors plus their fourth co-screenwriter Mukul Patel somewhat convincingly suggest the magnitude of innovation wrought by the internet and wireless communication is not so very different than societal transformation brought about by the telegraph, telephone, radio (the original wireless), and forms of moving pictures.

They probably have a point there, but they never really take it to a deeper level. Instead, the film is really more about the cascading images of retro-futurism and technological anxiety culled from the films of Thomas Edison, Alice Guy, Dziga Vertov, Carl Dreyer, Rene Clair, and Louis Feuillade. Both Chaplin and Keaton make cameo appearances, but probably the most readily identifiable clips come from Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, which turned out not to reflect the future after all.

Throughout Rewired, the audience waits for Reinhart, Tode, Luksch, and Patel to step up their analysis, but it stays at the level of “look at how impressed people were with their televisions and switch boards.” As a result, the real reason for watching the docu-essay is the wild imagery they have assembled. If you want to see Teutonic men in tights and space helmets, this is film you have been waiting for. A game Tilda Swinton also plays along, narrating the repetitive thesis and sometimes providing archly anachronistic contemporary dialogue for some of the scenes the filmmakers incorporate.

If you enjoy retro-futuristic space opera, there are amusing bits and pieces in Rewired, but you are probably better off revisiting episodes of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet or classic films like Metropolis and Destination Moon (neither of which suited the purposes of Reinhart, etc., etc.). It sounds like brainy fun, but it really plays like an internet supercut. Problematically lightweight, Dreams Rewired is bound to leave viewers wanting more (of something, anything) when it opens this Wednesday (12/16) in New York, at Film Forum.

DC K-Cinema: The Tower

It is a Christmas movie, just like Die Hard, but if you think the Nakatomi Plaza’s office party was a blast, you should see how they celebrate at the exclusive Tower Sky condo complex. Fire Captain Kang Young-ki and his men will also be invited. Kim Ji-hoon gets his Irwin Allen on in The Tower (trailer here), which screens this week as part of the Washington, DC Korean Cultural Center’s monthly K-Cinema series.

Tower Sky consists of two twin skyscrapers, making certain face-palmingly awkward parallels to the World Trade Center unavoidable. Perhaps the two towers were an attempt by screenwriters Kim Sang-don and Heo Jun-seok to differentiate the film from its transparent inspiration, The Towering Inferno. Regardless, it is something you just have to get past. Fortunately, Kim Ji-hoon takes his time, introducing us to the appealing central characters: Lee Dae-ho the operations manager for Tower Sky, his cherubic daughter Ha-na, and Seo Yoon-hee, the buildings’ food services director, whom he has long carried a torch.

Before the Christmas party, Lee warned the management too much water had been diverted from the sprinkler system. Seo subsequently alerted them the restaurants had insufficient ventilation. Someone also vaguely cautioned about possible updrafts when the helicopters were scheduled to drop the man-made snow. Of course, you can add these things together and get a massive skyscraper inferno, which is exactly what happens. Eventually, Lee will join forces with Kang, much like Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, in hopes of saving Ha-na and Seo. Unfortunately, the developer’s perverse policies and practices cause unnecessary complications at every turn.

Kim Ji-hoon sure can crash helicopters and blow-up buildings. The effects look great, even three years later (almost three decades in SFX time). The fire’s cause-and-effect details also seem pretty logical, at least during the heat of the film. Many of the buildings’ residents and staff are essentially stock characters, but this is the sort of film that can get away with that, for the sake of saving time. Obviously, the reason to see The Tower is to watch the firefighting dramatics, one hundred twenty stories in the air.

Still, Kim Sang-kyung, Son Ye-jin, and Jo Min-ah are all earnestly endearing as Lee, Seo, and Ha-na. They will make a ridiculously cute family if they can survive. On the plus side, the treatment of Lee Han-wi Elder Kim, the Evangelical lottery winner evolves in intriguing ways. Initially, he is portrayed in rather stereotypical terms, but his faith starts to give strength to the skeptical FD Sgt. Oh. Plus, Ahn Sung-ki adds his usual gravitas as the Yeoido station chief.

Less edifying are the depictions of the Fire Department Chief and Building Chairman, which are clearly intended to stoke class resentments. The idea that the Fire Department would have a “priority” rescue list is utterly laughable. No government bureaucrat would risk the potential media firestorm to save a few fat cats.

Regardless, The Tower is more massive than Backdraft when it comes to blazing effects. It also delivers plenty of heroism, in a way that will resonate for firefighter boosters. It stands up alongside Derek Kwok’s As the Lights Go Out, even though Sol Kyung-gu’s moody Kang is no match for Simon Yam, Hu Jun, or Nick Tse. With its family themes, it is a good Christmas programming choice, but the mortality rate of name characters will be way too high for little ones. Recommended for disaster movie fans, The Tower screens this coming Thursday (12/17) at the Korean Cultural Center in DC.

AFI’s EU Showcase ’15: Liza the Fox Fairy

Japan is the land of the kaidan and the grudge. Nobody does ghosts better. Even in a whimsical retro-1970s capitalist Hungary, you will find Japanese ghosts tormenting the living. The spirit of 1960s crooner Tomi Tani might look benign, but he will cause all sorts of problems for a naïve private nurse in Károly Ujj Mészáros’s Liza, the Fox-Fairy (trailer here), which screens as part of the AFI’s 2015 EU Film Showcase.

For years, Liza has dutifully cared for Marta, the Hungarian widow of the former Japanese ambassador. Through her employer, Liza has absorbed a love of Japanese history and culture, including Tani’s sugary grooves. For years, the singer has inexplicably haunted Marta’s flat, but only Liza is able to see him, assuming he is a benevolent spirit. Tani has fallen in love with her, but that is a bad thing, especially when the lonely-hearted Liza finally starts to get proactive about romance.

When everyone who gets close to her starts to die, including Marta, Liza figures out she has been cursed to become a mythological Fox-Fairy. All men who love her are doomed to such a fate. Naturally, the police start to suspect her of multiple murders, especially since she inherited her employer’s flat, over the objections of Marta’s greedy relatives. The only exception is the pure-hearted but dangerously clumsy Sgt. Zoltan, an ardent fan of Finnish country music, who becomes Liza’s other unlikely flat-mate.

Fox-Fairy looks like a Wes Anderson film on twee steroids, but it has a surprising edge to it. Arguably, it is more kaidan than quirk-fest, which is cool. However, Liza and Zoltan are also refreshingly gentle souls, whom even the most jaded viewers will root for. Evidently, Mészáros and Bálint Hegedűs adapted a stage play by Zsolt Pozsgai for the big screen, but it is hard to imagine how all their visual mischief-making could be rendered for live theater. Still, it would be worth watching Broadway take a shot at it, even if the production fell on its face. Frankly, the film has way more special effects than you would imagine, but it would be either spoilery or utterly baffling to try to explain their context. Yet, Mészáros always maintains a very personal vibe throughout the film.

Mónika Balsai and Szabolcs Bede-Fazekas are terrific as Liza and Zoltan, respectively. They are both endearing in a puppy dog kind of way and achingly earnest, without ever getting cloying. Likewise, the Danish-Japanese David Sakurai is gleefully evil and impressively suave as Tani. As if he were not entertainingly villainous enough, Zoltán Schmied truly personifies oily sleaze as Henrik, Marta’s playboy nephew, whom Liza mistakenly falls for.

Somehow, Liza manages to be both cute and dark, which is quite a feat of filmmaking on Mészáros’s part. It is a wildly inventive film, but the style never overwhelms the characters or narrative. Very highly recommended, Liza, the Fox-Fairy screens this coming Thursday (12/17) as part of the AFI’s EU Film Showcase.

Sun Ra: a Joyful Noise

He hailed from Saturn and he came to stretch the music, while still swinging it. Don’t even talk about Herman Blount from Birmingham, because we do not want to hear it. Sun Ra will always be jazz’s preeminent space traveler, occupying a truly unique place in music history. Sun Ra left the planet in 1993, but he could come back at any time. In the meanwhile, it is nice to have Robert Mugge’s classic performance documentary Sun Ra: a Joyful Noise (trailer here) available on DVD again, as part of MVD’s Mugge reissue program.

Sun Ra was not just about the future. He also looked back to the past, often incorporating ancient Egyptian symbolism in his costumes and stage settings. It is therefore fitting that Mugge interviewed Sun Ra in the Egyptian wing of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania. In Joyful Noise, Mugge follows a game plan very similar to that of Gil Scott-Heron: Black Wax, breaking up the live on-stage performances with what could be considered spoken word interludes or even performance art based on public persona. Of course, Scott-Heron’s highly dated political rants can hardly hold a candle to tripped-out cosmic philosophizing and linguistic word play of Sun Ra.

One of the coolest things about Joyful Noise, besides Sun Ra himself, is the way Mugge captures the breadth and versatility of his music. Under Sun Ra’s direction, the Arkestra could play the sort of blistering free jazz that would inspire cats like Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore or throw everyone a change-up, launching into a totally swinging, in-the-pocket set, in the Ellington tradition. However, as an early adopter of electric keyboards, Sun Ra always gave his stylistic multitudes a funky edge. Happily, you can hear it over and over again in Joyful Noise.

In his way, Sun Ra was just as political as Scott-Heron. Check out his Blaxploitation science fiction cult classic Space is the Place if you doubt it. Yet, one can confidently argue Sun Ra was far more influential. It is hard to imagine the development of afrofuturism without him. He also hired and retained some incredible musicians, including Marshall Allen (featured taking an incendiary alto solo), John Gilmore (who eloquently explains why he settled in for such a long stint with the Arkestra just as he was making a hardbop name for himself), and the incomparable vocalist June Tyson (watch her during their rooftop performance and just try to compare her to anyone else).

Mugge also ends the film perfectly, capturing the infectious energy of the Arkestra’s intergalactic second-lining that closed their gig for the Baltimore Left Bank Jazz Society. We will never have enough Sun Ra, but A Joyful Noise is an especially accessible introduction to the man and his music. Very highly recommended, Sun Ra: a Joyful Noise is now available on DVD and BluRay, from MVD.

Body: Not a Creature was Stirring, Particularly Not Larry Fessenden

It is sort of like an episode of Girls, but with Larry Fessenden. When three former high school friends break into a McMansion for some Christmas Eve partying, they wind up with some explaining to do in Dan Berk & Robert Olsen’s Body (trailer here), which opens tonight in New York at the IFC Center.

Home for the holidays and slightly stoned, Holly, Cali, and Mel are looking for something to do on a cold Christmas Eve. Cali suggests they kick up their heels in her rich uncle’s pad, because he doesn’t mind her having the run of the place. Holly and Mel agree, even though there is something funny about her story (they’re stoned, remember). After a little breaking and entering (seriously, he won’t mind), they hit the rec room hard. Eventually, Holly has the sense to ask why there are so many pictures of an Asian family on the wall.

It turns out there is no rich uncle. Cali used to babysit for the owners years ago and knew they would be away for the holidays. As this uncomfortable truth sinks in, the girls are surprised by the creepy caretaker. Things get a bit confused, resulting in his apparently fatal accident. With no legal justification for their presence there, the three friends need to get their stories straight, but the circumstances and resulting moral dilemmas keep getting more complicated.

The good news for Larry Fessenden fans is he has a new genre film. The bad news is he spends nearly the entire time flat on his back. Still, let’s just say he has his moments. Nevertheless, the relationship between the three twentysomething women really forms the heart of the film. Berk & Olsen take a fair amount of time to establish their complex relationships somewhere along the continuum between friends and frienemies. Viewers get the sense they have long histories together and are used to being around each other, even if their feelings are a bit ambiguous. There is also something vicariously enjoyable about watching them run amok in that swanky pad.

Inevitably, matters take a dark turn and get progressively darker, but Body is more closely akin to a claustrophobic stage-thriller than a horror movie. Helen Rogers anchors the film quite effectively as Holly, who passes for the film’s voice of reason and the closest thing it has to a conscience, whereas on the other hand, Alexandra Turshen clearly enjoys getting the film’s best opportunities for scenery chewing and most pointed lines as the mildly sociopathic Cali (hey, nobody’s perfect).

Oddly, Body feels a bit restrained, especially with Fessenden along for the ride, but it vividly captures the weird vibe of being somewhere rather isolated during a time of collective celebration, like the holidays. It is a clever and aesthetically economical dark thriller, recommended for genre fans when it opens tonight (12/11) at the IFC Center.

The Girl in the Book: The Dark Side of Muse-dom

Unfortunately, Alice Harvey never had the right temperament to be a Joyce Maynard. Instead, her inappropriate relationship with celebrated novelist Milan Daneker only led to psychological hang-ups and complexes. However, it gave him plenty of material for his breakout bestseller. When Harvey is forced to work on Daneker’s latest impenetrable tome, it brings her unresolved issues to the fore in screenwriter-director Marya Cohn’s The Girl in the Book (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Cohn seems to know just enough about book publishing to get things wrong. Take an “ARC” Harvey’s boss tells her, handing her a jacketed hardcover. Wow, those are some ARCs (advanced reading copies), but the book in question is a backlist staple, so why print any kind of ARCs at all? He then assigns her the entire launch campaign for Daneker’s new hardcover. Trust me, houses have entire marketing and publicity departments for that sort of thing—and especially for a Salingeresque bestseller. He then demands she reschedule an appointment with his shrink. Okay, that one—maybe.

Do these publishing details really matter? Rightly or wrongly, I can’t get around them, because obviously. Make your own judgement on that score. Regardless, Harvey is stuck working with the one person she most wants to avoid. We basically get the gist of their awkward awkwardness right from the start, but the creepy details will be steadily parceled out in flashbacks. The dynamics of their relationship (for lack of a better term) are actually quite credible, in part thanks to her problematic literary agent father. We can believe she craves the attention Daneker gives her, even though we suspect his intentions.

It should be duly stipulated Ana Mulvoy-Ten is absolutely terrific as young Harvey. It is absolutely painful to watch the rude disillusionment of her naïve sensibilities. Michael Nyqvist is also remarkably compelling as Daneker. Cohn offers no excuses or mitigation for his behavior. Yet, despite Nyqvist’s charisma, he largely comes across as sad and pathetic rather than a manipulative monster.

Unfortunately, the contemporary scenes with older, self-destructive Harvey are often pretty cringe-worthy, especially when she gets involve with a vapid (but supposedly soulful) political activist who heads up a group called—nausea warning—“People for the People.” Honestly, you will want them to get back together so they won’t get involved with any innocent bystanders. At least, Ali Ahn supplies some effective reality checks as Harvey’s long suffering best friend, Sadie.

TGITB definitely gets at something when it explores the dark and exploitative nature of mentor-muse relationships. Unfortunately, it is watered down with insular Silk Stocking navel gazing and undermined by a superficial understanding of the glorious book business. Frankly, Mike Nichols’ Wolf is probably still the best publishing movie and it also has werewolves. Its merits just aren’t worth its frustrations when The Girl in the Book opens tomorrow (12/11) in New York, at the Village East.

AFI’s EU Showcase ’15: The Magic Mountain

Where could a mountaineering Polish dissident go to most effectively fight Communism in the 1980s? Obviously Afghanistan. Of course, getting there was no easy feat and staying alive once he arrived was even trickier. However, the late Adam Jacek Winker was not easily dissuaded. Anca Damian tells his extraordinary story in the animated documentary The Magic Mountain (trailer here), which screens as part of the AFI’s 2015 EU Film Showcase.

For Winker, the opposing the spread of Communism was a decidedly personal matter. His cousin and uncle were among those murdered by the Soviets at Katyn. He was able to get out of Poland while the getting was relatively good, but he also felt guilty about abandoning his homeland in a time of prolonged suffering. As a result, he was always looking for a way to take the fight back to the Soviets. While living in Paris, he was a bit of a gadfly, providing unwanted reality checks for the French Communists’ Labor Day festivities, but he was truly called to Afghanistan.

Since Winker only had a French “refugee” passport, getting to Afghanistan, by way of Pakistan, was a complicated process. However, once there, Winker fell in with the Mujahedeen relatively quickly. He had the extreme good fortune to join up with Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the “Lion of Panjshir,” an ardent foe of Communism, who later rejected the Taliban’s oppressive fundamentalism just as vigorously. Alas, Mountain also serves as an elegy to the assassinated Massoud, as well as his somewhat eccentric Polish friend and comrade.

Indeed, some the most poignant moments of Mountain focus on Winker’s efforts to promote and then memorialize the fallen Afghan hero. Yet, with respects to her central figure, Damian never descends into blinkered hagiography. Winker’s fault are readily identified, making him the stuff of classical tragedy, but viewers will understand where his zeal came from, and admire him for harnessing it.

Mountain incorporates archival photos of Winker and Massoud into the distinctive and diverse work of its team of animators and artists, including Theodore Ushev, Tomek Ducki, Matei Focsa Neagoe, Dan Panaitescu, and Raluca Popa. Frankly, a few sequences are almost excessively stylized to the point of self-defeating abstraction, but other visuals are absolutely arresting. Regardless, the film is always powered along by its sweepingly dramatic narrative.

Winker really was a character—a heroic character. He was also a principled individualist, who did not let his experiences in Afghanistan blind him to the dangers of Islamist ideology in his final years. Basically, he stayed on the right side of history, every step of the way, making his life story quite fascinating and instructive. Very highly recommended for fans of animation and biographical documentaries, The Magic Mountain screens this Saturday (12/12) as part of the AFI’s EU Film Showcase.

Not Playing ’15: H.

It seems strange to name your town after a legendarily sacked and subsequently lost city, but the residents of Troy, New York voted to do exactly that in 1789. They must have thought it sounded more Dutch than Pompeii. Over two hundred years later, the Hudson River burg might be going the way of its classical forerunner, but the end will come through mysterious meteors than a horse. Then again, a weird equine may yet be involved in Rania Attieh & Daniel Garcia’s relentlessly ambiguous H. (trailer here), which screens during MoMA’s annual Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You series.

This is Troy, New York, so it must have a few Helens. There are at least two. We will meet the older, retired Helen first. She is happily married to the not so happily married Roy. Helen is the youtube video-posting leader of Troy’s circle of “reborn baby” enthusiasts, who care for their lifelike vinyl dolls as if they really were infants. It is sort of like the Tamagotchi craze, except even creepier. Roy puts up with it stoically, but he is clearly not crazy about it.

The younger Helen is the pregnant artistic and life partner of fellow performance artist Alex. Evidently having nasty fights is part of their alleged creative process. However, younger Helen is starting to realize that portends bad things for when the baby arrives. Suddenly a meteor or some such cosmic event hits Troy—and all bets are off. Reports are sketchy, but apparently many locals have fallen into somnambulist state. They felt the urge walk into the wilderness, losing consciousness in the process. Younger Helen might be susceptible to the phenomenon, just like Roy.

Attieh & Garcia’s Homeric Troy references never really add up to anything, but it is not for a lack of belaboring them. Tonally, this film is a baffling mish-mash. Frankly, it is hard to say whether older Helen’s reborn obsession is a wildly awkward distraction or necessary groundwork to make us believe, all things being equal, Roy would rather shuffle through the forest like a zombie. At least there is some lived-in credibility to their relationship. In contrast, younger Helen and Alex are nauseatingly annoying. When we first encounter them, we see a series of their photos in which they have been made up to look battered and bruised, because domestic violence is only important when it is the subject of hipster art.

It is a shame H. is so maddeningly pretentious, because some of the apocalyptic sequences are really unnerving, precisely because they are so subtly rendered. Likewise, Alex Weston’s classical-ambient themes perfectly underscore the eerie mood. Arguably, if H. were twenty-five percent more exploitative and a third less mannered, it really could have gotten somewhere.

In some ways, Attieh & Garcia just cannot reconcile the two halves of their film. Robin Bartlett and Julian Gamble are totally credible and earthily effective as Helen and Roy. Their story also ends on a fittingly ironic note. In contrast, the Helen and Alex arc is undermined by an ambitious conclusion that was clearly beyond their budget (despite the baffling Gucci sponsorship). H. should have been more like the not half bad Perfect Sense, but it is just too consumed with its own arty self-importance. A frustrating misfire, H. screens this Friday (12/11) and Sunday (12/13) at MoMA, as part of the 2015 edition of Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You.

AFI’s EU Showcase ’15: Tale of Tales

Neapolitan poet Giambattista Basile’s fairy tale collection predated Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, but despite their subtitle, “Entertainment for Little Ones,” they are considered idiosyncratically macabre and even a little NSFW. Of course, those are both rather cinematic qualities. Matteo Garrone duly emphasizes the strange and baroque in Tale of Tales (trailer here), his English language adaptation of a trio of intertwined Basile fables, which screens as part of the AFI’s 2015 EU Film Showcase.

Three neighboring kingdoms largely coexist quite peacefully, because their respective monarchs are so self-absorbed with their own issues. Thanks to the help of a necromancer, the Queen of Longtrellis magically conceives the son she always desired, at the mere cost of her indulgent husband (and basically her soul). However, Prince Elias never adequately returns her codependent love. Instead, he prefers to spend time with the commoner Jonah, who is his exact spitting image.

The King of Highmountain is equally problematic in the completely opposite way. He ignores his antsy-to-be-married daughter, Princess Violet, preferring to obsess over his abnormally large trained flea. When he finally makes a show of arranging a contest for her hand, he inadvertently grants her hand to an ogre.

Meanwhile, the horndog King of Strongcliff has fallen in lust with the voice of the peasant Dora. However, he does not realize she is one of two old crone sisters living hand-to-mouth in a cottage on his estate. Feigning coyness, Dora manages to hold off the King until she can come to him under the dark of night. Complications ensue.

If you haven’t realized yet, there is sex in these fairy tales. There are also flashes of violence that are shocking in the moment, but not at all gratuitous. Be that as it may, it is easy to see why the archetypal source material has been largely passed over by animators and children’s publishers. Tale of Tales still seems likely an unlikely direction for an ultra-realist like Garrone, but he reportedly claims all his films have a kinship with fairy tales. You can sort of see that in a morality tale like Reality, but it is less apparent in the thinly fictionalized social expose, Gomorrah.

Regardless, there is a lot of cool stuff in Tale, including Toby Jones talking to a giant flea and Salma Hayek eating a dragon’s heart. There are also tightrope walkers, damsels in distress, damsels causing distress, shapeshifters, and Shakespearean confusion with twins. Garrone and editor Marco Spoletini shrewdly time the shifts between narrative strands, maintaining a nice up-tempo pace. Alexandre Desplat also contributes a very Desplat-sounding score (classy, but not particularly distinctive). However, production designer Dimitri Capuani and the battery of art directors creates a richly detailed fantasy world that is both lovely and sinister.

Tale of Tales could be considered The Princess Bride’s evil twin, making it exactly the sort of fairy tale movie we have needed. It is much more fun than Catherine Breillart’s fairy tale films and more subversive than Snow White and the Huntsman. Recommended for fans of dark fantasy, Tale of Tales screens this Saturday (12/12) as part of the AFI’s EU Film Showcase.

Close Range: Scott Adkins vs. a Mexican Drug Cartel

Think Mexican drug cartel violence ends at our super well-guarded border? Colt MacReady knows better. Fortunately, the AWOL commando with authority issues is a match for any narco-terrorist outfit, but the situation his family finds themselves in is more real than we would like to admit. Regardless, bad guys are in for a big hurting in Isaac Florentine’s lean and mean Close Range (trailer here), which opens this Friday in select theaters.

MacReady’s widowed sister Angela Reynolds remarried the wrong sleazy drug smuggler. When he tried to skim a few bucks off his last payment, the cartel abducted his step-daughter Hailey. That would be MacReady’s niece Hailey. He might not be around much, but he still isn’t about to stand for that, so he rescues her in the slam-bang opening sequence.

Of course, the cartel is hot on their trial, but their corrupt tool, Sheriff Jasper Calloway slows down MacReady and his family until the out of sorts Garcia Cartel arrives. Despite the wreckage MacReady left in Mexico, old man Fernando Garcia assumes a handful of guys can handle MacReady while he holds Angela and Hailey hostage. Right, good luck with that plan.

Close Range is not exactly what you would call pretentious, but it delivers plenty of old school, hardnosed action. This is what Scott Adkins and Isaac Florentine do better than any other tandem working in film today—and in Close Range they just do it without a lot worrying about character development or other extraneous business. Frankly, Adkins’ glowering presence is all the character establishment we really need. Imagine how awesome the next Batman movie would have been if he had been cast instead of Ben Affleck. We are all still bitterly disappointed about that, since his widely reported screen test gave us so much false hope.

To be fair, the criminally underrated Nick Chinlund manages to dig out an effective character development arc for the cowardly Calloway. When he and Adkins’ MacReady have their final face-off, it is as serious as a heart attack. For what it’s worth, Caitlin Keats and Madison Lawlor deal with Florentine’s furious pace and constant hail of bullets gamely enough, even if these were not the roles they had in mind during their time at the Actor’s Studio or wherever they trained.

It really is a pleasure to watch an unfussy action film, in which the fights and shoot-outs are clearly framed and pristinely watchable. Adkins has the chops and Florentine knows how to show them off. Anyone who grew up with Cannon’s Chuck Norris, JCVD, and Michael Dudikoff movies will have a nostalgic good time with it (sort of in the tradition of Avenging Force). Recommended for genre fans, Close Range is now available on VOD and opens this Friday (12/11) at the Arena Cinema in Los Angeles.

American Hero: With Great Power Comes No Responsibility

You’ll notice nobody is calling Melvin “the greatest,” or even relatively good. Frankly, on a lot of days the “hero” part is a bit of a stretch. Unlike Ralph Hinckley, he lacks a steady job, but he had plenty of vices. However, he has largely mastered his powers, but how he uses them is a constant source of frustration for his friends and family in screenwriter-director Nick Love’s American Hero (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Melvin drinks, inhales drugs, sleeps around, and moves large objects with the power of his mind, such as it is. He is currently barred from seeing his son, pending a psych evaluation. This bothers Melvin, but not enough to make him clean up his act. That in turn bothers his wheelchair bound best friend Lucille—he’s a he, who suffered a spinal injury during the first Gulf War. A documentary crew is following Melvin, but it isn’t pretty. Since he is being filmed and all, maybe he will finally get his wake up call and resolve to put his telekinetic powers to use on behalf of Katrina-distressed New Orleans neighborhood. Or not.

Considering how much juvenile behavior it depicts, Hero is a remarkably sober and mature film. Acting like an Animal House reject just isn’t cute anymore for the people surrounding Melvin. Love is astute enough to understand that it is not funny. It’s sad. For a scruffy independent production, the special effects are also uncommonly polished and professional grade. The film also has a strong sense of place, capturing the look and rhythm of NOLA life in the outer wards.

Looking like a lifelong stranger to Schick and Gillette, Stephen Dorff is so charismatically disreputable, he maintains audience sympathy even at his most hedonistic nadir. He looks comfortable with the action sequences, but fully taps into Melvin’s pathos. Eddie Griffin is also dramatically less annoying as Melvin than his typical screen appearances. That is not to say he does not induce plenty of cringing, just not to his usual extent. Regardless, they forge some not bad buddy chemistry together.

Love happens to be British, but he has a fine eye and ear for local color. Years ago, the only way superhero movies could be credible was as small scale character studies, like Greatest American Hero or Hero at Large. American Hero feels like a refreshing return to that tradition. It is a nice little film that is affectionately recommended for superhero fans when it opens this Friday (12/11) at the Village East in New York and the Zeitgeist Arts Center in New Orleans.

Indigenous: Beware the Chupacadra

There is a good reason why the Pan-American Highway has yet to penetrate the Darien Gap. For years, it has been a base of operations for the brutal Marxist FARC guerillas, who have kidnapped and murdered many hikers that unwisely ventured inside. Frankly, a group of hard partying American tourists is probably lucky to encounter the mythical Chupacadra instead in Alastair Orr’s Indigenous (trailer here), which releases today on VOD.

Scott Williams and his hot new girlfriend Steph Logan are meeting up with his three hedonistic friends for some fun in the Panamanian sun. Trevor, the really annoying one, starts putting the moves on local bombshell Carmen, who thinks it would be great fun to check out the waterfall she used to enjoy swimming under, until the government declared the Darien Gap off limits. Her ambiguously platonic friend Julio makes her promise not to take the gringos there, but she does anyway. Chupacabra attacks ensue.

There is no point in beating around the bush. Indigenous is basically a cornball monster movie, but it is exactly the sort of half disreputable creature feature seriously cult film connoisseurs periodically crave. It starts out promising, with a lot of cutting dialogue and plenty of eye candy (from both the bikini babes and surfer dudes). According to the press notes, Laura Penuela, who plays Carmen, was anointed “Best Body” in the 2009 Miss Colombia pageant, so obviously she was cast for her guitar-playing talent.

The problem is when the Chupacadra attacks, the film is so dark in a visual sense, it is almost impossible to follow the on-screen action. Granted, horror movies are usually scarier when you can’t see the evil antagonist, but in this case we are supposed to, but we still can’t. The character of Julio also becomes laughable ineffectual, as he spends most of the second half driving around aimlessly, while leaving pointless voice messages for assorted characters.

However, the creature make-up is pretty good, at least when we get to see it. As for the ensemble led by the bland Zachary Soetenga and recognizable TV regular Lindsey McKeon (One Tree Hill, Supernatural), they are certainly all quite fit. Several also have a knack for snarky attitude, which is more than you might expect.

Indigenous is a mediocre film at best, but if that is perversely attractive to you, then definitely have at it, as long as we all understand where we are coming from. This is just the sort of teasingly chaste, occasionally gory exploitation film that never goes out of fashion. For those of you who know who you are, Indigenous releases today on VOD.

AFI’s EU Showcase ’15: The Fencer

Upper body strength means little in fencing. It is all about the legs. Lunging and retreating are key to the sport, or as Endel Nelis puts it: “controlling the distance between you and your opponent.” Those instincts have also served him well as a fugitive from Stalin’s secret police. He has come to Haapsalu, Estonia, because the provincial town is the perfect place to lay low. However, his fencing classes attract dangerous attention in Klaus Härö’s biographical drama, The Fencer (trailer here), Finland’s official foreign language Oscar submission, which screens as part of the AFI’s 2015 EU Film Showcase.

The school principal is the sort of petty apparatchik who resents any form of talent or accomplishment. Naturally, he takes an instinctive dislike to Nelis, the new physical education teacher from sophisticated St. Petersburg (or Leningrad as a Party hack might call it). Nelis has no intention of rocking the boat or standing out in any way. He is working under an assumed name, hoping to avoid capture and exile to Siberia. Against his will, Nelis was pressed into service by the German Army. He managed to avoid combat by deserting into the forest, but he has still been declared an enemy of the people.

Naturally, Nelis is required to voluntarily manage an athletic club, but the principal refuses to allot him any resources. However, when he starts giving fencing lessons with mere switches cut from trees, many students are intrigued. Of course, the principal thinks little of this “feudal” sport, but parental support temporarily ties his hands. While Principal Skinneruu plots against him, Nelis prepares to take a small team to compete in an all-Soviet open invitational.

Based on a real historical figure, The Fencer ought to be catnip for Oscar voters. Like Mr. Holland’s Opus with fencing foils, crossed with The Lives of Others, Härö and screenwriter Anna Heinämaa tell the true story of an initially cold and standoffish teacher, who comes to care about his students as they deal with some pretty extreme challenges, like the arrest and exile of family members. It is not a dramatic conversion, but a subtle evolution of character that Märt Avandi plays with great strength and nuance. He also develops terrific chemistry with Joonas Koff and Liisa Koppel as his two star pupils, both of whom have “missing” fathers.

There are a number of scenes that could have been embarrassingly cheesy and saccharine, but at each potential pitfall, Härö reins in the film, going for a quietly stoic Baltic moment instead. As a result, he truly earns the comparatively sentimental closing. It is also impressive how much attention was given to proper fencing technique. They really are doing it right.

Throughout the film, Härö vividly captures a sense of the late Stalinist era paranoia, as well as the drabness of Soviet life in general. It is also engaging on a human level. These are reserved people, but when they make a connection, it is meaningful. Very highly recommended, especially for Academy members, The Fencer screens this Thursday (12/10) as part of the AFI’s EU Film Showcase.

ADIFF ’15: Let the Music Talk

Alex Pascall was sort of the Gil Noble of London. He is widely credited with establishing a voice for Britain’s West Indian community on mainstream radio and television. As one of the founders of the Notting Hill Carnival, he had a clear affinity for music. Pascall surveys the diverse black British musical scene in one of his best known broadcasts when he served as the host of Yvonne Deutschmann’s Let the Music Talk, which screens during the 2015 African Diaspora International Film Festival in NewYork.

Appropriately, Let starts with what could be considered day one of British calypso history when Lord Kitchener arrived on the HMT Empire Windrush (a British war trophy confiscated from Germany), improvising a performance of “London is the Place for Me” for Pathé News. American audiences might be surprised by the considerable time then afforded to British gospel music, but it clearly provided similar inspiration and fortification for many devout British immigrants. Deutschmann and Pascall also a good deal of spend time with the traditional Masqueraders, the Grenada Shortknee Band, who actually sound better in their rehearsal segment than during their full dress performance.

There are additional performances by the funky soul band The Real Thing, the other chart-topping quartet from Liverpool, representing the Mersey Sound and Eddy Grant, a year before he released his biggest hit, “Electric Avenue.” However, the coolest part of the film is the in-studio interview and performance with Coleridge Goode, the revered free form jazz bassist who played on seminal Joe Harriott and Michael Garrick sessions.

While it clocks in just under an hour (as you would expect of a 1981 BBC one-shot TV doc), it features some wildly groovy, catchy up-tempo performances. It is also impressive how “undated” Let feels, aside from its 1981 production values. It is a significant television music broadcast most Americans have never seen, so any fan of two or three of the assembled genres (reggae, calypso, funk, gospel) should definitely check out Let the Music Talk when it screens this Thursday (12/10) at the Bow Tie Chelsea as part of the special Black British theme program (which also includes the highly entertaining fest favorite The Story of Lover’s Rock) at this year’s ADIFF.

ADIFF ’15: Hear Me Move

It is like a South African Step Up film, but its moves combine hip hop dancing and sbujwa. That would be the latest form of South African street dancing, as of about a year ago. It evolved out of pantsula, the relatively old school style that Muzi’s late, disgraced father made his international reputation dancing. Spikiri toured America, but his involvement with drugs killed the legendary dancer shortly after his return. As a result, the high school student promised his domineering mother he would never dance like his father. However, Muzi has his father’s feet and they will not be denied indefinitely in Scottnes L. Smith’s Hear Me Move (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 African Diaspora International Film Festival in New York.

Muzi knows he is a dancer but he has never joined a crew, out of deference to his mother. As a solo performer, opportunities are limited, but he still has to deal with the challenges that come from being Spikiri’s son. However, his father’s old promoter “Shoes” recognizes his potential, inviting his to join the crew he manages, Sbujwa Nation. This does not sit well with some members, particularly their featured dancer Prince. In fact, Prince will soon leave to form his own upstart crew, Ambition.

As Muzi struggles to adapt to the demands of ensemble dancing, Shoes starts to level with him. There is indeed a reason why Prince so resents him. He is the illegitimate son Spikiri never acknowledged. Revelations like that mess with Muzi’s head, but Khanyi helps keep him sort of grounded. She might even be a potential romantic interest if Muzi can get his act together, but that is going to take a bit of time.

As dance movies go, Fidel Namisi’s screenplay makes Make Your Move and Born to Dance look like they were written by Paddy Chayefsky. Seriously, the business with old man Spikiri is just eye-rollingly melodramatic. However, the dancing is suitably dynamic and often very well framed by Smith, who almost always shows us the entire crew in full frame rather than self-defeating close-ups.

The cast is also appealingly young and energetic, particularly Bontle Modiselle, who makes a credible bid for movie stardom as the down-to-earth Khanyi. Mbuso Kgarebe also has the right sort of dangerous charisma for Prince, but the Nyaniso Dzedze just sort of survives as the excessively angst-ridden Muzi.

There is no denying the attractiveness of Hear Me Move’s cast and routines, but the Sbujwa-hip hop synthesis are not as distinctive as the wildly cool taiko drumming fusions choreographed by the awesome Yako Miyamoto for Make Your Move. Still, it has enough of a local spin to appeal to those who appreciate South African street dancing. Honestly, it is rather fun in a slightly cheesy way. Recommended accordingly for dance movie fans, Hear Me Move screens this Wednesday (12/9) at the Bow Tie Chelsea and Friday (12/11) at the MIST Harlem, as part of the special focus on South African cinema at this year’s ADIFF.

Making Waves ’15: Trading Germans

Romanian Germans have a long and complex history with their homeland that continues to evolve even to this day. Indeed, the fact that Romanian President Klaus Iohannis is a Transylvanian Saxon is quite significant. There used to be many more Saxon, Swabian, Zipser, and Bukovina Germans in Romanian but the 1945 Soviet expulsion of all able bodied ethnic German men took a brutal toll. Those who were left faced a difficult time of during the Communist era, but the Federal Republic of Germany did not abandon them. Răzvan Georgescu reveals the extent and legacy of the secret deal struck by the FRG and Ceauşescu in Trading Germans (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 edition of Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema.

During the hottest years of the Cold War, West Germany traded hard currency in exchange for the immigration of almost a quarter of a million Romanian Germans. It was a long term operation, spanning the years of 1968-1989. During throughout that period, Heinz-Günther Hüsch served as the primary German negotiator, even before his election to the Bundestag (as a member of the CDU). He ran an incredibly efficient operation, at least until Helmut Schmidt got involved and re-negotiated less favorable terms for West Germany.

Thanks to Hüsch and Romania’s unquenchable demand for hard currency (fueled by Ceauşescu’s corruption), a steady stream of Romanian Germans were allowed to leave the Socialist paradise. Apparently, they assimilated quite well in West Germany, in part because they spoke perfect German. Unlike the rest of the Soviet Bloc, Romania never curtailed their German language fluency and usage. However, they still feel profound sense of separation from their homeland. The Saxons particularly seem to have a deep agrarian connection to their ancestral land—most of which now lies fallow.

Hüsch and his chief Romanian counterpart Stelian Octavian Andronic offer some vivid memories and sly commentary on their extended pow-wows. Yet, some of the best insights regarding the nature of freedom come from Romanian German Karl Hann and Hansi Schmidt (formerly a star player for the Romanian national handball team).

There are some rather misleading descriptions of this film online that make it sound like a human trafficking documentary. As far we can tell from the HBO Europe produced doc, everyone whose passage the FRG purchased wanted to leave, albeit reluctantly. In fact, the Communist authorities often double-collected, charging the immigrants exorbitant passport fees, unbeknownst to Hüsch. Yes, they are sad to be estranged from their homeland, but the regime had already stripped them of their beloved land and their way of life. Frankly, it is a relatively feel-good Cold War story, told with sensitivity and telling details. Highly recommended, Trading Germans screens tomorrow night (12/7) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema.

Making Waves ’15: Why Me?

According to the postscript, during the years of 2006-2012, “23 members of parliament, 15 government ministers, and over 100 mayors and 50 magistrates” were sent up the river in Romania, which constitutes remarkably clean governance here in New York and New Jersey. However, the underlying system of corruption deeply troubled former prosecutor Cristian Panait. That would be the late Cristian Panait. The controversies surrounding Panait’s untimely demise are transparently fictionalized in Tudor Giurgiu’s Why Me? (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 edition of Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema.

Initially, Cristian Panduru is the fast-tracked golden boy in the state prosecutors’ office, specializing in government corruption cases. He already has plenty to keep him busy, but the prosecution of Bogdan Leca, a notoriously crooked prosecutor from a neighboring jurisdiction could decisively make Panduru’s reputation. Unfortunately, when Panduru tries to execute a search warrant, the crafty Leca runs circles around him. Nevertheless, Panduru’s superiors still file charges against Leca, despite his inability to turn up anything incriminating. Panduru quickly realizes the fix is in and he will be the designated fall guy, if needed.

Under pressure to convict Leca, Panait secretly shifts the focus of his investigation. Before long, he suspects the shadowy involvement of Romania’s SRI, the post-Revolutionary incarnation of the dreaded Securitate, one of seven government intelligence service then active in the country. The more he sleuths out, the greater the pressure Panduru’s superiors exert trying to bring him back in line. It will get ugly.

By the standards of the Romanian New Wave aesthetic movement, Why Me is a barn burner of a thriller. However, viewers who do not have a few recent Romanian films under their belt will need time to acclimate to its severely icy vibe. Still, there is no missing its rampant (but apparently justified) paranoia. Rather pleasantly surprisingly, Why Me is way more closely akin to cynical 1970s conspiracy thrillers like The Conversation than anyone who has soldiered through films like Aurora and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu will ever dare to hope.

In all honesty, Emilian Oprea’s Panduru is so tightly wound and uptight, it practically hurts to watch him walk. It is a quiet, but bitterly compelling performance that takes on legitimately tragic dimensions. As his direct superior, Prosecutor Codrea, Mihai Constantin truly personifies bureaucratic villainy. Alin Florea adds plenty of acerbic élan as the more-formidable-than-he-looks Leca. On the other hand, Panduru’s girlfriend and dodgy colleagues are mostly unremarkable stock characters.

Why Me gives viewers a comprehensive sense of how tricky post-Communist politics, economics, and jurisprudence have been in Romania, in large measure thanks to the Securitate veterans who just carried on as usual in the SRI. Giurgiu never dumbs it down, as he methodically peels back layer after layer of the corrupt onion. It is a challenging film that might be a tad longer than necessary (131 minutes, really?), but maintains a moody, trust-no-one vibe throughout. Recommended for those who appreciate rigorous fact-based political thrillers, Why Me? screens tonight (12/5) and Monday afternoon (12/7) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema.