ADIFF ’10: Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story

Hebba Younis wants to be Chris Wallace. Her husband wants her to be Oprah Winfrey. However, when at his behest she temporarily forgoes her hard-hitting newsmaker interviews in favor of women’s interest features, it somehow antagonizes the Egyptian government even more in Yousry Nasrallah’s Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story (trailer here), a recent selection of the Venice Film Festival which has its New York premiere during this year’s African Diaspora International Film Festival.

They should be Cairo’s most fearsome media couple. Younis is the formidable host of a morning talk show. Karim Hassan is an up-and-coming journalist in line to become editor-in-chief of one of Egypt’s state-owned newspapers. Unlike Younis though, Hassan never met a government official he wouldn’t suck up to. Reluctantly, she agrees to lay low during the editor selection process. Yet, as she invites average Egyptian women on her show to tell their stories, a portrait of a corrupt and misogynist Islamic society emerges that hardly thrills Hassan. When cabinet ministers start to be implicated in her guests’ stories of victimization, there will be trouble.

Essentially, Scheherazade is four films in one, telling three discrete story arcs in flashbacks within the framework of Younis’ show. As the least controversial (and therefore least memorable), her first interview with a late middle-aged volunteer social worker gives Hassan reason for hope. While it runs a bit long, the second woman’s story is a much different matter. Convicted of murdering the man who was playing her and her two spinster sisters, it raises hot button questions about women’s legal rights in Egypt specifically and under Islamic law in general—not exactly territory Hassan and his political masters are eager to explore. When Younis’ third guest Nahed, a dentist from a prominent family, accuses a sitting minister of sexually and financial preying on mature unmarried women, all bets are off.

While cinematographer Samir Bahsan gives Scheherazade a lush, sophisticated look, it is a surprisingly tough film. Though Hassan might appear to be a modern dope-smoking yuppie, it becomes clear he would prefer his wife veiled and cloistered rather than more famous than him. Evidently, Mona Zaki has been the target of some heated disparagement from Egypt’s medieval quarters for her portrayal of the relatively liberated and assertive Younis. While she is a smart and attractive lead, Sanaa Akroud really steals the picture as Nahed, an older but still striking woman. Akroud brings out her intelligence and resoluteness, making her not-so uncommon circumstances a particularly effective indictment of Islamist Egypt.

Scheherazade would be bold for any Islamic country and is especially so in an Egypt where most media is wholly owned by the Soviet-sounding State Information Service. A feminist film in the best sense of the term, Scheherazade is honest look at the status of Egyptian women today. Timely and definitely recommended, it screens as part of the 2010 ADIFF this Friday (12/3) at the Anthology Film Archives and the following Sundays (12/5, 12/12) and Tuesday (12/14, the concluding night of the festival) at Symphony Space’s Thalia Theater.

ADIFF ’10: Evil Angel

She was Adam’s ex, not Frasier Crane’s. Lilith was the first wife #1 to get dumped for a younger model. Still a bit out of sorts over it, she has been venting her fury on Adam and Eve’s descendants ever since. She will be creating quite a bit trouble for one paramedic, both professionally and personally, in Richard Dutcher’s indie horror movie Evil Angel (nsfw-ish trailer here), which has its New York premiere during this year’s African Diaspora International Film Festival.

Marcus Galan is going through what could be called a rough patch. He is under investigation for the death of a diabetic prostitute not wearing her medical alert bracelet, while his compulsively unfaithful and suicidal wife makes his home life miserable. Yet, he is most tormented by another patient he was unable to save, the saintly Emma Carrillo, who lived a cloistered life in service to the poor.

Private investigator John Carruthers is supposed to be examining Galan’s case, but he has been sidetracked by a number of bodies that have cropped up, especially that of his son and partner, Vic. They all seem to trace back to that prostitute Galan inadvertently misdiagnosed, who like several other characters, underwent a radical change of personality after a near death experience. See a pattern emerging?

Angel has two things really going for it. Ving Rhames costars as Carruthers. He would be cool simply reading the newspaper, but Rhames investigating an ancient demon is some serious badness. There is also a fair amount of naughtiness in Angel, which at least makes it watchable.

In truth, Angel executes its supernatural premise relatively well, but it shares the same hereditary flaws present in nearly every horror film of the last thirty years. People definitely do stupid things here (like carelessly telling the ancient evil in human guise everything they know about her), but to an extent that would be forgivable. Like most other horror filmmaker, Dutcher also seems to have something against closure, giving viewers a predictably clichéd open-ended coda. However, he takes a surprisingly effective supporting turn as Martineau, Galan’s eccentric former colleague who seems to have listened to far too much Art Bell during those graveyard shifts (or could he be onto something after all?).

Angel looks considerably more polished than most indie genre pictures and Rhames is always an engaging screen presence. Still, the film would have benefited had Dutcher adhered less to the standard horror movie template. Essentially following in the tradition of workaday horror programmers, Angel screens this Thursday (12/2) and Saturday (11/4) at the Anthology Film Archives as part of the 2010 ADIFF.

ADIFF ’10: Prohibited Love

When African American servicemen like the Harlem Hellfighters’ Henry Johnson and Eugene Bullard, the first African American combat pilot, received the Croix de guerre and were hailed as heroes by the French during WWI, word got out back home. As a result, many African American GIs were particularly hoping to liberate the French during WWII. However, even in 1940’s France, race relations are decidedly complicated in Philippe Niang’s Prohibited Love (a.k.a. Les Amants de l'Ombre), a rather cinematic French television movie that screens during the 2010 African Diaspora International Film Festival in New York.

Nurse Louise Venturi has been a good wife, loyally waiting for her husband Pierre to return from the war. The occupying “jerrys” have cleared out of town, mere steps ahead of the Americans. Much to the provincial French town’s surprise, when the liberating Yanks arrive, there is an African American company among them. Many of the town’s women are attracted to them as “exotic” foreigners, but not Venturi.

Strangely though, as soon as she moves back in with Pierre’s parents to tend to her injured father-in-law Ange, his letters suddenly stop coming. Simultaneously, Gary Larochelle, a French speaking New Orleanian, makes no secret of his attraction to her, creating a perfect storm of sexual tension.

While Prohibited depicts American race relations with a characteristic sense of French superiority, it also features a fair amount of French prejudice, as well as some hypocritical score-settling by the Johnny-come-lately super-patriotic FFI. In fact, the circumstances surrounding the death of Venturi’s young sister-in-law’s jerry lover, sets in motion a tragic series of events for their entire family.

As the nurse-protagonist, Julie Debazac handles some potentially melodramatic material with nuance and class. While their Anglais is often suspiciously phonetic sounding, Québécois actor Anthony Kavanagh and the French Edouard Montoute have the right swagger of liberating GI’s and an easy-going charm as Larochelle and his comrade Sidney Jackson. Greco-French movie-star George Corraface (best known in America as Christopher Columbus, but also quite excellent in the Greek culinary drama A Touch of Spice) gives a solid Brian Dennehy-esque performance as the salt-of-the-earth Ange, as well.

Though produced for television, Prohibited holds up well as a feature. Although it is hardly subtle, at least it slams France nearly as much as the U.S. As much a revisionist take on post-liberation France as a blistering critique of American segregation, Prohibited is an intriguing film, definitely worth seeing during this year’s ADIFF, where it screens next Friday (12/3) at the Riverside Theatre and the following Saturday (12/4) at the Anthology Film Archives.

ADIFF '10: Josephine Baker, Black Diva

She was the first African American woman to be awarded the French Croix de guerre. It put her in strange company, including the likes of Curtis LeMay and South African Prime Minister Jan Smuts. Josephine Baker might have been American-born, but she captured the heart of Paris. A truly transcendent and diasporic figure, she is perfect touchstone for the 2010 African Diaspora International Film Festival in New York. In addition to featuring her iconic likeness on this year’s program, the ADIFF showcases Annette von Wangenheim’s respectful documentary tribute, Josephine Baker: Black Diva in a White Man’s World as part of a gala screening this coming Tuesday.

Judiciously, Diva begins with Baker not in her racy “jungle” costumes, but performing in garb of sophisticated elegance. Those drawn to Baker for reasons beyond musical or historical interest should also be assured, there are plenty of the revealing outfits that made her famous (and still seem daring even by today’s standards). Baker was already paid like a star before she left America. However, it was only as an expatriate in Paris that she was treated as such.

In truth, the vaunted notion of French tolerance and acceptance of African American artists like Baker has been re-evaluated somewhat in recent years. Indeed, Diva addresses Baker’s expat popularity in the context of the aesthetic “primitivism” and Colonial paternalism that informed French popular culture at the time.

Still, there is no denying the connection Baker forged with her more-or-less adopted country. Indeed, the extent of her service on behalf of De Gaulle and the French underground will likely come as a revelation to many viewers of Diva. So will the longevity of her career. We think of Baker frozen in time—specifically the 1920’s, wearing her famous banana skirt. Yet, her stage career extended well into the 1970’s.

Diva briskly tells Baker’s story, detailing her activism as well, without getting bogged down in politics. There are also plenty of conventional talking heads included, but when two of them are legendary dancers like Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder, their perspectives are definitely worth hearing.

It is almost eerie how alluring Baker remains eight decades after her Parisian debut. Nicely balancing the sex appeal and the artistry, von Wangeham creates an entertaining and informative valentine with Diva. Recommended with the affection it inspires, Diva screens with From These Roots at Thursday’s (11/30) film gala presentation and also on December 3rd, 7th, 12th, and 14th at Symphony Space Thalia Theater (except for the 12/3 showing, which will be at Anthology Film Archives).

ADIFF ’10: London River

Nothing brings back the terrible memories of 9-11 like the sight of home-made missing person posters. Evidently, they were a common sight in London as well during the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings of 2005. One desperate mother hopes against hope that they will help her find her missing daughter in Rachid Bouchareb’s London River (trailer here), which screens as part of the 2010 African Diaspora International Film Festival in New York.

Elisabeth Sommers lives a quiet life tending her farm on the island of Guernsey. Estranged from his family in Africa, Monsieur Ousmane works as a forester in France. She is a protestant, while he is a Muslim, but they soon discover they are linked by the 7/7 bombing. Neither her daughter Jamie nor his son Ali has been heard from since that tragic day. Much to their surprise, it turns out their missing adult children were involved in a serious relationship. They were even learning Arabic together—a revelation Sommers has difficulty processing.

Eventually, the nervous Sommers and the stoic Ousmane form an uneasy truce that slowly evolves into something like friendship. Yet, the nagging uncertainty of their children’s fate looms over their time spent together.

River is a quiet film about every mother and father’s greatest nightmare. Bouchareb largely eschews the political in favor of the starkly intimate. Still, some realities are impossible to avoid. Does it give pause to any of River’s many Muslim characters that their co-religionists just murdered 52 innocent people? Perhaps the ever taciturn Ousmane hints at such misgivings when he confides in Sommers his own failings as a father. It is hardly a transcendent epiphany, but it is an honest, sensitively turned scene.

While River boasts a large cast, it is essentially a two-hander for two vastly different parents. The Oscar-worthy Brenda Blethyn is agonizingly convincing as the distraught Sommers, perfectly counterbalanced by the deliberate Sotigui Kouyaté as Ousmane. Chronically ill during the shoot, Kouyaté passed away earlier this year, but his Silver Bear at the 2009 for River was well-deserved. Though quiet and reserved, he brings Ousmane to life not merely as a stereotypical symbol of non-western wisdom. Instead, he is a flawed individual, whose character arc is just as heavy as that of Sommers.

Though often a political filmmaker, the French-Algerian Bouchareb’s greater loyalties clearly lie with his story and characters. That is why his most recent film, Outside the Law, is such an interesting take on the Algerian independence movement, in which it devilishly difficult to differentiate the rebels from the gangsters. With River, he focuses like a laser on the pain and fear of his primary leads. Bouchareb also gets a nice assist from composer Armand Amar whose jazz-inflected score adds a wistful air to proceedings. A simple, moving film that deftly sidesteps polemics, River is a good way to start the 2010 ADIFF. It screens this Saturday (11/27) and next Thursday (12/2) at Anthology Film Archives, with a final showing the following Sunday (12/5) at Symphony Space’s Thalia Theater.