The Affair, Based on Simon Mawer’s The Glass Room

Villa Tugendhat is like Czechia’s Falling Water House. Designed by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich, it was the happy home of the Tugendhat family, who did not move out voluntarily. However, they managed to leave Czechoslovakia in the nick of time, avoiding the worst of the German occupation. Understandably, the children of the Tugendhats were not entirely thrilled when Simon Mawer used their family home to create a fictional “fantasia” about a much more dysfunctional family. Similarly, they weren’t too crazy with the news of a film adaptation of Mawer’s novel (Mies’ heirs might not be ecstatic either), but here it is regardless. The tragic history of the Czech Republic unfolds alongside Mawer’s made-up melodrama in Julius Sevcik’s English-language Czech-production The Affair, which releases this Friday on VOD.

In this alternate reality, Viktor Landauer built Villa Tugendhat as a wedding gift for his bride Liesel, who is crazy about modernist architecture. However, even he balks at the expenses run up by the renowned architect Von Abt, especially the red marble he installs. Still, Viktor must admit the way it glows when the sun rises really is quite amazing. Liesel’s best friend Hana Hankova is so struck by the villa, she takes Von Abt as a lover, even though he isn’t a very good one. Frankly, she would rather love Liesel, but her married friend is not ready to go there yet.

Sadly, the war will separate them before they can fully workout their issues. Likewise, Viktor Landauer will carry the baggage of his dalliances with the nanny, another possible affair the flawed international title could refer to. Recognizing the writing on the wall, the Jewish Landauers manage to leave on one of the last Casablanca-style flights out. Hanakova and her Jewish husband are not so lucky. To protect him, she becomes the mistress of Stahl, a military contractor, who has requisitioned the villa to serve as a drafting workshop (another affair, but not exactly one freely entering into).

The first half of The Affair really is melodramatic (to the point of cheesiness). However, the second half becomes much more compelling, focusing on Hanakova as she navigates the National Socialist occupation and the subsequent Soviet domination of Czechoslovakia. Through her eyes, we see the decline of the nation, as reflected by the deterioration of the Villa (that eventually becomes host to squatting black marketeer). Frankly, the aspects of the film that work the best really do not require Mawer’s controversial meta-fictionalization of the Tugendhat family. Anyone from the era could relate to the Villa as a symbol of past glory.

Carice van Houten is indeed very strong as Hanakova. She brings strength to the modern Czech woman, even as she endures the indignities of consecutive occupations. She is sort of revisiting her role in Black Book, but Hanakova is arguably more human, being a flawed but protective wife and eventually a fiercely loving mother. She is also critical to the biting scenes that set up the 1968 Soviet invasion.

De Palma’s Domino

Denmark is relatively hawkish when it comes to the War on Terror—not just for a Scandinavian country, but also by European standards. Perhaps that is why Salah Al-Din, an Islamist terrorist mastermind has been focusing on Danish targets. A former assassin with a grudge against Al-Din is out to kill him and his associates, but for copper Christian Toft, the enemy of his enemy is not his friend in Brian De Palma’s Domino—yes, that Brian De Palma, which opens tomorrow in select cities.

Thanks to a flirtatious early morning after a long night of passion, Toft leaves his gun on his bed-stand before responding to what he and his partner Lars Hansen assume to be a routine domestic disturbance. Instead, they run smack into Ezra Tarzi leaving the scene of the crime. He had carved up a bodega owner, whose flat is filled to the brim with explosives and general terrorism paraphernalia. Alas, Tarzi gravely wounds Hansen while escaping from custody, but he does not make a clean getaway.

Instead, he is captured by the CIA, who are happy to aid his quest for vengeance, supplying him with intel and further hardball motivation—as if he needed it. Tarzi already has Al-Din’s YouTube beheading videos of his brother for that. Initially, the Copenhagen cops erroneously believe Tarzi is still with Al-Din’s Dahesh cell, so Toft assumes Tarzi can lead them straight to the terrorist, which is still mostly true.

By all reports, Domino was deeply troubled throughout every stage of production, finally pushing De Palma to largely disavow the film. However, it still shows flashes of the old De Palma magic. He does his usually Hitchcockian thing, while Pino Donaggio, his regular score composer, reaches back into his Bernard Herrmann bag of tricks—and it works more often than you would know from the rest of the reviews so far. In fact, the big, pivotal scene in a bullfighting stadium (the third act shifts to Spain, probably for tax credit reasons) is genuinely vintage De Palma, up there with the Battleship Potemkin homage in The Untouchables.

As Toft, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is a serviceable lead, who looks sufficiently convincing in his action scenes. Guy Pearce practically sleeps through the film playing Machiavellian CIA agent Joe Martin (a case of been there, done that, if ever there was). Søren Malling is largely under-utilized as Hansen, whereas Paprika Steen is completely wasted as his wife Hanne. Unfortunately, Carice van Houten is badly offkey as Toft’s unofficial new partner Alex Boe. However, Eriq Ebouaney is a real standout as the steely Tarzi.

Domino is a grubby, Eurotrashy film that struggles to alienate its core audience with kneejerk moral equivalencies. Yet, it still has moments of grand suspense. It is not De Palma’s worst film, not by a long shot (hello Passion and Redacted). The question is whether it is a last gasp or a harbinger of a final masterwork to come (as John Frankenheimer’s under-appreciated Dead Bang and Fourth War were to Ronin). Sort of recommended for fans of ticking time-bomb-thrillers, Domino opens tomorrow (5/31) at the AMC Rolling Hills in the LA-area and releases day-and-date on iTunes.

Brimstone: A Western from Hell

This evil priest makes “Reverend” Harry Powell in Night of the Hunter look like Father Flanagan. He is such an evil cuss, he is never given a proper name. When he rides, death, sadism, and incest follow in his wake. Just when his grown daughter thought she had started a new life, he reappears like Freddy Krueger in Martin Koolhoven’s ridiculously lurid Brimstone (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Frankly, it is hard to say whether Brimstone was intended as a horror movie or a revisionist western. In this case, the ambiguity is due Koolhoven’s wild, unrestrained indulgences. When Liz’s tormentor suddenly appears as the new minister in town, he need only touch the stomach of a pregnant woman to induce a miscarriage his midwife daughter will inevitably be blamed for. That sounds pretty darn Satanic, yet the Rev talks like Church Lady. Through his Mephistophelean influence, he turns the community against Liz and her adopted family, yet Koolhoven suddenly downshifts to grungy realism when he flashes back to explain how Liz and the Rev became so antagonistic.

After years of abusing Liz’s mother, the preacher decided to marry his daughter, because it is God’s will. Bizarrely, the stiff collared Dutch immigrant community he ministers to thinks nothing of it when Liz’s mother attends services in a steel muzzle. Subtlety, be gone. Koolhoven hast cast thee out of this movie.

Obviously, Koolhoven has a pathological hatred of Protestantism, but the obsession with menstruation he projects onto the Reverend-Without-a-Name really opens up a window into his own dark psyche. The sort of misogynist violence and transgressive sexual kinks assembled in Brimstone cries out for a psychological intervention. Frankly, it is more than a little disturbing to think Koolhoven was working with children, while filming both Brimstone and his infinitely superior Winter in Wartime.

Guy Pearce clownishly overacts as the evil Reverend. At one point, he literally howls at the moon like a wolf. Both Dakota Fanning and Emilia Jones maintain more dignity playing Liz and her fifteen-year-old self, when she was known as Joanna. Sadly, Carice van Houten is largely wasted and sort of humiliated as Liz/Joanna’s horribly abused mother. However, her Game of Thrones co-star Kit Harington provides a bit of hope and energy, even though the contrived presence of his gunslinger character stretches believability to the breaking point.

Brimstone gives over-the-top excess a bad name. Who in their right mind would name their saloon-bordello “Frank’s Inferno?” Yet, that is where Liz is forced into white slavery after temporarily escaping her father’s lustful clutches. Nothing is too on-the-nose, as long as it fits Koolhoven’s crude hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-2x4 symbolism. Arguably, Brimstone is so barking mad, some folks will want to see it for its own freak show appeal, but you should probably avoid such temptations for the good of your soul. Not recommended, especially not at its life-sucking two-and-a-half hour running time, Brimstone opens today (3/10) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Black Butterflies: Madness and Apartheid

Ingrid Jonker was on the right side of history. Unfortunately, she was nearly impossible to live with. Often dubbed the “South African Sylvia Plath,” her Afrikaans verse passionately condemned Apartheid, but her inner demons would eventually prove fatal. Though undeniably a symbol of white South African dissent, Jonker’s deep emotional turmoil trumps the social strife of her times in Paula van der Oest’s bio-drama, Black Butterflies (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Jonker and her father were never close, nor did they ever agree on much. It was only after the death of her guardian grandmother that Jonker met the father whom her late mother had walked away from just before her birth. While even as a child she exhibited precocious poetic talent, Abraham Jonker served as a hardline state censor. Clearly, conflict between them would be inevitable.

Conversely, the novelist Jack Cope would look like an excellent match for Jonker, at least on paper. Both were liberal Afrikaans writers with children who were in the process of divorcing their spouses. They certainly meet under fortuitous circumstances, when Cope saves her from drowning. Indeed, they quickly become an item, but it is not long before Jonker’s erratic behavior undermines their relationship. Needy does not begin to describe her, nor does faithfulness.

While Cope adamantly ends their affair, he stops short of cutting ties altogether. In fact, it is the novelist and a mutual literary friend who package Jonker’s breakthrough collection while she is institutionalized. Through their efforts, her poem “The Dead Child of Nyanga” (which Mandela would read at his inauguration) would be published and duly censored (by her father).

Rather than revisiting Apartheid era non-controversies yet again, Butterflies is much more a portrait of the artist as profoundly disturbed woman. Yet, this is actually quite a legitimate biographical-cinematic strategy. While the film provides plenty of reminders of Apartheid’s unjust nature, its depiction of Jonker’s mental illness is often quite harrowing and more visceral. It is also arguably far more relevant for contemporary audiences.

Carice van Houten gives a truly brave performance, portraying a cultural icon coming apart at the emotional seams. Frequently self-destructive and often unsympathetic, it hardly constitutes hagiography, but it is true to her troubled life. However, the real lynchpin of the film is Liam Cunningham’s rock solid turn as Cope, making him a fully-dimensional flesh-and-blood human being. Though we can anticipate the tragedy that will result, we can never blame him for ending his involvement with Jonker. Frankly, it is hard to see any what else he could have done under the circumstances. While Cope benefits from Cunningham’s nuance, Rutger Hauer plays Abraham Jonker as a stone cold villain, but in his defense, this seems to essentially match the historical record.

Despite its serious subject matter, Butterflies never feels preachy, thanks to van der Oest’s intimate focus. Though certainly celebrating her artistic integrity, her film never whitewashes the tragic nature of her life. Several cuts above standard bio-pic fare, Buterflies is definitely worth seeing when it opens tomorrow (3/2) at the Cinema Village.

The Dutch Cat Woman: Miss Minoes

Do not call Miss Minoes catty. The proper term is feline. She should know what passes for political correctness amongst the cat population. She used to be one. Indeed, she has a difficult time acclimating to the human world in Vincent Bal’s Miss Minoes (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

After an unfortunate accident involving a mysterious barrel of chemicals from the local deodorant factory, Miss Minoes suddenly transforms into a human. However, she retains many of her feline characteristics, including a taste for fish, the fear of dogs, and an ability to caterwaul. Though some of her former friends now shun her, she can still communicate with the cats of Killendoorn, whom she uses as a network of informers for Tibbe, the incompetent journalist temporarily sheltering her. Naturally, newsmakers do not think twice about talking in front of cats. They are commonplace in this quaint little town and frankly rather disposable.

For a while, Tibbe becomes top dog at the paper. Unfortunately, when Miss Minoes and her feline associates goad him into writing an unsourced attack on the deodorant factory owner (a secret animal hater) he becomes the Mikael Blomkvist of Killendoorn. Still, a philanthropic industrialist will surely be no match for a woman with the mentality of a house cat and the eight year old girl living below Tibbe.

Without question, Carice van Houten’s work as Miss Minoes is quite a pleasant surprise. Her twitchy cat-like mannerisms and wide-eyed naivety are rather disarmingly winning. Though an international star, she is clearly not afraid to look silly, which is cool. On the other hand, Theo Maassen’s Tibbe is just a big lunkhead. He might be somewhat “likable,” but it is hard to invest in a character that is dumber than the animals around him.

Yet, the biggest problem with the film is the standard issue villain, Mr. Ellemeet of the DEO factory (broadly but flatly played by Pierre Bokma). Frankly, the nefarious businessman-slash-hypocritical fussbudget is such a cliché even the cats in the film seem bored with him. It really is a shame, because his subplots are so rote and uninspired, they weigh the film down like an albatross around its neck.

Indeed, there are some nice elements to be found in Miss Minoes, including an appealingly eccentric lead turn from van Houten. Cinematographer Walther Vanden Ende’s warm lighting and autumnal color palette are also quite inviting. They just get no help whatsoever from the inert, paint-by-numbers screenplay, based on Annie M.G. Schmidt’s Dutch children’s book. For cat loving little girls, it is probably still quite engaging, but parents should be warned, there is some mild dubbed cursing. Cineastes should also beware, the dubbing is considerably below current anime standards. Mostly harmless and occasionally charming, despite trafficking in the worst class-based stereotypes, Miss Minoes opens tomorrow (12/23) in New York at the Cinema Village and Elinor Bunim Munroe Film Center.