Russian Film Week ‘18: Sobibor

It was hard being a hero of the Soviet Motherland. Alexander Pechersky’s service during WWII was indeed truly heroic. The Jewish Red Army officer-conscript was instrumental leading the mass escape from the Sobibor concentration camp. In later years, Pechersky wanted to continue to fight against his National Socialist captors, but the Soviet Union denied him exit permission to testify against any accused war criminals, including the celebrated Eichmann trial. He was also dismissed from his position during the anti-Semitic “Rootless Cosmopolitan” campaign. It is worth keeping the frustrations of his later life in mind when viewers revisit the triumph of the uprising he sparked in Konstantin Khabenskiy’s Sobibor (trailer here), Russia’s official foreign language Oscar submission, which screens as part of Russian Film Week in New York.

As a Russian, Pechersky was considered suspect by the rest of the Jewish prisoners, especially when they learned of the disastrous revolt he led in Minsk. Nevertheless, he had the right combination of military experience and practical know-how to lead the camp’s resistance cell. The group had been working on various escape schemes, but Pechersky insisted on an everybody or nobody approach, based on the reprisals he witnessed in Minsk. Of course, the actually planning and execution was still confined to the core group.

Obviously, Khabensky’s Sobibor depicts the same historical events chronicled in the TV-movie Escape from Sobibor, starring Rutger Hauer and Alan Arkin, which was quire respectable, especially by the standards of its day. Frankly, Khabensky’s film is not as strong in terms of characterization, but it captures the horrors of the camp with far more visceral intensity. Especially disturbing is a night of SS revelry that might be one of the most nightmarishly surreal sequences ever recorded on film over the last several years.

However, the greatest surprise in this Sobibor is Highlander’s Christopher Lambert, who is nearly unrecognizable playing camp commandant Karl Frenzel. If anyone ever writes a book length survey of his career, this film will factor significantly within it. Instead of trying to outdo Ralph Fiennes ragingly demonic performance in Schindler’s List, Lambert takes it the other way. His Frenzel is emotionally detached and socially awkward, even with his own colleagues. There is also an aspect of self-loathing to his persona that manifests itself it truly horrific ways. It shows range we rarely get to see from the generally dependable genre star.

Khabensky himself (primarily known as a thesp in Wanted and the Night Watch franchise) is also witheringly intense as Pechersky. He definitely has the right hardened battle-veteran presence (much like Hauer). The entire ensemble is quite credible, but they most blend in, looking like they belong in the grim environment, whereas Khabensky and Hauer stand out.

It is a shame the film overlooks Pechersky’s difficulties during the Soviet years, but admittedly, Khabensky and the trio of screenwriters chose a logical ending point. In fact, one could argue it is one of the few Holocaust films that has a partially positive ending (but “happy” is still probably too strong a term). Respectfully recommended, Sobibor screens this Friday (12/14) as part of Russian Film Week in New York.

Kickboxer: Retaliation

What does the rebooted Kickboxer franchise need to spice things up? Maybe a little Zatoichi? Alas, Master Durand will be blinded by the newest villain, but it hardly matters. He equally skilled when relying on his other four senses. The question will be whether he can train his pseudo-protégé Kurt Sloane to be just as adept at sensing and anticipating an opponent’s moves when he faces his next behemoth rival. The stakes are higher, but Durand is just as Zen in Dimitri Logothetis’s Kickboxer: Retaliation (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Previously, in Kickboxer: Vengeance, Tong Po killed Sloane’s brother and then Sloane killed him, fair and square, in an underground steel cage fight. That is just how the rules work in Thailand. Sloane went home, bringing Liu, Bangkok’s only honest cop with him. Eighteen months later, shadowy gangster and underground fight promoter Thomas Tang More has him abducted and incarcerated in the pretext of facing charges for Tong Po’s murder. Of course, he really just wants Sloane to defend his title against Mongkok, an Icelandic mountain of steroids.

Initially, Sloane continues to defy More, but he relents when Liu is also kidnapped. Fortunately, the newly blind Durand is available to train him (he has been blind ten minutes, but he is already like Hundred Eyes in Marco Polo). Sloane will also get tutorials from fellow prisoners, including Briggs, an American boxer with a familiar looking facial tattoo. Mongkok is juiced to the max, but he has a glass jaw, so let the fun begin.

Alain Moussi is not exactly household name yet, but he rock-solidly anchors the rebooted franchise. He has plenty of chops and more than sufficient screen charisma. You could almost think of him as the next Michael Dudikoff. Naturally, Jean-Claude Van Damme is ultra-cool and super-limber as Durand. Sara Malakul Lane’s Liu doesn’t get to be as proactive this time around, but she continues to develop some believable chemistry with Moussi.

Perhaps most importantly, Iron Mike Tyson looks like he is having a blast as Briggs, which was surely a relief to Logothetis. As you would expect, Christopher Lambert chews the scenery with villainous panache as More. Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson looks impossibly big as Mongkok, which makes you wonder who they could possibly get that would be any huger for the promised third film. Plus, for extra added authenticity, about a dozen real-life MMA fighters play themselves or slightly fictionalized analogues.

Logothetis, who co-wrote and co-produced Vengeance, gives action fans cleanly legible fight scenes. Retaliation is twenty minutes lengthier, which is on the longish side for this genre, but Logothetis keeps the pacing peppy. So maybe it is meatheaded, but it is definitely entertaining. Easily recommended for fans of martial arts cinema and Van Damme, Kickboxer: Retaliation opens tomorrow (1/26) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

Denis’ White Material

It is a term of disinterested contempt for the items left behind by the former French colonial remnant. It is not just their Johnny Hallyday CDs and whatnot. Maria Vial and her dysfunctional family also constitute “white material.” Whether or not they can ride out the civil war engulfing their unnamed African nation solely on the strength of her iron will be determined in Claire Denis’ White Material (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Vial cannot say she was not warned. As a last ditch effort, the French send choppers to implore her to leave the country while she can. However, Vial is made of sterner stuff than the French army. She refuses to evacuate until she has completed the annual coffee harvest. The rest of her family’s resolve is a very different story.

Her ex-husband Andre Vial believes he has cut a deal for their safety with the local mayor and aspiring warlord, the terms of which might even involve ownership of the plantation she is struggling to save. Following a humiliating brush with a rebel unit, her slacker son Manuel has adopted the skinhead look and a revolutionary persona. Meanwhile, her father-in-law wanders about like King Lear, apparently oblivious to the violent storm brewing. Increasing the precariousness of their position, the so-called “Boxer,” a symbolic leader and cooler head among the rebels, has taken refuge on the Vial plantation.

Clearly, Vial is operating under a form of denial as well, but at least she is action-oriented, recruiting workers amongst those stranded in-country with no means of escape. Anarchy is literally breaking down around her, yet she will not abandon her crop. Of course, there will come a point of metaphoric no return.

It is difficult to imagine a less hospitable environment than the Africa Vial calls home. The climate is harsh, the soil is infertile, and the factionalism is dangerously bitter. In fact, it is difficult to tell the rebels from the militias. One thing is clear though, with the exception of Andre’s son from his second wife, the Vials are white. As the Mayor ominously warns her, they stand out.

Given the revolutionary exhortations heard on the local reggae station, it is hard not to hear echoes of the violent hate radio that fueled the Rwandan genocide, though Denis keeps the exact nature of the conflict and combatants obscure. Unfortunately, that extends to the Boxer, whose reason for seeking shelter at the Vial estate is never adequately explained. Still, Denis viscerally depicts the chaos and confusion of the Civil War, fueling an ever mounting sense of impending doom.

There are a lot of ragged edges to Material, but Isabelle Huppert stands out as an indomitable (if perhaps foolhardy) spirit, a post-Colonial Scarlett O’Hara with a thousand times the guts of the weak willed men surrounding her. It is fascinating to watch her inter-family relationships, particularly with Andre’s second son with whom she shares no blood relation. Yet she accepts responsibility for this shattered family unit, even though she risks destroying it in her determination to save their Tara. In a departure from the genre programmers American audiences typically see him in, Christopher Lambert is also quite convincing as the undependable Andre.

Based on a novel by Doris Lessing, the implications of Material are fearlessly politically incorrect. Regardless of the fictional country’s colonial past, it is clear Vial belongs there. Indeed, the sight of the petite Huppert against the sweltering landscape is the defining image of the film, stark in its beauty. Though the ideological knee-jerks might have difficulty with its all-too realistic portrayal of post-Independence violence and anti-white racism, it is a smart, bracing film. Well recommended, it opens this Friday (11/19) in New York at the IFC Center.