TIFF ’15: Jack

Jack Unterweger was the Roman Polanski of Austrian letters. He had been convicted of the sadistic murder of a young woman, but the smart set, including Günther Grass and Marxist "feminist" Elfriede Jelinek, thought his poetry was too accomplished for Unterweger to remain behind bars. About a dozen subsequently dead prostitutes would have preferred they not advocated on his behalf. Unterweger’s brutal and notorious life gets a glitzy screen treatment in Elisabeth Scharang’s Jack (trailer here), which screens again this morning at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

Unterweger’s predatory savageness is not exactly seen in the opening sequences of Jack, but there are no mistaking the grisly consequences. However, Scharang will keep that Unterweger bottled up for most of the second act. Since Unterweger wrote some lovely poetry and a confessional autobiography, Schäfer’s death was therefore okay with Jelinek et al, who are saved the indignity of appearing in Jack.

After serving his minimum sentence, the world is laid at Unterweger’s feet. He has a fat literary contract waiting for him and a luxury flat paid for by his soon to be mistress, Susanne Sönnmann, a well-heeled and very married architect. Hipster editor Marlies Haum will pave his way into fashionable society, provided he revisit the world of pimps and prostitutes he knew so well, as a correspondent for her magazine. Everyone seems to be obsessed with Unterweger, even though the new book is not selling nearly as well as the prison memoir. However, when his toxic mother reappears, it is a bad sign. Sometime thereafter, the Vienna police start to suspect him for the murder of a string of prostitutes. They can even match dead bodies to his international travels.

While Unterweger’s partisans still question his guilt with respect to the prostitute spree killings (his nine convictions not withstanding), Scharang hardly seems interested in the matter. Instead, her film is sort of the narrative equivalent of Bruce Weber’s Chet Baker documentary Let’s Get Lost. Both present a nonjudgmental portrait of artists with deep-seated hostility towards women, preferring to focus on their scarred surface beauty. At times, Jack looks like the sort of layout Weber, the fashion photographer might have shot.

Yet, Johannes Krisch plays Unterweger with such a piercing psychopath’s stare, you have to wonder how everyone around him manages to not get it. Krisch’s Unterweger is a microwave of rage, primed to explode. If his icy demeanor and casual cruelty are not clues enough, his old school pimp-hand wardrobe ought to send some kind of signal.

In contrast, Corinna Harfouch (who could pass for Dame Helen Mirren’s younger sister) seems too smart and sophisticated to fall for Unterweger or to have anything to do with his world of celebrities and low lives. Still, she invests Sönnmann with an earthy sensuality that really sets the tone for the film.

If nothing else, Scharang’s Jack certainly looks right. Cinematographer Jörg Widmer makes everything hazy and dreamlike, while production designer Isidor Wimmer perfectly replicates the 1990s Euro club milieu. Nevertheless, Scharang seems intent on embracing an amoral, hedonistic vision until hedging at the last moment, leaving us to wonder just what was the whole idea of all that? Fascinating to observe, in a clinical way, but rather distasteful to digest, Jack is probably too arty for true crime audiences and too lurid for art house patrons. It is a real quandary, so use your own judgement if you are still in Toronto, when it screens again this morning (9/20), as part of TIFF.

TIFF ’15: Stranger (Zhat)

During the Captive Nations era, Kazakhstan was the whipping post of the Soviet Union. The Republic was a dumping many nationalities forcibly exiled after WWII (de facto ethnic cleansing), suffered widespread famine as a result of agricultural collectivization, and endured Party campaigns against regional cultural diversity. The reclusive Ilyas is case in point, even though the rugged mountain man is almost completely oblivious of the macro forces conspiring against him. He is simply incapable of conforming to meet the demands of socialism in Yermek Tursunov’s Stranger (a.k.a. Zhat, trailer here), Kazakhstan’s official foreign language Academy Award submission, which screens at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

Ilyas was in awe of his father, Yedige. The experienced hunter was also his only family in the world, so when Yedige was inexplicably picked up in the dead of night during Stalin’s purges, it understandably devastates young Ilyas. However, instead of relying on other’s charity, Ilyas disappears into the mountains, living on game and the proceeds of his pelts. Sadly, he leaves behind the great love of his life, Kamshut, who will be forced to marry his true-believing contemporary.

In time, Ilyas develops quite the reputation. Naturally, he is invited to join the fight against Stalin’s former allies, the German National Socialists, but the Great Patriotic War means nothing to him. He simply has no reference points for it. Unfortunately, this will cause resentment as Stalin’s bungling prolongs the war and the village’s horrible suffering. When Ilyas finally starts to lose a step, there are those who will take advantage.

In a way, Ilyas is an archetypal holy fool, but in terms of temperament, he is much more closely akin to the classic western mountain man. Tragically, he is also a man very much out of step with the ideological madness of his time. He is like a Dostoyevsky hero transplanted in a John Ford film. Clearly, Tursunov understands both disparate traditions and reconciles them remarkably well.

Ilyas is not exactly chatty, but Erzhan Nurymbet’s powerful presence does not need much dialogue. He expresses his mournful regret and guilelessness with forceful directness. He is a symbol, but he is also a flesh-and-blood character. His desolate fate is not just an allegory to unpack. It has deep emotional resonance.

Tursunov paints on a big canvas, but he still shows a delicate touch with the intimate scenes Ilyas steals with his beloved Kamshut. Frankly, there is a little Doctor Zhivago reflected in their star-crossed love and the tension between tradition and nature on one hand and Communist materialism on the other is very much in keeping with the themes of Wolf Totem. Stranger also has its share of wolves as well.

Cinematographer Murat Aliyev captures the grandeur and unforgiving harshness of the steppe, contrasting the spectacular vistas with the grubby, shabby atmosphere of the village. It is a haunting film that spells out the particulars of Soviet oppression in no uncertain terms, while giving the commissars and apparatchiks precious little face-time. Very highly recommended (particularly for Academy voters), Stranger screens again today (9/18) and tomorrow (9/19) as part of this year’s TIFF.

TIFF ’15: Magallanes

If Judd Hirsch’s Alex Rieger had been a member of a military death squad, he would be the spitting image of Harvey Magallanes. Rumpled and sad-eyed, Magallanes is haunted by ghosts from his past. When one of them unknowingly steps into his cab, he hatches a scheme to rectify an old wrong. From that point on, nothing goes right in Salvador del Solar’s Magallanes (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

Despite his remorse, everything Magallanes does reminds him of his tour in Ayacucho. He shares a cab with his old gung-ho comrade Milton and serves as the volunteer driver of their former Colonel, whose memory has been lost to the ravages of senility—heavy-handed metaphor alert. Then one day, Celina hails his cab. While still a pre-teen, the Colonel abducted her during a raid held her as his personal concubine for months. Clearly, she made quite an impression on Magallanes, but she does not recognize the now bearded and graying former commando.

Discovering her desperate need for money, Magallanes hatches a dubious scheme to blackmail the Colonel’s prominent son with an incriminating photo of his father. Of course, the entitled Augusto is not about to take a shakedown lying down. Yet, it is Magallanes, his father’s trusted driver, whom he entrusts to coordinate the entrapping pay-off with the police.

Magallanes has the makings of a crackerjack noir, but del Solar is too preoccupied with old score-settling to maintain the tension of the first extended cat-and-mouse sequence. There are just too many scenes of Magallanes stewing like Raskolnikov in his garret. The film’s version of the truth is also highly selective. Even though the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission was clearly biased against Alberto Fujimori (or “Chinochet” as his critics racistly referred to him), it admitted far more atrocities were committed by the Maoist Shining Path and MRTA terrorists. Needless to say, you wouldn’t know that from del Solar’s screenplay.

Still, Damian Alcazar broods like a champion as the titular cabbie and Magaly Solier has a truly haunting screen presence. The decision to not subtitle Celina’s big climatic speech in her indigenous Quechua is also oddly effective. There are inspired bits distributed here and there throughout Magallanes, but the whole is just too clunky and blinkered in its perspective. Frankly, del Solar was better represented last year at TIFF with his work as the lead actor in Javier Fuentes-León’s The Vanished Elephant. A disappointment overall, Magallanes screens again today (9/17) and tomorrow (9/18) at this year’s TIFF.

TIFF ’15: Women He’s Undressed

For many classic movie fans, costume design begins and ends with Edith Head, but Orry-Kelly was nearly as prestigious in their day. He dressed some of Hollywood’s most elegant actresses, but he did it at the gritty guns-and-gangsters studio, Warner Brothers. Not that it’s anyone’s business, but he also happened to be Australian. His fellow countryman Gillian Armstrong provides Orry-Kelly’s overdue ovation in the documentary Women He’s Undressed (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

In his early years, Orry Kelly (as he was born) probably knew more gangsters intimately than all of Warner Brothers’ tough guys put together. In some cases, “intimately” was indeed the right word. Surviving a number of scrapes, Kelly eventually made his way to Hollywood, by way of New York. Almost immediately, Kelly began living quite openly with a future legendary movie star. Armstrong’s talking heads make no bones about their relationship, but evidently the Hollywood icon was rather litigious on the subject, so we will leave it to Undressed to reveal his identity, when it screens again in Toronto, North by Northwest of here. (By the way, that was an impression of Walter Winchell.)

In time both men caught on with the studios plying their respective crafts. Warners wasn’t crazy about Kelly’s name, but they compromised on the hyphen, assuming it sounded classier, like Rimsky-Korsakov or something. Obviously, there was a falling out between Orry-Kelly and the other gent, but he had plenty of champions, most notably including Bette Davis and Rosalind Russell, neither of whom were shrinking violets. Of course, Orry-Kelly’s career had its ups and downs, but somehow he managed to not merely dress, but shape the images of some of Hollywood’s biggest sex symbols, such as Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable.

If you want dish, Undressed delivers dish, while always remaining impeccably tailored. In addition, Armstrong enlisted an actor play Orry-Kelly to help tell his story through dramatic monologues and expressionistic vignettes. However, these are rather hit-or-miss, especially considering Darren Gilshenan is not exactly a dead ringer for the actual Orry-Kelly (whom we only see in archival photos as the film winds down). Nonetheless, the designer’s Hollywood in-fighting and his deal-with-it attitude are always compelling and frequently entertaining stuff.

Like many classic cinema docs, Undressed features Leonard Maltin as a talking head, but the man sure knows his old school Hollywoodland. Frankly, Orry-Kelly seems to bring everyone out of their shells. Loaded with gossip and chic frocks, it is just a lot of fun, even for straight men from New York. Recommended with affectionate fans of iconic Hollywood glamour, Women He’s Undressed screens again this Thursday (9/17) and Friday (9/18), as part of this year’s TIFF.

TIFF ’15: Horizon

Georg Guðni Hauksson did something rather remarkable. The Icelandic artistic came up with an original approach to traditional landscape painting. His work was internationally hailed, but he tragically died at the peak of his productivity. Fridrik Thór Fridriksson & co-director Bergur Bernburg survey Guðni’s work and try to evoke its spirit in Horizon (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

In some ways, Guðni’s timing was perfect. He attended Icelandic art school in the 1980s, at a time when that was suddenly the thing to do. He duly experimented with loud, fast, punk-inspired styles, but it was his secret landscape work that would eventually make his reputation.

Although perfectly representational, his landscapes look otherworldly and almost avant-garde. Rather than outlining shapes and then filling in colors, Guðni’s laborious method involved the meticulous layering of horizontal lines, one atop another, sort of like a weaver’s loom. The resulting work was often stark, but undeniably Nordic. There are no online records of his art being used on ECM record jackets, but his work would certainly be compatible with Manfred Eicher’s aesthetic.

Fridriksson & Bernburg incorporate long excerpts from archival interviews with Guðni, but they are not as revealing as one might hope. However, they get some helpful context from Icelandic art critics and Guðni’s contemporaries, as well as actor Viggo Mortensen, who published a book with Guðni at his specialty imprint, Percival Press. They also punctuate the talking heads and close-ups of paintings with impressionistic scenes of the Icelandic fields and valleys that so inspired him.

Guðni’s paintings are quite striking once you acclimate yourself to his distinctive look and the nature scenes are perfectly pleasant, but what really makes the film is the haunting minimalist soundtrack composed by Sigur Rós sideman Kjartan Hólm. Frankly, it really sounds like something that could be released on ECM, which is high praise indeed.

Horizon is an earnest and thorough examination of Guðni’s oeuvre that should give any open-minded viewer a keen appreciation of vision. However, even with Mortensen’s participation and support, it is hard to envision it getting a wide American distribution, so if you are in Toronto and are intrigued to any extent, you should see it now. Recommended for contemporary art connoisseurs, Horizon screens again tomorrow (9/15) and Saturday (9/19) as part of this year’s TIFF.

TIFF ’15: A Heavy Heart

New Yorkers have a special awareness of the cruel realities of ALS, because of Lou Gehrig. For example, in pre-bucket challenge days, the New York ALS chapter launched successful give $4 drives, in honor of his retired number. Sadly, many champion boxers have also succumbed to the neurological disorder. Herbert Stamm was a serious contender during the dark days of the GDR, but he never raised a belt over his head. He took as many blows as any champ, but his massively bad karma will make matters even worse. Stamm faces a slow but inevitable final count in Thomas Stuber’s A Heavy Heart (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

Stamm has always relied on his brawn. Even in his less than golden years, he scrapes by gigging as loan collector and a bouncer. His only hope for the future is Eddy, the talented young fighter he trains. He even feels a bit like a surrogate father to the scrappy up-and-comer. Stamm has an actual genetically-verifiable daughter, but they have not had a relationship for years. He did not necessarily intend to abscond from Sandra’s life. Those prisons tattoos did not happen spontaneously, after all. Stamm was just too embarrassed or too self-absorbed to reconnect. He will soon regret that quite bitterly.

It starts with a simple slip in the shower and a bit of muscle cramping, but it is not long he gets the grimly fatal diagnosis. Suddenly, he cannot afford to push away the emotionally needy Marlene, whom he had been transparently using for drunken one night stands. He also dearly wishes to reconcile with Sandra, but her resentment runs deep. Soon, Stamm will only find comradery and respect from his old tattoo artist buddy, but their carousing becomes rather poignant.

So yeah, good times at the movies. Regardless, if you want to see master class in precise-controlled screen acting, Peter Kurth’s lead performance delivers with quiet power. Kurth, who was rather charming as the down-to-earth but utterly befuddled title character in Schmitke, put considerable weight on his physical frame and his psyche. You can see both slowly disintegrate over the course of the film. It is excellent work that never gets too showy or Streepish. It is Kurth’s film, nearly to the exclusion of all others, but Edin Hasanovic and Udo Kroschwald add real grit and character as Eddy and Bodo the loan shark, respectively.

Stuber occasionally overindulges in unsubtle manipulations, but the gravitas of Kurth’s performance helps muscle the film through such sequences. It is an unusually unsentimental star turn in a film that compulsively discourages false hope. Recommended as a fine vehicle for an actor’s actor, A Heavy Heart screens again tomorrow (9/14) and Friday (9/18), as part of this year’s TIFF.

TIFF ’15: Born to Dance

It is not just kiwis and hobbits in New Zealand. They also have hip hop. It speaks to working class Maori kids like Tu and his friends, who are looking for their place in society. They have all kinds of moves, but the national hip hop dance competition has long been dominated by Kane’s well-funded, widely-sponsored K-Crew. A grudge match is brewing between them in Tammy Davis’s Born to Dance (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

If Tu does not figure his post-high school life out fast, his Sergeant father will enlist him in the army. He thinks he sees his opportunity when K-Crew, the reigning dance champions, invite him to audition. This is no mere cattle call. For weeks, Tu will travel to Auckland to participate in the long term process-of-elimination tryout. Naturally, he keeps it secret from his own crew, led by his lifelong platonic pal, Vonnie. Only his semi-delinquent buddy Benjy knows the truth.

Of course, Tu has the right stuff, but all the special attention he gets from Kane’s girlfriend Sasha could be a problem. Frankly, she knows he is pretty scummy, but her snobby, absentee parents only let her stay in New Zealand to dance as she wishes as long as she is still part of a winning squad. She therefore needs Kane.

BTD features a ridiculously charismatic cast in a total Arthur Murray dance-by-numbers screenplay. It is a lead pipe cinch Tu and Kane will eventually face each other. Yet, that hardly matters as long as Davis and choreographer Parris Goebel keeps the energy cranked up. There are some cool dance sequences distributed throughout BTD, but nothing tops the wildly inventive moves Tu’s crew uncorks during the first round of the nationals. On the other hand, it is hard to take K-Crew seriously, because most of their routines bring to mind Mike Myers doing Dieter on Sprockets.

Former So You Think You Can Dance contestant Kherington Payne shows more presence than you would expect from Sasha. In contrast, Tia-Taharoa Maipi is likable enough, but a bit of a dramatic lightweight as Tu. However, Stan Walker is the real breakout discovery, demonstrating considerable range and all kinds of dance floor cred as the sensitive bad boy Benjy.

Yes, there are some real moments, but Goebels’ choreography is still not as distinctive as Yako Miyamoto’s taiko drumming and dancing that so distinguished Make Your Move. Nevertheless, BTD has more fire and grit than an army of Step Up clones. The fact that Tu, Benjy, and Vonnie are Maori is very important to the narrative, but it is not belabored to the point of distraction. This is a dance film not a social issue drama. In fact, it is a rather enjoyable one, in an underdog-Horatio Alger-kids from Fame kind of way. Recommended for dance movie fans, Born to Dance screens again tomorrow (9/13) and Friday (9/18) as part of this year’s TIFF.