SFIFF ’12: The Double Steps

Francois Augiéras definitely painted for posterity.  After vandals destroyed a set of his desert bunker murals, he painted another, deliberately burying all signs of it in the sand.  The European expatriate painter would only trust future generations to respect his work.  Both a fictional Malawian and Spain’s leading contemporary artist Miguel Barceló search for those lost murals in Isaki Lacuesta’s odd hybrid The Double Steps (trailer here, which screens during the San Francisco Film Society’s 2012 San Francisco International Film Society.

Augiéras does not appear directly in Steps, but his spirit appears to inhabit Abdallah Chambaa, a former soldier, mustered out of service by his commanding officer uncle, with whom he was involved in an incestuous relationship.  Chambaa soon becomes as bandit, as former soldier often do, but he also has a compulsion to paint.  Periodically, Steps also follows Barceló in real life Mali, producing new work inspired by Augiéras and searching for the legendary murals.

Frankly, Steps is probably more interesting to read and write about than to watch.  In no way should it be thought of as Raiders of the Lost murals.  Feverish in tone, it has a loose narrative, featuring frequent shifts in time that are sudden, yet ill-defined.  Lacuesta also simultaneously shot a documentary about Barceló that probably offers more of the historical and artist context many viewers might be wondering about.

Lacuesta’s hazy style keeps his cast at an emotional arm’s length from the audience.  At least Diego Dussuel’s breath-taking cinematography somewhat pulls them back in, capturing the rugged beauty of Mali’s landscape, especially the cliffs Barceló explores looking either for Augiéras’ murals or his own inspiration.  Steps is a film anyone seriously dealing with art cinema will eventually have to take into account, making it a completely appropriate, even valuable, programming selection for the festival.  However, those looking for an unpretentious film to get caught up in should probably look elsewhere. 

 

In fact, there are some great films to choose from at this year’s SFIFF, including the inspiring and infuriating Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, Hong Sang-soo’s characteristically clever The Day HeArrives, the intriguing interconnected German trilogy Dreileben, the outstanding documentary-lament for Cambodian cinema Golden Slumbers, Mohammad Rasoulof’s timely but intimate Goodbye, the surprisingly effective true story of French injustice Guilty, the breezy profile of the festival’s honored guest Pierre Rissient: Man of Cinema, the cerebral science fiction fable Target, Andrea Arnold’s challenging adaptation of WutheringHeights, and Carol Reed’s always classic The Third Man.  Undoubtedly an interesting work best appreciated self-selecting cineastes, The Double Steps also screens again tonight (4/24) as part of this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival.

Tribeca ’12: Francophrenia

Prepare yourself for an act of slumming as performance art.  If you were somewhat bemused by James Franco’s decision to play a recurring guest-starring role on the soap opera General Hospital, you will wonder why you wondered after watching Francophrenia (Or: Don’t Kill Me, I Know Where the Baby Is), the actor’s latest extended middle finger to his ever more beleaguered fans, co-directed with Ian Olds, which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Evidently, a baby has been kidnapped from the famous fictional hospital, but Franco (and presumably Olds) considers that plot line too trite to bother explaining for Francophrenia’s audience.  All we need to know is that James Franco magnanimously lent his prestige to the soap, as long as he played a killer also called Franco.  Ostensibly, Francophrenia documents the production of an extra special episode filmed on location at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, but anyone expecting a candid behind-the-scenes look at the show will be sorely disappointed.

Instead, we watch long sequences of the clearly disinterested subject signing autographs and sitting in make-up, while voiceovers try to pose a dichotomy between Franco the actor and Franco, the character, calling into question which is ascendant in any given scene.  The problem is neither Franco is sufficiently established to create any dramatic or aesthetic tension between the two.  All we know is Franco the construct is a murderer, whereas Franco, the NYU film school grad, co-directed Francophrenia, which is absolute blue murder to watch.  Essentially, this film is like the old Airplane! sunglasses gag.  When you peel away one Franco’s smirk, you only find another smirk underneath.

Frankly, Francophrenia never deconstructs or subverts soap operas (or documentaries) in any meaningful way.  We simply watch Franco float above it all on his cloud of hipster superiority.  While allegedly an experimental film, Francophrenia suggests the co-directors have only a cursory familiarity with the genre.  The mere fact that Franco would deign to associate with such low brow daytime dramatic fare is thought to be sufficiently intriguing in and of itself.  Indeed, the only real take-away from the film is the nauseating contempt Franco (the actor or the construct, it hardly matters which) so obviously has for fans of the show.  However, he might just miss those rubes when they are gone.

 

Ultimately, Francophrenia is not a film, nor is it a concept.  It is simply another manifestation of Franco’s continuing fascination with his own celebrity.  Franco’s fans should be strongly dissuaded from seeing it, because it might be a rather bitter experience for them.  They will find the joke (if it can be called that) is at their expense. Of course, there is no reason for the rest of us to endure it either, but for those looking to masochistically stoke their anti-Franco resentments, Francophrenia screens again tonight (4/24) and Saturday (4/28) as part of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Tribeca ’12: Headshot

This Thai anti-hero’s career trajectory follows quite a circuitous course, starting as a cop, next becoming a hitman, only to later seek peace as a Buddhist monk.  It is safe to say his perspective changes dramatically in Pen-ek Ratanuang’s karma noir Headshot (trailer here), one of the clear highlights of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Keep an eye on Tul’s hair.  It will serve as a telling indicator during Headshots many flashbacks.  Indeed, Tul will have much reflecting to do.  When viewers first meet him, he is preparing for his latest hit.  Tul kills his target.  He always does.  However, he takes a bullet to the head in the process.  It turns out to be one of those freak events.  Tul survives, but he now sees the world upside down.

As we learn during his reveries, Tul was an honest cop who was framed for crossing a crooked politician.  Upon his release, he is recruited by a sketchy doctor with weird eugenic-like theories on the nature of evil to serve as the assassin for his secret cabal.  Now that his vision is inverted, Tul wants to retire.  Right, good luck with that.

Headshot has all the film noir elements, including two beautiful femme fatales, one hard-boiled killer-for-hire, venal public officials, mysterious grudges, a lot of rain, and a fair helping of Buddhist theology.  Pen-ek (sometimes billed as Tom Pannet) has crafted a slick, cerebral thriller, dexterously slipping some curveballs past viewers caught up in the nefarious on-screen business.  Even though the constant flashing backwards and forwards can be a bit confusing at times, he steadily cranks up the tension, while maintaining an ominous sense of fatalism.  It should also be noted, the majority of the film is seen right-side up, with only a few brief scenes representing Tul’s new POV, so potential viewers should not fear leaving the theater with a monster headache.

Nopachai “Peter” Jayanama is an absolutely dynamite seething anti-hero with serious action cred.  His Tul broods like nobody’s business.  Celine “Cris” Horwang is also a smart and dynamic screen presence as Erin, the innocent bystander repeatedly pulled into the ex-assassin’s murky morality play.  Likewise, Chanokporn “Dream” Sayoungkul is appropriately alluring and vulnerable as the woman initially sent to ensnare Tul.

 

Headshot is the rare film that should thoroughly entertain gangster genre movie fans and also satisfy art-house crowds.  In short, it is the complete package.  Very highly recommended, Headshot screens again this Thursday (4/26) as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Tribeca ’12: High Tech, Low Life

The internet scares the willies out of the Chinese Communist Party.  As a result, they have devoted tremendous resources to censoring underground journalist-bloggers. Yet, their biggest challenge is not technological, but the sheer size of China’s discontented population.  Huge numbers of average Chinese citizens have turned to the web as a source of unvarnished news and a means of exposing official corruption.  Stephen Maing follows two very different but very independent bloggers in High Tech, Low Life, the best non-music related documentary screening at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Twenty-seven year-old Zhou Shuguang, better known as Zola, will not deny he likes to get attention online.  Posting candid photos of himself is part of his shtick.  Whether he stirs up positive or negative comments hardly matters to him.  It would be easy for some to dismiss the vegetable hawker, until he breaks the story of a middle school girl, whose rape and murder, allegedly at the hands of a local official’s son, was covered up by the authorities.

While Zola largely fits the merry prankster revolutionary template, Zhang Shihe, a.k.a. Tiger Temple, is more akin to traditional anti-Communist dissidents.  The son of a prominent Party leader purged during the Cultural Revolution, Tiger Temple has witnessed Communist oppression up close and personal throughout his life. 

A more reflective blogger, Tiger Temple has documented the destruction of small provincial communities by rampant unchecked pollution, including the illegal dumping of raw human sewage.  Not just raking the muck (and foul muck it is), Tiger Temple helps small overwhelmed village councils draft complaints and package NGO presentations.  Frankly, it is a leadership role that makes Tiger Temple a serious threat to the authorities.

While not as extreme as the circumstances facing dissident artist Ai Weiwei, both bloggers find themselves on the business end of Communist harassment as the film progresses.  Obviously, these are disturbing developments, particularly for Tiger Temple, but it clearly indicates Maing chose his POV-figures wisely.

By documenting the bloggers’ work, Maing has produced an expose of the pervasive graft throughout all levels of Chinese government by osmosis.  It is also a profile of courageous truth-tellers (again, especially so in Tiger Temple’s case).  If anything, the film might be slightly out of balance, seemingly granting more time to the admittedly attention-seeking Zola than Tiger Temple, who radiates hard-earned wisdom and gravitas.

 

Whether viewers are China-watchers concerned about the fate of citizen journalists such as Zola and Tiger Temple or Wired readers intrigued by the secret information war raging between dissenting bloggers and the Chinese authorities, HT,LL is a fascinating, alarming, and inspiring film, all at the same time.  Clearly the best current events documentary at this year’s Tribeca, it screens again this Wednesday (4/25) and Saturday (4/28) as the festival continues in New York City.

Epic Epicness: Warriors of the Rainbow—Seediq Bale

For the aboriginal peoples indigenous to Taiwan, decapitating an enemy’s head in battle was an essential rite of manhood.  In the early Twentieth Century, the occupying Japanese began the systematic suppression of aboriginal culture.  It would cost them a whole lot of heads.  Originally well over four hours long, Wei Te-sheng’s Warriors of the Rainbow: Sediq Bale (trailer here) in its more theatrical booking-friendly two and a half hour international cut opens this Friday in New York.

Mouna Rudao was one of the fiercest Seediq warriors ever.  When the Japanese confiscate his collection of skulls, they are duly impressed.  Unfortunately, as chief he must watch as the old ways atrophy under their oppressive rule.  The tattoos of manhood are becoming scarce.  However, this will change during the 1930 Wushe Uprising.

It started with a misunderstanding between Mouna’s family and the local Imperial authorities, snowballing from there.  The Seediq forces strike first, ambushing the Japanese at a major sporting exhibition.  Things only get bloodier thereafter.  Frankly, Mouna knows their revolt is doomed to fail, but at least the young Seediq men will die as warriors, crossing over the Rainbow Bridge to their equivalent of Valhalla.

Submitted by Taiwan as their most recent official foreign language Academy Award candidate, Rainbow was released as two films in most Asian markets.  However, the edited and cobbled together international version makes perfect sense from a narrative standpoint and includes plenty of Braveheart style action.  One suspects the axe fells disproportionately heavily on the female cast, including the great Vivian Hsu, who are rarely seen in the 150 minute cut until an emotionally devastating scene late in the picture.

It is too bad Mel Gibson went more or less insane, because he would have been the perfect celebrity “presenter” for Rainbow, executive-produced by John Woo, no less.  There are death-scenes that will make you exclaim out loud.  Yet, despite the frequent references to the Rainbow Bridge, there is little that could be deemed mystical or New Agey about the film, at least in its international configuration.  It also resists the temptation to glorify Seediq traditionalism, unequivocally suggesting tribalism undermined their efforts to defeat the Imperial Japanese with a united front.

Lin Ching-Tai is all business as the steely old Mouna.  He might just the best middle-aged action hero since the Eastwood of decades ago.  Yet, young Lin Yuan-Jie might be the most engaging member of the ensemble cast.  There is absolutely nothing cute or cloying about his riveting work as Pawan Nawi.  Japanese actor Sabu Kawahara also somehow manages to elevate the role of the stereotypically severe General Kamada Yahiko, while Chie Tanaka is memorably vulnerable as the wife of a relatively sympathetic Imperial officer.

Rainbow parallels the pronounced trend in current Mainland and Hong Kong films depicting Japanese characters in explicitly villainous terms.  Indeed, the impulse to constantly refight WWII is becoming rather suspicious.  Be that as it may or may not be, there is no denying Rainbow delivers the epic action goods.  This is a big, bloody picture, serving as a perfect example of the bold filmmaking fostered by Fortissimo Films.  Definitely recommended for fans of large scale historical action films, Rainbow opens this Friday (4/27) in New York at the AMC Empire.

Tribeca ’12: Sleepless Night

Crooked cops are as French as frog legs and escargot.  In fact, there are varying degrees of police corruption, as viewers can see in Frederic Jardin’s cops vs. cops vs. drug dealers shoot-out Sleepless Night (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Vincent and even more corrupt partner Manu just relieved some couriers of a huge shipment of cocaine.  Unfortunately, he took a stiletto wound in the process.  Without time to be properly stitched up, he must quickly bundle his son off to school and then show up at the station to play innocent.  Events take a turn for the worse when the kingpin Marciano abducts the lad, demanding the coke as ransom.  Into the lion’s den, or in this case Marciano’s club Le Tarmac, Vincent goes.  When the yet even more corrupt internal affairs officer swipes his hidden coke, the desperate father starts improvising.  This is when things start getting good.

Poor morally compromised Vincent bleeds in every corner of the up-scale hipster disco/restaurant/pool hall, but he always gives as good as he gets.  The kitchen gets a particularly messy going-over, worrying the staff no end.  Every time Vincent returns to their domain, the film gets an invigorating jolt of energy.

Tightly helmed by Jardin and stylishly lensed by frequent Eastwood cinematographer Tom Stern, Sleepless Night is sort of like the adrenaline-charged, action-driven variation on the brooding Paris By Night, which screened at French Rendezvous earlier in the year.  As Vincent, Tomer Sisley (a.k.a. Largo Wench) is not as cool as Roschdy Zem, but he is still one bad cat. 

While not exactly legendary, Sleepless also has some respectable villains, including Serge Riaboukine, whose somewhat larger than life Marciano clearly enjoys the trappings of gangster life.  French rapper Joey Starr also brings the appropriate ferocity as Feydek, Marciano’s impatient buyer.  Also making quite the impression in a small role as a bystander helping Vincent, Dutch-Russian-Korean model Pom Klementieff should definitely have a future looking alluring in films.

 

Although Sleepless Night wastes some time up top, over-establishing what a disappointing father Vincent is, once it gets going, it becomes a thoroughly entertaining roller-coaster. Not quite at the level of Gareth Huw Evans The Raid: Redemption, but a pretty impressive excursion into action filmmaking, nonetheless, Sleepless screens tonight (4/22), Thursday (4/26), and Friday (4/27) during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, with a theatrical release slated for May from Tribeca’s film distribution arm.

Tribeca ’12: Eddie - the Sleepwalking Cannibal

The Canadians and Scandinavians are all very polite, right?  Maybe so, but there are those who are also pretty twisted.  Happily, we will be meeting a two of them in Boris Rodriguez’s wonderfully aptly titled Eddie – the Sleepwalking Cannibal (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Lars Olafssen has an international reputation and a chronic case of painter’s block.  Since he can no longer create art, he figures he might as well teach and the Koda Lake Art School is remote enough for him to do so anonymously.  (Those Canadian winters are hardly intimidating for a Dane.)  Yet, as soon as he arrives, he starts getting pressure to paint, both from the school’s dean and his serpentine agent.  Having given up on his artistic career, Olafssen just wants to fit in and impress the skeptical colleague he is attracted to.  Towards that ends, he agrees to look after Eddie, the traumatized man-child of the school’s recently deceased patron.

Guess what Eddie the gentle giant does in his sleep?  Actually, it usually just involves small woodland creatures.  However, getting in his way while sleep-walking can be dangerous, as Olafssen observes.  Much to his shock, the sight of blood actually spurs the artist’s long dormant creative juices.  Let the carnage facilitation begin.

As great as its title is, Eddie – the Sleepwalking Cannibal does not quite do the film justice.  Sure, there is plenty of sleepwalking cannibalism, but this is a surprisingly droll and sophisticated picture.  While it mashes up plenty of horror elements, it is the “artistic” mentality that really gets thoroughly skewered.

A nearly lifelong veteran of arthouse cinema, a twelve year-old Thure Lindhardt debuted in Pelle the Conqueror and was somewhat recently commanding the screen as Danish resistance hero Bent Faurschou-Hviid (a.k.a. Flame) in the riveting Flame and Citron.  As Olafssen, he is more than just a good sport.  He portrays the painter’s mounting creepiness quite credibly and seamlessly.  An effective on-screen counterpart, Dylan Smith plays poor Eddie with a keen physicality, suggesting a tragically reluctant monster, roughly in the tradition of Lon Chaney Jr.’s Wolfman.

 

Eddie – the Sleepwalking Cannibal is a smart fun film.  It will not disappoint the genre enthusiasts who regularly attend Tribeca’s Cinemania (formerly Midnight) screenings, but will also appeal to a wider audience of festival patrons.  Really good stuff, the Sleepwalking Cannibal screens again this coming Saturday (4/28) as this year’s Tribeca Film Festival continues at venues throughout Lower Manhattan.

SFIFF ’12: Golden Slumbers

Martin Scorsese needs to dispatch an emergency film preservation team to Cambodia.  From 1960 to 1975 about 450 films were produced in the Southeast Asian country.  However, only about thirty films survived the Khmer Rouge.  The Chinese-backed Communists considered cinema just another form of capitalist decadence (which is sort of true when it is really good).  Davy Chou surveys what was lost with the handful of surviving film industry veterans in his outstanding documentary Golden Slumbers (trailer here), which screens at the San Francisco Film Society’s 2012 San Francisco International FilmFestival.

Despite being the grandson of the once prominent Cambodian director Vann Chan, many of the filmmakers who were able to escape execution (most of whom endured harsh transit conditions to seek refuge in France) were initially reluctant to talk to Chou.  However, Yvon Hem eventually relents, taking Chou on a tour of his long abandoned Bird of Paradise studio (named for the Marcel Camus film that launched many film careers in the country, including his own).  Less reticent is Dy Saveth, the former Elizabeth Taylor of Cambodian film, now working as a dance instructor.  To this day, the hill where she once filmed a climactic scene still bears her name.

Obviously the genocidal murders and forced labor camps are the greater crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime.  Yet, the devastation of the nation’s cinema is not merely a footnote to the wider tragedy—it is a tragedy onto itself.  Listening to the movie patrons and movie-makers discussing their beloved films, now presumably lost forever, is deeply moving.  Clearly, lives and livelihoods were lost, but average Cambodian’s treasured memories and cultural heritage have also been destroyed by an ideology of death.  Watching Slumbers stirs the same emotions as the sight of a charred family photo album at a fire scene.

Slumbers also bear an unexpected but apt comparison to Jafar Panahi’s This is Not a Film, featuring many directors and actors forced to relate their films like oral history.  Yet Chou is able to convey a sense of them through movies posters, radio commercials, and soundtrack records (many of which remain widely popular).  He also stages his talking head interviews in ways that are often quite visually stylish.

For any movie lover, the loss of any nation’s cinematic legacy is truly lamentable, but it is particularly so in this case.  From the tantalizing descriptions heard throughout Slumbers, many of the popular Cambodian films of the pre-Khmer Rouge era sound like high-end Bollywood, but incorporating darker supernatural and mythological elements.  Though it is impossible to know with certainty, if you are reading this review, there is indeed a strong likelihood these films would have been your cup of tea.

 

One can only hope Chou’s documentary leads to the discovery of some of these lost treasures in forsaken film vaults someplace.  Nonetheless, as a film in its own right, Slumbers is quite accomplished.  It is an intelligently constructed and elegantly executed cinematic elegy that absolutely puts to shame the vacuous tributes to Hollywood glamour that aired during the recent Academy Awards.  Profoundly moving, Slumbers is one of the best documentaries selected for a major festival this year.  It screens this coming Saturday (4/28) and the following Tuesday (5/1) and Thursday (5/3) during the 2012 San Francisco International Film Festival.

Tribeca ’12: Graceland

One crooked Filipino congressman is used to handing out the traditional sort of bribes, but when his daughter is kidnapped, he also has to give a little financial consideration to get the cops to do their job.  Unfortunately, they are determined to hassle his former driver, whose daughter was also abducted.  To save her, he will have to navigate Manila’s seediest back alleys without the help of the openly antagonistic police in Ron Morales’ Graceland (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Though ostensibly a driver, one of Marlon Villar’s primary duties is to clean up after his boss Rep. Chango’s predatory indulgences with underage girls—or at least it was.  Given the soul-deadening acts Villar witnessed, he is shocked when the congressman summarily fires him. The timing is particularly bad, considering his hospitalized wife desperately needs a transplant.  That is also why suspicion immediately falls on him after the kidnapping.  In what was to be his final task for his former employer, he picks up his daughter Evie and her best friend Sophia Chango from school, only to be waylaid by armed thugs.

Unfortunately, complications arise during the kidnapping that put Villar in a particularly tight spot.  In a way, it is like a dark twist on the botched kidnapping in Kurosawa’s High and Low, but unlike Toshirō Mifune’s upstanding Kingo Gondo, Chango cannot be relied on to do the right thing.  In fact, it quickly becomes clear the case directly involves the politician’s bad karma.

Granted, Graceland is not at Kurosawa’s level, but it is an intense dark crime drama that totally pulls off some audacious hide-in-plain-sight twists.  However, it is not likely to delight the Filipino tourism bureau, depicting unhygienic slums, where shocking vice is carried on with near impunity, thanks to widespread police corruption.

Of course, for a desperation-in-the-city noir, such a setting works perfectly, as does Arnold Reyes, the terrific lead.  As Villar, he broods ferociously, but is no superman.  In the complex role, he keeps viewers on the edge of their seats and fully vested in his fate.  In memorable support, Menggie Cobarrubias radiates sleaze as the dishonorable congressman, while Dido de La Paz brings a feral cunning to the corrupt Det. Ramos.

Tightly helmed by Morales, Graceland works every step of the way and completely holds together in retrospect.  With its visceral sense of place and Reyes’ powerhouse performance, it is one of the best films so far at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.  Highly recommended, it screens again tonight (4/21) and next Saturday (4/28).

Disappearing Act IV: Medal of Honor

In recent years, probably no national cinema has immortalized it bureaucracy more than that in Romania.  To say filmmakers have been inspired by their red tape and apparatchiks would be misleading, but they certainly recognize them as a source of acute drama.  Such is the case for an elderly pensioner in Calin Peter Netzer’s Medal of Honor (trailer here), the closing film of Disappearing Act IV, the other film festival now underway in New York, which happens to be free.

Ion I. Ion has a distinctive name, but not distinctive enough.  Out of the blue, he is awarded a high state honor for his rather undistinguished military service.  After accepting the medal, he sends an inquiry to the ministry, asking why it was bestowed on him.  In the following days, his stature in the neighborhood rises significantly.  After the official ceremony (featuring former President Ion Iliescu playing himself in the 1990’s), I.I. Ion starts to believe he really is a war hero.  Then he gets his reply from the ministry: his medal was intended for Ion J. Ion.

In some ways, Medal is an appropriate companion film to Corneliu Porumboui’s Police,Adjective (which also screened during this year’s Disappearing Act), but history weighs more heavily over Netzer’s tale of bureaucrat bungling.  For obvious starters, Romania’s record during WWII could be uncharitably described as opportunistic, a fact I.I. Ion indirectly concedes when relating his dubious war stories to some street kids on the block. 

However, the Socialist era continues to have a more corrosive effect on the Ion family.  I.I. Ion and his son Cornel have not spoken since 1988.  As his father sees it, he merely sought the assistance of the militia to discourage his son from immigrating to Canada.  The son considered it informing, as does his mother Nina, who has cold-shouldered I.I. Ion ever since.

While not exactly a breakneck thrill ride, Medal is far more accessible than some of the recent audience endurance tests produced by the Romanian New Wave.  Still, it is a very subtle film that implies more than it states outright down the stretch.  In real life, Iliescu is a complicated figure, whose ultimate place in history remains highly debatable, but at least he is a great sport playing himself.  Of course, as I.I. Ion, Victor Rebengiuc is the workhorse of the picture, convincingly insecure and neurotically verbose.  Viewers cannot help feeling simultaneous sympathy and contempt for him.

 

Frankly, a little less of I.I. Ion’s constant pressure of speech would not have sabotaged the filmm and poor long-suffering Nina Ion is little more than a matronly caricature.  Still, it is an intriguing drama, particularly given its post-Ceauşescu context—and especially for free.  Those shut out of the other festival’s screenings should definitely keep Medal of Honor in mind tomorrow night (4/22) when it concludes Disappearing Act IV at Bohemia National Hall.

Tribeca ’12: Russian Winter

This film was made possible by President George W. Bush.  You’re welcome, I’m sure.  In his final days in office, the second Pres. Bush commuted the sentence of John Forté, a former hip hop producer turned neo-soul-ish vocalist, convicted of drug possession with intent.  Once at liberty, Forté is invited to launch his comeback in a country where civil liberties are dramatically eroding.  His subsequent career resurgence and tour are documented in Petter Ringbom’s The Russian Winter, which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

In what his Russian manager refers to as his “accident,” Forté was intercepted in Newark International Airport carrying thirty-one pounds of liquid cocaine.  As Daniel Day-Lewis says in Gangs of New York: “oopsie daisy.”  To his credit, Forté resists playing the victim car outright, positioning himself instead as a representative of everyone currently serving unduly long minimum mandatory prison sentences for drug crimes.

So off Forté goes, touring the land of Tolstoy, frequently stopping to record tracks with well known Russian artists.  However, his Russian collaborators often sound more interesting than Forté himself.  Watch the hit video (also directed by Ringbom) for “Wind Song,” his duet with Ukraine-born SunSay and then decide who you would prefer to watch on-screen for ninety minutes.

Of course, it is Forté we get, so we observe as he rehearses, dresses down road managers, and has periodic panic attacks.  Nonetheless, it is important to note Forté is 100% in the right during what might appear to be his big ugly American moment.  When a weasel arranger tries to claim co-composer credit for one of Forté’s old song for which he simply penned a string chart, Forté tells him and his mobster-looking father what-for in no uncertain terms—and rightfully so.  I know musicians have heard this countless times before, but it always bears repeating—never let anyone mess with your publishing.  Period.

There is a great documentary about a soul vocalist playing at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.  It is Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man, about the mysterious Rodriguez, whose life story is far more compelling and voice is considerably more distinctive than Forté’s.  In comparison, Russian Winter is just sort of whatever.  For Forté fans, it screens this Monday (4/23), Tuesday (4/24), Wednesday (4/25), and Friday (4/27).  For anyone looking to see a really good film, Sugar Man also screens Tuesday (4/24) and Friday (4/27) as part of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, now in full swing.

Tribeca ’12: El Gusto

It is time to rock the Casbah, but the music will be Algerian Chaabi rather than British punk. A romantic and elegiac fusion of Arab-Berber and Andalusian musical forms, Chaabi was the popular music of Algiers’ coffeehouses, frowned upon by the classical elites. Of course, the average Algerians loved it, including both Jews and Muslims. Split apart by politics, one of the leading Chaabi orchestras of the 1940’s and ‘50’s reunites in Safinez Bousbia’s El Gusto (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Like an Algerian Duke Ellington, bandleader El Hadj M’Hamed El Anka established Chaabi as a music worthy of concert hall respectability, while never losing touch with his fans on the street. He led the top outfit, featuring both Muslim and Jewish musicians, reflecting the Casbah’s demographics. Unfortunately, following independence in 1962, the Jewish band-member found it advisable to seek refuge in France, as did nearly all Jewish Algerians. Surely, the UN is still working overtime to protect their right of return, aren’t they? Yeah, just checking.

Frankly, Bousbia largely steers clear of politics, past, present, and future, which is a rather shrewd strategy. Instead, she concentrates on the Chaabi old-timers, who she plainly fell in love with, ever since she wandered into the antique (junk) store of Monsieur Ferkioui. After a few of his stories about the glory days with El Anka, she was hooked. Over a two year span, she tracked down the surviving members in Algeria and France, eventually producing their reunion concert in Marseilles. Needless to say, it was a hit, leading to subsequent dates, a CD supported by a full tour, and finally El Gusto, the documentary she has been filming the entire time.

It is a perfectly apt comparison, but let us try to get through this review without mentioning a certain Wim Wenders documentary about Cuban music. El Gusto is worthy of its own distinct identity. Frankly, by music doc standards it is unusually well made. In her arresting opening vistas, Bousbia dramatically illustrates the Casbah’s crumbling grandeur, resembling an ancient Rio overlooking the Mediterranean. She then takes us on a picturesque tour of the winding backalleys leading to Ferkioui’s shop. Suddenly, it is easy to understand how Pépé le Moko could hope to get lost here.

When the musicians finally assemble, there is plenty of backslapping and some relatively amusing anecdotes. Without question though, the music is the main event. Perhaps not to the tastes of those raised on fast food music, the elegance, lyricism, and insinuating rhythms of El Gusto Orchestra’s Chaabi still ought to appeal to aesthetically mature listeners, even if they are not well versed in the musical traditions of the region.

Although Bousbia is a constant presence throughout the film, she has a knack for staying out of the way. As a result, some lovely sights and sounds are captured in her documentary. Recommended for world music listeners and students of Arab-North African culture, El Gusto screens this coming Monday (4/23), Tuesday (4/24), and Saturday (4/28) as the Tribeca Film Festival continues in venues across the city.

Tribeca ’12: Rat King

Hardcore gamer Juri needs to get a life and some sun. He is starting to lose touch with those closest to him. Instead he gets a double to help him play his most challenging game yet. This leads to complications in Petri Kotwica’s Rat King (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, now officially underway in festive New York City.

Juri does not even know what his two best friends look like. They are gaming buddies he met online. Unfortunately, after logging-off from their last first-person shooter outing, they have maintained eerie internet silence, disturbing Juri no end. Suddenly, Niki shows up in the flesh. Evidently, his two comrades got involved with a game of a more ominous sort. Now their mutual pal is dead and Niki is in hiding. Yet, like the hopeless addict he is, Juri cannot resist logging into the sinister program.

Niki agrees to help Juri navigate the game, in exchange for secretly sheltering him. Rather than a video game, it is more of an online RPG that demands Juri, or Rat King as he has been dubbed, perform a series of real world tasks, which quickly escalate into rather dangerous territory. Meanwhile, Niki takes Juri’s place in the offline life he has been ignoring. After all, one pale geeky high school student is as good as another, right?

Rat King cleverly plays on a lot of the fears and paranoia of the gamer subculture. It is also perfectly cast, co-starring Max Ovaska and Julius Lavonen, two well established young Finnish actors who really could pass for twins. However, it rashly barges into some treacherous ground when the plot turns toward a potential Columbine incident, inviting comparisons to films like Tetsuya Nakashima’s brilliant Confessions, but lacking comparable gravitas and power.

Still, Finnish thriller specialist Kowica skillfully pulls viewers into this noir world, insidiously building the tension. Ovaska and Lavonen are both quite good as the doppelganger-gamers, credibly looking and acting like high school kids that are a bit off.

It seems fitting that John Badham’s WarGames, the grandfather of all out of control online game movies, will also have a ticketed retrospective screening at this year’s Tribeca, because the two films would make an intriguing pairing. While not a classic, Rat King it is a solid meat-and-potatoes thriller executed with a fair degree of style. Recommended for gamers and those who frequently lose patience with them, Rat King screens again tonight (4/20) and the following Friday (4/27) as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Tribeca ’12: Side By Side

Photochemical film is having its Buggles moment. It has been killed by digital video, but the death rattle is not quite over yet. While some holdouts still shoot the old school way, digital has steadily become the norm. The aesthetic and economic implications of this sea change in motion picture production are explored in Chris Kenneally’s Side By Side (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

If you think Martin Scorsese might have something to say about this moment in cinema history, you would be correct. He is one of small army of directors and cinematographers interviewed by co-producer and on-screen host Keanu Reeves. While Scorsese has mixed emotions, George Lucas is all in for digital, while Christopher Nolan stubbornly clings to his photochemical film. To oversimplify the debate, digital is cheaper and more easily manipulated, whereas film has more dynamic character, in much the same way vinyl favorably compares to digital music.

Side By Side gives a brisk and lucid overview of the development of digital technology and its rise from the domain of slacker indies to 3D tent-poles. Most of the interview subjects are exactly the sort of experts one would want to hear from, including David Lynch, Lars von Trier, Danny Boyle (whose Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire was a digital watershed), and both Wachowskis, as well as top flight cinematographers such as Vilmos Zsigmond and Vittorio Storaro.

However, it is impossible to ignore the snickering that erupts whenever a filmmaking giant prefaces an answer with: “Well Keanu, I’ll tell you. . .” Poor Reeves. He actually seems like an okay guy when he explains some of the Matrix effects to a young extra on the set of his upcoming 47 Ronin. He just has a certain presence and persona at odds with his on-screen role here.

Kenneally, Reaves, and company demystify a lot of the technical process, without losing sight of cinema as a form of artistic (hopefully) storytelling. As one would expect, every point is generously illustrated with clips from classic films. Some traditionalists might regret a more spirited defense was not mounted on behalf of photochemical film. Still, as it stands, Side By Side is an informative and rather entertaining look at the state of movie-making, considerably superior to the recent National Film Registry documentary, These Amazing Shadows. Recommended for those who enjoy movies about movies, Side By Side screens this coming Tuesday (4/24), Thursday (4/26), Friday (4/27), and Saturday (4/28) as part of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival now running in New York.

Tribeca ’12: Cut

The Yakuza are nothing like Chili Palmer in Get Shorty. They do not care about the state of Japanese cinema. They just want a struggling indie filmmaker to pay off his brother’s debts. The would-be auteur just might do so, but in an absolutely harrowing fashion in Iranian expatriate Amir Naderi’s Cut (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Shuji is one of the more annoying cineastes you could hope to run across. He spends much of his days decrying the commercialization of cinema through a bullhorn on busy street corners. He has made three poorly received films, finance by his gangster brother Shingo, with money unwisely borrowed from the Yakuza. Unable to clear the debt, Shingo meets a violent end. Now the Yakuza turn to Shuji, giving him a seemingly impossible deadline to pay-up.

Obviously, the immature Shuji has never been good at that whole money-making thing. However, a proposal made in contempt quickly turns into a Yen-generating enterprise that carries wider significance for the filmmaker. One of the thugs in the Yakuza headquarters-boxing gym-tavern offers him five thousand Yen if Shuji allows him a free swing. Shuji accepts on the condition he do so in the lavatory where his brother was murdered, extending the same terms to any and all takers. With the clock ticking, Shuji endures a nightly beating, fortifying himself with his love of art cinema and guilt over his brother’s demise.

Cut has polarized critics in its European festival screenings, but it is one of the best films screening at Tribeca this year. Naderi (who was in Japan working on Cut at the time of the earthquake and tsunami) subverts the established Yakuza movie conventions, producing one of the most visceral in-your-face indictments of thuggish violence you will ever see on-screen. No, he does not make it easy for viewers, but that is the whole point, forcing them to endure long sequences of violence stripped of any possible romanticism. Like Yoko, the attractive bartender, who has no trouble cleaning up the bloody mess of Shingo’s murder, but is eventually sickened by the pummeling Shuji voluntarily submits to, the audience is forced to confront their own complicity as witnesses.

Naderi is clearly operating on two levels, depicting Shuji’s extreme fund-raising as an act of existential contrition, while also presenting it as a challenge to our sensibilities. Yet, Cut also serves as a valentine to cinema, eventually evolving into the Devil’s own homage to Cool Hand Luke, featuring a countdown of Shuji’s top one hundred films, amid absolutely punishing circumstances.

Hidetoshi Nishijima delves into some very dark places, portraying Shuji with convincing grit. Haunted but grounded, his work never allows viewers to dismiss the frankly unbearable on-screen events as the stuff of fable or metaphor. As the reluctant facilitators, Yoko and Hioshi, an old timer Yakuza, Takako Tokiwa and veteran character actor Takashi Sasano give exquisitely subtle, finely calibrated supporting turns, expressing their mounting revulsion and ethical confusion when confronting Shuji’s spectacle.

As drama, Cut is as intimate as the Cassavetes pictures Shuji venerates, but it is definitely big idea filmmaking. There is real substance to it, but it does not spoon-feed a few politically correct bromides to the audience and then sending them off to bed with a pat on the bottom, content in their raised consciousness. Naderi calls us all out, daring us to turn away from the mayhem unfolding on-screen. It is an audacious film, bolstered by some uncompromisingly honest performances. Very highly recommended, Cut screens Monday (4/23), Thursday (4/26), and Friday (4/27) during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival now underway throughout lower Manhattan.

Tribeca ’12: Death of a Superhero

Drawing evil vixens and costumed crime-fighters usually is not the best way of winning over high school girls. Unfortunately, Donald Clarke does not have long to figure that out. He is dying of leukemia, but has a few obvious teenager goals he would like to accomplish first in Ian Fitzgibbon’s Death of a Superhero (trailer here), which screens at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Clarke is an understandably angry young man. If he was not socially awkward before, his bald head leads him to retreat further into himself. His only satisfaction comes from his comic art and his escalating graffiti escapades. Hoping to improve his state of mind, his well meaning parents take him to Dr. Adrian King, an art therapist who specializes in helping terminally ill patients come to terms with their mortality. Shrewdly, King does not try too hard to win Clarke’s confidence, thereby establishing a level of comfort between them. About the same time, Clarke meets a rather cute and rebellious transfer student he might actually stand a chance with, if he is not distracted by stupid high school pettiness.

Periodically, interludes of Heavy Metal-style animation provide a glimpse inside Clarke’s head, depicting his alter-ego battling The Glove, a Doctor Doom-like villain symbolizing his illness, and enduring the torments of the shapely Nurse Worsey, who embodies all his pent-up angst. Frankly, they are cool enough to give Superhero a genre appeal such material would not ordinarily hold. However, the third act may seem familiar to some viewers, following almost precisely the same narrative path as Ian Barnes’ Oscar nominated 2009 short film Wish 143. Since Anthony McCarten adapted Superhero from his own 2006 novel, you can assume whatever you will.

Thomas Brodie-Sangster is convincingly bitter and troubled as Clarke, but he has some nice chemistry Aisling Loftus as his potential girlfriend. Taking a break from the motion-capture suits, Andy Serkis also demonstrates wise restraint as Dr. King, making this movie shrink exponentially easier to take than Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting.

It is hard to imagine a dying teenager film that refrains from heart-tugging manipulation and Superhero is certainly no exception. Yet, the retro noir animation gives it a real edge. That unique look and several well tempered performances greatly help earn its inevitable big emotional crescendo. Surprisingly effective, Death of a Superhero screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival next Friday (4/27), Saturday (4/28), and Sunday (4/29), with a regular theatrical release soon to follow.

Tribeca ’12: Alekesam (short)

South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela survived Apartheid and drug addiction. Though the musician was often something of an absentee father, his son Selema more-or-less had to survive them too, by proxy. Their complicated musical father-and-son story is told in Jason Bergh’s short documentary Alekesam (trailer here), which screens as part of the Triptych program at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Anyone who reads Masekela’s memoir Still Grazing might easily get the sense he remains nostalgic for his hard partying days. Regardless, according to his son (often known as “Sal”) his father could not have withstood much more substance abuse. Fortunately, Masekela got clean, with the help of lifelong friend and producer Stewart Levine, who is still close to both Masekelas.

Alekesam focuses somewhat more on the son, who grew up with an unreliable father. Yet, he was able to make his own way in the world, becoming a well known surfer and extreme sports commentator. Following his father’s recovery and reconciliation, the junior Masekela has also made his way back to music, as a vocalist. In fact, he has a smooth, appealing voice. Nonetheless, most fans will want to hear more of the senior Masekela’s invigorating yet easy-going trumpet work they know so well from his soulful records.

Bergh elicits some honest reflections from both Masekelas and gets several amusing soundbites from Levine, a natural raconteur. However, he seems to give short shrift to the younger Masekela’s mother, considering the critical role she played during his formative years. Frankly, Alekesam could have been much longer than its manageable thirty-four minutes, without risk of overstaying its welcome, which is ultimately quite a compliment.

It is nice to have a documentary end on a happy note for a change. Alekesam is a rather uplifting testament to the power of family and friendship—with good music, of course. Recommended for fans of Hugh Masekela’s jazz-pop-African fusion blend and Sal Masekela’s extreme sports set, Alekesam screens again as part of the Triptych shorts block tomorrow (4/21), Wednesday (4/25), and Sunday (4/29) during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Downtown Express: Love for the Subway Musicians

For some musicians, music is a rigid set of chords, rhythms, and tempos that provide structure to life. Others see it as an open form for free expression. One Russian immigrant violin wunderkind will completely reevaluate how he relates to music in David Grubin’s Downtown Express (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Sasha Resnick has played the violin since he was three. A successful Julliard recital will secure his visa and lead to the brilliant performance career his father has long groomed him for. However, as his recital fast approaches, Sasha’s head is turned by the indie band Downtown Express, or to be more accurate, by their lead singer Ramona. This frustrates both his former dissident stage-father Vadim and his kind of hot faculty advisor, Marie, just as they start to warm to each other.

In many ways, Express is a love letter to New York street musicians, which is very cool. In fact, the film hinges on the open auditions for the MTA’s Music Under New York program. It also fully develops Vadim and Marie’s backstories, notably explaining how his struggles under Soviet oppression shaped his approach to music.

As the senior Resnick and the Julliard instructor, Broadway actor Michael Cumpsty (whose prestigious credits include Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen and Democracy) and Caroyln McCormick (probably best known for Spenser for Hire) develop a nice and easy chemistry, totally soft-selling viewers on their unlikely budding relationship. Perhaps they are actually too good, because the older generation clearly outshines the young publicity-friendly leads.

In truth, four-time Grammy nominee Philippe Quint is not bad as young Resnick and he is definitely a force to be reckoned with on the violin. Yet, it is hard to get his attraction indie singer-songwriter Nellie McKay’ Ramona or her band. Frankly, the most distinctive music in Express is the Mozart and Tchaikovsky the Resnicks play rather than her band’s originals, mostly sounding like pseudo-Dave Matthews Band crossed with Hooked on Classics.

Grubin makes the most of his New York setting, while suggesting the continuing influence of the characters’ Russian roots. Though he keeps the tone light, there is a realistic messiness to the film that forces Resnick to make serious choices. Yes, maturity is a good thing. Moderately recommended for Quint’s fans and older viewers who want to see middle-aged supporting characters portrayed in an attractive light, Downtown Express opens tomorrow (4/20) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

Hansen-Løve’s Goodbye First Love

Camille studies architecture, but it is a safe bet she never read The Fountainhead. If she had, perhaps she would have allowed herself to become so all-consumed with ardor for the slightly older Sullivan. In contrast, her soon to be ex is quite capable of self-centered behavior. This will cause her considerable heartache in Mia Hansen-Løve’s Goodbye First Love (trailer here), which opens this Friday at the IFC Center.

Camille’s dedication to Sullivan, her first real lover, apparently surpasses his comfort level. He clearly has feelings for her, but balks at her possessiveness. Frankly, he is looking forward putting some distance between them during his upcoming South American trip to “go find himself.” (How he lost himself down there, we’ll never know.) Yet, in the short term, the guilt and anxiety resulting from his infrequent calls and letters makes matters worse. Eventually, he severs contact altogether, sending her into an emotional tailspin.

A few years pass and Camille finally starts to pull herself together. Her architecture studies play an important role. Quickly she becomes the lover and professional colleague of her Scandinavian professor, Lorenz. Then one day, Sullivan reappears, almost instantly pulling Camille into a love triangle.

Granted, some people just have your number, but it is awfully hard to understand Camille’s lingering attraction to Sullivan. Maybe it is some sort of Peter Pan phenomenon, since the slacker never seems to grow-up. Considering how young twenty year-old actress Lola Créton really looks, initially playing Camille at age fifteen, her extended nude scenes are also frankly a tad questionable.

Still, the petit Créton’s fragile presence aptly suits her character. She is quite expressive, directly conveying Camille’s deep insecurities. Sebastian Urzendowsky’s Sullivan is a somewhat different matter. While he was previously a bit too mannish looking to carry off the role of Marie Ketteler, the young man forced to pass as a woman at the Third Reich’s Olympics in Berlin ’36, he certainly does not have that problem here. Frankly, it is hard to remember him once he exits a scene, let alone relate to Camille’s heroic pining over him. At least Magne-Håvard Brekke lends the picture some character and maturity as the trusting Lorenz.

To her credit, Hansen-Løve treats her story of enduring codependency with absolute respect. It is always painful whenever the object of one’s affections does not reciprocate, even when those around us just do not get the attraction. Ultimately though, viewers will identify more with Camille’s vexed parents than with her or Sullivan. Sensitively lensed by cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine, Goodbye First Love is pretty to look at, but awfully frustrating. For Francophiles and admirers of Hansen-Løve, it opens this Friday (4/20) at the IFC Center.

Hong Sang-soo’s The Day He Arrives

Yoo Seong-jun is a failed indie director turned provincial film school teacher. He is strangely ambivalent about the apparent end of his filmmaking career, making him a rather odd sort of-kind of surrogate for Hong Sang-soo, one of Korea’s busiest directors in recent years. Though Hong’s prior American distribution has been spotty at best, he will make up for lost time this week, with two new releases hitting New York theaters. Following yesterday’s opening of Oki’s Movie at the Maysles Cinema, Hong’s subsequent film, The Day He Arrives (trailer here), opens this Friday at the Lincoln Plaza.

Yoo is a loser and he knows it, at least to some extent. Visiting Seoul, he tries to meet-up with his old friend, film critic Young-ho, but connections are always a dicey business in Hong’s films. Aimlessly wandering the streets, patterns start to emerge. He keeps crossing the path of an actress he knows causally and has an awkward series of run-ins with a group of film students. Inevitably, he turns up at his ex-girlfriend Kyung-jin’s apartment for a reunion that will be not be healthy for anyone.

The next day, he rendezvouses with Young-ho, who brings along his ambiguously platonic friend Boram, who clearly has eyes for Yoo. However, Yoo is only interested in Yejeon, the beautiful proprietor of the bar Young-ho frequents (called “Novel”), who is the spitting image of Kyung-jin. Once again, the patterns of the night before will repeat, but under different circumstances.

Hong’s Day is an intentionally extreme example of the way people repeat certain mistakes throughout their lives and relationships. In this respect, it is a fitting companion film to Oki’s Movie, even though it is strictly linear and nowhere near as mischievous in its approach to narrative. The empty bottles of booze also pile up quickly in both films.

Hong is often dubbed something like the Woody Allen of Korea. In way, the comparison is particularly apt in Day, in which Yoo, a sullen failure, attracts the attention of at least four attractive women (played by three actresses).  Day is a darker film than his previous outing, whose characters all seem to lack a sense of self-awareness, but it is often quite witty, with the occasional flash of genuine insight.

Despite the problematic nature of both her on-screen relationships, the luminous Kim Bok-yung gives exquisitely sensitive performances as Yejeon and Kyung-jin. Yu Jun-sang’s Yoo is something of a cipher (by design), but he portrays his erratic self-absorbed self-defeating behavior solidly enough. In support, Kim Sang-joong and Song Sunmi exhibit a real flair for Hong’s wicked dialogue and their characters’ ever escalating inebriation, as Young-ho and Boram, respectively.

Shot by cinematographer Kim Hyung-koo in a deliberately drab black-and-white that makes Seoul look like the DPRK in winter, Day definitely has a touch of the absurd. Yet, despite the doppelgangers and obsessive repetitions, it is still a film about relationships, which makes it relatively accessible to general audiences. Recommended for fans of Hong and the films Woody Allen made during bouts of depression, The Day He Arrives opens this Friday (4/20) at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.