6-Shooter: Timecrimes

It seems like whenever characters venture into the woods in Spanish cinema, bad things happen. Perhaps that is just because so many of the Spanish films recently released in America have been horror movies. While technically time-travel science fiction, Nacho Vigalondo’s Timecrimes shares many of the conventions of movie macabre, including those deep, dark woods. Opening tomorrow in New York and Los Angeles, it is the third and strongest installment so far in Magnet Releasing’s Six Shooter series of international genre films.

Hector’s life is not too bad. He has a comfortable relationship with his wife and a lovely new house in the country, sitting picturesquely on the edge of a verdant forest. Nature watching through his binoculars, Hector catches a glimpse of a topless woman. That gets his attention. Hector delves into the forest to investigate, only to take a pair of scissors in the shoulder from a maniac with a bandaged head. Pursued by the lunatic, Hector is guided by the caretaker of a nearby scientific facility into a heavily reinforced mystery chamber. When he emerges, he has traveled several hours back in time. Soon thereafter, Hector suffers a head injury in a freak accident. As he administers first aid, wrapping gauze bandages around his head and pocketing the scissors, things start getting interesting.

Timecrimes is a devilishly clever movie, best seen cold. Even the trailer gives away too much, which makes it a tricky picture to review, so proceed at your own risk. In addition to its head-spinning time games and creepy chills, Vigalondo also raises some surprisingly philosophical questions. As the various Hectors proliferate through frequent time travel their collective actions lead inexorably to murder. Yet in each separate time frame, he is simply responding to the predetermined events unfolding around him. How culpable is Hector (any Hector) for the actions of his various selves?

As Timecrimes concludes, it feels like the film should be riddled with gaping plot holes, but Vigalondo and editor Jose Luis Romeu flawlessly hide the seams. Romeu in particular, deserves credit for perfectly fitting together the perspectives of each new Hector with those previously established. Karra Elejalde is fantastic as the weary middle-aged protagonist, subtly shading each of his character’s materializations. Director Vigalondo also appears in a supporting role, appropriately playing the caretaker—the man who sets all the chaos in motion through his unauthorized use of the time machine.

While Vigalondo maintains a breakneck pace throughout Timecrimes, the film holds up to deliberate post-screening scrutiny. It is probably the best genre film of the year and the strongest time travel movie in years. Highly recommended, it opens today in select cities.

The Reader

Oprah Winfrey book club selections usually conform to a predictable formula. They largely feature female protagonists in rural settings, dealing with issues of abuse, addiction, and empowerment. This made Bernhard Schlink’s novel The Reader a bit of a ringer when it was selected, though one could argue victimization is an important element of the story. One of several Holocaust related films releasing this year in time for the Award season, director Stephen Daldry’s The Reader (trailer here) opens in New York today.

Schlink grew up as part of the German generation that came of age immediately following World War II. Entirely blameless themselves, they still had to come to terms with what their parents and teachers had done over the last twelve years. His surrogate in the film is the painfully sensitive Michael Berg, played as a post-war fifteen year-old by David Kross and as a present day middle-ager by a reserved Ralph Fiennes.

As the story begins, young Berg has contracted a rather nasty bug while riding the tram home from school. After vomiting in a strange courtyard, one of the residents takes pity on him, cleaning up and seeing him home safely. Upon recovering, Berg returns to thank the mysterious woman. Realizing the adolescent’s desire for her, the older woman embarks on a sexual relationship with Berg. Although she refuses to tell him her name, their affair falls into a regular pattern. Every day after school, he reads to her before they make love. Then one day, Berg comes to the apartment as usual, only to find she has cleared out without warning.

Though deeply hurt, Berg carries on with his studies, eventually enrolling in law school. There he signs up for an advanced course taught by the philosophical Professor Rohl. As part of their curriculum, they will observe the sensational war crimes trial of three women who worked as concentration camp guards for the SS. To Berg’s horror, he recognizes one of the accused as his former lover, one Hanna Schmitz.

In many ways, playwright David Hare’s screenplay is problematic. A great amount of time is spent on the Summer of ’42 set-up, effectively de-emphasizing the predatory nature of such a relationship. Things do pick up somewhat when the trial begins, largely thanks to the electric performance of veteran German actor Bruno Ganz as Rohl. When he is on-screen, the film’s IQ increases at least twenty points. However, the presence of such a character, a sixty-some year-old legal ethicist, raises a few unanswered questions, like what was he doing from about 1933 to 1945?

Ralph Fiennes largely appears as the older, emotional withdrawn Berg in order to frame the flashback sequences, sort of the English Patient without the bandages. In truth, Kate Winslet’s performance is quite accomplished, but in a way, that compounds the film’s problems. The more it humanizes her character, the more it seems to invite viewers to identify with an admitted war criminal and statutory rapist (at least in most states of the union).

Aspects of Berg’s actions as a law student are troubling also. Regardless of one’s feelings for Schmitz, he clearly allows a partial miscarriage of justice to stand. The character of Ilana Mather, the lone survivor of Schmitz’s atrocity, is also questionable. Portrayed by Lena Olin as a cold, wealthy Upper Easider, she seems deliberately drawn to be as unsympathetic as possible. However, she does have an important moment of moral clarity for the film when she reminds the middle-aged Berg he was also a victim of Schmitz.

Ultimately it is difficult to understand the moral center of the film or where it wants to lead the audience’s sympathies. Given the sensitive nature of the film’s subject matter, that is a bit of a problem. With so many Holocaust related films opening this season, it raises the stakes for a film like The Reader. While the film features excellent performances from Winslet and Ganz, as a whole, it is uneven and confused.

(On a related note: Inheritance airs on most PBS stations tonight. Review here.)

Romanian Film Festival: Timisoara, December 1989

In Alexandru Solomon’s Cold Waves, several veterans of Radio Free Europe’s Romanian section complained their country was the last captive nation to break its Communist shackles, aside from Albania. That sense of impatience was also shared by many in Romanian, eventually igniting an explosive protest in Timişoara, which ultimately led to a full-fledged revolution. The events of that signal protest are remembered in Ovidiu Bose Paştină’s 1993 documentary, Timişoara, December 1989, which also screened at this year’s Romanian Film Festival.

A bold aerial shot of Timişoara’s gateway arch sets the tone for the distinctive, almost experimental, style Paştină brings to bear on this turning point in Romanian history. Filming interviews of witnesses and participants in the demonstration from odd angles in a grainy black and white, Paştină’s visual compositions match the chaos of the events under discussion. As witnesses recall, the military did indeed initially fire upon the crowd. However, as the crisis escalated, the Romanian soldiers turned against the Communist regime. One rank-and-file speaks on camera of a telephone conversation with his parents, warning him not to shoot his countrymen.

While Paştină captures some powerful oral history, December is as much a meditation on the birth of 1989 Revolution, as it is a historical narrative. At times almost impressionistic, it displays little resemblance to other (more conventional) documentaries of the period.

Unlike then Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution, the 1989 Revolution was indeed a revolution—the only revolt against Communist authority which climaxed with the execution of the Party leader. December captures the courage and spirit of hope, so long deferred in Romania that finally came to the fore in 1989. It also represents what could have been. Tragically, Paştină was lost to cancer before he could follow-up on the promise shown in December and his well regarded student film, The Art of Individual Defense.

December is a rewarding film on its own merits and a sad reminder of what could have been. Given its high historical and artistic value, it deserves the full Criterion treatment and a long broadcast life on PBS. An excellent choice for the festival, it nicely complemented Solomon’s Cold Waves, which discussed the events of Timişoara from a slightly different perspective.

NYADFF: Chaos

Fans of Egyptian popular cinema will always remember Youssef Chahine for directing Omar Sharif’s silver screen debut. For cineastes though, he is the auteur behind socially aware festival favorites, like Cairo Station. Completed by Khaled Youssef when ill-health forced Chahine to step down, Chaos (French trailer here) combines elements of his fêted issue films and the Egyptian melodramas that made Sharif a star. Screening tonight at the New York African Diaspora Film Festival’s Night in Egypt at Symphony Space, Chahine’s final film statement is in fact a harsh indictment of a corrupt Egyptian society.

Chaos begins and ends with a riot. In between, the crooked cop Hatem abuses his power and the general populace, extorting just about everyone he comes into contact with. After indiscriminately arresting people during the opening riot, the police are ordered by the new goody two-shoes DA to release all the accused. However, Hatem and his superiors have different plans for so-called troublemakers, illegally holding them incommunicado in a hidden basement cell.

Hatem, played with villainous gusto by Khaled Saleh, is not just venal, but also twisted in his personal life as well, stalking Nour, the pretty young school teacher living in his building. Of course, she is repulsed by the morally bankrupt policeman. The object of her unrequited love is the young DA, who happens to be the son of Nour’s headmistress. Unfortunately, he is engaged to a rich but shallow party girl, sort of an Egyptian Paris Hilton. When dealing with the romantic longings of its characters, Chaos approaches telenovela territory. However, back at the station house, the vibe is more Grand Guignol, with prisoners tortured in the dungeon as the prostitutes in the holding cell above put on a Bollywood-style show for the men watching through cracks in the wall.

Hatem acts with impunity, because his malfeasance amuses his superiors. Nour and her mother even seek help from the local Islamist party on the make. They promise big, but fail to deliver. Here Chahine seems to imply rampant public corruption in Egypt drives otherwise rational citizens to vote for radical Islamist parties. In a way, the film is so eager to indict Egyptian political corruption it lets the contemptible Hatem off the hook, as the product of sick society.

Somewhat uneven, Chaos is a big, angry morality play for the screen. It turns out Chahine had a particular talent for directing riot sequences. However, his attempts at popular melodrama at times feel a bit overwrought. While Chaos will probably not be considered one of the Chahine’s masterworks, it is certainly an interesting parting shot from the celebrated director. It screens tonight as part of the NYADFF, which continues through the weekend.

Romanian Film Festival: Cold Waves

It was a government program that worked. How novel. Of course, Radio Free Europe did not single-handedly win the Cold War, but it successfully built up a large audience behind the Iron Curtain. In Romania, it forged a particularly strong connection with its listeners that is documented in Alexandru Solomon’s Cold Waves (trailer here), which screened at this year’s Romanian Film Festival.

According to Solomon’s documentary, RFE was regularly heard by a staggering 65% of all Romanians—generating moon-landing level market shares on a daily basis. Early in the film Solomon states RFE was a constant presence in his home growing up, and on the rare occasions his family turned it off, they would still hear it through the walls from the flat next door.

As in the case of VOA’s beloved jazz program hosted by Willis Conover, music was a big part of RFE’s popularity, but the station’s news coverage during two times of crisis cemented the relationship between RFE and the Romanian people. The first incident was the disastrous earthquake of 1977. Since the Dear Leader was on a state visit to Nigeria at the time, a news blackout was imposed on government controlled media until his return, leaving a huge information vacuum for RFE to fill. The second incident was the start of the 1989 Revolution in Timişoara, which would be RFE’s shining hour, much as the 1991 Russian Coup was for Radio Liberty.

It was not just average Romanians listening—the Ceauşescu government was also paying close attention, dedicating a division of the Securitate, the so-called “Ether Unit,” to countering RFE. The premature deaths of three RFE Romanian section chiefs from cancer-related causes have long raised suspicions, but have yet to be substantiated with evidence. However, the film did uncover documents linking Carlos the Jackal (who was given safe harbor in Romania under Ceauşescu) and the Romanian Securitate to the 1991 bombing of RFE’s Munich facility.

Solomon employs many of the conventions of documentary filmmaking, like reuniting the surviving staff of Romanian section in the old RFE building outside of Munich, as well as interviewing plenty of talking heads. However, he periodically uses a visual motif of what looks like a three part soundstage or theater backdrop, consisting of a Romanian flat, RFE studio, and Securitate office, to evoke the feeling of Cold War Romania. In addition to the film’s distinctive look, Solomon also scored some impressive interviews. We hear from many of the surviving RFE staffers and listeners, but also from some critics, including a former Ether Unit veteran and current neo-Stalinist member of parliament, who Solomon forces to listen to RFE’s coverage of the attacks on the December 1989 Timişoara demonstrators. He even reached the incarcerated Carlos for a phoner (he denies everything, but says that Ceauşescu was quite the gracious host).

Scrupulously evenhanded, Waves is quite credible, both at recounting late twentieth century Romanian history and exposing new information about the past regime’s misdeeds. It is a fascinating film that deserves theatrical distribution beyond the festival circuit.

Romanian Film Festival: Gruber’s Journey

Given the slate of prestige pictures releasing soon for the upcoming award season, American and British filmmakers seem to have overcome their past reluctance to address the Holocaust cinematically (two such films will be reviewed this coming week). However, that has not been the case in Romania, where the notorious Iaşi Pogrom is a particularly delicate subject to broach. Director Radu Gabrea has been the rare exception, making both documentaries and dramatic features about the Jewish experience in Romania. His latest film, Gruber’s Journey, screening this weekend at the Third Annual Romanian Film Festival, presents the tragic events of Iaşi, from the perspective of an outsider.

Evidently, Journey is also notable as a rare Romanian film in which the central protagonist is not Romanian. In this case, it is the Italian writer Curzio Malaparte, who was a member of the Italian Fascist Party, though not always in good standing due to his gadfly tendencies. He was indeed in Iaşi, or Jassy as it also known, immediately following the massive round-up of the city’s Jewish population. He later wrote a very critical account of the incident in his novel Kaputt. In Journey, Gabrea suggests a fictional story to explain Malaparte’s ultimate disillusionment with Fascism.

Assigned to cover the Russian front for the Italian news service, Malaparte is traveling east with Col. Freitag of the Wehrmacht and the deputy commander of the local Romanian garrison. It is all quite chummy and pleasant except for the severe allergy attack plaguing the writer. He has a referral from a doctor in Bucharest for a world-class allergist, Dr. Josef Gruber, but when Malaparte reaches Iaşi, Dr. Gruber is nowhere to be found.

After enduring a local hack doctor’s battery of sedatives to no avail, Malaparte sets out to find Gruber. What follows is a Kafkaesque story of bureaucratic runaround, as the sinus-challenged Fascist attempts to locate Gruber’s transport. It is not simply a case of Romanians lacking German efficiency. To produce Gruber would imply a level of knowledge and culpability that none of the local Romanians want to assume, despite earning laurels mere days earlier for their actions in the pogrom.

Journey is a deliberately bloodless and intellectual film. It helps to appreciate it if you understand the trajectory Malaparte life will follow. Gabrea shows the audience nothing directly. Instead, we watch Malaparte put together the pieces. Why is the local pharmacy a mad house? Because their two closest competitors suddenly shuttered their doors at the same time Gruber disappeared. Inescapably, a pattern emerges. Throughout the film, Gabrea slowly builds towards Malaparte’s final moment of epiphany. It is a subtle payoff, but nicely turned by Florin Piersic, Jr. Perhaps the greatest standout in the cast though is German actor Udo Schenk, uncomfortably convincing as Freitag.

Undoubtedly, some will be troubled by Journey’s antiseptic approach, relying on the audience to supply its own visions of the horrors that have happened in Iaşi. The attempts at absurdist humor did not seem particularly amusing either (perhaps because I have a very high degree of empathy for anyone trapped in the Hell of bureaucracy). It is a film pitched at the head rather than the heart, which is quite ambitious given the dramatic nature of its subject. It screens again today as part of the Romanian Film Festival at the Tribeca Cinema.

Ozpetek at MoMA: Facing Windows

In 1988, Babette’s Feast became a true sleeper hit in America, largely due to its beautifully filmed scenes of the meal’s lavish preparation. It was eventually followed by the likes of Eat Drink Man Woman, Like Water for Chocolate, and Chocolat, establishing the “food” movies as a pitchable property on the international film circuit. It would be a mistake to consider Ferzan Ozpetek’s Facing Windows in such a context. Yes, elegant pastries are lovingly assembled, but the act of baking in Ozpetek’s film offers consolation, not fulfillment. Such consolation is very much needed in Windows (trailer here), which screens at MoMA as part of their Ozpetek retrospective series.

Giovanna is not overwhelmed by domestic bliss. She toils at a soul-deadening job and her marriage to Filippo is deteriorating. At least she takes some enjoyment from baking pastries for the local pub. One fateful night, Filippo insists they bring home an addled old man who appears to be suffering from some sort of dementia. At first, all they get out of him is the name “Simone,” but he becomes much more vocal when Giovanna starts her baking.

As flashbacks from his past intrude into his perception of reality, “Simone” suddenly tears off into Rome’s old Jewish Quarter, like a man possessed. Giovanna enlists the help of her neighbor Lorenzo, the bachelor banker whose apartment faces hers, to corral the elderly man. As Giovanna cleans up her mysterious guest after his safe return, she discovers a number tattooed to his forearm, and the pieces start to fall into place.

“Simone” has several secrets. One of which is the nature of the great love of his life, which is pretty easy to guess from the early flashbacks and the gay themes of Ozpetek’s previous films. The other involves the infamous round-up of Roman Jews on October 16, 1943. However, he is not the only secretive character. It turns out Giovanna and Lorenzo have both been furtively watching each other for sometime, in his case to a degree that approaches the obsessive.

Ozpetek is very circumspect in his treatment of the Holocaust, focusing on its lingering emotional aftermath rather than the actual horrific events. While there are many flashbacks to 1943, Ozpetek includes no scenes of the concentration camps or even the infamous round-up. When originally released, Windows may have been sold on the strength of the elaborate confections Giovanna and her elderly guest create, but they are misleading. Their pastries are only a bittersweet desert complementing a much more austere meal of pain and regret.

As the mysterious gentleman baker, Massimo Girotti gives a haunting performance, in what would be his final role. Giovanna Mezzogiorno is also quite convincing as the quietly desperate Giovanna. Unfortunately, when Raoul Bova’s problematic Lorenzo comes out of his reserved shell, he seems overly melodramatic, and his angst compares poorly with the far greater sufferings of the other characters

Windows is visually dramatic, thanks to Patrizio Marone’s masterful editing of flashback sequences and Gianfilppo Corticelli’s rich cinematography. Unfortunately, Andrea Guerra’s sweeping score is often sounds overwrought and the occasional use of Italian pop songs sabotage the overall mood of the picture. Despite some emotional excesses, it effectively displays Ozpetek’s tremendous sensitivity as a filmmaker. Windows screens again on Sunday the 14th, as the Ozpetek retrospective continues at MoMA.

Off-Broadway: Dust

Dust is persistent and eternal. It constantly gathers in even the most carefully controlled environments, and it represents the state to which all living things will eventually return. It also causes an unsettling contest of wills in Billy Goda’s dark new play Dust, which opened Off-Broadway at the Westside Theatre last night.

Despite his doctor’s orders to take off some pounds, businessman Martin Stone still enjoys throwing his weight around. He lives in a midtown hotel to have people constantly at his beck and call. While reluctantly putting in some time on the treadmill, he fixates on fine layer of dust coating the ceiling vents. The closest chops to bust belong to Zeke Catchman, the handyman, picking up some overtime as the gym’s night attendant. An ex-con with anger management issues, Catchman is not inclined to cower under Stone’s abuse. As he pushes back, the seemingly trivial situation nearly escalates into a physical confrontation. Of course, Stone has the handyman fired, but when Catchman warns it is not over, he means it.

In addition to some stalking and property damage, the ex-con also picks up Stone’s vulnerable daughter Jenny to personally deliver message to his target. Even though she is a bit freaked out by their initial encounter, there seems to be a strange connection between the two that is more credible on-stage than it probably sounds. Back on drugs, Catchman’s self-destructive tendencies threaten to destroy him, yet his unlikely relationship Jenny Stone might offer the promise of redemption. He is a man on the brink, whose life could go either way.

The greatest asset of Dust is Hunter Foster’s riveting performance, which nails Catchman’s dual nature. Though he degenerates into a twitchy, hardened junkie, he still convincingly conveys the kernel of decency buried within him. Foster also has nice on-stage chemistry with Laura E. Campbell, who also gives an impressive performance as the daughter of his quarry. Though not as extreme as Catchman, Campbell’s character is also a bit off, but still retains a sweetness that seems quite genuine. Surprisingly, the weak link of the small cast is veteran actor Richard Masur (well-remembered for the disastrous college interview scene in Risky Business) as Martin Stone, who does not project the sense of ruthless menace required in the part.

It might seem incredible that such a minor incident could spiral out of control so quickly, but it is totally believable in Dust, thanks to the brutal logic of Goda’s play and Scott Zigler’s tight direction. It is definitely theater for adults, featuring simulated drug use and brief on-stage nudity. Dust takes the audience to some very dark places, but offer two excellent performances from Foster and Campbell. Perfect holiday fare (I guess), it runs at the Westside through January fourth.

Photo credit: Carol Rosegg

Spinning Cadillac Records

Record collectors develop a peculiar love for particular record labels. Blues collectors who love barely audible ‘78’s venerate the Paramount Records of the 1920’s. Those preferring a slightly more modern sound probably have a lot of Chess Records in their collection. Founded by Brothers Leonard and Phil Chess, the label documented the evolution of the blues into rock & roll, recording iconic artists like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Etta James, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry. Now the label that gave the Rolling Stones their name and made the address 2120 S. Michigan world famous gets the big-screen treatment in Darnell Martin’s Cadillac Records (trailer here), which opens wide tomorrow.

As we meet young Leonard Chess, a working-class Jewish immigrant from the then Polish township of Motal, his courtship of a girl from a respectable family is broken-up by her disapproving father. Though painful, it fuels Chess’s entrepreneurial drive. Drawn to Chicago’s African-American community, Chess first started out in the club business, but he soon finds his calling as an independent record mogul.

Cadillac’s strongest scenes introduce the Chess roster of artists as they are signed to fledgling label, with a series of musical numbers. Produced by Steve Jordan, a veteran of the Letterman Show and Sonny Rollins bands, the performances are somewhat modernized for popcorn audiences, but they still have some of the spirit of the originals. At least one Chess veteran lends his talents to the original soundtrack recording: Hubert Sumlin, Howlin’ Wolf’s longtime lead guitarist, who also briefly appears as a minor character in the film. On several tracks he is joined by guitarist Eddie Taylor, Jr., the son of Taylor, Sr., who appeared on some Chess sessions, backing up Sonny Boy Williamson II.

We hear from Eamonn Walker as Howlin’ Wolf and Beyonce’s Etta James, but if there is one artist who is synonymous with Chess, it would be McKinley Morganfield, a.k.a. Muddy Waters. Cadillac wisely focuses on him as the primary counter-weight to Chess, showing his early plantation years, celebrated Alan Lomax field recordings, and his eventual domination of the Chicago Blues scene. Although Jeffrey Wright is a totally different body type than Waters, he really captures the blues legend’s cadences and personality.

Believe it or not, Beyonce is also surprisingly effective as James, doing credibly well with classics like “At Last.” As Chuck Berry, Mos Def hits a perfectly manic note, and Cedric the Entertainer is a spot-on (but under-utilized) Willie Dixon. However, if you have read several books on Chess Records (as I have), you might find Adrien Brody distractingly miscast as Chess. Essentially a Willie Loman who made good, Chess died at a decidedly middle-aged 52, yet Brody plays him like a sad-eyed, sensitive thirty-something.

Record geeks (again, like me) will also take issue with other simplifications and alterations to the historical record. Chess really was a family business, run jointly by the brothers. Leonard’s son Marshall was also constant presence, working in nearly every department of the company. However, Cadillac shunts Phil Chess to the margins and ignores the junior Chess completely. To its credit though, Cadillac deftly handles the controversies surrounding the Chesses. While showing their rather informal royalty accounting process, the film also conveys Leonard Chess’s devotion to his artists, particularly James (but the supposed romantic interest between them has never been documented in any account of Chess I have read).

While Cadillac’s dramatic scenes are reasonably diverting, if not overly ambitious, the film’s real attraction is its music. On their strength, it qualifies as the most entertaining movie musical of the year, so far. It would also be a happy development if the film ultimately increases audience awareness of the label’s great blues and r&b artists. It opens tomorrow at a theater near you.

Docu-memoir: Fengming

In his latest documentary, Wang Bing only uses one camera, which he hardly ever moves. Rather than dazzle the audience with dramatic cinematography and rapid-fire edits, he focuses like a laser beam on his subject, He Fengming, as she tells her traumatic life story, simply and directly for Wang’s camera, in Fengming: a Chinese Memoir. Opening this Friday in New York at the Anthology Film Archives, it is an intensely personal film which takes on truly epic dimensions.

For those who persist in idolizing Mao, this film will come as an uncomfortable corrective. While He Fengming certainly suffered during the Cultural Revolution, which Mao apologists prefer to blame solely on the Gang of Four, her troubles began in 1957, with the advent of his Anti-Rightist Campaign. She had considered herself an ardent and loyal Communist, who had voluntarily withdrawn from college to serve the Party’s Lanzhou newspaper. Yet she still found herself on the receiving end of their so-called “struggle sessions” when she refused to denounce her husband, Wang Jingchao. His crime was to believe the rhetoric of the previous Hundred Flowers Campaign and subsequently publish an essay critical of the corrupt government bureaucracy. This mistake would directly lead to the incarceration of both husband and wife in work camps, and ultimately result in his premature death.

One of the greatest tragedies of Fengming is how badly she and Wang wanted to believe in the Party, despite its accusations and abuse. While they had the option of forestalling their “rehabilitation,” both were eager to regain the Party’s good graces as soon as possible. Ruefully she observes: “That’s how simple we were. If I’d known how it would end, I’d have never let him go to that camp—it was a death sentence.” As an alleged ringleader of the mythical “Rightists,” Wang was sentenced to the western sounding Dry Gulch work camp, one of the worst of the worst. As a lesser conspirator in the fabricated “Black Clique,” she was sent to the comparatively survivable Number 10 Collective Farm outside of Anxi.

By 1960, rumors of famine at Dry Gulch reached He Fengming. Knowing the Anti-Rightist Campaign was on its way out the Party cadres surprised her by granting her request to visit to her husband. She proceeds to describe her arduous journey, enduring extreme elements in hopes of bringing him emergency provisions. Of course, the audience has an ominous feeling how it will end. In its infinite magnanimity, the Party eventually declared her and her fellow alleged Rightists “rehabilitated” in 1961, only to force her to repeat her ordeal again a few years later during the Cultural Revolution.

Filmed in long continuous shots, interrupted only for restroom breaks or to turn up the lights, Fengming resembles Holocaust oral histories, both in terms of style and horrific subject matter. Ambitious in its truth-telling rather than its filmmaking, Wang’s documentary requires an audience with a well-developed attention-span. Those who can acclimate to its visual sparseness will find Fengming heartbreaking and absorbing, as it chronicles a genuine love story cut short by runaway ideology. Fengming is an important cinematic document, highly recommended for intelligent audiences. It begins a limited three day run at AFA this Friday.

POV’s Inheritance at the Museum of Jewish Heritage

Films can make a difference. Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List is certainly a case in point. In several ways, it started the chain of events that ultimately produced James Moll’s new documentary Inheritance. One of Inheritance's two central figures of is Helen Jonas, a Holocaust survivor who credits Schindler the film with creating a hospitable environment for discussing her experiences. The other, Monika Hertwig, met Moll while he was researching photo rights for a documentary about Spielberg’s film. Her connection to Schindler was her father Amon Goeth, the vicious concentration camp commandant played by Ralph Fiennes. The first face-to-face encounter between the two very different women is documented in Inheritance (trailer here), which airs on PBS’s POV next Wednesday. They also came together again for another rare in-person meeting last night as part of a special screening of Inheritance at the Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, cosponsored by the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.

Hertwig never really knew her father, who was convicted of mass murder and executed by the Polish government in 1946. While her mother glorified Goeth, she learned of his true nature from her grandmother’s stories and watching Schindler’s List. By contrast, Jonas knew him only too well, having suffered his physical and mental abuse as his fifteen year-old domestic slave. However, the film clearly suggests both women should be considered victims of Goeth.

It would not be an exaggeration to say Hertwig is haunted by her father’s crimes. Indeed, Goeth may not have been the highest ranking National Socialist war criminal, but he may well have been the most brutish and animalistic. If anything, Fiennes’s portrayal might have been more restrained than the historical Goeth, considering the stories of sadistic cruelty recounted by Jonas. Yet she is the one who frequently expresses sympathy for Hertwig. At times Jonas makes some particularly telling observations of Hertwig, as when she almost off-handedly remarks of Goeth: “it was a selfish thing for him to have a child.”

To her credit, Jonas displays tremendous compassion and understanding in her meetings with Hertwig. Still, she is understandably reluctant to prolong their time together. Her mere presence after all, summons horrific memories of the evil father. As they pay their respects at the Płaszów concentration camp memorial and tour the villa where Goeth terrorized her, it summons harrowing memories for Jonas, but also seems to serve as a true catharsis.

For Hertwig, the experience is also quite emotional, but does not provide the same sort of closure. Essentially, she has inherited all the guilt her father should have suffered, yet lacking culpability, remains unable to ask forgiveness. Throughout Moll’s film and during last night’s Q&A with the director and Jonas, Hertwig still sounds desperate to say the right thing to convince people—most of all herself—that she is nothing like her father.

Moll helms with admirable sensitivity, somehow avoiding a sense of intrusiveness, despite the extraordinarily personal nature of the events he filmed. Inheritance is a small, quiet film, but it has moments of clarity, which dramatically illustrate the continuing moral and emotional reverberations of the Holocaust. Many critics have complained this season is dominated by a glut of Holocaust movies. Some of them are quite good, including The Secret and Boy in the Striped Pajamas, while least one is a major disappointment (look for that review next week), but it would be a shame if Inheritance was lost in the shuffle.

It airs on most PBS’s POV next Wednesday, December 10th (at 9:00 E.S.T. for most stations, but 9:30 E.S.T. on New York’s WNET—of course, check local listings), with a DVD release scheduled for January 6.

Photo credit: Don Holtz

Ozpetek at MoMA: A Perfect Day

Films told in flashback necessarily lose an element of suspense. In Ferzan Ozpetek’s A Perfect Day, when shots fired bring the police to the apartment of one of their own, we know something terrible has happened inside—the only question is the extent of the horror that transpired. Perfect (Italian trailer here) makes its American debut this Friday at the MoMA as part of a retrospective series focusing on the Turkish born Italian filmmaker.

Ozpetek’s films frequently involve unexpected tragedy and the consolation of humane compassion. However, in Perfect, the former greatly overwhelms the latter. When the world-weary Emma dubs her day “perfect,” she speaks with conscious irony. She has already been fired from her dead-end job and endured a harrowing encounter with Antonio, her police officer ex-husband, but she still does not know the half of what she will suffer by the end of the day.

In general, there is not a lot of joy to go around for Ozpetek’s large cast of characters. The unstable Antonio is repulsed by his continuing obsession with Emma, whom he derides as an aging bimbo, and wracked with guilt for neglecting his family. He is assigned to the protection detail of Elio Fioravanti, a crooked politician who stands to lose his immunity if defeated in an upcoming election, which seems increasingly likely. His trophy wife Maja still harbors affection for Fioravanti’s grown prodigal son, but has opted for what she assumed would be the security offered by his father. Only Emma and Angelo’s cruelly bespectacled little boy and Maja and Fioravanti’s popular young daughter display anything approaching healthy, unconditional love.

Despite the film’s constant undercurrent of dread and menace, Oztepek directs with admirable sensitivity, while still maintaining his trademark visual flair. He inspires fearless performances from Valerio Mastandrea as Angelo and Isabella Ferrari as Emma, a role which won her best actress honors at the Venice Film Festival. Yet throughout the film, the only source of suspense is just how bad things will get. And what happens is awful—probably exactly what you already suspect.

Ozpetek does not play games with the narrative, employing a conventional flashback as his framing device. As a result, Perfect is emotionally direct and completely accessible. However, its unrelenting pessimism and mounting sense of inevitable tragedy will probably limit the film’s appeal. Beautifully filmed by Ozpetek and cinematographer Fabio Zamarian, with a soundtrack by Andrea Guerra that gives an almost operatic feeling to the on-screen drama, Perfect is a finely crafted film, but also uncompromisingly depressing. It is an easy film to respect, but a hard film to love.

The Ozpetek retrospective starts at MoMA on Thursday the 4th, with His Secret Life. Perfect then plays on Friday the 5th and Saturday the 13th, with the director and Ferrari in attendance for the first screening.

The Three Faces of Eve

The Last Eve
Directed by Young Man Kang
Vanguard Cinema

What do you get if you combine Caine from Kung Fu with the Biblical brothers Cain and Abel? Something like The Last Eve (now available on DVD, trailer here), Young Man Kang’s bizarre triptych of Kung Fu Biblical allegories, which mixes and matches elements of the Adam & Eve and Cain & Abel stories, often to head-scratching effect.

Kang seems to be building a reputation as a low-budget auteur, evidently holding the Guinness World Record for the least expensive feature film ever produced and released: the $980 Cupid’s Mistake. Based on Eve, he seems to be more in the tradition of the strange but highly stylized low-budget fare of Edgar G. Ulmer, rather than the grade-z schlock of Ed Wood.

The product of three different shoots, with three different crews, Eve is uneven in the extreme. Bruce Khan provides the only continuity, reprising the role of Adam, the martial arts warrior, in the tripped-out opening “Eve’s Secret” and the middle story, “Cain and Abel,” which is by far the best of the film.

Filmed in Korea, “Cain & Abel” also has the superior cinematography, visual composition, and fight choreography. Khan’s Adam is now a retired cage fighter who wants to marry Eve, here the sister of the slimy Cain. Haunted by the death of his last opponent, Adam refuses Cain’s offer to fight again. Instead, Cain tempts Adam’s brother Abel into the ring, with disastrous consequences. Abel killed by the hulking Muay Thai Fighter and Eve’s freedom is wagered away to the local criminal overlord by her hopelessly corrupt brother. That of course sets up some old school steel-cage kung fu retribution. Khan is a commanding action presence as Adam, particularly in the second story-line, and Seung Min King is by far the most compelling Eve in the film.

Khan also has some decent fight sequences in the opening “Eve’s Secret,” a segment with no spoken dialogue aside from some introductory narration. One of three survivor’s of the apocalypse, Adam is charged with protecting Eve from seven demons bent on killing her to prevent the rebirth of humanity. Unfortunately, the segment is undermined by the frequently garish looking special effects and a dubious punch-line of an ending.

The final story arc, “Snake’s Temptation,” is the weakest of the three. Forsaking martial arts for drama, it chronicles the disintegration of the chaste young Adam and Eve’s engagement, while a comet bears down on Earth, signaling the end of the world, and giving the film a circular narrative structure. Unfortunately, the performances here are significantly weaker than “Cain & Abel,” with the supposedly demonic Snake character coming across as a metrosexual street punk. However, it does feature Tim Colceri (who might be recognizable to some from guest appearances on shows like Babylon 5) as Father Julius, a Catholic Priest who has adopted the trappings of a Buddhist.

Eve is an odd but commendably ambitious film. Despite it biblical inspiration, it does not seem overtly evangelical. Yet, when it works, it is quite entertaining, which would be about one and a half times out of three. Obviously nothing will stop YMK from making more films, since he can amazingly bring them in for less than four figures, but Eve shows a lot of promise, so hey, more power to him.

Chamber Music: Melos

Melos
By Vassilis Tsabropoulos, Anja Lechner, and U.T. Gandhi
ECM Records 2048

What is chamber music? Most definitions speak of small ensembles playing intimate music, with only one instrument per part (as opposed to section play in symphony orchestras or big bands). Stylistically, it is frequently, but not exclusively associated with classical idioms. Given the classical backgrounds and improvisational facility of Greek pianist Vassilis Tsabropoulos and German cellist Anja Lechner, chamber music is an appropriate rubric for consideration of their latest collaboration, Melos.

Melos ventures deepest into jazz terrain when Tsabropoulos and Lechner are joined by Italian jazz drummer U.T. Gandhi (originally Umberto Trombetta), whose jazz credits include work with Lee Konitz and Enrico Rava. His shimmering cymbals work propels selections like “Vocalese,” which features the closest example to a traditional improvised jazz piano solo from the composer.

Other times, when Tsabropoulos and Lechner play as a duo, Melos fits more easily into a classical chamber bag, though it is a hauntingly elegant one. The pianist’s opening title composition is one such case. As are his concluding “Evocation” and “In Memory.” Darkly hued, but performed and recorded with eerie clarity, they have an austere beauty.

While the majority of the program consists of Tsabropoulos’s originals, the musicians do interpret three compositions by the controversial Armenian spiritualist G.I. Gurdjieff (arranged by Lechner and Tsabropoulos, based on piano transcriptions by Thomas de Hartmann), which lend an exotic vibe to the session. “Tibetan Dance” and “Sayyid Dance” have a more pronounced rhythmic drive thanks to Gandhi’s cymbal work, whereas as on “Readings from a Sacred Book,” he adds subtle color to the evocative tone poem.

While Melos might blur genres, the music is not at all abstract or diffuse. The melodies are strong, even catchy at times, like the insistent “Reflections and Shadows,” or the rhapsodic “Gift of Dreams.” With similar backgrounds (like Tsabropoulis and Lechner’s classical training, and Lechner and Gandhi’s experience playing jazz-influenced tango with Dino Saluzzi) the three musicians clearly share a high degree of rapport, resulting in music that is sophisticated, but also deeply resonate.

NYADFF: Return to Goree

Although it was a small supporting role, Youssou N’Dour showed tremendous screen presence portraying Oloudah Equiano in Amazing Grace. A charismatic performer with a powerful voice, N’Dour commands the screen as the subject of at least two recent documentaries: Chai Vasarhelyi’s I Bring What I Love, which played at this year’s Tornto Film Festival, and Pierre-Yves Borgeaud’s Youssou N’Dour: Return to Gorée (trailer here), which screens Thursday at the NYADFF, after a successful week long run this summer at the late, lamented Two Boots Pioneer Theatre. Gorée seems particularly appropriate for the Diaspora Festival, since it documents N’Dour’s pilgrimage through the music of the African Diaspora, as he leads an all-star group through jazz and gospel arrangements of his Senegalese songs.

The film starts and culminates at Gorée, the island home of the notorious slave-trading outpost off the coast of Senegal. It opens with the stirring lyrics of N’Dour’s anthem “Red Clay,” which speak directly to the African experience, making a fitting start for the musical odyssey to come. After securing the blessing of the curator of Gorée’s House of Slaves for his mission, N’Dour’s first rendezvous is with the French jazz pianist Moncef Genoud, who had previously collaborated with the vocalist on jazz arrangements of his material at a jazz festival. Together they perform with the Harmony Harmoneers at the Greater Israel Christian Fellowship church in Atlanta. However, N’Dour seems bizarrely alarmed to hear them sing their praise of Jesus in rehearsals—he wanted gospel, after all. Despite a bit of grumbling, the Harmoneers do agree to secularize their performance of “My Hope is in You” (the “you” formerly being Jesus for the gospel singers).

The next stop is New Orleans for a jazz set at Snug Harbor, with drummer Idris Muhammad and bassist James Cammack joining the rhythm section for the duration of the tour. In a pattern that repeats throughout the film, director Borgeaud films N’Dour and colleagues in a scorching rehearsal, and then moves on without showing the actual concert.

The next stop is New York for a session with vocalist Pyeng Threadgill (daughter of the often avant-garde Henry Threadgill) and harmonica player Gregoire Maret, who has played on high profile recordings with the likes of Cassandra Wilson, Pat Metheny, and Marcus Miller. We also hear a jazz-and-poetry collaboration with Amiri Baraka, who is relatively restrained in his militancy on that particular day, mercifully.

N’Dour and company make a final stopover in Luxemburg to add two more axes to the band, trumpeter Erni Hammes and Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel. As the musicians assemble in Dakar, the Harmoneers tour the House of Slaves and are moved to sing “Return to the Land of Gorée.” It is a scene that recalls Roberta Flack singing “Freedom Song” in a Ghanaian slave fortress during the Soul to Soul concert film (which was cut at her request from Rhino’s DVD/CD reissue).

When the final concert kicks off, it does sound like the band came together into a tight unit. Unfortunately, we do not hear the full group with the Harmoneers or Threadgill. In general though, N’Dour’s experiment sounds great. His songs translate well into a jazz context, helped by the presence of jazz musicians like Muhammad and Genoud who are well attuned to N’Dour’s original music.

With an interesting mix of well known musicians like N’Dour and Muhammad with European artists largely unfamiliar to American audiences, like trumpeter Hammes in particular, Gorée is definitely a cool jazz documentary. It screens Thursday at the Clearview 62nd Street Theatre, as part of the NYADFF.

NYADFF: Changing Faces

Though thought of as an Islamic country, studies estimate roughly forty percent of Nigeria’s population is Christian, so a Nigerian film with Christian themes is not such a contradiction in terms. Screening this afternoon at the New York African Diaspora Film Festival, Faruk Lasaki’s Changing Faces suggests personal angels and demons are not simply metaphorical, but wield a tangible influence on mortals which we cannot comprehend.

Marriage means little to Lola, the hedonistic journalist. Unmarried herself, she refuses to let a mere trifle like a wedding ring deter her from a promising sexual encounter. However, the devoutly Christian Dale Svenson takes marriage very seriously. He is even prim and proper with his own wife. Assigned to cover the painfully dull architectural conference he will address, the uptight Svenson catches her eye. Over the course of a week, Lola plays an elaborate game of sexual cat and mouse with her prey. Eventually, it indeed turns out that whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.

However, this time conquest comes with a price, both for Lola and Svenson. Faces posits a world in which sex not only occurs on a physical level, but on a spiritual level, involving the spirits people carry with them. By some fluke, Lola and Svenson swap their moral compasses during their night of passion. Now recklessly lecherous, Svenson recognizes something happened to him that night, which threatens to derail his marriage and career. On the wagon and living with integrity, Lola by contrast welcomes her new square life.

While Svenson resorts to a witch doctor’s services in a moment of desperation, Faces ultimately links salvation and faith. Lasaki’s debut narrative film, written by Yinka Ogun, is surprisingly overt in its Christian orientation. It is a morality tale in which morality matters. It suggests a life of rectitude is preferable to the ostensive pleasure of sin. However, like Christian films produced domestically, the production values are spotty and the acting is sometimes suspect. British actress Rachel Young fares the best as Lola, the former temptress. Unfortunately, as Svenson, her fellow countrymen, Marc Baylis comes across like an actor in a Christian film.

Still, in many ways Faces is an intriguing film. His scenes involving the unseen “angels” are particularly clever in their staging and Emmanuel Fagbure has a real screen presence as Lola’s leering supernatural companion. It also serves as an interesting reflection of contemporary Nigeria, in that the inter-racial relationships never raise eyebrows—at least for that specific reason. Though undercut by a weak lead, Faces suggests Lasaki might have some fascinating films in his future. It screens today at the Cowin Center and Monday at the Anthology Film Archives, as part of the NYADFF.

NYADFF: Panman

The drum has always held great spiritual significance beyond its formal music making role, particularly in the Caribbean. It has inspired artists as disparate as Duke Ellington and Vachel Lindsay. The drum’s elemental appeal is deeply felt by the protagonist of Panman, Rhythm of the Palms (trailer here), which screens as part of the NYADFF this weekend.

The drum in question for Panman is the steel pan drum, which originated in Trinidad, but spread throughout the Caribbean, including the Dutch Antilles. It is the instrument that has given meaning to Harry Daniel’s life, but as the film opens, his traditional style of music has fallen out of favor. He labors through a demeaning resort gig, before his deteriorating body collapses, which cues the extended flashback of his musical rise and fall, told through the narration of his estranged student Jacko.

Though fictional, Daniel’s career follows a path recognizable to those who have seen a lot of musical biographies. As a young man, his musical talent initially makes him a star, but his business concerns are damaged by his troubled brother’s incompetence. Along the way, he meets the right woman, but his obsessive dedication to his music leads him to neglect his family.

Oddly, there is not a lot of steel pan in Panman. It seems more interested in using the instrument as a symbol—representing both the traditional music losing popularity to modern electronic forms, and African culture, as opposed to the Dutch, which many on St. Maarten persist in identifying with. Fortunately, Panman is relatively restrained when addressing issues of cultural identity. (It is considered the first film to be produced by St. Maarten, though directed by the Dutch filmmaker Sander Burger.)

As a result, individual drama takes center stage in Panman, and to that end, screenwriter Ian Valz is quite convincing as Daniel, displaying both rage and nuance in his portrayal. Frankly, the entire cast holds up well, considering there are not a lot of musical interludes to leaven the script’s trials and tragedies.

Although Valz’s Daniel avoided the cliché of self-destructive substance abuse, there is much in his story arc which seems predictable. In a sense, the lack of faith shown in pan music by the filmmakers undercuts their lionization of Daniel. However, things never get irreparably bogged down in melodrama, and Panman does convey a good sense of life on St. Maarten. Highly watchable, it still might disappoint hardcore steel drum enthusiasts. It screens this Sunday and the following Sunday at the Anthology Films archives as part of the NYADFF.

NYADFF: As Old as My Tongue

Mark Twain’s classic quote: “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” may have become something of a cliché, but Zanzibari vocalist Bi Kidude is certainly entitled to use it. While touring Europe, spurious rumors of her death produced a genuine outpouring of emotion throughout the Tanzanian archipelago. It was yet another chapter in Kidude’s complicated relationship with Zanzibari society, which Andy Jones explores in As Old as My Tongue (trailer here), a documentary profile of the singer screening at the New York African Diaspora Film Festival tomorrow.

Kidude is thought to have been born sometime around 1915, which would put her near the rather exclusive neighborhood of ninety-three. She still enjoys a nice beer and a good smoke, which is frowned upon for women by many of Zanzibar’s Islamists. Kidude also performs without the veil, which is particularly significant. Her musical inspiration and role model Siti binti Saad did in fact perform veiled. For Saad, simply performing in public and recording in India were enough of a challenge to established tradition.

Kidude is generally considered the greatest living representative of Taarab music, a style derived from Eastern African and Middle Eastern musical forms. Its instrumentation includes violins, ouds, and traditional percussion instruments, like the dumbek. Kidude still interprets the classic songs of Saad, but she also has a repertoire peculiarly her own, like the drinking song we hear at one point.

While she is celebrated abroad, attitudes in Zanzibar seem much more ambivalent. Many come to sponge off Kidude when she returns flush from a world tour, but when the money runs out, so do they. Concerned her music was not better appreciated in her native land, one of Kidude’s most enthusiast fans, Yusuf Aley Chuchu, launched his Heartbeat Studio with a session designed to reintroduce her to Zanzibar. He also explains a certain attitude prevalent among older Zanzibaris, including his mother, that Kidude should retire from music and spend more time at the mosque.

Although Jones did not capture any truly signal moments in Kidude’s career as they occurred, one could argue that at ninety-three years of age, give or take, any performance is noteworthy. Evidently, there is something to be said for drinking and smoking, because Jones often shows Kidude still maintaining a solid groove on hand-drum, despite her advanced age. To her enduring credit, Kidude also remains something of a non-conformist in Islamist Zanzibar, continuing to resist calls for her retirement.

Barely running over an hour, Tongue might be brief, but it gives audiences a solid introduction to Taarab in general and Kidude’s music in particular. Tongue also features some compelling music from its subject, even including “Done Changed My Way of Living,” a Taj Mahal track heard over the closing credits, which features Kidude and her frequent backing band, Culture Musical Club. Overall, Jones nicely balances the musical and the sociological in a very watchable documentary. It screens as part of the NYADFF on Friday at the Cowin Center and Saturday at the Anthology Film Archives.

A Moment with Fred Hess

Single Moment
By the Fred Hess Band
Alison Records

For the sake of a wider perspective, every jazz writer ought to familiarize themselves with another jazz scene outside of New York. Fortunately, I have been able to check out a number of gigs in Denver during periodic family visits—one of the bright spots for jazz in the big square states. Some of Denver’s leading players have earned national reputations, particularly tenor player Fred Hess and his frequent musical colleague, trumpeter Ron Miles, both of whom are well known outside of Colorado for their time in Ginger Baker’s group. They have also played in New York, including an appearance under Hess’s leadership at what sadly turned out to be the final IAJE Conference in the City. Hess has now slightly expanded his line-up with his latest release, Single Moment.

Returning from Hess’s previous outing, In the Grotto, are two of Denver’s busiest jazz artists, the aforementioned Miles and reedman John Gunther, heard on alto and flute, as well as the two “ringers” from New York, bassist Ken Filiano and drummer Matt Wilson. To shake things up a little, Hess added another Denver-based musician, Dale Bruning on guitar, who fits in rather seamlessly on a session of generally advanced hard-bop jazz.

Hess starts Moment with “Blues for Bonnie Belle,” an up-tempo blues with an edge, inspired the Hess family’s dog. Its combination of groove and inner fire has a similar vibe to some of the classic 1960’s Blue Note sessions. It is followed by Bruning’s jazz waltz, “Dancing with Daffodils,” featuring a brief but distinctive solo from the leader before the composer and rhythm section each take their turn.

While Hess is known for keeping one foot in the avant-garde and the other rooted in the straight ahead, Moment leans more to the latter. For instance, there is a starkly beautiful tenor and guitar duet rendition of “While My Lady Sleeps,” a Kaper & Kahn tune originally written for The Chocolate Soldier, an old MGM vehicle for Nelson Eddy. It is followed by Bruning’s infectious “Port O’Call,” a jazz calypso in the tradition of Sonny Rollins’s “St. Thomas.” The guitarist even takes an unaccompanied solo turn on “Spring is Here.”

For those familiar with Hess’s idiosyncratic musical family, the Clefs, your long national nightmare is over. They are indeed alive and kicking, despite Grotto’s rather ominous sounding “The Clefs—Final Chapter?” However, as the most dissonant track of the session, it sounds like the Clefs may not be safely out of the woods yet. Stay tuned.

At about twice the length of Hess’s other selections, the title cut is also the least structured, venturing the furthest out. A tribute to the late Michael Brecker, “Single Moment” ranges far and wide, providing ample solo space for the entire band, including an appropriately mournful statement from Miles.

Once again, Hess and his colleagues prove there is a lot of great jazz to be heard outside of New York. Moment happens to be a particularly rich, listener-friendly release from the inventive musician-composer, which should serve as a convincing introduction to Mile High jazz for the rest of the nation.

Avi Nesher’s Secrets

In 1577, Safed, one of the Four Holy Cities of Judaism, became the site of the first printing press of the entire Ottoman Empire. Long venerated as a seat of mystical learning, Safed also has a strong klezmer music scene, all of which provides an intriguing backdrop for Avi Nesher’s latest film, The Secrets, (trailer here), an examination of gender issues and traditional authority in Orthodox culture, which opens in New York Tomorrow.

Young Noemi’s faith is strong, but her life is plagued with emptiness. After her mother’s death, she convinces her learned rabbi father to postpone her marriage to a sanctimonious fiancé, allowing her to enroll in a Midrasha, a seminary for young women founded by Orthodox feminists. At Safed, the bookish Noemi, able to quote long passages of sacred texts from memory, is thrown together with three perfectly mismatched roommates, including the rebellious Michal, a spoiled rich girl from France. To Noemi’s annoyance, the two women are both assigned to serve a new client for their Midrasha’s meals-for-shut-ins program: Anouk a notorious French speaking convicted murderess.

Hardly an innocent victim, Anouk really did murder her lover in a crime of passion. Facing her own impending mortality, the older woman desperately seeks spiritual redemption from the unsympathetic religious authorities of Safed. Against her own better judgment, Noemi delves into Kabala, looking for an impossible tikun, a cleansing ritual for the sin of murder.

Unlike most contemporary films, Secrets treats concepts like sin and redemption with absolute sincerity. It is at its strongest when portraying the relationship between the two younger women and the ailing Anouk, played by the distinguished French actress Fanny Ardant. The ancient walls of Safed function almost like another character, effectively heightening the film’s aura of metaphysical mystery. However, the development of a problematic lesbian relationship between Noemi and Michal does not really cover any new territory not previously seen in other films about homosexuality in traditional societies, including the Orthodox documentary, Trembling Before G-D.

Nesher helms the film with admirable restraint and sensitivity, while cinematographer Michel Abramowicz invests the action with a warm, mysterious glow. The cast is quite credible, including the great Ardant, and Adir Miller, as Yanki, the tragically likable klezmer clarinetist and Noemi’s rival for Michal’s affections.

Along with other recent film imports, like The Band’s Visit and Jellyfish, Secrets well represents the increasing diversity of contemporary Israeli filmmaking. While not perfect, it is a handy corrective for those who associate Kabala with trendy red bracelets. It opens in New York at the Quad tomorrow.

Macedonian Film Festival: Milcho Manchevski

While Milcho Manchevski’s greatest claim to international fame might be as the director of the first Macedonian film nominated for the best foreign language Academy Award, he probably deserves far more credit for inspiring a host of films that in various ways fracture linear narrative. Told in a triptych which forms a circular narrative, Manchevski’s Before the Rain (trailer here), made its European festival debut weeks ahead of Pulp Fiction, yet it would be Tarantino’s film that would be credited (or blamed) for a parade of non-linear imitators. In advance of the January 30th New York opening of Manchevski’s latest film, Shadows, the director’s first two films closed the Macedonian Film Festival Sunday night.

Rain begins and ends in Macedonian, but its middle story is set in London. The film was in fact a British-Macedonian co-production, at a time when the British government did not recognize that of Macedonia. As befits its title, a storm is always approaching in Rains, both the meteorological and human varieties. In “Words,” the first chapter, Kiril, a young monk who has taken a vow of silence, gives shelter to Zamira, a young Albanian girl running from a lynch mob. After his act of sanctuary results in his own expulsion from the monastery, Kiril mentions an uncle in London might be able to help them, and that is indeed where Manchevski shifts the action with “Faces.” The Pulitzer Prize winning photo-journalist Aleksandar Kirkov is returning to the city after an assignment in Bosnia that profoundly disturbed him. After resigning, he tells his photo-editor and illicit lover he is returning to Macedonian, with or without her. She declines to leave despite her dubious feelings for her husband. However, the violence she had only experienced vicariously through Kirkov’s lens erupts into her own world when a Serbian rivalry turns violent in a posh London restaurant.

The longest segment, “Pictures,” tells the story of Kirkov’s problematic homecoming. As he approaches his native village, he disarms a petulant teenager standing guard with a machine gun. At times Kirkov resembles Eastwood’s Man with No Name, except instead of a former gunslinger, Kirkov is a retired photographer. However, we eventually learn that his camera has actually killed people. Although more familiar to American audiences for sinister roles on Fox’s 24 and in films like Eyes Wide Shut and The Saint, Rade Šerbedžija gives one of the best screen performances of the 1990’s as Kirkov, the celebrated observer forced to chose sides and participate.

Clearly, the spaghetti westerns were a pronounced influence on Manchevski, because he would incorporate the genre into his second film, Dust. Told in flashback by Angela, an elderly woman, to her would-be robber “Edge,” Manchevski weaves a Munchausen-esque fable about Cain and Abel brothers who start in the Old West, but travel to the wild East of Macedonia, as it revolts against the Ottoman Empire. Again, Manchevski plays narrative games, but the intrusion of elements from disparate time periods is often distractingly played for comedic effect.

The strongest scenes of the film are actually the least mythical. Rosemary Murphy and Adrian Lester convincingly sell the unlikely relationship between Edge and Angela. Unfortunately, neither brother is particularly interesting. Joseph Fiennes’s Elijah is a caricature of religious zealotry, while David Wenham is somewhat more nuanced as Luke, who is incapable of true emotional engagement, except when killing people.

Dust is a big, ambitious film that ultimately got away from Manchevski. Rains however, is a contemporary masterpiece that reveals increasingly greater depths with each viewing. In Rains, characters fantastically reappear in various times and places to further challenge the overall narrative thread. Yet, Manchevski’s execution is subtle, never directly interfering with the events on-screen. Ultimately, the cycle of violence continues, as the story doubles back, forming a complete circuit. Evidently, Sergio Leone was not his only influence. During last night’s Q&A, Manchevski explained the first part of the film’s repeated mantra: “Time never dies, the circle is not round” was in fact inspired by Chick Corea’s Mad Hatter album.

Given his international success, the Manchevski double-feature made a fitting closing night for the Macedonian Film Festival. Rains is a member of several exclusive cinematic clubs: the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion, the New York Times’ “Best 1,000 Films Ever Made,” and a Criterion Collection DVD treatment. Though flawed, Dust is still fascinating filmmaking, worth seeing simply to compare with future Manchevski films, like the forthcoming Shadows.

Ichikawa’s Kabuki Actor

Revenge of a Kabuki Actor
Directed by Kon Ichikawa
AniMeigo

Many consider Kon Ichikawa second only to Akira Kurosawa among the great filmmakers of Japan, but frustratingly little of his filmography is available here in America. Following the Japan Society’s mini Ichikawa retrospective this summer, the film billed as his first venture into “samurai cinema” is now available on DVD. However, Revenge of a Kabuki Actor (trailer here) is worlds away from most costume swordplay movies.

In this case, the swordsman out for revenge is not just a kabuki actor, he is an onnagata, one of the actors who played female roles on-stage, who during the era of the Tokugawa Shogunate (prior to the Meiji Restoration) were obliged to maintain their assumed gender role even when off-stage. Yukinojo Nakamura might play delicate lotus blossoms on-stage, but beneath the kimonos, he is an accomplished swordsman of muscular build. Despite attaining wide acclaim, his abiding ambition is to avenge his late parents, who were destroyed by a clique of powerful office-holders and merchants.

Learning his enemies have assumed positions of influence in Edo society, Yukinojo accepts a theatrical engagement there with the intent of attracting their patronage. However, mere killing is too good for them. Yukinojo insists on an elaborate revenge that will inflict pain and humiliation, forcing them to suffer as his parents suffered. Attacking at their most vulnerable point, he seduces Namiji, the sentimental daughter of Sansai Dobe, the most powerful of the actor’s targets. As the Shogun’s concubine, Dobe’s position is entirely dependent on her. The resulting scenes between Yukinojo and Namiji could support an entire film and gender studies academic conference.

As Yukinojo, Kazuo Hasegawa chose to return to the role he first played in the 1935 film version of the same story to mark his three hundredth film appearance. In addition, he also plays Yamitaro, essentially the Robin Hood of Edo. While Yukinojo’s rarified exterior camouflages a cold and calculating heart, Yamitaro has a hearty laugh and a Texas-sized swagger. All he seems to be missing is a parrot and an eye-patch. However, at times the dialogue winks at Hasegawa’s dual role with “you look a little like . . .” references.

Indeed, Kabuki is at times very self-referential. Ostensibly addressing the spirit of his father, Yukinojo’s voice-overs come perilously close to breaching the fourth wall. However, when the characters step out into the night world ruled by thieves and ruffians, Setsuo Kobayashi’s arresting cinematography creates a stark netherworld that is part Twilight Zone, part Beckett. Heightening the late-night ambiance is the anachronistic jazz-influenced soundtrack composed by Yasushi Akutagawa, Tamekichi Mochizuki, and Masako Yagi.

Ichikawa and Natto Wada, his wife and frequent screenwriting collaborator, crafted a sly but totally satisfying revenge tale. Well rendered on disk by AniMeigo, its wide-screen allows viewers to fully appreciate Ichikawa’s visuals, and their program notes nicely serve as footnotes to the on-screen action, explaining historical references that might be lost on many western audiences. While watching Kabuki one is constantly struck by Ichikawa’s masterful touch and the elegant craftsmanship of his crew. It is a film that deserves its reputation as a classic.

Images ©1963 Kadokawa Pictures, Inc.