Racing Daylight

Racing Daylight
Written and directed by Nicole Quinn
Vanguard Cinema

Sometimes weirdness is hereditary. “There have always been Stokes in Cedarsville,” says Sadie Stokes, but they tended to be crazy, haunted, or both. The Stokes’ dark family history truly haunts the present generation, resulting in a willing journey into madness in Nicole Quinn’s Racing Daylight (trailer here), which releases on DVD this week

The first of Racing’s triptych of stories is that of Sadie’s descent into madness. The end of the Stokes line, Sadie has no identity of her own in Cedarsville. She is either her mother’s daughter or her grandmother’s granddaughter, depending on the generation of the townsperson. She is desperately infatuated with Henry, the handyman and avid reader of Civil War history, but he seems to interpret her extreme shyness as either disinterest or mental derangement. In fact, she is going mad, as she says so herself in her voiceover narration.

Sadie is apparently a dead-ringer for her ancestor Anna, whose spirit is slowly taking possession of her. As small town luck would have it, Henry is also the spitting image of Anna’s true love Harry. As Anna was much bolder in affairs of the heart, Sadie eventually decides to go along for the ride, embracing Anna’s dominant persona.

In the second part of Racing we meet Edmund, Anna’s husband and father to the son she conceived with Harry. Like Sadie, he is also haunted by spirits, including that of a runaway slave he accidentally killed as a teenager, who happens to look exactly like one of Sadie’s few friends in modern day Cedarsville. Since Edmund has long grown accustomed to the silent company of his ghost, it is a sad, pointless haunting. However, when Anna dies and also returns as a spirit, her presence makes it nearly impossible for him to carry on with his life.

The third part is “Henry’s Story,” as he tries to make sense of it all, both past and present. Here, Racing abruptly departs from the serious tone of the first two parts. While apparently addressing the audience directly, Henry makes some shrewd observations as he puts his amateur historian’s instincts to good use. In some cleverly cut sequences, we view scenes from Sadie’s story from his ironic perspective. We also get a wild “punchline” that seems completely out of place with the rest of what preceded it. However, “Henry’s Story” has a go-for-broke spirit that you have to admire.

Racing boasts an interesting cast, including Melissa Leo, recognizable from the show Homicide as Sadie and Anna, as well as the perfectly cast David Strathairn, seen in nearly every John Sayles film in recent years, as Henry and Harry. Unfortunately, the film’s other name actor, the cool Giancarlo Esposito (also of Homicide and films like The Usual Suspects) does not get much to do here beyond looking sad as Edmund’s ghost.

Though entirely written and directed Nicole Quinn, one would think Henry’s installment was produced by an entirely different creative team than first two stories. Even if it is somewhat overwritten and highly uneven, the result is at least memorable. Ultimately, Racing is worth checking out on DVD for a fine performance by Strathairn and a few odd scenes of “well-how-do-you-like-that” bemusement.

Scenic Moscow, Belgium

Yes, they also have white trash in Belgium. The Moscou neighborhood of Ghent is not exactly Bruges. Originally deriving its name from Russian forces encamped there during the Napoleonic Wars, it is now a drab working-class suburb. At least that is the sense of place conveyed in Christophe van Rompaey’s Moscow, Belgium (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Obviously, Matty’s life stinks. She works in the post office. Making matters worse, Werner, her art teacher husband has moved in with a former student, but is trying to keep his options open should he later decide he wants to return to his family. Working a stultifying job and raising her rebellious teenaged daughter Vera and socially underdeveloped son Fien has taken a toll on her. However, when she accidentally backs into hot-headed Johnny’s truck, she catches the younger man’s eye (after he eventually exhausts his anger).

Matty does not want a truck-driving boy toy. She wants tomcatting Werner to come home, but agrees to meet Johnny on a date, which ends in the cab of his truck. Despite her intentions, Matty gets involved with the twenty-nine year-old with anger management difficulties. He has other issues too, like a nasty reaction to alcohol and a related criminal record.

There is some fine acting in Belgium, but it is exasperating to watch its characters make one glaringly bad choice after another. Should Johnny have a glass of wine to celebrate their relationship? Probably not. After a while, it is hard to maintain a rooting interest in their relationship, when each seems determined to sabotage it at every juncture. Still, there are some nice performances here, including Barbara Sarafian literally bearing it all as Matty. Anemone Valcke is also quite impressive as the daughter Vera, one of those annoying kids who are smarter than their bickering parents.

In a way, Belgium could be considered the anti-Babette’s Feast. Never before has so much unappetizing food been drowned in mustard and consumed on-screen. Surprisingly, the most stylish aspect of Belgium is its original soundtrack composed by Belgian jazz accordionist Tuur Florizoone. Mixing elements of jazz and French café music, it might sound completely at odds with the mundane environment of Belgium, but is in fact quite effective at setting the film’s moods.

Like the neighborhood it is set in, Belgium is respectable and hard-working. Regrettably, despite a nice score and lead performance, it is not overwhelmingly memorable. It opens today in New York at the Cinema Village.

Big Screen Beck

To thrive in talk radio, you have to be entertaining. With over 300 stations syndicating his three hour radio show and a new television show debuting on Fox News in January, Glenn Beck is clearly doing okay for himself. Obviously, he knows something about entertaining an audience. Still, his ability to carry a one-man stage show came as a bit of a surprise last night in Fathom Events’ live theater simulcast of Glenn Beck’s The Christmas Sweater (trailer here).

Based on his bestselling novel, Sweater is an odd hyrid of cinema, theater, and variety show, based around Beck’s emotional reminiscences of his fateful twelfth Christmas. Still grieving his father, Beck, then known as Eddie, is hoping for some consolation under the tree. Unfortunately, all his hard working mother can afford is the yarn for a sweater. Disappointed, Eddie hurtfully withdraws from his mother and grandparents, setting in motion a story of tragedy and more importantly, redemption.

While Beck supplies all the drama, he is not alone on the stage. He is accompanied by strings and woodwinds, as well as Chanta C. Layton, a show-stopping gospel vocalist with an enormous voice. Her musical interludes help the show avoid the pitfalls of one-person shows, which often seem like one long unrelieved monologue (as indeed they usually are). In fact, an early performance of the favorite hymn of Eddie’s late father plays an important role in Sweater’s character development.

Sneer and scoff all you wish, but Beck shows some genuine acting chops in Sweater. Though not singing or dancing, Beck brings a real physicality to his performance, literally working up a sweat on-stage. Deliberately blurring the lines of fiction and autobiography, Sweater often feels like a confessional, as Beck essentially bares his soul on stage. Unquestionably sentimental, the story is also legitimately moving, up until the disappointingly contrived (but obligatorily happy) conclusion.

Although the energy flags a bit immediately following the ten minute intermission, director Don Brenner generally balances Beck, the music, and the projected background images quite well. Frankly, for what is essentially a concert film, Sweater has an appealing look (far superior to the flat Allah Made Me Funny, for instance).

Beck can actually act and he evidently knows how to hire people who can sing. He is also controversial, so no doubt many will find it difficult to get past their preconceived notions of the radio host. However, he deserves credit for a revealingly honest performance. Though Beck scrupulously avoids the political in Sweater, arguably one can see in it the values of family and faith which shape his world view.

Produced by Fathom Events, known for their Metropolitan Opera simulcasts and special anime screenings, Sweater is an unusual cinema experience, more closely akin to the legitimate stage. I'm not sure what I really expected either, but those with an open mind will be impressed by Beck’s screen presence. Look for Fathom’s encore screening tonight at these theaters.

The Broken Arm Trio

Broken Arm Trio
Erik Friedlander, Mike Sarin, Trevor Dunn
Skipstone Records

If you have seen the classic Sweet Smell of Success you might have noticed Fred Katz, a cello player looking as if he would be more at home on a college campus than in a jazz club as a member of Chico Hamilton’s group. Katz was among a handful of cellists to improvise in a jazz context, the most prominent of whom was the bassist Oscar Pettiford. After breaking his arm, Pettiford discovered he could still handle the smaller cello. On that instrument he would eventually record some classic jazz albums, like My Little Cello, which became a favorite of multi-genre cellist Erik Friedlander. Taking inspiration from Pettiford, Friedlander has formed the Broken Arm Trio, whose first self-titled session has recently been released.

Friedlander has worked with experimental improvisers like John Zorn, Dave Douglas, and Marty Ehrlich. As a leader, he has recorded for the Radical Jewish Culture Series on Zorn’s Tzadik label. However, following in the Pettiford tradition, Friedlander’s originals on Arm, are largely grounded in swing. Yet sometimes his music has a minimalist quality somewhat akin to some of Zorn’s work, due to the spacious arrangements and unusual instrumentation. Drummer Mike Sarin and bassist Trevor Dunn (co-founder of the eccentric alt-rock band Mr. Bungle) join Friedlander on cello, who eschews the bow in favor of pizzicato plucking for most of the session.

Arm starts with “Spinning Plates,” an up-tempo bop workout, propelled by Sarin’s swinging brush work. It also features successive solos from Friedlander and Dunn, immediately contrasting the higher pitch of the cello with that of the bass. On the next track, one of only two instances of bowed arco playing is heard on the elegant “Pearls.”

Given their unusual instrumentation, the Arm Trio often sounds surprisingly bluesy, like on the cool-toned “Ink,” which starts with what might be called “walking” cello, or the downright greasy “Tiny’s.” While all members of the trio have wide comfort zones for inside-outside music, the brief “Jim Zipper,” is about as abstract as Arm gets. It is also an effective showcase of the remarkable sounds Sarin can produce on his kit.

Nicely coalescing as a unit, the Broken Arm Trio can claim a unique sound, creating some unusual but accessibly swinging music. Friedlander’s originals have distinctive, off-kilter melodies that are interpreted with relaxed eloquence by the trio. Altogether, Arm makes quite a convincing case for the jazz cello.

Berlin: City of Smoke

Berlin Book Two: City of Smoke
By Jason Lutes
Drawn and Quarterly

During the roaring 1920’s many African American jazz musicians found a more hospitable racial climate in Europe. This changed rather drastically in the 1930’s, for obvious reasons. Several expatriate jazz musicians, like Freddy Johnson and Henry Crowder, were in fact interned by the occupying German forces for a number of years before their eventual repatriation. Touring Weimar Germany in 1929, the fictional jazz band the Cocoa Kids, risks a similar fate if they overstay their welcome in City of Smoke (preview here), the second collected installment of Jason Lutes’ literary graphic novel Berlin.

It is 1929 and Berliners can smell danger in the air. It is a pungent mixture of hot jazz, sex, and extremist politics, from both the Communists and the National Socialists. Still reeling from the past year’s Mayday riots, the death of Gustav Stresemann, seen as the unifying statesman of moderate democratic government, further demoralizes Kurt Severing and his fellow pacifist intellectuals. Unlike his artist girlfriend Marthe Müller, he refuses to take consoling pleasure from the sounds of jazz, which he blames for turning Germans into “little, mindless marionettes in a pointless frenzy.” (p. 38)

Müller by contrast has no problem with jazz or the other pleasures of the night Berlin offers. As her romance with Severing winds down, she finds the city’s underground lesbian clubs increasingly alluring. Meanwhile, the Cocoa Kids are the toast of the town, but are not being compensated accordingly. Evidently, the music business is the same all over. However, they certainly enjoy Berlin’s relative tolerance, particularly their clarinetist, Kid Hogan, who becomes openly and intimately involved with a white Berliner.

Periodically, the Communists and National Socialists take to the streets for demonstrations complete with long fiery speeches. Unfortunately, Smoke can get a bit talky at such times, bogging down in its faithful representations of the era’s extremist rhetoric. While Smoke is unquestionably less critical of the Communist KPD, it seems to suggest their actions were often counter-productive.

Smoke is an ambitious project, encompassing a large cast of characters drawn from all strata of Weimar society. Yet the only sympathetic characters who take any sort of decisive action are the Cocoa Kids, from America. Having spent enough time in Chicago, they know how to get what is coming to them.

Lutes convincingly evokes Weimar Germany through his well-researched historical detail and sophisticated black and white art. In an interesting stylistic and editorial choice, Lutes refrains from showing swastikas, opting instead to put conspicuous holes in their place. (Given the publishing industry cliché that books with swastikas on the cover always sell, his publisher must have had decidedly mixed emotions about this decision.) Lutes also makes interesting use of the late 1920’s hot jazz both in character development and to establish the period feel.

Smoke is definitely a graphic novel for adults, addressing some mature themes and presupposing a basic understanding of the implications of the National Socialists’ rise to power. It is smartly written—definitely for the high-end of the graphic novel market.

Steve Wiest: Out of the New

Out of the New
By Steve Wiest
Arabesque Jazz

Before Julliard or NYU, the University of North Texas became the first North American school to offer a jazz degree. (This is another friendly reminder that the jazz world does not end at the banks of the Hudson River.) UNT graduates have since filled the ranks of many big bands, including Maynard Ferguson’s. As a longtime Ferguson sideman, trombonist Steve Wiest followed the reverse course when he accepted his recent faculty appointment there. He quickly brought further prestige to the jazz department soon thereafter, when he was nominated for an instrumental arranging Grammy in recognition of his work on Ferguson’s final release. Following up his swinging and surprisingly literate big band outing Excalibur, Wiest now looks to contemporary popular music for inspiration with Out of the New, which radically reconstructs new standards by the likes of Coldplay, Green Day, and Foo Fighters.

Wiest culled much of his new repertoire from his daughter’s suggestions, but also looked to his favorite pop album, Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales. Sting, who has often employed jazz musicians as sidemen, seems to appeal to those inclined to the jazz aesthetic. However, Wiest’s arrangement is hardly slavish. He kicks up the tempo considerably, recasting it as easy-going swinger, allowing ample solo space for the leader, guitarist Fred Hamilton, and Stefan Karlsson on piano.

Probably the best known tune will cause the most listener trepidation. Indeed, Wiest tackled Aerosmith and Run D.M.C.’s “Walk This Way” as a deliberate challenge. Fortunately, Wiest recombines the song’s DNA so drastically it is almost unrecognizable (in the best sense). In many ways, it is a counter-intuitive tune, full of agitated, nervous energy, yet featuring a bowed bass solos. In a particularly clever arrangement, Wiest’s long solo coda shifts gears, bringing in the gutbucket blues.

Despite the common instrument, it would be a mistake to compare New to the many bachelor pad pop song interpretations recorded by bop trombonist Kai Winding in the late 1960’s. While the Winding LPs still hold a certain charm, the arrangements were largely confined to melody statements, with little room left for improvisation. They also usually attempted to recreate the general vibe of the original tune. New takes exactly the opposite approach. For instance, in Wiest’s hands, the slacker angst of Green Day’s “Wake Me Up When September Ends” becomes an elegant waltz vehicle for the leader’s muted horn.

The topper though is Wiest’s alchemy on the Foo Fighters’ “In Your Honor,” transmuting the post-Grunge anthem into a golden bossa. Hamilton and Karlsson sound audibly inspired by the leader’s arrangement, taking eloquent solos of their own, before the entire group comes in for the go-for-broke final coda that is the only point in New where Wiest faithfully recreates his original source material. Though only five musicians, for a little over a minute they thrillingly channel stadium rock through their instruments.

Wiest has a big sound on trombone and shows remarkable facility with the bop lines. His arrangements are consistently inventive, even surprising. Though based on pop tunes, Wiest never dumbs down the music of New—quite the contrary. Still, if fans of the originals give it a spin, they will be impressed, as will more experienced jazz ears.

NYADFF: Where Are You Going Moshe?

Sharia law is not much fun, even for Muslims. Just ask the good citizens of the provincial Moroccan town of Bejjad. To keep their neighborhood bar open, they will resort to desperate measures, including protecting the town’s last Jewish resident in Hassan Benjelloun’s Where are You Going Moshe, which screened at the New York African Diaspora Film Festival.

It might not be as popular as Rick’s in Casablanca but the bar owned by the Frenchman Pierre does a good business. According to the local penal code, the sale of alcohol is expressly permitted to non-Muslims, so as long as there are Jews and Christians still living in Bejjad, the bar stays open. Unfortunately, the dying Pierre will just barely outlive the late King Mohammed V, who was considered the protector of Morocco’s Jewish population. With his death, the Jews of the newly independent state concluded it was time to get out while the getting was good. When the last one leaves Bejjad, the bar closes, which much distresses Mustapha, the prospective new owner.

However, there is one lone holdout. Though an ardent supporter of Israel, Shlomo’s heart and his music are in Bejjad, which serves Mustapha’s purposes. Rechristened Chez Shlomo, the last Jew in Bejjad holds court every night, playing his beloved oud, for his grateful Muslim friends. Of course, the religious authorities are less than thrilled with the relationship, leading to concerns for Shlomo’s safety.

Though very real, the film downplays Shlomo’s potential peril, preferring to keep the tone light. In fact, it is quite charming. It has much the same appeal of a film like The Band’s Visit, but might be even more commercial. Moshe takes the audience back to a gentler time, when Jews and Muslims could be friends and neighbors, without considering it any big deal. Obviously, that changed in Morocco. As a voiceover explains following the opening credits, the country’s Jewish population numbered over 300,000 in 1945, whereas now it is about one percent of that figure.

Actor and oud player Simon Elbaz brings true soul to the role of Shlomo. Like a graduating college student, he knows he has to move on, but cannot bear to leave the site of so many important memories. It is a richly human performance. Indeed, the entire ensemble cast credibly brings the town of Bejjad to life on the screen, under Benjelloun’s sensitive direction.

To his credit, Benjelloun treats his characters with respect, avoiding stereotypes altogether. It is encouraging to see such a movie produced in Morocco, but controversy surrounding the title somewhat tempers one’s optimism. Benjelloun’s first title, My Brother the Jew was evidently nixed by the Moroccan government. (Of course, our protagonist is named Shlomo. There is a Moshe, but he is a minor character, Bejjad’s barber, who leaves in the first wave of clandestine immigration. Maybe Moshe sounded less Jewish than Shlomo to the censors.)

Regardless of titles, Benjelloun’s film itself is wise and gentle. It tackles some tricky issues, but deftly maintains its light touch. Probably the best film of the festival, Moshe screened during the NYADFF’s special Night in Morocco. This year’s NYADFF concludes with special screenings today and Tuesday night.

Holland at MoMA: To Kill a Priest

The face of evil is usually all too prosaic. Such is the case in To Kill a Priest, the first of three fruitful collaborations (so far) between the Polish-born director Agnieszka Holland and American actor Ed Harris. Released in 1989, To Kill a Priest (trailer here) is also her most misunderstood film. It is indeed inspired by the assassination of the pro-Solidarity priest Jerzy Popieluszko, who really was kidnapped and murdered by members of the Polish Security Police with the winking approval of their superiors. However, the nature of Holland’s assassin, played by Harris, is often misinterpreted. Screening tomorrow as part of the MoMA’s Holland retrospective, it might be the film in her oeuvre most overdue for a critical re-examination.

Harris’s true-believing Captain Stefan leads the Fourth Division of the secret police charged with monitoring religious activity. His number one target is Father Alek, an earnest young Roman Catholic priest modeled on Popieluszko (and played by a stiffly miscast Christopher Lambert), who openly criticizes Communist oppression from the pulpit. Not taking kindly to such counter-revolutionary sedition, the Captain tries to trump up a criminal case against the Father. Failing that, he obtains tacit permission from his section Colonel to run a black bag operation to solve their problem once and for all.

Much is made of the secret policeman’s love for his family and heartfelt defense of socialist values, as if this ameliorates his guilt for killing Father Alek in cold blood. Yet, such thinking is deeply flawed. Theologically, evil is not considered the opposite of good, but rather its perversion. Harris’s character is evil for choosing ideology over humanity. It is an ideology that compels him to terrorize his own family, painting gallows and nooses on the door of his flat, while blaming neighbors sympathetic to Solidarity. He has deliberately poisoned his family with fear and paranoia, and murdered the innocent, rationalizing his crime as a means to insure: “that my son can grow up to be a good Communist.”

This might be Ed Harris’s best on-screen performance, capturing the nervous energy of a tightly wound, but all too ordinary monster. He is joined by a very talented cast, including Joss Ackland, Tim Roth, Joanne Whalley, Pete Postlethwaite, and David Suchet, many of whom were cast by Holland before there became well-known actors, proving her eye for prospective talent.

Priest is more deliberate than most political thrillers, but more action driven than typical arthouse fare. While the drab look of the film might have been true to the Communist reality, it gets to be a chore on the eyes. Still, Holland infuses many scenes with tremendous power, as when the confirmed atheist Captain teaches his Colonel how to cross himself. Arguably, the sum of Priest’s parts is greater than its whole, but that still offers much for viewers to chew on.

Like her mentor Andrzej Wajda, Holland was forced into a life of exile in the 1980’s. However, in recent years she has remained a world citizen of a filmmaker, directing American, French, and German productions. According to her Q&A with Harris on Wednesday night, her next project will be an HBO pilot about New Orleans musicians returning to the city. As for Harris, his next project will be a Peter Weir adaptation of The Long Walk, Polish Cavalry Officer Slavomir Rawicz’s memoir of his grueling escape from a Soviet Gulag, which would eventually make quite an interesting double feature with Priest. Holland’s first collaboration with the actor screens again this afternoon as her retrospective series continues at MoMA.

Adam Resurrected

There is an enormous difference between the humorous and the outrageous. Though based on a book by Yoram Kaniuk billed as a darkly comic novel of the Holocaust, there are few laughs in Paul Schrader’s Adam Resurrected. Opening today in New York, Resurrected is not about finding humor in the suffering of others, but rather understanding how one form of madness could produce another.

Adam Stein is a troubled soul who has problems with authority. He is made of similar stuff as Yossarian from Catch-22 and McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He is also a Holocaust survivor, whose survival came at a tremendous emotional cost. Haunted by his experiences, Stein is a reluctant patient in the Seizling Institute, a fictional mental sanitarium in Israel specializing in the treatment of Holocaust survivors.

Before the war, Stein was an entertainer, whose act blended elements of Victor Borge with Cirque de Soleil—perfect for Weimar Germany, but not so well received under National Socialism. Though not particularly religious, it was only a matter of time before he was deported to a concentration camp. Upon his arrival, he is recognized by a former audience member, the camp commandant, who spares Stein’s life for his own twisted enjoyment, forcing him to live as his pet dog.

In a narrow sense, Resurrected is a completely bloodless film that shows none of the actual killing in the camps. However, Stein’s dehumanizing scenes with the twisted Commandant Klein are profoundly disturbing, depicting human cruelty with visceral immediacy. As wild and ruckus as Stein might act years later, his problematic behavior bears no comparison with what was done to him. Though clearly provocative, there is no doubt about the film’s moral center, unlike the often baffling Reader.

Schrader’s direction is visually unsettling, often framing scenes from odd angles, but also sensitive enough to capture the tortured humanity of his characters. As Stein, Jeff Goldblum gives a very strong performance, dialing down his trademark manic delivery just enough to connect with the pathos of his character. Willem Dafoe is appropriately cold and severe as the evil Klein, while the venerable Derek Jacobi exudes compassion as Dr. Nathan Gross, the director of Seizling (but he is not given much heavy lifting to do as an actor). Some of the richest work in Resurrected actually comes from supporting players, like Joachim Krol and Idan Alterman, who play fellow patients in Seizling that suffered similar losses but lack the consolation of Stein’s flamboyant rebellion.

It seems Schrader de-emphasized the black comedy of the film’s original source novel. This was probably a wise decision. Although Resurrected is often uncomfortable to watch, it is always for the right reasons. While the film does not always work (as in the case of Stein’s relationship with a pretty young nurse, which defies credibility), it is darkly compelling throughout. Of the many Holocaust related films releasing this season, Resurrected takes the most risks, which it largely pulls off. It is also by far the most stylistically distinct film of the field. It opens today in New York at the Quad.

Holland at MoMA: Rough Treatment

Strictly speaking, is it even possible to be “paranoid” when living under an oppressive government? If you think the system is out to get you, eventually you’re always going to be right. Polish foreign correspondent Jerzy Michalowski comes to understand that only too well. When the protagonist of Andrzej Wajda’s Rough Treatment, written Agnieszka Holland, suddenly finds himself beset with personal and professional setbacks, it is surely no coincidence. Screening tonight as part of the MoMA’s Holland retrospective, Treatment (a.k.a. Without Anesthesia) dramatizes the Kafkaesque persecutions that were the modus operandi of the Communist Party during the Gierek years (1970-1980).

Michalowski enjoys being a public intellectual. Loosely inspired by Ryszard Kapuściński, Treatment’s protagonist has travelled the world, reporting extensively from Third World trouble spots. As played by Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Michalowski is gregarious and smugly satisfied with own success. If arrogance is too strong a term for him, he is certainly blessed with self-confidence of a magnitude that sets him up for a downfall worthy of Greek Tragedy.

Given his prestige, Michalowski is chosen as the first guest of new primetime interview show. Relishing the attention, he lets his enthusiasm carry him away, questioning how well “the mass media serves the purpose of truthful information.” This of course, is a bad career move.

After the interview no one will say anything to Michalowski directly, but subtle losses in privileges start to mount. Fully aware of the importance of each apparently minor slight, like being dropped from the circ list for American newsweeklies, the reporter protests to his network patron. However, he is unable to focus his undivided attention on his professional predicament, because of trouble on the home front. He is simultaneously challenging divorce proceedings initiated by his wife Ewa.

It is no coincidence that everything is happening at once to Michalowski. He is paying a price for his candor, slowly becoming professionally and socially persona non grata through a cold-blooded process Wajda himself closely observed when it was applied to his own professional acquaintances. Following Man of Marble during Wajda’s consciously political period of filmmaking, Treatment is clearly a protest film. Although Michalowski’s offending words are kept deliberately vague, there is no mistaking their thinly veiled meaning or the dire repercussions which they cause. On screening Treatment, it is clear why Holland and Wajda eventually found it necessary to seek employment outside of the Communist Era Poland.

Zapasiewicz gives a great performance, fully capturing both the bluster and pathos of Michalowski. Wajda and Holland depict his personal tragedy in cold, unsentimental terms. Far from hysterical, it was a lucid indictment of the then reality of Communist Poland. The state built him up, and then with little warning, the state tore him down. Although Michalowski and Treatment might be hard to love, they are unquestionably compelling to watch. A historically important film in both the Wajda and Holland canons, it screens tonight at MoMA.

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.