Steve McQueen: the Man and Le Mans

Steve McQueen helped finance and appeared in the Oscar-nominated On Any Sunday, which remains the preeminent motorcycle documentary to this day. He had something similar in mind for Le Mans. However, the rest of the cast and crew thought they were making a dramatic narrative. Those are what are generally termed creative differences. There were quite a few going on behind-the-scenes of the 1971 film. The difficult production process as well as the eternally cool actor’s passion for the sport are chronicled in John McKenna & Gabriel Clarke’ Steve McQueen: the Man and Le Mans (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Le Mans is the oldest endurance contest in car racing—twenty-four hours circling the picturesque French village. As McQueen envisioned it, Le Mans would give viewers a vivid, tactile sense of what it was like to drive the course at speeds over 200 miles per hour. Like Paul Newman (who finished second at Le Mans in 1979), McQueen was a legit racer in his own right, but for insurance reasons, he was not allowed to compete in the actual race. However, much of what driver Jonathan Williams’ camera car recorded during that year’s Le Mans was incorporated into the film. They had the authenticity nailed down, but they lacked a script.

It quickly becomes apparent from the rediscovered “making of” footage and interviews with the surviving participants, Le Mans could be considered something like McQueen’s Apocalypse Now. It ballooned way over budget and severed several of McQueen’s professional relationships. During the chaotic shoot, McQueen’s marriage to cabaret-musical theater performer Neile Adams also collapsed. However, causal fans might be most surprised to learn McQueen was already under stress following revelations the Manson Family had specifically targeted him. In fact, he was expected to join his friend Jason Sebring at Sharon Tate’s home on that horrific night.

For a film about the need for speed, Man and Le Mans is surprisingly calm and contemplative, even with McQueen’s son Chad doing his best to liven things up with attitude and enthusiasm. Still, McKenna & Clarke include plenty of ironic anecdotes and fully capture a holistic sense of the actor, the race, and the challenging film. They even score a pretty significant scoop, vouched for by McQueen’s former personal assistant Mario Iscovich (a great interview) and Louise Edlind, the sort of lead actress, who would later be elected to Sweden’s parliament.

It’s not Bullitt, but Man and Le Mans is still a good movie for auto enthusiasts. Arguably, McKenna & Clarke’s Zen-like approach works quite well, especially considering how their use of ghostly audio interviews recorded with McQueen shortly before his death gives the film such an elegiac vibe. If you like motor sports and classic Hollywood, Man and Le Mans would make a terrific triple feature with Winning: the Racing Life of Paul Newman and Weekend of aChampion, featuring Roman Polanski. All three are quite entertaining, even if you are more interested in the famous drivers than their fast cars. Recommended for McQueen fans, Steve McQueen: the Man and Le Mans opens this Friday (11/13) in New York, at the Village East.

NYKFF ’15: Wonderful Nightmare

You would think Heaven would have the best clerical help available, but it is apparently hard to find officious bureaucrats with good hearts. Just like they did in Here Comes Mr. Jordan and Heaven Can Wait, the celestial paper pushers have summoned a soul before its time. In this case, high-powered super attorney Yeon-woo still has a perfectly good body resting in a coma. If she merely takes the place of a woman whisked away one month early, she can be transferred back to her regular body and the life that goes with it. Of course, that will be plenty of time for her to forge emotional attachments in Kang Hyo-jin’s Wonderful Nightmare (trailer here), which closes the 2015 New York Korean Film Festival.

Yeon-woo grew up as an orphan when her sailor father was lost at sea and her mother died prematurely of a broken heart. She learned to rely only on herself. She now thrives as a cutthroat power lawyer, but concrete traffic barriers are just as solid for her as they are for the rest of us. Nevertheless, she was supposed to walk away from her accident—and she still will, once she has done a solid for Mr. Lee, the manager of Heaven’s processing center.

Yeon-woo’s instructions are clear. She is not to make any consequential changes to her host body’s life. Of course, the highbrow attorney chafes at their lower middle class lifestyle. She is also freaked out at the prospect of having a teenaged daughter and a son in kindergarten. At least her husband Sung-hwan is handsome, but his work as a civil service salaryman hardly impresses her. Eventually, you know exactly what starts to happen, despite Yeon-woo’s initially standoffish, nervous breakdown-like behavior. That means tough choices and sacrifices are inevitable.

Nightmare was a huge hit domestically, so you know you’re going to need a hanky. However, screenwriter Kim Je-yeong cranks up the sentimentality in rather clever ways. It is manipulative as all outdoors, but at least it calls back and closes loops in ways that enrich the narrative. We’re going to get played by Kang and Kim, but played well.

Uhm Jung-hwa is game enough in the ostensibly anti-diva diva role. In the 1990s, she was sort of like the Julia Roberts of Korea, but she is still at the top of her game. Obviously, you do not maintain that kind of clout by phoning it in. She also develops some appealingly easy-going chemistry with Song Seung-heon as her husband for the month. Rubber faced character actor Kim Sang-ho mostly keeps the shtick in check as Kim from above. However, the film’s real discovery is the charismatic Seo Shin-ae, who is perfectly cynical and sarcastic in a teen kind of way as her daughter Ha-neul.

You had better believe there are lessons to be learned in Nightmare. There is also a good deal of body-switching comedy that is more worthy of groans than laughs. Nevertheless, when the film throws down the melodramatic hammer, it somehow gets it all together and brings it home. In all truth, The Beauty Inside (screening today at NYKFF) is an even more emotionally satisfying romantic fantasy, but Kang closes strong. Recommended for fans of feel good, slightly supernatural rom-coms, Wonderful Nightmare screens this coming Wednesday (11/11) at the Museum of the Moving Image, as part of the 2015 NYKFF.

3RFF ’15: The Photographer

During the Cold War, the Soviets not only quartered an occupying military force within Poland, they also groomed a serial killer in their midst. At least the young psychopath was eventually packed off to Russia, where he would keep busy as the nation’s most prolific and elusive murderer. The story of Kola Sokolow is fictional, but the Soviet and Russian attitudes it depicts are profoundly true in Waldemar Krzystek’s The Photographer (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Three Rivers Film Festival (that’s in Pittsburgh).

Natasza Sinkina actually had the nerve to arrest a regime-friendly oligarch who deliberately mowed down a young woman with his SUV. As a result, she is sent in for a psych evaluation, but it goes surprisingly well. It turns out she was not talking to the shrink she had been referred to, but the notorious serial killer known as “The Photographer” (so dubbed because of the forensic photography markers he always mockingly leaves around his corpses), who had just butchered the real psychiatrist in the next room. Unfortunately, due to strange circumstances, Sinkina never really got a good look at the chameleon-like murderer, but FSB Major Lebiadkin has her assigned to his task force anyway. He wants to know why the Photographer spared her.

Sinkina quickly deduces the psychiatrist was not a random spree killing. The Photographer deliberately stalked him, because of the archival films he had just shown in class. Secretly shot by the KGB for potential blackmail purposes, they record a rather disturbed young boy’s visits to a less than enlightened doctor. Young Kola was a gifted mimic, who refused to use his own voice. It is also safe to say the son of an ambitious Soviet officer also had parental issues. Like many people deemed inconvenient by the Socialist state, the seven year Kola was soon shipped off to a dubious mental hospital. His current whereabouts are unknown, but he appears to be headed back to Poland for old times’ sake.

Although it is quickly apparent Sokolow is the killer, The Photographer is still a tense cat-and-mouse thriller, constantly complicated by the grimly absurdist realities of the old Soviet and not so new Russian systems. You could say the Photographer is truly a product of his Communist environment, but his parents’ refusal to provide any sort of nurturing did not help either. Consequently, the stakes in Photographer are greater than “merely” catching a ruthless serial killer.

Aleksandr Baluev is absolutely terrific as the world weary but still Machiavellian Lebiadkin. He makes even the most routine procedural scenes unpredictable. Tatiana Arntgolts is also an impressively intelligent, coolly collected presence as Sinkina. Indeed, Krzystek and co-screenwriter Krzsztof Kopka treat her character with rare respect. Just about the only time it seems she needs her male colleagues’ help, it is largely because they put her in jeopardy. Although we hardly see the grown-up Photographer, Ukrainian Andriej Kostash is all kinds of creepy as the young Kola seen in flashbacks, while Elena Babenko will make your blood run cold as his Mommie Dearest.

Throughout Photographer, Krzystek clearly equates the bloody micro horrors of the Photographer with the macro horrors of the Soviet era, without bashing us over the head with his points. As a result, it is quite distinct from any other serial killer film you have seen before. Unusually cerebral, but also gritty and gripping, The Photographer is recommended for mystery-thriller fans when it screens this Monday (11/9) and Wednesday (11/11), as part of the Three Rivers Film Festival.

NYKFF ’15: Trap

“Waxing the cat” is a publishing expression for the pretexts writers invent to do anything but finish the manuscripts they are expected to deliver imminently. Outside the business, it might sound like a euphemism for something else. Either use of the term would probably apply to screenwriter Jeong-min. He checked into a rustic mountain guesthouse to complete the screenplay he didn’t want to write, but quickly becomes obsessed with the owner’s Lolita-ish daughter in “Playboy” Bong Man-dae’s Trap (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 New York Korean Film Festival.

Jeong-min has just had a confidence-bruising break-up and an embarrassing career setback. Despite his bitterness at the way his angst-ridden screenplay was bastardized into something crassly commercial by a hipster director, he accepts an assignment to do something quite similar to a literary novel. His heart was not in it to begin with. Then he met Yu-mi, if that is indeed her name. It seems to depend when he asks. That is what she goes by at night, when she is infinitely more flirtatious. In contrast, she is mostly cold shouldersville during the day.

On his first night as a guest, Jeong-min immediately starts peeping on Yu-mi while she takes her bath. That always gets him hot and bothered. Before long, Yu-mi starts coming to his room for some heavy foreplay. However, they always stop short of full consummation and she never acknowledges their passion the next morning. Eventually, Jeong-min starts to wonder if he is having difficulty distinguishing dreams from reality or if Yu-mi is just toying with him—or both.

As you might deduce from his nickname, “Playboy” Bong has a reputation for sexually charged fare. Yet, Trap is not as creepy as it sounds, despite Jeong-min’s kinship with Humbert Humbert. Bong’s hothouse vibe is appropriately seductive and unsettling, but his pacing is surprisingly slow and deliberate. Frankly, the dawdling first act needs much tighter focus. Still, it is hard to get bored once the sexual obsession kicks in.

Han Je-in displays amazing range as Yu-mi, playing a spirited, no-nonsense persona by day and a scenery chewing femme fatale at night. Yoo Ha-joon is convincingly awkward as Jeong-min, but his passive presence leaves the film feeling rudderless at times. Bong’s big twist is not exactly shocking either, but at least he chronicles some engaging gamesmanship along the way.

As an eroticized thriller, Trap is better realizing the former rather than the latter. Regardless, it is a useful reminder how dangerous getting away from it all can be. It is certainly diverting but not nearly as entertaining as the adrenaline-infused period action thriller Assassination also screening tomorrow (11/7) at this year’s NYKFF. Nevertheless, Trap is not the sort of Korean film that gets picked up for American distribution, so intrigued viewers should make a point of seeing it when it screens at MoMI.

SDAFF ’15: Love & Peace

It is sort of like Gamera meets the Island of Misfit Toys. It is also a Christmas movie, because why wouldn’t it be? Pet turtles go kaiju in Love & Peace (trailer here), the glam-rock fable only Sion Sono could tell, which screens during the 2015 San Diego Asian Film Festival.

Ryoichi Suzuki once harbored punk rock dreams, but now he is a bullied salaryman with a balky intestinal track, laboring for a decidedly unhip music publisher. For some reason, his severely outsiderish co-worker Yuko Terashima might kind of like him, but Suzuki is incapable of acting on his massive crush. The only bright spot in his life is Pikadon, the baby turtle he co-dependently dotes on. However, when Suzuki’s nasty coworkers shame him into giving Pikadon the flush, it nearly crushes his spirit.

Down Pikadon goes, swooshing through the sewers to a subterranean shelter for cast-off pets and toys. There he enjoys the protection of a kindly tinkerer, who fixes them up and gives them the power of speech through his magic pills. However, the old man (gee, who does he sound like?), accidently gives him the wrong Matrix pill. Instead of the power of speech, Pikadon is now able to grant his former owner’s wishes, but each time he grows in proportion to the significance of the wish fulfilled. From there, things gets strange—and big.

L&P is sort of the Christmas movie David Bowie never made with Sid and Marty Krofft. It is a strangely earnest and innocent film, yet Sono still manages to make redemption slightly creepy. Be that as it may, if you like turtles, this is the film for you.

In fact, the old school practical Pikadon effects are wonderfully charming and nostalgic. Kumiko Asȏ is also impressively subtle and down to earth as Terashima, sort of like a post-punk version of Marcie in Peanuts. Toshiyuki Nishida similarly balances kindliness and anti-social weirdness quite adeptly as the old man. However, there is over-the-top and there is Hiroki Hasegawa’s Suzuki, or “Wild Ryo,” as he comes to be known, who is equally annoying during his put-upon doormat days as he is as an egotistical sell-out rocker.

Regardless, you come to a Sion Sono film for some spectacle and he delivers accordingly. Although they are radically different films, L&P is much like Tokyo Tribe in that both are dazzlingly accomplished feats of art direction. Mise-en-scéne doesn’t get much more insane than his recent films. He certainly isn’t repeating himself either. Sono even proves he is quite the songwriter, penning tunes that are equally catchy performed as grungy protest anthems or cheesy power ballads. For Sono’s fans it is his latest must-see film, while for general cult film enthusiasts, it could become a Christmas tradition, along with Santa Stinks and Black Christmas. Recommended for kaiju connoisseurs as well, Love & Peace screens this coming Monday (11/11) and Wednesday (11/11), as part of this year’s SDAFF.

Show Pieces: Alan Moore Turns Northampton into Nighthampton

Alan Moore wanted to assure the world he was not the mystery clown stalking the streets of Northampton, so that everyone would know he is not completely nuts. The occultist-political extremist graphic novelist is a lifelong Northampton resident, so it was hardly surprising when people started to speculate. James “Jimmy” Mitchum will not be leaving Northampton (or Nighthampton, as he will soon know it) anytime soon yet either. That is because the old cad is dead, but he does not realize it yet. Unfortunately, there are even worse revelations in store for Mitchum in Show Pieces (trailer here), a feature-length collection of interconnected short films scripted by Moore and directed by Mitch Jenkins, which releases today on a deluxe DVD set in the UK.

So, what the heck is this, again? Show Pieces the feature film collected three sequential shorts, featuring the same cast of characters. It had some decent fest play, as one would expect, given Moore’ cult following (and cult really is the right word). This would be the version we have seen. The DVD release is augmented with two additional short films that plug gaps in the narrative.

Show Pieces the feature and DVD both start with Act of Faith, easily the most problematic of the original three. This will be Faith Harrington’s last night on Earth, but the fate Moore has in store for her feels viciously misogynistic. He seems to invite us to conclude she had it coming. Nevertheless, it is all quite well played by Siobhan Hewlitt.

Although Show Pieces is all about the impossibility of redemption, it somewhat redeems itself with Jimmy’s End. Experiencing some sort of amnesia, Mitchum walks into a strange bar called St. James End. That is nothing new for him, but he won’t be walking out of this one. Slow on the uptake, he has yet to figure out this establishment is a sort of purgatory, or worse. However, he readily agrees to help Harrington, who has become somewhat accustomed to the place, as well as the creepy attentions of the co-manager.

In the concluding His Heavy Heart, we learn that sort of chivalry is out of character for Mitchum. It turns out it is time for his reckoning—and it will not be pretty. Desperate to avoid his grisly comeuppance, Mitchum tries to cut a deal, but he will soon learn what sort of Faustian bargains are available to those who have already forfeited their souls.

Show Pieces is an uneven but intriguing urban fantasy netherworld, sort of like a Twin Peaks film nearly entirely set within the Black Lodge. Of the two additional shorts, Upon Reflection, chronicling Harrington’s immediate arrival at the eerie club, sounds like it would smooth out some of the narrative rough patches that are rather conspicuous in the festival cut. On the other hand, A Professional Relationship, focusing on the testy partnership of the club’s managers looks a bit tangential on paper, but it could certainly be entertaining.

With its creepy clowns and gory rituals, Show Pieces is not for the faint of heart. However, it is a terrific showcase for Darrell D’Silva, one of the most egregiously unsung actors working steadily today. Jenkins and the cinematographers for the St. James End sequences, Trevor Forrest and Andrei Austin, make everything glow in a nocturnal neon noir kind of way. Some parts are definitely distasteful, but it still leaves viewers intrigued enough to speculate where Moore and Jenkins might take the story next. Whether it is worth ordering as an import is a question on;y Moore fanatics can only answer for themselves. Casual viewers should wait for a reasonably price domestic edition to be released, or just not worry about it. For diehards, the Show Pieces boxed set is now on-sale in the UK.

NYKFF ’15: Madonna

There is a horrific organ harvesting scheme afoot in this swanky hospital, but the vibe is more Theodore Dreiser than Robin Cook. Everyone more-or-less knows the ruthless son of the hospital chairman will have the heart literally ripped out of a pregnant comatose street walker, killing both mother and child in the process. Sadly, this is just another injustice to befall the young woman, as a recently hired nurse’s aide learns during the course of her case history research in Shin Su-won’s Madonna (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 New York Korean Film Festival.

Moon Hye-rim is in desperate financial straits, but there is no shortage of money around her while she is on the job. She works in the exclusive VIP ward of an elite, well-funded hospital. Chairman Kim Cheol-oh is by far their most important patient. Clearly, his ventilator dependent body has had enough of life, but his son Kim Sang-woo will go to any length to prolong his miserable existence, primarily for financial reasons. Once the chairman dies, his fortune will be donated to charity, leaving virtually nothing for the entitled son. However, the junior Kim also seems to take sadistic satisfaction from his father’s miserable state.

Having exhausted their Chinese suppliers, Kim intends to plunder the heart of Jang Mi-na, a very pregnant young prostitute, nick-named Madonna because of her full figure. Frankly, it is questionable just how brain dead she truly is. However, everyone understands perfectly well the donation procedure will kill the baby. Moon agrees to track down a next of kin to sign Kim’s dubious consent forms, but in the process, she learns the magnitude of the tribulations endured by Jang.

Madonna is probably the most thoroughly and unremittingly heartbreaking film since Tetsuya Nakashima’s utterly draining Memories of Matsuko. Both films completely pummel the audience from start to finish, giving only us the leanest, subtlest payoffs imaginable. Yet, both are profoundly moral films. Yes, on a surface level, Madonna is a scathing indictment of class privilege and unchecked male sexual predation. Yet, it cuts far deeper, addressing basic human issues of empathy and exploitation.

In her feature debut, Kwon So-hyun is absolutely extraordinary as poor Jang. It is a harrowing performance, forcing her to endure all manner of physical and verbal abuse, but she is utterly convincing every step of the way. She never resorts to cheap histrionics, earning tears fair and square. Indeed, if she does not have you at least a little choked-up before it is all said and done, than you’re pretty suspect as a human being.

Although it initially appears to be the lead role, the ultra-reserved Moon is actually a rather thankless part. However, Seo Young-hee still quite compellingly portrays the slow awakening of her conscience. In contrast, the large supporting cast of exploiters and indifferent bystanders are credible enough, but largely pedestrian compared to the remarkable Kwon.

Shin will totally put you through the wringer, but it is worth it to witness the arrival an enormous young talent. Madonna should absolutely be the start of something big for Kwon So-hyun. Highly recommended for those who appreciate socially charged drama with a pinch of a noir thriller thrown in for garnish, Madonna screens this Sunday (11/8) at the Museum of the Moving Image, as part of the 2015 NYKFF.

Friends and Romans, Lend Me Your Type Casting

The great Charlton Heston played Mark Antony twice, in little seen film adaptations of Julius Caesar produced twenty years apart. That is all well and good, but Nick DeMaio is more interested in the 1953 Joe Mankiewicz version starring Marlon Brando. Not surprisingly, Brando is an icon for the blue collar Italian American actor, who specializes in extra work on mafia movies. DeMaio is determined to produce and star in a staging of Julius Caesar to broaden his acting horizons. However, along with his gangster extra cronies, he will unknowingly cast a real life Mafia boss and an undercover Fed in his very Italian-American Caesar. Complications will ensue, as they do, in Christopher Kublan’s Friends and Romans (trailer here), which opens this Friday in Jersey and Long Island.

DeMaio was in Godfather III, Goodfellas, and The Sopranos, but he only had one slightly embarrassing speaking part. Nevertheless, the movie extra work has nicely supplemented his income as a wholesale produce deliveryman. Still, the broad ethnic stock characters are starting to big him. He would like to be taken seriously as an actor, so he latches onto Shakespeare’s Caesar as the vehicle to make it happen.

As luck would have it, he rents the abandoned theater where real life mobster and aspiring actor Joey “Bananas” Bongano is hiding out. Even though he is wanted for murdering a Broadway producer (seriously, that is probably just a misdemeanor), he can’t stop himself from auditioning for DeMaio. FBI agent “Paulie” Goldberg also successfully auditions, suspecting DeMaio and his cronies are involved with the secretive Bongano, whose features and thespian pseudonym remain unknown to the Feds.

Granted, FAR is a bit sitcom-ish, but it is immensely likable. Kublan and co-screenwriters Michael Rispoli and Gregg Greenberg also incorporate a number of clever references to Shakespeare’s original text. Frankly, it is a much smarter film than one might expect, even though there are no shortage of jokes derived from Italian stereotypes.

As DeMaio, Rispoli balances goofiness and earnestness rather well, never overindulging in either. We just so get exactly who he is supposed to be, but he still wears well over the course of time, like a broken-in pair of shoes. Annabella Sciorra is grossly underemployed as Angela DeMaio, but at least she develops some pleasant chemistry with Rispoli. It is also nice to see her character support her husband’s eccentric ambitions right from the start, rather than merely serve as an emasculating dream-deflator.

Almost by necessity, most of the gangster-looking supporting cast is serving up shtick of some kind, but Paul Ben-Victor’s shtick is funnier and flashier than the rest as Dennis Socio, DeMaio’s limo driving buddy, who agreed to direct because he once did a limited run of Tony & Tina’s Wedding on the Island.

FAR is not exactly getting over-distributed this weekend, but it is destined to become a word of mouth sleeper hit on DVD and VOD. It gently spoofs gangster movie conventions, before tying everything up in a big “feel good” bow. You can be snarky all you want, but it works at the audience level. Recommended for fans of backstage comedies, the entertaining, low stress Friends and Romans opens this Friday (11/6) in the Tri-State Area.

NYKFF ’15: Confession

There are not a lot of 1980s style video arcades left in the world. Unfortunately, one of the few remaining in Seoul is about to go up in smoke. What starts as a dodgy scheme quickly turns tragic in Lee Do-yun’s Confession (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 New York Korean Film Festival.

While playing hooky from their middle school graduation, In-chul, Hyun-tae, and Min-soo nearly died during a mishap in the mountains. In-chul was able to return with help just in the nick of time, but for a while it looked like he had abandoned his chums. As grown-ups, the trio are still inseparable. Although Hyun-tae has married, the slick In-chul and slow-witted Min-soo treat his lovely deaf wife Mi-ran and loving daughter Yu-ri like family.

Oddly, In-chul is closer to Hyun-tae’s mother than her own son. Although the details are vague, Hyun-tae, the squeaky clean fire-fighter resents her dubious dealings, whereas In-chul can relate only too well. Naturally, when she hatches a plan to torch the subterranean arcade for the insurance money, In-chul is the one she calls. After much browbeating, Min-soo agrees to help his sleazy pal. Inevitably, things go spectacularly sour, leading to the accidental death of Hyun-tae’s mother (fire in a basement dive is just an awfully bad idea). Soon, Hyun-tae is hunting the perpetrators, utterly oblivious to his friends’ involvement, while a humorless insurance investigator suspects all three amigos.

As noir morality plays go, Confession makes A Simple Plan look upbeat and whimsical. Accidentally killing your pal’s mom is pretty darned Biblical stuff. In fact, screenwriter-director Lee gives the deceit and betrayals genuinely tragic heft. The way he calls back to their boyhood misadventure is particularly heavy, almost Shakespearean.

Those elegiac highs help smooth over some of the rough patches, including Hyun-tae’s profound lack of intuition. That the only sympathetic grown woman in the film never has any spoken dialogue is also slightly problematic. Nevertheless, Lee is devilishly adroit at dropping one darned thing after another on In-chul. Ju Ji-hoon plays the increasingly desperate In-chul to the hilt, with just a touch of Nic Cage mania, but not too excessively much. Ji Sung is perfectly fine as the ploddingly righteous Hyun-tae. However, the dignity and reserve of Lee Kwang-soo’s work as the potentially offensive Min-soo really saves the film’s bacon.

Confession never breaks any new cinematic ground, but it sure closes strong. If you enjoy noirs served with grit and angst than you will find it to be a rich feast. Recommended for thriller fans, Confession screens this Saturday (11/7) at the Museum of the Moving Image, as part of the 2015 NYKFF.

NYKFF ’15: The Shameless

It is hard for a femme fatale to age gracefully. Kim Hye-kyung might look like she is, but the hostess is having a particularly tough time of it, due to the constant harassment of loan sharks and mobbed-up businessmen. She fell for the wrong guy and never stopped falling. Undercover Detective Jung Jae-gon is probably an even more wrong guy, but he manages to insinuate himself into Kim’s life just the same in Oh Seung-uk’s The Shameless (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 New York Korean Film Festival.

Once, Kim was the kept woman of a high-ranking VP at Jay Investments. Unfortunately, there were some betrayals and a number of bad investments. The upshot is Kim now owes hundreds of thousands to her creditors, including Jay Investments, but has little hope of paying off her debt through her toil in a hostess bar. To make matters worse, whenever Park Joon-kil comes calling, he usually takes on more debt in her name. Yet, she can never deny him.

Det. Jung is technically a cop, but his division is about as rogue as it gets. He still takes orders from his mentor, even though the senior officer was forced to resign by a corruption probe. Jung’s latest assignment is to find Park and cripple him in retribution for killing a rival mob associate. Knowing Park always returns to sponge off Kim, Jung tries to get close to her, posing as her lover’s former cellmate. Despite their frosty initial meeting, Kim soon hires Jung to be the club’s muscle. As they spend time together, some major sexual tension develops. There might even be some emotional substance to it, deep down somewhere in their malfunctioning psyches.

You can call Shameless a noir or a melodrama, but either way, Jeon Do-yeon’s performance as Kim is absolutely staggering. To get a sense of the impact of her work, try breaking ten boards with your head. They both sting like Hell, but the results will amaze you. This is the kind of meaty, complicated role Hollywood actresses over thirty-five would commit blue murder to land. Jeon nails it with a perfectly modulated, harrowingly realistic feat of screen acting.

Even the gruffly charismatic Park Sung-woong’s Park Joon-ki is swimming in Jeon’s wake. Nevertheless, Kim Nam-gil deserves credit for keeping up to any extent as the icily reserved, borderline sociopathic Det. Jung. However, Kim Min-jae makes a memorably odious villain in the person of Min Young-ki, who apparently works as Jay Investment’s chief liaison to gangsters and crooked coppers.

Jeon took best actress honors at Cannes for Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine, which was also pretty impressive, but her work as Kim Hye-kyung truly deserves a standing ovation. Even though it has been fifteen years since he last helmed a feature, Oh also definitely holds his end up. His striking sense of visual composition and blighted urban backdrops further elevate Shameless above and beyond the realm of conventional gangster melodrama. Highly recommended, The Shameless screens this Saturday (11/7) at the Museum of the Moving Image, as part of the 2015 NYKFF.

NYKFF ’15: Office

There is no reason a place of business should have to be a zone of self-esteem coddling currently termed a “safe place.” After all, grown-ups are working there. However, the Cheil Corporation is a whole different matter. There is nothing safe about this corporate headquarters, as proved by the rising body count. One hard-working but unpopular intern is at the center of the lethal mystery in Hong Won-chan’s Office (trailer here), which screens as the opening night selection of the 2015 New York Korean Film Festival.

One fateful night, Kim Byeong-gook came home, bludgeoned his family to death with a hammer and then returned to the office, where he apparently disappeared. CCTV has him entering but not exiting, so presumably he is haunting the building, like a salaryman Phantom of the Opera. This rather unnerves his superiors at Cheil, who treated him like dirt. Frankly, Lee Mi-rae was the only employee he was on friendly terms with, except she is not really an employee. She is still an intern, desperate to be hired full-time.

Unfortunately, being an earnest plugger like Kim, she just does not fit in with Cheil’s cutthroat corporate culture. Still, they ought to be a little nicer, considering the embarrassing information they are counting on her to keep secret from the investigating detective, Choi Jung-hoon. The subsequent dubious suicide of the office suck-up tipped for promotion will also presumably leave them greatly short-staffed. However, the sales director, Kim Sang-gyu seems to think he can make up ground through threats and emotional abuse.

At times, it is unclear whether Office (absolutely not to be confused with the Johnnie To musical of the same title) is meant to be a straight-up murder-mystery thriller or an unusually subtle horror film, but that ambiguity is actually pretty cool. The Jones & Sunn firm of To’s film might be problematic in some ways, but it has nothing on Chiel. Frankly, it makes both Office sitcoms and Mike Judge’s Office Space looks like lyric odes to cubicle life.

Probably best known to American audiences for her youthful turn in The Host and her adult breakout work in Snowpiercer, Ko Ah-sung is pretty darn incredible as the socially awkward Lee. We feel for her deeply, even as we suspect there is something funny about her. Likewise, Bae Sung-woo humanizes the ostensibly monstrous Kim Byeong-gook, just like Erik the Phantom. Ryoo Hyoun-kyoung also loses her composure rather spectacularly as shrewish but increasingly rattled Assistant Manager Hong Ji-sun, while the always reliable Park Sung-woong rock-solidly anchors the film as the hardnosed Det. Choi.

Whether you see it coming or not, Office is still a slick and gripping dark thriller. Hong and cinematographer Park Yong-soo capture the ominous look of florescent lighting and the cold, severe ambience of bullpen style cubes. Yet, with its one central setting and assortment of multiple suspects and potential victims, it is also refreshingly old school in its approach, like a white collar Deathtrap. Highly recommended for fans of suspense-related genres, Office screens this Friday (11/6) at the Museum of the Moving Image, as part of the 2015 NYKFF.

Mexico Barbaro: Eight Filmmakers, One Country

The country that gave us the Day of the Dead, Narcoterrorism, and Lucho Libre wrestling must have some pretty strange stuff rattling around in its national subconscious. However, perhaps as a sign of violent times, most of the monsters portrayed in a new Mexican horror movie anthology are of a decidedly human variety. The muck-raking John Kenneth Turner would probably be horrified by the world depicted in the omnibus film bearing the name of his 1908 pre-revolutionary expose, but horror fans will be more troubled by the inconsistency of Mexico Barbaro (trailer here), which releases today on DVD and VOD.

There is no effort to link the eight stories, beyond their south of the border setting, so each can easily be considered discretely. In a way, Laurette Flores Bornn’s Tzompantli is the most frustrating, because it starts with enormous promise. Speaking from the vantage point of decades gone by, a crusty old journalist remembers the story that scarred him for life. Through an informant, he uncovered information linking a drug cartel to a series of ritual murders intended to be sacrifices to the ancient Aztec gods. It is especially unnerving, because it probably more or less true to life. Unfortunately, Bornn ends it prematurely, cutting down what could easily sustain feature-length treatment into a mere sketch.

Edgar Nito’s Jaral de Berrios might be the strongest installment and also the most distinctly Mexican in flavor. A bandit and his wounded partner take refuge in a notoriously haunted villa, with predictably macabre results. It is a wildly cinematic location, beautifully shot by cinematographer Juan Pablo Ramírez.

Aaron Soto’s Drain is possibly the most defiantly insane installment. Whether it is a story of supernatural terror or psychotic madness is anyone’s guess, but the takeaway is clear: if you find a suspicious looking joint near a dead body, don’t smoke it.

Isaac Ezban is one of the two marquee names attached to Barbaro, but his That Precious Thing is likely to be the most divisive constituent film. Frankly, the things that befall the young woman and her older, morally suspect lover are absolutely appalling, but the wildly grotesque creature effects almost turn it into a gross-out cartoon. This one is not for the faint of heart or easily offended.

Lex Ortega’s It’s What’s Inside That Matters is probably even more disturbing, but it offers no black humor the soften the blow. Frankly, it is way, way too gory, considering the victim in question is a young child.

Jorge Michel Grau’s Dolls is also rather tough stuff, but at least the We Are What We Are helmer executes it with some style. Still, it is not exactly what you would call a fun film. Next, Ulises Guzman reconnects with folkloric subject matter in Seven Times Seven, but despite the short format, his narrative still manages to get confused and murky.

At least Barbaro ends on a high note with Gigi Saul Guerrero’s Day of the Dead. In strip club that will remind some viewers of the establishment in From Dusk Till Dawn, Guerrero manages to pull off a nifty spot of misdirection. In this case, the resulting carnage is rather satisfying.

There are some good segments in Barbaro, but also some real ugliness. It is the kind of film that the fast-forward button can help make more palatable. The contributions of Nito and Guerrero are definitely worth seeing separately if the opportunity arises, but the whole ball of wax is only recommended for hardcore horror fans when Mexico Barbaro releases today on DVD, from Dark Sky Films.

Charlie’s Farm: Ozploitation at Its Most Exploitative

Some places are just evil. The old Wilson farm is like that. Yet, due to the notoriety of the Wilson family’s serial killing, torture, and cannibalism, hipster backpackers constantly come to gawk at the scene of their crimes. They are never disappointed by the spot—unfortunately. More meat for the grinder will soon arrive in Chris Sun’s Charlie’s Farm (trailer here), a nasty piece of gristle that releases today on DVD.

Jason and his American expat girlfriend Natasha are bored, so they decide to light off on a road trip with their pals, Facebook hottie Melanie and “Donkey” (don’t ask). Rather than the beach, they settle on an outback excursion, but Jason and Donkey secretly agree camping out at the Wilson farm will be a laugh riot. When they finally come clean, Natasha thinks they are nuts, but Melanie appreciates the ill-conceived irony.

However, the locals do their best to dissuade the stupid idiots from their plan, especially Old Blue, the mean codger who was there when the villagers finally took the pitchforks to the Wilsons. They got the sicko Wilson parents, but the mentally challenged son escaped. Everyone assumed he would quickly perish in the outback, but instead he grew up to be gargantuan. Of course, he is still out there, carving up hikers and tourists for his own sadistic sport.

Much like the savage Wolf Creek franchise, Farm is unabashedly brutal and gory. At times, it makes you feel unclean for watching. Yet, it is nearly redeemed single handedly by Kane Hodder, who steals the film lock, stock, and barrel as Tony Stewart, a former boxer who sets out to rescue his younger, dumber pals. It is ironic Hodder is best known for wearing the Jason Voorhees hockey mask in the Friday the 13^th films, because he is a genuinely charismatic actor (for further proof, check out the infinitely superior Digging Up the Marrow). When he faces off against Charlie Wilson (not the one played by Tom Hanks), the movie approaches awesome territory.

As Natasha, Tara Reid is kind of not bad, but she still looks weird. Allira Jacques also shows some attitude and energy as Melanie, but the shtick of Sam Coward’s Donkey is just painful. Serious horror fans will also appreciate Bill Moseley totally creeping out the joint as old man Miller in the flashback scenes, but the cruelty they depict is just no fun to watch.

It is frustrating to see flashes of inspiration and even wit when Hodder is on-screen, but then witness the rest of the film descend into genre bottom-feeding. It might hold nostalgic appeal for old school Ozploitation enthusiasts, but the stakes have gone up since the days of Razorback. As a horror film in its own right, it simply isn’t very good. Hodder fans should catch up with Marrow instead. Regardless, for the hardcore, Charlie’s Farm is now available on DVD.

Scary Movies 9: Frankenstein

In a world of human embryo cloning and Dolly the Sheep, Mary Shelley’s Modern Prometheus is no longer as outlandish as we would want it to be. Arguably, the time is ripe for contemporary take on the legend and Bernard Rose, the prolific modernizer of Tolstoy and director of Candyman, is a logical choice to do it. Transporting the monster from Geneva to Los Angeles, Rose takes intriguing liberties while remaining oddly faithful to the iconic tale in Frankenstein (trailer here), which screens as part of the closing night tribute to the British filmmaker at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Scary Movies 9.

This might shock you, but the wealthy Dr. Viktor Frankenstein and his wife Elizabeth have been trying to create a living human being (with the help of their senior staff scientist, Dr. Pretorius). Initially, they believe their latest attempt is the breakthrough they have hoped for, until cancerous lesions start appearing all over his formerly pristine body. Despite his bonding with Elizabeth Frankenstein like an infant with his mother, both Frankensteins agree to euthanize their creation for ostensive reasons of mercy. However, the increasingly disfigured creature just will not die.

Escaping from the compound, the wretched soul accepts the wider world’s name for him: “Monster.” He soon has a nasty run-in with LA’s Finest, but falls in with a homeless blind bluesman. The protective Eddie is the first person to truly treat him like a human being. Unfortunately, Eddie’s misunderstanding of the extent and nature of Monster’s blighted appearance will lead to compounded tragedy.

Rose riffs on Shelley and the original Universal films in clever ways, honoring the spirit of both. He follows the same general trajectory of his Frankenstein predecessors, but he does so within a distinctly gritty, naturalistic urban environment. The grey concrete labs and scuzzy welfare hotels are fitting backdrops for the ultimate genre morality tale, while also presumably accommodating his budget constraints.

Danny Huston (a regular Rose repertory player) is absolutely perfect as the arrogant Dr. Frankenstein and Carrie-Anne Moss plays off him well as the deceptively warm and supposedly empathetic Elizabeth Frankenstein. Despite his small stature, Xavier Samuel is still impressively expressive as the largely inarticulate Monster, especially considering the escalating layers of makeup that masks him for most of the film. However, it is Tony Todd, the Candyman himself, who really anchors the film with tragic gravitas as blind Eddie.

Rose somewhat misfires with a rogue cop subplot that seems calculated give the film further zeitgeisty urgency, but it comes across as a heavy-handed distraction. In fact, a film depicting the creation of life through, amongst other things, the use of 3D printing, without regard for the ethical implications, is already pretty timely. Regardless, Rose’s mise-en-scéne is austerely stylish and often quite visually striking. Altogether, the film is quite in keeping with cautionary essence of the original novel, while Randy Westgate’s ghoulish make-up design gives this Monster his own distinctive look. Recommended for Frankenstein fans, Rose’s Frankenstein screens this Thursday (11/5) at the Walter Reade, as part of Scary Movies 9.

What Our Fathers Did: Wrestling with the National Socialist Legacy

Most Biblical scholars interpret passages regarding the iniquities of the father being visited upon his sons and grandfathers to mean a patriarch’s lack of sound moral guidance will potentially allow his progeny to follow his bad examples and repeat his mistakes. This is a most pertinent question for Horst von Wächter, the massively in-denial son of a high ranking National Socialist official. In contrast, Niklas Frank, the son of the senior von Wächter’s direct superior, has no trouble condemning his father’s crimes against humanity. International law expert Philippe Sands will revisit the sins of the fathers with their two very different sons in David Evans’ What Our Fathers Did: a Nazi Legacy (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

As one of the foremost experts on the Nuremberg military tribunals, Sands was quite familiar with Hans Frank, who was tried and executed for crimes against humanity. They also indicted Otto von Wächter, but the sheltered former governor of Krakow and Galicia escaped prosecution, until succumbing to kidney disease in 1949. However, the absence of a legal conviction looms large in Horst von Wächter’s revisionist view of his father.

Despite their radical differences, Niklas Frank and Horst von Wächter are sort of friends. One can imagine they share a bond of mutual early experiences few of their peers could relate to. However, von Wächter’s childhood was clearly a happy one, whereas Frank’s was not. As a result, von Wächter is emotionally invested in protecting his stilted memory of a loving father, while Frank feels no such loyalty to the absentee autocrat he so clearly resents. That is all understandable to an extent, but von Wächter becomes willfully pedantic and legalistic when confronted with evidence of his father’s culpability. It seems nothing short of a full confession, signed and notarized in triplicate will satisfy his standards of proof.

This is where the drama comes in—and it is considerable. Chafing at his obstinacy, Sands and Frank become increasingly frustrated with von Wächter’s flimsy prevarications. Honestly, it is downright painful to watch his dissembling during a joint appearance with Frank and Sands, following the publication of the latter’s Financial Times article that first started their sometimes contentious association. When Frank warns Sands his perhaps former friend might be susceptible to Neo-National Socialist recruitment, it is a heavy movement. Indeed, there are staggering scenes like that throughout WOFD, in which von Wächter’s hairsplitting fiddlesticks are routinely contrasted with Frank’s unforgiving indictments.

In a way, the film is like a highly personal analogue to the Irving v. Penguin Books case, in which the defense proved Hitler was indeed aware of the systematic mass murder of Jews and Holocaust denier David Irving knowingly misrepresented facts to suggest otherwise. It is a documentary with real intellectual heft, but there are very personal stakes involved. It is a fascinating and brutally honest, squirm inducing film. Recommended for general doc audiences, What Our Fathers Did opens this Friday (11/6) in New York, at the Lincoln Plaza.

Sembene! The Father of African Cinema

For a while, Ousmane Sembene was a Senegalese B. Traven. While working on the docks in Marseilles, the expat became of a self-taught novelist and radicalized Communist Party member. Although his early films reflect those class prejudices, Sembene would become the leading critic of the Islamization of Africa. His cinematic legacy is particularly challenging to fully digest and analyze, so Samba Gadjigo & Jason Silverman mostly hit his career high notes in Sembene! (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Having long-admired Sembene’s films and novels, Gadjigo eventually became his assistant, protégé, companion, and spiritual son. He assisted the auteur on his later pictures and now oversees efforts to restore and promote Sembene’s oeuvre. Much like Quincey Troupe’s work as Miles Davis’s biographer, Gadjigo’s story will become fundamentally intertwined with Sembene’s, at least while he is doing the telling. While that might not make for the most objective documentary filmmaking, it gives viewers an emotionally resonant relationship to grab hold of.

However, when it comes to surveying Sembene’s work, Sembene! (with the Broadway-style exclamation point) mostly relies on film clips and archival interview footage, proceeding forward in an orderly film-by-film manner. Still, what we see of Ceddo is undeniably intriguing. Chronicling a village’s forced conversion to Islam, it was duly banned by Socialist president Leopold Senghor’s government. Decades later, it is easy to see it as an eerie predecessor to Abderrahmane Sissako’s devastating Timbuktu. If all that is not interesting enough, it also has an original score performed by Manu Dibango.

Gadjigo & Silverman probably devote the most time to Sembene’s final film, Moolaadé, which makes sense considering Gadjigo helmed the “making of” documentary. It was also one of Sembene’s most controversial works, directly attacking the practice of female genital mutilation. The mere fact he was helming an eventual Cannes award-winner while losing his eye-sight is also rather dramatic.

Throughout the documentary, Gadjigo & Silverman emphasize Sembene’s stature as a pan-African icon, but hint at his increasing frustration with the corruption and brutality of the newly independent African states. Yet, they are obviously treading on eggshells whenever addressing this tension. As a result, Sembene! often feels too sanitized and not nearly messy enough. Still, there are not a lot of feature length profiles of Sembene out there. Gadjigo & Silverman give viewers a solid survey and leave them wanting to see more, which probably constitutes a mission accomplished, given their plans to restore and re-release Sembene’s work. Recommended for Sembene’s fans and film snobs looking for the Cliff Notes on the Senegalese filmmaker, Sembene! opens this Friday (11/6) in New York, at the Lincoln Plaza.

Doc Stories: Winter on Fire

Until the Yanukovych’s regime’s brutal assault on the peaceful Maidan protests, St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery had not rung all its bells simultaneously since the Mongol invasion of 1240. Of course, this fact comes with an asterisk. Technically, the Soviets destroyed the Kiev landmark in the 1930s, but it was subsequently rebuild following independence. Appropriately, the working Orthodox monastery played a significant role in the events that unfolded on and around Maidan Square. Russian-Israeli filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky captured history in real time, documenting step by step how the demonstrations evolved into a revolution. Rightfully considered an Oscar contender, Afineevsky’s Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom (trailer here) screens during the San Francisco Film Society’s Doc Stories—and also streams on Netflix.

The Euro-Maidan movement and its supporters have been well documented by filmmakers such as Sergei Loznitsa, Andrew Tkach, and Dmitriy Khavin, yet the Western media still gives credence to Soviet propaganda claiming the popular uprising was merely a prolonged tantrum thrown by skinheads and neo-National Socialists. However, with the exposure granted by Netflix’s platform, those lies should finally be permanently put to rest.

In fact, one of the big “scoops” of Afineevsky’s film is the extent to which Kiev’s Major Orthodox Archbishop, Catholic Archbishop, and Islamic Mufti of Religious Administration supported the Maidan activists. Their early blessings (literally) were important, but it is impossible to overstate the leadership of His Eminence, Agapit, the Vicar of St. Michael’s and Bishop of Vyshgorod. It was he who approved the tolling of the bells and gave shelter to protestors fleeing from steel truncheon-wielding of agents of the Berkut, Yanukovych’s personal shock troops, who were truly the barbarians at the gates.

Unlike Loznitsa’s film, Afineevsky takes the time to single out individual protestors. While this gives the film greater emotional resonance, it is also necessary in some respects, for viewers to fully understand the dynamics in play. One such protestor we meet is the popular but self-effacing Serhiy Nigoyan, whom many fellow Maidan activists identified through social media as an inspirational figure for them all. When Nigoyan became the Berkut’s first gunshot fatally, his face began appearing on makeshift shields across the Square.

Working with twenty-eight credited cinematographers, Afineevsky captures just about everything that transpired, including the savagery Yanukovych and his Russian puppet-master so strenuously denied to the world media. Viewers should be warned, Afineevsky will introduce them to Ukrainians who will be murdered in the ensuing assaults and sniped attacks. Yet, he and editor Will Znidaric whittled and stitched the voluminous raw footage into a tight, cogent, and cohesive narrative.

Another aspect of the Euro-Maidan that comes through more clearly in Winter than prior documentaries is the genuine grassroots nature of the revolution. It was truly bottom-up rather than top-down. In fact, opposition leaders (including Vitali Klitschko) are often seen trailing after movement, earning jeers for their parliamentary caution. It is probably the most cinematic document of the Maidan protests to-date and perhaps also the most damning of the Yanukovych regime (and the big boss Putin, by extension). Very highly recommended (especially for Academy members), Winter on Fire screens this Thursday (11/5) as part of the SFFS’s Doc Stories.