Makhmalbaf’s The President

He went from being the Great Dictator to the Little Tramp in a matter of hours. Still, it is hard to feel sorry for “His Majesty,” because he totally had it coming. His five year-old grandson is a different matter, especially when the revolution takes an inevitably ugly turn. Karma finally catches up with this Soviet-style hold-over in Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s The President (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Iranian Film Festival DC at the National Gallery of Art.

Young Dachi, or “His Royal Highness” as the servants call him, is about as entitled as it gets. He is in awe of his grandfather, the President of this fictionalized Eastern European-Transcaucasian nation. The President dotes on Dachi in return, especially since his parents were assassinated by rebels, an awkward truth the old man does not have the heart to share. That would seem to be an ill omen, but the President heedlessly continues his tyrannical ways. He probably could have gotten out while the getting was good with the rest of his family, but the President was convinced the sudden outbreak of riots and street fighting was a temporary setback.

Unfortunately, the indulgent grandfather allowed Dachi to stay behind with him. As the rebellion intensifies, the President’s officers and bodyguards turn on him to save themselves. Forced to disguise themselves as street musicians, the President and Dachi will rub unwashed shoulders with his formerly oppressed subjects. It will be an eye-opening experience for them both.

Many commentators have noted the uncanny resemblance the President and Dachi bear to Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko and his uniform-sporting son. Even with different wardrobe choices, it is hard to imagine a film about the violent overthrow of despot in his neighborhood could otherwise carry the Lukashenko seal of approval.

It is also hard to envision The President being well received in Makhmalbaf’s native Iran either. After all, it is just as critical of the revolution that topples the old tyrant as it is of his iron-fisted misrule. Frankly, the film is downright Burkean in its revulsion for revolutionary excess. Of course, Makhmalbaf has seen it all first hand. Once an ardent supporter of the Iranian Revolution, he went into exile in protest of government censorship and has since evaded four assassination attempts.

Even though The President could be fairly described as an allegorical fable, it is unusually nuanced and ethically thorny. Misha Gomiashvili’s delicately modulated performance as the increasingly haggard President is a major reason why. In every scene it is hard to completely damn him, but also impossible to even partially forgive his ever so well-established sins.

Throughout The President, we are constantly reminded absolute power corrupts absolutely. However, Makhmalbaf just as vividly shows viewers the score-settling and opportunism that comes with revolution. He makes a profound distinction between the real deal dissidents, such as the tortured wretches His Majesty and Dachi temporarily fall in with, and the former flunkies of oppression now brutalizing the weak and vulnerable in the name of revolution. It might sound laborious, but Makhmalbaf maintains a high degree of tension and a vigorous pace from the first scene to the last.

Indeed, it is a bold, principled cinematic vision that deserves serious attention and study. Very highly recommended, The President (distributed by Corinth Films) screens this Sunday (1/17) at the National Gallery of Art, as part of the Iranian Film Festival DC and the following Thursday (1/21) and Sunday (1/24) at the Museum of Fine Arts as part of the Boston Festival of Films from Iran.

Intruders: Home Invaders in Need of an Exit Strategy

Anna Rook is so severely agoraphobic, she will not leave her home, even when home invaders break-in. Yet, why should she? Rook has greater home field advantage than the Green Bay Packers playing at Lambeau Field in the middle of a blizzard. Her house has a few special modifications that her uninvited guests will learn about the hard way in Adam Schindler’s Intruders (a.k.a. Shut-In, trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Rook has long cared for her terminally-ill brother Conrad, out of sibling love and dark secrets that apparently tie them together. Their only visitors are Danny, a delivery guy from a Meals-on-Wheels-like service and Conrad’s lawyer Charlotte, who is trying to get Anna to face up to the inevitable. When her brother finally dies, Anna’s condition remains unremitting, prohibiting her from attending Conrad’s funeral.

It turns out Danny told three of his thuggish pals about the considerable amount of cash she keeps in the house, but neglected to mention her agoraphobia. They duly break-in expecting her to be at the funeral. Of course, finding the grieving Anna will not dissuade the alpha dog JP or the psychotic Perry from their mission. However, the more passive Vance is definitely thrown by her presence. His instincts will soon be validated when Anna lures them into the specially modified basement. It is really more of a dungeon and interrogation chamber, where the Rook siblings apparently lured pedophiles, like their despised late father.

For the three outsiders and the late arriving Danny, it is sort of Rube Goldbergian nightmare. Frankly, it is a little hard to believe anyone could install a retractable staircase like that without attracting some sort of notice. Regardless of credibility, Schindler gives Anna plenty of remote-controlled doors and secret passageways, so he might as well let her take full advantage.

In one of the coolest bait-and-switches ever, what starts as a horror film instantly morphs into an unapologetic payback thriller. It also has the extra, added attraction of inflicting a whole lot of pain on Rory Culkin (as the quickly remorseful Danny). Frankly, Culkin’s presence is fittingly ironic, since Intruders could be considered an evil cousin to Home Alone. The character of Anna Rook is kind of all over the place, but Beth Riesgraf certainly conveys how messed up she is inside. Likewise, as JP and Perry, Jack Kesy and Martin Starr are electric live-wires of despicableness. Seeing the tables turned on them is awfully satisfying.

Intruders is not for the faint of heart or the pedantic. However, genre fans will definitely dig the way Schindler rolls up his sleeves and gets the job done. Recommended for those who appreciate its E.C. Comics-esque ethical convictions, Intruders opens tomorrow (1/15) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

First Look ’16: Toponymy

Do not cry for the Perons, weep bitterly for Argentine architecture. It was not pretty, at least as practiced in the provincial Northwest in the early 1970s. Jonathan Perel will take the audience on a silent video excursion through four villages created as part of the government’s urbanization campaign to combat guerilla uprisings in Toponymy (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 edition of First Look at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens.

They were all designed and built by the national government and it shows. No private developer would ever do such ugly work. Of course, Perel’s narration and narrative-free approach does not do them any favors. After cherry picking still shots of the various government memorandum and schematics detailing their design, Perel gives viewers a tour of each Tucuman province village, consisting of sixty-eight snippets, lasting fifteen seconds each. Or so he says. In an attempt to pass for subversive, he reportedly changes up the plan without telling us. Nevertheless, the viewing experience remains the same.

Toponymy takes its title from the study of place names, which is in fact apt. All four Tucuman villages are named after fallen military heroes. Somewhat ironically, Casa Soldier Maldonado looks like it has been kept up better than those named for Lieutenant Berdina, Captain Caceres, and Sergeant Moya, but it is a dubious distinction. Still, we cannot help noticing how much open space and greenery these towns have. Naturally, they are all laid out almost identically, with ugly entry arches, tree lined boulevards, and a central park. Frankly, the military’s Tucuman burgs would probably get high marks from the urban planning departments of most universities.

The problem with Perel’s approach is there is really nothing to tell us why these micro urban centers are so distressed, aside from the Dirty War and the recently dismissed government’s ruinous economic policies. The architecture looks shoddy and oppressive, but there is no reason why the residents still cannot thrive. Without more context, we are basically looking at a document dump, followed by the most depressing travelogues ever.

Perel is getting likened to Heinz Emigholz’s wordless architectural documentaries, but at least films like Perret in France and Algeria takes us inside visually stimulating buildings. In contrast, Perel does not give viewers much to engage with, especially if they are not fully cognizant of his ideological and aesthetic conceptions coming in. For an extremely narrow, self-selecting, and defiantly pretentious audience only, Toponymy screens Sunday (1/17), as part of this year’s First Look at MoMI.

Philip K. Dick ’16: ReStart (short)

How does a shadowy corporation turn a profit from endlessly sending an abducted woman back in time to witness her own kidnapping? Apparently, they make it up on volume. However, the unwilling Andrea will try to break her pernicious time loop in Olga Osorio’s short film ReStart (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Philip K. Dick Film Festival in New York.

Andrea has deduced the unremarkable and unattached nature of her life is what made her a perfect time travel guinea pig. Nobody will/has/is miss/ed/ing her. She might have started out as a mousy Bridget Jones, but she has transformed herself into an Ellen Ripley. Never knowing when she might be thrown back again, she trains constantly. She also thoroughly reads the volume on psychics and time travel theory her captors so thoughtfully provided. She intends to break the cycle, but that will probably mean more scuffling with her abductors back at that fateful moment.

There have been a lot of cool time travel films relatively recently (Timecrimes, 11 A.M., The Infinite Man, I’ll Follow You Down, the forthcoming Synchronicity), so the stakes have really been raised for several selections at this year’s PKD Fest. Osorio’s approach to Andrea’s time loop is pretty well thought out, but the villainous research company makes no sense at all.

Even evil corporations have evil shareholders. At some point, the evil CEO will have to explain to them they have been conducting highly unethical experiments that are super mean and massively expensive that have so far yielded no return and are unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future. That will make for a really awkward annual meeting.

Still, the small but significant ways Andrea rebels against her captors are quite clever. In fact, Marta Larralde is really impressive as the not exactly empowered, but proactive protagonist. Osorio and cinematographer Suso Bello give it all an icily severe look and vibe that is rather distinctive. The hat-tip to Asimov is also good karma. Frankly, the whole film would have made more sense if it had been a government lab spending tax money and abusing tax payers, because that is what bureaucrats do. Not the best time travel film of the year, but not without some merits, ReStart screens as part of a short film block tomorrow (1/15) at the Cinema Village, as part of this year’s Philip K. Dick Film Festival.

First Look ’16: This Is What It Is

They want to reclaim the term “revolution” from those who have misappropriated it. Of course, the Cuban government knows that means them. However, the Havana based hip hop duo Los Aldeanos is reluctant to be cast as a symbol of anti-government resistance. They walk a fine line as they build their street level fanbase despite heavy Communist censorship. Léa Rinaldi documents their rise and growing pains in This Is What It Is (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 edition of First Look at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens.

For years, the French Rinaldi followed Aldo Roberto Rodríguez Baquero (“El Aldeano”) and Bian Oscar Rodríguez Gala (“El B”), returning frequently as a supposed tourist. Ironically, a tourist with camera is given free rein in hard-currency starved Cuba, but any sort of journalist will be tightly regulated and monitored. In fact, the extent to which the supposedly egalitarian society has sold its soul to European tourists is a frequent theme in Los Aldeanos’s raps.

Without question, many of their tracks take square aim at the Castro regime, but they also harshly criticize the gangster mentality and lack of personal responsibility that have contributed to the social pathologies surrounding them. Clearly, Los Aldeanos have engaged in a balancing act, talking truth to power without coming across overtly partisan.

This has often left them in a bizarre legal no man’s land. Early in Rinaldi’s film, the duo attends the opening of another documentary about them, noting the odd paradox that the film was not censored but their music is still prohibited. Likewise, they really do not see the logic when the government grants Los Aldeanos visas to perform internationally as part of their new-fangled cultural exchange overtures to the West, but still denies them the right to hold concerts in Cuba.

Obviously, the government is using them to some extent, but Rinaldi and Los Aldeanos are more concerned about the Miami expatriate community’s eagerness to embrace them as artistic dissenters. Not surprisingly, when they make a show of rejecting that role, many in the Cuban-American community turn on them, but what did they expect?

Frankly, it is hard to fully gather what sort of takeaway Rinaldi intended, but it is dashed difficult to maintain any illusions about the quality of life in Cuban from what she captures. Poverty is deep and widespread, while Euro tourism is problematically, perhaps even predatorily, exploitative. It is also fascinating to see the underground distribution network Los Aldeanos has developed. The film might just be more honest than Rinaldi expected, recording state censorship in action just when she was hoping to film their moment of triumph.

The English title is rather fitting. The censorship and poverty that make their way into Rinaldi frame are very much what Castro’s Cuba is all about. Los Aldeanos’s dark lyrics directly and evocatively reflect that reality. Unfortunately, they are not always the most charismatic screen presences, particularly El B, who often seems to dissolve into the background. It is impossible to secretly film this much of Cuba’s oppressed underclass and come away with a dull film, but Rinaldi frequently seems to be looking for irony in the wrong places. Flawed but still worth viewing with a critical eye, This Is What It Is screens Friday (1/15), as part of this year’s First Look at MoMI.

Philip K. Dick ’16: Chatter

We might have our misgivings, but the NSA and Department of Homeland Security will assure us their data collection is strictly for our protection. Therefore, a contractor is put in a rather tough spot when he uncovers a threat that is not national security related. Its apparent supernatural nature makes it even more awkward. That poor specialist is in for an eyeful in Matthew Solomon’s Chatter (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Philip K. Dick Film Festival in New York.

Is it possible malevolent spirits can travel through skype? Just watch the opening prologue featuring old school Battlestar Galactica’s Richard Hatch. He will not be returning, nor will his on-screen daughter. David and Laura Cole be the next to learn this lesson. He has returned to Los Angeles to restart his film composing career, in the hopes she can soon join him from London. Being apart, they share a little “sexy time” via webcam, thereby attracting Martin Takagi’s clandestine interest. However, he periodically sees strange shapes and the like behind the musician that trouble him.

Plagued by eerie sobbing noises and a general sense of unease, David Cole gets little sleep and his disposition suffers. Soon his email files start to go astray and his skype connects at odd hours of the night. Belatedly, he learns his apartment has had a revolving door for tenants and a reputation for being haunted by a young girl’s spirit. As first, Laura Cole fears he is losing it, but she eventually starts to experience the same ghostly phenomenon. Then the entity really starts to get nasty, which greatly alarms Takagi. However, the director clearly implies he should keep a lid on it.

There have already been a number of skype-surveillance found footage horror films, like Ratter and Joe Swanberg’s installment of the original V/H/S, but Solomon develops a fresh take on the sub-sub-genre. Chatter is certainly informed by the NSA’s controversial data recording and collection programs (the agency and DHS are ironically thanked in the acknowledgements), but the film is not stridently political. In terms of tone, it is more in the tradition of Blumhouse’s supernatural horror than contemporary cyberpunk, but that is not a bad thing.

If you did not already know it is Hatch in the opening sequence, you would probably not recognize him. Regardless, he and Alison Haislip hook us in pretty much from the start. Sarena Khan’s presence really commands the [split] screen as Laura Cole. Conversely, Brady Smith’s whiny demeanor gets tiresome, but the role reversal of victimized husband and doubting wife further distinguishes Chatter from the genre field.

Chatter was obviously shot on a shoestring, even by found footage standards, but Solomon largely overcomes his severe budget constraints. He throws the audience a few twists that are adequately established but not glaringly obvious and keeps the tension nicely amped up. Viewers should also be advised there is a stinger that holds narrative significance. Altogether, it is really scary in multiple ways. Recommended for Blumhouse and Rand Paul fans, Chatter screens this Saturday (1/16) at the Cinema Village, as part of this year’s Philip K. Dick Film Festival.

Moonwalkers: Idiots Will Believe It

Conspiracy theory nutters have widely cited the French film Dark Side of the Moon for supposedly exposing the “Moon Landing Hoax.” The problem is William Karel’s ostensive expose is actually a mockumentary poking fun at the very same tone deaf loons taking it for Gospel. Therefore, it would not be surprising if the same anti-social paranoids conclude this silly, somewhat slapstick farce is also a defiant act of Trufe-telling. Break out your tinfoil hat, because Antoine Bardou-Jacquet’s Moonwalkers (trailer here) opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

As the wackos heard throughout Room 237 make abundantly clear, there are people out there who really think Stanley Kubrick dummied-up the Moon Landing footage for the CIA, which makes no sense if you know anything about his iconoclastic aversion to ideology and bureaucracy. Nevertheless, CIA agent Tom Kidman has been ordered to recruit Kubrick to produce said video, just in case. In point of fact, it is indeed true some projections gave the Apollo 11 astronauts only a 30% chance of survival.

Of course, through what is meant to be a comedic chain of events, Kidman is forced to really on Jonny, a nebbish would-be rock band manager and the band of hippy dippy experimental filmmakers he sometimes does drugs with. Jonny also happens to be deeply in debt to a London loan shark, who tried to collect from Kidman’s briefcase full of cash. Of course Kidman had different ideas, resulting in several dead thugs and a whole lot of bruised underworld egos. Further complicating matters, a platoon of Langley Boy Scouts arrive just as the PTSD-suffering Kidman starts to go native.

There is way more blood in Moonwalkers than you would expect in a silly mash-up, which might be the best thing to say about it. As usual, Ron Perlman is seriously bad and drily funny as Kidman, even with all the tie-dyed bedlam going on around him. Maybe you have to have nostalgia for the Harry Potter franchise to get Rupert Grint. Otherwise, his Jonny just comes across as an annoyingly pathetic drip. Robert Sheehan and Tom Audenaert deliver shtick and more shtick as Jonny’s hippy filmmaker pals. At least Erika Sainte generates some heat with Perlman as the counter-culture vamp, Ella.

Buzz Aldrin would probably like to give screenwriter Dean Craig a knuckle sandwich and who could blame him? It takes one of the most triumphant moments in American (and human) history and reduces it to sex and drug jokes. They could have at least been funnier. Yet perhaps most problematically, Craig and Bardou-Jacquet openly invite the audience to cheer with bloodlust for the third act deaths of all the CIA agents not named Kidman. Frankly, both the astronauts and CIA agents who have sacrificed their lives for this country deserve more respect. Not recommended, Moonwalkers opens this Friday (1/15) at the Laemmle theaters in Los Angeles.

Philip K. Dick ’16: Genghis Khan Conquers the Moon (short)

Genghis Khan conquered more territory than Alexander the Great and often topped “Man of the Millennium” polls. If you doubt his lasting influence on today’s world, go ask a Mongolian about it. It turns out, he was even the first man to set foot on the moon, but he has some rather magical-mystical help in Kerry Yang’s short film Genghis Khan Conquers the Moon (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Philip K. Dick Film Festival in New York.

In the twilight of his life, the great Khan had little left to conquer (just little pieces of China, here and there that would be left to his grandson, Kublai). Yet, he hears reports of a defiant alchemist, so he makes haste to assert his authority. Although outwardly subservient, the alchemist does not seem to be kowtowing on the inside. In fact, he knows what the great Khan needs and where he can find. That would either be a new world ripe for conquest or tranquility, a whole sea of it, in fact.

How cool is it to see veteran Asian American actors Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and James Hong as co-leads in a film? Granted, neither is Mongolian, but so be it. Tagawa has all the right grit for the great Khan and Hong is as slyly charismatic as ever as the cerebral alchemist. Frankly, the film is far more spiritual and symbolic than typical genre films, which makes it pleasantly ambitious.

However, the warmongering depiction of the Millennial Man is not entirely fair. After all, he abolished torture, established religious freedom and cut taxes on doctors, teachers, and clergy in the lands that fell under his control (at least according to the Rubin Museum and they ought to know).

Regardless, Yang and cinematographers Noah Kistler and Guan Xi compose some absolutely arresting images. Somehow they take us past the fantastical into the realm of the hyper-real. It is lovely to look at and quite a strange (in a welcome way) addition to the growing Genghis Khan film canon. (Keep in mind, Tagawa has now joined John Wayne in the elite company of actors who have played Temujin.) Recommended for those who appreciate science fiction with a mystical flavor, Genghis Khan Conquers the Moon screens as part of a short film block this Friday (1/15) at the Cinema Village, during this year’s Philip K. Dick Film Festival.

Philip K. Dick ’16: The Incident

That copy of Philip K. Dick’s Time Out of Joint could come in handy for Carlos. While his situation is somewhat different, it could help him think about reality in more outside-the-box terms (it also made his film a perfect selection for this year’s Philip K. Dick Film Festival). At the very least, it will help pass the time. Rather than a box or a Potemkin world, Carlos is stuck in an infinite staircase. He is not the only one facing such a predicament in Isaac Ezban’s The Incident (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Philip K. Dick Film Festival in New York.

The corrupt cop was leading Carlos and his brother Oliver out through his building’s staircase when they heard the bang. At that point, the stairs became endless Escher loop. They walk down nine flights and find themselves right back at the ninth floor landing. Needless to say, the doors are sealed, but the vending machine mysteriously keeps replenishing itself. The situation would be dire enough, but the copper, acting on a perverse impulse, shot Oliver in the leg right before the happening. Soon the festering wound becomes life-threatening.

Meanwhile or something, Daniel is on a road trip with his mother, her trying too hard boyfriend, and his little sister, but that highway never seems to end—because it won’t. There is an empty service station that never runs out of supplies, but they do not carry asthma inhalers. Unfortunately, Daniel’s sister will be needing one after hers is damaged. These two cosmically closed loops do not appear to be related, except for the occasional hint suggesting they really are.

There are no significant visual effects to speak of in The Incident, but it is a wildly ambitious, decade-spanning, mind-reeling genre film. It starts out merely unsettling in a Sartre kind of way, but it turns into a deeper, metaphysical horror show. Reportedly, some fans of the show Lost find various hat-tips throughout the film. Whether they are intentional or not, The Incident is certainly in keeping with the show’s spirit (whereas it is wholly dissimilar from M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening).

Considering the circumstances, The Incident boasts a surprisingly large cast. Nobody really stands out per se, because the entire ensemble is convincingly freaked out and then bitterly resigned to their fate. Essentially, they look like real people in some kind of Hell (but it isn’t really, or is it?).

Ezban tries to connect too many dots in the third act, but that is a rather valiant mistake. Regardless, he announces himself as a major new talent with The Incident, while also providing a heck of a calling card for his design team. This is a painstakingly crafted film that masterfully controls what the audience sees and the temporary assumptions they form. Pretty impressive stuff, recommended for fans of Lost and David Lynch’s better mind-trips, The Incident screens this Friday (1/15) at the Cinema Village, as part of this year’s Philip K. Dick Film Festival.

Philip K. Dick ’16: Sympathy for the Devil

The Process Church of the Final Judgement has been repeatedly linked to Charles Manson and his followers, but it seems this was rather unfair to the cult. However, they truly started out as a Scientology schism group, making them plenty scary enough. Yet, the former members do not remember it that way. The so-called church was just a part of the 1960s. The cult’s rise and fall are chronicled in Neil Edwards’ bizarre documentary Sympathy for the Devil: The True Story of the Process Church of the Final Judgement (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Philip K. Dick Film Festival in New York.

Everyone basically acknowledges the Process Church was essentially, strictly speaking, more or less a cult, but as cult’s go, it was relatively harmless. They may have fleeced some silly rich members, but they were nothing like Jim Jones’ socialist Peoples Temple or Charles Manson’s evil flower children. They argue they were wrongly demonized as Satanists due their strange Trinity of Jehovah, Satan, and Lucifer, sometimes expanded into a quartet including Jesus. According to the former Processeans, it was really all about the ultimate forgiveness and reconciliation of Heaven and the fallen angels. Satan and Lucifer were also somehow separate and distinct, but there is really no point in getting hung up on that.

Of course, the Processeans played their roles to the hilt, parading through London’s fashionable Mayfair district in black capes. Charismatic former Scientologist (and official Suppressive Person) Robert De Grimston was the cult’s front man, but former members consider his wife Mary Ann to have been the real brains of the operation. It seems she was the one who decided they had to relocate to Mexico, where adventures ensued.

Obviously, the former members are remain uber-defensive when it comes to Manson. Maybe he picked up parts of their doctrine or maybe not, but they were certainly inviting extreme personality types. All of Edwards’ interview subjects clearly think the lack of a mass grave with the Process Church’s name on it vindicates them on all counts and by the standards of the 1960s counter-culture they are probably right, but they are still weird.

How weird were they? Weird enough to attract the attention of John Waters, who duly sits for interview segments. Even if you are incredulous about all facets of the Process Church, their story is absolutely train-wreck fascinating. Edwards tells it well, teasing out many wonderfully strange details and conveying a sense of their milieu through era-evocative animated sequences.

This is one doc that is never dull. Even if the Process Church truly was as benign as cotton candy, their story is all kinds of creepy. Edwards talks to most of the people who were there, giving us a full flavor of their ideology and times. Highly watchable and debatable, Sympathy for the Devil is one of the most provocative docs of the last two or three years. Highly recommended for the innately skeptical and individualistic, it screens this Friday (1/15) at the Cinema Village, as part of this year’s Philip K. Dick Film Festival.

400 Days: The Mission is Simulated, but Not the Complications

It sounds like a reality show, but it will be much more serious than that. For astronauts, isolation is a much greater concern than G-forces or anything physical. Therefore the potential crew of an upcoming privately funded interstellar mission are auditioning by spending four hundred days in an underground simulator. They expect Kepler Industries will have plenty of planned challenges in store for them. However, the real surprise might be unleased on the Earth above them in Matt Osterman’s 400 Days (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Cole Dvorak is the hard charging blowhard who will be making the crew’s regular broadcasts to the outside world. “Bug” Kieslowski is the squirrely one, but somehow he is also the crew’s only married parent. Dr. Emily McTier will be tracking everyone’s mental and physical health, so she is going to be really darn busy. Theo Cooper is their loose cannon captain, slightly in the Kirk-ish tradition. Unfortunately, he started the mission with a nasty hangover, but he had a good excuse. He had just been dumped by McTier.

Everything went swimmingly well during launch, but the crew lost radio contact with mission control shortly thereafter. Assuming it is all part of the plan, they carry on, notching their mission objectives as the four hundred days count down. However, as the near the day of their simulated re-entry, strange things start happening. Stress has clearly taken a toll on everyone, but when a half-starved wretch of a man breaks into their simulator, they realize something well outside the simulation’s parameters is underfoot. When they venture outside, they find the world has changed. It is now a very dark, predatory place—perhaps even post-apocalyptic, but the vibe is more Kafka and Sartre than Mad Max.

Executive Producer Dane Cook reportedly takes a lot of flak from other comedians, but he really gives 400 Days a tremendous boost of energy as the boorish, ego-inflated Dvorak. He gets over some of the film’s best lines as Dvorak becomes increasingly unhinged. Brandon Routh is more than a little bland on-screen, but one could argue he is appropriately taciturn as the glumly competent Cooper. Despite her growing cult following, Caity Lotz glams down for McTier, projecting her intelligence and sensitivity. Ben Feldman’s Kieslowski over relies on twitchy mannerisms, but Grant Bowler brings plenty of oily charisma as Kepler Industries’ CEO, Walter Anderson. It also seems fitting to have a Lost alumnus on board in some capacity.

In many ways, 400 Days shares a kinship with the original Twilight Zone pilot, “Where is Everybody?,” but it delves deeper into the dark side of humanity. Somewhat frustratingly, Osterman guards the film’s unsettling ambiguity and never gives us a grand unified explanation of anything. That is both good and bad, because that means the film will keep bugging you well after the initial viewing. Yet, for those who were raised on Rod Serling, it is sort of refreshing.

Regardless, Osterman maintains an air of mystery and slowly but surely keeps the tension mounting as soon as the crew loses communications with the outside world. 400 Days is the first release of SyFy’s new theatrical arm, which probably creates a certain level of expectations, based on SyFy originals like Lake Placid vs. Anaconda and Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus, but this is in a whole different league. It is decidedly small in scale, which might leave many sf fans unsatisfied, but its paranoid tautness is rather impressive. Recommended to a surprising extent for fans of the weird, 400 Days opens this Friday (1/15) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Garrel’s In the Shadow of Women

Even by the standards of Philippe Garrel’s characters, Pierre is a real cad. In contrast, the highly flawed protagonist of his previous film Jealousy was one of his most sympathetic. Perhaps not so coincidentally, Garrel’s son, the popular French actor Louis Garrel, played the lead in Jealousy, but simply serves as the narrator this time around. It is a great part, but the unfaithful documentarian is sure to inspire strong reactions when Garrel père’s In the Shadow of Women (trailer here) opens this Friday in New York.

Pierre and Manon appear to be the perfect partners, both romantically and professionally. She has long been happy to perform supporting functions on the documentaries they collaborate on. They have something else in common too. They both have lovers on the side. According to Pierre’s chauvinistic attitude, it is all very well for a man to do a little roving, but it is unacceptable for women. He realizes this is somewhat contradictory, but so be it.

Unfortunately, Pierre is the one who discovers Manon’s affair. (This should go without saying, but if you are meeting your married mistress in a café, get a table towards the back, for crying out loud.) Since the somewhat neglected Manon was only enjoying a little attention, she immediately breaks it off. However, Pierre continues to torment her with his suspicions and holier-than-thou judgement. Meanwhile, he continues to carry on with Elisabeth, an intern at the French film archive. Yet, rather than having it both ways, it is more like he is trapped in two dysfunctional relationships. In fact, it is the problematically codependent and passive aggressive Elisabeth that initially tips Pierre to Manon’s affair.

As the title would suggest, gender double standards and the Garrel family’s relationship baggage certainly inform Shadow. However, none of the characters can survive Garrel’s withering examination of their private lives completely unscathed. This sort awkward intimacy is an acquired taste, but nobody does it better than Garrel.

Clotilde Courau and Stanislas Merhar also might just be the perfect Garrelian couple, not including the various Garrels. They are still attractive, but have clearly been somewhat weathered by life. Courau and Merhar both exercise great restraint in their confrontations, eschewing cheap histrionics. Yet, that makes it sting even more when they slip the knife in.

Much as Willy Kurant’s lens did for Jealousy, Renato Berta’s arresting black-and-white cinematography heightens the Cassavetes-like hothouse closeness. These are uber-urban characters, but they feel like the only people in the world. Although Shadow is not quite as accessible as Jealousy it is still one of the better Garrel films for newcomers to start with. Recommended for his admirers and those who appreciate acutely honest relationship dramas, In the Shadow of Women opens this Friday (1/15) at the IFC Center.

Beeba Boys: Deepa Mehta Goes Gangster

Jeet Johar combines the worst of the old traditional ways and jaded modern sensibilities. He still lives with his parents, but he is not shy about unambiguously calling out his rivals in television interviews. Most women would avoid long-term entanglements with him, but Canadian Katya Drobot was never accused of being a deep thinker. Regardless, she will be the least of his problems in Deepa Mehta’s Beeba Boys (trailer here), which releases today on DVD in Canada.

The Beeba Boys are good like fellas and pretty like that Boy Floyd. They are Vancouver’s nattiest South Asian gang and their leader Johar has become a role model to innumerable bullied Sikh youngsters. He has plenty of enemies, but old school “local businessman” Robbie Greywal is the most dangerous.

Unbeknownst to Johar, Greywal has placed a traitor in his midst. However, as Nep befriends his fellow Beeba Boys as well as Johar’s grade school son, he starts to have ninth and tenth thoughts about his loyalties. Fortunately, Greywal had the foresight to let his attractive daughter Choti handle their undercover mole. It is pretty clear Nep is interested in her. He and “Manny the Joker” also befriend Johar lonely new wife, Drobot, but that is a pretty platonic relationship. Emotionally, Drobot might be in a state of arrested development, but she is not suicidal. Of course, there is no need for anyone in Johar’s orbit to kill themselves. There will be plenty of gangsters and hitman out to do the job for them.

Who knew Deepa Mehta had such a slickly violent gangster beatdown in her? Granted, none of the elements here are jaw-droppingly new, aside from its Sikh cultural identity, but she marshals them with the spiffy style of a Michael Mann film. Even if the broad strokes of their carouse-and-fall story are familiar, she puts everyone through their paces and makes sure they always look good.

Without question, Mehta’s ace card is Indian movie star Randeep Hooda, whom you might recall from Sunny Leone’s Bollywood debut (hmm, what was that called again?). As Johar, he snarls quite charismatically. His Cheshire Cat smile and so-deep-it-is-almost-demonic voice are enormously gangster-cinema-friendly. Frankly, a good two-thirds of the Beeba Boys are basically incredibly well-dressed extras, but jewelry designer and Wes Anderson repertory player Waris Ahluwalia makes the most of his Tarantino-esque dialogue as Manny.

Probably the most important thing about Beeba Boys is that everyone really looks fab. That is not a bad thing—shallow perhaps, but still a lot of fun. Recommended for fans of gangsters movies and Bollywood crime dramas (sorry, no musical numbers here), Beeba Boys releases today (1/12) on Canadian DVD, and surely some sort of American distribution will soon follow.

The Mask, in All its Restored Anaglyphic Glory

If you grew up in the 1980s, you remember when 3D was considered a tacky down-market gimmick. Local stations used to distribute cardboard red-and-blue glasses for the “special” weekend 3D “extravaganzas.” Thanks to the anaglyphic process it employed, Julian Roffman’s weird tale looked relatively presentable when broadcast on television. It also happens to be considered the very first Canadian horror movie (and one of the few not starring Stephen McHattie). Acting out of patriotic duty, TIFF spearheaded and premiered a loving restoration of Roffman’s cult favorite, The Mask (trailer here), which screens this weekend at Anthology Film Archives.

Archeologist Michael Radin has just stalked and murdered a young woman while under the influence of a sinister ritual mask. Perhaps it was a dream, but don’t count on it. Regardless, the mask is tearing apart his soul and unhinging his mind. His new shrink, Dr. Allan Barnes is no help, because he assumes Radin’s obsession with the mask is just a symptom of a larger issue, as most psychologists would. However, Radin shows him just how wrong he was by mailing him the mask just before committing suicide.

Naturally, Barnes sticks the ominously evil but not particularly comfortable looking mask on his head, at which point he gets the first of several massively bad trips, for which the film kicks into 3D gear (the more “grounded” parts being conventional 2D). Filled with surreal, more than slightly outré images of skulls, death’s heads, floating eyeballs, temptresses, and sacrificial altars, these hallucinatory interludes are arguably well ahead of their time. They are nearly as memorable as the dream sequences in Rosemary’s Baby and Spellbound (which were a collaboration between Hitchcock and Dalí.

Needless to say, the good doctor is not himself from this point on. His faithful fiancé and mentor will try to save him, but he is obsessed with the mask’s power to tap into the human subconscious. Unfortunately, his torch-carrying secretary is most at risk from his violent, mask-dominated new persona.

The Mask might not necessarily be scary, but it is still weird as all get out. Barnes’ feverish visions while wearing the mask have lost none of their what-the-heck power. They are just bizarre. Although they are credited to Serbian expatriate filmmaker and montage-specialist Slavko Vorkapich, his concepts were so prohibitively over-the-top, Roffman had to devise the more practical and macabre phantasms that torment Dr. Barnes. Yet, somehow he was able to tap into something way out there and deeply messed up.

As an added bonus, the acting is not bad. Paul Stevens, who convincingly loses his marbles as Dr. Barnes, would have notable roles in Patton, Advise & Consent, and Exodus, in addition to about a jillion TV guest appearances. Future director Martin Lavut is also spectacularly snide and antisocial as the imploding Radin. But wait, there’s more, including legendary PR huckster Jim Moran claiming to be a mask collector while serving as the film’s Criswell in the hyperbolic cold intro.

Whether you classify it as horror, dark fantasy, or a psychological thriller, The Mask could easily sustain dozens of film studies theses. This is how 3D was meant to be—deliriously nutty. If you haven’t caught up with it yet, its mini-run at Anthology is the perfect opportunity. Highly recommended for cult film fans, it screens this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (1/15-1/17).

Philip K. Dick ’16: The Mill at Calder’s End (short)

There has always been a macabre side to the art of puppetry, going back to the commedia dell’arte roots of Punch and Judy. We sort of lost sight of it because of the Muppets, but it would occasionally manifest itself in ambitious Henson projects like The Dark Crystal. However, Kevin McTurk raises old school rod puppetry to new gothic heights in his visually arresting short film The Mill at Calder’s End (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Philip K. Dick Film Festival in New York.

After a long absence, Nicholas Grimshaw is returning to Calder’s End to claim his inheritance. It is a lonely drive, but his destination is even drearier. His family estate is a shunned place in the Lovecraftian sense. He would gladly relinquish all his claims to it, but an ancient Faustian bargain binds his family to the evil force centered in the ominous looking mill.

Of course, everything in Calder’s End looks ominous, even including Grimshaw’s late but still accursed father, who bears an unmistakable resemblance to the great Peter Cushing, which has to be one of the coolest cinematic hat tips ever. It is altogether fitting too, since the influence of Hammer Horror and the Corman Poe films is evident in the wonderfully rich and atmospheric production and art design. As if that were not enough fan service, Barbara Steele, the Giallo legend and a semi-regular Corman repertory player gives voice to the malevolent Apparition of the Mill.

The story of Calder’s End would still be a satisfying little gothic hair-raiser had it been a conventional live action drama, but as a piece of puppet theater, it is kind of stunning. McTurk (whose technical credits include films like Iron Man, Hugo, and Pacific Rim) and his accomplished team have done some of the best special effects, set construction, and costuming you will see in a film of any length, with any sort of cast.

Calder’s End doesn’t seem very Philip K. Dick-like, but who cares? Fans of Cushing, Hammer, and gothic British horror in general will absolutely flip for it. So far, McTurk has been honing his macabre puppetry in shorts (this being only his second), but when he applies this concept to a feature, it will be a major event for genre fans. Very highly recommended, The Mill at Calder’s End screens as part of a short film block this Friday (1/15) at the Cinema Village, during this year’s Philip K. Dick Film Festival.

A Perfect Day: Somewhere in the Balkans

International relief workers finally get the M*A*S*H treatment. These Aid Across Borders volunteers hook-up and joke around, but they truly want to help the civilian population that has been so traumatized by the Balkan War. However, a relatively simple task will escalate into a life-and-death crisis in Fernando León de Aranoa’s English language debut, A Perfect Day (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

A rotund corpse has been dumped in a Balkan village’s only potable drinking well. Mambrú, a veteran Spanish field worker and his local fixer Damir were on the case, but their rope broke. Their gonzo colleague B and the naïve rookie Sophie were nearby, but they are fresh out of rope. Unfortunately, the nearest general store has plenty of rope, but it happens to be in a different ethnic conclave. It is pretty clear the locals were either responsible for the body in the first place or are protecting those who put it there.

Thus begins an increasingly absurd and dangerous quest for rope. Frankly, it is probably the first time B has been so determined to find hemp in this form. Of course, the UN (the Blue Helmets) are not much help. Unfortunately, the Aid Across Borders bureaucracy does not understand the boots-on-the-ground realities either. Believing the truce renders their services unnecessary, they have dispatched Mambrú’s former mistress Katya to write a report that confirms their judgement. Whether she likes it or not, she is about to join the mismatched quartet in their mad dash for rope—and it is rather pressing. If they can remove it within twenty-four hours, the purification process will be relatively non-invasive, but if the well is befouled any longer than that, it will have to be closed.

Maybe they would have a better chance of finding rope if they could actually identify which country they were in. All we are told is that it takes place somewhere in the Balkans circa 1995. It sure looks like Bosnia and the sinister folks who refuse to share their rope definitely bring to mind the Bosnia Serbs, but the mealy-mouth nature of León de Aranoa’s screenplay (based on a novel by Paula Farias, former head of the Spanish operational section of Doctors Without Borders) is rather annoying on that score. That is a shame, because the film has real bite when it conveys a sense of war’s random cruelty and the cluelessness of the UN forces.

The NGO’s international constituency allows León de Aranoa to assemble an interesting cast that probably would not otherwise have a chance to work together. Tim Robbins arguably does his funniest work since The Player as the defiantly rude B. Mélanie Thierry’s guileless Sophie serves as an effective audience proxy when confronting the disillusioning realities of war. Naturally, Bernicio Del Toro plays Mambrú the ladies’ man, because what woman could resist a piece of man candy like him, right? Of course, Olga Kurylenko’s sex appeal is better established, but she plays Katya as a refreshingly smart and assertive professional. However, the real discovery is the Bosnian Fedja Stukan, who basically steals the show as the salt-of-the-earth but decidedly vulnerable Danir.

There are some wickedly clever scenes and some depressingly bitter ironies in APD. If León de Aranoa had not decided to bend over backwards to avoid offending anyone, it could have been a definitive film on the Balkan War. Instead, it is a good film rather than a great one, primarily for the way it captures the very real dangers (including landmines and dubious paramilitary checkpoints) faced by international relief workers. Recommended for those who already have a solid grounding on the 1990s conflict, A Perfect Day opens this Friday (1/15) in New York, at the IFC Center.

Chaplin—Legend of the Century

Charlie Chaplin was the Jerry Lee Lewis of silent cinema—several times over in fact. Fortunately, he lived in an era when men could simply marry the under-aged girls they might have impregnated and sweep the whole business under the rug. Of course, it was all dashed uncouth for J. Edgar Hoover to use that sort of thing against him. Chaplin’s loyalists keep up the PR fight, but it feels rather awkward in the post-Jerry Lee, post-Cosby era. At least, there is also a fair amount of old school Hollywood history in Anne Le Boulc’h & Frédéric Martin’s Chaplin—Legend of the Century, which premieres this Thursday on Chicago’s WWTW.

Presented by co-writer-narrator Laurent Delahousse, Legend was originally produced as part of France 2’s Une Jour, Une Histoire documentary series. The production’s Gallic crew and perspective probably helped secure the participation of Chaplin’s Francophone grandchildren. In fact, the film opens with the elderly Chaplin about to return to Hollywood to accept an honorary Academy Award after twenty admittedly comfortable years of exile in Switzerland. However, we are told J. Edgar was also gnashing his teeth ominously in his Federal Triangle lair.

After the bittersweet triumph of the Oscar ceremony, Delahousse and co-writer Laurent Seksik flashback to Chaplin’s early Dickensian years in late Victorian London. His father, such as he was, had once attained a measure of fame as a vaudeville performer. Clearly, his absence and failings and his mother’s subsequent mental health breakdowns had a formative influence on the young lad. Based on his stand-out clowning in a touring British variety show, Chaplin was signed by Keystone Studios, where he would eventually develop his celebrated “Tramp” persona.

Chaplin, Hoover’s bête noire, would become the first motion picture star to earn a million dollar contract. He would also marry two women under the age of eighteen, under rather hasty circumstances. The Laurents and the Chaplins try to dismiss this as part of his parental baggage, but it is tough for contemporary viewers to shake off the creepiness of it all. At least, his third marriage to eighteen year-old Oona O’Neil (playwright Eugene O’Neil’s daughter) would be the one to last.

Nobody will deny Chaplin’ cinematic genius. He even a few great talkies in him, including The Great Dictator, which slyly capitalized on the toothbrush style of moustache he shared with the rising Adolph Hitler. However, the narrative of victimization Delahousse and Seksik try to spin gets tiresome quickly. Still, Le Boulc’h, Martin, and editor Florent Maillent shrewdly incorporate vintage clips from his talking pictures that speak directly to each stage of his life.

Viewers watching Legend will get a sense of the sweep of his life, which is something. It is rather amazing how much Horatio Algerish success he attained. However, he was undeniably a complicated, highly imperfect individual. There might be documentary profile that better convey his complexities, but this is the one will be programmed on participating PBS stations in the coming months. It moves along at a good clip, but it obviously has it axes to grind, making more of a partisan piece than a documentary to recommend and engage with. Regardless, it airs this Thursday (11/14) on WTTW, repeating several times over the next three days.

NYJFF ’16: Natasha

There are some scary things coming out of Russia these days. In addition to military adventurism, rabidly homophobic propaganda, and teacups poisoned with Polonium there is a manipulative Lolita who will cause no end of disruptions for a Canadian teenager. The second generation Jewish Russian immigrant is not prepared for the sexual confusion in store for him in David Bezmozgis’s Natasha (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 New York Jewish Film Festival.

Natasha’s mother is real piece of work, but Mark Berman’s Uncle Fima is not exactly a door-prize either. His mother Bella is determined to help this mail-orderish marriage work, because Fima is running out of chances. Being inherently lazy, Berman prefers to make weekly delivers for Rufus, his suburban Toronto drug hook-up rather than take a legit summer. Since he is apparently idle, Bella Berman insists he show his new cousin Bella around. She thinks even less of her mother than the Bermans, which is causing domestic stress for the newlyweds.

It turns out the fourteen year-old Natasha is more sexually experienced than Berman. He is a bit nebbish and she is more than a little forward. That might work okay in Bezmozgis’s original short stories he adapted for the screen, but it is decidedly creepy in cinematic form. Presumably lead actress Sasha K. Gordon is of age (she attended Fordham and has a fair number of New York theater credits) but she looks fourteen—a young fourteen. This will of course, lead to problems for Berman, precipitated by his shrewish new aunt.

There are some really finely turned scenes in Natasha, including a scene where the two teens discuss Nietzsche, but the ick factor is just through the roof. Maybe it is a page-to-screen thing, but there is way too much here. It is shame because there are some terrific supporting performances from Deanna Dezmari and Genadijs Dolganovs as Berman’s parents. (Old Roman Berman even has some spot-on analysis of the Middle East situation if anyone happens to be listening.)

Gordon is also appropriately unsettling as Natasha.  At times, Alex Ozerov seems to shrink into the background as the passive Berman. Yet, that seems to be part of the point Bezmozgis is making about the soft, complaint nature of assimilated second generations like Berman compared to hungry, aggressive first generation Russia-survivors like Natasha. Regardless, the film still leaves viewers feeling like they need a shower and a trip to the spiritual advisor of their choice. Too inconsistent and frankly kind of gross, Natasha screens this Thursday (11/14) and Saturday (11/16) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s NYJFF.

NYJFF ’16: The Man Who Shot Hollywood (short)

Jack Pashkovsky was sort of the Vivian Meier of Hollywood, but he lived a more fulfilling life. He wanted to be a Hollywood cameraman, but he found the nepotistic fix was in at the union. Undaunted, Pashkovsky still managed to work with and document the movie stars that fascinated him, but he contented himself with a conventional still camera instead. Barry Avrich introduces viewers to the late Pashkovsky and gives us a peek inside his largely unseen treasure trove of photos in the short documentary, The Man Who Shot Hollywood, which screens during the 2016 New York Jewish Film Festival.

Yasha Pashkovsky’s family emigrated from St. Petersburg, settling in New York, where the young boy was dazzled by motion pictures. He made his way to Hollywood, to seek his fame and fortune, but it did not go exactly according to plan. However, he would meet and romance his beloved wife, while working on studio lots in jobs with fewer barriers to entry. He soon bought a camera and started taking charmingly relaxed shots of the biggest stars of the day.

Pashkovsky laughingly concedes to Avrich that he might be the original paparazzi, but he always asked permission first. It is a point worth stressing. Since everyone recognized him from his studio work, nobody turned him down. Clearly, they had good reason to trust Pashkovsky, considering he almost never sold his pictures to publications. However, some of his shots might have well served his subjects’ publicity campaigns. His photos are candid, but never embarrassing. In some cases, the stars look better without their elaborate makeup and wardrobe.

There is a great deal about Pashkovsky that is both touching and instructive. He faced professional disappointments in life, but still made the best of things. He also found a measure of artistic satisfaction independently producing his own short subjects. It is therefore quite nice to see Pashkovsky get his posthumous due. Recommended for its sweetly elegiac tone and Pashkovsky’s wonderful visuals, The Man Who Shot Hollywood screens twice this Thursday (1/14) with Art and Heart at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of this year’s NYJFF.