KINO! NYC ’16: Me and Kaminski

Sebastien Zöllner is no Boswell, that’s for sure. His prospective subject, Manuel Kaminski, was no Picasso either, but for a while it looked like he might come close. Time has since largely forgotten the contemporary of Matisse and company, but he is ripe for rediscovery. He just needs to die first. Zöllner is determined to have his definitive biography ready for exactly that moment. To do so, he must worm his way into the artist’s confidence. It is a rather ghoulish undertaking, but fortunately Zöllner completely lacks self-awareness. The art world elite will do their best to humble the impossibly self-centered twit in Wolfgang Becker’s Me and Kaminski (trailer here), which screens during KINO! 2016, the German Film Festival in New York.

Zöllner has alienated just about everyone he has ever met, including his long-suffering live-in girlfriend-meal ticket Elke, but somehow he thinks he can charm Kaminski and his protective grown daughter Miriam into allowing him exclusive access. There was a time when Kaminski’s celebrity rivaled that of Warhol. Frankly, it was not because the masses embraced his work, but because they found his progressive blindness so compelling. However, Zöllner believes he has the mother of all scoops to spring on the intelligentsia: Kaminski never went blind. He just has to prove it.

Miriam Kaminski considers Zöllner a potentially useful tool, but she is determined to tightly control his time with her father. Unfortunately, the pseudo-journalist is more tenacious and duplicitous than she bargained for. Much to her concern, Zöllner manages to whisk Kaminski away on an ill-conceived road trip to visit the lost love of his life. Of course, it will be greatly complicated by Zöllner’s clumsiness and gross negligence.

Based on Daniel Kehlmann’s novel, Me and K is cleverly conceived and often quite witty, but it features one of the most annoying and utterly loathsome protagonist you will ever find carrying a film. Everything about Zöllner makes you want to hurt him. In his perversely defiant performance, Daniel Brühl seems to go out of his way to emphasize his every cringe-inducing foible and flaw. Granted, it is rather impressive, but in an exhausting, good will-sapping kind of way.

Jesper Christensen’s work is far more predictable as the gruff but sensitive Kaminski. He is supposed to be an eccentric mystery man, but we pretty much know his story right from the start. However, there are some terrific supporting turns that give the film some real color and seasoning. Amira Casar’s Miriam Kaminski is wonderfully elegant and regally unamused, while the late Jacques Herlin is delightfully sly as Dominik Silva, Kaminski’s down-on-his-luck former patron. However, Geraldine Chaplin really delivers the film’s poignant kicker as Therese, the one that got away.

Throughout the film, Becker uses John Adams’ “The Chairman Dances” as a recurring motif, but this is probably a mistake, considering how closely many cineastes associate the composition with Luca Guadagnino’s infinitely more lush and passionate I Am Love. Becker also displays a distinctive visual sensibility, but he just cannot compete with the sweep and style of Guadagnino’s masterwork. Still, he manages to wrap it all up in a satisfyingly intelligent manner. Recommended despite some reservations (specifically, Brühl’s clammy performance as the unfathomably abrasive Zöllner), Me and Kaminski screens this afternoon (4/8) and the following Thursday (4/14) at the Cinema Village, as part of this year’s KINO! In New York.

Phoenix Incident: What Happened Over Barry Goldwater Range?

It brought out the Fox Mulder in Arizona Governor Fife Symington. Although he initially dismissed the notion the mysterious lights seen moving in unison over Barry Goldwater Range were extraterrestrial, he later admitted he wasn’t quite sure about that. Of course, there are plenty of UFO conspiracy theorists who are absolutely, positively convinced of the affirmative. The mysteries surrounding the “Phoenix Lights” get the mock-doc-slash-found footage treatment in Keith Arem’s Phoenix Incident (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in Los Angeles.

First of all, how cool is it that the Air Force renamed Luke AFB’s bombing range the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range? It almost makes you willing to overlook their X-Files-style cover-up. However, Arem’s ostensive documentary suggests the Phoenix Lights played a role in the disappearance of four, primarily ex-military buddies who disappeared during guys’ weekend in the mountains (that they managed to film through glaring contrivances).

It seems a wildly unstable and virulently antisocial hermit by the name of Walton S. Grayson was initially a suspect in their presumed murders, for obvious good reasons. However, the Air Force stepped in, taking Grayson into custody and pressuring the coroner’s office into blaming it all on an animal attack. Though never charged, Grayson remained incommunicado for years, but frankly that would be the least tragic aspect of the tale. Understandably, the surviving family members want answers, which Arem will partially supply with shadowy Deep Throat sources, speaking in murky lighting, under conditions of anonymity.

Arem earns a lot of credit for faking it so real. Despite his acknowledged use of dramatic “recreations,” many viewers inclined to believe will probably take it for complete Gospel. The archival footage of Symington and Sen. John McCain (who wanted better answers but remained skeptical of extraterrestrial theories) really set the hook, anchoring the outlandish conspiracy speculation to the real world. However, when the aliens finally show themselves, they look suspiciously derivative of the Predator and Alien creature designs.

As Grayson, Michael Adamthwaite is suitably mangy and snarling, while Scot Ruggles plays the informant with authoritative intensity. However, only Travis Willingham’s Mitch Adams really registers among four men, by virtue of superior energy level and full-throated volume. Of course, this is not conceived as an actor’s showcase. In fact, Arem and company would probably prefer you did not think of them as thesps at all.

If you are in the mood for some paranormal paranoia, Incident is a surprisingly polished offering. On the other hand, if you are logical and incredulous by nature, it is not likely to convince you of anything. Still, as a UFO flick, it is better than Ejecta and Hanger 10 (but not as strong as Skinwalker Ranch). Recommended for the faithful fringe, Phoenix Incident opens tomorrow (4/8) at the Laemmle NoHo in Los Angeles.

Art of the Real ’16: Poet on a Business Trip

In addition to being the great American modernist poet, Wallace Stevens was also vice-president of The Hartford insurance company. He would have surely been familiar with expense reports and per diems. “Shu” is a much shaggier kind of poet. Not a lot of business will get done on his trip through Xinjiang, but it will result in sixteen poems. Ju Anqi followed the poet-“actor” through the Uyghur Autonomous Region for forty days, eventually culling his footage into the strange travelogue-hybrid-documentary Poet on a Business Trip (trailer here), which screens as part of this year’s Art of the Real.

Some of Shu’s verse evokes a sense of mystery, whereas some of it has the ring of hipster pretention. Nobody bats a thousand. One thing is clear, he is much more a Chinese Charles Bukowski than a Wallace Stevens. We will often see him drink and hire the services of prostitutes. He will even show the Full Monty, several times.

Trip was filmed in 2002, but its completion was temporarily derailed by a falling out between director and subject. Fourteen years later, minority Uyghur separatists have made Xinjiang a much tenser and fractious place. Frankly, at the time, it would have been relatively encouraging to see Shu’s debauchery could be so readily accepted and catered to in the Muslim dominated provincial towns.

In fact, several of the film’s most revealing scenes capture Shu’s conversations with prostitutes. Much of what they have to say about the economic opportunities and social standing of single women over thirty remains timely today. Unfortunately, there is an excessive surfeit of scenes of Shu sitting on buses and jitneys, distractedly staring out the window. Viewers will likely wish there was more of his conversations with his hired women, as well as the six or seven-year-old girl whose youngest infant sibling had recently passed away.

There is a bit of armchair sight-seeing to be done in Trip, but more meaningful interaction with the locals (regardless of profession) would have considerably enriched the pseudo-experimental travelogue. Retracing Shu’s steps could well be a much more complicated proposition in the current socio-political climate, especially with a movie camera in tow. It is too bad they did not more fully capitalize when they had the chance, but at least something finally came of it. Interesting at times but hardly essential, Poet on a Business Trip screens this Saturday (4/9) at the Beale, as a selection of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s 2016 Art of the Real.

Skolimowski’s 11 Minutes

Suppose they had the apocalypse and nobody noticed. Actually, calling it Armageddon might be overstating matters. It might be more like a sudden outbreak of bad karma happens around a public square in Warsaw, between 5:00 and 5:11. Do not obsess over the time line, just try to keep up with the comings and goings of the characters in Jerzy Skolimowski’s multi-braided 11 Minutes (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The clock will not be ticking towards 5:11 in 24-style, because Skolimowski decided it was too confining. He made Moonlighting, so he is entitled to call a sudden audible. Regardless, we will not see the sun set on this large assembly of not necessarily inter-related characters. As we can tell from flashbacks, there was something portentous about the day. In fact, several rather offhandedly mention seeing something odd in the sky, and then go about their day.

For the actress Anna Hellman, it involves meeting a predatory, date-rape-drug-slipping producer in his hotel room to discuss a most likely bogus part. Simultaneously, her newlywed husband will tear through the hotel, ducking security and hoping intuition will bring him to the right room. Meanwhile, a hot dog vendor who most likely served time for pedophilia awaits a ride from his son, who just barely escaped from his lover’s bed before her husband arrived. Frankly, it was not a clean getaway.

But wait, there are many more subplots for Skolimowski cut to and from, including the alpinist lovers who scale their way into an empty hotel room for an awkward assignation. There is at least another disaffected youth as well, whose criminal scheming will come to naught, or worse. Unfortunately, emergency services will be needed, but Skolimowski’s team of first responders are bogged down with a blocked stairway that complicates their attempt to reach a pregnant woman and an ailing man.

Frankly, 11 Minutes is more a feat of juggling than cinema. Conceptually, it has all been done before, but Skolimowski’s approach is exceptionally frenetic. It is impressive watching him zip around like a pinball, even though we lose track of the characters not played by the blonde bombshell Paulina Chapko or the profusely sweating Wojciech Mecwaldowski, who both have real screen presence as Hellman and her intense husband.

There is some serious flash and dazzle in 11 Minutes, but what is most intriguing about the film is the open question whether something cosmically significant is afoot. The hints are deftly dropped, but the lack of resolution is frustrating. Still, on a technical level, Skolimowski, cinematographer Mikolaj Lebkowski, and editor Agnieszka Glinska surpass all the temporal-tampering indie gimmicks so prevalent in the 1990s and early 2000s. It almost feels fresh again. Recommended for those looking for style but not wedded to narrative substance, 11 Minutes opens this Friday (4/8) at the IFC Center.

Louder than Bombs: Trier Directs Huppert, in English

Just like T.E. Lawrence and Buford Pusser before her, it seems cosmically wrong that celebrated war photographer Isabelle Reed died in a motor accident. However, the awkward circumstances surrounding her death are more likely closer to that of Ernest Hemingway. Her widower Gene Reed has tried to shield their youngest, moodiest son from the truth, but an upcoming press tribute is almost certain to broach the inconvenient subject. The father and his two sons will struggle to finally come to terms with her death in Joachim Trier’s first English language feature, Louder than Bombs (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

To mark a round number anniversary of Reed’s passing, her friends and admirers have organized a career retrospective exhibition. To tie-in, her wordsmith partner will write a personal appreciation of her life and work for the Times magazine or something very much like it. He duly warns Gene Reed that he will not duck the eight-hundred-pound gorilla. That only gives the long-suffering father a few days to level with the increasingly surly and anti-social Conrad. His grown brother Jonah seems to have dealt with her loss, but that is only a superficial impression. Deep down, the new father is probably the most dysfunctional member of the family.

For an angst-fueled domestic tragedy, a considerable amount of stuff happens in Bombs. Inevitably, it all boils down to life is not fair. As one might expect of the busy narrative, some of it works and some of it does not. Poor Gene Reed serves as the glue holding it all together, constantly sacrificing his subplots for the sake of others. However, Gabriel Byrne plays him with such profound sorrow, he gives the film a deeply humane core.

Of course, Isabelle Huppert outshines everyone as her namesake. She effectively haunts the film, dominating the ensemble despite her limited flashback screen-time. As the not so mature Jonah, Jesse Eisenberg also surprises with the quality of his work and the character flaws he reveals along the way. However, as the Number Two Son, Devin Druid feels like he is doing a third rate riff on Wes Bentley’s brooding teen in American Beauty. Conversely, David Strathairn dramatically elevates the film during his pivotal confrontation with Byrne as his wife’s suspiciously close colleague.

Indeed, the are moments in Bombs that rings with brutal honesty and forgiving compassion, but there is also a good deal of uncomfortable filler. Those messy interludes are rather surprising given the uniformly Spartan elegance of co-screenwriter Eskil Vogt’s directorial debut Blindness, which is sure to appreciate critically even further as time passes. Still, when Bombs connects, it leaves you smarting.

It might be inconsistent and even derivative with respects to Conrad’s resentments and fixations, but when it finishes, you know you have seen a film. Recommended with all its warts and ragged edges for patrons of mature chamber-dramas, Louder than Bombs opens this Friday (4/8) in New York, at the Lincoln Plaza.

Old School Kung Fu ’16: A Terra-Cotta Warrior

He is like the Golem, except more heroic. General Meng Tian Fang was promoted to Lord Chamberlain after saving the life of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang. The decent Meng quickly starts to doubt whether the emperor deserved saving, but he has no reservations when it comes to the lovely Snowy. Unfortunately, it be another three thousand years before he gets another shot at protecting her in Ching Siu-tung’s A Terra-Cotta Warrior (trailer here), which screens this weekend as part of Subway’s Cinema’s Old School Kung Fu 2016, with the support of Warner Archive, which released the era-spanning romance in their series of Golden Harvest classics on MOD (manufactured on demand) DVD--to order, fans must visit the Warner Archive website: www.warnerarchive.com

Meng does indeed save Qin Number One, so unlike the rest of the Imperial guards on duty, he gets to live. He is also promoted, but he is profoundly disillusioned by the way old Qin conducts business. Seeking to satisfy the Emperor’s desire for immortality, court alchemist Xu Fu has struggled in vain to develop an eternal elixir. To save his head, he convinces the Emperor to back a dodgy pilgrimage involving five hundred male and female virgins. That is how Meng initially spies Snowy. The attraction is mutual, but her virgin status obviously implies trouble.

Love truly hurts when the love of your life slips you an eternal elixir before the despot you ever so loyally serve immolates her before your eyes and then encases you in clay to guard his mausoleum for the rest of time. However, Meng’s lonely vigilance will be interrupted by a Republican era film crew. Actually, the film they are making, a dubious Chinese remake of Gone with the Wind, is just a cover for the treasure-seeking leading man and director. However, star-struck extra Zhu Lili is convinced it will be her big break. She also happens to be the spitting image of Snowy.

Frankly, Terra-Cotta sometimes feels like a film that should have quit while it was ahead. The Qin-era scenes are wonderfully tragic in a wuxia kind of way. There are also some rousing action scenes and some suitably murky intrigue. As the star-crossed lovers, Gong Li and Zhang Yimou (then the real life first couple of Chinese cinema) have immediate, smoking hot chemistry.

Unfortunately, the fish-out-of-water comedy of act two is pretty shticky. The camera still loves Gong, but Zhu is a problematically shallow character. Still, if you persevere, things perk up considerably in the tomb-raiding climax. There are some inventive action scenes, a few “borrowings” from Indiana Jones, and the legion of Terracotta Warriors in all their glory.

The surviving Terracotta Warriors are quite a sight to behold in person, so it is cool to see Ching try to convey that on film. There are also some clever callbacks in the epilogue, especially given the rumored destination of Xu Fu. In comparison, all the bickering slapstick in between just seems like such a miscue. Even (or rather especially) in 1990, most movie fans would much prefer to see Gong and Zhang in a tragic embrace than mugging at each other.

Arguably, that makes Terra-Cotta a good film for home viewing, because you can fast forward the jokey parts. On the other hand, there are some stunning visuals, particularly in the Qin-Era sequences that cry out for the big screen. Of course, when you really get down to it, every Gong Li film is worth seeing. Recommended for wuxia fans who understand its eccentricities, A Terra-Cotta Warrior screens this Saturday (4/9) as part of Old School Kung Fu at the Metrograph and is available for sale online at Warner Archive.

Old School Kung Fu ’16: Big Bullet

Evidently, Hong Kong was a city almost entirely without cell phones in 1996. That would change in a hurry, but their aptitude for action films remains undiminished. In 1996, Benny Chan was also relatively new to the action genre, but his reputation was quickly transformed with Golden Harvest’s release of Big Bullet (trailer here), which screens this weekend as part of Subway’s Cinema’s Old School Kung Fu 2016, with the support of Warner Archive, who have included the HK policier in their series of Golden Harvest classics on MOD (manufactured on demand) DVD (to order, fans must visit The Warner Archive Collection: warnerarchive.com).

After the wildly incompetent and possibly slightly bent Inspector Guan leads his major crimes team on a nearly disastrous raid, soon-to-be Sgt. Bill Chu subsequently explains his disappointment with his fists. Unfortunately, it will be Chu who is busted down in rank and transferred to an emergency response team. However, his reputation proceeds him. Most of his new team members are in awe of the in/famous cop, but not the strictly-by-the-book Jeff Chiu.

Naturally, their contrasting temperaments will lead to conflict when Chu starts pursing Bird and the Professor, two hardcore gangsters who killed his best friend during their freshly launched crime spree. Technically, they are Guan’s case, but he refuses to heed any of Chu’s warnings. That forces Zhu and his team to go rogue, which is fine with most of them.

Big Bullet is a perfect example of how super-slick, uber-stylish execution can make a workaday narrative shine like a diamond. Although there is plenty of fighting, it isn’t what you usually consider a Kung Fu movie, but whatever. The important thing is the action sequences are big-picture in scope but clearly and tightly staged. They all look great on-screen.

It is pretty crazy to watch a relatively young Sean Lau Ching-wan kicking butt as Chu. In a nod to reality, the soon-to-be-late Inspector Yang (played by ever reliable Francis Ng) tells him he is getting a little “stocky” for a cowboy-copper. Maybe so, but he is still all kinds of steely. It is also pretty nuts taking in the now stately Anthony Wong as Bird, the psycho-sleaze, but he is as intense as usual. However, it is Theresa Lee who steals a bunch of scenes as Apple, the girl-next-door patrol officer with mad martial arts skills. She adds the right amount of comic relief, whereas Spencer Lam slightly overdoes it as their Dan, the old veteran of their emergency response van.

Chan really earned his spurs with some massively-charged but totally street level and almost realistic action sequences. He keeps raising the stakes and boosting the adrenaline quite deftly. Of course he had the advantage of what now looks like an incredible all-star cast, who will not disappoint their more recently converted fans. Totally recommended for action connoisseurs, Big Bullet screens this Friday (4/8) and Sunday (4/10) as part of Old School Kung Fu at the Metrograph and is available for sale online at Warner Archive.

KINO! NYC ’16: The Weather Inside

Dorothea Nagel is sort of like a cross between a character from a William Boyd novel and Ab Fab’s Patsy Stone. Technically, she is in a war-torn Middle Eastern country as a contractor for the UNHRC, but she prefers to stay in her hotel suite, drinking and doing copious amounts of cocaine with a local gigolo. Granted, it is quite problematic, but our UN dues have funded worse crimes than the reckless hedonism Nagel pursues in Isabelle Stever’s The Weather Inside (trailer here), which screens as the opening night selection of KINO! 2016, the German Film Festival in New York.

The border is closed and a cease-fire is supposedly imminent. For those who make a living off war, like Nagel and the foreign correspondents she disdains, business is at a standstill. The refugee camps are literally empty, which is terrible news for Nagel. To fulfill her pet project, she needs a teenage girl to award a European scholarship to, but unfortunately there do not seem to be any around. When she finds one, she does not waste her time doing a lot of due diligence. She prefers to imbibe with Alec, an aspiring kept man. However, the party comes to a screeching halt when Nagel’s scholarship student suspiciously disappears in the Paris airport.

Suddenly, Nagel’s new supervisor starts turning up at her suite, obviously unamused by the rock-star wreckage she finds therein. Management also starts demanding payment for the damages, putting a crimp on her finances. The shelling continues as well, not that she notices it anymore.

Nagel’s self-centered, self-indulgent, self-destructive, degenerate, narcissistic behavior would be laugh-out loud hilarious if it were not so likely true-to-life. There is a whole lot of NGO-UN sausage-making in Weather, with precious few sausages to show for all the expense. In all honesty, nobody will be appreciably worse off if Nagel is finally dismissed, which shouldn’t really surprise anyone.

Maria Furtwängler is absolutely an awesome spectacle bottoming out as Nagel. It is amazing how low she can go, but there is nothing shticky or effected about her performance. At times, she is almost a shuffling zombie-like shell of a person. Frankly, after the first thirty minutes, drugs, booze, and gigolos do not look so fun anymore.

Furtwängler is a force of nature in Weather, but Stever’s screenplay also totally nails the dysfunctional dynamics of bureaucratic organizations with unclear lines of supervision and responsibility. Perversely, Nagel would be dashed difficulty to get rid of, if her boss were so inclined, which indeed she is. The film is further enriched by numerous sly supporting turns, including Jim Broadbent as the slightly dodgy British ambassador and Barbara Bouchet playing an exaggeratedly clueless version of herself (hopefully). However, Mehmet Sözer’s Alec is so sleazy and exploitative, it is hard to fathom how any amount of drugs and alcohol could convince Nagel to assume the role of sugar mommy.

When it comes to trashing hotel rooms, Nagel and Alec are up there with Keith Richards. The jaw-dropping results are almost surreal. Although Nagel has plenty of hard-partying, work-slacking forerunners, including Hunter S. Thompson and Jayson Blair, Furtwängler and Stever raise it all to a level of existential purity. Highly recommended, The Weather Inside screens Thursday (4/7) at the Landmark Sunshine and Saturday (4/9) at the Cinema Village, as part of this year’s KINO!

The Great Hypnotist: Xu Zheng Gets into Karen Mok’s Head

Hypnosis is usually depicted as a dangerous tool of treachery in movies, going back to Svengali and the silent versions of Trilby before that. Dr. Xu Ruining might not help its image much. He is a reputable hypnotherapist, not a villain, but his bedside manner is rather brusque and arrogant. However, his latest patient might be more than his considerable powers can handle in Leste Chen’s The Great Hypnotist (trailer here), which releases today on DVD from Well Go USA.

When Dr. Xu hypnotizes patients, he really gets into their heads. In fact, we see him walking around their subconscious with them. It might be a bit of expressionistic flair on Chen’s part, but it will get rather ominous during his session with Ren Xiaoyan. His mentor Prof. Fang referred the case to him as a last resort. Apparently, all her previous shrinks were pretty freaked out by her claims of psychic powers, but Fang knows a materialist like Xu will not fall for such supernatural silliness.

Ren is not particularly grateful Xu squeezed her into his schedule and he is not exactly thrilled to have her there. Immediately, he realizes something is amiss with her file. Despite his suspicions, he duly proceeds to hypnotize her. He even starts to make progress, leading her to face some long buried truths. However, her repressed memories will start to fight back, or so it seems.

Everyone seems to hate Great Hypnotist’s ending, but if you take it as an homage to Simon Oakland’s explanatory epilogue in Hitchcock’s Psycho, it is arguably kind of cool. Unfortunately, the big pivotal revelation is harder to miss than Freud’s cigar, but the little stepping stone twists are all neatly turned. Chen seems to be enjoying the traditions and trappings of old school on-the-couch psychological thrillers, which genre fans can appreciate.

For instance, Dr. Xu’s office looks like it could have designed (by art director Luo Shunfu) for a classic giallo, (which is great for viewers but he would have to hypnotize his patients to prevent them from running away). Literally pouring it on, Chen always makes sure there is rain at the most atmospheric and [in]opportune times, while cinematographer Charlie Lam gives it all a satisfactorily eerie glow.

Regardless, the real surprise of Great Hypnotist is the successful pairing of Xu “Mr. Lost” Zheng with Karen Mok. Watching them thrust and parry is great fun. Frankly, we never knew Xu Zheng could chew so much genre scenery. (Maybe he can stretch out a little, playing more characters who are not also named Xu). Mok looks like a fragile reed, but she still projects a commanding presence. She also performs the best on-screen rendition of Weber & Rice’s “You Must Love Me,” most definitely including Madonna’s version (the context of which would be pointlessly complicated to explain). Lü Zhong is also terrific delivering all Prof. Fang’s psycho-babble.

Great Hypnotist is the sort of film that allows mood and style to trump everything else. Still, Mok and Xu manage to scratch out some emotional payoff during the eleventh hour. Frankly, the one hundred forty-four-minute film feels shorter than it is, strangely enough given long tacked-on denouement, but that certainly beats the converse. Recommended for fans of head-shrinking thrillers, The Great Hypnotist is now on regular DVD and digital platforms from Well Go USA.

The Ignorance of Blood: Inspector Falcon Investigates

Spain and Islamic North African sure have some history together, don’t they? Seville homicide inspector Javier Falcón still has close personal ties to the region. As a result, he has been recruited by the Spanish Feds to help run Yacub Diouri, an old friend who has gone undercover with a Moroccan Islamist terror group. Falcón recognizes signs of unusual stress in Diouri, but he is inconveniently distracted when the Russian mob strikes close to home in Manuel Gómez Pereira’s The Ignorance of Blood (trailer here), which releases today on DVD from Omnibus Entertainment.

Diouri has a complicated family tree. Somehow, he is the older half-brother of Dario Jimenez, the ten-ish-year-old son of Falcón’s widowed girlfriend Consuelo. Evidently, old man Jimenez got around. Diouri has his own son Abdula, who is about the same age as Dario. Much to Diouri’s distress, the group he is infiltrating has been radicalizing and recruiting his son through an uncle figure. Of course, at Abdula’s age that means only one thing: suicide bomber.

Unfortunately, Abdula is not the child most in jeopardy. During the course of his investigation into a civil war between rival Russian mob factions, young Jimenez is kidnapped. The ransom is the eight million Euros and a hard drive full of potential blackmail footage taken into evidence when a mobster defecting to the upstart splinter group had a rather untimely traffic accident.

If it matters, the Islamists come out of Blood looking slightly more psychotic and unsavory than the Russian syndicate, so let’s hear it for the “Thieves By Law.” Regardless, the hinge between the two narratives is sort of clever, but not in a way that does Falcón any favors. When it rains for the Inspector, it pours, but since this is Spain, it must fall mainly on the plain.

While Juan Diego Botto is not exactly an electric presence, his strong silent thing wears well on viewers over time. He establishes a comfort level as Falcón that will serve him well if the character goes to franchise. Paz Vega is perfectly adequate as the distraught mother, but it is not exactly the challenging sort of role actors long to sink their teeth into. By far, the most intriguing figure in the film is Diouri, whom Alberto San Juan fleshes out quite nicely. That whole bit about his secret affair with a closeted member of the Saudi royal family is definitely good character building detail.

Unfortunately, Nicolás Saad’s adaption of British mystery writer Robert Wilson’s novel often lacks clarity, particularly when it comes to the spider’s web of relationships connecting the characters. It is also impossible to tell the one Russian gangster from another. The absence of a colorful, catalyzing villain is a real shortcoming, but at least the various Macguffins are intriguing.

One thing is clear in Blood. It is a dangerous world out there. Pereira keeps the pace chugging along and deftly exploits the exotic Moroccan settings during the third act. The stakes increase rather precipitously with Falcón’s personal angst, but it is still a rather comfortable film for Eurocrime fans to slip into as a home viewing option. Recommended as a geopolitically aware, meat-and-potatoes thriller, The Ignorance of Blood is now available on regular DVD from Film Movement’s Omnibus Entertainment.

Entity: Found Footage Sight-Seeing in Peru

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, especially not last year in Peru. Of course, surprise was one of its chief weapons. A group of Peruvian college students are about to be deeply shocked by the Inquisition and a vengeful spirit still holding what you might call a grudge. Found footage gets the Latin American Catholic treatment in Eduardo Schuldt’s Entity (trailer here), which releases today on DVD from Omnibus Entertainment.

Why do college professors keep assigning documentaries as their final class projects? Inevitably, somebody decides to lock themselves in the old spooky house where a serial killer used to live, awakening the evil that lurks within. In this case, Carla’s initial proposal starts out more observational and less participatory. She proposes a film about online reaction videos: posted footage of everyday people responding to disturbing imagery. Not surprisingly, her mostly ex-boyfriend Joshua and his buds, the aggressively annoying Benjamin and the nebbish Lucas, readily agree.

At first, it is just about the people watching. However, when all the documented viewers of a particularly unsettling reaction video turn out to be recently deceased, the fab four decide they should track down the video they were so upset by. With the help of the elder brother of the fellow Carla just happened to know from summer break, the kids follow their trail to one of the spookiest looking cemeteries you will ever see. Technically, they find the seriously evil Macguffin in the adjoining church’s archive. That would be what looks like Super 8 film of a Spanish Inquisitor’s torture session, circa early 1500, which most likely has something to do with the malevolent forcing stalking Joshua and his friends.

The whole found footage thing has gone well past the point of been-there-done-that, but the massively creepy, baroquely sinister mausoleums of the Cementerio Museo Presbítero Matías Maestro take the film to a much higher level. Frankly, if you cannot scare viewers there, you have no hope of making it in this genre.

Schuldt makes those gimme putts and also wrings a lot of chills out of the university’s not so well lit library. His locations are eerily effective, but the cast is just so-so. They are all largely playing stock characters, but at least Daniella Mendoza gets to do some memorable stuff down the stretch as Carla. Together, the kids bicker relentlessly, but it is never remotely as sharply written as They’re Watching.

Yes, there is definitely something out there nursing its resentments against all Catholics. The good news is our Buddhist friends are completely off the hook for this one. It isn’t perfect (some of those off-screen screams sound awkwardly fake), but it proves just how far atmosphere and location can go in horror films. In fact, viewers will either be eager to visit the Presbítero Matías Maestro or will avoid it like the plague after watching Entity. Schuldt’s character building is nothing special, but the design team and location really make the film. Recommended for serious horror fans, Entity is now available on regular DVD from Film Movement’s Omnibus Entertainment.

Old School Kung Fu ’16: The Blade

He is wuxia’s most iconic underdog, who embodies a major chunk of Hong Kong film history. His first appearance came in The One-Armed Swordsman, a smash hit for the Shaw Brothers that made Jimmy Wang Yu an overnight superstar. Tsui Hark would reboot the uni-limbed hero for Raymond Chow’s equally storied Golden Harvest studio in the mid-1990s. It was a bit of flop at the time, but it has subsequently been recognized as an influential masterpiece. In celebration of Golden Harvest’s legacy, Tsui’s The Blade (trailer here) screens this weekend as part of Subway’s Cinema’s Old School Kung Fu 2016, with the support of Warner Archive, which has released a series of Golden Harvest classics on MOD (manufactured on demand) DVD (to order, fans must visit the Warner Archive collection: www.warnerarchive.com).

Ding-on’s life has already been marked by tragedy. The master of a saber foundry took him in as a young boy when his father was killed by the Falcon, a feared assassin who supposedly has the gift of flight. Temperamentally, Ding-on is rather suited to pound away at the forge, but the master’s daughter Siu Ling perversely yearns to see a rivalry develop between him and the more hotheaded Ti Tau. The two apprentices are clever enough to avoid her clumsy mind games, but a more serious rupture develops when a gang of outlaws brutally murders a shaolin monk.

Like many of the men at the saber-works, Ti Tau wants to posse-up and administer some frontier justice. In contrast, Ding-on discourages their rash impulsiveness, in accordance with their master’s wishes. Yet, Ding-on will have an arm severed by the very same outlaws when he rescues the flighty Siu Ling from their clutches. Feeling essentially emasculated, Ding-on retreats to a life of menial labor, shacking up with Blackie, a young hermit living outside town. Yet again, Ding-on endures the beatings of nomadic outlaws, led by the sinister Skeleton. However, the partial burning of Blackie’s hovel leads to the discover of an ancient martial arts text. Much of the diagrams are missing, but what remain are still adaptable to Ding-on’s condition. By the time he has retooled his skills, Siu Ling and his old master will desperately need his help.

In a way, The Blade is a hinge film linking the Shaw Brothers releases that inspired it with later, more expressionistic wuxia, like Wong Kar Wai’s Ashes of Time (which originally predated The Blade in 1994, but became more “auteurist” in the 2008 Redux version) and Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin. Frankly, from the vantage point of 2016, The Blade is easy as pie to follow, but it was considered quite arty and adventurous at the time for its use of stunning, saturated colors and whirling dervish action cinematography.

There are still plenty of beatdowns in Blade, some of which are unusually violent. While Vincent Zhao has yet to reach the level of international popularity attained by Jackie Chan and Jet Li, he has serious skills and powerful screen presence. Viewers will have no problem buying into his lethalness, even with one arm literally tied behind his back.

However, probably nobody is as dangerous in The Blade as Valerie Chow, who causes no end of chaos and ill will as the temptress-prostitute. She makes the screen sizzle in her limited screen time. As Siu Ling, Song Lei has a slightly creepy Lolita-thing going on, but her unreliable narration adds a further layer of distinctiveness to the film. It is also hard to understand why Dickens Chan Wing-chung isn’t more of a name, because he makes quite an impression as the heroic but ill-fated monk.

There is no question The Blade is a masterwork from Tsui, possibly even a masterpiece. It is a great film to see on the big screen and also an ever reliable movie to own for repeat home viewing. Highly recommended, it screens this Friday (4/8) and Sunday (4/10) as part of Old School Kung Fu at the Metrograph and is available for sale online at Warner Archive.

KINO! NYC ’16: The Fassbinder Story

In some respects, you could argue Rainer Werner Fassbinder was ahead of his time. He was helming ambitious limited long-form television projects like World on a Wire and Berlin Alexanderplatz long before everybody and their cousin wanted to work with HBO. However, in other respects, he was very much of his time, especially when it came to conspicuous drug use, self-destructive sex, and kneejerk leftism. He left an impressive legacy of cinema and scandal for his close associates to reflect on in Annekatrin Hendel’s The Fassbinder Story (trailer here), which screens as part of KINO! 2016, the German Film Festival in New York.

Fassbinder was part of a generation of German youths who somehow missed the Wall cutting through the city of Berlin, but thought the Red Army Faction ought to be free to kill and maim people as they pleased. He was also a man of intense appetites that fueled his art, but also took him to some very dark places. He had a dominating personality that convinced many of his early cast members to perform in his films somewhat against their wills. He was also either gay or bisexual, depending on which lover you asked.

That sexual ambiguity and voraciousness is definitely echoed in many of his films, but not all of them. In fact, World on a Wire gets comparatively short shrift, even though it anticipates many of the themes and motifs of the Matrix trilogy way back in 1973. Clearly (and somewhat understandably), Hendel is more concerned with films that have high personal, autobiographical significance for Fassbinder, like Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, starring his then lover El Hedi ben Salem, who would soon come to a tragic end.

Frankly, it is dashed difficult to avoid the scandalous and the salacious when taking stock of Fassbinder, because the boundary between his private life and his art was unusually porous. Hendel scored long, in-depth interviews with nearly all of his surviving collaborators, including thesps Hanna Schygulla, Irm Hermann, Margit Carstensen and fellow directors Volker Schlöndorff and Wolf Gremm. Unfortunately, key figures like Salem, Karl Scheydt, and Kurt Raab are no longer with us. The absence of Fassbinder’s ex-wife and early muse Ingrid Caven is rather conspicuous, but the participation of Juliane Lorenz, his longtime editor and late-in-life partner supplies more than enough awkwardly revealing moments to compensate.

Wisely skipping Fassbinder’s short-pants years, Hendel delivers a well-paced and reasonably comprehensive survey of Fassbinder, the film and theater artist. It tackles all his demons without feeling excessively voyeuristic. It is an effective introduction to the Fassbinder milieu, conveying the tenor of his time, without romanticizing it. Recommended for Fassbinder fans and patrons of German cinema, The Fassbinder Story screens Friday (4/8) and Saturday (4/9) at the Cinema Village, as part of this year’s KINO!

Vita Activa: Hannah Arendt and Banality Revisited

Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism is one of the most significant analyses of National Socialism and Communism published in the Twentieth Century, but all anyone ever wants to talk about is the “Banality of Evil” and her affair with Martin Heidegger. In a way, Origins prefigured Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s influential Dictatorships and Double Standards, arguing Stalin and Hitler were different than garden variety autocrats, because they sought to utterly control all aspects of the individual’s existence rather than merely monopolizing political power. Unfortunately, it is once again all about Eichmann and Heidegger when Ada Ushpiz selectively surveys the philosopher’s life and work in Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt (trailer here), which opens this Wednesday in New York at Film Forum.

Arendt wrote significant work studying the act of revolution, using the American and French Revolutions as case studies, but Ushpiz almost exclusively refracts Arendt through the prisms of the Holocaust and Israel. In fact, probably eighty percent of the film’s visuals are drawn from archival video of National Socialist Germany. At least, she does not bury her big “scoop,” starting the film with narration of Arendt’s correspondence with her mentor Karl Jaspers shortly after the end of the war, in which he used the term “banality of evil” well before she published Eichmann in Jerusalem.

We get some biography and an awkward attempt to chase contemporary relevancy with her writings on the plight of stateless refugees, before the film settles into extended sequences on her complicated relationship with Martin Heidegger and her celebrated and scorned account of the Adolf Eichmann trial. Unfortunately, aside from some newly discovered Heidegger lectures that were horrifyingly anti-Semitic, Ushpiz really does not bring much to the discussion of either topic that is new and fresh.

Frankly, Vita Activa will feel like a rehash to anyone who saw Margarethe von Trotta’s biopic, Hannah Arendt. Of course, it rather made sense for von Trotta to focus on Eichmann in Jerusalem, because it held such dramatic implications for her life. However, in a documentary like Vita Activa, shortchanging the breadth and extent of Arendt’s philosophy and scholarship is very nearly a crime against the intellect.

That is a real shame, because Arendt’s work deserves a documentary that is willing to fully engage with it. Instead, Ushpiz cherry-picks the hot button greatest hits. What a wasted opportunity. There are a few nice moments with her former assistant that help humanize the seemingly unapproachable public intellectual, but those are too few and far between. Read Origins (it also has a lot of good stuff on imperialism for leftists) and wait for a better Arendt doc. For those who are obsessed with the Banality of Evil concept, Vita Activa opens this Wednesday (4/6) at Film Forum.

CIFF ’16: Der Bunker

Bunkers are maybe sort of like garrets, but darker and even less spacious. It was not the sort of living quarters a socially withdrawn student had in mind, but he accepts it anyway, because he is not good with conflict. That is how he finds himself tutoring the overgrown child of an alarmingly controlling couple in screenwriter-director Nikias Chryssos’ Der Bunker (clip here), which screens during the 2016 Cleveland International Film Festival.

Obviously the promised lake view was a bit of a bait and switch. The Father is also rather cagey about all the incidentals he starts charging to the Student’s account. However, the couple will forgive all of his debts if he starts tutoring their son Klaus (who looks like he is pushing fifty, but is played by the thirtysomething Daniel Fripan). Frankly, Father is not so crazy about the arrangement, but Mother insists. After all, it was suggested to her by Heinrich, the disembodied alien supervillain who communicates through the infected gash on her leg. Look, you’d listen to him too.

When it comes to learning, Klaus is a hard case. Of course, the Student is not exactly the Miracle-Worker when it comes to teaching. However, he finds the conveniently placed rod is an effective motivator.

Films do not get much more twisted than Der Bunker, but it is well served by its Teutonic restraint. All of its wild excesses, like the thirty-ish Klaus who still breast-feeds, are presented so matter-of-factly, it never feels like Chryssos is trying too hard for transgressive shocks. He has a fine eye for mise-en-scene detail and steadily cranks up the claustrophobic tension. However, some bits he leaves frustratingly under-developed, like just what is the dealio with Heinrich.

Pit Bukowski (from Der Samurai) is appropriately blond and painfully reserved as the student. Fripan plays Klaus’s arrested development to the hilt, but also finds pathos in the deeply stunted man-child. Oona von Maydell is just indescribably nuts as Mother, while David Scheller’s Father most closely approximates a sleazy, mentally-abusive game-playing stock character, but he is still pretty unsettling.

As a Greek-German, the last year of Eurozone angst must have been strange for Chryssos to observe. Of course, the film’s German identity adds further layers of creepy significance to its themes of control and submission to authority. It is a very eccentric film, but earns the unique niche it carves out in the cult film world. An unnerving trip in the best possible sense, Der Bunker screens Tuesday (4/5) and Wednesday (4/6) as part of this year’s Cleveland International Film Festival.

El Hipnotizador: A Lone Mesmerist Comes to Town

They say nobody can be hypnotized to commit a crime that violates their bedrock sense of morality. Of course, that principle should not present a lot of obstacles for mesmerist Natalio Arenas in this murky, noirish town. He will also use his powers to help people, even though the truths he unveils are often bitterly harsh. Arenas will put a lot of subjects to sleep, but ironically, some sort of curse keeps him from slumbering himself. Sanity and reality are not always what they seem in El Hipnotizador (trailer here), which premiered on HBO Latino last night.

If Guy Maddin were to adapt The Prestige roughly sometime in the 1930s in an ambiguously unplaceable Brazilian, Uruguayan, or Argentine city, it would look incredible—and perhaps not so very different from El Hipnotizador. We know from the prologue Arenas can use his skills like a lethal weapon, but in the first two episodes, he mostly employs them to bring peace to troubled minds—and to make a little money.

As the premiere episode commences, Arenas is due to open as part of the low rent vaudeville running at the Rex Theatre. Of course, Arenas is the real deal, but the fortune teller also might be partially legit as well. Naturally, they have showgirls too, but to the credit of director Alex Gabassi, they are not used as naked window dressing—at least not yet.

Clearly, it is not just the honor of performing at the Rex that has brought Arenas to this highly picturesque but vaguely oppressive city. It is also home to Darek, the shadowy figure responsible for Arenas’ preternatural insomnia. However, neither man seems eager to hasten a showdown in the early going. In fact, Arenas will get as comfortable as he ever gets at the Las Violetas Hotel, where Salinero the desk clerk and Anita the maid provide sympathetic assistance.

While it is hard to render a conclusive judgment from two out eight episodes, the series’ spectacular visual style is already incontrovertibly established. Fans of weird urban fantasy will absolutely flip out over Hipnotizador. It deserves to be a breakout hit solely for the work of cinematographer Pedro Luque and the art and design team.

As a bonus, the cast is also quite accomplished. Leonardo Sbaraglia steadily reels in viewers as the quiet but conspicuously haunted Arenas, pulling us into deeper and deeper levels of fascination with the sad-eyed antihero. (Uruguayan) Cesar Troncoso’s Salinero and (Brazilian) Bianca Comparato’s Anita nicely hint at their potential romantic chemistry while also developing slightly awed relationships with Sbaraglia’s Arenas. As Darek, Chico Díaz appears to have a fine affinity for scheming and scenery chewing, while second episode guest star Gero Camilo is especially notable as Calambó, a fellow hotel guest who psychologically and metaphysically loses a day.

Fans of Jorge Luis Borges and Arturo Ripstein should be delighted with Hipnotizador, but it is actually much more audience-accessible and genre-friendly than their iconic work. It definitely sets the hook early. Recommended for fans of the surreal and the noir, El Hipnotizador will be available on HBO Latino, HBO On Demand, HBO Go, and HBO Now.

Rescue Dogs: Write a Check, Skip the Movie

When you reach the stage in life when you start to receive frequent invitations to fundraisers, you eventually realize you are often better off sending a check and skipping the soiree. Essentially, this film is a case in point. It features real life rescued cats and canines and it has a number of screenings this weekend to benefit cause of animal rescue. Unfortunately, the shticky execution cannot match the good intentions. Goofy humans have healthy relationships with their pets, but they are completely lost when it comes to every other aspect of life in M.J. Anderson & Haik Katsikian’s Rescue Dogs (trailer here), which opens today in select markets.

Essentially, Rescue follows the formula developed by the Look Who’s Talking franchise, but with none of its subtlety. Throughout the film, the various critters and varmints will contribute their running commentary through voice-over narration and sometimes talk amongst themselves, apparently through some form of animal telepathy.

Every morning, Charger helps his socially inept owner Tracy cook up eggs and chorizo at his surfside breakfast shack, because even if you are a beach bum, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Actually, his business plan is not working out so well. If he does not make this month’s rent, the bank will take possession of the beachfront shack.

A greedy golf course developer will do everything he can to hinder Tracy, including sending round a government health inspector. Needless to say, the doggie in the kitchen does not go over so well. Things look bad on the restaurant front, but Tracy’s romantic outlook is even worse. Despite the brewing crisis, he still finds time to pursue the red-headed Bridgette, who thinks he is a dance instructor named Fabiolo. You have no idea how awkward that subplot gets.

As true blue Tracy, Paul Haapaniemi tries so hard in the jokey dance sequences, it is truly painful to watch him crash and burn. To be fair, he develops some okay chemistry with Courtenay Daniels’ Bridgette, but sitting through the dumb, slapsticky humor surrounding them gets to be a chore. However, screenwriter Jordan Rawlins has nobody to blame but himself for his wince-inducing scenes playing Tracy’s drugless stoner brother Harper, who fancies himself a treasure hunter (thereby telegraphing the third act surprise way in advance). His annoying persona could be described as a poor man’s Jamie Kennedy, which is quite impoverished indeed.

Charger is a good boy, yes he is. Unfortunately, the motor-mouth voice-overs do not match those soulful brown eyes. Better luck next movie Charger. At least he fares better than Bridgette’s meathead gym rat hamster, Hambone. Those sequences will tax the patience of even the most zoologically-enamored young children.

It should be clear what we are dealing with here. If you are a mentally competent adult that wishes to support animal rescue, just cut a check to the cause and skip the benefit screenings. For those who insist on doing things the hard way, Rescue Dogs opens today (4/1) at the Marcus Addison Cinema in Chicagoland has special benefit screenings this Saturday and Sunday mornings (4/2, 4/3) at the Malverne Cinema on Long Island.