Sundance ’11: In a Better World

For one young boy, it is tough being the Swedish kid in his Danish school. While his father is an advocate of turning the other cheek, his new friend is a proponent of more direct action. As a global meditation on bullying, Susanne Bier’s In a Better World (trailer here) should probably be considered a leading contender amongst the nine shortlisted films for the best foreign language Oscar. Its chances will probably be further bolstered when it screens this week during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival now underway in Park City, Utah.

Swedish plus conspicuous retainer equals frequent poundings for Elias, a good kid struggling with his parents’ separation. He idolizes his father Anton, an altruistic doctor often absent volunteering his services at free African medical clinic. One fateful day, the new kid Christian intervenes in a bullying session, walloping his tormentor with a bicycle pump before pulling a knife on the larger boy. Problem solved.

Christian has a few issues himself, including a deep-seated resentment of his father following his mother’s untimely death from cancer. Though their fast friendship should represent healthy socialization for Elias, Christian proves to be a nakedly manipulative little wretch. Better is also not exactly subtle hinting at his self-destructive impulses, portraying him like Poe’s Imp of Perverse, constantly haunting the roof of a hulking old factory while brooding darkly. Yet, it will be Anton’s conflict avoidance strategy when encountering a grown-up bully in front of the boys that serves as a catalyst for Christian’s potentially tragic plans.

Better is sort of like a Nordic Crash, with the teachable moments coming at a regular clip. Unfortunately, the film often confuses earnestness with profundity, offering plenty of the former, but not nearly as much of the latter. In fact, it seems like Bier somewhat loses control of her message. Comparing the brutality Anton witnesses in Africa with Christian’s escalating anti-social behavior, she clearly implies the tendency towards the animalistic is present in all of us, even ostensibly civilized Scandinavians. Yet, one could easily conclude within the context of the film that a little fight out of Anton might have been moiré productive, preventing considerable tragedy in both settings.

Though laboring under Better’s self-conscious serious-mindedness, much of the ensemble distinguish themselves rather well. As problematic as his character seems in retrospect, Mikael Persbrandt brings a compelling dignity to Anton, largely selling his Gandhi routine in-the-moment. After accepting too many villainous roles in English speaking productions, Ulrich Thomsen redeems himself with a deeply humane supporting turn as Christian’s grieving father Claus. Amongst the young actors, William Jøhnk Nielsen’s work is particularly notable, projecting the full range of emotions roiling within the understandably pained Christian.

Even if Better’s “so there” takeaway really is not there, it is the kind of prestige picture that perfectly suits the Academy’s sensibilities. Indeed, cinematographer Morten Søborg captures the harsh beauty of the African landscape, bringing to mind many past Oscar favorites. Clearly, tremendous passion went into Better, but it falls short of its ambitions. While not an out-and-out failure, it should not be a priority for those making the Sundance scene when it screens again on Wednesday (1/26), Saturday (1/29) and Sunday (1/30).

Sundance ’11: Kaboom

For college kids, secret societies should only involve getting hammered after performing silly rituals. Unfortunately, Smith has stumbled across an apocalyptic death-cult intent on igniting nuclear Armageddon. It is kind of a bummer, but at least he never lets it cramp his sex life in Gregg Araki’s Kaboom (trailer here), which screens at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in advance of its New York opening next week at the IFC Center.

Smith’s orientation vacillates between gay and bi, but his considerable unrequited lust for his surfer roommate Thor remains constant. Though undeniably hetero, the dumb blond exhibits enough meterosexual tendencies to keep hope alive. About the only person on campus Smith wouldn’t sleep with is his lesbian BFF Stella. Acting as Stella’s wingman at a party, Smith eats a bad cookie, if you know what I mean. Much to his mild surprise, he hooks up with London—a chick. Soon thereafter, Smith thinks he witnessed the murder of a mysterious Red-Haired Girl from the party while tripping his lights out on the way home. There is no evidence to be found in the light of day, but strange occurrences seem to suggest “they” know he knows. Then things get weird.

This is a Gregg Araki movie, so there is more sex of various persuasions than an MTV show aimed at young teens. If you can deal with that, it is all rather amusing watch Smith, his platonic friend Stella, and friend with benefits London get pulled into a totally outrageous end of the world scenario. It turns out Stella’s new lover is a witch—not a Wiccan, but a real witch, and quite a possessive one at that. Meanwhile, Smith learns his father did not die when he was young after all, but succumbed to the dark side of the Force, taking over the doomsday cult he had been researching.

Despite its goofiness, Kaboom is rather bold in one respect, explicitly comparing Smith’s cultist father to L. Ron Hubbard. Most likely half of Hollywood will never work with Araki now, but he is probably less inclined to care than Ricky Gervais. Yet, the strange thing about Kaboom is that in between all the hooking-up and snappy snark, the secret conspiracy story is actually fairly tense, at least until Araki goes all-in with an outrageously over the top third act.

Even with his creepy unblinking eyes, Thomas Dekker makes a surprisingly compelling hipster protagonist. Clearly comfortable with acid-drenched dialogue, he establishes a nice bantering rhythm with Haley Bennett as Stella. Kelly Lynch also adds a welcome measure of mature tartness as Smith’s unsentimental mom, Nicole. She helps to compensate for the ridiculously broad (even clumsy) supporting turns from Chris Zylka as Thor and James Duval as “The Messiah,” their stoner R.A.

Though Araki is steadfastly indie, cinematography Sandra Valde-Hansen gives it a professional luster that rivals the disposable studio teen comedy of the week. Thanks to production designer Todd Fjelsted, Kaboom really has a legit campus atmosphere as well. Make no mistake though, those who look for things to be offended by will have no trouble finding them in the film. It is over-sexualized and nihilistic, but also more funny than not. Recommended to those who already know they’ll dig it, Kaboom screens at Sundance tonight (1/22), Monday (1/24), and Saturday (1/29) and opens real next Friday (1/28) at the IFC Center in New York.

NYJFF ’11: 36 Righteous Men

According to Orthodox Judaism, the Tzadik is a righteous figure who has absolutely no desire to sin. They are so cool, John Zorn named his avant-garde music label after them. Jewish-Argentine filmmaker Daniel Burman (pictured at left) documented the annual pilgrimage of a group of Rabbis and scholars to the tombs of revered Tzaddikim across Russia, Ukraine, and Poland in 36 Righteous Men, which has its world premiere at this year’s New York Jewish Film Festival at the Walter Reade Theater.

References in the Talmud identify thirty-six true Tzaddikim piously exist amongst us, unaware of their own significance or of their thirty-five counterparts. When each dies, they are replaced, lord willing, because it is only due to their presence that the world is spared the destruction it deserves. Not surprisingly, those venerated as Tzaddikim exemplified wisdom, leading instructive lives of enlightenment.

Indeed, it is a potent concept that could be richly explored in another documentary. While Burman includes a number of instructive stories courtesy of the considerable experts on the pilgrimage, the film often more-or-less reverts to travelogue. Also problematically, the audience never gets a particularly strong sense of the varied personalities making the trek with Burman.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of 36 Righteous Men is the way in which the journey spurred Burman to come to terms and finally embrace his own Jewish faith. Frankly, this is somewhat surprising because the Argentine Burman’s previous films are largely thought to be informed by his Polish-Jewish heritage and have frequently played at Jewish films festivals.

People of any faith can definitely learn something from Burman’s documentary. It is informative and ultimately quite life-affirming. Yet, it represents a bit of a lost opportunity, never really engaging viewers on a gut level. That is not necessarily Burman’s fault, since the cameras had to be safely turned off during the heaviest moments of the trek, but he never fills that emotional void. Certainly well intentioned and enormously significant when considering Burman’s own filmography, 36 Righteous Men screens twice this coming Wednesday (1/26) as the 2011 New York Jewish Film Festival continues at the Walter Reade.

Sundance ’11: Troll Hunter

Norway faces a number of tricky public policy challenges, like an aging population, an influx of culturally dissimilar immigrants, and the increasingly belligerent troll colonies. As in every genre film, the Norwegian government would like to keep that last one a secret. However, a student film crew stumbles onto the truth in screenwriter-director Andre Øvredal’s The Troll Hunter (trailer here), a darn well put together monster movie that screens as part of the Park City at Midnight track during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Our title character is the most grizzled civil servant you will ever meet. Hans has no hatred in his heart for the ginormous ogres he hunts. He just has a job to do, working for the double-secret government office of troll affairs. Suspecting he is a bear poacher, aspiring journalist Thomas and his classmates start rather unsubtly tracking the tracker. Fed up with his bureaucratic boss and the piles of departmental red tape, the hunter decides to show them the truth: the trolls are out there.

Though it probably cost less to produce Troll Hunter than to ship the film to Park City, the trolls look shockingly good (more or less resembling big hulking gnomes), thanks to the canny work of VFX supervisor Oystein Larsen and cinematographer Hallvard Bræin. Presented as the student crew’s salvaged videotape, much in the manner of Blair Witch, the film’s rough look well serves their troll effects. No harsh close-ups here, just flattering wide shots.

While the college kids are all essentially expendable, Otto Jespersen is all kinds of awesome as Hans. The found footage conceit always makes character development problematic, but his cranky Troll Hunter feels like a fully formed, flesh and blood person, albeit a considerably difficult one. In fact, given Jespersen’s rep as the Bill Maher of Norway, his time is probably better spent chasing through the forests of Vestlandet.

Øvredal truly engages in kitchen-sink filmmaking, cherry-picking some clever traditional troll lore while slathering it all in generous helpings of black humor (much of which comes courtesy of the acerbic Troll Hunter himself). Øvredal also sprinkles a thimble full of socio-political “relevance” on top, but wisely never belabors his points. While it is hard to read too much into the trolls’ ferocious response to smell of the blood of Christian believers, there is an unmistakable anti-developmental message weaved into the subtext. Fortunately, it is not pronounced enough to distract from a good clean troll hunt.

Troll Hunter is one of the most entertaining Norwegian monster movies in years. Øvredal really pulls it off, getting a key assist from Jespersen as his crusty protagonist. Proudly representing Kingdom of Norway, it screens tonight (1/21) tomorrow (1/22), Tuesday (1/25), next Friday (1/28), and the following Saturday (1/29) at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ‘11: All Flowers in Time (short)

A French cowboy just sounds wrong—disturbing even. It turns out such trepidation is justified, but he makes interesting viewing in Jonathan Caouette’s hard to explain new short film, All Flowers in Time (trailer here), which screens tonight as part of the New Frontiers shorts programming block at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

The French Cowboy is sort of like the old MTM cat, giving the sign-off at the end of a warped Dutch children’s program. Its barrage of subliminal images seems to give kids strange ideas and red glowing eyes, sort of like the monkey spirits of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee (which if you haven’t seen, you’re not really missing much).

Those prone to obsess over questions like why and how this is happening are likely to be frustrated by Flowers. However, anyone who ever wanted to see Dutch kiddie television produced somewhere deep within the Black Lodge of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks will delight in Caouette’s bizarre visuals (no giants or dwarves, though). However, the greatest surprise in store for viewers is Chloë Sevigny’s unexpectedly likable and charismatic lead performance, especially given the macabre twist of her central scene, as well as Flowers’ overall surreal vibe and experimental aesthetic. Indeed, the let-me-show-you-a-scary-face game she plays with the young boy in her charge (relationship unknown) is an effective set-up vehicle for creepy chills, not that Caouette is really going for that (or maybe he is, who can say really?).

One thing is certain: Caouette is indulging in quite a bit of gamesmanship throughout Flowers. However, it actually builds towards something somewhat interesting, even if it leaves a ten gallon hat full of question unanswered. Strangely watchable (strange being the key word), Flowers screens tonight (1/21), Saturday (1/22), Monday (1/24), Tuesday (1/25), Friday (1/28), and Saturday (1/29) at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

NYJFF ’11: Yolande an Unsung Heroine

She was an Israeli spy who probably would have fit more comfortably in the U.S. State Department than her own country’s diplomatic corps. She was a committed Zionist, but her real home was Cairo. Her name was Yolande Gabai de Botton (nee Harmor) and she is considered Israel’s greatest spy. Dan Wolman documents her glamorous but dangerous career in Yolande: an Unsung Heroine, which screens during the 2011 New York Jewish Film Festival, co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Jewish Museum.

Educated in France, Harmor was a dazzling light on Cairo’s social circuit. She put her charm to good use, gleaning intel from highly placed Egyptian officials on behalf of the prospective State of Israel. Ostensibly working as a journalist, she built up a network of informers, even within the Muslim Brotherhood, which proved invaluable to Ben-Gurion (BG as her son knew him) leading up to Israel’s formal establishment. In fact, her final coup was so significant it essentially spelled the end of her espionage work. More ominously, it also attracted the attention of the Brotherhood.

Clearly, Cairo represented Harmor’s glory days, in all respects. Given her affinity for the Egypt and its culture, she was considered something of a dove during her frustrating stint in Israel’s Foreign Ministry. Truthfully, a bit more context about the Arab-Israeli war and the terrorist attacks launched from the Egyptian controlled Gaza Strip would have helped the film at this point. However, Wolman and Harmor’s surviving friends make a persuasive case that Israel’s intelligence and foreign policy establishment never properly recognized her contributions.

Yolande is one of several relatively brief (at just under an hour) but highly informative documentaries screening during this year’s NYJFF. Frankly her life would make a great narrative film. She might have been blond, but it seems like the sort of project that would appeal to Angelina Jolie’s sensibilities. Regardless, Wolman tells her story cogently, scoring on-camera interviews with a number of her more prominent colleagues. (The bland soundtrack could stand a bit of an upgrade though). A short but fascinating doc, Yolande screens twice this coming Tuesday (1/25) as the New York Jewish Film Festival continues at the Walter Reade Theater.

NYJFF ’11: Singing in the Dark

Moishe Oysher could have been the toast of Broadway had it been compatible with the Sabbath. He was the last great Jewish cantor with “crossover” appeal, as well as a movie star appearing in three Yiddish films and one English language feature, which was recently restored by the National Center for Jewish Film. One of the few American films of the 1950’s to directly address the Holocaust, Max Nosseck’s Singing in the Dark screens this Sunday during the 2011 New York Jewish Film Festival.

Known simply as “Leo,” a survivor has repressed all painful memories of his past life. A gentle soul, he works contently at his Manhattan hotel, where he has befriended Joey Napoleon, the slick operator comic working the lounge. One fateful night, Napoleon inadvertently gets his innocent pal drunk. With his defenses down, Leo erupts into song, bringing the house down. Suddenly, Napoleon sees a way to clear his debt to the mob, as long as he can keep Leo safely under contract and inebriated.

If not exactly a masterpiece, Dark is a memorable B-movie of considerable historical importance. Of course, there are several vocal performances from Oysher, ranging from light operetta to cantorial music. It also showcases his remarkable facility for scat-like vocalizing.

Arguably not the most gifted actor, Oysher wisely stays well within his comfort zone throughout Dark. However, Borscht Belt comic Joey Adams (gossip columnist Cindy Adams’ late husband) plays off Oysher well, while he and Kay Medford (as the comedian’s jaded girlfriend Luli) banter about zingers with contagious glee. Also look for cult actor Lawrence Tierney (the crusty old crime boss in Reservoir Dogs) as young but somehow still crusty crime boss Biff Lamont.

Despite Adams’s brisk comic relief, Dark is a serious film. Though it might look tentative to post-Schindler’s List audiences, its depiction of the Holocaust was decidedly bold for its time. Indeed, the scenes of Leo surveying the destruction of Berlin’s historic Neue Synagogue (shot on location) retain a haunting power. Accomplished cinematographer Boris Kaufman (the younger brother of Dziga Vertov, whose work included On the Waterfront and The Pawnbroker) stylishly shot Dark in black and white, nicely suiting both its noir subplots as well as the serious drama of Leo’s Holocaust experiences and resulting psychological trauma.

Undeniably significant, Dark is also an entertaining film with considerable heart, delivering much for a scrappy b-picture produced outside the studio system. Highly recommended, it screens this Sunday (1/23) as the 2011 NYJFF continues at the Walter Reade Theater. Also look for it on March 5th at Florida Atlantic University’s Kulturfest.

High-End Bollywood: Dhobi Ghat

Mumbai’s washer boys (dhobi) are evidently very photogenic. Perhaps one ambitious dhobi will even be able to realize his Bollywood dreams. He certainly would in a proper Bollywood movie. However, if not exactly Indian “Parallel Cinema,” Kiran Rao’s Dhobi Ghat (a.k.a. Mumbai Diaries) certainly represents the high-end of Bollywood. Featuring no extravagant dance numbers, Rao’s Dhobi (trailer here) opens this Friday in New York.

Arun is not good with people, yet somehow the serious artist hooks up with the privileged Shai at a party. The next morning, she is still rather taken with him, but he would rather forget the whole thing. Awkward. Despite the brush off, Shai is a bit obsessed with the brooding painter. Fortunately, she discovers a link between them: Munna, their dhobi and would-be actor.

At first, Shai merely uses Munna for intel on Arun, but an unlikely if distinctly unequal friendship develops between them. She shoots his headshots and he takes her to the dhobi’s open air laundry, where she captures their proletarian essence on film. She nearly forgets about Arun, which is just as well. The artist has become preoccupied with a secret stash of videotapes recorded by the previous occupant of his new flat. Months after they were recorded, he watches Yasmin’s ostensive video-letters to her brother back home with mounting concern as the pretty young Muslim newlywed becomes increasingly miserable in her arranged marriage.

Although the found video motif is fairly standard movie stuff at this point, it is executed rather well in Ghat. It also lends a topicality to the film, as an attracted, educated Muslim woman finds herself little more than an indentured servant to her husband. Kriti Malhotra is indeed quite touching as the ill-fated Yasmin. Aamir Khan, Rao’s superstar lead actor and producer-husband, nicely expresses Arun’s fascination with the tragically compelling tapes. Indeed, his restraint in Ghat is something of a relief, considering the shameless corniness of his blockbuster Taare Zameen Par, for which the term cloying is entirely insufficient.

While the Shai-Munna threads lack the same dramatic heft, they benefit from diverging from the standard Bollywood playbook. Ordinarily, one would expect the handsome young slumdog to make it big and win the heart of his elite true love. However, class is simply a cold, hard reality in Ghat, which we might bemoan for the sake of all the real life Munnas, but gives a distinctive edge to Rao’s film.

Though often dealing with the melodramatic, Rao’s firm hand on the rudder keeps the film from ever going over the top. Eschewing traditional Bollywood music, it features a classy art cinema soundtrack composed by Gustavo Santaolalla (best known for his Babel and Brokeback Mountain scores). Granted, Ghat is undeniably manipulative, but it is considerably more engaging than one expects. In fact, it is a very promising directorial debut by Rao. One of the better cinematic imports from the subcontinent in a number of months, it opens this Friday (1/21) at the Big Cinemas Manhattan and Big Cinemas Bombay.

Tsukamoto’s New Tetsuo

Compared to Shinya Tsukamoto’s metalized humanoids, Iron Man is downright gentile. They also make the Marvel hero seem completely believable and multi-dimensional. Harsh and grungy, Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo series has a small but devoted cult following. To expand the audience, Tsukamoto filmed the latest in English. Yet, it is hard to imagine Tetsuo III: The Bullet Man (trailer here) expanding beyond the hardcore faithful when it opens this Friday in New York at the IFC Center.

Raised in Japan by his expat parents, Anthony now has a family of his own. Everything seems ideal, but premonitions of his young son Tom’s premature death are fraying his wife Yuriko’s nerves. When her dreams tragically come to pass, it profoundly threatens their union. Yuriko is particularly aggravated by her husband’s steadfast refusal to show emotion. However, when he finally gives vent to his anger, it is not pretty. In fact, it triggers a nightmarish metamorphosis.

Suddenly, Anthony is a hulking metallic humanoid weapon. Obviously, Tom’s death was no accident, but part of a deliberate plan to trigger whatever was hardwired inside his father, with our first clue being the renegade army trying to corral the metallic Anthony. It also quickly becomes clear this painful process somehow involves his father Ride’s dodgy arms research.

Frankly, there are long stretches in Bullet where it is truly impossible to tell wtf is going on. Tsukamoto’s shaky-cam action sequences are so blurry and disorienting they are likely to induce nausea and even seizures. They make the Transformers movies look like the opening tracking shot from Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil. Since it is often impossible to follow the chaos on-screen, viewers will find themselves worrying over the huge logical holes in the film’s plot. Like, wouldn’t it make more sense to kidnap Anthony first and then induce his transformation, rather than vice versa? Whatever.

It is hard to judge Eric Bossick’s work as Anthony, considering how much time he spends buried under bizarre prosthetics. At least, Akiko Monô provides a measure of humanity as Yuriko. In fact, Bullet features a few promising human villains, including the director reprising his role as the banally evil “metal fetishist,” as well as Stephen Sarrazin’s smart, sophisticated, and morally ambiguous Ride. However, too much of the conflict boils down to the new Anthony bashing faceless paramilitaries (if that is indeed what was happening).

Nearly a one-man band, Tsukamoto is most successful designing the cold concrete and steel environment of Bullet. Though shot in color, audiences may well remember it in black-and-white. It is also notable for the closing industrial theme composed by Trent Reznor, an odds-on favorite to pick up an Oscar for his score to the vastly dissimilar Social Network.

Bullet is a film in desperate need of clarity. Certainly, it reflects a distinctive aesthetic, but the execution is so problematic, it does not even earn a fanboy recommendation, not it matters to the diehards. Good luck to them when Bullet opens this Friday (1/21) at the IFC Center.

The New Housemaid

Yes, the rich really are different from us. They are just plain evil. At least that is the inescapable implication of Im Sang-soo’s radical re-conception of Kim Ki-young’s 1960 edgy Korean masterpiece The Housemaid. Heavily steeped in sex and class consciousness, Im’s Housemaid (trailer here) opens this Friday in New York at the IFC Center.

The wealthy Hoon can always make problems go away with discretely placed envelopes filled with cash. The Byung-sik has seen it happen time after time. The grand dame of the domestic staff has accomplished a rare feat of social elevation, supporting her son’s legal education up through his recent appointment as a public prosecutor. She has earned a measure of respect from the family, yet she still slaves for them while barely masking her contempt. Into this environment of simmering malevolence comes a veritable lamb, Eun-yi.

Initially, Eun-yi enjoys life as a servant in Hoon’s house. Though undeniably sensual, it is not entirely clear whether she is really all there. It is also debatable who first seduces whom, Eun-yi or Hoon. Regardless, she is quite pleased to fulfill her additional duties. However, when her pregnancy starts to show, Hoon’s cold wife Hae-ra and her cougarish mother Mi-hee have a big problem. Things will not be pretty from here on out.

Crafting a big, lurid sexual melodrama, Im turns the class dynamics of the Kim’s Housemaid on their head. In the original, the middle class family allowed their live-in servant to terrorize them with impunity, fearing the social and economic consequences which would result from any whiff of scandal. In contrast, Kim portrays the Hoon family as masters of the universe, reckless in their perversity and utter disregard for the rights of their employees. Yet, rather than a call to the barricades, Im’s Housemaid is a guilty pleasure filled with jaw-droppingly provocative twists and turns.

Already something of a legendary figure of Korean television and cinema, Youn Yuh-jung’s supporting turn as Byung-sik is exceptionally accomplished, providing the dark, resentful heart of the film. It is truly award caliber work. Film festival superstar (recently seen here in Secret Sunshine) Jeon Do-youn is also perfectly cast as the mostly innocent Eun-yi, keeping viewers effectively off-balance the entire film. Also quite notable is the ever alluring Park Ji-young, frankly outdoing any and all Lady MacBeths as Mother Mi-hee. Perhaps most surprising though, is the rather nuanced and intriguingly ambiguous work of Ahn Seo-Hyeon as Hoon’s young daughter Nami.

Tightly executed, Housemaid is a nasty, feverish thriller. It is also wickedly stylish thanks to the lush cinematography of Lee Hyung Deok and Lee Ha-joon’s lavish set design. Highly recommended, especially but certainly not limited to connoisseurs of Asian cinema, Im’s Housemaid opens this Friday (1/21) in New York at the IFC Center.

Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance

In the future, child labor laws will be loosened in Japan. It will be for a good cause though: the salvation of humanity. Only pre-teens can fit into the cockpit of the Evangelions, the huge cyborg-like fighting machines created to protect the earth from the otherworldly peril it faces. It is a grueling task that extracts a costly toll from the young pilots in Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance (trailer here), the second film in screenwriter and “chief director” Hideaki Anno’s big-screen “rebuild” of the popular Japanese anime, which opens this Friday in New York and San Francisco.

As 2.0 opens, the Earth is once again under attack by “Angels,” hulking robotic extraterrestrial beings apparently impervious to all conventional weaponry. Shinji Ikari still flies his Eva unit in hopes of winning the approval of his severe father, who oversees NERV’s Evangelion program. His feelings for Rei, the emotionally fragile lead Eva pilot, continue to percolate. Into their midst comes a new pilot, Asuka, a Euro hotshot who arrives on the scene like Maverick at the Miramar TOPGUN school. Unfortunately, none of them expect the radical transformations in store for the Evas, nor the resulting implications for their own humanity.

Also crediting co-directors Masayuki and Kazuya Tsurumaki, 2.0 shrewdly incorporates proven elements from popular film and television, like the shadowy cabals of The X-Files and armored behemoths pounding each other silly, a la The Transformers. However, Anno’s anime utilizes strangely inverted Christian imagery, like the killer “Angels” that often explode into crosses when they are destroyed and “Lilith,” the life-giving angel, preserved beneath NERV central command disturbingly crucified on her cross. In fact, the original anime was somewhat notorious for its dense mythology, which has reportedly been streamlined for the rebuild. While its symbolism has the potential to become deeply troubling in future installments, for now it earns the first two Evangelions credit for ambition and novelty.

Frankly, elements of the meta-conspiracy revealed in 2.0 might even confuse those who saw 1.0, but most viewers going in cold will pick up enough to appreciate the rock-um-sock-um action sequences. Anime fanboys though might be disappointed by the lack of “fan service” aside from an Austin Powers shot of Asuka. Yet as animation, Evangelion represents the high-end of anime, featuring some rather striking imagery.

For those who sparingly partake of anime, the Evangelion series is one to check out. Smarter and more neurotic than the industry standard, it is an oddly compelling excursion into apocalyptic science fiction. Many theaters, including the Manhattan Big Cinemas (1/19 & 1/20) and the Viz Theater at New People (1/18-1/20) will screen 1.0 for a few days prior to 2.0’s opening (on the 21st both here in New York and in San Francisco).

Global Lens ’11: The White Meadows

It is so tragically appropriate that the latest film from unjustly persecuted Iranian film directors Mohammad Rasoulof and Jafar Panahi uses tears as a major plot device, it is almost embarrassing to point out the obvious aptness. However, it is the repressive Iranian government that should be ashamed. It has sentenced both filmmakers to six year prison terms, on the flimsiest of pretexts. The only remotely good news for Rasoulof and Panahi is the inclusion of their latest collaboration in the 2011 Global Lens traveling film program. Yet, the Museum of Modern Art has been oddly quiet about their upcoming screenings of Rasoulof’s The White Meadows, a strange and unsettling cinematic fable edited by Panahi.

The water has never been saltier and the people living on Lake Urmia’s sandy white isles have never been so miserable. A karmic hand seems to be at work. Seeking relief from their sorrow, they turn to Rahmat, a tear collector, who gathers his watery harvest during their funerals, confessions, and inquisitions. However, after leaving one grieving family, Rahmat is surprised to find a stowaway on his small boat, the young Nissim, who has set out on the truly archetypal quest to find his prodigal father.

As Rahmat and his unexpected apprentice travel from one island to another, Meadows subtly grows ever more fantastical and sad. Indeed, its episodic nature seems like a conscious attempt to evoke the spirit of ancient epics like The Odyssey, while keeping its exact time-frame deliberately vague.

Though he functions as an enigmatic journeyman, Hasan Pourshirazi’s Rahmat is still fascinating to watch as he slowly yields up his mysteries. As young Nissim, Younes Ghazali shows talent beyond his years, effectively serving as the audience’s proxy, expressing perfectly believable horror at the injustices he witnesses.

Totally absorbing despite its unhurried pace, Meadows is a testament to the filmmaking talents of director Rasoulof and editor Panahi. As lensed by cinematographer Ebrahim Ghafouri, it is a visually stunning film, often arrestingly utilizing wide angle shots of its black-clad figures, standing out as contrasting specks against the blinding sunlight and the eerie white sand and saltwater vistas of Urmia.

Given the prevalence of tears and suffering in Meadows, it is hard not to read additional meaning into its story. Rasoulof wisely keeps the political allegory largely shrouded (though evidently not obscure enough). Still, there seem to be clear parallels between the bad karma the islanders are suffering and the sins of the Islamic Revolutionary government. Certain critiques of Iranian society are also inescapable, especially its rampant misogyny. Indeed, when a beautiful woman dies terribly young, one Islander tells Rahmat it is for the best, lest she inspire unfulfilled lust in the men. Also worth noting, Meadows scrupulously adheres to Iran’s stringent regulations forbidding all forms of physical contact between men and women on-screen.

The standout film at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival, Meadows is a masterfully crafted work that resists lazy categorization (such as “political allegory” or “Arabian fantasy”). Filmed under difficult circumstances, it is also recommended beyond reasons of its considerable cinematic merits. Clearly, the current Iranian regime would like the outside world to forget Rasoulof, Panahi, and their films. Instead, go see Meadows as the Global Lens program makes its way across the country and also check out Panahi’s Offside, a spirited film about a group of young women trying to sneak into a soccer game to cheer on the national team, even though their presence is forbidden by Islamist law. Highly recommended, Meadows screens at MoMA tomorrow (1/19) and Saturday (1/22).

New World Order: Zenith

There is something seductive about conspiracy theory rhetoric. It often posits a straw-man’s alternative of a “coincidental” conception of history, while capitalizing on class resentments. What conspiracy theorists often lack, perhaps assuming it goes without saying, is a compelling motive to explain why those with such a vested interest in the current system would want to hasten its destruction. Such is also the case with Vladan Nikolic’s Zenith (trailer here), a frequently clever near future speculative thriller with the same strengths and weaknesses of its protagonists’ conspiracy pamphlets that opens this Wednesday in New York at the Kraine Theater.

“Dumb” Jack Crowley sells drugs. Since the general population has been genetically modified into a state of banal satisfaction, one would think business would be slow. However, rather than a high, Crowley offers life-affirming pain induced by his stash of outdated prescription drugs. He is also known to sample his own wares. In the grimy post-industrial world, money is meaningless, but Crowley can barter his drugs for nearly everything, including a set of elusive VHS videotapes recorded by Crowley’s eccentric father forty years ago.

In X-Files parlance, Ed Crowley wanted to believe. He became a priest in an attempt to find his faith. It did not work, but a fateful encounter in his confessional turned him into a conspiracy buff. Leaving the priesthood, Ed Crowley sounds increasingly like a man who has heard too much Alex Jones on the radio (which would be about half a show) as he races around videotaping his strange investigations with his loyal sidekick-cameraman in tow.

Nikolic (a.k.a. Anonymous) nicely dovetails his two narrative time-frames, culminating with a neatly symmetrical climax. However, the final twists are not as mind-blowing as they are intended to be. What really works in Zenith is the credibly cruddy dystopian milieu created by the design team of Brian Goodwin and Grace G.G. Yun. Viewers get a visceral sense of this dreary world and the resulting compulsion to experience pain worthy of an existential Dostoyevsky anti-hero.

Unfortunately, Zenith is hampered by a villain weak in both the conception and the execution. The malevolent Berger (as in Bilderberger?) is a pharmaceutical tycoon who ought to be up doo-doo’s creek with the collapse of the world economy. Yet for some reason, he seems to be behind it all. Actor David Thornton also seems bored with the evil businessman cliché, playing Berger without any scenery-chewing, moustache-twisting zest. In contrast, Peter Scanavino and Jason Robards III are both quite intense and dynamic as junior and senior Crowley, respectively.

Aside from a bit of big pharma paranoia, Zenith is relatively free of ideological baggage, at least within the film itself. However, part of the underlying concept involves a network of supporting websites and viral videos, some of which indulge in rather extreme partisanship, including Wikileaks fan-worship. It is a good way to needlessly alienate half their potential audience. Genre fans should also take note, the Zenith sites also describe the film as “steampunk,” but there is nothing neo-Victorian about it. Though not perfect, “cyberpunk” would be a more fitting term.

Zenith sometimes offers flashes of DIY coolness, but lacks the kind of colorful villain required in genre films. It shows legitimate promise, but it is not clear the Zenith concept will expand in rewarding directions. For the intrigued and the paranoid obsessed, it opens in New York at the Kraine Theater (traditionally a dramatic venue) this Wednesday (1/19).

Portrait of the Artistic Family: The Woodmans

Francesca Woodman is the sort of artist collectors love—a precocious and prolific figure who died tragically young. Of course, one must always remember she was also someone’s daughter. In fact, her father George and mother Betty are also artists accomplished in multiple disciplines. Years after her death, the Woodman family dynamic resists easy description, even for her parents and brother, who explore their complicated feelings for the late Francesca in C. Scott Willis’s The Woodmans (trailer here), the winner of the Best New York Documentary Award at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival, which opens this Wednesday in New York at Film Forum.

Though from different backgrounds, the WASPY George and Jewish Betty made a perfect, art-obsessed couple. However, when pressed, they admit they might have been a bit self-absorbed with their work, perhaps not infrequently leaving the kids to entertain themselves. Still, it reinforced their conscious efforts to instill the value of artistic creation in their children. It definitely took with their youngest, Francesca.

Even before attending RISD, Francesca Woodman had largely developed her provocative photographic style. Often shooting faceless nude self-portraits, her sexually charged work would have concerned square bourgeoisie parents, but George and Betty found it interesting. Absolutely certain of her talent, the youngest Woodman was impatient for the art world to catch up with her. She was also clearly prone to depression, which ultimately destroyed her. Ironically though, her posthumous acclaim is nearly as difficult for her somewhat vain parents and more retiring brother to come to terms with.

Willis’s film is scrupulously nonjudgmental, capturing the lingering guilt and denial of the surviving Woodmans, without absolving or condemning them. Still, given the dehumanized eroticism of her work, it is difficult to understand why her parents were not more concerned at an earlier stage.

While Woodman’s photographs are powerful, if disturbing, her experimental videos seen throughout the documentary have not aged as well. Yet her prints consistently show a striking sense of composition and her bold contrast of soft gauzy subjects and harsh industrial backdrops remains quite potent.

The question whether Francesca Woodman could have lived a happier life had she been raised by more conventional parents hovers unasked over the film. That is a tough place to go. In all other respects, The Woodmans is a very honest documentary, eliciting some real soul-searching from her few friends and immediate family. David Lang’s spare but elegant original score performed by So Percussion also nicely compliments the difficult introspection unfolding on-screen. Sad but smart, the film’s appeal should transcend the hipster art world when it opens this Wednesday (1/18) at New York’s Film Forum.

Paprika Steen in Applause

For an actress straight out of rehab, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? might not be the best comeback vehicle. Yes indeed, for Thea Barfoed, the role of Martha is only too fitting. Still, there is no denying it is a tour de force performance, both for Barfoed on-stage and Paprika Steen bringing her to life on-screen. If not a household name, the Danish star of Dogme 95 classics like Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration deserves to be in Oscar contention for her fearless work in Martin Pieter Zandvliet’s Applause (trailer here), which opens in New York this Friday on the heels of a special one-week Oscar qualifying run today in Los Angeles late last year.

Barfoed is like an older Lindsay Lohan with talent. She makes a show of her sobriety, but she spends more time off the wagon than on. Having voluntarily relinquished her two boys to their father Christian, she now wants back in their lives. He agrees for their sake, but only to an extent. It is hard to blame him. After a few binges, it is clear she remains a stranger to stability.

From her embarrassingly transparent attempts to win over Christian’s new wife Maiken to her casual hostility towards her theater dresser, we quickly understand there is something seriously flawed with the way Barfoed relates to others. She is openly contemptuous of her public, yet she still craves their attention. To call her a train wreck of conflicting neuroses does a disservice to train wrecks, but it is impossible not to gawk at her self-destructive behavior.

Utilizing footage of her real life stage turn in a Danish revival of Albee’s play, Applause really represents two performances in one for Steen. With the parallels between Barfoed the thespian and Martha the character plainly obvious, they effectively reinforce viewers’ mounting uneasiness with the problematic protagonist. Yet, for all her ill-contained psychological turmoil, one is still always wondering if Barfoed still has any semblance of a soul buried within her.

Steen is scary good as Barfoed. Unflattering, unlikable, and uncompromising, it is not a performance tailor-made for Oscar love, but the sheer power of Steen’s work is an unmistakable knock alongside the head—if they saw it, that is. There is no question Applause is Steen’s picture lock, stock and barrel, but Michael Falch is also quite good tacking a more understated course as the understandably frustrated Christian.

With its reasonably professional lighting and an often distracting electronic non-diegetic soundtrack, Applause falls short of the rigid criteria of the Dogme 95 school of grungily realistic filmmaking. However, its grainy look and handheld camera work show the lingering influence of the Dogme aesthetic.

Throughout Applause, Steen puts on an acting clinic. Granted, her character might trouble many viewers, but it is supposed to. Searingly intense, it opens Friday (1/21) in New York at the Village East.

Zen and Its Opposite: Jigoku

Dante truly tapped into something significant. His visions of Hell are compatible with not just the Christianity, but the tenets of many world traditions, including Buddhism. In fact, it is the Buddhist conception of Hell that graphically informs Nobuo Nakagawa’s Jigoku (or Hell), which fittingly screens this Friday as part of the Japan Society’s continuing Zen & Its Opposite film series exploring the darker side of Zen Buddhism.

Shiro Shimizu is going to Hell. In his case, the road is paved more with cowardice and compliance than good intentions. He is not really a bad person, but he is no match for Tamura, his self-appointed frienemy. Whenever his Mephistophelian fellow student is present, bad things seem to happen. After crashing Shimizu’s intimate engagement celebration with Yukiko Yajima, his fiancé, and her parents, Tamura insists on driving Shimizu home. However, at Shimizu’s insistence, they take a fatal detour resulting in the hit-and-run death of a low level yakuza. Wracked with guilt, Shimizu is intent on confessing. However, on the way to the police station, Shimizu’s cab has a freak accident, killing innocent Yukiko.

Believing himself truly accursed (and not without reason), Shimizu descends into a boozy bender of vice, attracting the attention of the late yakuza’s mother and lover. Yet, he somewhat pulls out of it when he is called home to his dying mother’s sick bed. There he meets Sachiko, the perfect likeness of his beloved Yukiko. Of course, the malevolent Tamura materializes soon enough, not that the unsavory characters surrounding Shimizu, most definitely including his dissolute father, need much help choosing the path to damnation.

There are a number of “wait, what just happened?” moments in Jigoku, but once Nakagawa has everyone in the fiery underworld the film suddenly makes perfect sense. Though usually labeled a horror film, Jigoku is better described as a feverish metaphysical head-trip, sort of a forerunner to Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void. Fifty years later, the brutal and surreal imagery is still disturbing thanks in large measure to the striking cinematography of Mamoru Morita. (One cannot miss the color red in his color palette.) If nothing else, Jigoku will convince viewers Hell would be a good place to avoid.

Later to star in the original Ringu and its sequel, Yôichi Numata is just creepy as all Jigoku in the role of Tamura. Luxuriating in pure evil, he is an unforgettable movie devil. Conversely, Utako Mitsuya expresses an endearing vulnerability as Yukiko and particularly as Sachiko. Though his meek character is maddeningly passive, Shigeru Amachi is at least credible enough expressing his pain and angst.

Visually, Jigoku at times suggests a kinship with Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan (1965), which also screened during the Zen and Its Opposite series. Yet, where Kwaidan is Da Vinci-esque, Jigoku is Boschian. There is indeed a bloody grisliness to some sequences that must have been shocking for 1960. Perhaps most impressively, Nakagawa wraps it all up with a conclusion open to positive interpretation while staying true to all that precedes it. A far richer film than Noé’s Void, Jigoku is quite a hallucinatory journey. A true cult classic, it screens this Friday (1/21) at the Japan Society.

Shortlisted: God of Love

Finding love is tough when you’re a Brooklyn hipster. Everyone is just too cool, which is why Raymond Goodfellow needs a little divine intervention. Yet, even with help from upstairs, he still has trouble closing the sale in Luke Matheny’s God of Love, a Gold Medal winner at the 2010 Student Academy Awards currently on the Oscar shortlist for best narrative short film.

Raymond Goodfellow is an unusual double-threat: a crooner of standards and a highly-ranked competitive darts thrower. It certainly adds a unique dimension to his nightclub sets. Unfortunately, the chemistry with his band is a bit off. He is head-over-heels for his drummer, Kelly Moran, but she pines for Fozzie, Goodfellow’s best friend and guitarist. While the loyal Fozzie rebuffs her constant advances, Goodfellow offers up ardent prayers to a nondenominational God for help in winning her heart. Much to his surprise, they seem to have been answered in the form of a box of magic darts that render their target romantically vulnerable for six hours. Counting on Fozzie’s bemused help, Goodfellow plans to make the most of his window with Moran, but naturally complications ensue.

Witty and somewhat neurotic, Love clearly suggests the influence of Woody Allen, but writer-director Matheny shows wise restraint, never trying too hard. As Goodfellow, he also sounds rather agreeable on Irving Berlin’s “All By Myself.” Though not really a film about music per se, it definitely still feels in tune with a musician’s sensibilities.

Matheny is droll and sympathetic as the loveless, luckless Goodfellow, with Christopher Hirsh’s Fozzie nicely serving as his deadpan foil. As Angela, Goodfellow’s first guinea pig set-up to fall for his bass player, Broadway actress Emily Young also shows surprising versatility in a relatively small supporting role, all within the short’s mere nineteen minute running time.

Love is a fun film that looks great thanks to Bobby Webster’s stylish black-and-white cinematography. Deftly mixing sly humor with unabashed romanticism, it is an attention-grabbing calling card for Matheny. Oscar ballots are now in the process of being tabulated, but Love really ought to have a place on the final slate of nominees. Look for it to play as part of Academy showcases of nominated short films if it successfully makes the cut.

Submitted by Latvia: Hong Kong Confidential

For nearly twenty years, Latvian director Maris Martinsons lived in Lithuania, which submitted his first film Loss as the country’s 2008 offering for official foreign language Oscar consideration, even though it was set in Ireland. Martinsons’ world citizen ethos is again exemplified by his second film, Hong Kong Confidential, another global co-production, in this case submitted to the Academy’s foreign language division by the director’s native Latvia, though obviously filmed in scenic HK. Confidential (a.k.a. Amaya, trailer here) is one of this year’s harder submissions to pigeon hole, well beyond its multinational pedigree, yet it is strangely beguiling and certainly worthy of a product tour on the festival circuit, regardless of Oscar love.

The English-speaking Paul is not a tourist, he is a traveler, visiting far-flung Asian locales in search of traditional and exotic massage techniques. In HK, he signs up for classes taught by the Chinese master Tao, where he seems to have an odd effect on the employees. At first the attractive Jasmine resents his rather confident flirtation, but the older Amaya is intrigued by the mystery man.

Amaya is also something of an outsider, a Japanese expatriate who has made a home with her dull but loving dry-cleaner husband. She is relatively happy, but misses her grown son working in a far-off fishing village. Indeed, everyone in Confidential is missing or yearning for someone and each keeps his own secrets.

Martinsons deftly walks a fine line in Confidential, playing all sorts of narrative games in the background, while foregrounding the film with deceptively accessible relationship dramas and even moments of light comedy. Frankly, it is an odd experience watching a film that is so emotionally engaging, yet also something of a head-scratcher—but that is not a bad thing.

It all works because of the caliber of his cast. Written for the great Japanese actress Kaori Momoi (whose credits include Kurosawa’s Kagemusha and a flat-out awesome supporting turn in Takashi Miike’s otherwise disappointing Sukiyaki Western Django), she brings a mature beauty and a wonderful sense of dignity to the film as Amaya. In fact, her understated wisdom helps sell the film’s riskier, more mystical scenes. Though Andrius Momotovas’ English often sounds more than a bit phonetic, he has a fascinating screen presence, developing real chemistry with the ensemble. There is also something quite haunting about Monie Tung’s performance as the beautiful but wounded Jasmine.

What most distinguishes Confidential is the degree to which Martinsons maintains his characters auras of mystery without indulging in obscurity for its own sake, a la David Lynch. It would surely frustrate more conventional viewers, but it unquestionably establishes its own unique tone, further heightened by the original music composed by lead actor Momotovas (whose catchy song “The World is Full of Love” is at least as Oscar-worthy as nine-tenths of this year’s forty-one qualified tunes). There is no question Confidential is a long shot for the foreign language nomination, but it ought to rank in the top ten percentile of the field. If Academy members paid attention during their screenings, anything is possible.

NYJFF ‘11: Cabaret Polska

1968 was truly a year of infamy. Perhaps most notorious was the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia crushing the brief “Prague Spring” interlude of openness, but that awful year also witnessed the Polish Communists orchestrating an anti-Semitic purge, as a part of a virulent propaganda campaign against Zionism. Essentially it completed the country’s complete disillusionment with its Communist government, leaving a lingering sense of shame and loss that is expressed in unconventional but eloquent terms in Nir David Zats and Zuzanna Solakiewicz’s Cabaret Polska, which has its American premiere this coming Wednesday during the 2011 New York Jewish Film Festival.

Ryszard Wojcik is not Jewish, but the purge cost him many close friends, including Stach and Joasia Gomulka. Hounded into immigrating, the Gomulkas were forced to abandon nearly all their worldly possessions, including a book Wojcik still prizes as a memento of their interrupted friendship. Yet as Joasia Gomulka ironically remembers, many of those persecuting her family were also jealous of them, because at least they were allowed to leave (and the sooner, the better).

Cabaret is not merely an oral history style documentary. As the title indicates, there are several slightly surreal musical interludes, as well as a highly stylized animated sequence incorporating surviving photos of the Gomulkas circa 1968. While it all might sound out of place, those familiar with the absurdist theatrical productions of Grotowski and the dissident Theater of the Eighth Day will recognize and understand Cabaret’s influences. Indeed, it is a fittingly absurd way to address Communism and its institutionalized anti-Semitism.

As one probably gathers, Cabaret veers far and wide, yet it never loses sight of the big picture, delivering a number of heavy moments. At just under an hour’s running time, it is also a manageable excursion into experimental documentary filmmaking. Given the Polish experience in WWII, the 1968 anti-Semitic purges are particularly appalling. Fortunately, Cabaret is part of an organized effort to prevent that difficult episode of Polish history from slipping into the memory hole. Highly recommended to modestly adventurous viewers, Cabaret screens Wednesday (1/19) at the Walter Reade Theater as part of a double bill of long short-form documentaries during this year’s NYJFF.

Zhao Liang’s Crime and Punishment

Imagine the Keystone Cops with severe mean streak. That is pretty much what you get from the Chinese military police stationed in a hardscrabble village on the North Korean border. Watching a full day of these officers on the job is not a pretty picture, but it is often quite absurd. Such is the nature of Chinese criminal justice subversively documented by Zhao Liang in Crime and Punishment (trailer here), which screens at the Anthology Film Archives in conjunction with the long-awaited theatrical release of Zhao’s devastating Petition.

Distributed by dGenerate Films, the specialists in independent Chinese cinema, Punishment watches fly-on-the-wall style as the recruits of the People’s Armed Police (PAP) gruffly patrol the isolated border town in hopes of a more permanent and prestigious assignment at the end of their two year tours. Essentially temps, the young men do not seem to be concerned with forging any rapport with the locals. Beatings are pretty much par for the course, as the soldiers quickly demonstrate during their first case of the day.

A severely hard-of-hearing man is hauled in on suspicion of stealing a cell-phone, with the obvious irony therein completely lost on the PAP. When their interrogation flounders, they first resort to public humiliation, eventually falling back on a good old-fashioned beating. “Turn off the cameras” they instruct Zhao. We will be hearing those words several times more before the film ends.

Although they do not physically assault the subject of their next investigation, their behavior towards a dirt poor farmer collecting scrap metal without a dozen government permits filed in triplicate is arguably crueler. Watching them badger and berate the clueless old man feels like one of the longest, most uncomfortable sequences ever captured on film.

As the day progresses, it looks like the coppers might be doing some legitimate police work when they launch a manhunt for a suspected killer. However, the only prey we see them bag is a desperate farmer poaching firewood to sell for New Year’s gifts for his children. Even the arresting officers have misgivings after seeing the suspect’s truly mean living conditions. Unfortunately, they had already administered the requite beat-down by this point.

Although Zhao basically cuts the camera when he is told, he still leaves no question as to the nature of what happens shortly thereafter. Like most Digital Generation filmmakers, Zhao eschews artificial conventions like voice-over narration and talking head interview segments. Aside from a few Dragnet like title cards explaining what happened to suspects after their questioning/thrashing, Zhao simply captures the scene in his lens, letting each character speak for himself through his behavior.

While Punishment does not have the same emotional heft as Petition, it is still a rather shocking expose of the Chinese criminal justice system. Yet, for all the abuse and intimidation meted out by the PAP, their actual results are less than impressive. After three investigations and much thuggery, they have less than one thousand Yuan in fines to show for their efforts. Daring in its own right, the unvarnished Punishment is definitely worth seeing when it screens at Anthology Film Archives today (1/13), Saturday (1/15), and Sunday (1/16) in conjunction with Zhao’s staggering Petition.