Midwinter of the Spirit: Anglican Exorcism

Hereford Cathedral is a great Anglican institution, but of course it was once Catholic. The new administration maintained their reverence for Saint Thomas de Cantilupe, the former bishop and defender of the faith entombed therein. Frankly, Anglicans and Roman Catholics agreed on a lot of things back then, except the whole business of Henry VIII’s divorce. Since the Reformation, they have also split on the question women in the clergy. However, Vicar Merrily Watkins may come to regret her Church’s progressive policy when she is called to combat demonic powers in Midwinter of the Spirit: Series One (trailer here), which releases today on DVD from Acorn Media.

Reeling from a personal tragedy, Watkins has accepted a posting in Hereford hoping the change of scenery will be healthy for her daughter, Jane. She is still grieving the loss of her father in a traffic accident. The Vicar’s feelings are even more complicated, because her husband did not die alone. His mistress was also in the car.

Much to her surprise, Watkins has been designated Hereford’s new “deliverance minister,” which is a coded term for exorcist. She is openly skeptical during Rev. Huw Owen’s training sessions, but she will quickly learn better. The first clue something seriously evil is afoot would be the ritualistic crucifixion discovered in the woods. Things really get bad when she visits the death bed of a notorious pedophile and rumored Satanist, Denzil Joy, whose foul spirit somehow worms its way into her head before his body expires. He will torment her with dreams and visions, while his mortal minions lure her vulnerable daughter into their clutches. Fortunately, no demon would want anything to do with irascible old Owen, who will help Watkins battle the earthly conspiracy.

Although there are definitely some supernatural goings on in Midwinter, it is rather ambiguous just how demonic matters will really get, which makes it quite intriguing to watch unfold. Of course, there is the possibility things could get really, really bad, raising the stakes considerably. However, Owen often makes the sage point that evil is a very profound human reality, demonstrated by suicide bombers and the like.

Anna Maxwell Martin sure works a lot, but it is clearly because she is so reliable. For an educated everywoman character under stress, she is tough to beat. As Watkins, she makes every crisis of faith seem as believable as her challenges of motherhood. However, David Threlfall really puts his stamp on the series as the wise but prickly Owen. If your church needed an exorcism, you would want him to do it. On the villainous side of the ledger, Siobhan Finneran (O’Brien in Downton Abbey) chews the scenery with suitably sinister delight as Angela Purefoy, the local leader of the infernal conspirators.

There are some competently rendered special effects in Midwinter, but it is really more about mood and tapping into our ancient collective fears of the demonic. On some level, we are all still Catholics and Stephen Volk’s adaptation of Phil Rickman’s novel targets those inherited anxieties quite skillfully. Tightly but sensitively helmed by Richard Clark, Midwinter takes Christian faith and the Church seriously, treating them with respect, even while putting the latter in metaphysical danger. This really is horror in the William Peter Blatty tradition. Highly recommended, Midwinter of the Spirit: Season One is now available on DVD and streams on Acorn TV.

Valley of Love: Depardieu and Huppert, Together Again

It is too bad this grieving French mother was not in Death Valley for the decennial “Desert Bloom.” It would have been just the sort of sign she was hoping for. According to her son’s suicide notes, he promised to visit from beyond if she and his father (her ex) make a pilgrimage through the landmarks of Death Valley at certain appointed times. It seems unlikely, particularly to him, but the guilt they carry compels them to do it anyway in Guillaume Nicloux’s Valley of Love (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

It is one thing to give kids their space, but Isabelle and Gérard had not seen their son Michael in years. Each had later children with subsequent spouses, leaving Michael as a rather awkward reminder of their previous lives. There was also the business of his sexuality. Still, his partner reportedly never saw it coming. According to letters he wrote just before the end, Michael promises to appear to his parents if they stick to the itinerary he enclosed.

Whether it is because she is more inclined towards New Age hokum or she is just desperately grasping at straws, Isabelle is determined to follow Michael’s instructions to the letter. However, Gérard is planning to leave on the seventh day. That would seem like the most likely day for an appearance, but it was the only date he could book an appointment with a highly regarded oncology specialist. It is hard to argue with that, but Isabelle will try.

Ladies, this is a film for you, because there is an awful lot of man flesh to be seen within. Unfortunately, almost all of it is the shirtless Gérard Depardieu. Words fail to describe the spectacle. Still, he deserves credit for baring himself. At one point, he says to Isabelle: “how can I be happy looking like this?” (Maybe he could refrain from gorging himself on Putin’s caviar?)

Although Valley is nowhere near as self-referential as Nicloux’s previous film, The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq, it is clearly no accident Depardieu and Huppert (who appeared together in Maurice Pialat’s Loulou and Bertrand Blier’s Going Places) are playing their namesakes. While Nicloux might rely on their on-screen and off-screen reputations as a bit of character-establishing shorthand, they are largely able to transcend public personas and become credibly confused and bereaved parents. We really believe they really resent each other, yet still have some of the old feelings. Indeed, there is a reason why they are two of the most recognizable movie stars on the globe, regardless of the wear-and-tear they might show to varying degrees.

At the helm, Nicloux manages to walk a real tightrope, including enough supernatural elements to earn the film a berth at Sitges, yet never resorting to a traditional genre payoff. He maintains a mysteriously suggestive atmosphere that helps us buy into the dramatic possibilities. The desert is a mystical place, so why not?

Even without a wild flower explosion, cinematographer Christophe Offenstein makes the Death Valley vistas look spectacular (but also hot and dry). It is an indefinably odd film, but that is a good thing. Recommended for patrons of French cinema and fans of the two stars, Valley of Love opens this Friday (3/25) in New York, at the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center.

EU Chicago ’16: Last Summer of the Rich

Fascists and fetishists share a similar taste in shiny black clothes. Hanna von Stezewitz’s old National Socialist grandfather was the former, whereas she has the latter covered. With the old man on his death bed, she has already taken the reins of the multinational he built in rather unsavory ways. Arguably, she is sort of a more engaged Paris Hilton. However, von Stezewitz’s hedonism might finally lead to her undoing in Peter Kern’s Last Summer of the Rich (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Chicago European Union Film Festival.

Despite a well-earned reputation for her lavish orgies and lesbian S&M sessions in brothels, von Stezewitz has made herself a kingmaker in Vienna politics and a patroness of its art scene. Its because of her money. Like John Gielgud’s Hobson in Arthur, the loyal Boris tries to smooth over her scandals as best he can, but the family of a sixteen-year-old model roughly molested by von Stezewitz is being difficult. Of course, she refuses to give it much thought.

Instead, she decides to hasten her ailing grandfather on his way to his infernal rest. However, through a rather dubious O.Henry-esque twist, she also finds herself in the hitman’s crosshairs—or at least she thinks she is. It is not clear just how firm her grasp on reality becomes, as the film progresses. Regardless, she will not let such matters dissuade her from romantically pursuing Sarah, the young nun who tended to her grandfather during his final days. In fact, von Stezewitz has rather fallen head-over-heels, which is out of character for her.

So, obviously Last Summer is about three parts Rainer Werner Fassbinder and one part Tinto Brass (the worst part). Kern (who also has extensive acting credits, including Fassbinder’s Despair) apparently never met a taboo he couldn’t put in a film. That probably makes Last Summer unreleaseable in American, unless a distributor can somehow remove the scene with Stezewitz and the under-age model, while maintaining narrative cohesion. Good luck with that.

Clearly, it is all rather ridiculously over the top, particularly the masked assassin stalking von Stezewitz like the Pink Panther. Seriously, these folks spend more time in brothels than the characters of Game of Thrones. The tacked-on fig leaf of class-consciousness just makes it all even sillier.

At least, everyone understands what is required of them. As von Stezewitz, Amira Casar vamps it up like a poor man’s Asia Argento. Nicole Gerdon’s Sister Sarah seems almost ethereally unreal, but she still has her moments. Yet, it is Winfried Glatzeder who steals the show as dour, vinegary Boris.

Last Summer is not a great movie, nor is it bashful or apologetic, but there are still reasons to see it. You should know by now whether those are your reasons. Ludicrous and lecherous, Last Summer of the Rich follows in the tradition of Teutonic art house exploitation, so fans of Brass’s Salon Kitty can have at it when it screens this Friday (3/25) and next Tuesday (3/29) at the Siskel Film Center, as part of this year’s Chicago EU Film Festival.

Who’s Crazy? The Ornette Coleman Trio Plays for Escaped Lunatics

As you might expect, the Living Theatre’s regular players had no trouble playing crazy. The company that premiered The Connection was no stranger to jazz soundtracks either. However, this bit of counter-cultural madness had been presumed lost for decades, only to have a copy turn up in the director’s garage. As a result, far more people have heard Ornette Coleman’s soundtrack than have seen the images he scored it to—and that is not exactly a huge subset of jazz fans. Fifty years later, a repaired print of Tom White’s Who’s Crazy (trailer here) finally screens again in New York this weekend at Anthology Film Archives.

Somewhere in Belgium (naturally enough), a busload of insane asylum inmates has escaped and taken refuge in a well-stocked farm house. If you need more narrative than that, Who’s Crazy is probably not your cup of tea. Just as the junkies in The Connection spend their time doing junkie things, the lunatics in Crazy while away the hours with acts of insanity. At one point, they resolve to put one of their less social comrades on trial, but they seem to quickly forget the idea. Eventually, the Keystone Cops will show up, giving additional meaning to the title. It is all trippy and slapsticky, but the real reason to see Who’s Crazy is Ornette Coleman’s richly distinctive soundtrack, recorded with David Izenson on bass and Charles Moffett on drums (his classic Golden Circle trio).

Frankly, some of the music improvised by Coleman’s trio swings surprisingly (and pleasantly) hard. Coleman always was on the more accessible end of the free jazz spectrum, but most of the Who’s Crazy soundtrack is especially easy to relate to. Nonetheless, his power and adventurousness remain unmistakable and readily identifiable. This is just a great Coleman session, like the soundtrack to Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows was a great Miles Davis album. In fact, the Who’s Crazy recording session was documented in Dick Fontaine’s short documentary, David, Moffett, and Ornette: the Ornette Coleman Trio, adding further mystique to White’s rarely seen film with its tantalizing clips.

As a film itself, Who’s Crazy? is very much a product of its time. However, in retrospect, it seems almost like a perfect allegorical microcosm of the 1960s counter-culture. The lunatics clearly look and act unambiguously hippy-like. If White is holding a mirror up to nature, whose reflection do we think we see in the bedlam?

It is a shame Who’s Crazy disappeared for five decades, because it could have easily been programmed for revival runs alongside The Connection and Pull My Daisy. As cinema, it is deliberately ragged and a little silly, but it incorporates Coleman, Izenzon, and Moffett playing with seamless rapport, breathtaking flexibility, and dynamic virtuosity. As if that were not enough, Marianne Faithful performs Coleman’s edgy “Sadness.” Anyone who is fascinated by the relationship between jazz and cinema has to see Who’s Crazy? now that it has finally returned from the land of the lost films. Highly recommended for Ornette fans and patrons of the avant-garde, Who’s Crazy? screens this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (3/25-3/27) at Anthology Film Archives.

QWFF ’16: Coming and Going

If it is any consolation, life would probably be even harder for these two sets of brothers if they were sisters instead, because that is how things are in China. Life is a hardscrabble business in their rural village, but the promise of the big city often gives way to bitter disappointment for migrant workers who try their luck there. The young protagonists constantly grapple with their dashed “grass is greener” hopes in Tianlin Xu’s Coming and Going (trailer here), which screened at the 2016 Queens World Film Festival.

After their father’s death left them orphans, teenagers Hai-cheng and Hai-long essentially gave up on rural life. One now spends more time working short-term jobs in the nearest city than he does in their home town. His brother will probably follow his lead, once the harvest is finished.

Qiang and Jun should be care-free pre-teens, but they are understandably concerned by the long period without contact from their father, a migrant worker in the city. For now, they board at the regional school and help their exhausted grandparents in the fields. Even though they are still cared for, their father’s absence weighs heavily on them.

There have been many documentaries that have chronicled the plight of Communist China’s swelling underclass, but Xu (pictured below) manages to make it fresh (and even more tragic), through her cross-cutting of the four brothers’ stories. It becomes achingly clear we are watching history repeat itself, not necessarily beat for beat, but definitely in terms of the broad strokes.

Indeed, we come to suspect the younger set of brothers will inevitably follow in the older duo’s footsteps, eventually seeking employment in an urban industrial center. However, from what we see in C&G, they are most likely better off staying home. Migrant workers are typically exploited by employers and targeted by criminals. In many cases, they are worse off than when they left. As various extended family members argue, nobody starves in the village.

Of course, the easier subsistence living in the countryside is not a future. It is a static life. So even knowing the possible hardships facing them, it is difficult to blame the younger brothers for their eagerness to seek work in the big city.

C&G earns surprise style points for Timon Wareczko’s evocative score and a rather poignant original song. Xu’s approach is sensitive and disciplined, yet also strictly observational, so she never has an opportunity to explain how China’s stringent Hukou residency regulations exacerbate migrant workers’ perilous status, making them “undocumented workers” in their own country.

Still, she captures the nature of their lives quite powerfully and directly. She leads us to sympathize with the older pair and makes us ache for scrappy young Qiang and Jun. They deserve a real future. Highly recommended for China watchers, Coming and Going should have plenty more festival screenings to come, following its New York premiere at this year’s Queens World Film Festival.

ND/NF ’16: The Fits

It could be worse. When teenaged girls starting having convulsions in Salem, half the town was accused of witchcraft. In this case, it might merely be environmental toxicity or perhaps peer pressure. The emotional tangle that comes with puberty probably also plays a role in Anna Rose Holmer’s The Fits (trailer here), which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Young Toni trains alongside her Golden Gloves contending brother Jermaine and helps him finish his chores around the recreation center near their home in the Cincinnati projects. She is one tough eleven-year-old, but her socialization is a little underdeveloped. Understanding her need for belonging, her brother encourages her to try out for the Lionesses, a competitive dance team that also trains in the center.

Toni duly makes the cut for their preteen auxiliary, despite her dubious sense of rhythm. Of course, she brings the same determination to her practice routines that she did in her sit-ups and pull-ups with Jermaine. However, the team suffers a setback when the captain breaks out into a fit of spasms. She will not be the only one. Several other team members will have similar seizure-like episodes. Unfortunately, there will be enough incidents to force the Lionesses to drop out of what would have been her first competition.

First and foremost, it should be established both Royalty Hightower and Da’Sean Minor are terrific as Toni and Jermaine. Hightower just commands the screen with an intensity beyond her youthful years. Some might overlook Minor’s first-rate work as a result, but he is enormously charismatic and gives a finely nuanced, completely grounded performance.

Frankly, all the kids are spot-on in their roles, which makes the narrative flatness of Holmer's screenplay so agonizingly frustrating. Basically, there seem to be elements of The Breakfast Club mashed together with Todd Haynes’ Safe, but it doesn’t seem to have much to say about the kids’ social and cultural milieu. Adults are conspicuously absent in this world, but it is unclear how much we are supposed to read into that. Far from running amok, both the dancers and the boxers appear to lead very disciplined and structured lives.

Still, Holmer shows admirable restraint handling the fits themselves. There are just enough of them to be a legitimate cause for concern, but not enough to trigger skepticism from the adult coach who belatedly turns up in the third act. As a work of slice-of-life naturalism, Fits is quite successful. Viewers come to understand Toni’s universe is entirely circumscribed by the projects, the rec center, and the bridge connecting them (which happen to be great for stair-step work) and we feel like we know every inch of the latter two.

There are at least two future stars in The Fits and possibly a whole lot more. Unfortunately, the deliberate ambiguities give the film a feeling of incompleteness rather than mysteriousness. Frankly, it wears its first film status (of the narrative feature variety) on its sleeve, but that also makes it a logical fit for New Directors/New Films. Recommended with considerable reservations solely for the performances of its talented, in-the-process-of-being-discovered cast, The Fits screens tonight (3/19) at MoMA and tomorrow (3/20) at the Walter Reade, as part of ND/NF ’16.

Thank You for Playing: Video Game Catharsis

Culture snobs like to joke about gamers as if they are all Cheetos-eating man-children living in their parents’ basement, but many are responsible adults with real feelings and real burdens to bear. As a father, game-designer Ryan Green faced the worst news any parent will ever hear when his one-year-old son Joel was diagnosed with brain cancer. To keep alive his son’s memory, Green began work on That Dragon, Cancer, a narrative video game allowing players to experience the highs and lows of raising a terminally ill child. David Osit & Malika Zouhali-Worrall document the development of the game and the tragic circumstances inspiring it in Thank You for Playing (trailer here), which opens today in Brooklyn.

This is not a breezy, fun movie to watch. Essentially, viewers are forewarned as to how it will most likely end, but that does not make it any easier to take, especially after we have come to know the Greens. Ryan and his wife Amy Green are remarkably brave and open, allowing the filmmakers to capture some intensely private and painful memories. It is just tough to watch them get one discouraging test result after another.

Green’s game, developed with Josh Larson, becomes many things, including a coping mechanism and a sort of animated scrapbook of memories. There is very little game-play within That Dragon. It is more about taking players on a journey.

There are a host of challenges that come with making a film that is this intimate and demands so much sensitivity. Osit and Zouhali-Worrall largely opt to resolve them by almost completely pulling back as filmmakers and simply recording the Greens. It is an understandable decision, because nobody would want to see the Greens upstaged by some hipster filmmaker excesses. However, that means everything in the film comes from the Green family. They only breakaway to show animated interludes from the game that were scripted by Green, based on his family’s experience. Arguably, Osit and Zouhali-Worrall do not bring very much value-added in their roles as filmmakers.

Regardless, nobody can fault the Greens. Even if Ryan Green’s decision to process the reality of his son’s circumstances through his creative outlet seems strange to us, he has a right to deal with it in any manner that might offer him some consolation or cathartic relief. If the film and game help others in similar situations than so much the better.

However, there is a glaring omission in the film. The Greens have two older sons who seem very patient and affectionate towards young Joel, but we never really get to hear their perspective directly.

Still, there are scenes in Thank You that will haunt you. There is more reality in this documentary than the entire reality television phenomenon aggregated together. It is heart-crushing and deeply moving (but it would have been nice if Osit and Zouhali-Worrall could have elevated the film’s cinematic-ness in some way. More distinctive music certainly could have helped). Recommended for documentary patrons and mature, empathetic gamers, Thank You for Playing opens today (3/18) in Brooklyn at the Made in NY Media Center.

A Space Program: Analog Performance Art

The original Mercury and Apollo astronauts were truly the best of the best. They were phenomenally talented pilots who could also perform high level mathematics in their heads. How square. Tom Sachs understands what the space program really needs: hipsters who enjoy woodworking. As a love letter to DIY bricolage, Sachs and his collaborators staged a raggedy, epoxied-together mission to Mars. It was all done to scale of course, but the Park Avenue Armory offered room for generous proportions. Van Niestat documents one of their irritatingly twee “demonstrations” in A Space Program (trailer here), which opens today in New York at the Metrograph, Lower Manhattan's newest first-run and repertory cinematheque.

Obviously, nobody is going anywhere in these plywood crafts, but Sachs’ company will pretend for the benefit of the audience. Launches and landings will be simulated and a Mars rover will be driven round the enormous Armory Drill Hall space. Granted, some craftsmanship went into their construction, but the performance art aspects are annoyingly precious and sometimes rather lecturey. Probably, the cleverest bit involves the use of the old Atari Moon Lander for the supposed Mars landing. That game always used to be a nightmare to control.

For the sake of grandstanding, Sachs (who serves as the Gene Kranz-like flight director) mandated that the mission crew consist entirely of women, but he is not really doing them any favors. Commander Mary Eannarino solemnly proclaims “a woman did this” when she pretends to first set foot on Mars. Yes, well in that case, we can only hope it does not set back the cause of gender equality more than four or five years. By the way, feminists later get a sucker punch when Sachs has the crew perform a hormonally charged **tch fit. Don’t worry, Sachs isn’t laughing at all women, just those who think they can be astronauts.

Sachs’ pseudo-happening sort of reflects a Wes Anderson aesthetic, but it lacks the wit and sophistication. Instead, it is just nauseatingly smug. You can’t blame the Armory. Two years after this silliness, Sir Kenneth Branagh staged his jaw-dropping production of Macbeth in the same venue. It is a rather odd programming choice for Metrograph’s inaugural season, but they also have some great repertory screenings scheduled that are infinitely more worthy of your support (including the 6^th Old School Kung Fu Fest). Not recommended, A Space Program opens today (3/18) at the new downtown art house theater.

ND/NF ’16: Life After Life

Ghost stories have rarely been so matter-of-factly workaday, but this salt-of-the-earth family in provincial Shanxi can hardly afford to indulge in a lot of dramatics. Frankly, it will be quite sporting of Mingchun if he fulfills his late wife’s request to move a significant tree to more fertile ground. It will be a tiny step to counter the environmental devastation so obvious throughout Zhang Hanyi’s Life After Life, which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Mingchun has had a hard life, but his thirteenish son Leilei is not making it any easier. Like most kids of his generation, he has turned against the rural life and traditional values. However, after their latest row, Leilei’s body comes back possessed by the spirit of his mother, Xiuying. Mingchun accepts this claim at face value, but there will be no tears or kisses for their supernatural reunion. We quickly get the sense their union was one of convenience that sort of evolved into something like friendship, but that was about the best they could hope for on their rung of the economic ladder.

For reasons we never fully understand, Xiuying needs Mingchun to move a tree planted near their former quarters to a more hospitable location. That will be easier said than done. The local environs have been badly scarred and desiccated by industrial overdevelopment and unsustainably agriculture. Cinematographer Chang Mang often dwarves the father and son amid the lifeless vistas. Hs compositions often resemble traditional Chinese watercolors, but the backdrops are eerily lifeless and barren rather than lush and verdant.

Mingchun and Xiuying’s spirit will also have to contend with her family’s callous indifference and the frightening state of provincial infrastructure. Clearly, there is no support system for rugged peasant stock such as themselves. While Zhang maintains an elegiac tone, the social and political implications of their situation are unmistakable.

Life is a subtle and distinctive film, but it is not what you would opt to watch after an all-night bender. Zhang’s aesthetic is downright ascetic. His pacing is deliberate and his tone is rather severe, even compared to the films of executive producer-mentor Jia Zhangke. Yet, it would be foolish to dismiss Life as just another naturalistic Chinese indie. Zhang Mingjun’s performance as Mingchun in particular is deeply compelling precisely because it is so realistically square-jawed and straightforwardly unfussy. This is a man who takes a beating from life every day, yet keeps plugging on.

It is also striking to see how Zhang depicts spiritual developments in such gritty, down-to-earth terms. There is nothing like Demi Moore’s pottery wheel scene in Ghost here. Yet, when Xiuying guides Mingchun towards encounters with his reincarnated parents, it hits us on a far deeper level, probably because it really seems real. Recommended for mature and well-rested cineastes, Life After Life screens this Saturday (3/19) at MoMA and Sunday (3/20) at the Walter Reade, as part of ND/NF ’16.

ND/NF ’16: Neither Heaven Nor Earth

Nobody should be better prepared for the unexpected than a heavily armed company of soldiers, but the supernatural operate under different rules of engagement. When some unknown agency starts preying on a contingent of French troops deployed near the Pakistani border, it hits them at their weakest point—their need to understand and control any given situation. Denial will give way to metaphysical anxiety in Clément Cogitore’s Neither Heaven Nor Earth (formerly The Wakhan Front, trailer here), which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Like the soldiers of the Second Platoon documented in Sebastian Junger’s Restrepo and Korengal, the French soldiers doggedly fought to maintain their toe-hold in the remote mountainous region, only to learn they will soon be pulling out (presumably for political reasons). Yet, in the meantime, they must carry on usual, despite the absurdity of the circumstances.

Captain Antarès Bonassieu’s role is not to reason why. The hardened veteran is not the best at winning hearts and minds, but he keeps his men in peak battle condition. Similarly, he is not well equipped to deal with the mysterious disappearance of several men. What evidence there is suggests they were not abducted or assassinated. In each case, they just seemed to vanish into thin air. Following his initial instincts, he tries to shake some answers out of the local village he has long suspected of harboring insurgents. However, he will find himself forging an unlikely short-term truce with a highly suspicious warlord when they find they are both facing the same apparently paranormal crisis.

There is so much ambiguity in Neither, it is hard to definitively classify it as a horror movie, a psychological thriller, or even a war film. That kind of intentional vagueness can be too clever for a film’s own good, but in the case Cogitore’s screenplay (co-written with Thomas Bidegame), it is deeply disquieting. It is not the threat of death that unnerves Bonassieu’s men, it is uncertainty. In specific terms, nothing disturbs them more than the presumed dead body that remains unrecovered.

In some ways, Neither also acts as a corrective to our less than flattering image of the French military as the paratroopers who are constantly jumping into Algeria whenever its government does something to annoy Paris. Bonassieu and his men, like the PTSD-rattled Denis, might be have their flaws, but they are considerably more helpful in battle than an accordion on a duck hunt.

Dardenne Brothers regular Jérémie Renier is quietly intense as Bonassieu, falling apart rather spectacularly down the stretch. To a man, the ensembles sound and carry themselves like a military unit. However, it is the sense of place that really sets the film apart. The harsh mountain vistas are incredibly cinematic and the lonely eagle’s nest outposts (vividly recreated by the design team) heightens the feeling of vulnerability.

Although there is more left unresolved than duly explained in Neither, everything unfolds according to its grimly inevitable internal system of logic. It is an eerily effective film that successfully aims to unsettle viewers on a deeper level than mere jump scares. Highly recommended for fans of sophisticated genre films, Neither Heaven Nor Earth screens this Saturday (3/19) at the Walter Reade and Sunday (3/20) at MoMA, as part of the 2016 ND/NF.

SXSW ’16: I am the Blues

The blues survived segregation, share-cropping, music industry exploitation, and the sort of health risks that come with hard-drinking and late nights, but will it survive with the passing of the old guard? The answer to that question is not at all certain to the blues veterans still playing and gigging. What keeps them so resilient? The music, stupid. You can hear the history and the character in every performance captured in Daniel Cross’s I am the Blues (trailer here), which screens at the 2016 SXSW.

Jimmy “Duck” Holmes is not just a blues guitarist. He is one of the last masters of the Bentonia Blues style associated with Skip James. Holmes is also more than a musician. He is the owner-proprietor of the Blue Front Café, one of the last surviving classic juke joints. Business is not what it used to be, but Holmes might have a sudden influx of geeky fanboys following the doc’s SXSW screenings.

Everybody Cross features can still lay it down, but Bobby Rush maintains a B.B. King-style touring schedule. He was not proclaimed “King of the Chitlin’ Circuit” for nothing. Like a Sinatra or a Tom Jones, he still has that magnetic stage charisma. Bobby Rush (nobody calls him just “Rush” he tells the audience) becomes the film’s de facto guide, sitting in with a number of his old friends and helping Cross to coax stories out of them in their interview segment.

We will also meet Henry Gray, the dean of the assembled musicians, who played with Robert Lockwood, Jr., Muddy Waters, and Howlin’ Wolf. More than anyone, he developed the jazzy barrelhouse sound associated with Chicago piano blues. You can definitely hear some of his Louisiana roots in there.

For a smoother R&B-ish blues sound, the film turns to Barbara Lynn, a trailblazer blues artist, who was charting at a time when about the only other woman playing an electric guitar was Sister Rosetta Tharpe. When they all get together to jam, the good times roll.

Of course, their memories are not always pleasant. They all suffered the indignities of southern segregation and northern racism. The film’s superstar, Bobby Rush is probably the most forthright discussing such issues. Yet, some of the film’s most memorable oral history simply relates universal human drama, such as Carol Fran’s story of the man who inspired her first hit, “Emmitt Lee.”

I am the Blues is a terrific film that does the angels’ work documenting original generation blues artists for posterity. It is a deceptively laidback film that hits us in the gutbucket with some pretty heavy truths in between the getting-down. It sounds great too. Just about everyone is still at the top of their form and none of the jamming musicians lacks for enthusiasm. Very highly recommended for anyone who cares anything for American music, I am the Blues screens again this Friday (3/18), as part of this year’s SXSW.

Desplechin’s My Golden Years

With that name of his, you would expect Paul Dédalus, he must be a Joycian figure. He most certainly had a difficult childhood and if you have seen his first appearance in My Sex Life, or . . . How I Got Into an Argument, you know he definitely appreciates women. Dédalus takes stock of his life as well as the great love of his life in Arnaud Desplechin’s My Golden Days (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Dédalus is about to transfer from his diplomatic post in Tajikistan to a cushy job back home in the French Foreign Ministry. Unfortunately, he will have to leave a perfectly good lover. It will not be his first affair to have a bittersweet ending, but it still has him feeling sentimental. As Dédalus returns to a more conventional life, he revisits memories of his formative years. His trip down memory lane very intentionally evokes the vibe of Truffaut’s Antione Doinel films, but Dédalus’s extremes were even more extreme.

Young Dédalus and his siblings grew up terrorized by their mentally ill mother Jeanne and neglected by their emotionally distant father, Abel. Dédalus was the one of always stood up to the unbalanced woman, but one day he reached his breaking point and ran off to live with his beloved great aunt and her understanding lesbian lover. As a teen, Dédalus is still a protective figure to his siblings, but he also develops an interest in politics and girls. By far, the best sequences in the film chronicle Dédalus’s school trip to Minsk, where he has secretly arranged to smuggle money and supplies to Jewish Refuseniks. However, the rather noble episode will have unexpected consequences years later, as the audience shall learn in due time.

The preponderance of the film in some way addresses his complicated relationship with Esther, beginning in their school days and continuing rather awkwardly into his early professional adulthood years. She was pretty in high school and she knew it, but somehow Dédalus managed to charm her with his combination chutzpah and self-deprecating humor. For a while, they seem truly happy together. However, it slowly starts to unravel when his advanced studies force them into a long-distance relationship in the pre-skype era. Yet, it is Esther who becomes the needy, desperately clingy one, compulsively writing Dédalus at least one letter each day.

It all seems sadly inevitable, but Dédalus will have the final word on the matter when he chances into an old acquaintance in the film’s brilliant capstone scene that just might become emblematic of the careers of Desplechin and his frequent leading man, Mathieu Almaric.

Indeed, Golden Days is a film rife with telling exchanges, but its inconsistency makes it more of a masterwork than the masterpiece some have suggested. Frankly, there is more teen angst than you will find in an entire season of the CW television network. Yet, amidst all the high school stuff, Desplechin springs quietly powerful moments on viewers, as when Abel Dédalus suddenly decides to act like a father and tries to console his insecure daughter.

Despite returning to a familiar role, Mathieu Almaric is wonderfully unpredictable as the world-weary Dédalus. He can be cavalier one minute and burst into an eruption of nervous energy seconds later. However, the sad-eyed Quentin Dolmaire and the pouty Lou Roy-Lecollinet carry the dramatic load, developing relatively convincing chemistry as the young and naïve Dédalus and Esther, respectively. It seems like every French film released this year features André Dussolier, but that is not such a bad policy. True to form, he is rather elegantly sinister in his brief appearance as an intelligence service interrogator.

In terms of form, Golden Days is a Proustian memory play, but aesthetically, it is a big, rangy film that practically throws in the proverbial kitchen sink. It has its excesses and its pacing issues, but when it works, it devastates. Overall, it is a potently nostalgic film that amply rewards viewers who wrestle with it. Recommended for patrons of French cinema, My Golden Days opens this Friday (3/18) in New York, at the IFC Center downtown and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center uptown.

Ktown Cowboys: Let the Soju Flow

Chris Rock does not believe guys like this exist. They are Asians who have more fun than you do—maybe even more fun than he does. These five friends know the in’s and out’s of the nightlife in Los Angeles’ Koreatown. However, they are getting slightly less young than they used to be. Reluctantly, they will have to deal with growing up stuff in Daniel Park’s Ktown Cowboys (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Tonight, they are celebrating a birthday, but it is not so unusual for the five lads to meet in a bar. Each is having a hard time of things lately, especially the formerly privileged Jason. Despite his lack of ambition and talent, he assumed control of his family’s multi-million-dollar corporation. Unfortunately, the firm’s valuation took a serious hit when his openly contemptuous vice-president was arrested for embezzlement. His uncle, the head of the Korean division of the business is flying in to give him a stern talking to, which is guaranteed to be uncomfortable.

Robby is also miserable dealing with a ridiculous inappropriate boss. Things are getting so bad, he is seriously considering his adopted parents’ advice to return to Korea and hopefully reconnect with his heritage. However, that would complicate his relationship with his Anglo-American fiancée. Sunny never enjoyed working at his family’s liquor store, but it is the burden of caring for his dementia suffering father that is really taking a toll. Insecure horndog Peter is just a mess, especially when it comes to his relationship with fashion design classmate Hanna, the daughter of a family friend he has promised to look out for. As for Danny, the aspiring stand-up comic, he just can’t get a job.

You probably expect Ktown to deliver plenty of lad magazine Entourage-style humor and you would not be wrong. At least, it is based on the premise they need to start getting serious. It is not a great on-screen showcase for women, but Mindy, Jason’s party girl cousin surprises with a bit of third act substance.

Regardless, Park and screenwriter-co-star Danny Cho certainly make Ktown after dark look like a blast. Of course, some of the specifics look more appealing than others. The after-hours soju joints look like cool hangs, but some of the rituals going on in hostess and host-boy clubs most of us can probably safely take a pass on.

Shane Yoon is legitimately charismatic as Jason and Danny Cho’s deadpan stand-up delivery is effectively droll (he was arguably too modest writing for his character). Angie Kim gives the film some real energy and verve as the supposedly very Ktown-ish Mindy, but Peter Jae is bit shticky as his imposing but awkward namesake.

We have had plenty of films based on television series, so it makes sense we’re now getting films based on webseries. It is amusing and even inclusive in a meathead kind of way. It also represents one of two or three hundred screen appearances by Eric Roberts this year. For the record, he is rather engaging as Robby’s dad. (Say what you will, the man’s work ethic is outstanding.) Admittedly shallow but breezily enjoyable, Ktown Cowboys opens this Friday (3/18) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

The Program: Lance Armstrong Lies, Cheats, and Dopes his Way to the Top

From 1986 to 1998 Greg LeMond was the only American to have won the Tour de France. He became the only American Tour winner once more in 2012 when Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis were stripped of their victories. For years, Armstrong’s lies and intimidation had covered up his extensive use of performance enhancing drugs (with the timely help of Britain’s stifling libel laws), but the truth eventually came out. Armstrong’s crimes and hypocrisy are portrayed with scathing honesty and dramatic gusto in Stephen Frears’ The Program (trailer here), which opens this Friday in select cities.

Notorious sports doctor Michele Ferrari initially declined to work with Armstrong because he has the wrong body type. Ironically, cancer would re-shape the cyclist to fit Ferrari’s mold. However, Armstrong had already been self-administering EPO before the onset of his illness (this point would have tremendous legal ramifications later). Of course, when the aptly named Ferrari started secretly advising Armstrong’s U.S. Postal Service team, the doping became more sophisticated and systemic. Everyone on the team was implicated, most definitely including their team director Johan Bruyneel. Yet, there is no question Armstrong was the architect and the chief enforcer.

John Hodge’s screenplay, based on the book and reporting of Irish sports journalist David Walsh pulls no punches. It makes it clear just how suspicious Armstrong sudden power was given his past performance, as well as the determination of the Cycling Union and the press corps to ignore all the tell-tale signs. There is no question Walsh is the hero of this story and Armstrong is the villain, but the ways in which the disgraced champion tried to isolate and bully his journalist critic into silence are still pretty galling. The film treatment is not quite as damning as Alex Holmes’ expose, Lance Armstrong: Stop at Nothing, but it is not due to a lack of trying.

Ben Foster is a jolly good physical likeness of Armstrong, but the way he relishes the cyclist’s Machiavellian treachery is a perverse joy to behold. You can practically see him twisting a phantom handlebar moustache (presumably, a real one would increase wind resistance). However, he still manages to pull off humanizing moments, as when Armstrong visits frightfully young and understandably frightened cancer patients.

Guillaume Canet perfectly complements Foster’s sociopathic Armstrong, oozing Euro sleaze as the serpent-like Ferrari. Chris O’Dowd also brings real heft and dimension to the principled Walsh. Although his screen time is limited, Dustin Hoffman gives the film a major energy boost as Armstrong’s legal nemesis, Bob Hamman. While he broods dourly enough as Landis, the sweaty and hulking Jesse Plemons does not look like much of a cyclist.

First and foremost, The Program will convince any holdouts in the audience Armstrong really was and still is a lying-dog cheater. It might also lead some of our British friends to conclude their overly restrictive libel laws are not consistent with a free press. When an unethical charlatan like Armstrong can use it to choke off a legitimate inquiry into wrongdoing, something is badly amiss. Regardless, Frears and Foster create a wickedly entertaining portrait of an epic egomaniac and the wreckage he left in his wake. It is not exactly subtle, but it is massively watchable. Recommended for fans of in-your-face, ripped-from-the-headlines drama, The Program opens this Friday (3/18) in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Town Center.

ND/NF ’16: Kill Me, Please

Kids will be kids. This dark pseudo-horror story is set in Brazil, but you could just as easily find girls similarly struggling with peer pressure, craving attention, obsessing over grisly crimes, and somewhat repressing latent lesbianism in Uruguay. There is a head fake towards old school genre filmmaking, but thrills and chills are too crass and bourgeoisie for Anita Rocha da Silveira’s Kill Me, Please, which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Bia has a morbid fascination with the victims of a serial killer striking on the outskirts of Rio, but she is sort of entitled, given they all bear a striking resemblance to her. Her anti-social brother would be the prime suspect in most films, but da Silveira has no interest in such tawdry thriller business. We have no idea where their parents might be. In fact, we hardly see hide nor hair of any parental unit in Kill Me, Please.

Before long, Bai and her social circle start to view everything through the prism of the murders. Some their classmates take up old time religion, like the ex-boyfriend Bai recently deflowered. Perhaps not surprisingly, the girls will start to act increasingly erratic an occasionally violent.

The instructively titled Kill Me, Please is maddeningly frustrating, because it has all the raw ingredients of a nifty little exploitation film. Unfortunately, da Silveira refuses to go there. Although several scenes initially evoke a John Carpenter vibe, she chokes off all suspense before things get the slightest bit messy.

It is a shame, because the world can always use another twisted cult film that finds its audience over time. Instead, the self-consciously mannered will come and go from the festival circuit, without hardly making a ripple. The youthful cast is mostly adequate, but there is an important distinction to be drawn between looking bored as demanded by the dramatic context and the ill-disguised boredom of the cast.

Throughout Kill Me, Please, there are flashes of the Kevin Williamson film it could have been, particularly with respect to da Silveira’s use of music. Unfortunately, she seems rather sheepishly guilty when it comes to her genre inspirations, opting to give the world a warmed over art film instead. Disappointing by most standards, Kill Me, Please screens this Thursday (3/17) at MoMA an Saturday (3/19) at the Walter Reade, as part of the 2016 ND/NF. 

Farhadi’s Fireworks Wednesday

It is the time of Red Wednesday, the Festival of Fire, or Chaharshanbe Suri. Throughout Iran and the Persian diaspora, the Wednesday before Nowruz is a time for families to come together, but that will not be happening in an Asghar Farhadi film. The Oscar-winning director of A Separation and About Elly was never a stranger to family dysfunction. He had already explored some of its extreme manifestations in 2006’s Fireworks Wednesday (trailer here), which re-releases this Wednesday in New York at Film Forum.

Rouhi is young cleaning woman working for a temp agency who is just giddy at the prospect of her approaching marriage. The married couple that will employ her today will do everything possible to curb that enthusiasm. Like so many Iranian films, the act of leaving is a major theme in Fireworks. Morteza and Mojdeh will be leaving bright and early the next morning for Dubai, at least for a vacation, but possibly longer. You never know about these things when leaving Iran. Unfortunately, their flat is in state of shambles. Partly, this is a result of the collision Morteza’s fist had with the window the night before.

It was Morteza that retained Rouhi from the agency, but once he returns to the office, Mojdeh tries to dismiss her. Although they definitely get off on the wrong foot, Mojdeh eventually finds work for the guileless girl. She sends her next door to snoop on the woman she suspects is having an affair with Morteza. This is relatively easy to do, since the divorced Simin runs an unregulated beauty salon out of her apartment. Rouhi takes a genuine liking to the semi-scandalous woman, who is already struggling with a landlord determined to evict her. She hardly needs Mojdeh’s neurotic accusations in addition.

According to the Islamist rules governing the Iranian film industry, men and women are not allowed to touch on-screen, but exceptions often seem to slip through, as when the exasperated Morteza strikes out at Mojdeh. It is an ugly moment, but Farhadi frames it in a way that lessens the jarring impact. Morteza immediately regrets his action, but it keeps the audience on-guard for the rest of the film, as well they should be.

There are several Iranian filmmakers who can deftly build tension through claustrophobic family drama, but Farhadi is the master. As soon as Rouhi enters that flat, we get the sense very bad things will inevitably happen. Much like Separation and Elly, Fireworks is an exhausting film that might telegraph some of its twists, but Farhadi still manages to make them feel devastating in the moment. Hadieh Tehrani is absolutely riveting and at times down right harrowing as the overwrought Mojdeh. In telling contrast, Pantea Bahram lends the film grace and dignity as her presumed rival. Taraneh Alidoosti is convincingly immature as Rouhi, but that makes her an appropriately confused witness to the angst and recriminations that unfold.

Although Fireworks is not a political film per se, it is clear Islamist attitudes towards women are not doing Miss Simin any favors. In fact, it makes her awkward position all the more difficult to maintain. The sex fiend known as “The Bat” that has apparently been preying on single women also might have thematic significance, but Farhadi leaves it under-developed. Regardless, there are plenty of domestic pyrotechnics to supply plenty of shock and awe. Highly recommended for fans of Farhadi, Persian cinema, and ruthlessly naturalistic family dramas, Fireworks Wednesday opens this (Red) Wednesday (3/16), at Film Forum.

ND/NF ’16: Behemoth

Just for the record, China’s leading documentarian has explicitly likened the country to Hell through a deliberate and unmistakable extended cinematic metaphor. Zhao Liang takes viewers on a guided tour of the environmental devastation wantonly inflicted on Inner Mongolia, with only Dante’s Inferno provided for commentary. The Divine Comedy becomes a Communist tragedy in Zhao’s Behemoth (trailer here), which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Zhao will take us to three specific locations, or rings of Hell if you will. The first is in the east, where the coal industry gives strip mining a bad name. The nomadic herders almost find themselves outrunning the collapsing earth under the feet, like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon rendered, well yes, in Hell.

The furnaces and blackened faces of the western iron forges could not could well be what inspired Zhao’s poetic use of Dante. It is literally a subterranean inferno. Just watching this section might cause lung damage and burn trauma.

The concluding segment takes in the spectacle of the Kangbashi New Area, the eerily empty sprawling residential high rises and office buildings that stand like a monument to hasty overdevelopment in Ordos City. Evidently, some recent documentaries have suggested Kangbashi is no longer as uninhabited as once reported. However, it still looks pretty darn desolate in Zhao’s recent footage. Maybe it still is not yet the right time to pursue that Kangbashi Quizno’s franchise after all.

Zhao, who serves as his own cinematographer, captures some striking, stunning, and altogether staggering images. However, he consciously de-emphasizes the human element, which makes Behemoth a much more challenging viewing experience than his profoundly powerful Petition or the daring muckraking of Crime and Punishment. Indeed, the film has an experimental ethos, in the most forbidding sense of the term.

Nevertheless, Zhao just sends truth cascading over the audience. It is impossible to watch Behemoth and not conclude the Communist government and its oligarchical cronies have recklessly plundered the provincial environment past the point of criminal negligence, directly and perhaps deliberately endangering the regional ethnic populations that depend on the land for their livelihoods. Zhao’s visuals stand as an overpowering indictment, but they might also overwhelm less adventurous viewers. Recommended for sophisticated cineastes, Behemoth screens this Thursday (3/17) at MoMA and Friday (3/18) at the Walter Reade, as part of the 2016 ND/NF.