Barbara

Despite the limited scope of its predictable narrative, “Barbara” remains a compelling character study thanks to Nina Hoss’s enigmatic performance in the title role. ‘80s era Iron Curtain Germany is the setting for co-writer/director Christian Petzold’s pedestrian tale of attempted escape into Western Germany for Barbara Wolff, a pediatric doctor. Demoted to a small rural hospital from a prominent position at an East Berlin for requesting an exit visa, Barbara secretly plots with her boyfriend on the outside for her to escape. However desperately she wants to leave East Germany’s repressive atmosphere, Barbara still gravitates to caring for the young patients that she cares for. Hans Fromm’s (“Jerichow”) precise cinematography lends itself to the film’s compressed sense of apprehension. Still, “Barbara” runs its course too soon and with little to no surprise for the viewer. Here is a rainy day movie to appreciate the skills of a refined German actress elevating a mediocre script to something entertaining if not wholly satisfying.

Rated PG-13. 115 mins. (B-) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)

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The Other Son

Viewing the Palestine-Israeli conflict through a switched-at-birth plot device proves compelling, though not entirely worth the price of admission in director Lorraine Levy’s uncoordinated melodrama. Weighing ever so slightly on the side of the Palestinians' plight, the filmmakers lay the narrative groundwork around the families of two young adult boys switched as babies during a battle that rocked the hospital where they were born. Emmanuelle Devos is exceptional as Orith Silberg, the French-born mother of Joseph (Jules Sitruk). Joseph’s turn to follow in his Israeli military father Alon’s (Pascal Elbe) footsteps, calls for a blood test that delivers the film’s inciting evidence. Formerly proud of his presumed Jewish heritage, Joseph suffers an identity crisis after his Rabbi deems him no longer Jewish.

Yacine Al Bezaaz (Mehdi Dehbi) — Alon’s and Orith’s biological son — has been studying medicine in Paris before returning on vacation in Palestine to discover his part in the confusion endured by his parents and brother.

Although the ensemble performances are sound, the film’s structure is unsteady. A failure in plot development results in a forced third-act climax that rushes the story to its artificial conclusion. “The Other Son” is a well-meaning drama that only begins to scratch the surface of a volatile conflict that claims prisoners and causalities while resolving little.

Rated PG-13. 105 mins. (C+) (Two Stars - out of five/no halves)

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KLOWN

Easily the most ribald and politically incorrect comedy to come out of the 21st century’s second decade, Mikkel Norgaard’s “Klown” smacks funny bones you didn’t know you had. Certain to provoke prudish audience members to walk out before the movie hits its stride, “Klown” goes artfully over-the-top while pressing its cascade of outrageous situations into a volcano of comic explosions. Based on a Danish television show of the same name, the story follows the exploits of Frank (Frank Hvam) and Casper (Casper Christensen). Casper and Frank go on a canoe trip that Casper has privately dubbed the “Tour de Pussy.” Horny Casper places pussy above fatherhood in his hierarchy of life’s priorities. Frank, however, has just found out about his girlfriend Mia’s (Mia Hjortshoj) pregnancy — which she hesitated to disclose because she doubted Frank’s potential to be an adequate father. Mia considers an abortion. Capitulating to his anxiousness to prove Mia wrong about his nurturing abilities, Frank kidnaps her 11-year-old nephew Bo (Marcuz Jess Petersen) and takes the unsuspecting boy on the canoe trip. What follows is a series of embarrassing and humiliating events that mark Casper and Frank as two of the biggest idiots you could imagine. Relationships and classic psychology are tested in this diabolically funny movie, which Hollywood already has plans of mucking up with a remake.

Rated R. 99 mins. (A) (Five Stars - out of five/no halves)

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The Kid With a Bike

The Dardenne brothers tweak their polished neorealist formula of personalized socially conscious cinema. Once again, we are exposed to their hometown of Serain, Belgium. This time, however, composed music plays a central role. The Dardennes continue the focus of their oeuvre on the plight of Belgian youth. The result is a somewhat less than convincing story about a troubled 11-year-old boy named Cyril (Thomas Doret).

Having been recently abandoned by his single-parent father Guy (Jérémie Renier), Cyril searches desperately for his missing dad and for his bicycle, which has also gone MIA. The manic boy escapes from a boys' home to return to the empty apartment he once occupied with his father. Pursued and dragged by his keepers back into the group home, Cyril throws himself at a visiting woman waiting in the home’s lobby. Hairdresser Samantha (Cecile de France) helps Cyril find his bike and agrees to look after the violence-prone boy on weekends. Samantha is at a loss to understand Cyril’s self-destructive impulses, which land him in a string of violent altercations. Still, Cyril's fortunes improve when Samantha agrees to keep him with her full time. Cyril’s guardian angel helps him track down his deadbeat dad at a restaurant where he works. Guy eventually makes clear he wants nothing to do with his needy son. The filmmakers explore too shallowly Guy's reasoning for essentially throwing his son away. This, coupled with a lack of perspective on Samantha's backstory, weighs heavy on the film as a narrative contrivance that is fortunately mitigated by Thomas Doret’s exceptional performance.

In spite of its all-too-obvious machinations, “The Kid with a Bike” touches on social ills in a straightforward fashion without preaching. When Cyril falls in with a neighborhood thug to perform a violent crime with no reason other than to try to win the approval of an older male figure, we see clearly what the filmmakers are getting at. A kid with a bike is nothing without both a mother and a father.

Not Rated. 87 mins. (B-) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)

Bullhead

Jacky Vanmarsenille (Matthias Schoenaerts) is not your run-of-the-mill Flemish mafia thug. He has serious emotional and physical issues stemming from an attack by the son of one of his father’s criminal partners. Jacky belongs to a family of Belgium cattle farmers who use growth hormones to increase profits. Debut writer/director Michael R. Roskam based his gut-wrenching crime drama on the true story of a Belgian veterinarian who was murdered in the mid-‘90s.

The murder of a local investigator causes Jacky to advise his boss not to rush into inking a deal with De Kuyper (Sam Louwyck), an illicit meat market kingpin from a neighboring region. Not that any of his gangster cohorts take the steroid-pumped Jacky seriously enough to follow his instructions. Jacky is of course correct in guessing that a police investigation is in full swing, and the he and his compatriots could be swept up in its net.

Roskam’s gift for cinematic storytelling comes through in every affecting frame. The filmmaker’s scrupulous use of flashbacks brings the audience into a visceral empathy with Jacky, whose daily injections of testosterone explain much of his erratic behavior and his private turmoil. With his blunted facial features, Flemish actor Matthias Schoenaerts (“Loft”) is ideally cast for the role. Schoenaerts’s gutsy performance is remarkable. At heart, Jacky is a sensitive and intelligent guy trapped in a body that doesn’t belong to him anymore. A subplot involving his best friend from childhood seals the film’s character-study aspect with an added dimension of deeply seeded context. “Bullhead” is an unconventional mafia story told through the eyes of a damaged-goods protagonist you can’t help but feel for.

Rated R. 124 mins. (B+) (Four Stars - out of five/no halves)

Miss Bala

Treating dramatic convention like it was industrial garbage director/co-writer Gerardo Naranjo's attempt at agitprop cinema is a frustrating mess. While "Miss Bala" may have some effect of reducing tourism to Mexico's Baja region, where the story takes place, it comes off as an exploitation film made to fan the egos of its filmmakers. Newcomer Stephanie Sigman plays Laura Guerrero, a homely peasant girl from Tijuana with an unreasonable dream of competing in the local Miss Baja beauty pageant--no telling why the film isn't titled "Miss Baja." Laura stumbles into a party full of American DEA agents to meet up with her best friend just as a local mob of hit men attack the fiesta to wipe out everyone present. The filmmaker's attempt at making the shoot 'em up violence entertaining with tricks of light has the opposite effect. Laura miraculously survives but makes the time-honored mistake of putting her trust in a corrupt police officer who simply hands her over to the men responsible for the previous night's bloodletting. Mob-leader Lino (Noe Hernandez) hatches a hair-brained scheme to leverage Laura into the fraudulent Miss Baja Beauty Pageant so she can get next to a local General Lino wants to assassinate. Talk about hackneyed storytelling. There isn't much story here, and what little there is is barely enough to keep a fully caffeinated viewer awake. It's confounding why so much critical praise has been lavished on "Miss Bala" during its tour of film festivals. Here is a low-budget fiasco that should have gone straight to DVD.

Rated R. 113 mins. (D+) (One Star - out of five/no halves)

Le Havre - NYFF 2011

Aki Kaurismaki's humanist themed comedy of manners and intentions is a whimsical allegory about the desperate plight of immigrants and the communal actions needed to address the issue. There's an air of magical realism in the film's tone that places shoeshine man Marcel (Andre Wilms) in the unique position of harboring a young illegal immigrant named Idrissa (Blondin Miguel) from West Africa in Marcel’s French hometown of La Havre.

Marcel leads a frugal existence with his loving wife Arletty (Kati Outinen) in a small house on a little back street of the sleepy seaside town. The couple's minimalist lifestyle still allows for simple pleasures. With his wife's approval Marcel slips out to his favorite bar for an aperitif while Arletty prepares their dinner. Arletty doesn't want her husband know she's dying from cancer. So it comes as a shock when she has to be rushed to the hospital for an extended stay. When a dock guard hears the cry of a baby coming from a sealed shipping container, local officials are called in to open the giant London-bound metal box. Inside are a group of immigrants from which Idrissa escapes before running into the sympathetic Marcel who agrees to help the boy get to London to reunite with his mother.

Filmed with a deliberately simplistic regard, Kaurismaki embraces a regional sense of identity that allows supporting characters to flourish. Police Inspector Monet (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) gets wind of Marcel’s complicity in hiding the boy, and makes his position clear to Marcel. Enjoyable scenes between Darroussin and Wilms play out with a suspenseful sense of deadpan humor. As with all of the Finnish auteur’s films, there’s a bitter sweetness at play. When Kaurismaki adds the story’s final grace note it comes as rich reward. Few filmmakers have such delicate command of the poetic potential of cinema.

Not Rated. 93 mins. (B+) (Four Stars - out of five/no halves)

The Kid with a Bike - NYFF 2011

The Dardenne brothers tweak their polished neorealist formula of personalized socially conscious cinema. Once again, we are exposed to their hometown of Serain, Belgium. This time, however, composed music plays a central role. The Dardennes continue the focus of their oeuvre on the plight of Belgian youth. The result is a somewhat less than convincing story about a troubled 11-year-old boy named Cyril (Thomas Doret).

Having been recently abandoned by his single-parent father Guy (Jérémie Renier), Cyril searches desperately for his missing dad and for his bicycle, which has also gone MIA. The manic boy escapes from a boys' home to return to the empty apartment he once occupied with his father. Pursued and dragged by his keepers back into the group home, Cyril throws himself at a visiting woman waiting in the home’s lobby. Hairdresser Samantha (Cecile de France) helps Cyril find his bike and agrees to look after the violence-prone boy on weekends. Samantha is at a loss to understand Cyril’s self-destructive impulses, which land him in a string of violent altercations. Still, Cyril's fortunes improve when Samantha agrees to keep him with her full time. Cyril’s guardian angel helps him track down his deadbeat dad at a restaurant where he works. Guy eventually makes clear he wants nothing to do with his needy son. The filmmakers explore too shallowly Guy's reasoning for essentially throwing his son away. This, coupled with a lack of perspective on Samantha's backstory, weighs heavy on the film as a narrative contrivance that is fortunately mitigated by Thomas Doret’s exceptional performance.

In spite of its all-too-obvious machinations, “The Kid with a Bike” touches on social ills in a straightforward fashion without preaching. When Cyril falls in with a neighborhood thug to perform a violent crime with no reason other than to try to win the approval of an older male figure, we see clearly what the filmmakers are getting at. A kid with a bike is nothing without both a mother and a father.

Not Rated. 87 mins. (B-) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia - NYFF 2011

Nuri Bilge Ceylon Investigates
The Impurity of Human Motivation
By Cole Smithey

Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylon continues his minimalist yet universal exploration of society (in the meta sense of the word) with a fascinating police procedural that values story over plot and character over prejudice. The mastermind behind such instant classics as "Climates" (2006) and "Three Monkeys" (2008) uses every shaded detail of time, atmosphere, human condition, and verbal and non-verbal communication to tell a quietly complex story about a murder investigation and the imperfect methods of the men assigned to solve the crime.

Ceylon is one of the world’s few truly gifted filmmakers capable of using film as a broad yet clearly defined canvas for meting out staccato and legato pulses of narrative text and subtext. Patience is a key ingredient to his art. There are always multiple layers of crucial information seeping from the screen. His patience for storytelling matches Michelangelo Antonioni, whose films Ceylon must surly have studied.

“Once Upon a Time In Anatolia” is about the nature of human motivation, and how it folds back upon itself under the microscope of external pressures—whether from co-workers or from a natural flow of events. There is nothing showy about Ceylon’s unique brand of cinema. Here is a filmmaker who creates a bond of trust with his audience, who are invited to interact with his films.

Ceylon’s regular cinematographer Gökhan Tiryaki supplies visually intriguing compositions that tempt the viewer to study the story’s dichotomy of rural and industrial landscape. You have the sense of being allowed to see every aspect of the story. Nothing seems to be hidden. The delicacy with which Tiryaki’s camera slowly zooms is a thing of precise beauty.

At night Doctor Cemal (Muhammet Uzuner) accompanies a group of police officers and a soldier as they drive around the dark outskirts of the Anatolian steppe. The group has with them two incarcerated suspects they hope will lead them to the grave of a missing man. Every distance is remote. Only car headlights cut through the blackness. The young doctor strikes up a friendship with the local prosecuting attorney. Surely justice will prevail. If the body is found, Doctor Cemal will perform the autopsy.

Police Commissar Naci (Yilmaz Erdogan) lets his temper flare at the uncooperative prisoner who leads the three-vehicle caravan on a wild goose chase in search of a "round tree" by one of the road's many fountains that provide water for travelers in the dark arid region. Prosecutor Nusret (Taner Birsel) reigns in Naci when the Commissar turns violent against the prisoner—not because he cares particularly about the prisoner, but because he understands the demands of the job. The cops joke about food and engage in a bland kind of non-specific repartee that diffuses tension even as it subtlety discloses fragments of personal information. Every character and theme line rings with authenticity. The time-consuming search takes its toll.

The men stop for food in the middle of the night at the home of man whose beautiful daughter momentarily entrances them. The respect her devastating beauty, yet know exactly how her life will unfold. All life is a cycle. Part of their job is to recognize patterns, even the ones that shame them about their own personal lives.

"Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" is a film about how detectives communicate. It’s also about how entrusted public servants wrangle with overpowering emotions and personal secrets. Anger and sadness are traits to be submersed under rote routines of professional conduct. Their personal sense of justice can be confused and arbitrary. And yet, these men are doing a job that must be done.

Nuri Bilge Ceylon is a lover of humanity. His great concern for every one of his characters goes beyond their innocence or guilt. He recognizes the balance of both qualities in their actions. As a sociological study, the film is edifying. As a drama, it is at turns inscrutable, revealing, and moving. The cinema of Nuri Bilge Ceylon is a transformative one. It is unique and honest. Most significantly, it offers a rare experience to be treasured.

Not Rated. 151 mins. (A-) (Four Stars - out of five/no halves)

Happy, Happy

Norwegian filmmaker Anne Sewitsky makes a thought-provoking and sexy debut with a romantic comedy/drama neatly offset by acapella musical interludes. Schoolteacher Kaja (wonderfully played by Agnes Kittelsen) was abandoned by her mother as a child. Her desperate need to have a family has driven Kaja into the arms of her unhappy Eirik (Joachim Rafaelsen). Eirik is a closet homosexual who plays cruel games with the couple's son Theodor aimed at upsetting Kaja. In rural Norway's gloom of constant snowy winter Kaja has developed a permenant sense of joy as her primary defense mechanism. Communal inspiration arrives when married couple Genial (Henrik Rafaelsen) and Elisabeth (Maibritt Saerens) move in to the house next door, which Kaja and Eirik rent out. Genial and Elisabeth have their own adopted child, an African boy named Noa who the couple habitually neglect. Communal dinner parties and parlor games reveal problems in both marriages. Katja can't resist throwing herself at Genial, who picks up on the opportunity to exact some personal revenge against his wife. Elisabeth's recent act of adultery was the inciting reason the couple moved away from the city and its temptations. First-time screenwriter Ragnhild Tronvoll makes a few missteps here and there, but makes strong social commentary on the offhand ways seeds of racism, sexism, and anger are planted and fostered.

Rated R. 85 mins. (B) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)

The Double Hour

Although not as witty in plot design as debut director Giuseppe Capotondi imagines, "The Double Hour" is an atmospheric suspense thriller that succeeds on the strength of its two leading actors. Filippo Timi ("Vincere") and Ksenia Rappoport play newly-minted romantic partners Guido and Sonia. Guido is a former police officer who works as a security guard at a frequently unoccupied mansion estate. Sonia toils as a housecleaner for an upscale Italian hotel. The pair fall into a relationship after meeting at a speed-dating event overseen by a lovable micro-managing hostess (Lucia Poli). Sonia serves as the film's unreliable protagonist whose ulterior motives prove nearly fatal for Guido. The narrative structure takes an affected extended diversion before resolving. The effect is disorienting at best, and alienating at worst. Nonetheless, "The Double Hour," whose title refers to the moment when a clock strikes a symmetrical time like 11:11, commands your attention as a mystery whose overleveraged suspense plays against palpable romanticism.

Not Rated. 102 mins. (B-) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)

In a Better World

 

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Denmark's winning foreign entry for the Oscars, is an intriguing study in conflict resolution and dissolution. The story is split between a remote African refugee camp, and Denmark's industrialized society. While working in Africa, Dr. Anton (Mikael Persbrandt) is separated from his wife Marianne (Trine Dyrholm) in Denmark, where she raises the couple's 10-year-old son Elias (Markus Rygaard) and younger brother. Wearing braces on his teeth, Elias is a target for bullies at the private school he attends with a recently arrived misfit named Christian (William Jøhnk Nielsen). Christian's mother's recent death by cancer has left him with a major chip on his shoulder. Nielsen's self-possessed performance is reminiscent of Jean-Pierre Léaud's unforgettable portrayal in François Truffaut's "The 400 Blows." Christian acts violently to nip in the bud a bully's daily attacks against Elias with whom Christian shares a new friendship. In Africa, a local despot who likes to cut open the bellies of pregnant women comes to Dr. Anton to heal his badly infected leg. Such experiences inform Anton's actions when his sons and Christian witness him being slapped by a local brute in a public square. Elias and Christian clamor for Anton to take retribution against the man who hit him. Instead, Anton takes the boys to the shop where the bully works to ask the man to explain his brutality The bully merely reverts to his trademark behavior.  Anton's refusal to defend himself, much less punish the aggressor, might show him to the kids as fearless, but it leaves Christian and Elias looking to exact their own retribution against the thug. While not as strong as Canada's foreign entry for the Oscars, "Incendies," Susanne Bier's "In a Better World" is a thought-provoking film full of remarkable performances.

Rated R. 113 mins. (B+) (Four Stars - out of five/no halves)

March 27, 2011 in Foreign | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Excruciatingly flat, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" is the kind of tedious foreign movie that gives "art house films" a bad name. Destined to be a critical darling for every high-brow poseur due to its undeserved Palme d'Or win at Cannes in 2010, the B-movie story is set in a remote jungle area of Thailand. Poised as an extended reverie, the film seeks to encapsulate Buddhist theories about man's eternal sense of family and conflict, i.e. military involvement. A father suffers from kidney failure in his family home with his sister-in-law and an assistant. This is Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar). Death awaits. During dinner conversations on the porch, Boonmee sees a red-eyed hairy vision of his long lost son lurking nearby. Think Big Foot with phony flashlight eyes. The gorilla-like son represents a caretaker into the great beyond. So too does a ghost of Boonmee's deceased wife. The hollow mysticism extends to a seductive catfish that performs an erotically surreal union with a water nymph princess. Artificial, ambiguous, and overwrought, this film offers one frustratingly dull experience.

Not Rated. 114 mins. (C-) (Two Stars - out of five/no halves)

March 5, 2011 in Foreign | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Of Gods & Men

 

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This French entry for the 2010 Foreign Language Oscar is a plodding account of the predictable fate of eight French Christian monks living in war torn Tibhirine  Algeria during the '90s. An Islamic fundamentalist group are ruthlessly killing locals and foreigners with equal impunity. Lambert Wilson plays the monk Christian, who leads his congregation's humanitarian efforts that include providing medical care for the local peasant community. Sequestered in their humble monastery, the monks go about daily rituals of prayer, chanting, reading, gardening, and bee keeping. Christmas is just a few weeks away when they are given an ultimatum for all foreigners to leave the country. Heated discussions follow among the monks about whether to stay or leave the community they have become an integral part of. Choosing to forgo military protection by the government, even the local mayor demands the group leave. Missionaries are not, as a rule, a very pragmatic lot. Passive resistance only goes so far in bridging the gap between Christianity and Islamic beliefs. Director Xavier Beauvois captures the solemnity of the monks' existence. He casts a properly diffused light over a peaceful group of cultural interlopers willing pay for their trespassing with their lives. "Of Gods & Men" is a chamber piece tragedy trapped in a bubble of naive optimism. A little cynicism could have gone a long way.

Rated PG-13. 120 mins. (C) (Two Stars - out of five/no halves)

February 21, 2011 in Foreign | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Housemaid

 

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Im Sang-soo takes liberties with this adaptation of Kim Ki-young's well regarded 1960 cinematic thriller. Fortunately, the result is a thought-provoking social satire about the Korean class system. Jeon Do-youn plays a working class girl, Eun-yi, who leaves her job in a restaurant kitchen after witnessing the aftermath of a young woman's suicide. Eun-yi becomes an au pair for a wealthy family dominated by an egotistical patriarch, Hoon (LEE Jung-jae). Hoon's young wife Hae Ra is pregnant with twins, so Eun-yi is assigned to care for the couple's six-year-old daughter Nami. Hoon has a taste for expensive red wine, as well as for his au pair--forbidden fruit she is only too happy to share. But nothing gets past the mansion's head housemaid, Miss Cho. Miss Cho spills the beans about Eun-yi's pregnancy by Hoon to his mother-in-law. Hae Ra's mother then launches a series of attacks against Eun-yi, all the while offering to pay her to abort the baby and leave the family. An exercise in stylistic suspense and erotic domination, "The Housemaid" brings its scathing brand of satire to a simmer and keeps it there. You'll be weighing its characters' psychological values long after the final credits roll.

Not Rated. 106 mins. (B) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)

January 20, 2011 in Foreign | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Seventh Seal - Classic Film Pick

Although it has been relentlessly parodied as a pejorative example of an "art film," "The Seventh Seal" is a rowdy and rebellious debate about organized religion and militarism. Basing this effort on his own Beckett-inspired play, Ingmar Bergman turns the existential predicament on its head with a road-trip story set in medieval Europe. The enigmatic 28-year-old Max von Sydow plays Antonius Block, a knight returning from the Crusades with his noble squire Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand). Bubonic plague is killing millions across Europe. On a personal crusade to discover proof of the existence of either God or the Devil, Antonius makes a deal with Death himself (Bengt Ekerot) to postpone his demise long enough for to play a game of chess. If Antonius wins, he lives. Between chess moves Antonius and Jöns come into contact with such examples of religious extremism as a woman declared to be a witch waiting to be burned at the stake. Locals believe the waifish girl responsible for bringing the plague. She in turn embraces her fate and pretends to communicate with the Devil.
 
Inspired by mural characters on the church walls where his father worked as a clergyman, Bergman fleshes out each of his archetypal characters to fulfill their specific thematic demands. Raval, a former-priest-turned-thief who persuaded Antonius to join the Crusades ten years earlier, suffers a cruel and lasting punishment from Jöns, who does his own share of meeting out justice.
 
"The Seventh Seal" is staged with its theatrical origins intact. Bergman's embrace of contrasting social motifs allows for a range of archetypal symbols and ethics to collide. The film is first and foremost a rigorous example of social theater. A traveling trio of performers provides a thematic prism. Actor Joseph (Nils Poppe) and his adoring wife Mary (Bibi Anderson) raise their child in the face of a precariously dangerous world.
 
"I'm afraid of dying." "I don't want to die." That quote from a vile character dying from the plague sums up a primal truth that is parsed with poetic beauty. Jöns tells a cuckolded husband, "If everything is imperfect in this imperfect world, love is perfect in its perfect imperfection." In the same breath he also calls love "the blackest of all plagues" that would contain some pleasure "if you could die of it."

October 27, 2010 in Foreign | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Nora's Will

Mariana Chenillo's feature debut walks a fine line between black comedy and drama. Fernando Luján carries the film as José, the cantankerous ex-husband to the title character who lives across the street from José in a Mexico City high-rise apartment. José and Nora still keep an eye on one another with binoculars after 20-years of marriage. Sadly, José discovers Nora in bed after her long-predicted suicide, by pills. Little does José realize that Nora has planned carefully for the necessary five-day Jewish morning period during Passover before her body can be buried. José wastes no time offending the visiting rabbi with things like a ham pizza and Christian funerary decorations. He's an atheist concerned primarily with snooping though Nora's locked desk for clues about the man she had an affair with while they were married. "Nora's Will" will hold more meaning for mature audiences in tune with the range of emotions that José attempts to repress while coming to peace with letting go of the woman who consumed his every attention in life.

Not Rated. 92 mins. (B-) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)

October 24, 2010 in Foreign | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Carmo, Hit the Road

The idea of a promiscuous chic on a Brazilian/Bolivian road trip with a moody paraplegic smalltime smuggler might sound like a good starting place for an offbeat romantic crime picture. However, writer/director Murilo Pasta fumbles with the story he wants to tell. Hitchhiker/hooker Carmo (played by force-of-nature Mariana Loureiro) gets rescued from an attack by a would-be parking lot client by Marco (Fele Martinez), whose wheelchair-entrapment barely hinders his ability to hurt and kill people, or to chauffer Carmo through dusty landscapes in his loot-filled pick-up truck. The film reaches short for an inexistent hyperbolic tone of sex and violence as Carmo and Marco realize a romantic bond in the face of surprising events, mostly involving a goofy pair of rival criminals. "Carmo, Hit the Road" is the work of an inexperienced filmmaker nearly capable of making a competent film, something "Carmo, Hit the Road" is not.

Not Rated. 99 mins. (C-) (Two Stars - out of five/no halves)

October 13, 2010 in Foreign | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop

Zhang Yimou has paid the Coen brothers the highest compliment one filmmaker can pay another. The Chinese director responsible for "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers" has remade the Coen's 1984 debut film "Blood Simple" by transposing their neo-noir story to an aesthetic style of a Chinese opera that is very familiar with. The result is an amusing and surprisingly true-to-form interpretation that I'm sure the Coen brothers themselves will love. Set in ancient China, Wang is an abusive husband who runs a remote noodle shop in a desert with his wife (Yan Ni), who in retaliation for Wang's cruelty is having an affair with one of his employees. The wealthy Wang discovers the adultery and hires a policeman to kill his wife in exchange for a small fortune in cash. However, his wife secretly purchases a gun for her lover to murder her husband. Audiences will remember Zhang Yimou as the man who staged the stunning 2008 Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies. The director's extraordinary sense of choreography, spectacle, and color are equally on display here as he converts the Coen's ingenious tale of betrayal, revenge, and confusion.

Not Rated. 95 mins. (B+) (Four Stars - out of five/no halves)

August 31, 2010 in Foreign | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Concert

French farce doesn't come more sentimentally skewed than co-writer/director Radu Mihaileanu's musically bound European dramedy. Former Russian symphony conductor Andrei (Aleksei Guskov) works 30-years hence as a houseman in Moscow's famous Bolshio theater where he listens to rehearsals from the balcony seats. While cleaning the theater director's office, Andrei intercepts a fax from the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris asking if Bolshio symphony can fill a schedule vacancy. The stage is set for Andrei to re-team his ragtag gypsy musician pals from the old days to pose as the Bolshio Symphony Orchestra at the Châtelet. Much spastic movement, and not much rehearsing, from the misfit group of musicians is a but a ruse misdirecting from Andrei's hoped-for reunion with the violin virtuoso Anne-Marie Jacquet (Melanie Laurent), who doesn't know that Aleksei is her father. With the promise of playing lead violin on Tchaikovsky's "Concerto for Violin and Orchestra," Anne-Marie accepts the performance challenge that will bring the story to its nearly poetic climax of emotion. "The Concert" is a workmanlike foreign film that doesn't quite come together.

Rated PG-13. 119 mins. (C+) (Two Stars - out of five/no halves)

July 25, 2010 in Foreign | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Valhalla Rising

Made during the same period that Danish writer/director Nicholas Winding-Refn made his magnificent prison satire "Bronson," "Valhalla Rising" is a Viking odyssey of epic proportions. Mads Mikkelsen returns to work with Winding-Refn after contributing impressive performances in the first two installments of the director's "Pusher" trilogy. Conceived of as a piece of "mental science fiction," the story opens with the heavily scarred and tattooed slave One-Eye (Mads Mikklesen) tethered by the throat to a wooden post stuck in a muddy hillside. The mute One-Eye kills his opponents with an animal's sense of cold-blooded quickness. The scenes are harrowing for their brutal and gory intensity. As primal super-heroes go, this half-blind throwback to humanity's instinct for survival, is a beacon of individualist truth standing up against a politically-driven group of religion-cloaked imperialists. Beautifully filmed by cinematographer Morton Soborg, the film's frosty dark images evoke a timelessness rich with implications regarding modern-day religious and corporate domination. After turning on his captors, One-Eye escapes with a young boy and falls in with a group of crusading Christians with plans to travel by boat in search for Palestine. Broken into chapters like "Wrath," and "Men of God" Valhalla Rising is a political satire that announces its minimalist intentions to use the power of suggestion to interact with its audience. It won't be everyone's cup of bitter tea, but it is mine.

Not Rated. 92 mins. (B) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)

July 20, 2010 in Foreign | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

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