Reviewer: Maria Komodore
Rating (out of 5): ****

According to her own commentary on this new DVD, Czech filmmaker Pavla Fleischer decided to make The Pied Piper of Hutzovina after taking a drunken car ride around Prague in 2004 with Eugene Hütz—the frontman of gypsy punk/hip-hop, New York-based band Gogol Bordello. Apparently she was so smitten by his boisterous but lively personality (not to mention his incredible sense of fashion), that making a film about him was the only excuse she could come up with to draw his attention and make him spend some time with her, hoping that he shared the same romantic interest towards her as she did for him.

To believe that Fleischer went into all that trouble, just so that Hütz would return her affections is somewhat far fetched. Yet, watching this documentary that takes us from London (where the director resides) and New York, to Kiev, Moscow, and Siberia where the successful band leader attempts to reconnect with his gypsy roots, one soon understands where Fleischer is coming from. Hütz has plenty of charm and charisma, and following him in his musical exchanges with gypsies who live in camps in Carpathia, and in meeting with his heroes, friends, and family, is truly an enjoyable experience.

Continue reading "The Pied Piper of Hutzovina" »

Posted by at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Maria Komodore
Rating (out of 5): ****

Old friends and compatriots Jan Hrebejk and Petr Jarchovsky have been making films together since 1999. Up and Down, which was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film in 2004, is the product of their forth (but not their last) collaboration.

Set in Prague, the film opens with petty crooks Goran (Zdenek Suchy) and Milan (Jan Budar) smuggling illegal immigrants into the Czech Republic when they get stuck with a little baby. Not knowing what to do with it, the two hoodlums take it to a fellow criminal who owns a pawnshop and who manages to sale the infant to Miluska (Natasha Burger). Miluska is a severely depressed sterile woman whose obsession with having a baby keeps feeding from her husband Franta's (Jiri Machacek) criminal record that prohibits him from adopting a child. But Hana (Ingrid Timkova), a financially comfortable woman who works for an immigration organization, is trying to find the baby and return it to its biological parents. In the mean time Hana's significant other Oto (veteran Czech actor Jan Triska) discovers that he has a brain tumor and decides to invite his boorish wife Vera (Emilia Vasaryova) and his expatriate son Martin (filmmaker Milos Forman's son Petr Forman), to a reconciliation dinner.

Continue reading "Up and Down" »

Posted by at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***½

Confession: What induced me to queue up The Rabbit Is Me was the idea of an East German film that was initially banned and then not seen in public for 25 years. We never got than many East German movies over here to begin with, and since the fall of the "wall," we won’t be getting any more. The movie, as it turns out, is worth much more than just the curiosity factor. It holds up well, even without its "banned in East Berlin" notoriety.

In telling the story of a brother and sister separated by an overzealous judge, director Kurt Maetzig and writer Manfred Bieler (from his novel) see to it that all the details ring true, from the 60s time frame to life under a dictatorial government that was always trying to convince itself and its citizens of its higher nature, only to drown in hypocrisy. The movie shocks precisely by showing us that life with no sugar-coating. For a film this real to have come from the West would be surprising enough; from the East at this time it seems a sort of miracle. One wonders at how those connected with The Rabbit Is Me could have imagined that they would not be prosecuted. Yet at the time filming took place, the German Democratic Republic (yeah, right) appeared to be loosening up, allowing more freedom of expression, particularly in the arts. By the time of the film's release, however, things had clamped shut again, and everyone connected with this movie--and many others of that year (1965)--were in big trouble. Rabbit, however, was perceived as the worst of the lot (which I suppose could now be read as "best"), and over time all the banned films came to be collectively referred to as the "Rabbit" movies.

Continue reading "The Rabbit is Me: East Germany in the "Swinging" 60s" »

Posted by at 6:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

This two-hander, taking place in an upscale, by-the-hour hotel room, is a thrillingly immediate experience, thanks to the writing, direction and performances of its good looking and very talented cast. It's a wonderful thing to be able to see a relationship develop from pure sex into something more intimate, and this one is handled expertly and in nearly real time (the edit appears to happen during nap-time, between bouts of talk and lovemaking). Already a hit in Hispanic territories, En La Cama, a Chilean/German co-production, garnered a dozen top nominations at various festivals and award ceremonies in the year or so after it was made, and it won ten of these--for acting, writing, directing and best film.

Continue reading "En La Cama" »

Posted by at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Monica Peck
Rating (out of 5): ***½

In Peter Brosen and Jessica Hope Woodworth's beautifully shot Khadak, Mongolian nomads fall prey to a government relocation program. As part of the package, the nomads are given work in massive coalmines and housing in pink concrete high-rises. Such close parallels to actual current events can hardly be coincidental. Indeed the Chinese government, according to the BBC, is currently relocating more than 60,000 Tibetan nomads as an effort to 'prevent global warming.' Such a transparent ruse to control the mineral-rich as yet unmined lands that have been sustainably used by nomadic cultures for thousands of years, has one thinking of Hitler's Goebbels' famous quote, "Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it."

Continue reading "Khadak" »

Posted by at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Reviewer: Monica Peck
Rating (out of 5): ****

This filial drama from writer/director Philippe Falardeau reveals the bizarre story of Belgian engineer Michel Roy who learns at age forty-one that he was adopted and actually born in a barn in rural Quebec. Played by Oliviér Gourmet (L'Enfant, Les Fils), Roy embarks on a journey to uncover his lost familial roots. Humor and poignancy intermix as Roy begins to learn the truth about his birth through a series of unlikely serendipities. Out of respect for your enjoyment of Falardeau's brilliantly woven divulgences, I dare not reveal anything more of the plot. Suffice it to say, this cinematic puzzle deserves more than one viewing, if only to admire the deft way Falardeau uncovers its many-layered secrets. It is no wonder that Congorama won a Genie for Best Screenplay from the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television in 2008. As a doctor remarks in the movie, "It is all so unlikely, it can't be anything but true."

Continue reading "Congorama" »

Posted by at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Maria Komodore
Rating (out of 5): ****

Sixth Generation Chinese filmmaker Lou Ye's fourth feature Summer Palace feels very much like a French New Wave film. Using China's turbulent political years as a backdrop, the movie focuses on a small group of students - focusing on the country girl Yu Hong - attending Bejing University in the late 1980s, and the different (sometimes even conflicting) emotions they experience as the careless enthusiasm of their youth gives way to life's disenchanting realities. Emotions, it should be noted, are conveyed accurately, and most importantly non-pornographically, in the film's many explicit sexual encounters.

Continue reading "Summer Palace" »

Posted by at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Diana Slampyak
Rating (out of 5): ****

This funny, irreverent film by Danish director Anders Thomas Jensen (The Green Butchers, Flickering Lights, screenwriter of Mifune) will keep you laughing from its start, as soon as Adam (Ulrich Tomsen) steps off a bus, keys it as it passes by, and then meets Ivan (After the Wedding's Mads Mikkelsen). We immediately know Adam is a bad-ass con fresh out of prison, sent to Ivan's care for 'rehabilitation,' and that things will quickly go awry. Adam, you see, is a Neo-Nazi while Ivan, a devout reverend, is as Christian as they come.

Add to the mix the two other ex-cons, Gunner and Khalid, and a host of comedic clashes come to pass. Gunner is an alcoholic who's supposedly on the wagon, but who drinks every moment on screen. He steals Adam's mobile phone repeatedly, and gets a beating each time. Meanwhile, Khalid is a would-be reformed terrorist who nevertheless goes hunting for humans every chance he gets. Ivan turns a blind eye and claims success in his program of reform because of a past trauma he can't get over.

Continue reading "Adam's Apples: A tart treat" »

Posted by at 1:37 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***

No, it’s not a documentary exposing the underside of America's real estate market. Director and (with Gal Uchovsky) co-writer Eytan Fox's The Bubble is about the denizens of a mostly gay enclave in Tel Aviv, Israel. This cordoned-off area (not literally, perhaps, but figuratively--by being liberal, secular and "other" in a country not particularly noted for these attributes) is the "bubble" of the title, and its citizens--young, good-looking, smart and self-aware--are not oblivious to the fact that they are living in a kind of homogeneous "closed society." The thing about bubbles is: They tend to burst, and rather easily, too.

Continue reading "The Bubble: Hard to shake off" »

Posted by at 9:36 AM | Permalink

Reviewer: Maria Komodore
Rating (out of 5): *****

If there's one word that best fits Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul's latest experiment in cinema, it would be "enigmatic." In almost every review about Syndromes and a Century writers mention that, as the director himself admitted, the film's distinctive two halves deal with his parents' lives before they got romantically involved, and that each one of them represents his mother and father respectively. The extent to which the statement is useful for understanding Syndromes varies according to what the viewer wishes to take away from the movie; even for the most open, receptive, and film-techniques-savvy cinephile there isn't even the slightest hint pointing to that direction.

Continue reading "Syndromes and a Century" »

Posted by at 11:14 AM | Permalink

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): **** ½

A big, fat "thank you" to Martin Scorsese for his championing of Golden Door, which is up there among (if not THE) best-ever renditions of the immigrant experience. It makes "Titanic"--for all its multi-million-dollar budget and billion-dollar gross--seem something paltry in comparison. Scorsese gives a short intro to the film on the current DVD, and his name was associated front-and-center with the theatrical release in May of 2007. Reviews were generally respectful, but the movie soon disappeared into the usual foreign film obscurity which bedevils our current times, particularly where Italian movies are concerned. (Earlier in the year, Golden Door had been Italy's submission for Best Foreign Language Film but, shockingly, did not make the final five nominees.) Now that I've finally seen it, I must place it near or at the top of the list of last year's best films.

From its first frame, the film jars then compels you because its visuals are so strong, bizarre and immediate. Yet writer/director Emanuele Crialese, prefers to show, not tell. There is little exposition as we follow three generations of a poor Sicilian family making their difficult way toward America, with their tag-along companion, a somewhat mysterious British woman, played by the elegant and odd Charlotte Gainsbourg. Both the large events and small moments throughout the film are so specific and completely imagined that--real or not--they come across as truthful. Based on Crialese's earlier film, Respiro, I would not have pegged him to create anything this amazing, and because so much of the reason the movie works is due to its visual beauty and imagination, I suspect that its cinematographer Agnès Godard (Beau Travail, Backstage, The Intruder) bears at least some of the responsibility.

Continue reading "Golden Door: The immigrant experience writ large, and fine" »

Posted by at 12:49 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

At this year's Film Society of Lincoln Center Latinbeat Festival, a special sidebar was devoted to screenings of, as the FSLC put it, "Four Breakthroughs from Mexico's New Cinema": Amores Perros, Japón, Duck Season, and Violet Perfume: No One Is Listening. The first two, and to some extent the third, are well-known to most movie buffs, but the latter, outside of festivals, has hardly made a ripple in the USA. Now that Violet Perfume is here on DVD, audiences have the chance to see and understand why the film is indeed a breakthrough of sorts. It's also a mega-downer, which may account for its not finding theatrical release.

Continue reading "Violet Perfume: Feminist breakthrough from Mexico" »

Posted by at 11:38 AM | Permalink

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ****

One of the few consistent DVD series devoted to short films from around the world, Cinema16's DVDs showcase everything from "the fascinating early works of some of the world's greatest directors to award-winning films from its most exciting new filmmakers," but the problem for those of us in the States is that their discs have previously been unavailable in region 1 format. This new two-disc collection focusing on European filmmakers changes that - it's actually region 0, or "all-region" but will play in US machines - and may be their best yet. Roy Andersson's WORLD OF GLORY, a contemporary classic, is certainly one of the most important films to come from Sweden in the past twenty years; yet it's only one of many highlights from this stellar collection by the UK-based Cinema16.

Andrea Arnold, the actress turned startlingly good filmmaker whose feature film Red Road gained her quite a bit of notoriety this past year, directed the short WASP included here, which merely won an Oscar for best short film in 2004. The story's basic: a poor single mother with four young children, wants to have a life, meet a bloke in a bar - her first date in years - while also keeping on eye on her kids (and keeping them hidden from him). Life is bloody hell, basically. But Arnold has such a keen visual eye and the performances are all so heartbreakingly real it scarcely matters. Watching the kids suffering from neglect is a bit hard, but again, Arnold's eye for detail - the insects that grab the kids' attention (and the titular bug making a frightening appearance in particular), their starvation causing them to pick up discarded food. It's stark but unforgettable stuff.

Continue reading "Cinema16 European Shorts: A stellar collection" »

Posted by at 1:24 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: James Van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****½

In terms of providing the world with benign movies--kind, compassionate and benevolent--I would call Canada the champ. From Don McKellar's Last Night (the most benign of all the films about the end of the world) to one of the great television series (Slings & Arrows) from Wilby Wonderful to Falling Angels and so many more, our neighbor to the north insists on showing us that normal life comes with enough major problems that we humans don't really need to make things worse. Forget the serial killers and the ultra-violence: Simply dealing with each other and what life throws us is enough of a challenge. Snow Cake, the near-magical movie from Marc Evans (who, back in 2002 gave us--on a budget of about $1.98--one of the most disturbing films I've ever seen, My Little Eye) and writer Angela Pell, is the latest in a long string of humble Canuck wizardry.

Continue reading "Snow Cake: Magic from Canada" »

Posted by at 1:35 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****½

My personal award for "Most unusual while remaining intelligent, enjoyable and accessible" movie of the year goes to Missing Victor Pellerin, an ain't-seen-nuttin'-like-it wonder from Canada--a land which continues to wildly impress for spawning unique winners (anybody seen Slings and Arrows?). To try to explain this singular film is to try to pin down a changeling that keeps on evolving, right up to its staggering finale.

All due praise must be given to one Sophie Deraspe, who is credited with the writing, direction, cinematography and editing (she probably did the catering, as well). There are a few other names listed in the crew, but's basically a one-woman show. Ms Deraspe has created something else. But equal praise must be heaped upon the movie's cast of unknowns, all of whom manage to nail their characters beautifully and succinctly, even as the film keeps evolving right out from under them. Did the cast know from the beginning exactly where their stories and the movie were going? How did they manage to create such complete and complex characters so elliptically and wittily, when these characters are also changing?

And speaking of change, the movie jumps genres, too--from documentary to fiction, mystery, satire -- as it follows the path of Pellerin, a young star of the Art scene who disappeared from Montreal without a trace. I suspect the film will stay with you long after it's over, if only because you'll keep filling in the pieces. Yet, as weird and all-over-the-place as events become, stick with them, because they do coalesce. And if you know anything about the state of our current "art world"--which is one of the film's major themes--you're probably going to love and appreciate Missing Victor Pellerin even more. It possesses that elusive combination of a great concept and amazing execution.

Posted by at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Movie-watchers looking for an old-fashioned but absolutely riveting piece of fictionalized history could do no better than The Tunnel. Yes, it lasts two hours and 47 minutes, but I wager, once you've begun, you will savor every one of those minutes--particularly the final hour which builds an accumulative suspense that is breathtaking. Director Roland Suso Richter (he made a so-so The I Inside here in America after the success of this German film) may be no knock-out stylist, but everything he does is in service to the tale at hand. He draws fine performances from his cast (one of his actors, Sebastian Koch, starred in last year's Best Foreign Film The Lives of Others), and the look of the film is wonderful: in period, while using all of today's movie technology to create that period.

Continue reading "The Tunnel: Another Great Escape" »

Posted by at 3:06 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

With Family Law, the fourth and finest film I've seen from Argentine writer/director Daniel Burman, this increasingly graceful and family-oriented filmmaker completes his trilogy about coming of age and finding one's place in relation to kin and community. It's a warm film, full of wonderful specifics--funny and real--about the life of 30-something, haute-bourgeois Argentines that should easily translate to a U.S. audience who either understands Spanish or is willing to read subtitles. And, although this film is the last in a kind of trilogy connected by theme and lead actor, it can be viewed separately with no loss of enjoyment or understanding.

Burman hit the international film festival circuit and limited U.S. exposure with his 2000 film Waiting for the Messiah, which garnered some nice reviews but was little seen. In it, lead characters Ariel (played by Daniel Hendler) and Santamaria bounce around frenetically (as does the movie), dealing with love, sex, family, work and religion. Buenos Aires' Jewish community plays a large part here, as do the effects of globalization on an increasingly broken economy. As bad as things seem, however, hope--the unspoken staple of Burman's work to date--never entirely disappears.

Continue reading "Family Law: The capper to a splendid little trilogy" »

Posted by at 10:57 AM | Permalink

Reviewer: Dylan de Thomas
Rating (out of 5): ****

Ireland was in vogue in the early 1990's. The Troubles were continuing on their troubled course, epic films about the history of the conflict in Northern Ireland — In the Name of the Father, Michael Collins, Some Mother's Son — were all the rage, and heretofore flat, Midwestern-sounding Hollywood stars were trying on a wee Irish brogue. Chortles could be heard as Brad Pitt (in The Devil's Own), Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones (both in the execrable Blown Away) and Julia Roberts (in Mary Reilly) strained their vocal cords and their credibility all to pin a shamrock on their resumes, and there followed a series of glorified Irish Spring ads like the treacly Circle of Friends.

Then the woefully underappreciated Neil Jordan dropped in with the tart little gem The Butcher Boy (1997). I'd like to say that it put the nail in the coffin of those sorts of films, but no one saw the thing. It did mark the end of that era, however, with an off-kilter almost-masterpiece about a boy from a small town in 1960's Ireland who goes from merely troubled to completely unhinged.

Continue reading "The Butcher Boy: Bloody brilliant" »

Posted by at 7:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): **½

Theatrical release: May 11
DVD Release: TBD

Retelling the real story of a landmark British case in which a Punjabi woman kills her husband, burning him alive after ten years of abuse both physical and verbal, Provoked (opening in select theaters today) often feels a bit like an earnest Lifetime movie but the appealing cast and the intrigue of the Indian-British culture clash raise it above that level, at least.

Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai is truly luminous, if a little inert at times, as Kiranjit, the victim and accused, even when her character remains, in the film's first half especially, frustratingly passive. But the meek, reserved nature of her dutiful wife is part of the point, as her culture, as in many, emphasizes the subordinate role of women in marriage and how most societies do little to protect them, even if they - and their children - are physically threatened by the husband. Her story becomes one of gradual awakening and empowerment.

Continue reading "Provoked: A British-Bollywood Burning Bed?" »

Posted by at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Walt Opie
Rating (out of 5): ***½

The Hours and the Times could almost be called a "speculative documentary" as it takes a real event in the lives of John Lennon and founding Beatles manager Brian Epstein, namely a private four-day holiday to Barcelona in April of 1963, and speculates as to what might have occurred between the two close friends behind closed doors in their hotel room. Of course, the result requires an opening disclaimer stating that everything we are about to see is "entirely fictitious," but perhaps the best indication that it is successful is that somehow it feels as if this is quite likely what did happen, that perhaps by some form of witchcraft writer/director Christopher Munch managed to get it exactly right, even though we know rationally this would be impossible. Wonderfully shot in old-school black and white, it even brings to mind the D.A. Pennebaker documentary of Bob Dylan's 1965 tour of England, Don't Look Back.

Continue reading "The Hours and Times: The fifth Beatle and Lennon fall gently in Spain" »

Posted by at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***½

Candela Peña is so good so often that I wonder when American audiences are going to catch on. (We're often slow, particularly when critics aren't paying enough attention.) Ms. Peña is quite different from film to film, though she usually looks rather similar: Torremolinos 73, Take My Eyes, God Is on the Air, No Shame, What Makes Women Laugh, All About My Mother, Mouth to Mouth--to name a few of her 20 appearances so far, often in lesser roles in which she is never less than wonderful. In Princesas, winner of three Spanish Goya awards but which came and went theatrically in the blink of an eye, she plays a prostitute. The actress won several awards for the role, but her version is no whore-with-a-heart-of-gold: she's angry, frightened-but-determined and oddly decent. This decency infuses the entire film and is likely to do the same for viewers.

Continue reading "Princesas: Beyond the "hookers with heart of gold" cliche" »

Posted by at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Few small foreign-language films get the top-notch send-off from critics (an absolute necessity for international success) accorded 13 Tzameti. From festivals in Venice, Sundance and (yes!) Transylvania to the European Film Awards, the little black-and-white thriller--moody, noirish and grim--has bowled 'em over. It sure did me, despite a beginning that relies on coincidence (overheard conversation and a deity-blown breeze that rather too perfectly lifts, guides and deposits a particular object from here to there). Allow the movie that bit of whimsy and, once set in motion, the story, direction and performances are all of such a piece that there is simply no turning back--for us or for the main character.

Continue reading "13 Tzameti: Grim noir" »

Posted by at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Jonathan Marlow
Rating (out of 5): ****½

Czech surrealist, filmmaker, painter and celebrated animator Jan Svankmajer has crafted a number of fantastic films over the decades but arguably none finer than his latest, Lunacy, now finally available on DVD. Adapted loosely from the writings of Edgar Allan Poe and the Marquis de Sade, Svankmajer's "philosophical horror film" explores the ripe territories of the infamous Theatre du Grand Guignol where inmates don't merely take over the asylum but surround us everywhere. Although seemingly set in the eighteenth century, the film accurately embodies our contemporary culture of collapse.

Actors Pavel Liska and Jan Triska, unfortunately little-known in this country, are used to great effect as the proverbial cat and mouse of the tale. But who is the cat and who is the mouse? Lunacy is Svankmajer's masterpiece, surpassing even his exceptional Faust in pure inventiveness.

(See also Michael Guillen's concise review.)

Posted by at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***

Not to be taken lightly (or, certainly, quickly) Andrei Konchalovsky's (with Valentin Ezhow as co-writer) Siberiade runs more than 4-1/2 hours on two discs. That the DVD quality of this "special edition" is only so-so (full-screen, rather than wide-; fading colors; and a general lack of the kind of crispness DVD buffs have come to expect from our "classics") does not help one's viewing pleasure. Still, until someone undertakes to bring out the real-thing-done-right, we shall have to settle. As someone who had never seen Siberiade in any form, I am grateful. If you've not seen it, either, I'd suggest a rent.

Continue reading "Siberiade" »

Posted by at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): ****

In a recent interview Yves Béhar, chief designer on the $100 laptop project, told Wired magazine, "There's a criticism that comes up. I think it's the stupidest argument: Send kids food, send them water." These critics, he says, imagine all the developing world to be a famine-stricken village in Africa. "This is the typical ignorance of the West. There are different conditions in different places," he says. "And there are a lot of places where kids are not starving, where kids want to learn more than anything else."

The Beauty Academy of Kabul documents a team of British and American women from an NGO called Beauty Without Borders setting up the first teaching salon in Kabul since the 70s. It seems a bit deranged at first - are people really worrying about split ends with bombs still falling on their city? As it turns out, even during the oppressive rule of the Taliban women were running secret salons out of their homes and apparently making more money than any deputy minister of their Parliament.

Continue reading "Beauty Academy of Kabul" »

Posted by at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***

Difficult to embrace but ever harder to dismiss, Oskar Roehler's Agnes and His Brothers offers one of the most dysfunctional bourgeois families on record, from whom the writer/director slowly draws function. That the pathway/minefield toward said goal is long, somewhat labored and often licentious may prove as off-putting as it is enticing. Much attention has been paid to one brother's choice of office rather than bathroom for an evacuation. Yet, given the time (midway into a political phone conversation in which he's calling in his chits), health and history (environmental/Green Party demonstrations), even this oddity might be accepted as understandable, if bizarre. And what to make of another brother's sex obsession? Whatever we make of it, he ends up putting it to surprisingly astute use. Third bro, the titular Agnes, is fairly far into a sex change when nature--via hormones or disease--changes the course of things.

Continue reading "Agnes and His Brothers" »

Posted by at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Australian filmmaker Sarah Watt has heretofore made only short films, most of these animated. To call her full-length, live-action debut Look Both Ways auspicious is an understatement. This ensemble "dramedy" about how we come to terms with death is ever so light on its feet: witty, elliptical and full of odd charms. Especially odd and charming are its fast and funny animated moments, often given to ruminations about one's own death as a kind of awful -- though humorous -- fantasy of ghastly things that could happen but won't because we've first imagined them and thus staved off their arrival. Watt's heroine Meryl (winningly played by Justine Clarke) is a talented artist, and her hero is a photographer (brought to fine life by William McInnes) who also does thoughtful, professional work. Both brush up against the Grim Reaper, as do their friends, co-workers and family, and we viewers follow gladly along.

Continue reading "Look Both Ways" »

Posted by at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

[Note: See Van Maanen's entire Best Gay Films on DVD 2006 list, now up on GreenCine.]

You've got to give Spanish director Manuel Gomez-Pereira credit (or maybe blame) for beginning his movie Queens with the most obvious and laborious few minutes you're likely to watch all year. No matter. Slowly and delightfully he and his oft-times writer Yolanda Serrano wrap you up in this story of a multiple gay wedding ceremony during the year that Spain -- still a Catholic country, so far as I know -- made such a thing legal. As different and amusing as are the several gay grooms (the "butch-est" of whom is played by Daniel Hendler, star of Daniel Burman's popular Argentine movies), it is really the young men's parents who interest the moviemakers most, and rightly so. None of them really approve of their offspring's sexuality or marital plans, and so we watch -- surprised, amused and occasionally moved -- as the "old folk" learn some lessons. Fortunately, the teaching route that Gomez-Pereira and Serrano choose to travel is full of twists that, more often than not, stand stereotypes wittily on their heads.

Continue reading "Queens" »

Posted by at 6:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****½

How odd to discover Tickets the same day that Terence Rafferty's interesting piece on "auteur-itis" appeared in The New York Times (as referenced on Greencine Daily). Rafferty tells us of the war between the director (Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu) and the screenwriter (Guillermo Arriaga) of Babel and 21 Grams over the question of who's really the auteur. Perhaps this tiresome twosome can muster the intelligence and humility to watch Tickets, an auteur-less inspiration that makes use of three different directors (Ermanno Olmi, Abbas Kiarostami and Ken Loach), three different writers (Olmi, Kiarostami and Paul Laverty) and three different cinematographers (Olmi, Mahmoud Kalari and Chris Menges) to create a surprisingly seamless film that parcels out four stories amongst these nine world-class moviemakers (including the writers and cinematographers here).

Continue reading "Tickets" »

Posted by at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Who is The Uninvited Guest? This question, along with a number of others, may stick with you after viewing this rich, engrossing Spanish film that does not easily give up its secrets. The first full-length feature from writer/director Guillem Morales (he's done a number of short films), the movie is a visual stunner, beautifully composed, and with a musical score that captures mood without being overly intrusive. Intellectually, it stimulates and teases. Emotionally, it pulls you quickly in then jerks you back and forth between acceptance and rejection. If you are looking around for something somewhat scary and original (very!) for Halloween - yet not a blood-and-gore fest - this might be your movie.

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Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***

For obvious reasons, Go for Zucker, a German Jewish comedy (three words not often linked over the last half century), is something of a landmark. This very funny dysfunctional-families farce appeals by setting a number of people and plots in motion and then spinning them nearly (but not quite) out of control.

Headed by a performer new to me but evidently quite popular in Germany - ex-East German Henry Huebchen - the cast is particularly well-chosen. Each member comes through with a fine performance that captures the humor and the humanity of his/her character. Director/co-writer (and sometimes actor: La Repetition) Dani Levy does a commendable job of balancing the rollicking comedy with bits of reality that keep cropping up to catch us - and his characters - off guard. Indeed, while this movie qualifies as "feel-good," it reaches its goal in a sometimes surprising and circuitous path. And since it keeps you laughing consistently along the way, you should enjoy the trek.

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Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Moviegoers tempted to venture into a theatre to take a look at the Tony Goldwyn/Paul Haggis remake of The Last Kiss ought to be sure they see the original Italian version first. Superior in every way, this 2001 gem was writer/director Gabriele Muccino's international breakout, capturing better than most films (from any country) that scary period when men approaching thirty start settling into permanent relationships. We see this via the lives of four friends (and their women) in various states of pre- and post-marital bliss (or something less), as well as the parents of one of the women. The movie is by turns funny, surprising, moving and incisive, as it looks at relationships from many angles. It sees the reasons to hold on to what we have and build on it, but it also acknowledges how difficult this is, given our innate sense of selfishness and hypocrisy.

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To be eligible, send an email to contest@greencine.com, including your name, email address and, if you're a GreenCine member, your username in the email, and "Russian Dolls/Sex Addict" in the subject header. Winners will be selected at random from all entries. The deadline is Friday, September 29, at 12PM PST. Winners will be notified by e-mail and announced in future editions of the GreenCine Dispatch newsletter.

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Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Gloomy Sunday, an alternately dark and gorgeous German bouquet, provides as much romance, glamour and ambience as you’re likely to find from any movie in the past decade (maybe two). Taking place in Hungary pre-, during and post-WWII, it spins a fictional tale from the popular song of the day giving the film its title. The song - a marvelous combo of melody, schmaltz and angst - evidently sparked a spate of suicides internationally, and director/co-writer Rolf Schëbel jumps off from this bit of history to create a love-and-war tale of three men and the woman who changes their lives.

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Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***

Ritual is primary to the sensual drama La Petite Jerusalem, as is fundamentalist thinking. This second film by writer/director Karin Albou (her first was made for French TV) begins with the Jewish ritual of tossing crumbs into the river as a symbolic way to part with one's sins. A family of Tunisian Jews have settled in France, living in the banlieue known by the movie’s title, and now that the father is dead, the son-in-law has taken over as head of the family. The movie centers around his wife, played by Elsa Zylberstein (Mina Tannenbaum, Farinelli), and her younger sister (Fanny Valette) and the slight plot revolves around the former's struggles to sexually please her straying husband, while the sister's drawn equally to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and the face and body of immigrant Muslim journalist.

When the Jewish family rejects the Muslim and his family rejects the Jew, what's a young girl to do? Not much, as it turns out, but enough, at least, to keep foreign film fans alert. Albou is as yet no great shakes as a writer (everything is set up in obvious fashion, and the dialog is just okay), but she possesses a nice visual sense. Her romantic/sex scenes are shot in extreme close-up, as the camera twists and turns as if it were "the other," and her "take" on family and school life seems lived-in and believable. If Valette's Laura appears a bit too quick to forsake philosophy, and her sister Mathilde turns out to be a quicker-than-normal learner of the sexual arts, we can forgive them - for the interesting religious rituals on display and the sadly typical, set-in-stone thinking of the fundamentalist families in this modern-day, halfway-to-Romeo and Juliet tale.

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Reviewer: Julie Newcomb
Rating (out of 5): ***½

In its earnest and slightly romanticized treatment of teens, Take Care of My Cat may at first remind you of a Korean Say Anything, but delves even further into the question of what happens just after high school graduation - do you escape your home town, or start settling down there, follow your dreams or earn a living, stay in touch with your high school friends or let them go? The film's core is the shifting relationship between Hae-joo, determined to succeed in the business world of Seoul, Tae-hee, already at work for the family business, and Ji-young, a talented outsider who seems just about to slip through the cracks. Buoyed by some beautifully saturated photography and something of a happy ending, the film nevertheless keeps an eye on the social and economic realities the girls face (it also boasts one of the more poignant Dance Dance Revolution scenes you're likely to see on film). Winner of several festival awards and anchored by a terrific performance by Du-na Bae as Tae-hee, Take Care of My Cat is an undiscovered gem.

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Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): **½ (your rating may rise according to your knowledge of Russia and classical music)

Sonata For Viola presumes an immense amount of knowledge on the part of the viewer regarding - for starters - Dmitri Shostakovich and Russian history. Since this 75-minute documentary supposedly covers the life of the famous composer, I expected a certain level of "groundwork" information that would lead me into an understanding and appreciation of Shostakovich and the world in which he lived. While the movie will not deliver this to the uninitiated, that's not to say it isn't a somewhat enjoyable experience - particularly if you are familiar with the films of Alexander Sokurov (Father & Son, Russian Ark), who, via editing, shaped the work of the original filmmaker Semyon Aranovich into his own more elliptical, impressionistic view.

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Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): **** ½

With Paul Verhoeven's new film, Black Book, also centered around the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, and his first film shot in his native country in decades [read David D'Arcy's review of the film which premiered in Toronto], it seemed a good time to revisit Soldier of Orange.

Epic in length and scope, but also a character-driven piece, Verhoeven's masterfully entertaining WWII film Soldier of Orange is the most polished of his early Dutch films (though the more subversive The 4th Man is perhaps his sharpest). It makes it all the more apparent how far he eventually fell in his more recent Hollywood forays (B-movie masterpiece RoboCop notwithstanding). Soldier also catapulted Rutger Hauer to stardom, charismatically playing real life heroic (and, eventually, flying) Dutchman Eric Lanshof, a bit of an anti-hero who was initially apolitical during WWII but eventually found himself figthting in the resistance after Holland was overtaken by the Germans. The recognizable, always solid Jeroen Krabbe plays Lanshof's longtime friend who gets caught up along with him in trying to save the country they love, long after their Queen (whom they eventually meet) has fled to England.

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Reviewer: James Van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***½

It often seems as if Australian filmmakers do something pretty odd for our digitalized, high-concept times: They put people first. The best Aussie writers and directors stock their films with characters who are rich and complex, funny and moving, and above all, real. Recent examples have included Two Hands, Little Fish, Peaches and Somersault. Now arrives Oyster Farmer as another--maybe the best--case in point. This first full-length movie from writer/director Anna Reeves is chock-a-block with wonderful characters (lusty and unembarrassed, among other traits), an exotic locale (the Hawkesbury River, outside of Sydney, where the locals farm oysters) and a surprisingly good story that combines a bit of crime and adventure with coming of age and romance. You may guess where things are going but the lovely time you have getting there more than makes up for a whiff of déjà vu.

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Reviewer: James Van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Yes, some Samurai action does figure in The Hidden Blade but action lovers best be warned that this mostly quiet, thoughtful and lovely movie is more about justice, kindness, decency and - especially - love. Call it a classy chick flick with some swordplay. Director and co-writer Yoji Yamada has now made nearly 100 films (including the recent Twilight Samurai). His new one steeps you in the time and habits of 1800s Japan, as western influence - particularly in weaponry - was beginning to assert itself. At the outset, we meet three samurai: one of them leaves for fame and fortune elsewhere, and we remain behind with the family of one of other two, watching as love grows between master and servant, and the story twines around loss, politics (particularly greedy incompetent overlords). Though lengthy, the movie is never slow or uninteresting because the scenes of daily life are filled with such fascinating detail and the plot strands come together gracefully and believably. While Yamada integrates all his themes beautifully, it is the love story that attains most impact: Here is a film that demonstrates what real love is - how it grows and survives against heavy odds - about as well as any I've seen. The swordplay arrives rather far along: a riveting and suspenseful climactic battle and a denouement featuring the blade of the title that is quietly shocking. Despite some violence and a bit of gore, I'll bet most women will love this film. Men - along for the fights and thrills - may learn a number of useful things about communication and caring in a foreign culture that applies quite well to our own. The Hidden Blade, a very special movie, was nominated for multiple Japanese Academy awards. Though it won only for its art direction and actresses, it's hard to imagine anything topping it in the other realms.

More reading: Samurai primer >>

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But there are, of course, many other reasons.

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