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Carlos Reygadas's
Battle in Heaven
Opens Friday, February 17, 2005
Landmark Sunshine Cinemas
143 East Houston Street on the Lower East Side
New York City

Reviewed by Brian Shirey

Astonishing and abrupt, Battle in Heaven is a Mexican film arrived straight off the international film fest circuit. Recently screened in Rotterdam (where I visited for a few days), it was an absolute sensation. They don’t hold back in Holland: The film’s European poster, a young woman naked and flat on her back, adorned every wall of every cinema in town. (They cleaned it up in the US – her long hair now covers certain strategic spots.) It’s a blunt image from an uncompromising movie. Battle in Heaven is a sexually explicit and artistically daring affront: Not escapist, not pleasant, not conventional… and completely unforgettable.

As a movie lover, I‘m impatient with films -- common in foreign-language and indie cinema -- that wallow in ugliness as a way to assure us of their significance and integrity. (In other words, “We’re not Hollywood.”) Initially, Battle in Heaven flirts with this approach. Directed by 2nd-timer Carlos Reygadas, it tells the sweaty story of Marcos, the “fatso” chauffeur of a Mexican general who is also expected to drive Ana, the boss’s luscious and misbehaved daughter. She has a secret: Prostitution. (Just for kicks, of course, because daddy is rich.) Marcos’ facilitates her double life, and in so doing, finds himself variably fantasizing about and actually engaging in a sexual relationship with her. (The film opens with graphic fellatio.) He is married to an unattractive woman who sells junk in a train station, and we see their sex life, too. Reygadas shows the couple in a love scene that is the most unglamorous I’ve ever seen in a film… in my life.

Had enough? I thought I did, but the film’s visual style creeps under the skin, even after one too many close-ups of Marcos’ heaving body. He’s perpetually inexpressive and disturbed. But the camera is alive to him, forcing us to see a man who would otherwise go unnoticed. Battle in Heaven is deeply concerned with this classic loser, who may remind some of sociopaths like Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver. But is there really a screw loose, or is he just building rage against the surroundings that continually oppress him?

You can feel his burden. Battle in Heaven is extraordinary, and unsettlingly certain, in showing a Mexico City sagging under overpopulation and abject poverty. Startling, for instance, is a lengthy shot of a sedan stopped at a gas station, and we watch as some 12 family members – including grandma – get out, one by one. It’s not a clown joke. A Bach chamber piece underscores the moment, a sad human spectacle off-set by the sublime. This is the world Marcos lives in, where pilgrimages to the city Basilica unite the poor masses and military maneuvers take place late at night.

It all catches up to our “hero” when, after an intensely observed attack of conscience, Marcos confesses a failed kidnapping scheme to Ana. Let’s face it – in the annals of crime, it’s not the smartest thing to try, but Mexico has been plagued by kidnapping-for-profit in recent years (see the Denzel film Man on Fire), and now amateurs are following the example set by the professionals. For Reygadas, it’s a spotlight on the way a desperate man can lose moral focus.

Here’s a warning -- Reygadas is not very interested in story once this set-up is established. In fact, he cites Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami as a favorite influence, because “with a facial expression, a camera angle, and some music, he tells you everything. That to me is the purest form of cinema.” For this reviewer, the case can not be overstated. Battle in Heaven will tax the patience of those who want the next juicy plot point, but all others take notice: This is a seriously powerful piece of cinema. Sometimes infuriating, sometimes pornographic, and documentary-like in its realism, the film follows a man searching for redemption in a crowded metropolis that seems to have passed him by. In Battle in Heaven, you’ll be asked to look as the camera does a slow 360 pan around a seedy neighborhood, and to listen to a bombastic coronation march as a stark sex scene dissolves into the national pride of a soccer game. The music – another dazzling choice – underlines a sadness that is individual, national… and epic.

The actors are non-professionals given sparse dialogue, but that’s OK because the cinematographer – ace pro Diego Martinez Vignetti – uses grand shots as if they were achingly recited monologues. Marcos is Marcos Hernandez, an actual Mexico City driver who is also (as in real life, according to the press notes) preternaturally quiet. As Ana, Anapola Mushkadiz captures both the girl’s brattiness, and her rather skewed affection for Marcos. The suggestion is that she understands their similarities.

Earlier this decade, Mexico produced two striking and stylistically innovative films, Amores Perros and Y Tu Mama Tambien. The latter may be remembered for its frank sexuality, played out against a road trip that shows a Mexico seemingly dying before our eyes. In Battle in Heaven, we see the forgotten souls of a population torn between need and faith. The almost religious attention given to Marcos and Ana’s highly class-conscious sex scenes are perhaps too intense; certainly, Reygadas is determined to wake us up to the pathology of this sad man. In the end, I see compassion more than mere provocation.

You decide for yourself. As an arthouse experience in the glut of the politically correct Oscar season, it’s the most audacious movie out there.

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Ang Lee's
Brokeback Mountain
Opens Friday, December 9, 2005

Starring: Heath Ledger; Jake Gyllenhaal; Linda Cardellini; Anna Faris; Anne Hathaway; Michelle Williams; and Randy Quaid.

Reviewed by Frank J. Avella

Brokeback Mountain is an audacious piece of cinema--an atypical love story that soars above most of the films of 2005. The lead characters happen to be male. The men happen to be cowboys. The cowboys happen to fall in love...with each other! The time period, which feels like a century ago, is actually the early 1960’s into the early 1980’s. And the place is Wyoming (and Texas) where not much has changed in a century in terms of social acceptance or intellectual development, which is probably why it feels like such a period piece. (I completely own up to AND am proud of the Blue state bias obvious in the last sentence.)

Beautifully scripted by Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove) and Diana Ossana, based on a short story by Annie Proulx, the spare plot involves the meeting of two ranch hands, who are hired to tend sheep on Brokeback Mountain. The brooding, laconic Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and the animated, aptly named Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) soon find themselves with ample amounts of alone-time. An intense sexual attraction begins to develop - one that neither truly comprehend. That infatuation soon metamorphoses into deep love, which they understand even less.

Once Ennis and Jack leave their beloved mountain, they are forced into respective fake “real-life” existences. Both marry and have children, but four years later they meet up again and begin an infrequent, but intense affair.

Heath Ledger is a revelation as Ennis. Nothing this actor has done in the past (even his powerful, if too brief, turn in Monster’s Ball) indicated he was capable of such a rich, nuanced, heartbreaking performance. Ledger crawls deep under the skin of this seemingly simple rancher and tears open the painful yearning he can’t understand or control. Ledger’s acting is so raw and honest it flabbergasts the viewer. This is the acting performance of the year, one the Academy cannot overlook.

Because Ledger is so extraordinary, it would be easy to underestimate the power of Jake Gyllenhaal’s work. Although the film doesn’t seem to devote the same time and tenderness to Jack Twist’s world as it does to Ennis’, Gyllenhaal is fearless in his approach and nails the hurt, desire and defiance of someone who doesn’t fit in the time and place he was born into...and doesn’t quite understand why--nor does he know how he’s supposed to behave.

The film more than hints that Jack falls victim to his untimate insistance on being himself sexually, but the true victim is Ennis since he never fully embrace his desires.

The wonderful supporting cast is led by an indelible Michelle WIlliams as Ennis’ distraught wife. Anne Hathaway impresses in a part that is too underwritten. Anna Faris and Linda Cardellini leave their respective marks in smaller roles. And Roberta Maxwell manages to be penetrating and heart-wrenching in an brief but potent scene.

Ang Lee’s direction is deft and uncompromising. He has proven before in gems such as Sense and Sensibility, The Ice Storm and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, that he can take on practically any subject matter and capture it’s true essence. This may be his best work.

Gustavo Santaolalla’s score is gorgeous and perfectly suits the film.

The picture is stunningly photographed by Rodrigo Prieto. From its sweeping mountain vistas to Ennis’ simple farmhouse, Prieto allows the audience to feel as if they are actually there with the characters, not just onlookers.

We also get the sense of heartland inertia necessary to believe that such backward views could exist in the turbulent and sexually-liberating milieu of the sixties and seventies. The irony being that if Matthew Shepard’s death taught us anything it’s that these dangerous and repressive mores exist and, actually, thrive today.

Brokeback Mountain represents quite a historic leap for a film dealing with homosexuality. And although the film shouldn’t be labeled a “gay film,” it is quite a landmark film in it’s unabashed sincerity with it’s portrayal of ‘the love that dare not speak it’s name!’

Not since the soapy debacle Making Love in 1982 has a mainstream film dealt so openly with love between two men. That film was far too careful and contrite with cardboard characters and whiny protagonists, directed and scripted in a pathetically self-important Hollywood-ized style. Philadelphia’s lovers were never allowed to actually show any real love towards one another. Even many a gay-themed indie are sanitized, politically-correct concoctions carefully made so as not to offend anyone or twinkie flesh-laced sex comedies that have as as much depth as Paris Hilton has.

The remarkable achievement of Brokeback Mountain is that it is daring because it allows its characters to be real and behave in a painfully honest manner. For that and for making a brilliant and groundbreaking film, Focus Features and the entire Brokeback team should be congratulated, showered with accolades and, most importantly, the film itself should been seen and appreciated.

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Steven Soderbergh’s
Bubble
Reviewed at the 43rd Annual New York Film Festival 2005
Opens Friday January 27, 2006

Reviewed by Frank J. Avella

Steven Soderbergh is a true wonder. The Oscar-winning director manages to weave in and out of the Hollywood mainstream (In: Erin Brockovich, Ocean’s 11 & 12, Out: The Limey & Full Frontal) and is even able to merge the two on occasion (Traffic, Out of Sight).

His latest film, Bubble, is about as far away from mainstream filmmaking as one can get. Soderbergh is a savvy and clever auteur yet his experiment with Bubble seems like an attempt to return to cinematic purity. There’s a deliberate lack of pretension at work here that makes it a powerful and penetrating picture.

Bubble is filmed docu-style and features non-professional actors. The story (written by Coleman Hough who wrote Full Frontal) is told in a straightforward and simple manner. And it’s exactly in that simple storytelling that Soderbergh is able to transfix us...reach us.

Audiences used to car crashes and super-human stunts may find themselves perplexed, even bored by Bubble, but those who are able to stay seated will find themselves privy to something quite profound.

Martha (Debbie Doeberiener) is an overweight, lonely, middle-age worker at a doll factory. She has an unspoken crush on Kyle, her apathetic, teen co-worker (Dustin James Ashley). The arrival of a young, pretty, but shady new employee upsets their relationship and ultimately drives the story to an astonishing climax.

The film perfectly captures the mundane world of a Midwestern small town, pregnant with a host of larvelling demons that boredom begets.

Doeberiener is simply amazing as the ticking time bomb. One particularly frightening close-up of her face says everything about the film’s themes as well as the living monsters that our (increasingly poverty-stricken) country has created.

Ashley is either a born actor OR he’s simply playing himself. Regardless, it is a pitch-perfect teen portrayal. Misty Dawn Wilkins handles the role of interloper/troublemaker Rose, with tremendous zest.

Quite a number of films (most recently Gus Van Sant’s overrated Elephant) have attempted to deal with the underbelly of Middle America and why we are so prone to crazed violence. Bubble is one of the few that is truly scary because it feels so bloody real--filled with the nuances of the ordinary that can lead to the catastrophic extraordinary.

Steven Soderbergh is a filmmaker that continuously challenges himself as an artist and, consequently, his audience. As far as I’m concerned, he has yet to disappoint.

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Debra Granik’s
Down to the Bone
Opened November 25, 2005
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th Street New York, New York

Starring: Vera Farmiga; Hugh Dillon; Clint Jordan; Caridad 'La Bruja'
De La Luz; Jasper Daniels; and Taylor Foxhall

Reviewed by Eleanor Goldberg

Dark, depressing and harrowingly realistic, Debra Granik’s, Down to
the Bone, tells the compelling story of a suburban mother’s drug
induced decline, with no neat happily-ever-after conclusion in sight.

Unhappily married and a mother of two young boys, Irene (Vera
Farmiga) struggles to sustain her passionless marriage, while
discreetly and regularly using cocaine to relieve her misery. Irene’s
painstaking dependence is methodically revealed in a series of heart
wrenching scenes, one of which being when she offers to pay her drug
dealer with her son’s meager birthday money.

Reaching the point of sheer desperation, Irene admits herself into a
drug rehabilitation facility that mirrors the drab and dull existence from
which she is trying to escape. Granik finally injects some much-needed
humor onto the scene, as the fellow patients work towards their
recovery and engage in interpretive and therapeutic classes.

While at the facility, Irene develops a steamy affair with Bob
(Hugh Dillon), a nurse and former drug addict and the two rely on
each other’s tenuous recovery to stay sober. However, once Irene leaves
the facility, the film takes an unpredictable turn when one of them
relapses and drives the other to revert to their old, self-destructive
ways.

Vera Farmiga and Hugh Dillon deliver stellar performances throughout
and lend the film the element of tragedy on which it thrives. Vera
Farmiga will next appear opposite Paul Walker in Running Scared,
in January 2006 and is currently filming Departed, a police drama
starring Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio. Hugh Dillon starred in
Bruce McDonald’s Hard Core Lego and starred opposite Ethan
Hawke in Assault on Precinct 13.

The strength in this film lies in Farmiga’s portrayal of Irene’s poignant
and excruciating suffering, which she conveys with gifted subtlety and
quietude. A mere cock of her head and a half smile reveals the mounds
of deep seeded pain and quelled rage which she is desperately trying
to release.

The cinematography further enhances the dreariness and the banality
of each scene, as the camera vividly captures the endless snow fall, the
dullness of Irene’s town and the dilapidated nature of her home.
The camera retains the film’s integrity by continuously focusing on
the ordinariness of the events and people and objects that comprise
this very real film.

The film also succeeds in raising questions about the nature of
patriotism and the ways in which the working class is overlooked in
American society. At the core of this movie lies the question of how
the very poor, leading redundant and colorless lives are expected to
find meaningful and healthful outlets with very little means.

Honored with Best Director and a Special Jury Prize for Acting at the
2004 Sundance Film Festival, Down to the Bone shies away from
histrionics and is replete with genuine emotion, profound symbolism
and the stark reminder that for every recovering addict, each day marks
a new and unchartered challenge.

 

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Albert Brooks'
Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
Opens Friday January 20, 2006

Starring: Albert Brooks; Sheetal Sheth; John Carroll Lynch; Jon Tenney;
and Fred Dalton Thompson.

Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams

You know a film is really funny when an audience of film critics (who are paid to never smile and probably wouldn’t anyway) laugh at a press screening. Well, Albert Brook’s new gem, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, had just that effect at the press screening I attended. We were all in hysterics. And it wasn’t punch line hysterics or pratfall hysterics, it was the same kind of hysterical reaction created by last year’s comic masterpiece Sideways. Both of these films were made from the same classic formula – create a believable world, populate it with wonderful characters who are in an over-their-heads situation and then let the pot come to a boil.

Here is a plot description (this film is not a documentary) from the film’s press release: "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World is the hilarious story of what happens when the U.S. Government sends comedian Albert Brooks to India
and Pakistan to find out what makes the over 300 million Muslims in the region laugh. Brooks, accompanied by two state department handlers and his trusted assistant, goes on a journey that takes him from a concert stage in New Delhi, to the Taj Mahal, to a secret location in the mountains of Pakistan. Written and directed by Albert Brooks, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World is a funny and insightful look at some of the issues we are dealing with in a post-9/11 world.”

Albert Brooks has never seemed more of a lovable everyman, and this time
he is a lovable everyman trying to do something decent for his country by
creating a FIVE HUNDRED PAGE report on what makes Muslims laugh.
Brooks willingness to take on this task is due in some small part to the fact that
he is out of work having recently been rejected by Director Penny Marshall
for the lead role in the remake of the movie Harvey. He is then hired for
this research job by an hysterically deadpan Senator Fred Thompson, actually
played by Fred Thompson. He is then assigned two low-level State Department functionaries, ably played by John Carroll Lynch and Jon Tenney. When he reaches Indian he hires a Pollyannaish assistant, Maya played by Sheetal Sheth. Maya's eternal optimism is a perfect foil for Brook's moroseness.

The movie is filled with wonderfully funny scenes. Some of the funniest are
set in the seedy building where the project is officed. Lining the halls of the building are offices full of people on telephones. Now I don’t want to tell you anything more about this, but these scenes will confirm everything you have ever suspected about who is on the other end of the phone when you call a
help desk. There is also an hsyterical visit to the local Al Jazeera television affiliate, a comedy show where no one laughs and a totally bizarre dressing room.

India is beautiful and the country itself is a major character in the film.
The scenes set in the market places are a mosaic marvel. The film company was unable to close off any streets and so many of their scenes were filmed while the city population went about their business. And in one scene, the film company simply used the crowd - handing out flyers for the comedy show to the people who just happened to be in the market place.

There has been some controversy about this movie – mainly because the title contains both the word Muslim and the word comedy. But far from poking fun at the Muslim world, this comedy of the film is centered around Albert Brooks and his
fumbling attempts to do a little good for the world by trying to find out what makes Muslims laugh. So he is the clown and the butt of all the jokes, not India, Pakistan or Muslims. And the film works. As I said, I laughed all the way through it.

For more information, copy and paste this code into your browser: htttp://wip.warnerbros.com/lookingforcomedy/LFC_content.html

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Reviewed by Frank J. Avella

An up front admission: I consider Lars Von Trier’s Dogville to be one of the most astonishing, audacious and groundbreaking films of the last decade. I was appalled by the way the film was completely mishandled and barely-released by USA Films. I was outraged by it’s lack of winning any year-end awards. I was disgusted by how so many seemingly intelligent critics dismissed it as anti-American.

Dogville remains a bold piece of filmmaking from a true genius and will most definitely grow in stature among cinefiles (and hopefully among audiences.) Now that I’ve gotten that out...

Because of my obviously-strong Dogville feelings, I approached the second picture in a planned trilogy, Manderlay, with excited anticipation and absolute fear. How could it possibly be as good? And how could we accept Ron Howard’s novice daughter as Grace after Nicole Kidman’s brilliant, nuanced performance? (Kidman pulled out due to scheduling conflicts).

Manderlay picks up where Dogville left off. It’s 1933 and Grace (now Bryce Dallas Howard) is traveling with her father (now Willem Dafoe) and his mob thugs through the South. While stopped outside a plantation in Alabama called Manderlay, they encounter a world where slavery is still in full swing--despite the fact that it was abolished some seventy years earlier.

Grace is flummoxed by this and, against her father’s wishes, decides to stay at Manderlay and right the wrong she indignantly sees.

Upon the matriarch Mam’s death (an intense Lauren Bacall), Grace immediately frees the slaves and punishes the owners, much to the dismay of the elder house slave, Wilhelm (Danny Glover). And thus begins the wildly fascinating and psychologically engrossing story which I will not ruin by giving any more away.

Von Trier utilizes the same Brechtian set (hybridizing theatre and film), the same hand-held cam technique and the same sardonic John Hurt narration--all of which worked perfectly in Dogville and do so here as well.

And while his hand seems steadier and this film tighter, his writing is just as sharp and his hypotheses, even more daring as he relentlessly continues to probe the evil inherent in human nature. It’s an engaging and layered script that trumps the obvious for much more absorbing and creative ideas and theories.

Von Trier is a fearless filmmaker (ironic because in his personal life he is so rattled with them--including a fear of traveling). His ideas can be viewed as dangerous simply because they go against popular opinion.

To complain that Manderlay (or Dogville for that matter) is anti-American, is to miss the point completely. If presenting human behavior in a realistic and accurate way is too painful, perhaps we Americans need to take a good hard look at the injustices we cause others and stop arrogantly holding ourselves up as the example to the world.

Manderlay does comment on the ridiculous and simplistic notion that one can simply force democracy on a people that have been ignorant to it, without problems or repercussions via Grace’s need to democratized the slaves. A timely theme with the current situation in Iraq. But Von Trier does not judge Grace for her naivete. Yes, she is thinking too simplistically but her heart is in the right place.

Bryce Howard is not Nicole Kidman. Nor does she try to be. Her Grace is less compelling, more idealistic, but she manages to deliver the goods necessary to anchor Manderlay in place. We understand her Grace almost immediately and, therefore, relate to her. Howard is quite a find.

The supporting cast is uniformly outstanding. Of particular note are: Mona Hammond, Zeljko Ivanek, and, most especially, Danny Glover.

As he did in Dogville, Von Trier surprises us in the last fifteen minutes of Manderlay. And while the jolt may not be quite as explosive, it packs it’s own provocatively powerful punch and leaves the audience wanting more (which we will luckily get in the final chapter of his opus, Washington, scheduled to shoot in 2007).

The auteur ends Manderlay, same as Dogville, with David Bowie’s ‘Young Americans’ on the soundtrack as images depicting U.S. racism and violence flash onscreen. It is just as potent.

So while Manderlay may not be quite on par with Dogville simply because everything about the first film was so fresh and inspiring, it’s certainly a worthy second chapter and easily one of the best films of 2005.

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Richard Sheppard's
The Matador
Opens Dec. 23, 2005

Bye-bye Bond, Hello Brosnan

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear and Hope Davis.

Reviewed by Christina M. Hinke

The Matador opens with a shot of Pierce Brosnan in bed with a woman. We’ve all seen that before. What we haven’t seen is his rummaging through her purse to look for her nail polish and then sauntering off to the bathroom where he rips some pieces of toilet tissue to place between his toes. And then he proceeds to paints his toe nails. This is just the beginning of the unraveling of his on-screen persona.

Brosnan plays Julian Noble, a hit man having a mid-life crisis. He’s a bit overweight, drinks a lot, has a bad haircut and a mustache and he is a sex fiend.
The Bond suave is gone. He is the anti-Bond. And to prove it, the film gives
a few sly nods to the 007 series. A shaking of a drink tumbler is just one.

The biggest ‘wink wink’ Brosnan bestows on us is that this is the best performance he has ever given. He is both funny and tragic throughout this dark comedy. Even though Julian is vulgar, Brosnan finds just the right (character) mix to keep the
audience rooting for him. Perfect comedic timing from Greg Kinnear, Hope
Davis and Brosnan and a tight script from Richard Sheppard make this film
one of the freshest hit man movies to come our way in a long time.

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