James Westby's
The Auteur
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 - May 4, 2008
Starring: Melik
Malkasian; Katherine Flynn; John Breen; and Cara
Seymour,
Reviewed by Julia Sirmons
While there's rarely
anything completely new under the sun in the world
of movies; but it's probably safe to say that
never before could a movie that reaches its climax
(pardon the pun) with a frenzied circle jerk ever
be realistically described as "endearing."
But there's no denying that The Auteur,
James Westby's
mockumentary about a Coppola of the golden age
of porn, leaves you with a distincly warm and
fuzzy feeling along with lots of laughs.
After Boogie
Nights made the porn industry a safe topic
for mainstream film, you'd think some enterpirsing
writers and directors would have mined this territory
for new story ideas, but we've yet to see porn
industry buddy flicks or porn star romantic comedies.
The Auteur shows us just what we've been
missing. It' the kind of movie that gushing film
critics would say "reminds us why we love
movies in the first place." Plus it's got
crazy handlebar mustaches, hippie communes, and
a whole lot of gratuitous nudity, so a good time
is guaranteed.
Call it an 8 1/2
for the skin flick set: washed up egomaniacal
porn director Arturo Domingo (Melik Malkasian)
travels to Seattle for a retrospective of his
work. Reliving his former glories is a bittersweet:
he can't get funding for his latest project, and
he's haunted by memories of the woman that got
away (Katherine Flynn as his hippie angel ex-wife)
and the friend he's alienated (his leading man,
Frank E. Normo, played with goofy horndog affability
by John Breen).
The Auteur
elicts its best and biggest luaghs from the clips
of James Westby's best films. Great films of the
60s and 70s, fincluding five Easy Pieces,
Apocalypse Now, and Full Metal Jacket,
are sent off with extra skin and plenty of laughs.
Film nerd viewers will delight not only in the
over-the-top sight gags but the sly references
in these well crafted bits.
The rest of the
film hits all the right notes; there are the obligatory
mockumentary footage and a pleasing redemption
arc for our hapless hero. Arturo and Frank's dark
night of the soul at a hippie bacchanal in the
woods is a riot. The characters are all familiar
archetypes, but the actors give them endearing
quirks and a lot of heart. And the rest of the
cast -- many of whom are performers from strip
clubs in Seattle -- give it there all; they all
seem to be having a hell of a time, and their
enthusiasm is completely infectious.
In the end, The
Auteur is a winning example of how a creative
team can take an old idea, transfer it to a new
milieu, and make it something refreshing and completely
enjoyable. Aspiring auteurs take note, and when
your zombie strip club movie hits, theaters, I'll
be angling for a front row seat,
John Crowley’s
Boy A
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 - May 4, 2008
Reviewed by Frank J. Avella
John Crowley’s
Boy A is the best narrative feature I’ve
seen at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.
If handled correctly (delicately), it could be
(should be) an indie sleeper. Granted the film
does not have the comic uplift of a Juno
or a Little Miss Sunshine but it does
have some important and thought-provoking things
to say about our society and the world we live
in and how we view rehabilitation and redemption.
It also contains an incredibly nuanced, star-making
performance by newcomer Andrew Garfield (seen
last year in the underrated Robert Redford gem
Lions for Lambs).
The film opens
with a 24-year old “boy,” about to
be released from a British juvvy prison, choosing
a name as he sits with his devoted caseworker.
As the film flashes back and forward, we become
privy to his unbelievable story. At the age of
ten, Boy A was involved in committing a heinous
crime and was hauled away. A decade later, the
case is still fresh in the minds of the public
as well as the media so “Jack” must
start afresh and live his life carefully and wary
of revealing who he really is to anyone.
The pic meticulously
takes us into Jack’s daily life as he nervously
makes new friends and even begins dating a co-worker
(an impressive Katie Lyons). Jack is obviously
still a young boy in a man’s body. He is
forever haunted by memories of his past, and worried
about whether he is even deserving of a second
chance.
His caseworker,
Peter (the always extraordinary Peter Mullan),
has been his champion, mentor and protector but
must now deal with his own mess of a son moving
back in.
As the movie moves
towards an inevitable reveal and people’s
predictable reactions, the film keeps true to
it’s bleak but honest themes about the difficulty
of forgiveness and the dangers of the mob (and
media) mentality. Jack may very well be a changed
boy, but will he ever be allowed to live any type
of normal life?
Based on the novel
by Jonathan Trigell, the screenplay (by Mark O’Rowe)
is smartly structured and probes the complexities
of Jack’s impossible situation. We grow
to like him and then we flashback to the murder,
which makes our feelings all the grayer. Along
the periphery the film also examines class and
how that effects the boy’s situation.
Throughout the
film, Garfield holds our attention, showing us
Jack’s fears and newfound joys. We watch
how he learns about the world anew (never having
heard of a dvd), experiments with drugs (a hilarious
scene with him dancing on Ecstasy) and clunkily
stumbles through the awkward moments of falling
in love for the first time. It is a truly remarkable
performance.
Boy A
does omit an important part of Jack’s story
(possibly deliberately). We are never shown any
moments from his time in prison. I would have
loved a glimpse of his world and what it was like
to be inside his head during some of the defining
period of adolescence. But then that’s what
a really good film does. It makes us want more.
Ivan O'Mahoney and Laura
Winter's
Bagdad High
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 - May 4, 2008
Even if you have
the vaguest, cringe-inducing moments memories
of your teenage years, it is apparent that the
essential dramas of high school remain basically
unchanged, regardless of time and location. There
are song lyrics to learn, medieval literature
exams to fret over, the trauma of boyfriends and
girlfriends who don;t call for days on end, and
long afternnons spent in idle, rambling quests
for amusement on sofas and in backyards.
So it should no
surprise that Baghdad High, Ivan O'Mahoney
and Laura Winter's film chronicling the senior
year of four Iraqi boys, paints a remarkably familiar
picture of the trials and tribulations of adolescence.
The subtle, nuanced and ultimately deeply affecting
film has a lot more going for it than a simple
feel-good "Iraqis are just like us"
message. What makes Baghdad High such
an interesting and moving piece of work is its
exploration of how living in a war zone eerily
mirrors and intensifies the ups and downs of adolescent
boyhood
O'Mahoney and Winter
make the wise move to get out of the boys' way
and let them tell their own stories. Each of the
four -- Hayder, a Kurd; Anmar, a Catholic; Ali,
a Shia; and Mohammed, half Sunni, half Shia --
was given a camera to document their lives throughout
the school year (beginning in October 2006).
As the ups and
downs of daly life unfold, we get a uniquely intimate
view of how the trials of wartime affect them.
Which sacrifices and hardships are aceepted as
routine? Which are just too terrible to bear?
The distinctions are often surprising.
When mixed with
typical adolescent cynicism, the numbing affect
of living with armed conflict manifests itself
in a mordant gallows humor. They can joke with
friends who've been wounded in the crossfire,
even about the possibility of their own deaths;
Anmar, in particular is afraid he'll be the victim
of religious persecution.
The four also show
a not untypical teenage male bravado when faced
with show a boyish enthusiasm whenever guns or
tanks appear. When Ali's family moves to Arbil,
in the Kurdish north, to escape the violence,
he strolls throw the beautiful town park and complains
that his new home is boring -- there are no guns,
no shooting.
It's often smaller
events and inconveniences that cause the boys
to snap. Mohammed, an angel-faced joker fiercely
protective of his friends and his mother in spite
of his tiny stature and jocular demeanor, is reduced
to tears when his mother kills a kitchen mouse.
It's one loss too many. Constant trips to the
generators during power outages wear down last
nerves; the boys realize they should be studying,
not worrying about siphoning off gas from the
cars to run kerosene burners. It's the little
things, it seems, that remind them how far their
lives really are from normal.
There's little
mention of political developments in Baghdad
High -- passing reference is made to the
conviction and execution of Saddam Hussein --
and, for safety reasons, the students only filmed
in their homes, at school, and occassionally in
cars. But this limited sphere of action is oddly
appropriate for the subject matter, as it reflects
how limited life
Richard
Ledes’
The Caller
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 - May 4, 2008
But wonderful acting
and cinematography aside, the film suffers from
a weak contrived plot. It was as though the screenwriter
and director knew where they wanted to go (the
reunion of the old friends, the re-enactment of
the scene in the forest, the use of black-and-white
photos a la Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup)
and wrote a paint-by-numbers plot to get from
one pre-decided plot point to another. According
to the film notes, “the plot of The
Caller was originally conceived by a respected
French psychoanalyst, Alain, Didier-Weill, who,
along with director Richards Ledes, is also credited
as the co-writer of the film.” But psychological
nuances cannot alone propel a film-noir thriller
and when this film reaches its climax, the whole
thing fizzles. It is beautiful and poignant, yes,
but totally improbable. I simply did not believe
it. We were at the end of the film because that
is what was written in the script, not because
the actions of the film had propelled the characters
to their final resolution.
Isild Le Besco’s
Charly
French with English Subtitles
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 - May 4, 2008
Starring: Julie-Marie
Parmentier and Kolia Litscher
Reviewed by Wendy
R. Williams
Charly
tells the story of unmotivated and listless fourteen-year-old
French boy, Nicolas (played by Kolia Litscher),
who lives with his perplexed grandparents in a
lower (very lower) middle class home in rural
France. Nicolas stumbles through life; one day
he follows one of his teachers into a café
and when the teachers leaves, he leaves a copy
of Spring Awakening, a play about alienated
teenagers who discover the thrill and agonies
of sex. And inside the book is a postcard that
depicts an oceanfront scene in Belle-Île,
a remote Breton island off the French coast.
Nicolas whimsically
decides to journey to Brittany to find the island,
hitchhiking his way. One driver leaves him in
a village, where, sitting in the town square he
is discovered by Charly, a young hooker wearing
a rabbit fur bomber jacket. Charly asks him for
a cigarette which he does not have. She gives
him a quick look over and asks if he would like
to follow her home. He does want to and he does,
following her home like a forlorn puppy dog.
Charly then leads
Nicolas down the road to a lane to her home, a
ramshackle trailer. Nicolas moves in with Charly
and then the training starts. Charly is a determined
mistress and carefully house breaks her new house
pet. There are very specific housekeeping rules
which Charly enforces with a rigid hand. Charly
gives instructions and forces Nicolas to repeat
them by rote. All of this training and enforcement
of rigid housekeeping rules is extremely funny
to this viewer when juxtaposed against the realization
that not wanting to follow rules is exactly what
made Nicolas hit the road in the first place.
Charly and Nicolas
also read Spring Awakening aloud, reenacting
some of the scenes. Then the film reaches its
conclusion or shall I say climax? Nicolas is now
a changed young man and is ready for further journeys.
The two actors,
Julie-Marie Parmentier and Kolia Litscher, do
a great job of portraying their characters; they
are totally believable in their parts and I can
only hope that the Litscher is not actually fourteen.
The film itself tells a poignant and quirky coming-of-age
story. And it’s French, what more can I
say?
Note:
The film’s director and writer, Islid Le
Besco’s, is a well know French film star.
According to the press release, this is the twenty-five-year-old
Le Besco’s second Tribeca film; her film
1/2 Price played at the Tribeca Film
Festival in 2004
José
Luis López-Linares’s
The Chicken, the Fish and the King Crab
(El pollo, el pez y el cangrejo real)
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 - May 4, 2008
Starring:
Jesús Almagro, Pedro Larumbe, Alberto Chicote,
Sven Erik Renaa, Serge Vieira, Jose Maria Arzak
Reviewed by Marguerite Daniels
Foodies and gastrophiles
rejoice! New Yorker’s can finally tune out
the Food Network’s endless reruns of Sandra
Lee and Rachel Ray, and turn to a witty, lighthearted
film about world-renown chefs battling for the
ultimate prize in cuisine: the Bocuse d’Or.
José Luis López-Linares’s
documentary film The Chicken, the Fish and
the King Crab (El pollo, el pez y el
cangrejo real) making its US film debut at
the Tribeca Film Festival, is an absolute carnivore
delight! (Sorry vegans. Many of the films graphic
and candid images of fish and poultry may not
be suitable for your faint sensibilities.) The
film follows Jesús Almagro, a sweet, yet
hapless chef whose valiant attempt to compete
at the Bocuse d’Or, is chronicled. Almagro
is no slouch in the kitchen; he is an award-winning
chef who has most recently been awarded Spain’s
National Award as Best Cook of 2007. But the Bocuse
d’Or is no ordinary competition.
Named for and founded by legendary chef Paul Bocuse,
the Bocuse d’Or pits twenty-four of the
world’s greatest chefs against each other
in a contest where they create succulent meals,
marrying three key ingredients; in this case,
Bresse chicken, halibut, and king crab. The chefs
are given just five and a half hours to create
delicacies that will wow a panel of the most discerning
judges, elder statesmen of cuisine and former
Bocuse d’Or winners. They will be judged
on food preparation, taste and above all presentation.
As if that is not enough pressure, the competition
is televised while the chefs are cheered on to
victory by their fellow countrymen. Call it the
Olympics of cuisine! The competition is swift,
harsh and cruel, and there are favorites. France,
for one, has the home court advantage and often
takes home the prize, while Spain hasn’t
had a truly decent showing in the competition’s
20-year history. Poor Jesús Almagro not
only has to carry the weight of his own high hopes,
but the gastrological dreams of the entire nation,
which is difficult, since Almagro never planned
on being a chef, and has achieved greatness through
tenacity, skill, and a bit of luck.
But the Bocuse d’Or isn’t the type
of competition that is won on chance, and we watch
Almagro as he trains daily for the ultimate contest
that will establish him as the greatest chef in
the world, and bring his homeland glory. Almagro
is immensely affable. He is no arrogant egotist,
or a profanity-laden, self-anointed demigod of
cuisine, but a hard and earnest worker desperate
to bring honor to his country. He humbly endures
criticism from fellow Spanish chefs and former
Bocuse d’Or competitors alike, and the audience
can’t help but swell with compassion as
Almgro’s large and expressive brown eyes
fill with tears of frustration and hope.
But the film isn’t only a tale of hopes
and dreams. Director José Luis López-Linares
inserts rather funny interludes about the key
ingredients, and by the end of the film the audience
will know Bresse chicken, halibut, and snow crab
as well as Almagro. Knowing about each ingredient
gives added insight to the unique challenges Almagro
will face, and will leave no doubt that in Almagro,
Spain finds a worthy and genuine competitor.
Natasha Arthy's
Fighter
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 - May 4, 2008
Starring: Semra
Turan; Nima Nabipour; Behrouz Banissi; and Cyron
Bjørn Melville.
Reviewed by Julia
Sirmons
If, as economists
and op-ed columnists are to believed, the world
has indeed become flat. And the odd cultural collisions
that globalization has brought has brought provided
international filmakers with a weaklth of new
material for innovations o fim genre. A soaring
example of this new phenomenon is Natasha Arthy
Fighter an exhilarating hand heartrending
story of a young Danish-Turkish girl who becomes
a martial arts expert.
High school senior
Aicha Erman (Semra Turan) has got all sorts of
stuff on her plate: her Turkish immigrant parents
want her to go to become a doctor, but chem lab
leaves her cold. The family's also knee deep in
preperations for her brother's wedding, which
for Aicha means alot of unwanted dressing up,
disastrous hairdos and dodging the creepy advances
of her oily future brother-in-law.
The bright spot
in Aicha's life are the kung fu classes she's
taking. But when her coach, recognizing her talent,
suggest she move on to a co-ed competitive studio,
she defies her father and starts training. There
she throws herself into a punishing training regimen,
and encounters a stoic, demanding teacher, a fellow
Turk who refuses to fight women and threatens
to out her to her family, and a growing atttraction
to her cocksure, happy-go-lucky training partner
(Cyron Bjørn Melville). When her family
inevitably finds out, her brother and father's
reactions prove more devastating and hard to weather
than any blows Aicha takes in the ring.
The premise is
a little Enter the Dragon meets Bend
it Like Beckham, but Arthy handles the material
with enough action high gloss and emotional depth
to make Fighter stand on its own. She's
wisely decided to confront all the implications
of a Muslim girl taking on a physically combative
sport. We see Aicha's inital skittishness as she
grapples with new physical challenges and sparring
with men, and the mixture of exhilaration and
concern as her relationship with her teammate
becomes more flirtatious and charged.
All these subtleties
hang together on the strength of Turan's incredible
performance. She has an adolescent naivete about
her own sensual beauty, and brings a perfect mix
of gritty tough girl bravado and heartbreaking
vulnerability to the role, making her transition
to coltish insecurity to atheletic confidence
and grace a joy to watch.
The fight
sequences, coreographed by Xian Gao, who plays
the kung fu school's teacher-- are appropriately
slick, dynamic and gasp-inducing. The supporting
male cast interacts gracefully with Turan; their
nuanced and believably flawed performances are
the perfect catalysts for our heroine, forcing
her to suffer fight and ultimately soar.
Delphine Kreuter’s
57,000 Kilometers Between Us
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 - May 4, 2008
Reviewed
by Allison Ford
They speak without
communicating; hear without listening. The characters
in Delphine Kreuter’s 57,000 Kilometers
Between Us, currently showing in the Tribeca
Film Festival, all grapple with the ways in which
people fail to communicate, and how they can be
so close to one another, yet so far away.
The space between
them is temporal, not physical, and the characters
in the film attempt to close the emotional distance
between them. The family communicates almost exclusively
via computer screens– Margot and her husband
Michel are fanatical about filming their lives
for their webcam show. Thirteen-year-old Nat is
addicted to the internet, and strikes up strange
relationships online, including one with a grown
man who likes to wear a diaper. Nat’s father
Nicolas/Nicole is a transsexual, who lives with
her new lover and passively watches her former
wife and daughter online. The characters have
no trouble connecting digitally; it’s in
person that they fail. Their ineffectiveness is
sometimes comical, and sometimes heartbreaking;
the facades they put up and the silly costumes
they wear broadcast their insecurities. They seek
to convince the world of the person they want
to be perceived as, but never reveal any honest
truth about themselves. When Margot and Michel
bicker over how to increase hits for their webpage,
they try to use the phrase “My love”
more often, since “it proves that we love
each other.” To these characters, the selves
they broadcast on the internet are the truer ones.
The most heartbreaking
subplot is Nat’s burgeoning relationship
with Adrien, a boy she meets in an online game…he
is dying of leukemia in a hospital not far away.
He lives in isolation, with his only human contact
coming from his computer. Adrien’s mother
refuses to visit and will only engage in web chat
with her son when the screen is dark – she
can’t look at his face.
Although the film
is engaging in its second act, the extensive use
of symbolism is, at times, inelegant. Margot and
Michel’s inability to communicate offline;
Adrien’s longing for companionship, while
sequestered in a sterile hospital room; Margot’s
two young adopted children playing only with beeping
plastic phones and computer toys; these are all
meant to represent the decay of human communication
in the digital world, but are at times clumsy
metaphors.
57,000 Kilometers
Between Us is obviously a statement about
today’s globalized digital lifestyle –
webcams, online gaming, fashionable foreign adoption,
and alternative lifestyles are all represented.
The film itself is shot on a shaky handheld cam,
which lends a feeling of voyeurism, detachment,
and digital isolation to the viewer. This is an
intimate look into the lives of people who are
longing for contact, but no longer remember how
to communicate on a human level. In the end, the
characters attempt to bridge the divide, and the
film offers hope through its young protagonists.
As Nat and Adrien plan to meet up and play a game,
they have a choice between playing as avatars
and playing as themselves. Nat decides, “Let’s
stay human…it’s more fun.”
Hunter Hill & Perry
Moore’s
Lake City
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 - May 4, 2008
Starring:
Sissy Spacek; Troy Garity; Rebecca Romijn; Dave
Matthews; Drea de Matteo; Colin Ford; and Keith
Carradine
Reviewed by Frank
J. Avella
There are two completely
different films being force-cut into one in
Lake City, written and directed by Hunter
Hill and Perry Moore. The first is a deeply affecting
domestic drama about the psychological and spiritual
damage a family tragedy has on a mother and a
son many years after the fact. The second is a
cliché-ridden, badly executed crime thriller
about stolen drugs and one-dimensional bad guys.
The fact that the former is able to eclipse, if
not eradicate, the latter is a tribute to a handful
of sharp and absorbing performances that overcome
the defects of the screenplay and direction.
The basic plot
finds Billy (Troy Garity) on the run with the
son of his drug-addict girlfriend. He is forced
to return home to his mother (Sissy Spacek) and
confront certain demons from the family past.
Spacek, who should
have won her second Oscar a few years back for
her searing turn in In the Bedroom, delivers
a complex raw portrayal of a mother living with
the worst kind of guilt. Her Maggie is an atypical
survivor who manages to continue her life despite
it’s low lows. She’s a ‘steel
magnolia’ born more out of sheer will than
necessity. It’s the type of dynamic work
that could get her that seventh nomination.
As Billy, her troubled
but redeemable son, Garity shows great vulnerability
and screen charisma. In a heartbreaking confrontation
near the end of the film, Spacek and Garity take
us to a very real and disturbing place. (I couldn’t
help but wonder what he and his mother, Jane Fonda,
would have done with the scene or a scene like
it—perhaps one day they will work together
and we will we find out.)
The film could
have used more scenes like the one just mentioned
where the writing and direction had a powerful
restraint.
Rebecca Romijn
impresses as the local law with a deep connection
to Billy. Keith Carradine and David Matthews (yes,
songster Dave Matthews!) provide brief but sterling
support. Drea DeMatteo tears things up in a tiny
but potent cameo. And young Colin Ford does excellent
work as a boy caught up in a lot of adult mess.
And speaking of
mess, the chief problem with Lake City lies
in it’s laughable and unnecessary drug plot,
with a denoument so ridiculous and amateurishly
done it provoked unintentional laughter at the
press screening I attended. I have a hope that
the directors will go back and rethink/recut the
film and reduce the crime crap drastically because
what would remain is a moving and incisive film
about communication, forgiveness and salvation.
Tomas Alfredson's
Let the Right One In
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 - May 4, 2008
Starring:
Kåre Hedebrant; Lina Leandersson; Per Ragnar;
Henrik Dahl; Karin Bergquist;and Peter Carlberg.
Reviewed
by Julia Sirmons
Ah, young love.
A beautiful girl comes to town, the promise of
understanding and escape smoldering in her deep
dark eyes, and the trials of everday life seems
to vanish. You're blissfully happy and all is
right with the world, until you realize she has
the power to suck the life out of you. Literally.
This is the conondrum
facing Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) the 12-year-old
hero of Let the Right One In, Tomas Alfredson's
coming-of-age romance and vampire horror film,
adapted by John Ajvide Lindqvist from his 2004
novel of the same title. Right One had
its American debut at the Tribeca Film Festival
and went on to win the Festival Founders Award
for Best Narrative Features.
Oskar, a shy, strange
and elfin boy, is brutally and relentlessly bullied
by the other kids in town. He comforts himself
with fantasies of vengeance; but it's only when
Eli (Lina Leandersson) moves in next door that
things start to look up. Mysterious and haunting,
she and the troubled Oskar form a deep and instant
connection, but the tender bourgeoning romance
is troubled by the revelation that Eli is not
a girl at all, but an ageless vampire living off
of blood deliveries that curb her predatory impulses.
One of the most
surprising things about Let the Right One
In -- and there are plenty of spine-chilling
moments in the film; we haven't even gotten to
the gushing blood or flaming hospital beds yet
-- is its honest and respectful depiction of the
intense dynamics of relationshpis between prepubescent
children. It's to Alfredson's credit that he doesn't
shy away from the mericless cruelty children can
nonchalantly inflict on each other, nor from the
deep emotional and often highly erotically charged
relationships they develop. He allows the capable
young actors to let these relationships develop
organically, and films them with out a trace of
purianical censure or prurient exploitation.
It helps that Alfredson's
working with two very capable young actors who
tackle the difficulat subject matter with both
fearlessness and subtlety. Hedebrant himself looks
like a changeling boy abandoned in an enchanted
forest, his transformation from timid introvert
to daring impassioned imp is remarkably nuanced.
Leandersson's makes exquisite use of her ethereal
beauty and intense, doe-like eyes to evoke both
fresh-faced youth and the haunting intensity of
the undead. Their scenes together have all the
gentle tenderness and overwhelming passion of
the love scenes in a Brontë novel.
But Right One
is not just the tale of an unconventional supernatural
romance; it's also a full-fledged gore-fest, and
the two components of the story are harmoniously
balanced. Alfredson's previous film Four Shades
of Brown, required him to interweave Pythonesque
comic vignettes with heartbreaking tales of family
trauma . With Right One, he brings the
mixes intense prepubescent psychodrama and gory
thriller with the same nuanced skill.
When the gore and
the thrills do come, they're lightning-quick,
spine-chilling and as bloody and nasty as any
horror film could hope. Alfredson and fellow editor
Daniel Jonsäter make sure the frights are
unexpected and that the dual elements and atmosphere
of this complex story blend together seamlessly.
The incredible emotional ambiance is also complemented
by the stark and clean photography of Hoyte van
Hoytema, which treats the harsh wintry landscapes
and the bright splashes of blood with equal painterly
excellence.
You've seen
oddball teenage romances, and you've seen vampire
flicks, but you've never seen anything quite as
unique as Let the Right One In. Hopefully
the attention this incredible movie got at Tribeca
will lead to American audiences seeing more of
Alfredson's work, as well as opening our eyes
to the exciting new world opening up in Scandinavian
cinema.
Julian Schnabel's
Lou Reed's Berlin
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 - May 4, 2008
Starring: Lou
Reed; Sharon Jones; Antony; and Emmanuelle Seigner.
Reviewed by Julia
Sirmons
Lou Reed's album
Berlin has a very special place in this reviewer's
heart, as it brings back memories of a floppy-haired
rocker boy I was completely gaga over when I was
fifteen. I'd take the train to his apartment and
we'd spend lazy afternoons flopped across his
futon, listening to records.
One day, I tried
to impress him by effusively professing my adoration
for Transformer, Reed's breakout album,
which that immediately preceded Berlin.
"If you like
Transformer," he half-whispered,
"then you have to listen to this." He
put Berlin on the turntable. We sat in
silence, letting the Weill-esque melancholia rush
over us...
"This is incredible,"
I said, too blown away to put on a hipster audiophile
facade.
"Isn't it?"
he said. And then he leaned in, giving me my first
kiss.
I did manage to
hold on to that copy of the record, but that semi-platonic
friendship never developed into the idyllic romance
I'd dreamed of. Reed seems to have had a similarly
disappointing experience with Berlin.
The ambitious project -- a kind of half concept
album, half song cycle about the dissolution of
a love affair -- was almost universally panned
upon its release, and as a result, he never performed
the it live again.
That is, until
December 2006, when Reed put on a full-staged
concert of the album at St. Ann's Warehouse in
Brooklyn. The concert was designed and filmed
by artist and director Julian Schnabel (Before
Night Falls, The Diving Bell and the
Butterfly) for the fantastic concert documentary
Lou Reed's Berlin.
In spite of the
praise he's received for Diving Bell,
Schnabel has constantly insisted that he's really
just a painter who occasionally makes films, his
aptitude in both plastic and moving arts are put
on excellent display in the unique production
values of the Berlin concert. Schnabel
designed the beautiful and elaborate backdrops,
as well as directing video installations based
on the album's concept, featuring Diving Bell
actress Emmanuelle Seigner as "German Queen"
Caroline, the female half of the doomed couple.
While these interesting
artistic details certainly add a gorgeous ambiance
to Lou Reed's Berlin, Schnabel wisely
errs on the side of restraint, eschewing the backstage
patter and unnecessarily ambitious camera angles
that make even the most sublime music al performances
look more like bad HBO comedy specials. The focus
is solely, starkly, on Reed and his music, and
his voice, more gruff and wizened with the passing
of the years, is generally more suited to the
dark material, though a few songs, particularly
my favorite, "Caroline Says" suffers
a bit from his fading range.
Nevertheless, Lou
Reed's Berlin is by no means a one man show.
He's accompanied by the girls of the Brooklyn
Youth Chorus, clad in green robes; their plaintive
angelic voices providing a delightfully twisted
counterpoint to Reed's grizzly voice and dark
lyrics. There's also some delightful harmonizing
with the angelic-voiced Anthony of the Johnsons,
and the juxtaposition of these two compelling
yet very different voices is strange and beautiful;
you can see a tear stream down Reed's face as
they sing together. It's emblematic of the redemption
that this incredibly satisfying and penetrating
documentary has brought to one of our most innovative
and enigmatic performers
Tribeca Film Festival
Dan Castle’s
Newcastle
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 - May 4, 2008
Reviewed by Frank
J. Avella
The first shot
of brooding, angst-ridden teen Jesse (Lachlan
Buchanan) in Dan Castle’s surf-filled drama,
Newcastle, reveals the boy’s stunning
eyes--deep blue like the clear blue waters of
the oceanic Australian town where the film takes
it’s name. The sideways closeup also reveals
a troubled sixteen-year old looking for a way
out of what he sees as a dead-end future.
His one hope is
to become a world-class champion surfer, but he
must first overcome his fears and the obstacles
placed in front of him. These include: his mates,
who are happy to dwell in what they see as an
idyllic seaside paradise and his older brother,
Victor (Reshad Strik), once a surf champion, but
because of an injury, washed up at 25 and now
the town menace.
Jesse’s fraternal
twin brother, Fergus (Xavier Samuels), is going
through a sexual identity crisis and Jesse has
little use for him or his travails. Fergus has
a crush on hunky supersurfer Andy (an excellent
Kirk Jenkins), who accepts him for who he is--unlike
the others who call him Faggus.
Newcastle is
not a superficial surfer story nor is it HBO’s
clever but maddening John From Cincinnati.
It’s a surprisingly powerful coming-of-age
movie where a number of differing personal stories
are told. We are made to feel a part of Jesse’s
distress over his potentially dubious future unless
he can surf his way out. We empathize with Fergus’
sexual awakening in a town that frowns upon any
type of deviation. We even sympathize with Victor’s
slow descent into his own personally-created hell.
Newcastle
is a film where even the peripheral characters
are given three-dimensionality. It was refreshing
to watch teens onscreen that actually cared about
one another for a change. And parents that go
beyond the cliché’. The terrific
cast goes a long way toward making that happen,
especially the brothers.
The incredibly
handsome Buchanan broods with the best of them
but also shows tremendous acting promise. Strik
has an animal intensity that frightens. I wanted
to see more of this character/this actor. Samuels
does shy-gay-goth-geek to perfection but allows
us to see what is going on inside his head.
The camera takes
up into the waves and back out in breathtaking
fashion. Richard Michalak’s photography
is absolutely mesmerizing—allowing the audience
to experience the rush, the terror and the thrill
of the surf. We are literally splashed into the
waves via slow-mo and other techniques. It’s
the first time I have ever seen a surfer film
and understood the magnetic power of the sport.
Mega kudos to Castle
for being able to balance the writing and directing
duties and not letting characterization or film
technique overcome the other.
Much will be written
about the film’s generous amount of nudity.
And truth to be told there is an unusual amount
of bare male bums on display. But it never feels
gratuitous since these guys are gods of the waves
and, for the most part, feel comfortable displaying
their bodies. It could be argued that it’s
the only time they feel comfortable—which
is quite the character reveal.
There is a scene
near the end of the film between Jesse and Fegus
that could be seen as an incestuous, homoerotic
Blue Lagoon-ish moment for those who
feel the need to go there. It can also be viewed
as a sweet and rare sibling bonding moment between
two very different twins that will, most likely,
never happen again. So much of Newcastle
occurs in the gray areas. And that alone is a
triumph.
"Nuthouse"
Program of Short Films
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 - May 4, 2008
Reviewed
by Allison Ford
There are many different ways to be crazy. “Nuthouse,”
a program of short films at the Tribeca Film Festival,
features eight short narrative entries, which
range from quirky to lighthearted to terrifying.
Sometimes a short
film can tell a more complete story than a feature.
Without the luxury of time for the filmmaker to
establish character or location, or to provide
exposition of the story, the audience is forced
to interpret the film quickly from well-placed
visual and textual cues. Some of the shorts featured
in “Nuthouse” were fully formed narratives,
and some were briefer meditations on a single
theme, but they were all surprising and engrossing
pieces of cinema.
In The Money
Shot, directed by Aaron Rapke, a student
at NYU’s Kanbar Institute, a beat cop obsessed
with movies gets his chance to be on camera. It’s
a clever, hip, and slick vision of a con, but
who’s left holding the bag turns out to
be a surprise, and the cop learns that it’s
never just about the money. Supply and Demand,
by French director Frederic Farrucci, is the endearing
story of a down-on-his-luck young man who’s
finally found something he’s good at –
being a morgue assistant. Now he’s just
got to keep the business coming in. The guileless,
innocent, and likeable protagonist makes the story
uplifting and quirky.
Cupcake
tells the surreal story of a woman named Candi,
who confuses food with love, but is ultimately
reunited with the object of her affection.
Last Time in Clerkenwell is a short animated
piece with music and cutout animation reminiscent
of “Spy vs. Spy,” and in Zombie Gets
a Date, a blind date isn’t quite a love
match.
Not all of the
shorts are lighthearted. The final part of the
program explores the darker realm of the human
psyche. From Sweden, Skeletons in the Closet,
directed by Ulrik Friberg, is a dark and surprising
story of a couple who wake up to discover something
odd has happened to them, and has many surprising
twists and turns. Night Light, an HD
short by Mark Mollenkamp about the nature of dark,
light, and fear, is effective in creating an unsettling
tension, even if the narrative arc of the story
is slightly weak. The final film of the evening,
Ryan Spindell’s Kirksdale, directed
by a student at Florida State University’s
film school, is perhaps the most fully-realized
film in the series. Set in a sinister asylum in
the South, Kirksdale is a gruesome and terrifying
story with disturbing scenes of violence inspired
by today’s torture-porn horror aesthetic.
The films
of “Nuthouse” explore the facets of
insanity, and with each successive piece, the
darkness grows. The films in the series prove
that their artistry and filmmaking expertise is
unparalleled, and that short cinema is just as
affecting and audacious as features.
Gini Reticker’s
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 - May 4, 2008
World Documentary Feature Competition
Starring:
Leymah Ghowee, Etweda "Sugars" Cooper,
Vaiba Flomo, Asatu Kenneth, Janet Johnson-Bryant,
Etty Weah
Reviewed by Marguerite Daniels
From 1996 - 2003 more than
250,000 people were killed during a war that ravaged
Liberia. Citizens were held hostage, raped terrorized
and killed as warlords encouraged by then president,
Charles Taylor, ushered in the country’s
second and bloodiest civil war. While most Liberians
lost hope one woman, Leymah Gbowee, singlehandedly
created a movement so powerful it would topple
a government and change the course of Liberian
and African politics forever. Gini Reticker’s
Pray the Devil Back to Hell documents
the Liberian women peace movement, from its humble
beginnings, to the election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf,
Africa's first elected female head of state.
Gbowee, who had witnessed both Liberian civil
wars, proved so tired of war that one night she
had a dream: "To get the women of the church
together to pray for peace." With this simple
premise, Gbowee set about encouraging the women
of her church to form the Christian Women’s
Peace Initiative. Gbowee proved a powerful and
persuasive orator, and many women soon lost their
fear and joined her movement. She was so persuasive,
in fact, that Asatu Bah Kenneth, a Muslim woman
asked, “Does a bullet know a Christian from
a Muslim?” and the movement grew to include
Muslim women becoming one of the first peace movements
in Africa to incorporate more than one religion.
Under Gbowee’s leadership thousands of Liberian
women dressed in white to protest the war. At
first they just wanted to be noticed by Taylor,
then they wanted to meet with Taylor, and when
Taylor refused they introduced their plight to
the entire African community. It became clear
that Taylor and his rival factions no longer had
the power to ignore the women, and peace talks
commenced in Ghana. Instead of resting on their
laurels, the women took their protest to Ghana,
and staged a sit-in when it appeared that peace
talks had come to a standstill. When peace was
brokered, the women’s movement continued
as they assisted the UN peacekeeping troops in
disarmament efforts, and encouraging citizens
to vote in democratically held elections. Their
movement helped overturn Taylor’s government,
exiling him from Liberia forever. (Taylor is now
facing war crime charges by the International
Criminal Court in the Hague.)
The women’s story is awe-inspiring, and
Gini Reticker presents a beautiful and simple
triumph of a film. One can’t help but be
charmed by the women in this documentary. They
are demure yet powerful, lovely in their humility,
and their patriotism. They risked life and death
for their beliefs. They love Liberia. It is their
home and they want nothing more than for their
countrymen to once again be free. In this film,
Reticker captures the purest aspects of humanity:
hope, love and peace. Pray the Devil Back
to Hell does not shy away from the atrocities
committed in Liberia. Reticker’s lens is
unflinching, and she uses stock images and archival
footage to present the films back story. But it’s
the optimism of the present that the film captures
best, and the belief that through love and hope
anything can be achieved.
Robb Moss and Peter Galison's
Secrecy
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 - May 4, 2008
Reviewed by Allison
Ford
There’s more
than one war going on in America.
It’s easy to fight a war against a real
flesh-and-blood enemy. What’s more difficult
is fighting an ideological war within your own
country.
The documentary Secrecy, currently screening
at the Tribeca Film Festival, explores the consequences
of governmental secrecy; those we can imagine
and those we can’t.
Ostensibly, the film examines the practical consequences
the war between the government and the public,
as we fight to control information. The government
closely guards state secrets, while journalists
and the media vigorously fight to bring information
to light. Secrecy examines our government’s
policies toward information security, and how
our protection of information led to “intelligence
failures” such as 9/11 and Pearl Harbor.
When the consequences are life-or-death, how do
we balance national security with the freedom
of information? The film includes excerpts from
interviews with high-level former agents from
the NSA, CIA, and other governmental organizations,
who stress the need to protect information for
the sake of the nation. Also featured are journalists,
who argue that hoarding information isn’t
making us safer, since secrecy prevents informed
action. It’s not a clear decision, but the
filmmakers seem to be on the side of the journalists,
who believe in the power of information-sharing.
The real meat of the film is the discussion of
the corruption and amorality that results from
government secrecy. When a government operates
in the dark, to whom are they accountable? Secrecy
asks, “Is it right for the president to
determine his own power?” Secrecy
explores secret executive orders, military tribunals,
prisoner abuse, and other scandals that have shown
us how closely the executive branch guards its
secrets, for it is from secrecy that power is
derived. The treatment of the relationship between
secrecy and power is complicated and nuanced,
and comprises the much more fascinating act of
the film. The heart of this story is the abuse
of executive power in America during this time
of war. The government protects its methods of
intelligence gathering because the methods “are
not necessarily consistent with the values of
Americans.” The interviewees also acknowledge
that “when you’re attacked at home,
the gloves come off.”
Directed by Robb Moss and Peter Galison, both
professors at Harvard University, Secrecy
is an effective indictment of the Bush administration’s
attempts to squash news, protect secrets, and
protect their standard operating procedure. The
film itself is deeply engaging and thought-provoking
as it transitions seamlessly from idea to idea.
Secrecy posits that the real danger of
the cult of confidentiality is how it allows those
in power to make and break rules to suit their
purposes. A government operating without oversight
is a threat to democracy, as well as a threat
to national security. The film challenges our
demands for safety and security with our notions
of what it means to be an American, along with
the constitutionality of controlling information.
As Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who would
give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor
Safety.” Secrecy argues that no
state secret is worth deceiving Americans, or
using our fears of terrorism in order to allow
the president to operate with impunity. Our government’s
secrecy is an attempt to bypass the checks and
balances on executive power; fundamentally dangerous,
and fundamentally un-American.
Rosa von Praunheim’s
Two Mothers
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 -
May 4, 2008
German filmmaker
Rosa von Praunheim had one hell-of-a-mid-life-crisis.
Born during World War II, von Praunheim had grown
up in post war West Germany and became a film
maker and film teacher. And then when he was fifty-eight,
his mother told him something that tilted his
world and made him question everything about who
he was and where he came from.
Here is a quote
from the press releases: “Raised as Holger
Mischwitzky before he adopted his stage name,
Rosa von Praunheim, the prominent German filmmaker
turns the camera on himself in this documentary
about the search for his birth parents. At the
age of ninety-five, von Praunheim's beloved mother,
Gertrud, revealed that she had adopted him from
a children's home in Riga, Latvia. After her death,
with only that snippet of information to go on,
von Praunheim and a team of dedicated researchers
seek out what information they can about his origins.
Von Praunheim must enlist the aid of scholars
and historians in Germany and Latvia to narrow
down the possibilities-is he Jewish? Illegitimate?
A product of Aryan science.”
The documentary
tells the story of von Praunheim’s search
for his birth mother but in the search, Praunheim
also examines the Germany of his parent’s
generation when most good Germans were Nazi party
sympathizers and where in a place like Riga “26,000
people could be exterminated in two days, as the
Jews in Latvia were in 1941.” And von Praunheim
has help in his search; he is assisted by his
able film students and also by many of his friends
who are historians.
In looking for
his past, von Praunheim examines Germany’s
past and asks many uncomfortable questions. And
he is successful. He finds out who his mother
was and where he was born. But there the search
ends. When von Praunheim looks into the abyss
and sees the possibilities of who may have actually
fathered him, he wisely chose to stop his search.
Two Mothers
tells a universal story about the desire
we all have to know where we came from. And it
also tells a painful story of an entire generation
in Germany who would prefer to not look at their
past. But the story resonates everywhere for anyone
who has decided to “shine a flashlight”
on their past. Maybe we have not found Nazis,
but everyone who has done so has most certainly
found humans.
Mary-Kate Olsen and Ben
Kingsley
The Wackness
Jonathan Levine's
The Wackness
2008
Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 -
May 4, 2008
Reviewed by Noelle
Ashley
Sometimes a shrink
saves his patient's life. Sometimes it's the other
way around.
One of the more
celebrated movies screened at the Tribeca Film
Festival is The Wackness, a term referring
to "the glass half empty."
Set in New York
City in the hot, sticky months of 1994, it is
a moving and witty story of a humorous therapist
(Ben Kingsley) who needs even more help than the
patient.
Drugs in a doctor's
office are usually doled out by the psychiatrist,
not a troubled teen. Now meet Luke (Josh Peck),
who pays for doctor visits with the currency of
weed. Luke, a likable 18-year-old from a dysfunctional
family, forms a unique bond with Dr. Squires.
Although their ages could make them father and
son, their friendship resembles more of a brotherhood.
The two males stray
even farther from the typical doctor-patient relationship
as they set out on a quest for sex, drugs and
money. Dealing drugs is Luke's source of income
the summer before college. It's also one way to
meet girls.
Union (Mary-Kate
Olsen) is a luminous blonde who hangs out in Central
Park and past-their-prime bars where she can make
fun of "creepy old people." Dr. Squires
takes a liking to her, for a few minutes at least.
Luke, however, can only think about one girl:
Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby), his first love. She
is an 18-year-old brunette who speaks in the language
of slang and smokes cigarettes while her family
fights. Yelling parents is a steady backdrop in
both their lives, but Stephanie and Luke escape
their problems one chemistry-filled weekend on
Fire Island.
Ironically, Stephanie
is Dr. Squires' daughter -- or step-daughter,
as Luke reminds him.
The plot builds as a coming-of-age, character-driven
picture that captures the spirit and the music
of city kids in the '90s. The language of teenagers
weaves into the dialogue, which flows to the beat
of the soundtrack i.e., A Tribe Called Quest,
Notorious B.I.G., Method Man, Raekwon and The
Wu-Tang Clan. The audience is brought back to
'94 as the characters talk about Mayor Giuliani
cracking down on crime in New York. It was a time
of pagers, before cell phones and laptops became
ubiquitous, and a time when M.D.s still hesitated
before prescribing medication for depression.
In fact, Luke has to beg and plead and finally
says, "Just give me the happy pills."
Although he never gets his hands on legal drugs,
he has plenty of the other kind, and he shares
it all with Dr. Squires, who takes enough over-the-counter
pills for both of them. These kind of character
flaws elicited laughs from the audience.
The theme of youth
emanates around the innocence of Luke. Despite
his drug dealing, he is just like any other kid
trying to figure out life and love.
After the film,
the audience is left with the image on the movie's
poster: Luke walking around with marijuana tucked
away in its hiding place as he and Dr. Squires
wheel around an ice cart. As the movie's tagline
reads, "Sometimes it's right to do the wrong
things."
Written and directed
by Jonathan Levine,
