Grand Canyons: Guillaume Nicloux's "Valley of Love"

It's telling of the parabolic nature of Guillaume Nicloux's "Valley of Love" that the specified non-believer of the couple (Gerard Depardieu basically playing himself) is the one eventually shown the spiritual majesties of the other side. Guffawing and obese, he's been dragged to Death Valley by his ex-wife (Isabelle Huppert also playing a variation of herself) in the hopes of reconnecting with the dead spirit of their deceased son. For the first two-thirds of the film, "Valley of Love" concerns itself with the discordant nature of this middle-aged couple, divorced and basically unhappy in each other's company. To make matters worse, the setting is Death Valley's scorched barrens of land, offering nothing but repulsive heat and non-descript tourist motels. Nothing too extraordinary happens, yet part of the film's resplendence lies in the natural and lived-in performances from two of France's most recognizable movie stars. Then, things turn a bit metaphysical and "Valley of Love" slinks towards a conclusion that's both breathless in its audacity and mysterious in the way it can draw completely new variations on grief and the hollow center it often leaves behind.

Opening with a long steadicam shot that simply follows behind Huppert as she walks to her motel room across a winding sidewalk, "Valley of Love", doesn't get any more urgent after Gerard (Depardieu) arrives. This same unbroken, unhurried camera movement is duplicated later in the film, reversed to follow Gerard through the carpeted hallways of their motel and eventually outside to enjoy a smoke. The couple dine together, spend time at the motel pool (where Depardieu gets recognized by a man and then insults him by signing his autograph request with Robert DeNiro's name) and travel to select locations in the Valley where they await a sign from their son who committed suicide years ago and then promised to return on the given dates. The couple re-read their son's cryptic letters. They ponder on what type of person he really was, as both confess they didn't really know him after all. This lamentation of a child lost and a marriage imploded hang over the first half of the film. Completely devoid of fashionable performances, both Huppert and Depardieu exert a veteran calm that not only plays right into their roles as recognizable French faces lost in America, but adds gravity to the weary and low-key atmosphere of the entire film. Then, sudden unexplained events occur... once right after the aforementioned long shot that follows Depardieu outside Huppert's motel room window and the second at the very end.... and "Valley of Love" turns into something more than the study of a couple hoping, searching for answers and ultimately doubting their marital time together. 

The French are known for their penchant to fly outside the boundaries of reality-based cinema. Where "Valley of Love" succeeds in its metaphysical nature and other recent examples have failed miserably (such as Pascal Ferran's abysmal "Bird People"), a majority of the credit has to go to the methodical way Nicloux builds a sense of mounting frustration between Depardieu and Huppert. She calls him fat and he replies that, "yes, he knows he is". They are endlessly surrounded by clueless tourists or the oddball outcast who seems right at home on a scorched patch of earth yelling at televised baseball games in the motel restaurant. Life, love, habits and their own patience has run out with each other over the years. All of this is made candidly tactile throughout the first half of "Valley of Love" so that when narrative (and our own disbelief) about why they're there together begins to take shape, it washes over you with modulated force. Maybe there is something there or maybe it's all in the minds of grieving parents who simply begin to project their desires onto the blank canvas of Death Valley. Either way, "Valley of Love" proves to be a rewarding, evocative masterpiece.

The Reconstituted Image: Thom Andersen's "The Thoughts That Once We Had"

Like Jean Luc Godard's mammoth series "Histoire(s) of Cinema" (1994), essayist and filmmaker Thom Andersen's "The Thoughts That Once We Had" is a shifting, breathless and ultimately personal didactic about what gives him inspiration and belief in the moving pictures. You may call it an elegy... albeit a very rigorous and philosophical one as the film frames its series of clips around the writings of Gilles Deleuze. Broken down in loose sections entitled "the affection-image" (faces), "the perception-image" (war and its ugly ideals) and "implied dreams" as well as other lofty excerpts from Deleuze's applied theories on cinema, "The Thoughts That Once We Had" is best enjoyed by film enthusiasts for its constant barrage of film clips... some esoteric but many immediately recognizable.

Andersen, whose proven himself a historian of both locale and film history since the mid 90's with his video essays and came to cult prominence in the early 2000's with his masterpiece "Los Angeles Plays Itself", again uses specific film images to create a reconstituted story. Devoid of voice-over and utilizing only intertitles of Deleuze's own text or typed examples of Andersen's droll sense of humor to question what we're watching, "The Thoughts That Once We Had" becomes both a cultural lesson and a personal diary of sorts. Towards the end, the focus shifts from film theory onto specific actors. Oddball character actors such as Timothy Carey. 40's Universal actress Maria Montez, who is listed as legendary underground filmmaker Jack Smith's "favorite actress". Or Andersen's confession to his own undying love for actress Debra Paget. If the excerpts of Deleuze's writing seem cumbersome or overly scholarly, it's because they certainly are, and Andersen seems to be stylizing a rhetoric of images as companion pieces for the writings. It's when the film appears to stray a bit from these formal, erudite moments and expose something personal "The Thoughts That Once We Had" turns truly magical.

Like Andersen did with his best film, "Los Angeles Plays Itself" (2003), "The Thoughts That Once We Had" encompasses a filmmaker drunk on both film itself and how film becomes ingrained in our subconscious and manifests itself in every day life. Just watching the "implied dreams" section alone gave me goosebumps as it not only features clips from some of my recent favorite films (those being Hou Hsiao Hsien's "Millenium Mambo" and Jia Zhang-ke's "24 City"), but it highlights one of the more superfluous- and in my opinion essentially intoxicating- pieces of filmmaking, which is the seductive expansion of time in film as we simply watch someone drift and walk along. With Jeanne Moreau lost in her delirious thoughts, narrowly dodging traffic in nighttime Paris or Qi Shu's neon tunnel strut, these 'drop downs' in cinema comprise a director's infatuation with their leading ladies, but they also turn film into a slow motion dream of image and music that gets me every time. "The Thoughts That Once We Had" is full of said moments and itself becomes a slow motion dream of image and music.


The Thoughts That Once We Had can be seen at the Oak Cliff Film Festival on Saturday Jun 18th and opens in limited release in New York and Los Angeles on Friday June 3rd.

Trial and Error: Yoshitaro Nomura's "The Incident"

Being a huge fan of Japanese director's Yoshitaro Nomura's 1974 film "Castle of Sand", it's easy to see what attracted him to the subject matter of "The Incident", which was released four years later and racked up numerous Japanese film awards. Lengthy, dense and ultimately concerned with the shifting perspectives surrounding the murder of young Hatsuko (Keiko Matsuzaka), "The Incident" plays like a John Grisham novel transposed to Japan. By playing with the viewer's expectations.... giving us snippets of possibilities... parading a host of possible suspects, witnesses and innocent bystanders.... the film expertly navigates the murky waters of young love short-circuited by affairs, questions and insidious personalities. And, since its based on a novel by respected writer Kaneto Shindo, there's plenty of talk about the impact of environment on man. Long a subject of fascination for Japanese culture, "The Incident" makes it clear that the man accused of the murder, Hiroshi (Toshiyuki Nagashima), certainly seems to have little control over the spiraling judicial body firmly deciding his fate. It's no surprise he confesses to the murder in the opening ten minutes of the film. Things only get more complex from there.

Hands clutched to his side and eyes fervently poised downward, filmmaker Nomura constantly frames Hiroshi as some sort of fallen Greek god aimlessly watching the jury deciding his fate. There are onlookers as well- namely members of the press, his current impregnated fiance Yoshiko (Shinobu Ohtake, who's also the sister of the victim) numerous witnesses and elderly family members perched just behind him throughout the trial. Alternating between measured, careful dialogue of examination and cross-examination within the courtroom and the moments leading up to and including the murder, "The Incident" walks a precarious line of fact and blurred memory fiction. Just how reliable is the testimony of the witnesses? What exactly is the relationship of Hiroshi and Hatsuko? What do all those furtive glances between suspect and sister in the courtroom really mean? Over the course of two hours and twenty minutes, Nomura carefully builds a web of "Rashomon"-like events that fold and twist and bend around each other. Like he did in "Castle of Sand"- another film interested in the reverberations of the past on the present- Nomura mines an especially stringent intellectual thriller.

If the final verdict of the film is far less interesting than the serpentine-like path it took to get there, I feel that's the point. Compared to Nomura's other works (and its a shame more are not available on DVD, including this great film) "The Incident" fits neatly into his worldview of panoramic events whose real apocalypse can only be felt in the hearts of an unlucky few. A father and son in "Castle of Sand". A couple in "The Incident". A weathered, somewhat evil husband in "The Demon". While the whole world seems to be caught up in their own self-satisfying objectives in the death of beautiful Hatsuko, Nomura reminds us in a lyrical yet subtly dark closing shot that, perhaps, the greatest victim of this particular incident hasn't even been born yet.

Cinema Obscura: Maurice Pialat's "The Mouth Agape"

Maurice Pialat is a selfish filmmaker. How dare he make a film about the waning days of a mother while conspicuously deflecting her death and turning his gaze onto the father and son and their trivial problems of sexual fulfillment and familial discord. While she's slowly dying upstairs, son Philippe (Philippe Leotard) suffers from impotency with a young girl he picks up on the street. Not to mention he's married to the beautiful Nathalie Baye who seems to understand and even partially forgive his past indiscretions. Father Roger (Hubert Deschamps) also brags about a life long series of extra marital dalliances, his perversity reaching stunning heights as he paws and feels up a young girl who comes into his shop to buy a new t-shirt. After making her undress in order to try the new shirt on, he gives her small pecks on the lips (that she nervously tries to avoid) before sending her on the way with a free pair of stockings. In any other film, Roger and Philippe would be monstrous examples of masculinity,. In Pialat's hands, they transform "The Mouth Agape" into a lacerating study of how grief and inchoate feelings often mar the way we react when faced with dire consequences. Like his previous film, "We Won't Grow Old Together" (which also presents masculinity, patriarchal repression and emotional commitment as crutches for the terrible decisions we make on the ones we love), "The Mouth Agape" isn't interested in presenting a straightforward idea on something so cut and dry as death. It's messy, untranslatable and full of small asides that veer closer to autobiography than acted drama. There's certainly a reason for his selfishness.

Opening with Philippe assisting his mother (Monique Melinande) to a hospital visit, the next scene specifies Pialat's real interest. Mother and son talk in a kitchen, for what feels like an eternity in a single take, about a wide range of ideas. As their talk ends, both stand up and mother slightly stumbles, the camera barely able to keep her in the frame as son helps her up. That conversation is the only normal moment in the rest of the film. Eventually dismissed from the hospital and told to have her die in peace at home, "The Mouth Agape" follows Philippe and Nathalie (interesting how the film uses the actors real names) as they travel home to be with mother and father throughout her last days. They quarrel. Philippe has his continued moments of weakness with other women. Roger endlessly leaves the house and slips away to the local bar to have red wine and flirt with tourists. Philippe and Nathalie attempt to reconcile their differences. All the hallmarks of usual French cinema- shifting sexual loyalty, doubt, and the general 'laisssez faire' attitude about things- become the central conceit with a dark underbelly of truth. As writer David Thompson pointed out in his May/June 2004 article about Pialat in "Film Comment" which he gleaned from Pascal Merigeau's biography of the filmmaker, too much of "The Mouth Agape" was culled from Pialat's own life. His mother had died about ten years before and father, also nicknamed 'le garcu" as in the film, died just months before filming began. Likewise, actor and actress Baye and Leotard were, in fact, embroiled in their own relationship during the film, which certainly added to the frisson observed on screen. The coincidences and nods to real life seep off the screen in tragic, pulsing ways.

When all is said and done, "The Mouth Agape" does deal with the actual death of Monique, which sends unexpected reactions from the characters and gives the film its emotional hook. For all the carousing and chain-smoking, life's tangible frailty is not completely ignored. And even though the death happens off-screen, acknowledged in Roger's dismissive line of "it's over" to his son who wanders down the family home hallway, one gets the sense its far from over. Monique's presence, love and perhaps even the hatred she might of felt for her husband will resound in their hearts long after the lights of the shop are dimmed. Like Pialat himself, who continued to bleed the personal and private within his public works for years to come, he knows he's flawed. Making films that chisel away at the truth are the only way he knows how to deal with it.

The Mouth Agape will be receiving a DVD release from Cohen Media in May 2016.

On "Remember"

In the last decade or so, the Holocaust drama has given way to a subsection of films exploitatively known as the Holocaust-revenge drama. Rooted in fact and applying a thriller apparatus in hopes of assuaging the complicated moral feelings of guilt, anger and stubborn reconciliation that typically breathes within any conversation about the Holocaust, anyone wanting a more procedural and humane history of this should read Simon Wiesenthal's book "Justice Not Vengeance". The latest incarnation of the Nazi hunt lies in Atom Egoyan's "Remember".Weisenthal himself is name-dropped several times here, but Egoyan and writer Benjamin August shoot for a more primal idea of revenge.

That revenge comes in the form of elderly Zev Guttman (Christopher Plummer), housed in a nursing home and dealing with the recent loss of his wife. To complicate matters, Zev suffers from bouts of Alzheimer disease, which forces him to carry a letter from fellow home patient Max (Martin Landau) that clearly delineates his mission of tracking down one Rudy Kurlander. No doubt is cast on the assignment given Zev. In fact, his first step along the journey (after walking out of the nursing home) is to buy a firearm. Tasked with four addresses around the country- including one stop in Canada- we observe as Zev ambles in and out of the lives of four various men where past atrocities are either justified or ignored, depending on whether its the right Rudy Kurlander or not.

Known for once helming complicated and multi-layered dramas that often exist in the morbid reaches of human loss or obsession, Egoyan seems to have lost his way recently. While "Remember" isn't as muddled as "Where the Truth Lies" or as ordinary as "Chloe", it still remains a fairly straight-forward and uninspired thriller. It does, however, work best in the way it deals with the effects of revenge and memory on others, especially in the innocent and confused eyes of children endlessly sheltered at the edges of the film and forced to interact or deal with the violence of adults.

Less interesting are the clunky mechanics of Plummer's travels to and from said adversarial showdowns. "Remember" skirts the edges of believability in how easily one slow, old man can smuggle a gun in and out of the country, ramble freely from numerous hospitals and old age homes and defy authorities when he uses his his driver's license and credit cards. Even more misguided is the inclusion of a final act twist that, while certainly at home in something akin to a Brian DePalma film, cheapens the impact of "Remember" and its justification of violence begetting violence. See, there's those complicated feelings of guilt, anger and stubborn reconciliation I mentioned earlier. Perhaps the best way to make any type of Holocaust film is the way Claude Lanzmann did with "Shoah". I'd much rather watch that heartbreaking seven hours of historical confrontation again rather than the 90 minutes of Egoyan's elderly-Mr-Majestyk.


Remember is currently in limited release around the country and expanding wider in the coming weeks.

On "Triple 9"

There's a special corner of the 'cinemaverse' for filmmakers like John Hillcoat. Bloody, unrepentantly violent and jagged, as if the viewer is running with wild packs of wolves. Just mention his adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" and watch your partner squirm. Or, even more alienating, track down his debut 1989 film "Ghosts...of the Civil Dead" which is as bleak and unsettling as any prison film I've seen. Having said all that, I often admire his work for the unconventional and nihilistic aura he shrouds around his vision. This same give and take is present in his latest film, the grimy and star studded police thriller "Triple 9" which not only incorporates the best of this type of film, but also cribs and cajoles from the worst.

Opening with a splendidly constructed heist in which 5 men pull off a brazen daylight bank robbery, the stakes are immediately set high as we learn that two of the men, Franco (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Marcus (Anthony Mackie), are also police officers- which explains their technical wizardry in staying one step ahead of the responding officers. The ringleader of the calculated bunch is Michael (Chiwetel Ejifore), whose motivations for risking life and limb hinge upon the whims of Russian businesswoman Irina, played by Kate Winslet in a role that requires her to hiss and spout veiled threats because those Russian mafia types do this sort of thing. Replacing the Italian mob in the last decade or so, Russian heavies have become the new puppet masters to any respectable action movie. Forced to do her bidding, the crew is then coerced into pulling a second robbery that will provide her with the means to free her imprisoned husband back home in a Russian gulag.

Unexpectedly thrust into this mix of shifting loyalties and dutiful facades comes Chris Allen (Casey Affleck), transferred into Marcus' gang unit and placed in the highly dangerous cross-hairs of a crew desperately trying to work all the angles and come out unscathed. On the edges of all this lies Chris' uncle, played by Woody Harrelson, a detective in the major crimes unit assigned to tracking down the robbery suspects. Inside this tangled, knotted web, "Triple 9" spins and wields an array of stomach turning violence (even casually showing decapitated heads on the hood of a car as inconsequential gang related violence) and double crosses that leaves one wondering if anyone will make it out alive.

As a filmmaker, Hillcoat's vision is stamped all over the film, creating a nocturnal and under-lit seediness that drips off the screen. After all, this is a director who dared to film an enormously important fisticuffs in stark silhouette inside a Depression-era wooden bridge in his terrific previous film "Lawless". We could barely make out who won or lost... an impressionistic melee that had less to do with the plot and more about the enveloping darkness of the souls of those involved. Likewise, in "Triple 9", after the initial bank robbery, its a film engulfed in neon light, pre-dawn numbness and midnight blacks. It's the most impressive thing about the film.

What's not impressive is the suffocating and brooding "averageness" of every major character. Harrelson plays a cop consistently committed to the job, but addicted to alcohol and drugs, appearing in wrinkled suits and sweaty from head to toe. Far more interesting is the minor detective in his unit, played by bracing casualness by newcomer Michelle Ang. I would've preferred to watch an entire film based on her character going after the unchecked masculinity. Likewise, Casey Affleck's role as the good cop dangled in front of our senses as the possible sacrificial lamb barely registers as anything more than a sad face to grasp onto among the cavalcade of tattooed thugs and menacing bodyguards. "Triple 9" feels like a worn out script, borrowing liberally from every dirty cop film of the last 30 years. The moments of panache, generated by Hillcoat's unique visual flair (such as the odd camera shot barely keeping two cops in frame as they drive, instead focusing on the looming skyscrapers of downtown Atlanta) are few and far between, but when they happen, they suggest a stronger vision than the eventual narrative of people shooting people over and over in hopes of being the last man standing.

The Thin Blue Line: Maurice Pialat's "Police"

Alongside Bertrand Tavernier's "L.627", Maurice Pialat's 1985 film "Police" may very well be one of the most anti-police films ever crafted.... in terms of Hollywoodized standards that is. Both films jettison the ubiquitous aspects of the 'policier'. Gone are the car chases, shoot outs and violently illustrious actions that permeate the landscape of the genre. Instead, we get a "procedural" in the most essential sense of the word. In fact, the first 50 minutes of "Police" document the ebbs and flows inside a police station like a one-act play with cops bickering, joking and pushing against a stone wall of questioning. There are no grand break-throughs in a case. There are no "a-ha" moments that decipher the investigation. Instead, they're met with staunch denials by the supposed criminals, the inability to put two-and two together and languorous stretches on both sides of the jail cell glass. If it wasn't for the coolly sensual (and viscerally rough) relationship between cop Gerard Depardieu and purported criminal Sophie Marceau, "Police" might even be called boring. But there's more than meets the eye in Pialat's rigorously researched script (by filmmaker Catherine Breillat) that pivots during its second half and not only spreads deeper into the underworld Depardieu is trying to crack open, but turns the consequences inward as cop and beautiful criminal traverse a more personal intersection.

Young Noria (Marceau) falls into Mangin's (Depardieu) line of sight when the boyfriend she's living with is arrested after an informant gives Mangin his name as a go-between for more heavy people in Marseille. Hours of questioning yields nothing for Mangin and his aggressive unit. If anything, a bitter animosity grows between the two. Trained well, Noria denies everything... even when the cops play her voice on a recorded message.

After this long set-up, "Police" jumps several months with a single cut. Free of her charges (although the boyfriend still in jail), Noria and Mangin have become a loose couple, going out on the town together where the line between good and bad become awfully blurred. Mangin's friend, Lambert (Richard Ancinina), is the lawyer for the accused. As we see, he obviously knows more than the cops. Also in tow is young Lydie (Sandrine Bonnaire), a prostitute whose had relations with both men. The whole group mingle and socialize as if there are no borders between them, and if anything, "Police" is a film about denying strict rules and codes. It doesn't play by the rules of cop, criminal, accessory or prostitute because, in this second half, those biases wash away and "Police" settles on the confused and awkward relationship developing between Mangin and Noria. Is she using him for his authority? Is Mangin using her to set some wicked trap and bring closure to the big case that seemingly slipped through his fingers? It's as if Pialat became supremely bored with the elaborate police film he originally intended to make and set loose on a completely different path about life. Regardless, both types of film work here.

Just now beginning to explore the multi-faceted work of Pialat (having been exposed to and loving his "Van Gogh" some years ago), "Police" felt like the most mainstream place to begin. Instead, its a wonderful shock when a film plays with expectations so vividly. It's messy and complicated and even wildly romantic. Just watch how tense Pialat makes 'quickie' sex in a police station. And if all that's not enough, the film ends on such a perfect beat that one just may forget it's a police film at all, leaving you breathless and knocked out, gasping for understanding the way Depardieu does.

On "Aferim!"

Those Romanians are insidious in the way they twist and bend genre to their own disciplines. Cristian Mungiu's "Beyond the Hills" is a terrific psychological thriller hidden beneath the surface of almost documentary-like religious piety. Corneliu Porumboiu's "Police, Adjective" is a police procedural wrapped up in farce. And Cristi Puiu's "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" is just plain horror.

So it's no surprise when Radu Jude's new film, "Aferim!" takes as its central conceit the adages of the American western- finding a local constable and his son tracking down a runaway gypsy accused of slighting his master- before segueing into black comedy so dark that even the town square's puppet show spews violence and misogyny as the male puppet relentlessly beats the female one. There's not even respite to be found in the local church when, during one if its many non-sequitur like scenes, a traveling priest arbitrarily denounces the Jewish race. So goes the rugged outback and populated cesspool in "Aferim!" whose dirt and sweat and spit are as palpable as the new crown king of filth shown in last year's "Hard To Be A God"

Thrown into the hunt mid-way as the film opens, we follow Costandin (Teodor Corban) and his teenage son Ionita (Mihai Comanoiu) as they banter across the landscape in what we're shown to be the year 1835. Ionita plays with his sword, lashing it like a stick rather than revealing any acumen or skill. Costandin seems to enjoy his constant barrage of put-downs and storytelling, feeling like an old man just happy to be talking to someone rather than himself. They meet various people and, slowly, we learn their assignment is to find runaway gypsy Carfin (Toma Cuzin) wanted by his master for crimes against the manor. These one-scene characters don't advance the narrative as much as they sprinkle the "Aferim!" with moments of atmosphere, energy and cultural resonance, adding to the mordant and flippant nature of the film.

Against their best intentions, Costandin and his son do find Carfin, and their journey back with the bounty in leg shackles is just as adventurous as their way to him in the first place.

Filmed in often static shots which have become the norm for the Romanian New Wave, "Aferim!" differentiates itself from the pack by being a truly funny experience in all the wrong ways. There's obviously nothing inherently side splitting in the selling of a young boy (which Costandin does to the young cohort found in the company of his bounty) or the drunken ill performance with a local prostitute, but it's these stone faced moments of early 19th century normalcy that infuse "Aferim!" as a film desperately trying to call attention to the absurdity of the whole thing. And yet, despite its black comedy heart, Jude knows when to flip the switch and allow the cruelty of human nature to take over. There's a moment of 'frontier justice' so harsh and unrelenting, we're immediately shaken back into the realization that for all the unrefined murmurs of conversation and petty prejudices, "Aferim!" is no comedy after all. It's a serious exploration of a time when diplomacy and personal freedoms are nonexistent in a brutal caste system. Looking at it that way, maybe the film isn't that far removed from the John Ford westerns after all.


Aferim! is currently playing in limited release in New York and Los Angeles, expanding wider in the coming weeks.

Regional Review: Jackelope

Any film that features several fleeting shots of landmarks and buildings that stood just a few hundred yards from my childhood home is bound to enamor itself to my heart, which is exactly what Kenneth Harrison's 1976 documentary "Jackelope" has done. Those images- captured while one of the film's subjects is making a pilgrimage down I-35 from Dallas to Austin- only last a second or two, but they serve as a monochrome reminder that no matter what happens to those structures later in life (one of which now has been torn down), they'll be preserved in the cinematic ether for a brief instant... somewhere. Beyond that tangential personal connection, the film also excels because it's an eccentric time capsule of early 1970's Texas through the visionary work of three diverse artists who mold, cut, paint or fabricate their "outsider" folk art. Rarely does a documentary so neatly blend interesting people with the atmospheric poise of the times.

Originally prepared and shown on Dallas' public access channel, KERA, in 1976, "Jackelope" recently received a restoration and became one of the many great entries presented at the 2015 Dallas VideoFest. I wrote in the primer to the festival about "Jackelope", calling it aimless, entrancing and fascinating and a film that highlights the against-the-grain philosophy of the snooty art world paradigms. Patting myself on the back, that's about as apt a description one can muster for it.

Opening on artist James Surls as he scavenges and ultimately finds the perfect tree within an overgrown field on one of those obviously blistering hot summer days we're known for here in Texas, "Jackelope" follows a certain procession of creativity. In Surls' portion, more attention is given with the actual sawing down of the tree and its eventual shape through his endless whittling of the wood into a tall figurine. We're shown the birth of his art from idealized vision to tactile representation. The second portion of "Jackelope" picks up with painter George Green in his Houston studio as he hobknobs with friends and reflects on his past. Glimpses of his art are shown, but the focus in this middle portion lies within the comfortable surroundings of an artist content and at peace with his lot in his life. The third and most rambunctious portion of the film follows sculpture Bob Wade as he roadtrips to Austin, making a pit-stop in Waco, Texas to enjoy a friendly round of shotgun mayhem and car explosions. Just like his art (which has graced so many Central Texas institutions and businesses over the years, including my college grounds), Wade is a colorful and country-funky-steampunk figure who gives "Jackelope" a boundless energy. In this third and final portion, its as if director Harrison is saying that art- come full circle- is an experience that doesn't need to be constipated or retained for a certain percentile of people. It can be wild, joyous and a completely passionate expression of someone who lives life the same way.

An obvious crowd favorite at the festival, my only regret was not hooking up with director Harrison for a chat about his work and the film. I'm sure his memories of crafting such a loving documentary are just as infectious as the buoyant personalities shown on-screen.

The Francesco Rosi Files: La Sfida

Two of my favorite films from the 1970's- Robert Mulligan's "The Nickel Ride" and John G. Avildsen's "Save the Tiger"- contain a similar theme about the dogged determinism of a business entrepreneur to keep his business afloat. They're exhaustive, fluid films that feature stressful performances by Jason Miller and Jack Lemmon, respectively, and certainly accentuate the oncoming tide of later 70's films that wallow in the American recession and "New Brat" school of thought. And even though both men in these films straddle the line between moral and decent business practice, they signify upright men trying to maintain control of their visions, regardless of the legality of their trade.

A straight line can be drawn back to Francesco Rosi's 1958 "La Sfida" (aka "The Challenge"). Not only does it enable the simple Italian Neorealist themes of a lowly person desperately trying to overcome a singular hurdle, but it feels like a direct interloper to the films of Coppola, Scorsese and the above mentioned pair in its scope and intimate ambition. Sarring Jose Suarez as Vito, "La Sfida" observes his growth from the town hustler to fruit and vegetable mogul in short order. Setting up trucking routes, organizing his men to make deliveries and, eventually coming into conflict with the local crime boss, Vito seems to have it all figured out. Things get even better when he marries young Assunta (Rosanna Schiaffino). And, like all great Italian films, their wedding day becomes a lengthy affair that not only takes up a good portion of the film's final half, but morphs into a cerebral exercise of power and control as Vito's enemies decide to attack his interests.

"La Sfida" was Rosi's first solo directorial effort after co-directing an anthology film in 1952 and assisting actor Vittorio Gassman with his project entitled "Kean" (which isn't a bad film, but ultimately a comedic 'audience pleaser' that looks and feels like nothing else Rosi would do). Stunning in its assured measures and complex in the way it manages to highlight the almost bureaucratic steps ambitious Vito has to take to build his hard-pressed empire, "La Sfida" is really a film about the in-between moments of Italian Cosa Nostra culture and the uncontrollable fits and starts of creating something out of nothing. Like the long walks Jason Miller takes around the dilapidated warehouse district of Los Angeles or the sweaty, out-of-breath decisions Jack Lemmon has to make on the fly, "La Sfida" raises a strong case that the effort is hardly worth the pensive payoffs. But, Vito does it anyway. Partly out of neighborhood pride, but mostly because he enjoys the nice cars and pampering beautiful Assunta, "La Sfida" follows his trek through the good and bad. If it's ironic that he initially gave up peddling cigarettes for the more expensive and healthy produce shipping, "La Sfida" shows no favoritism. The end result is the same. And like the rest of Rosi's career, his anti-hero rarely walks away unscathed, beaten either by the system or his own ambitions. "The Challenge" could be the title of any later Rosi work, and I imagine he liked it that way.

Corpus Criminalities: Abel Ferrara's "Welcome To New York"

(Note- this review is based on the 125 minute "director's cut" of the film)


It just wouldn't be an Abel Ferrara film without some type of controversy. Whether it's the use of an unlicensed Schooly D track ("The King of New York") or the absolute failure to find stateside distribution for his latest work (any of the last half dozen films, basically), Ferrara has settled into the role of a maverick pariah, still as prolific and challenging as ever, but unable to share his unflinching views with a wide audience. However, with "Welcome To New York"- his rendering of the rape charge incident against powerful French bank manager Dominique Strauss Kahn in 2011- Ferrara faced a new obstacle. After being dumped in very limited release earlier this year and surreptitiously released on VOD, Ferrara came out blasting his production company for re-editing the film and tampering with his artistic vision. Having not seen that slimmed down 107 minute version and only reading about the changes through various online sources, it does sound as if some of the story's perspective has been altered. Ferarra has been relentless in his distancing of that version and his motto that the best way to view his films is through nefarious online downloads never felt quite so relevatory. Yet all that rhetoric aside, "Welcome To New York" is not only a slimy, misogynistic character study of a man unable to distinguish between the barriers of decent behavior, but it's one of Ferrara's absolute best works yet and one of the most damning films of the year.

As the Strauss-Kahn like figure, Gerard Depardieu plays him as a base animal, all grunts, groans and deep gestation bubbling up from the bowels of his entitlement. As Devereaux (Depardieu) arrives in New York (under the airport banner that spells out the film's title), he retires to his hotel room where friends are waiting for him with women in tow and the night becomes an orgy of sex, food fights and drinking. It's not long after they leave that two more prostitutes arrive and are ushered upstairs to the sleeping Devereaux, who doesn't fail to miss a beat and embarks on more episodes of ass-slapping, voyeurism and a threesome, all filmed with a murky sense of observation from Ferrara. The bedrooms.... half-lit and cavernous.... feel like partially remembered memories and almost unreal. Alongside this film and "Pasolini" (still unreleased here in the States), DP Ken Kelsch and Ferrara have tapped into the inky margins of their frame even more deliberately than in previous films. Simply put, they look wonderful.

Having immersed himself in this flesh-filled wasteland for the past twelve hours or so, its not surprising that Devereaux crosses a thin line when, the next morning, he emerges from the shower and sees a hotel maid (Pamela Afesi) standing in front of him. We've seen her enter the room and call out "housekeeping" several times with no response. Devereaux approaches, emits more guttural sounds and forces himself on the maid, who manages to fight him off and escape. It's an incredibly sad and disturbing scene for several reasons. Is Ferrara excusing the real life Strauss-Kahn as an unwitting symptom of his excessive environment? Does it simply proliferate Ferrara's well documented sense of male dominance within his films? After all, this is a fictional re-imagination of a real life incident (that was eventually dismissed in court), so how close to the truth does it cut? All of that seems secondary to the main theme of the film which is power corrupts completely. Rest assured, there's no catharsis for Devereaux or release for the audience.

From there, "Welcome To New York" deals with the arrest, court proceedings and house confinement of Devereaux and narrows its focus on the relationship between him and ex-wife Simone (Jacqueline Bissett). Resembling the jagged verbal sparring between James Russo and Madonna in Ferrara's 1993 masterpiece "Dangerous Game", "Welcome to New York" likewise examines the rancid foundation of Devereaux and Simone as they drudge up past indiscretions and their overall lack of faith. Even though he can be accused of extreme misogyny, Ferrara always manages to puncture the tug of war between the sexes with sharp fangs.

While it does have its share of miscalculations, such as an opening self reflexive moment that doesn't quite work, "Welcome To New York" remains an unrepentant look at a deeply flawed individual whose beating heart is as black as the night. This is comfortable territory for Ferrara and even in the final moments, when Devereaux should be thankful for his acquittal, his flirtatious personality emerges again. A leopard can't change its stripes, and a sex-addicted man with the money and means to avoid any penalty surely won't become a saint anytime soon.

Genius Sounds: Love and Mercy

Bill Pohlad's "Love and Mercy" gets two things right. First, it reveals the fractured genius of singer-songwriter Brian Wilson in two distinct times of his life without losing momentum in either section. Too often, the balance and dynamic force is weighed distinctly towards one portion of the film or the other, but in "Love and Mercy", they coalesce and compliment each other beautifully. Secondly, it exalts and analyzes the frustrated, creative mindset of a musical icon while he's still alive and kicking on this mortal coil- which makes the film that much more respectful. We can seek out, experience and savor the man's artistry without resorting to testimonials of his marginalized existence while the actual artistry was being created. Beyond that, "Love and Mercy" is an actor's movie that digs deep and allows the masterly performances of its principals (Paul Dano, John Cusack and Elizabeth banks) to convey the complicated, scatter shot emotions involved.

Picking up well into the Beach Boys' mid 60's success, "Love and Mercy" hones in on the increasing uncomfortable pause exuded by Brian Wilson (Dano) as their fame grows and a Japanese tour looms. Convincing his brothers to tour without him, Wilson shutters himself off in the studio to work out the now revolutionary melange of sound that would eventually bracket their album "Pet Sounds". Considered a flop in its day, pressured by other band members to resort back to their hit-making standards and emotionally stunted by his abusive and overbearing father (Bill Camp), Wilson's fragile and active psyche begins to fissure under the stress.

While simultaneously telling this story, "Love and Mercy" jumps ahead in time to 1985 where middle aged Brian Wilson (Cusack) is just as stunted as ever, both creatively by the monstrous hand of Dr. Eugene Lundy (Paul Giamatti, who can do this type of role in his sleep) and emotionally, such as when upon first meeting who would be his ultimate savior in life, Melinda (Elizabeth Banks), he cordons himself off in a car with her and zigzags through a conversation that is both creepy and achingly lonely. Their relationship is the heart of the film. It doesn't overshadow the strong formations of mental sickness exhibited by young Wilson and Dano in an equally memorable performance, but it strikes at something more human and restless.

By blending both portions of Wilson's tortured life together as if they're happening at the same time, filmmaker Pohlad and screenwriter Oren Moverman elicit a fully formed and wide-eyed portrait of a cliched subject with fresh acuity. There may be a bit of armchair philosophizing involved, but no scene is as incisive as the first date between Melinda and Brian.... while opening up about his father, the camera holds on Elizabeth Bank's range of expressive reactions, followed up with a wry, half-hurt uneasy dismissal of "well, shit!" Lots of films have focused on the conflicted nature of creative personas well ahead of their time, but "Love and Mercy" shows us that paradigm and then allows something beautiful, besides the art, to flourish from it.

70's Bonanza: Le Serpent

French filmmaker Henri Verneuil hit his stride in the late 60's and early 70's with a trilogy of films including "The Sicilian Clan" (1969), "The Burglars" (1971) and "Le Serpent" (1973)..... highly entertaining (and star studded) "policiers" that have yet to find their due in widespread distribution here in the States. The Austin Film Society recently included "The Burglars" in a repertory screening under the auspicious title of "The French Connection", but that's the extent of Verneuil's impact on American screens. Even though I love the frenetic pace of "The Burglars"- in which Omar Shariff and Jean Paul Belmondo engage in one of the finest car chase sequences ever put to film- Verneuil's "Le Serpent" is the better film of the bunch.... a cerebral, coolly detached spy tale that spends much more time on the diagnostics of a lie detector test than the various dead bodies that wash up along European shores. Like John Huston's "The Kremlin Letter"- which also trades in skulduggery without a hint of pretension- "Le Serpent" details the carousel of double crosses, political innuendo, 'spyspeak' and Cold War fixations with an icy gaze. It's only fitting that, in the finale, when head spook Henry Fonda makes a swap with the Russians to bring back a downed Air Force pilot, not only does the film's biggest enemy get off easily, but its prefaced with a line of dialogue where Fonda says the intel of the American officer in "explaining just how the Russians were able to shoot him down at 30,000 feet" becomes more important than anything we've observed over the past two twisting, convoluted hours. I can only imagine this nonchalance is apt par for the course in the world of high stakes spy games.

 

Beginning with the defection of KGB agent Yul Brenner, his information to the Americans (and namely Fonda) sets in motion the devious wheels of "Le Serpent". His intel- that there are highly placed spies in all echelons of governments around the world- kick starts a series of murders, wearisome eyes and urgent secret memos in both France and America. Philippe Noiret is one such agent cast under suspicion. British officer Dirk Bogarde, seemingly with his fingers in every cookie jar, plays both sides. Fonda is unsure of Brenner's real intentions. And all the while, bodies of agents turn up dead, others go missing and seemingly innocent photographs belie sinister intentions. All of this is handled in Verneuil's no-nonsense approach, refusing to telegraph anyone's actual motive and creating a paranoid atmosphere where anyone could be "le serpent" working their magic to eradicate the others.

 

I can't see "Le Serpent" existing in any other time period than the 70's. Echoing the later American thrillers of Sydney Pollack and especially Alan J. Pakula, "Le Serpent" is an arid exploration of the callowness involved in world politics. The basic sentiment of wanting our world to be safe, but not knowing just exactly how we make it so safe, continually runs through the veins of this film. It's a thriller, yes, but also a pretty frightening document of plausible denialability.

Regional Review: A Teacher

Austin Filmmaker Hannah Fidell's technical and thematic maturity doesn't seem to fit her young age (now only 28)..... especially since the salacious material in her feature length debut "A Teacher" is an easily untranslatable subject. But, she makes it work and work beautifully, almost peeling back the skin of her lead character Diana (Lindsay Burdge) with her camera and creating images that feel like they're projecting out of her increasingly crumbling sense of mind. As the thirty-something teacher hopelessly (and physically) unquenched by her relationship with teenage student Eric (Will Brittain), it'd be easy to dismiss "A Teacher" without seeing it for fear of something close to 'erotica-lite'. After all, Jennifer Lopez recently bombed with "The Boy Next Door", so scandalous older woman-student diversions aren't the most respected genres out there. Yet it's not necessarily the material that's stunning about Fidell's film. Although it is sexually frank and continually frames its May-December couple in no nonsense moments of intimacy and grown up playfulness, "A Teacher" is only the jumping off point for something more troubling, which comes into effect through the naturalistic and nuanced performance of Burdge as she reveals a woman running from some whispered emotional vacancies in her life and using her taboo attraction to mask the scars of something deeper.

Employing a mixture of over-the-shoulder hand held shots (as Fidell admitted in an interview with "Filmmaker" magazine that she cribbed from watching all the Dardenne Brothers films) and glacial tracking moves, the overall mood of "A Teacher" is haunting and assured. As Diana's mental state and ability to control the passion confusedly swirling inside her escalates, Fidell's camera sinks closer and more unstable. If anything, Fidell's film belongs in the new wave category of young directors taking the cinema of Michael Haneke a step further and adding their own millennial generation spin. Antonio Campus ("Afterschool" and "Simon Killer"), Sean Durkin ("Marcy May Marlene") and Gerardo Naranjo ("Miss Bala") all tackle uncomfortable subjects head-on, refusing to flinch and utilizing their cameras as if we were watching surveillance footage, daring us to look away at the abhorred themes of youthful dispassion and mental insecurity. Even though we're not dealing with violent Mexican drug cartels or sadistic teen murderers with "A Teacher", its story is equally unsettling in the bland, cumulative ways it reveals the slow dissolve of a fragile mind. The moment teacher Diana (in school dance chaperon mode) hopelessly and jealously stares at a female student in the bathroom mirror simply because she went to the dance as young Eric's age appropriate date, we know the damage is irreparable. Like her entire performance, it's there in the eyes and guarded body language of actress Burdge.

Not a native Texan, Fidell's "A Teacher" does take place in Austin, Texas. Largely indistinguishable (except for a few out-of-focus I-35 shots with downtown looming in the distance), the film does detour into the hill country when Diana and Eric steal away to a ranch in the country. The freedom provided by its sun-drenched country soon becomes troubling. They may feel secluded, but the owner of the ranch (who alludes to knowing Eric but more specifically his father) unexpectedly drops in and almost busts the two together. Serving as the sensible wake-up call to Diana, she suggests the two cool their relationship for a while, which is easier said than done on her part. The rest of the film remains couched in numbing suburbia.... neighborhoods of pleasant looking houses and drab, fluorescent school hallways, but there is that wonderful sense of vastness represented by the ranch. Like Texas itself, "A Teacher" explores the highs and lows of this state's erratic landscapes.

With her next film already completed and receiving good word of mouth at this year's South by Southwest Festival, its fairly easy to say Hannah Fidell has arrived. I hope she continues her competent explorations of both Texas and the complex dynamics of the people who inhabit it.

Lost In America: Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter

Nathan and David Zellner's latest film, "Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter", takes as their main character a woman not far removed from the socially inept, slacker-aesthetic formula that drove the emotions behind the man (David Zellner himself) fixated on finding his lost cat amid his crumbling relationship in their terrific film "Goliath". How many times have we all convinced ourselves of a certain lie or created a unique diversion to stiffen some oncoming problem? The Zellner Brothers have exorcised those devious personal caveats and created a full length fairy tale wherein the fragile Kumiko (Rinko Kikuchi) travels halfway across the globe, partly to escape her deteriorating life in Japan, in search of a fictional bag of loot from the 1996 Coen Brothers movie "Fargo". Whether its a crumbling marriage and furry animals or a life-altering event in a faraway new world (as its subtitled once she lands in Minneapolis), the Zellner's seem to have a knack for elevating the inherent sadness found in socially acceptable structures such as marriage and cultural obligations.

For Kumiko, those cultural obligations include a job she despises, working as an office lady for a man who snidely alludes to her status of non-marriage and a team of fellow peers far more interested in their new eye lash treatments than actual human interaction. In between taking her boss' suits to and from the cleaners, Kumiko's only pleasure involves the incessant watching of a worn out VHS tape of the movie "Fargo", which she found discarded. Adding to her malaise is her mother, heard but never seen, racking her with guilt-trip phone calls to either marry or come back and live with her. Between all that undue, inchoate pressure, it's no wonder Kimuko slowly invents the rationalization that the "based on true events" titles at the beginning of the film are there to lead her to the money buried by criminal Carl (Steve Buscemi) along a desolate, snow-covered fence line in North Dakota.

As Kumiko, actress Kikuchi (of "Babel" and "Map of the Sounds of Tokyo") is a revelation. Never completely belying the nature of mental derangement most likely in her young character, she gives a modulated performance. Just watch the scene where she inadvertently runs into an old friend, Michi (Kanako Higashi), on the street. Kikuchi is restrained, protective, frail..... as if the ordinary albeit numbingly casual words that rise from Michi's mouth hurt her with every breath. Expressive through her eyes only, Kikuchi realigns her performance into something more determined once she arrives in America, unable to fully communicate with the people she comes into contact with, transferring her presence into a wide-eyed but defensive sponge. It's one of the more remarkable performances of the year so far.

But perhaps the most striking effect of "Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter" is its ability to rotate our expectations of a land I fully thought I understood. Like the best works of German auteur Wim Wenders, where his poetic and free-spirited men and woman traverse through the vast yet marginal corners of this great nation, there was always an outsider's perspective which made the familiar expanses feel antique, slightly deranged and even weird. We often felt their spatial and cultural dislocation. Even though the Zellner Brothers are Texas natives, they duplicate this same fresh perspective to dizzying heights, such as when Kumiko enters a roadside cafe and the camera slowly slides behind her, partially hazy at the edges, and the place's kitschy, baroque flavor looks and feels downright anomalous. It's a wonderful moment in a film full of them.

Even though, ultimately, "Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter", supposes a dark denouement, it also rallies hard for the belief that, sometimes, the best medicine is to lose ourselves in a totally inept faith of something... anything. Even if we never find that cat, the search is more rewarding than the catch.

70's Bonanza: Witchhammer

During last month's latest installment of the Sundance Film Festival, word began to trickle out about a horror film called The Witch, a debut film by Robert Eggers that would eventually go on to win the directing award. Strong word of mouth has pushed this gothic New England tale into one of the more anticipated features this year. It will surely also revive the "witches" film, right? So many efforts in this genre- from the late 60's British offerings like "Witchfinder General" to Rob Zombie's post-punk "Lord of Salem"- take the fantasy as truth and spin scary, devilish stories about possession, satanic brews and gaudy bloodletting. So when a film such as Otakar Vavra's "Witchhammer" comes along, not only is it a sobering glimpse at the base inhumanity perpetrated by mankind, but it makes one reconsider the guilty pleasures enjoyed by those other frivolous witches films.

Playing like a Sidney Lumet 'policier' thriller (think "Prince of the City" transposed to 1684), "Witchhammer" concerns the initial hysteria that grips a Czech village when an elderly woman is caught trying to steal a host from her Catholic Mass service. Initially saying the object would be to help nurse a sick cow, her testimony soon includes other women on the outskirts of town and an ominous sounding place called Peter's Rock. Believing they have a full-on witches coven sullying the land beneath their noses, the local leaders call in ex tribunal judge Boblig (Vladimir Smeral) and a mass witches trial eventually overtakes the town. 

Being of Czech origin and released in 1970, its no surprise "Witchhammer" is an angry veiled reference to, basically, name your aggression. Boblig, whose shadowy intentions slowly emerge, is shown to be secretly as vile and consumed by wealth and money than any person in the town said to be a worker of the devil. His wreckage of souls (and bodies through torture) targets some of the richest men in town since their land, upon confession, would be forfeited to his tribunal in order to pay for the trial services. It's not long before "Witchhammer" becomes an exercise in tolerance as we watch the machinations of Boblig destroy people and crush souls all in the name of religious piety. The only comic relief we get are brief explanations of tribunal law from a book about twice the size of the Bible, in which it regulates with mind-numbing calculations the extent to which a head nod under torture is allowable as an actual head nod admission. Bureaucracy hasn't changed in 300 years, obviously.

Filmed in sharp black and white, "Witchhammer" looks just as imposing as its message of institutional confinement. Talky and political, yes, but it also features some stunning, haunting images, such as the stream-of-conscience rant from an imposing monk (framed with just the right amount of light and shadow to create a demonic gleam in his eyes) inter cut throughout the film. The horror film reference is never far removed. Still, his monologues on the seductive ways of women or the various "truths" about how Christianity is usurped by demonic forces make him a likely candidate for any governmental office in the world. 

In an ideal world, the outrageous acts explored in "Witchhammer" are true remnants of the ignorant past, fodder for silly horror films and Vincent Price's intent gaze. Sadly, open any page in any local newspaper and   one realizes we're consistently doomed to repeat that ignorance. For that matter, "Witchhammer" is just as prescient today as it was almost 40 years ago.

On Jupiter Ascending

Where does one begin with "Jupiter Ascending", the latest sci-fi romp from those once trendsetting Wachowski siblings? Perhaps the best point of entry is Mila Kunis holding a big gun with steely intent. Or perhaps the other is the oddball collection of Oscar contenders, actors who've spent a career embellishing those weary second-fiddle characters, and a host of extras caked in makeup and latex to create a universe of elephant people, SIM robots and hybrid dog-men. Either way, its a safe to declare "Jupiter Ascending" a loud, vibrant and presumably expensive failure.

Seemingly regurgitating the "chosen one" scenario of their groundbreaking "Matrix" film series, this time the honor is bestowed upon a female, creating a grrl power invention in the form of Mila Kunis. Sucked up into the warring factions of the big wide universe, it turns out earthling Jupiter (Kunis) is the reincarnation of some long dead queen whose family hold various inheritance claims on the planet. Like most royal families of magnanimous wealth, the siblings are squabbling over their parcels, including Titus (Douglas Booth) and older brother Balem played by Eddie Redmayne in full-on goth mode, complete with snakeskin black suits and a wispy, almost constipated manner of speaking. With all the forces of the universe trying to kidnap Jupiter and usurp her (unknown) planetary gain, hybrid ex-cop Cain (Channing Tatum) is the only presence fighting for her safety. Tons of fireball shoot outs, whiz-bam floating cinematography and needless destruction of both downtown Chicago and a netherworld city take precedence over real character development. After all, this is a loopy, CGI inflated spectacle filled to the brim with the Wachowski's penchant for leaden dialogue and undercooked supporting players serving as either tone-deaf humor (think Jupiter's Russian family) or cardboard narrative progression (Sean Bean and his sickly daughter).

Shuttled from its original fall 2014 release to a more reserved spot like the first of February never bodes well for any type of film, yet "Jupiter Ascending" feels especially disappointing considering the aptitude of its filmmakers. Though "Cloud Atlas" was largely maligned, I found it to be a hugely moving, adventurous idea of spatial identity and cross universal human connectivity. Sure, it contained its moments of fumbled exposition, but it worked. "Jupiter Ascending", on the other hand, feels less creative, borrowing so many of its themes from other science fiction epics as well as their own work.

In fact, the only time it really springs to life is in its gaudy myth making, such as the wink-wink nods to age old whispers such as the extinction of the dinosaurs, alien abduction and even crop circles. It's in these moments that, like "The Matrix", the film pulses with strong ideas borne from the make-believe tales of our youth.... and wide eyed conspiracy theorists, a sub section of the crazy underworld given a throw-away genuflection within "Jupiter Ascending" in relation to a question about why no one will remember the destruction of downtown Chicago. But, just when one thinks the film will burrow deep into these curious myths and ghost stories to create a compelling neo-fairy tale, "Jupiter Ascending" steps back into a soulless action set-piece where green screens take control and the people we're supposed to be rooting for become animated projections within those screens. Imagination? Sadly, that seems to be the one aspect not required of a 100 million dollar plus action film these days.

70's Bonanza: Natural Enemies

In the opening scene of Jeff Kanew's "Natural Enemies" (1979), the lead character named Paul Steward (Hal Holbrook) brazenly tells the viewer via interior monologue his plan for the upcoming day- which is go to work, take the train home and shoot his wife, three kids, then himself when she calls him down for dinner. From there, his misery-filled odyssey is the remainder of the film. He tries to rationalize his upcoming actions with several people he meets throughout the day, and one, a friend played by Jose Ferrer, sees the upcoming internal apocalypse and takes him out for a drink. There are moments when we feel the crisis may have been inverted. During lunch, he visits a brothel and arranges to be with five women at the same time. In keeping with the film's verbose patterns, Steward ends up talking more than screwing, lying naked and facing his prostitutes as if they were a Greek chorus, lamenting his loveless marriage and searching for acceptance in a life filled with little physical passion. In flashback, we see the deteriorating, almost spiteful marriage he shares with his wife (Louise Fletcher). Dealing with emotional problems of her own, neither wife nor husband are shown to be completely blameless. Basically, "Natural Enemies" is a trenchant assault on the nuclear American family of the late 70's. Scripted in a novelistic fashion, full of rambling stories by its characters, and unafraid to hold its unflinching gaze on Hal Holbrook's slowly dissolving moral core, "Natural Enemies" strikes at something raw. It belongs in the same category of disturbed nihilism that bore "Joe", "Taxi Driver", and Gaspar Noe's "I Stand Alone"- films that place the viewer firmly inside the hermetic, dangerous mind of its unhinged protagonist with little hope for escape.

Written, produced, directed and edited by Jeff Kanew, it's no surprise "Natural Enemies" has yet to find its way to mainstream home video distribution. Even for the liberal 70's, it's a dark and almost rotten experience from the beginning, but one that certainly shakes up the senses and challenges the viewer. It also feels strangely European in tone and pace. Privy to Holbrook's thoughts running underneath the entire film, we begin to wonder how much is true and how much is being sickly reflected through his own memories and unbalanced recollections. Case in point- towards the end of the film (and assuredly the film's finest scene) Holbrook takes the fateful last train ride home when its suddenly frozen on the tracks due to a fire up ahead. The emergency lights kick on and bathe him in a woozy, red light as the woman next to him (played by Patricia Elliot)  starts up a conversation. She talks about the lost attraction to her husband, writings in a diary that will never see the light of day, then plainly asks Steward to make love to her "right here right now".The consecutive abrupt cut shows Steward leaving the train as normal. Either this is one of the many unfulfilled fantasies banging around his head or the film is showing us the pervasive unhappiness seeping into the entire universe. Either way, its a gentle respite in the oncoming hurricane of emotional turmoil.

The Alexei German Files: My Friend Ivan Lapshin

After "Trial On the Road" (1971) and "Twenty Days Without War" (1977), two films that dealt with the experience of war (or, more specifically the absence of it in one), filmmaker Alexei German's next project was delayed almost ten years. Filmed in 1985 but not debuted until two years later at a Moscow film festival, "My Friend Ivan Lapshin" may be his masterpiece. German's visual schematic of cluttered, claustrophobic interiors and snow-laden exteriors, both barely able to contain the perpetual movement of bodies and the thoughts that spew from them, again represents German's snapshot of a particular place and time. Set in the mid 30's just before the Stalin purge of Russian Jews and the onslaught of World War 2, "My Friend Ivan Lapshin" takes its time in eventually focusing on the titular character, choosing to embellish mood and atmosphere before real narrative sets in. Like all of German's films, they can be hard to penetrate sometimes.... full of political allegory and off-hand lines of dialogue that explode with hidden anger or poetic jealousy. While "My Friend Ivan Lapshin" has its share of obfuscated moments, it's German's most accessible and tangible work.

Playing out in a three part episode, half remembered by an off-screen voice over of a young child now grown into a man, "My Friend Ivan Lapshin" introduces us to its array of characters as a mixture of families and policemen living in a communal household. Boisterous and playful, we soon me Ivan Lapshin (Andrei Boltnev), the most respected and even tempered of the group. The middle section of the film introduces the relationships in Lapshin's life in Khanin (Andrey Mironov), a writer quietly reeling from the death of his wife and an actress named Natasha (Nina Ruslanova). Lapshin has a crush on Natasha, but is soon rebuffed by her when its discovered she's already started an affair with Khanin. One would imagine the potential for jealousy and third act retribution would kick into high gear after this revelation, but it's ignored by German and even has Lapshin and Khanin continuing their friendship into the final act where Lapshin invites Khanin with him on a manhunt for a group of wanted criminals. Its the final act, filmed in a staggering and tense-ridden long take, as the cops descend through a fog into a small village looking for the criminal that "My Friend Ivan Lapshin" coalesces into a prominent work. By this point, we care so deeply for Lapshin and the enveloping atmosphere of 1930's Russia that the spectre of "something big" lingers over the entire film. And even in that regard, German has a narrative surprise for us.

Viewed within the context of his larger body of work, "My Friend Ivan Lapshin" fits neatly into his themes of nationalism and scrapbook-like remembrances from his writer father Yuri. Two small portions of the film inexplicably turn into color stock, fashioned like old polaroid photographs burned into one's memory. Also, the dichotomy of society/war/lawfulness meeting the artificiality of a staged play was a large part of "Twenty Days Without War". Both films also posit a doomed relationship between the drifter/warrior and an actress.... almost as if the two columns of life can never fully mesh. And equally doomed is everyone in the film. With the sweeping changes we know from history on the horizon, "My Friend Ivan Lapshin", like Ingmar Bergman's "The Serpent's Egg" or Haneke's "The White Ribbon", is surepptitously about the passing of a generation... an observation made innocently by the final (color) image and a voice decrying the amount of traffic and tram lines encasing the city. There are no more Ivan Lapshins left.

70's Bonanza: L'Attentant (The Assassination)

Like the best French thrillers, they move at their own pace, elevating scenario, dialogue and Machiavellian politics above action. Yves Boisset's "L'attentant" (aka "The Assassination" or "The French Conspiracy") is a clear example of this. There are some gunshots and chase sequences, but the ultimate pulse of the film lies in the complicated dynamics of how someone is set up and then the various machinations between state, police and general citizens conspire to see their plan to the end. Ripped from real-life headlines- the vanishing of Moroccan politician Mahdi Ben Barka in Paris in 1965- "L'attentant" mixes an international cast (Roy Scheider, Jean Seberg and every popular French male actor of the time) with a dialogue laden script whose serpentine authenticity feels just as modern today.

Starring Jean Louis Trintignant, he's the slightly complex anti-hero drafted into the plot by a government agency to sell out his friend, Sadiel (Gian Marie Volonte). Upon luring him to Paris and becoming more and more upset at his involvement in the large scale deception, Trintignant attempts to free his kidnapped friend. Like his previous role in Bertolucci's "The Conformist", his character is a man compromised by the state due to the transgressions of his past. While the idea is much more oblique and abstract in Bertolucci's hands, Boisset maintains a fairly rudimentary arch for him in "L'attentant". He plays a man trapped by his past sins during the Algerian War. His relationship to nurse Jean Seberg is affectionate when it needs to be, then savagely distant the next. Like this main charachter, the entire film is a clean, simple affair. Though the revolving merry-go-round of faces can be overwhelming at times, Boisset and screenwriter Ben Barzman maintain control on the narrative. There's nothing flashy or complicated about the mise-en-scene.  Darker themes are hinted at in conventional camera setups, such as one tracking shot that follows an eavesdropper's long walk to a telephone, passing a dozen other men sitting at desks listening to phone conversations.... the insidious nature of the state's agencies developed through a five second clip. This is exactly the type of slow-burn, exposition heavy thriller I appreciate. In fact, the only thing amplified in "L'attentant" is Ennio Morricone's spruced-up score.

Like his contemporary in Italy, Francesco Rosi, filmmaker Boisset seems accustomed to the non dramatic brushstrokes of the political thriller. In "L'attentant" (like Rosi's "Hands Over the City" or "The Mattei Affair"), the currency is not action but the delicate nature of bargaining and emotional complicity. There's a terrific moment that snaps Trintignant's resolve from being just one of the guys involved in selling out his friend into a committed person to make things right. It's that course of action that propels the second half of the film, and leaves one to wonder if the title of "The Assassination" refers to the political captive or Trintignant's own sinking moral center. It's just one of the delicate pieces examined in Boisset's drama.