Film Review

An “October Noon” in Chile or the 30-Peso Rebellion (NYFF62)

Brandon Judell — Sun, 29 Sep 2024 00:35:12 +0000

An “October Noon” in Chile or the 30-Peso Rebellion (NYFF62) Brandon Judell September 28, 2024 - 20:35

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On a mild day in October 2019, the primetime subway fare in Santiago was suddenly raised from 10 to 30 pesos. In response, secondary school students quickly began a fare evasion campaign. Others, already upset by the country’s dire cost of living, the inability of graduate students to find employment, and an engrained inequality in most social institutions, joined in.

Train stations were taken over, many were set afire, and the national police force (Carabineros de Chile) did not respond delicately. According to Aljazeera’s Charis McGowan’s coverage of October 30, 2019: “Although the country is no longer under a state of emergency . . . protests have continued, with frequent clashes between police and protesters. Police have used tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets and pellets, prompting allegations of rights abuses.

“It is the worst violence the country has witnessed since the 17-year-long military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, which ended in 1990.” According to officials, the death count was only 20 that first month.

Now, Chilean artist/filmmaker Francisco Rodriquez Teare, has gathered together four friends and a sound engineer to reminisce, seemingly in a forest of sorts, about the events.

“October Noon,” a 13-minute short, begins with an unseen man sarcastically singing Chile’s national anthem against a black screen: “How pure, Chile, is your blue sky/And how pure the breezes that blow across you.”

Cut to three gents in everyday garb. One digging. One asleep. The third, in a yellow hoodie and jean jacket, tells of three policemen crossing a field. There is a dead body. Maybe a woman’s. Then he chats of possibly another woman who’s in her living room. She looks worried. “She has a premonition,” he notes, “that is like from another time.” She beholds a female—a burnt image. “And the worst thing that could be seen appears. Torture. Torture in hell and the future.”

Intercut with the sometimes-shaky handheld camerawork are views of majestic mountains and Santiago traffic.

Then there’s talk of President Sebastián Piñera, who, while Chileans were being shot at in the streets, sexually abused, and blinded by the pellets aimed at their eyes, was “eating pizza in a rich neighborhood.”

If that weren’t enough, “an intelligence report from the government came out claiming that K-pop is responsible for the protests.”

Cut to a young woman sitting amongst wild greenery, head resting on hand, as her voiceover asks: “Could you imagine something really messed up happening in this country? Everything on fire.” She muses over the calls for a demonstration that 1.2 million citizens participated in. The arrests. More demonstrations, and how President Piñera went on TV and warned: “We are at war with an enemy that has no limits.”

While these recollections are meted out, the sleeping gent’s body is painted with slogans and imagery that reflect the three years of chaos in their country.

But especially perinent is the following summoning up: “We were walking . . . talking about cinema and you were telling me that cinema is important, and we talked about it for a long time. And in the distance, we saw a cloud of smoke. We didn’t know exactly what it was. And we said to each other, ‘Whatever. Let’s go see what it is.’” It was the local movie theater.

Proving that cinema is indeed important, Teare and his “October Afternoon” have hammered another nail into the coffin of forgetfulness.

(“October Noon” is being screened with several other shorts in the program titled “Poetry is Not a Luxury” at the New York Film Festival on October 6^th and 7th.)

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Lovers, Losers, and Divas

Chet Kozlowski — Sun, 22 Sep 2024 22:50:52 +0000

Lovers, Losers, and Divas Chet Kozlowski September 22, 2024 - 18:50

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dramatic comedy

Notice to Quit

Directed by Simon Hacker

Notice to Quit is the sort of breezy comedy George Segal used to make, reminiscent of Blume in Love or Bye Bye Braverman. In fact, Michael Zegen, who plays the protagonist of this one, resembles Mr. Segal. He has a similar affable Everyman quality about him.

Andy Singer (Mr. Zegen) is an aspiring actor making ends meet—barely—as an apartment broker in Manhattan. His picture is displayed around the city as the model in an often-defaced subway poster for toothpaste. He's divorced and has visitation with but not custody of his precocious 10-year-old daughter Anna, played winningly by Kasey Bella Suarez. Andy's got Anna for the day, as he hustles apartment hunters while stripping AC units from units and selling them to junkman/gangster played by Michael Angelo Covino.

Andy and Anna traverse the city on foot and by subway. Schemes are hatched (one involves a cockroach in a hamburger), quirky characters appear and disappear, and Andy ends up pretty much as he began. His wife, played by Isabel Arraiza, loves him but has moved on; while covertly sizing up his ex's new squeeze, Andy muses to Anna, "Your mother's impressed too easily. I told her that when we got together." And Andy's still left lugging around a discarded AC unit like an albatross.

That's about as much of an arc as Notice to Quit manages. It's engaging but thin. It plays more like a TV pilot than a freestanding movie, devoid of conflict other than Andy's ongoing struggles with himself. The script is sharp and witty, full of bon mots. Michael Zegen played the husband in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and this is his first lead role. Robert Klein as Andy's artist dad is a welcome surprise. Simon Hacker's direction is loose, and most of the camerawork is handheld. Notice to Quit has that obligatory scene of its protagonist running through New York's city streets to an ecstatic score supplied here by music maestro Jack Antonoff.

Another Happy Day

Directed by Nora Fiffer

Actor/comedian Lauren Lapkus is tall and thin, with big eyes and deep dimples when she smiles. Her demeanor is made for comedy, and she's known for her work in Netflix's Orange is the New Black and HBO's Crashing. She's often relegated to the role of sidekick, but in Another Happy Day, she gets to stretch out and show her drama chops.

Ms. Lapkus plays Joanna, a new mother who is post-partum-y. She rarely sleeps, and when she does, she has night terrors. She cries. She hallucinates, even asking the Amazon delivery guy if he's real. Her nipples bleed from breastfeeding. Babies are harder work than she imagined, and her work as an artist is suffering. Her partner Lucien is supportive but busy as the breadwinner.

Joanna is stressed and lonely, far from family. Except, as her mother points out on the phone, for Miriam, her "dad's brother Leonard's ex-wife." Miriam's in the same city; why not visit her if you need a dose of family?

Miriam lives alone in an apartment cluttered with books and art. She's a diva, an actress á la Norma Desmond, ready for her close-up. She's acerbic and nasty to Joanna. "You came across town for me to hold your baby?" she asks, incredulous. "No," replies Joanna, "I came across town for you to hold me." "What?" "I'm kidding. Sort of."

Another Happy Day is written and directed by Nora Fiffer, whose approach is schematic: her shots are carefully composed, and many are held long, making the most of interesting characters in the frame. It takes its time, and the patience pays off. Ms. Fiffer appears in the film as Wendy, Joanna's friend, who wants a baby but is having difficulty conceiving.

Another Happy Day is poignant and engrossing. The oil-and-water dynamic of Ms. Lapkus and Marilyn Dodds Frank as Miriam is the foundation of the film. Carrie Coon makes a too-brief appearance as Joanna's employer and is an executive producer. Jean Elie plays husband Lucien as a firm but personable presence: he has great expectations of Joanna, even if she doesn't. Their relationship is knowingly passive-aggressive: a playful game of name-calling turns caustic and wounding.

Scenes like Joanna's cynicism at a baby shower and her bonding with Miriam, breaking down walls, are witty and authentic. Ms. Fiffer is going for realism, but Another Happy Day's catharsis is abrupt and not satisfying as the lead-up: its Goodbye Girl premise goes soggy as gnarly old Miriam bends too quickly.

Still, Another Happy Day is touching. Lucien's belief in marriage is challenged by the realities of tending to a baby. Miriam gets to shine in a spirited audition. But poor Joanna, when asked, "What did you expect?" about motherhood, replies, "That we'd be happier."

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Get Down, Get Back Up Again

Chet Kozlowski — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 15:50:24 +0000

Get Down, Get Back Up Again Chet Kozlowski September 18, 2024 - 11:50

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Get down

get back up again

Makdong’s stint in the South Korean army is over, and he’s returning home by train. As if on cue, he spots a pretty woman being hassled by three young thugs. He intervenes, and the woman escapes. Makdong, still in his camos, is intent on teaching these tough guys a lesson.

The problem is, the guys beat the shit out of him, knocking him down, kicking him, and bloodying his nose. Some hero. In fact, Makdong will spend the whole first half hour of Green Fish bleeding from the nose and mouth because Makdong keeps on picking fights and losing them.

To make matters worse, the home he returns to—a small farm set up on the outskirts of Seoul, yet in full view of the city—is not the one he remembers. His mother now cleans houses. His sister has taken a menial job. His brother is crippled by a neurological disorder. Makdong wants to help but is ignored, so often one suspects he’s an apparition á la The Sixth Sense. But he’s real.

Makdong takes a job in the city as a parking attendant and catches the eye of a crime kingpin. On whose arm is, of course, the woman from the train, a nightclub singer named Mi-ae.

Green Fish was originally released in 1997. It’s the first film directed by Lee Chang-dong, who has become one of Korea’s premier filmmakers. Film Movement is releasing in 4K restorations a number of his titles, including Peppermint Candy (1999), Oasis (2002), and Poetry (2010). Mr. Chang-dong has real cinematic chops. The brilliant colors of his city scenes snap. His restless camera captures stunning 360-degree shots. His blocking and editing are artful (the final crane shot is a knockout). He expresses Makdong’s alienation in his staging—mirrors and windows and thresholds are everywhere—and makes the distinction between the simple farm life that is being squeezed out by the sinister city.

Han Suk-kyu plays Makdong as a sad sack with innocent, wide-eyed wonder. His face is trusting even as he’s being rousted by hoodlums. Mi-ae (played by Shim Hye-jin) has his number. She’s there when he auditions for the big boss, Mr. Bae Tae-kon (Moon Sung-keun). He asks Makdong, “Got any skills?” and Mi-ae giggles, “Running’s your thing.”

Makdong prevails, sort of, growing a spine and acquiring a new wardrobe. He gets better at defending Mi-ae’s honor, which, to quote Groucho, is more than she ever did. Lee Chang-dong’s film is clearly inspired by Scorsese’s Goodfellas. It has those moments of coded etiquette (the ritual of asking for a light is a challenge and a blessing). It honors the protocols of “families,” maybe too literally: the head guy is called Big Brother. Its action is explosive. Fists fly just because someone looked at you the wrong way.

But there’s a goofiness about this film that can be found generally in Korean cinema. Are they serious or satirical? Is Green Fish an homage or critique of the genre? Poor Makdong spends so much time bleeding and getting up from the floor that one wonders if Green Fish is deadpan slapstick. Moreover, the gangster genre, as is horror, is fodder for a first film. Both are the choice of filmmakers getting into the game: they provide visceral thrills, sex, and violence, often above a new director’s pay grade. Does Lee Chang-dong out-Scorsese Scorsese? You decide.

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Green Fish. Directed by Lee Chang-dong. 1997. Restored and re-released by Film Movement. On digital formats, DVD and Blu-Ray. 111 minutes.

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Disloyalty Is The Least of It

Chet Kozlowski — Sun, 08 Sep 2024 17:50:46 +0000

Disloyalty Is The Least of It Chet Kozlowski September 8, 2024 - 13:50

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Three brothers and their father go hunting in the remote Scottish woods. The father is a bully: rude, insulting, and chiding one brother for missing a shot at a deer. Until he realizes the deer is meant to be bait, and that the real prey is himself. The sons shoot Dad and bury him. It isn’t until they’re home that they realize they also buried the key to the family safe that Dad kept tied around his neck. They must go back to retrieve it.

All this happens in the first fifteen minutes of Betrayal. Meaning there’s a lot of time left.

The action in Betrayal is robust, with primal Straw Dogs-era Peckinpah energy, but its relentless motion masks a lack of plot cohesion. In press materials, writer/director Rodger Griffiths claims to be delving into the vagaries of the human psyche. What he means is the human psyche with a gun. Betrayal plays like a game of hot potato. Who’s got the rifle? Where’s Dad? Who’s in cahoots? Who’s zoomin’ who?

Mr. Griffiths keeps his script on a short leash. Most of the action takes place in or just outside of a house. This business is between the boys, and they pretty much comprise cowards or ingrates, guys glowering and getting the upper hand. It’s all very dour. Couldn’t one of them have been graced with a sardonic sense of humor?

As loyalties shift, so do motives. What at first appears to be simple greed turns into comeuppance for a crime. What do these guys want? (More to the point, why don’t they just leave the place?) Betrayal becomes a ballet of carnage: alliances and double crosses are the engine it runs on. But with no morality at its core, it’s hard to sympathize with any of Betrayal’s characters.

The cast is composed of up-and-coming actors from the UK. You’ll recognize Paul Higgins from In the Loop, Brian Vernel from Dunkirk, Daniel Portman from Game of Thrones, and Calum Ross from Netflix’s Wednesday. They do their best with what they have to work with. The only women in the cast are Anita Vettesse (Mother) and Joanne Thomson (Annie) and they are less characters than plot points, glimpsed fleetingly in flashback.

IMDb lists over twenty-five films with the title Betrayal. It’s unclear why this film is called that: disloyalty is the least of it. These guys cover a whole menu of malevolence. The film’s original title was Kill (how’s that for blunt?). Maybe just call it Kill Daddy?

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Betrayal. Directed by Rodger Griffiths. 2023. From Saban Films. On Digital and VOD. 94 minutes.

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The Horrors of “Ganymede” Plus Queer Daisies & Lesbian-Attacking Grocery Bags

Brandon Judell — Fri, 06 Sep 2024 17:59:00 +0000

The Horrors of “Ganymede” Plus Queer Daisies & Lesbian-Attacking Grocery Bags Brandon Judell September 6, 2024 - 13:59

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LGQBT

If Roger Corman (e.g. Attack of the Fifty Foot Cheerleader (2012) had produced a film about the complexities of coming out or if Bruce La Bruce (e.g. Hustler White (1996)) had directed a seemingly straightforward narrative about homophobia in a small town, Ganymede might have been the result.

Yes, this often-heartfelt exploration of a young wrestler from an EXTREMELY religious household, one who's seeking his first same-sex kiss, is in the end a hoot and a half. Coming to that realization, though, might take you through two or three Twizzlers and a handful of popcorn. Indeed, all the vicissitudes of confronting one’s queerdom in a family that starts praying against Satan at breakfast over pancakes are achingly chronicled here with a touch of the horrific.

The opening: It's 1989 and an unknown gent with a heavy brick tied to each of his arms, jumps into a lake. Very Virginia Woolf.

Skip to the present day: an attractive, bare-chested high schooler, Lee Fletcher (Jordan Doww), is darting through town under a starry night as any athlete might. He, however, decides to also to jump into a lake where almost instantly he beholds a blurry vision. Underwater he silently screams.

That won’t be the last of his shrieks.

You see, Lee is the only son of the town’s county commissioner—a homophobic, head-thumping, Bible-verse-quoting zealot. The young man's high-strung mother who has a meltdown at the thought of an LGBTQI-soul breathing within 20 feet of her yard isn’t much more comforting. No wonder that as Lee falls into love and desire for an openly queer schoolmate, Kyle Culper (the seductive Pablo Castelblanco), he starts hallucinating that monsters are closing in on him and bathroom sinks are gurgling up blood.

Could it get worse? Of course. When Lee's caught nuzzling with Klye, Dad sends him to the local rabid pastor (David Korchner) who isn't much of a help. He's just rubbing salt into the lad’s already festering mental wounds.

Pastor: Lee, do you have feelings for that boy?

Lee: (Silence)

Pastor: I believe we are dealing with a Ganymede.

Lee: What is a Ganymede?

Pastor: A Ganymede is an unrepentant homosexual, usually a man or boy who is uncommonly beautiful, and they're so deeply entwined with demonic forces that their homosexuality begins to take over and attract others with uncontrollable same-sex urges . . . demonic disturbances.

Add a few electroshock treatments, a bit of midnight toilet-stall cruising, plus Kyle's inability to wear a shirt for more than five minutes at a time, and you have a feature that might resonate with you for days and days. It has for me.

What's odd here, though, is that if you edit out about 22 minutes of Ganymede, you could wind up with a highly persuasive ad for conversion therapy groups. Ah, but those 22 minutes make a whole world of difference. Instead of burning the RuPaul poster over your bed, co-directors Colby Holt and Sam Probst's highly entertaining Ganymede might just have you running out the door in search of a same-sex hand to hold whether you are queer or not.

Covering similar ground at this year's East Village Queer Film Festival, but without the monsters, was Nicholas Hansell's highly effective short, "Flowers." Here another winsome high-school youth, Josh (Rocco Roberts), a soccer player, is yearning to connect with an openly gay peer. How does we know the object of his desire, Eddie (Henry Leith), is openly queer? Well, he's reading a book daily while sitting with his back against a tree. That sort makes you wonder if any heterosexual has a library card.

With time ticking away—the film's only 20 minutes long—Josh has to go to a party and kiss a girl in a bathroom without causing himself or anyone else to barf. Why? He's trying to prove to his sports-mate (Blake Weise), a hunky homophobe, that he's not that way. Can true boy-on-boy love win the day before the end credits roll? Well, with the aid a whole lot of daisies, a happy ending blooms forth and a nice career ahead for the director, who's currently working on a feature, seems assured.

Hansell, formerly a location scout for several features, noted at the talkback after the screening that Brokeback Mountain was a major cinematic turning point in his young life. He didn't, however, reveal if he identified more with Ennnis Del Mar or Jack Twist.

Also screened that night was writer/director Nicolle Marquez's 5-minute "Thank You," possibly only the second eco-friendly, explicitly lesbian offering I’ve ever viewed.

The first was Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkles' documentary, Water Makes Me Wet: An Ecosexual Adventure (2019). Besides shining a light on how bottled water companies are destroying the environment and where California waste matter goes after being flushed, the directors of Wet, for our benefit no doubt, supplied highly detailed examples of how women can have sex in a lake without disturbing aquatic life.

Back to Marquez, who grew up in Puerto Rico and has her second Master's Degree In Gender studies.

In "Thank you," she avoids all mentions of H2O. Instead, she plays a gal awaiting in her apartment for her date, portrayed by the truly stunning lass Andrea Reyes, who arrives with wine and some other goodies in plastic bags.

IN PLASTIC BAGS? OH NO! HOW COULD SHE?

Marquez's distraught character runs into the bathroom, slams the door, and starts smoking. Meanwhile, Reyes' charmer, not sure of what just occurred, meanders into the bedroom, lies down, and feels up the coverlet without being aware that her plastic bags are coming to life. Before you can scan your organic plums at Whole Foods, both gals are suffocated to death, a fitting reminder that the world’s population utilizes 5 trillion plastic bags a year. That's a 160,000 a second, dental dams not included.

By the way, the audience laughed hysterically throughout these five minutes. I though hid in fear under my seat due to my severely underdiagnosed plastophobia.

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Ganymede is currently available on Cable and Digital VOD, including Apple TV, Fandango at Home, and Prime Video. Thank You can be sought out at numerous upcoming film festivals, including The New York Latino Film Festival; PrideFull Film Festival; and Reel Q: Pittsburgh LGBTQ+ Film Festival.)

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Not So Tough

Chet Kozlowski — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 23:22:31 +0000

Not So Tough Chet Kozlowski August 29, 2024 - 19:22

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I approached Uwe Boll's First Shift with trepidation (and curiosity). I had heard the director's name before, though I wasn't familiar with his movies. Certain YouTubers make fun of him, calling his movies some of the worst ever made, and lumping him in with narcissistic nuts like Neal Breen (messianic complex) and Steven Segal (lazy messianic complex). Is he really that bad, I wondered? I was prepared to turn it off after a few minutes and not write about it. I swore when I started reviewing that if I couldn't say something good about a movie, I wouldn't say anything at all.

I stayed with it. The word that keeps showing up in my notes is "endless." Yet I stayed with it. And I can report…I kinda liked it.

"Endless" because scenes just go on too long. The credit sequence is interminable; we follow our protagonist waking up in his apartment, shaving, brushing his teeth, cleaning his toothbrush, making a power smoothie, washing out the juicer, and I'm thinking: Come on! Get on with it!

Then the overlong montage of New York City streets, which follow no pattern—here we are on Times Square, now in the Bronx, now in the Financial District, now Staten Island—set to incongruously swelling music. Mr. Boll loves New York. We get it.

The basic idea is a cliché. Deo is a scowling city detective, a maverick, who is partnered with a woman his opposite. Angela smiles a lot, posts selfies, and comes off to Deo as a ditz. The alpha male begrudgingly takes on the Instagram queen and they attend to crimes while bickering comically.

But Deo and Angela settle their differences pretty quickly. First Shift becomes a pokey thriller with comic undertones: not too many thrills and goofy but endearing comedy. It comes on like an old dog looking for attention, and even has a dog in a pivotal role. So it can't be all bad.

The action is pretty tame, and not all that coherent. Deo and Angela outwit a guy threatening passersby with a meat cleaver. A mob boss has to be foiled. A PTSD guy locks himself in the bathroom after committing a heinous crime. An old guy leaves his dog outside a supermarket (again, going through the aisles with him and his cart: interminable) in which he promptly has a heart attack. The ambulance loads him, leaving the dog. Deo fetches him. All in a day’s work for a NYC cop.

But the actors, Gino Anthony Pesi as Deo and Kristen Renton as Angela, fit together nicely as a team. He's got a Soprano-ish appeal (he had a role in TV's Shades of Blue), and she's pretty and flighty until it's hammer time (she was in FX's Sons of Anarchy). The banter isn't as cringe-y as it might be. They cruise around the city and for the most part I enjoyed watching them. I wondered where exactly director Mr. Boll was going with this. Check the time, the movie's almost over and not much has happened, when suddenly a title card comes up: "Coming soon: Part Two." Okay, Part One was relatively painless. I'd watch more.

Uwe Boll reminds me of a New York filmmaker I admire: Larry Cohen. Mr. Cohen was a journeyman director who made Manhattan-centric movies on miniscule budgets. Phone Book and It's Alive are his. He worked with character actors like Tony Lo Bianco, David Carradine, and Michael Moriarty. His movies were offbeat and loosey-goosey. Check out Q: the Winged Serpent and God Told Me To. Most of all, Larry Cohen really loved making movies. He died in 2019.

So does Uwe Boll. First Shift has that same carefree quality. His filmography is Cohen-like. Mr. Boll is a journeyman filmmaker, too, training his camera on whatever he's being paid to, yet somehow making it part of his oeuvre. He writes a lot, directs a lot, produces a lot. He has nearly forty movies to his personal credit, with titles like Rampage: Capital Punishment, Assault on Wall Street, Bloodrayne, and Blubberella. He rarely gets above a 5.0 rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Yet I've seen worse, and more opportunistic.

Maybe he just caught me on a good day. Would I recommend First Shift? Sure, as long as you're willing to suspend disbelief and a standard of quality. Just relax and lean into it. It’s like spending time with a new friend.

And he likes dogs.

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First Shift. Directed by Uwe Boll. 2024. From Event Films. In select theaters and VOD. 88 minutes.

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Where The Heart Is

Chet Kozlowski — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Where The Heart Is Chet Kozlowski August 26, 2024 - 10:00

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drama

The new film Know Your Place is set in a part of Seattle that's undergoing rapid gentrification. Money talks, those that don’t have walk. But where do you go if you are an immigrant to the U.S. and part of a vital community?

The community in question hails from Eritrea, one of Africa's poorest nations. Eritreans preserve their religion and their native language, difficult to do when you're being forced to scatter. Know Your Place centers on one family, the Hailes, and Robel, a 15-year-old Eritrean-American boy, in particular. Robel is known for keeping his feelings hidden. "You never say nothin', Bro," says his friend Fahmi on the basketball court. "What's on your mind?"

Robel wonders, simply, where he belongs. His father is dead; his mother struggles to keep the family afloat. His grandfather suffers from dementia and sleeps on the living room couch.

And then comes a plea from the parent's homeland: relatives are ailing, medical expenses are high, and they need financial help. Despite her family's own dire circumstances, Mother assembles clothes, money, and medicine to send over. Robel is tasked with delivering a large suitcase full of provisions across town to his aunts.

Writer/director Zia Mohajerjasbi turns this into a lyrical, profound quest, played out on city streets and light rail and buses. Of course, Robel and Fahmi encounter obstacles, but their comradery and street smarts make for a fascinating journey. Know Your Place is thick with Eritrean culture and interludes of quiet grace.

Seattle in autumn has rarely looked so bleak and beautiful. Mr. Mohajerjasbi counterpoints the drama of displacement by sending his camera to wander languidly amongst canopies of tree branches and street signs, segments of visual poetry. Buildings are being torn down. Residential streets are being decimated. Cranes loom over every horizon. Yet the gloom is often cut by pools of light, actual and symbolic. There's hope. The city becomes a living thing, aided by the fluid camera of Director of Photography Nicholas Wiesnet.

Match this with the naturalistic performances of Know Your Place's young protagonists. Joseph Smith's internal reserve as Robel is tweaked by Natnael Mebrahtu's brash Fahmi. Robel frets and Fahmi joshes. The pair make an engrossing odd couple, trekking across town with their literal McGuffin. Days after having watched the movie, I still feel the presence of these characters.

But the notion of "home" is the point. Where do you go when poverty undercuts your mobility yet forces you to keep moving? As Robel says in a moment of pique, "I wish everything would slow down so I can know where I'm supposed to be."

Their path takes unexpected detours and is dotted with compelling characters, most notably Selamawit Gebresus as Robel's mother (who delivers a stunning monologue with the camera tight on her face), Esther Kibreab as Robel's striving sister, Haileselassie Kidane as gansta cousin Aboy, and Tirhas Haile as the cantankerous Auntie Hana. Aaron Sahle plays Uncle Yonas, a rowdy yellow cab philosopher who contends that America is "drowning in a sea of names," but deep down everyone is where they should be. Every member of this ensemble is a believable and welcome swatch in this heartfelt tapestry.

Zia Mohajerjasbi is a filmmaker to watch. He has a particular vision and, for a first-time writer/director, the discretion to make it come alive. He takes risks: despite the rigors of the inner-city milieu, Mr. Mohajerjasbi isn't afraid to stop the action to make a point. One breathtaking montage is of people, just people, in all their normal glory, caught still and facing the camera.

Know Your Place is a warm, rich, and affectionate portrait of an ancient culture unmoored in the modern world.

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Know Your Place. 2022. Directed by Zia Mohajerjasbi. Available on VOD and in select theaters. 118 minutes.

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Giggy Ghee

Gary Lucas — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 21:02:21 +0000

Giggy Ghee Gary Lucas August 21, 2024 - 17:02

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horror

Xenomorph, designed by Giger

ALIEN: ROMULUS--or more appropriately, Kids in Space.

Only six people in the balcony of the Village East Angelika at the 4:45pm screening yesterday (maybe it's streaming somewhere already?). A workman-like entry in the franchise by Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez --very, very good on the action set-pieces, very light on the substantial stuff, the very warp and woof 'o movies (characterization / story-telling prowess)--not to mention the vague acting chops of a bunch of random, more or less interchangeable Gen Z'ers whose smooth, blank facades are reminiscent of the unfinished pod people of Invasion of the Body-Snatchers, and whose line deliveries were about 60% indecipherable (and Caroline and I had primo seats right in front of the giant screen in this former vaudeville palace). Where are the Snows of Yesteryear, the powerful gravitas of a Sigourney Weaver (Bill Moseley had a fling with her at Yale back in the day), the hale-fellow-well-met cheekbones of a John Hurt? G-G-G-Gone!!

A muddled plot about five indentured disadvantaged family-bereft kinder and a slightly autistic robot working the mines in an off-world colony somewhere on a planet Where the Sun Don't Shine, who in a hare-brained scheme hijack a spaceship (those teenagers!) to rifle a disused space outpost (uh oh, guess what's coming) in search of enough jet fuel to power their way during nine light years of cryosleep to Ivanka--sorry, Yvaga--a kind of sunny Paradise no one has ever once visited (kind of like El Rey, or Oz).

Actually there were about 10 actual minutes in the 2 hour running time where I was truly gripped and caught up in one of the endless cliff-hanging chase scenes / battles with the black giant penis-headed Xenomorphs (my late friend H.R.Giger's nightmarish conception, most likely derived from the monstrous figures of Francis Bacon's 1944 triptych "Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion," see photo below).

Francis Bacon's "Three Studies" triptych

But once that flurry of engagement subsided, just when you thought the thing was finally over (another padded-out bladder-buster), the creaky plot-machinery cranked up again...and again!...and again!!...(spoiler alert: no sequel footage after the end titles--really? As I needed to vault down from the balcony to the sub-basement to hit the john pronto-and I waited for that??).

Stentorian music/sound design was okay ('cept for the many mumbled and incomprehensible line readings). Score by Benjamin Wallfisch quoted from Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner and other Alien composer alums, and there was an actual needle drop from Wagner's "Das Rheingold" buried deep in the mix when they explained the "Romulus"/"Remus" Reference (triple r alliteration).

Note to Lukas Ligeti--the opening music rolls out with an approximation of yr dad's "Requiem" as famously used in Kubrick's 2001, all shrieking celestial voices from the Choir Invisibule--just like in Jerskin Fendrix's score for Yorgos Lanthimos's Kinds of Kindness. I know, I know (believe me, I know), directors often put music cues they haven't licensed into their rough cuts and so fall in love with them that they often mandate their eventual Designated Composer to come up with soundalikes.

Gary Lucas in the Giger Museum in Gruyères

Anyway folks, the late Hans Giger was a strange and lovely man--he was a big fan of The Golem, and invited me to perform my live score with the film during a Retrospective they gave him some years ago at the National Technical Museum in Prague --that's another story. If you want to see what Giger was up to in the shadows of the Swiss Alps, far far away from Hollyweird, you could do worse than check out the H.R. Giger Museum in Gruyères.

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What Big Modern Retellings You Have

Chet Kozlowski — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 21:46:47 +0000

What Big Modern Retellings You Have Chet Kozlowski August 19, 2024 - 17:46

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Film Review

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horror

To Kill A Wolf

There are only so many story plots. I’ve heard the total set at ten, then thirty-four. Whatever the number, the point is that the stories we tell have narrative precedents and what springs from them are variations on established themes.

Fairytales are a particularly fertile source of these plots: they are short, structured, and carry a strong moral message. And they’re as good a jumping-off point as any for first time writer/directors. Two recent films, To Kill a Wolf and The Beast Within, offer contemporary takes on Little Red Riding Hood. In both, all the elements are there—naive girl, dense woods, Grandma, wolf, woodsman—but each posits a unique interpretation.

Let’s look under the hood(s).

To Kill a Wolf

In To Kill a Wolf, the Woodsman is a bearded recluse named Jonah who lives in the mountains of Oregon. He trawls the woods with a metal detector to expose wolf traps set by his predecessor for local ranchers. Jonah lives a spare existence; it’s a job and he needs the money. One day, he comes upon an unconscious young woman huddled in only her clothes in the snow and cold (she has on a red hoodie, of course). Dani is a teenage runaway, who after much reticence claims a “disagreement with my aunt” sent her into the wilderness. Jonah offers to take her home, though he resents the obligation. “If you can’t help yourself, help somebody else,” he huffs half-heartedly.

The house they go to is empty. Dani fesses up that it’s her grandmother’s and Grandma has died recently. Dani and her aunt Jolene (Kaitlyn Doubleday) and Jolene’s husband Carey (Michael Esper) have been packing up her belongings and closing out the place.

From the opening scenes of To Kill a Wolf you know you’re in good hands. Kelsey Taylor’s script and direction are steady and confident, and—as the story’s contours become clear—perfectly proportioned. By that I mean she resists overreaching in the manner of other American indies whose ambitions are bigger than their budgets. Ms. Taylor knows what she wants and has a terrific cast and crew to help her get it. She plants subtle symbols and connects narrative threads.

To Kill a Wolf is as engrossing a drama as I’ve seen in a long time: poignant, horrific, and fully realized. Ivan Martin and Maddison Brown make the bond between Jonah and Dani believable and heartbreaking. Mr. Martin builds Jonah’s character out of grunts and ticks. He’s a gruff man with his own cross to bear. Ms. Brown’s Dani is achingly conflicted; there’s a lot brewing behind those eyes. As Jolene, Dani’s aunt, Kaitlyn Doubleday shows the restraint that comes from enduring a sour marriage. And Michael Esper as husband Carey keeps switching masks as one of the most slippery characters I’ve seen in a long time. Even David Knell’s brief turn as The Rancher is simple and direct.

Suspense builds from character and is honestly earned. Several scenes are memorable, including Jonah instructing Dani how to free a wolf from a trap (it’s his goal in locating the traps to sabotage them), and a kitchen scene of psychological manipulation.

Music plays an important role in the film, and the mournful score by Sara Barone and Forest Christenson and sound design by Eric Wegener guide the action. The original songs are used prudently and sound appropriate, codes from an alternate universe. Adam Lee’s cinematography is dense and moody.

The producers of To Kill a Wolf are proud that it’s a “truly independent film” (as of this writing, Kelsey Taylor even handles sales). All in all, this is an understated gem and a wonderful film by a first-time auteur.

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To Kill a Wolf. Directed by Kelsey Taylor. 2024. 92 minutes.

The Beast Within

The Beast Within

The Beast Within updates Little Red Riding Hood differently.

A family in a farm on the English countryside suffers a family curse: every full moon, Noah the father turns into a wolf. When Imogen the mother knows it’s coming on, she packs him in the car, drives him far away, chains him to a stone wall, and leaves him to transform and take out his rage away from them. Later, when he’s back to normal, she brings him home. (The era is indeterminate: on the farm it’s medieval times, but they travel by Range Rover).

Mother and father try to keep this routine hidden from their eleven-year-old daughter Willow. All she knows is her father goes away periodically and comes back looking worn out. And that surly old Grandpa doesn’t like his daughter Imogen’s involvement one bit.

Willow is the film’s protagonist, and she’s played by Caoillinn Springall, a child actor whose features would, in an earlier time, make her the favorite model of classical painters. She has a penetrating gaze, an earthy laugh, and wears a red cape. Willow is curious about where Noah disappears to, and one night stows away in the car and beholds the harrowing scene. Imogen placates Noah with a sacrificial farm animal, chained within reach, to satisfy his appetite. The bloody carnage Willow witnesses intrigues her as much as it scares her.

So, okay: The Beast Within is shaping up, maybe into an allegory about Willow’s imminent womanly flow (hello, full moon) and sexual awakening. The movie looks great, besides: Daniel Katz’s cinematography has stunning clarity; shots are composed and lit like Gregory Crewdson photos, darkness punctuated by beams of celestial light. Looks like writer/director Alexander J. Farrell (a documentary filmmaker; this is his first narrative feature) is on to something.

And for a good half hour these ideas fall into place. But then things fall apart. These good ideas crumble, the direction becomes ambiguous and the editing choppy.

To make matters worse, this happens to an exceptional cast: Noah is played by Kit Harington, Jon Snow from HBO’s Game of Thrones. James Cosmo, who plays Grandpa, is also from Game of Thrones, plus Braveheart, and Amazon Prime’s Jack Ryan. Imogen, the mother, is played by Ashleigh Cummings, best known for her role in Amazon Prime’s Citadel, but chosen here for her young looks and resemblance to Caoillinn Springall’s Willow.

The Beast Within has foils and surrogates galore. Willow’s maternal grandfather is a doppelganger for Dad, a version of him older. Willow is a dead ringer for her girlish Mom; in fact, they switch roles, in dress and action. This doubling comes off as intentional and plays into the theme of filial destiny.

The father is the problem. Mr. Harington tries mightily in his portrayal to show the effects of his curse: he plays Noah big, with grand gestures and a theatrical roar. But his scenes are truncated; his characterization is not cohesive. How does the movie expect us to take Noah? Is he a good man or an asshole? This ambivalence redirects the story’s point of view from Willow’s. It’s plain someone will be consumed, but who and by what?

The wolf creature design is an afterthought, accomplished with shadows and silhouettes. But the monster isn’t the point anyway. This is an allegory, remember, not a special effects fest. Which makes the climax disappointing: it’s too abrupt and explicit, and the denouement is made up of montages that suggest more footage was shot—whole sequences—than what was used in the final cut.

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The Beast Within. Directed by Alexander J. Farrell. 2024. From Well Go and Arclight Films. 84 minutes.

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Who’s the Little Man?

Chet Kozlowski — Sun, 18 Aug 2024 21:31:09 +0000

Who’s the Little Man? Chet Kozlowski August 18, 2024 - 17:31

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Film Review

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drama

Domestic abuse is a provocative topic for drama. The control of one person over their significant other goes to our essential notion of individual freedom. So, it’s useful to think about how a French movie might treat the subject differently from one produced in the US.

The occasion for this is Valérie Donzelli’s entirely watchable new film Just the Two of Us. That’s not meant as faint praise: I was stuck to the screen for the whole runtime. But in the end, I felt a little…undernourished by what I’d been shown. This may be the difference between Gallic and American film expectations, but it also implies an acceptance of spousal dominance in polite society.

In Just the Two of Us, Blanche is an intelligent, accomplished woman and a teacher who happens to be unattached romantically when her twin Rose fixes her up with Grégoire. He remembers Blanche from school; she does not remember him. He comes on as a charming and ingratiating (if ordinary) fellow who dotes on her and wins her heart. They marry and start a family, but cracks show almost immediately. He wants Blanche to himself and convinces her to move away from her sister and mother. He puts her on a rigid schedule, calls repeatedly while she’s in class, and stalks her at work. He turns her life into “a complete wasteland,” devoid of personal agency. This toxicity continues until Blanche seeks some kind of recourse.

If this were a US film instead of a French one, one can imagine it lurid and violent. Americans expect violence to beget violence as a catharsis. In 1977’s The Burning Bed, Farrah Fawcett Majors literally sets Paul Le Mat (remember them?) on fire. In Enough (2002), Jennifer Lopez solves her trauma by kicking the shit out of her husband, Billy Campbell.

Just the Two of Us—original title L'amour et les forêts (Love and Forests)—plays down exploitation almost to blandness. Its attitude seems to be that this is just how some marriages evolve. Just the Two of Us is not a thriller, exactly. Comeuppance is in short supply. The film is compelling due to the performances of Virginie Efira, who plays both Blanche and Rose and Melvil Poupaud as Grégoire. His spousal control is portrayed as the obsession of a needy man caught between adolescence and adulthood; his psychosis plays down. Both actors are excellent and, as I’ve said, watchable.

Anyone who has had experience with domestic abuse will recognize the signs sooner than Blanche does (or chooses to), but they’re all there, including Grégoire’s refrains of “If you loved me a little, you’d have never let me treat you like that,” and “How can you love me and turn me into a monster?”

An intriguing scene has Grégoire acting out in front of a stranger and then attempting to stare that woman down. They recognize each other’s type. The woman is a stranger to him but no stranger to domestic abuse. When he’s gone, she wryly asks Blanche, “Who’s the little man?”

The device of Blanche and Rose being twins comes to little effect. The point is made that both siblings come from a strong mother and are not easily manipulated, but the narrative opportunities of twin-dom are not explored. Rose’s role in the plot could be accomplished by a sister of any status, a sympathetic friend, or, for that matter, no one at all. Ms. Efira does a valiant job of portraying both women, but the difference ultimately comes down to bangs or no bangs.

It’s directed by Valérie Donzelli, a prolific French actor, so much so that she plays herself in the Netflix series Call My Agent. She’s directed several shorts, TV episodes, and feature films, including Notre Dame (2019) and Nona et ses filles (2021).

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Just the Two of Us. Directed by Valérie Donzelli. 2023. From Music Box Films. 105 minutes. Streaming, on VOD, and DVD.