Special Features

Temporary installations on this page may include highlighted individual film reviews, articles on particular themes written by me or others, "bests" lists (annual postings in early January), and notes on film festivals, especially the annual Portland International Film Festival (PIFF) that occurs in February.  Read on...

There are 3 current special features: Best Films Seen in 2007; Portland International Film Festival - 2008; and How Many Roads Must a Boy Walk Down...The Early Bob Dylan

Current Special Feature #1 ...

BEST FILMS SEEN IN 2007

© Roland Atkinson 2007, 2008

Final Version, January 27, 2008

As in years past, I once again refuse to make a “Top 10” list. Too many good films. Too many film genres that cannot easily be compared. Too pretentious to suggest that something rated #3 is better than #4, as if one had calipers for measuring such fine distinctions. My top rated films are listed by categories I make up each year to suit the available material and my personal whims. (I generally avoid horror, mainstream action, fantasy, science fiction and animated features.)

Titles are followed by country of the film’s origin or sponsorship, in parentheses, if the film comes from abroad. Also-rans are listed in alphabetical order. Because I don’t get to see every film during the year of its release, a few may show up on this list that were on national critics’ lists for 2006. In turn, I’ve not yet seen some 2007 releases that some critics liked; several haven’t screened yet in Portland (see my “caveat collection” below). Reviews of all films on my list are linked to their titles below and posted on the “Current Cinema” page. Just click on the film title to go to its review.

If you haven’t seen it before, be sure to read the amusing article that follows my list, by Louis Menand, on “best lists,” from The New Yorker magazine.

THE FILMS

DRAMA (tie): The Italian (Russia) and The Kite Runner ALSO: Atonement (UK/France); A Comedy of Power (France); Michael Clayton; Private Fears in Public Places (France)

PSYCHODRAMA (dramas featuring prominent behavioral/emotional issues): The Savages ALSO: The Secret Life of Words (Spain)

DOCUDRAMAS/BIOPICS (tie) : Charlie Wilson's War and Chronicle of an Escape (Argentina) ALSO: Breach; Control

ACTION/SUSPENSE/MYSTERY: No Country for Old Men ALSO: Eastern Promises (UK/Canada); The Host (South Korea); Invisible Waves (Thailand); Red Road (UK/Denmark)

COMEDY: Eagle vs. Shark (New Zealand)

ON THE ROAD AGAIN: Into the Wild ALSO: The Darjeeling Limited

JANUS AWARD for best comdram (or dramedy) – hybrids of comedy and drama: Juno

OLDIES BUT GOODIES: The Rules of the Game (France) (new print of Jean Renoir’s 1939 classic)

GENERAL DOCUMENTARIES: When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts ALSO: Born in the USSR: 21 Up (Russia)

BIODOCS: Jimmy Carter Man from Plains ALSO: Touch Me Someplace I Can Feel

IRAQ (tie): In the Valley of Elah and No End in Sight ALSO: A Soldier’s Peace; The Soldier’s Tale

OTHER WAR ZONES: Letters from Iwo Jima (the Japanese experience in WW II) ALSO: Blessed By Fire (Argentina/Spain) (the Argentinian experience in the Falklands War, 1982); Days of Glory (France/Morocco) (French Moroccan combatants in WW II); Grbavica (Bosnia) (aftermath of the Bosnian War); War/Dance (aftermath of war in Northern Uganda)

U.S. & WORLD SOCIAL CONDITIONS/HISTORY/GEOPOLITICS: Persepolis (France/US) ALSO: 12:08 East of Bucharest (Romania); The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Ireland/UK)

DOWN ON THE FARM: King Corn

MUSIC/ARTS/DANCE: Eloquent Nude:The Love and Legacy of Edward Weston & Charis Wilson ALSO: Bob Marley and Friends; Pete Seeger: The Power of Song; When the Road Bends: Tales of a Gypsy Caravan

THIS SPORTING LIFE: Mystic Ball (Canada) (about chinlone, the national sport of Myanmar)

EL MUNDO DE LATINOS AMERICANOS: The Citrillo’s Turns (Mexico) ALSO: Play (Chile/Argentina); The Violin (Mexico)

FAR AWAY PLACES: The King and the Clown (South Korea) ALSO: The Story of Pao (Vietnam); Ten Canoes (Australia)

BIZARRO AWARD (lots of strange stuff going on) (tie): Fido (Canada) and The Host (South Korea) ALSO: Hot Fuzz

MENTAL HEALTH-RELATED FILMS: Hear and Now ALSO: Autism:The Musical; Away from Her (Canada); Canvas; Where’s Molly?

BIG BIRD’S FEEL-GOOD FILM OF THE YEAR: Naming Number Two (New Zealand) ALSO: Eagle vs. Shark (New Zealand)

CAVEAT COLLECTION (films released in 2007 I have not yet seen that could have altered my lists): 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Romania); The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; Before I Forget (France); Flight of the Red Balloon (France); Import Export (Austria); Killer of Sheep (oldie - 1977); Lady Chatterley (Belgium/France); Paranoid Park; Romance of Astree and Celadon (France/Italy); Secret Sunshine (South Korea); Silent Light (Mexico/Germany); Southland Tales (US/Germany); State Legislature; Still Life (China/Hong Kong); Syndromes and a Century (Thailand) and Yella (Germany).

BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR (3-way tie):

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (France/US); The Lives of Others (Germany) and There Will Be Blood

AWARDS OF DUBIOUS MERIT:

ANITA EKBERG GRATUITOUS CLEAVAGE PRIZE: Gong Li and her court of at least 100 young women in Curse of the Golden Flower (Hong Kong/China)

METAPHYSICAL MELANGE (big ideas, big yawns): The Bothersome Man (Norway/Iceland)

CRITICS’ KNEE-JERK AWARD (most overrated films of the year) (tie): Ratatouille and Sicko

GOLDEN GOBBLER AWARD (worst film seen this year): Zoo ALSO: Hula Girls (Japan)

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      Best of the "Best"

       By Louis Menand

As Aristotle said (was it Aristotle? maybe is was Parmenides), Man is the list-making animal. He was dreaming, no doubt, of a list, someday, of the Top Ten Philosophers. Such a list might fall a little short of universal appeal. That cannot be said, though, of the lists of the year’s Top Ten Movies…that arrive each December, during the week before New Year’s. Everyone acts so superior to lists (so arbitrary and invidious!), but the act is a bluff. The fact of the matter is basic and ineluctable: we need these lists. The year would not be complete without them. The year would not make sense without them.

The first response to the appearance of the ten-best lists is simple gratitude. It is good to know that someone has been paying attention…You need, you realize, a list, and in exactly the same way that a drowning sailor needs a life preserver. The people who make these lists, the daily or weekly reviewers, have crossed the great sea of packaged amusement, pathos, and distraction for us, and they have emerged, clutching in their hands just ten plastic jewel cases. Here, they say; these are the best. We can imagine the nausea and entertainment fatigue they must have suffered during their twelve-month ordeal. We admire their grit and their pluck, and we salute them.

Of course, like all things that pretend to perfect transparency, a top-ten list is the result of juggling and calculation. It looks straightforward: ten numbers, ten titles. Of the (at least) five hundred movies released in the United States in 2003, these just happen to be the best ten, and in this order. (Critics who present their top-ten lists alphabetically are dodging their own bullets. If ten movies are clearly superior to the four hundred and ninety others, why would it be elitist to make further distinctions? If you can get a top ten, why can’t you get a top five, and a top three, and a top one?) But best-ness isn’t the only factor that goes into the making of an annual ten-best list. After all, what does every critic who makes a ten-best list secretly wish? That his or her list will be the best ten-best list. The list itself has to be fun, interesting, good.

For example, it would not do to list ten movies all of which star Nicole Kidman. Pure eclecticism is to be avoided; it duplicates the dizzying randomness of megastore experience. But a good list displays a healthy, big-tent ecumenism, and an expansive tolerance with respect to Billboard rankings and box-office gross. In a mass-market publication, a movie list should contain one foreign-language film that few readers have heard of. (To have more might look effete.) Uniqueness is the desideratum here. A critic does not want to see his or her “surprise” item turning up as the “surprise” on another critic’s list. Conversely, in an “alternative” or highbrow publication the movie list needs one blockbuster – one film the critic liked despite the fact that everyone else liked it. The chief thing is to run an item or two against the grain of the readership. It is depressing to read a list of movies and realize that you missed all of them, but it is just as disappointing to discover that you have seen every one. You want to know that there are still a few truffles left in the box.

Above all, a good top-ten list should convey authority. Not quite Olympian authority, maybe; readers should be able to argue with it, to dissent a bit at the margins. But, ideally, the list should suggest a finality of judgment: life is short; your time is precious; spend it on these. It has to be said that, in this regard, there are trends in end-of-the-year list-making that people concerned about the future of our civilization ought to view with alarm.

The main trouble is the practice of publishing multiple ten-best lists. The credibility of any list is naturally weakened by the presence of an alterative list right next to it. This year, the Times (New York Times) ran three lists of the ten best movies, one by each of its chief film critics. The result was a total of twenty-four top-ten movies. Only six movies appeared on more than one list, and not one appeared on all three. What are we to think? That there was not a single movie that three basically like-minded persons writing for a mainstream paper could agree on as an obvious top ten? Then the paper ran a piece in which the critics quarreled with each other over the rest of the year’s movies. It was demoralizing, like watching your parents argue: of course they do, but you don’t need to know about it.

The publication of multiple ten-best lists is probably a well-intentioned effort to embrace the principle of pluralism, and to make a democratic acknowledgement that taste is, after all, a personal and subjective matter. The effort is mistaken. Pluralism and democracy are fine things, but they have no place in the evaluation and consumption of pop culture, especially today, when, all around us, the sea is rising. The critic is the dolphin who can take us over the waves. The image is from Plato, or, if it wasn’t Plato, one of the other top guys.

---- from “Talk of the Town,” The New Yorker magazine, January 12, 2004, pp. 23-24 (slightly abridged)

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Current Special Feature #2...

PORTLAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (PIFF 31)

February 7-24, 2008
All reviews © Roland Atkinson 2008

Latest postings: February 23, 2008
Reviews of 52 films. That's all, folks!

Below the titles list (films seen), reviews are posted by title in alphabetical order.
Reviews of several short films follow feature length film reviews.

FILMS SEEN
(Click on any title to go to its review)
(Films rated B - or higher are recommended)

THE REVIEWS

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS (4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile) (Cristian Mungiu, Romania, 2007, 113 m.). For roughly 24 hours, we share the tensions and uncertainty of two young women, students who are dorm roommates, as one of them, Gabita (Laura Vasilio), seeks an illicit abortion and the other, Otilia (Anamaria Marinca, in an award winning turn), tries to help her. Though much has been made of a subtle political trope in this film (it is set in 1987 in the waning years of the Ceausescu regime), I found this theme too understated to be noticeable. For me the film is primarily a study of character, of personality and adaptability, in the face of unaccustomed stress. Where Otilia is principled, dependable, resourceful and loyal, Gabita is self absorbed, deceitful, unreliable and dependent. Granted, Gabita is the one who is pregnant, but you’re struck by the sense that her helplessness cuts far deeper than her present exigency can explain. The other principals are also interesting studies: Viarel Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), the steely abortionist, and Adi Radu (Alexandru Potocean), Otilia’s nebbisher boyfriend.

ALEXANDRA (Aleksandra) (Aleksandr Sokurov, Russia/France, 2007, 95 m.). SPOILER ALERT! Aleksandr Sokurov, a veteran director now 56, has made 46 film and television productions to date. He has become increasingly daring in his recent projects. He made Russian Ark in 2002, noteworthy because the entire 99 minute movie is filmed in one continuous tracking shot. In 2005 he made The Sun, a remarkable character study of Japanese Emperor Hirohito in the final days of World War II, starring the prominent Japanese theater actor, Issei Ogata, and spoken entirely in Japanese (and a bit of English). Now Sokurov has cast 81 year old Galina Vishnevskaya, a former operatic diva and the spouse of Mstislav Rostropovich for 52 years until his death in April, 2007, in her first feature film role, as Alexandra, grandmother of a Russian officer deployed in the occupation of Chechnya, who comes to visit him at a hot, dusty, windswept forward base near Grozny, her journey accompanied by a pensive, elegiac musical score.

As Alexandra, Ms. Vishnevskaya is on camera in virtually every scene. Her character is a formidable, somewhat taciturn woman who is remarkably plucky and at ease in the unusual circumstances of riding in a boxcar with young soldiers on a military train, then in the top of a Russian troop carrier, finally arriving at her grandson Denis’s (Vasily Shevtsov) tent for a needed nap while he is out on a mission. After a warm reunion with Denis (they hadn’t seen one another in seven years), Alexandra stays on at the camp for a number of days until Denis is to be deployed for a long mission elsewhere. At one point she boldly walks out of the camp and strikes up conversations with Chechen women in a nearby town, and she returns with gifts for several soldiers in Denis’s company. What is both surprising yet entirely believable is the civilizing effect Alexandra’s presence has on the young soldiers. They respond to her as a maternal figure, treating her with a chivalrous degree of respect that is almost comical at times, though always touching and sincere. At the end, Alexandra must retrace her journey home, but not before stopping back in town to exchange hugs and addresses with several Chechen women she has befriended.

Sokurov has succeeded in making one of the most unusual anti-war movies I’ve seen. No political statements. No polemics. Just the actions of a matter-of-fact, good woman in bringing out the humane side of soldiers and bridging the gap with “the enemy.” Transcending perspectives of the Chechnian war itself, this film makes as good an attempt to humanize warriors as I’ve seen on screen. The film was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, 2007. (In Chechen & Russian) Grade: A- (02/01/08)

Add: It seems strange by the standards of our military protocol that a civilian relative could visit a base near the front. But this isn't the first time we've seen this sort of event in a Russian film. In Sergei Bodrov's 1996 masterpiece, Prisoner of the Mountains, based on a story by Tolstoy, a young Russian soldier captured by Chechen Muslim guerilla fighters bids his mother to come to the front, in the rugged, isolated Caucasus, to plead for his release. I don't know whether these filmic events are examples of a common practice in the contemporary Russian Army, or whether they simply represent the exercise of artistic license to tell a compelling story. After living in exile for many years with her family, Ms. Vishnevskaya these days directs an opera center in Moscow that is named for her; a soprano, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1961 as Aida, and her debut at La Scala in 1964 as Liù in Turandot.

THE ART OF NEGATIVE THINKING (Kunsten å tenke negativt) (Bård Breien, Norway, 2006, 79 m.). A marathon group therapy session for physically handicapped patients and their partners serves as a tidy vehicle for exploring the passions that can bubble forth when people with major disabilities own up to their intense resentments and longings. Think Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I have worked at close range with military veterans who had sustained serious spinal injuries that left them terribly crippled, and I can attest that the rage displayed in this film – especially by the two younger persons with quadriplegia and paraplegia, respectively – is as authentic as the air we breathe. The razor sharp, acidic character who exposes the illusions and masquerades of others is the enraged, impotent paraplegic, Geirr (Fridtjov Såheim), whose truth-telling function here is precisely like that of Randall P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) in Cuckoo’s Nest. This raw psychodrama may place too much healing value on angry catharsis, and it may unfairly demean the CBT methods and good intentions of the therapist, but it is riveting, incendiary stuff. (In Norwegian). Grade: B+ (02/18/08)

THE BAND’S VISIT (Bikur Ha-Tizmoret) (Eran Kolirin, Israel/France/US, 2007, 87 m.). Here’s a successful comedy from first time writer/director Eran Kolirin, an ebullient and funny young fellow who was present at this screening to discuss his film and generally horse around. This little story, which was made up by Mr. Kolirin, takes place over roughly 24 hours; it is a tale of cultural divide overcome by human connection. The band in question is Egyptian: an eight-member uniformed police band from Alexandria that has come to play in a small Israeli desert town as part of a cultural exchange celebration of a newly opened Arab Arts Center. The band is led by an older, taciturn fellow, Lt. Col. Tawfiq Zacharya (Sasson Gabai), who brooks not even a hint of insolence, a feverish affect that nearly boils over in one of the band’s newest members, the tall, seductive Khaled (Saleh Bakri). Left by the bus in the wrong place, Col. Zacharya’s little troupe benefit from the goodwill of a woman who runs an eatery, Dina (Ronit Elkabetz, who starred in Or [My Treasure]).

Fun in this movie comes in various forms. The awkward billeting of three bandsmen with a family headed by a gloomy fellow who turns out to be musical. A subtle little physical comedy sequence at a roller rink, when Khaled teaches a young local fellow by example how to hit on a young woman he pines for (a sequence that would win Buster Keaton's approval). Or the fey little wave that the Colonel gives to Dina as the troupe departs the next day for the right town. Dina, who seems to be an equal opportunity lover, aims her charms first at the Colonel, later at Khaled, with more success. The film not only works on a light comedic level, it also speaks volumes about the boredom and cultural isolation of rural Israelis, who seem entirely left behind from the “progress” in urban areas. This is one of those occasional films that you hope won't end, but alas it does, and in under 90 minutes at that. Sigh.

Mr. Kolirin, who was raised in Israel, remembers family visits to small, dusty, forsaken rural towns like this one. For political reasons, Egyptian actors could not be cast as his bandsmen. Thus three of the eight are Israeli Jews (including Sasson Gabai), and the others are Palestinians. Palestinians are OK, Egyptians not? Go figure. Also, the film has had only limited screenings in Israel and none in any Arab state. Nevertheless, Band's Visit received Israeli film academy awards for best director and best screenplay; the film also has won awards from such diverse venues as Cannes, the European Film Awards, and festivals in Montreal, Munich, Sarajevo, Tokyo, Warsaw and Zurich. (In Arabic, English & a small amount of Hebrew – too limited an amount for the film to qualify as Israel’s entry this year for a best foreign film Oscar.) Grade: A- (02/07/08)

BEAUFORT (Bufor) (Joseph Cedar, Israel, 2007, 125 m.). SPOILER ALERT! The massive Beaufort Fortress, high on a hill overlooking a vast plain in southern Lebanon, was built by Crusaders in the 12th Century. In 1982, in the Israeli incursion into that area, an IDF contingent seized the fort, at great cost in lives and injuries. The IDF occupied the fort for the next 18 years, evacuating only when Israel exited southern Lebanon altogether in 2000. The story of the last days of the occupation of the fort was told in a novel by Ron Leshem, who subsequently co-wrote, with director Joseph Cedar, the screenplay of that story for this docudrama. At the 2007 Berlin IFF, Cedar ( Campfire) won a Silver Bear Award for Best Director.

We meet Lieutenant Liraz (Oshri Cohen), a surly but resourceful maverick, ultraloyal to his men: Oshri (Eli Altonio), Koris (Itay Tiran), Shpitzer (Arthur Perzev) and Meir (Danny Zahavi), among others. (A significant problem for viewers of this film is the difficulty in sorting out and keeping straight just who is whom among the men, since they all wear hats and their faces are typically cast in shadows. I’m still not entirely sure of everyone’s identity.) Things get nasty right away when Ziv Faran (Ohad Knoller), a bomb specialist called in to neutralize a roadside IED, is killed while trying to defuse the bomb. It gets worse after that, as Hezbollah guerillas begin to use state-of-the-art Russian missiles (probably acquired through Syria, though we aren’t told this) against the IDF occupiers, so the rebels can claim responsibility for Israel’s withdrawal (which in fact was months in the planning and unrelated to any new Hezbollah offensive).

The story is a grim one of besieged soldiers whose common peril intensifies their intimacy. In that sense, the narrative is closely parallel to that in Clint Eastwood’s recent Letters From Iwo Jima, about the Japanese experience of the U.S. invasion of that infamous island stronghold. We learn that the bloody occupation of Beaufort in 1982 was a strategically unnecessary mission, one that in fact had been called off by IDF commanders at the last minute, though the message never got through to the front line troops (the “fog of war” revisited). In one of the more poignant scenes, we witness the battle hardened Lt. Liraz suddenly paralysed, overcome with terror and pain, as he watches one of his closest buddies wounded by shrapnel. In another, some of the soldiers are huddled around a large screen TV watching a news interview with Ziv Faran’s father, Amox (Ami Weinberg), a war hero himself. The elder Faran, grief stricken over his son’s death, speaks pensively of his regret that he did not better prepare his son for life. How? the interviewer asks. 'By teaching him more about the importance of fear,' Faran replies. (In Hebrew). Grade: B+ (02/16/08)

BLIND MOUNTAIN (Li Yang, China, 2007, 95 m.). Writer/director Li Yang made the shocking film Blind Shaft in 2003, a narrative exposé of the incredibly dangerous occupation of coal mining in China. Thus, I had moderately high expectations for this new story of the illicit selling of young women as brides, set in an isolated mountain village in northern China in the early 1990s. Instead I found this film quite disappointing. Bai is sold to a tough farming family early on. She continually struggles to get free but is held as a virtual prisoner by her unwanted new husband’s family. On and on her captivity persists, and her tearful shrieks permeate everything else. The result for me is not compassion but tedium, sad to say. (In Mandarin) Grade: C+ (02/13/08)

BREATH (Soom) (Kim Ki-duk, South Korea, 2007, 84 m.). SPOILER ALERT! Kim Ki-duk, who has made some interesting films (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter…and Spring; 3-Iron) comes up with something new here that is notable for its unusual narrative and the superior performances of its principals, Taiwanese actor Chang Chen (Jang Jin, a convict on death row) and Park Ji-a (Yeon, an artist trapped in a dissatisfying marriage with her philandering spouse). Yeon learns of Jang Jin’s latest suicide attempt in prison and hits upon a way to stir her husband’s jealousy: by befriending the murderer in prison. She goes about the business of charming the convict in a series of visits to the prison in which she stages elaborate, altogether entertaining encounters with him. Inevitably her husband catches on, just as Yeon had hoped. The only troubling element in the story is the mercurial emotional tumult that Yeon expresses toward both men, suddenly changing from affectionate to nasty, or vice versa. Nominee for last year's Palme d'Or at Cannes. (In Korean) Grade: low B+ (02/12/08)

CARAMEL (Sukkar banat) (Nadine Labaki, Lebanon/France, 2007, 95 m.). A delightful, if formulaic, romantic comedy. Four women who are close friends deal with life and love in their separate ways. Three of them work together in a Beirut beauty salon (called Si Belle, though the “B” on the sign out front has come loose and hangs upside down throughout the film, perhaps a hint of lingering disorder from recent conflicts in that beleaguered city). These three are: Layale (the stunningly gorgeous Nadine Labaki in her second feature film; she also makes her debut here as a director and co-writer), who easily attracts male attention; Nisrine (Yasmine Elmasri), who is about to be married; and Rima (Joanna Moukarzel), a lesbian who becomes enamored of a lovely, and willing, customer. The fourth chum is Jamale (Gisele Aouad), a fading actress who doesn’t get much work any more and spends a lot of her time in the beauty shop hoping to look younger.

Rounding out the excellent ensemble are Layale’s Aunt Rose (Sihame Hadad), who in early middle age still hopes for love, and her demented mother, Lili (Aziza Semaan). It is remarkable that Mss. Elmasri, Moukarzel, Aouad and Hadad are acting here for the first time in a feature film. Give Nadine Labaki great credit for evoking such strong, believable performances from these newcomers as well as the more experienced supporting cast.

It is easy enough to label this film a “chickflick” or to fault it for exploring familiar territory in a somewhat clichéd manner. However, according to Lebanese people who have reviewed the film on the IMDb, this movie represents a bold step forward in the quality of Lebanese cinema. Not only that: I think the characters are engaging, even endearing, for men as well as women viewers. Some have (justifiably in my view) likened Caramel to Almodóvar’s films that deal with female relationships, like All About My Mother and Volver. As in his films, Caramel is full of well-photographed, brightly colored sets and location shots. The production design is highly interesting: both the beauty shop and Rose’s seamstress shop are furnished and decorated more like someone’s home than a commercial establishment. The film offers ample insouciant humor and a fast moving pace. The music, arranged by Khaled Mouzannar, who apparently is Ms. Labaki’s fiancé, is perfect: gentle, slow paced light melodic material that works well against the fast visual pace of the film. What’s not to like here? (In Arabic & French). Grade: B+ (01/29/08)

CHICAGO 10 (Brett Morgen, US, 2007, 103 m.). Documentarist Brett Morgen (Ollie’s Army, On the Ropes, The Kid Stays In the Picture – the last two co-directed with Nanette Burstein) has written and directed a sensational new film that tells the story of the leaders of the Vietnam War protesters who demonstrated at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, in Chicago, and their subsequent trial. To create this vivid, stirring film, Morgen has combined a soundtrack of popular music of the times, archival footage of events in 1968, and ingeniously composed digital animated sequences of the trial of the protest leaders in 1969, in Federal District Court, in Chicago, using quotations from the trial transcript, spoken by the voices of several leading actors, representing the animated images of the defendants, their attorneys and government prosecutors, several witnesses, and the presiding Judge, Julius Hoffman. The film weaves back and forth between archival segments and animated trial segments in a lively, absorbing manner.

Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley's response to the impending demonstrations was to call in the Illinois National Guard and train Chicago police officers in aggressive riot control techniques. As a result, news commentator Walter Cronkite said, just beforehand, that "the Democratic National Convention is beginning soon...in a police state." Although the film is decidedly sympathetic to the defendants and their cause, this slant on matters is entirely justified by the outcome of subsequent appeals that overturned every conviction arising from this trial, as well as Bobby Seale’s and the defense attorneys' trials. (For the record, the “Chicago Eight” were: Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Seale and Lee Weiner. Judge Hoffman ordered a separate trial for Seale, leaving the “Chicago Seven.” The other two individuals rounding out the “10” were the lead defense attorney, William Kunstler, and assistant attorney, Leonard Weinglass, both of whom were convicted by Judge Hoffman of contempt of court. For more, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Seven ). The animated trial sequences were prepared by Switch VFX and Yowza, both under the direction of Joao G. Amorim. Excellent editing was accomplished by Stuart Levy. Voices were those of Hank Azaria, Dylan Baker, Nick Nolte, Mark Ruffalo, Roy Scheider, Liev Schreiber, James Urbaniak and Jeffrey Wright, among others. Winner, Silver Hugo for Best Documentary, at the 2007 Chicago IFF. Grade: A- (02/04/08).

Add: Weiner and Froines were acquitted from conspiracy-to-start-riot charges, though they were convicted of making incendiary devices ("stink bombs”). Rubin became a successful businessman and investor. Abbie Hoffman continued his radical theatrical approach to social protestation. He died at age 52 in 1989, apparently from a suicidal drug overdose. He had been diagnosed as bipolar in 1980 and kept copious notes on his moods. Of the 7 surviving protest leaders at the time, only Rubin and Hayden attended Hoffman's funeral. Rubin himself died at age 56 in 1994 as the result of injuries sustained when, as a pedestrian, he was hit by a car. David Dellinger continued as a protester of war and free trade agreements, among other issues, until his death at 88 in 2004. William Kunstler died in 1995 at age 76; earlier that year he had spoken out against the death penalty. Except for Hoffman, Rubin, Kunstler and Dellinger, the other principals are still living. Davis is a venture capitalist and lectures on meditation and self-awareness. Hayden had a successful career as a California state senator; more recently he has taught college courses and serves on the advisory board of Progressive Democrats of America. Seale sponsors youth education projects and lectures together with his wife, also a former BPP member. Weiner continues to be an activist in various social causes. Froines became a professor of toxicology at UCLA. Leonard Weinglass most recently defended the "Cuban Five" and Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Add more: Not long ago, I revisited Haskell Wexler’s 1969 film, Medium Cool, which audaciously combines a narrative drama about the ethics of photojournalism with live action location shots in which the actors actually mixed in with protesters at the 1968 Democratic convention. Apart from Wexler’s daring conflation of fact and fiction, what impresses is that the film establishes the same sense of immediacy and relevance now that it did nearly 40 years ago.

THE COUNTERFEITERS (Die Fälscher) (Stefan Ruzowitzky, Austria/Germany, 2007, 98 m.). True story of the largest counterfeiting operation in history, “Operation Bernhard,” launched by the Nazis in 1936 to create pound notes and dollars in huge volumes, enough to potentially break the British and perhaps the U.S. economies were the bills to flood domestic markets. The central character is Salomon “Sally” Sorowitsch (played by Karl Markovics), considered the best counterfeiter in Europe, who led the high life in Berlin until his arrest for counterfeiting in 1939. He is sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp, where he survives by drawing heroic portraits of SS officers and their families. Then he is sent to the Sachsenhausen camp, where he is assigned to lead a team of counterfeiters to create the best possible British and U.S. notes.

The story, based on a book by one of the surviving members of the team, Adolf Burger, is presented with a high level of suspense. We share the prisoners’ apprehension, not knowing what fate lies in store for them from one day to the next. Markovics is outstanding as the lean, tough criminal whose sole motivation is survival, even if this means contributing to an effort that supports Nazi plans. Others, even the Nazi supervisor of the counterfeiting project, appear at times to be on higher moral ground than Sally. The photography, editing and production design are excellent. Austria’s entry in the best foreign film Oscar nominations. (In German) Grade: B+ (01/28/08).

Add: On February 24, this film won the 2008 Oscar for best foreign language film.

THE DUCHESS OF LANGEAIS (Jacques Rivette, France/Italy, 2007, 137 m.). SPOILER ALERT! CONSUMER ALERT! Approaching age 80, Jacques Rivette continues to make films. According to François Truffaut, Rivette was the father of the French “New Wave,” but Rivette has never been commercially successful. One huge reason is that he makes very long – sometimes extremely long - and, on the whole, boring movies. The last of his films that I suffered through was the 2001 talkathon, Va Savoir (Who Knows?), in which people blathered on for 2 hours and 35 minutes, and that, for unclear reasons, was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes that year. Duchess, at least, is slightly shorter and less gravid with talk. Based on a novel by Balzac, the story concerns an ill-fated romance between two members of Parisian nobility, set around 1820, starting around the time Napoleon I ended his reign as Emperor. The principals are Antoinette, the sparkling and ever so coquettish - never mind that she's way too old to be an ingénue - Duchess of Langeais (Jeanne Balibar, who also starred in Va Savoir), and Gen. Armand de Montriveau, a weary, humorless French army officer (Guillaume Depardieu, Gerard’s son, whose limp here is real: a chronic bone infection, the residuum of a motorbike accident, required amputation of his leg a few years ago). Both principals behave like idiots, and as a result, their love is never realized. According to a Parisian reviewer on the IMDb, the screenplay adheres closely to Balzac’s story. Too bad. Given the lack of appeal of these two characters, we might have disposed of their lunatic romance in at least an hour less time than Rivette takes here. Again for mysterious reasons, this film was nominated for a Golden Bear (Best Film) Award at the 2007 Berlin IFF. Sigh. With veterans Michel Piccoli, Bulle Ogier and Barbet Schroeder in support, among others. (In French) Grade: C (02/04/08)

EMPTIES (Vratné lahve) (Jan Sverák, Czech Republic, 2007, 100 m.). SPOILER ALERT! Flawless, lighthearted comedy about aging, sex, love, sex and aging, made by Jan Sverák (Kolya, Dark Blue World). Zdenek Sverák, the director’s father, wrote the screenplay and stars as Josef Tkaloun, a 65 year old high school literature teacher who retires rather than face the humiliation of apologizing to an influential family for having punished their smart aleck son for back talking in class. (Zdenek Sverák also wrote the screenplay for Kolya and starred in that film as Franta, world class concert cellist and curmudgeon who is forced to match wits with a five year old boy in his grudging care.) In a word, Empties is way better than Kolya: comedies featuring too-cute kids often have trouble lifting higher than a few feet above ground.

Following his retirement, the immediately bored Tkaloun searches for the right part time job, finally ending up as the empty bottle taker at a supermarket, where he becomes the social hub for customers and staff alike. His longsuffering wife sees him as a fool who does not know his limits, his daughter’s marriage is breaking up, and his sexual fantasy life is expanding dangerously. Where will it all end? There is one side-splitting toss off line after another dotted through this film. Examples. Heard on a TV soap playing in the background of the Tkaloun apartment, She: “Which bank did you put it in?” He: “My money or my sperm?” Or, when Tkaloun and his wife are walking down a sidewalk and another man passes them, Tkaloun says, “That man said ‘Hello’ - now there’s a sign that good manners still exist.” His wife replies, “The man was talking on his mobile.” Or, when a familiar customer reappears after a hiatus, he tells Tkaloun, “I was in detox, my wife sent me, (shaking his head) there was nothing there but alcoholics!”

And on it goes. There’s the lithesome “sexual tornado” who makes tally marks on her belly: is she counting orgasms or what? There’s the old woman with a paranoid psychosis who talks about the people who break into her apartment to swap things and surveille her from a nearby rooftop. There’s the horny brunette teacher, and ‘Hunnertwasser,’ the wife’s devoted German pupil, and on and on. This film is a hoot from start to finish. Impeccable. With Daniela Kolárová as Tkaloun’s wife, supported ably by Nella Boudová, Pavel Landovský, Jiri Machácek and Tatiana Vilhelmová, among other bright lights. (In Czech). Grade: A (02/13/08)

FAMILY TIES (Gajokeui tansaeng) (Kim Tae-Yong, South Korea, 2006, 113 m.). SPOILER ALERT! Three stories about the complexity of family bonds. Each story runs about 35 to 40 minutes. In the first, a brother and sister have a highly conflicted relationship, owing to the brother’s penchant for getting into trouble with the law, and his tendency to sponge off his sister to get by, when he’s not in jail or leaning on some other woman for support. In the second story, a spiteful woman rages at just about everyone in her life, but she reserves her most venomous antipathy for her mother, whom she views as an insensitive whore. But rage turns to grief before this tale is finished. The third story takes us back to a young man and woman whom we saw meeting for the first time on a bus at the beginning of the film. We learn surprising things about the girl’s mother. An intriguing film about the seemingly infinite variety of human connectedness. Won the 2007 South Korean Grand Bell Awards for best film and best screenplay. (In Korean) Grade: B (02/10/08)

FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON (Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan/France, 2007, 113 m.). To mark the 50th anniversary of the release of Albert Lamorisse’s immortal short film, The Red Balloon, Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien has prepared a feature-length homage film. In Red Balloon, which earned an Oscar for best original screenplay and a Palme d’Or at Cannes for best short (34 minute) film, a boy, played by Lamorisse’s son, makes friends with a red balloon which follows him around Paris, to his school, and so on. There is no dialogue. Hou’s film begins and ends with a similar theme: a boy and a red balloon in Paris, but mainly the balloon, which soars and dips, finds its way into a Metro tunnel and out again, and drifts up along the sides of buildings, casting its shadow lyrically.

Sandwiched between these red balloon bookends is a small domestic drama built of little events and encounters in the daily life of an actress, Suzanne, played by Juliette Binoche. The film centers on Suzanne, who always seems to be in a breathless dither about one thing or another, spreading chaos wherever she goes; her precocious grade school age son Simon (Simon Iteanu), whose days are buffeted by the ups and downs generated around him by his mother; and Simon’s cool new nanny, young Fang Song (same name as the actress who plays her), a film student just in from Beijing, who brings a bit of serenity and order into Simon’s life. The film is not at all plot driven: nothing much happens. Suzanne rehearses as the main voice for a puppet show. Suzanne has a row with her upstairs tenant, who never pays his rent. Simon’s piano teacher Anne comes in for his weekly lesson. And in one of the more moving sequences in the film, a blind piano tuner comes to call. There you have it. (In French). Grade: B (01/31/08)

FOREVER (Heddy Honigmann, Netherlands, 2006, 95 m.). Heddy Honigmann, who gave us the enchanting 1998 documentary, Underground Orchestra, about buskers performing in the halls of the Paris Metro, spins another, more meditative non-fiction story about famous people buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, where you can find headstones for Jim Morrison and Maria Callas; Marcel Proust and Sadegh Hedayat, Iran’s leading modern fiction writer; Oscar Wilde and Simone Signoret. Honigmann takes us to a number of gravesites, including some for ordinary people. She interviews folks who have come to pay their respects, from locals (an exile from Franco’s Spain comes regularly to honor her deceased husband) to people from as far away as South Korea (to visit Proust). Honigmann finds a Japanese concert pianist, Yoshino Kimura, at Chopin's headstone, and we return to Ms. Kimura playing Chopin pieces in interludes throughout the film. After glimpsing Callas’s headstone, we are treated to archival footage of her singing, and after seeing the stone monument for Yves Montand and Simone Signoret, we see her in a scene from Diabolique. And so on. There are wasted moments now and then; for example, when a man carries on endlessly about Proust, showing us illustrations from a graphic account he has prepared, illustrations too small and poorly photographed for one to really see them well. The French often talk too much. Yet this quiet, lyrical and, for the most part, absorbing film is a delight. (In French & English). Grade: B+ (02/13/08)

GETTING HOME (Luo ye gui gen) (Zhang Yang, Hong Kong/China, 2007, 110 m.). Co-writer/director Zhang Yang (who made the highly original films Shower and Quitting) here gives us a bizarre road movie in which two older men who are/were friends head for the hometown of one of them, Liu (Hong Qiwen). Trouble is Liu is dead, and that’s why his body is being taken back home for a proper burial by his friend Zhao (Zhao Benshan). Fortunately Liu is the smaller, more slight one, so the more robust Zhao is able to carry him everywhere, sometimes for very long stretches on foot, at other times, mercifully, in buses, trucks and even, at one point, in the payloader scoop of a giant piece of earthmoving equipment. There are other highly humorous moments: especially memorable is Zhao’s encounter with a robber whose gang commandeers a bus on which the two friends are traveling. Another is Zhao’s ill-fated effort to catch a break by tucking Liu into an oversize tire to roll him along. The obstacle to this viewer's ability to effectively suspend disbelief is the nagging thought that Liu's body, as the trip spans several days, should be decomposing and stinking to high heaven, but apparently it's not. Winner of the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 2007 Berlin IFF. (In Mandarin). Grade: B (02/19/08)

IMPORT/EXPORT (Ulrich Seidl, Austria, 2007, 135 m.). [NOTE: I missed the first hour of this film, seeing just the last 75 minutes (56%). Therefore I cannot grade it.] Olga (Ekateryna Rak), a nurse in Ukraine, cannot support her child and mother on the meager wages she earns there, so in desperation she moves to Vienna where the best she can do is become a “cleaning lady” at a state-sponsored nursing home. Meanwhile, Pauli (Paul Hofmann), a Viennese security guard, is hassled by a pack of thugs and subsequently fired. Out of viable options, Pauli reluctantly joins up with his stepfather, Michael (Michael Thomas), going off to the slums of Slovakia and Ukraine to eke out a marginal living peddling candy in coin machines. Having introduced these principal characters, the rest of the film moves back and forth, following the respective experiences of these displaced people.

Olga is kind and empathic, often tending directly to patients’ needs, for which efforts she is constantly rebuked by the nursing staff, especially one nurse who is jealous of Olga’s good looks and winsome manner with patients. Pauli and Michael find themselves in dangerous circumstances at times as they move from one decrepit housing project to the next. There are interesting side vignettes. Olga is treated well, if seductively, by a male nurse, and also becomes the object of adoration of one of the old male residents. Pauli and Michael do not get on well. Michael is basically a greasy scumbag, a bully who enjoys teasing prostitutes, while Pauli, though no angel, is far more principled than his stepfather. This grimly realistic movie rivets one’s attention on people struggling to survive in a Europe that clearly benefits many others more than these folks. With Erich Finsches as the patient with a crush on Olga. The film was a nominee for the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2007. (In German, Slovak, Russian & English). Grade: ungraded (A- based on what I saw). (02/12/08)

IN THE HELIOPOLIS FLAT (Fi shaket Masr El Gedeeda) (Mohamed Khan, Egypt, 2007, 118 m.). [NOTE: I only saw the first 45 minutes of this film (about 40%) and therefore cannot grade it.] A gorgeously photographed, miserably acted soapy chickflick. Love, flirtation, sex, commitment, romance and the incessant nagging of daughters by their overbearing mothers are themes dwelt upon generously here. What drove me out of the theater, though, was a woman giving birth on the tile floor of a public restroom. Give me a break! (In Arabic). Grade: ungraded (grade C- for the part I saw). (02/20/08).

IT’S A FREE WORLD… (Ken Loach, UK/Others, 2007, 96 m.). SPOILER ALERT! Ken Loach once again is on the march, exploring yet another important social issue. This time it is the shadowy underworld business of importing illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe to London, a business offering huge profits to the “coyotes” and misery to their “clients.” Loach, operating here with his usual team (writer Paul Laverty, editor Jonathan Morris, production designer Fergus Clegg, music coordinator George Fenton), takes a decidedly different tack than usual in the shape and odyssey of his central character. Typically, his protagonist is a decent person, someone fighting the system, or a group effort (My Name is Joe, Bread and Roses, Sweet Sixteen, The Wind That Shakes the Barley). But in Free World he has chosen an anti-heroine, Angie (Kierston Wareing, a newcomer starring in her first feature film). Angie begins reasonably well. She’s in the legitimate business of arranging for guest workers to enter Britain legally. Working for a larger recruitment firm, she demands papers and proper visas, though the hopeful workers still must pay a handsome fee to come to Britain.

The film opens with Angie recruiting in Katowice, the main city in the Upper Silesian area of Poland. Next we see her and a fellow recruiter and friend, Rose (Juliet Ellis) deciding to open their own recruiting business. Soon Angie gets word that her grade school son has injured a fellow student in a scrap. Angie immediately comes to the school for a conference with the principal. So far she seems to be an upstanding citizen and single mom. But from there it’s downhill big time, as Angie begins to get greedy. She owes a bundle on her credit cards, used to start up the new business, but still buys a costly motorcycle and fancy leathers. One thing leads to another, and she begins importing illegals for higher stakes, meanwhile losing interest in her son, whom she farms out to the grandparents. Angie, a firebrand of sorts from the getgo, becomes progressively more aggressive and nasty even as she increases her take. Angie’s now on a crash course of corruption and out of control avarice. She is not even dissuaded when physically attacked by an angry worker. Rose, conscience stricken by Angie’s increasingly antisocial actions, resigns from the business. When last we see her, Angie is recruiting in Kiev, Ukraine, and we know it is with a large group of illegals.

There are continuity problems in this film. After taking a punishing beating, and left with a swollen cheek and bruised eye, Angie appears in the very next scene entirely recovered from these injuries. And, after being unable to pay workers and right after a burglar steals half their cash, we see Angie and Rose occupying opulent new offices. Although the message is scathingly clear, i.e., that deplorable trafficking in human life goes on around us, I for one prefer the Loach/Laverty narratives in which one or more persons emerge to fight against some social injustice, rather than a crooked anti-heroine who with impunity and pluck moves on to more successfully corrupt behavior. I thought that the Dardenne Brothers' 1996 film, La Promesse, presented the issues surrounding importation of illegal workers into Western Europe with more poignancy and conscience. Also, Ms. Wareing speaks with an east-Essex style that is nearly incomprehensible – I got about 20% of her words. Mr. Loach, bless his heart, gave us subtitles in two of his films in which people up north spoke in indecipherable working class Glaswegian (My Name is Joe, Sweet Sixteen). So why has he failed us now? (in English, sort of) Grade: B- (01/31/08).

JAR CITY (Mýrin) (Baltasar Kormákur, Iceland/Others, 2006, 93 m.). SPOILER ALERT! A convoluted whodunit that concerns murders both new and old; hereditary disease; vengeance; one seriously destructive convict; and two cops: one crooked, the other decent. The honest but world weary police detective Erlendur (Ingvar Sigurdsson) lives alone on the top floor of a large apartment house, except when his drug addled daughter Eva (Ágústa Eva Erlendsdóttir) stays with him. Arriving at a murder scene, Erlendur says to a colleague, “a typical Icelandic killing: messy and pointless.” In the process of investigating this murder, Erlendur is confronted with the need to solve another killing, this one 30 years earlier. Another entangled plot line concerns a family with neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder that has killed at least two individuals and is carried by others in the family, one of whom, Örn (Atli Rafn Sigurdsson) is intent on killing his mother for having propagated the disease, leading to his daughter's lethal affliction. Baltasar Kormákur has made films that, if not better, were at least more lucid; his biggest hit to date was the excellent sex farce, 101 Rekjavik. He wrote the screenplay for Jar, adapted from a novel. Perhaps the best feature of the film is the highly effective use of choral music (a policemen’s male chorus that we see while singing, and dirge-like chants of an unseen mixed chorus on-and-off throughout the film). The plot is sufficiently twisted that I was never sure till near the end just who was who and what was what. This made for gratuitous strain, I felt. With Ewindur Erlendsson and Theódór Júlíusson rounding out the supporting cast. (In Icelandic) Grade: B (02/01/08)

M FOR MOTHER (Mim mesle madar; Mi like Mother) (Rasool Mollagholipoor, Iran, 2006, 113 m.). Reputed to be one of the most popular films in the history of Iranian cinema, M for Mother is an odd blend of intriguing, boldly explored themes embodied in a vehicle that is pure, over-the-top cornball melodramatic schmaltz. Set in Tehran, probably in the 1990s, the film’s themes include traditional attitudes of scorn and rejection of children born with major disabilities, and the institutional warehousing of such children; illegal abortion; illicit drug dependence in a married woman; divorce; symptoms of chronic post traumatic stress disorder in survivors of the Iraq-Iran War, including flashbacks and suicidal impulses; the long range effects of Iraq’s use of chemical weapons in that war; and the sabotage of a woman’s musical career by her husband. Quite a list. How did the infamous Iranian film censors let all of that get by? The gorgeous young actress Golshifteh Farahani, member of a family that is prominent in Iranian film and theater, plays Sepideh, the central character, who refuses abortion in order to bring her almost surely deformed child into the world. The supporting cast are all able players, including Hosein Yari (Sepideh’s husband), Mohammad-Ali Shadman (their son), Jamshid Hashempur (Sepideh’s brother), and Sahar Dolatshahi (her sister-in-law). (In Persian & Armenian). Grade: low B+ (02/12/08).

Add : In the print I saw, the subtitle for the film's name is Mi Like Mother, which fits better, since it has to do with a woman coaching her son to hit the right notes on his violin. The film's director, Rasool Mollagholipoor, died of a heart attack at age 52, a few months after this film was released.

MAN’S JOB (Miehen työ) (Aleksi Salmenperä, Finland, 2007, 97 m.). SPOILER ALERT! Tommi Korpella plays Juha, a robustly framed but gaunt, sullen, seemingly defeated man, weighed down by the responsibility of caring for a depressed spouse, Katja (Maria Heiskanen), who pouts for want of a new car and washing machine, and two young children, one of whom isn’t actually his. We meet him just when he is being fired from his factory job. Like Vincent in the French film Time Out, Juha cannot bring himself to tell Katja that he’s lost his job, so he fakes going to work for over two months. Privately, he decides to become an independent handyman but doesn’t let on that he’s not going to the factory. When that cover gets blown, he ‘goes to work’ at another factory. He’s gone to work elsewhere, all right. He’s stumbled onto a lucrative business that will bring in the dough to buy Katja the goodies she longs for: he joins the sex trade! Yes, Juha becomes a working class gigolo, catering to the needs of older women and even a teen with Down Syndrome, whose parents have hired Juha to teach the girl about sex, though all she wants is to kiss him. Things fall apart when Juha is injured twice in one day and lands in the hospital. A believable drama with enough comedic touches to steer clear of becoming maudlin. It's well done. With Jani Volanen as Olli, Katja’s cheesy alcoholic first husband (and Juha’s grudging accomplice). (In Finnish) Grade: B+ (02/17/08)

MISTER FOE (Hallam Foe) (David Mackenzie, UK, 2007, 95 m.). Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot, Dear Wendy) plays Hallam, an aggrieved young man who cannot get over his mother’s death two years earlier, complicated by the fact that his father rather quickly took on a new wife, who, Hallam suspects, killed his mother. Miserable in the company of his father and stepmother, Hal ventures off to Edinburgh on his own, gets a job as a dishwasher in an upscale hotel, and meets several intriguing people there, foremost of whom is the personnel manager, Kate (Sophia Myles, from Tristan + Isolde and Art School Confidential), who looks just like Mom. Things sort themselves out in this play that is part romantic comedy, part whodunit, with themes of voyeurism and suicide wafting through for good measure. It's a full plate. With Ciarán Hinds, Claire Forlani, Ewen Bremner and Maurice Roëves in well played supporting roles. The cartoon sequences (birds on tree branches and other stuff) playing behind the front- and end-credits are charming. (Filmed in Edinburgh, Glasgow and the border country near Peebles, Scotland.). Grade: B (02/08/08)

THE MONASTERY: MR. VIG AND THE NUN (Pernille Rose Grønkjær, Denmark, 2006, 84 m.). SPOILER ALERT! Jørgen Laursen Vig was a skinny, long bearded, eccentric Danish bachelor who died not long ago at the fairly ripe age of 82. In his youth he had enjoyed several retreats at Benedictine monasteries. He was a scholar, and, in 1950, inspired by his retreat experiences, he chose for a thesis project at university to write about contemporary monasteries. Later, around age 40, he got the notion to create a monastery himself. As he puts it in this documentary about the achievement of his goal, “I want to make something enduring. That’s my ambition.” To this end he bought the old, decrepit, abondoned neo-Renaissance Hesbjerg Castle, out in the sticks on Fyn Island (the small middle island in Denmark located between Jutland, to the west, and Sjaelland, to the east), not too far from the city of Odense. He got the idea somehow that he wanted a Russian Orthodox monastery, and he went so far as to visit Patriarch Blagosloverine, head of the Moscow Patriarchate, to make his case.

It worked, and Vig began, largely on his own and now in his mid-70s, to shape up the place, which had lain empty for 20 years. The roof leaked, the inside walls and floor joists were rotted, the heating system was defunct, and so on. The grounds were wildly askew, and a few veges - tended by a sort of caretaker living in a trailer on the property – were mixed in with marijuana plants, presumably also tended by this fellow or somebody, for sure. Finally the day came when a small delegation arrived from Moscow to check out Vig and his castle. One of the two nuns is Sister Amvrosija (Ambrosya), who will, over the next five years, supervise the development of the monastery. The consecration of the building, enshrinement of the chapel, and setting up of conditions to house, feed and schedule the daily lives of a small contigent of 3 nuns, 1 driver/handyman, and, later, four unpaid Ukrainian volunteer laborers, was ostensibly Sister Amvrosija’s official mission. But as Mr. Vig and we viewers soon learn, Sister Amvrosija’s interests extend far beyond these purely religious administrative tasks.

In short, she rapidly became a huge force to be reckoned with: full of opinions about how to proceed with the castle’s restoration (far more extensive repairs needed than Vig had planned for); keen on financial and legal matters; and a sort of general ambassador representing the full panoply of the Patriarch’s interests in establishing the monastery. Not only that, she proves to be good in all of these roles, actually a whiz. Vig, a lifelong social isolate, had in particular kept his distance from women. “Women have secrets, they have feelings,” he says. And women also, in his opinion, tend to have ugly noses! Vig admits to having "complexes" about noses and ears, especially noses, and has always based his acceptance of other people on his judgment of their noses. Actually, the only person with a really “nice” nose, and ears too, for that matter, that he’d ever known, and thus the one person in his life that he claims to have been fond of, was his father. He says he cried for days after his father’s death. His mother’s nose was “dreadful,” and he was not “cuddly” with her, never kissed her, except, well, maybe once. He says he’s fully aware that “I’m deformed in some way.” “I am a cripple in certain respects.” By which he clearly means a psychological cripple.

As the title implies, the main theme of this film, the one deservedly getting the most footage and attention, is the marvelous - indeed colossal and protracted (over five years) - battle of wits between Vig and Sister Amvrosiya, two monumentally willful, smart, and deeply opinonated personalities. They go at it hammer and tongs. As an aside into the camera at one point, Vig ruefully confides, “It’s hard to argue with people who are always right.” Vig may have steered clear of women all his life, but this Nun has taught him in short order about the hazards of bucking a competent woman. It’s plain to see that he also deeply admires her. In grudging praise, he notes that “Nuns don’t get tired.” For her part, Sister Amvrosiya says she has “pity” for Mr. Vig (because of his personal distance from religion, though he does faithfully attend the little Sunday services with the Sisters). She believes that Vig’s gift of the Castle to the Church “has opened the gates of paradise for you.” Sister Amvrosiya continues to run the monastery and see to its gradual restoration, so there is little doubt that had Vig lived on, the two would still be fussing to this day. It is obvious from their exchanges that not only was Vig comfortable with the director, Ms. Grønkjær, who incidentally was making her first feature length film, but that they enjoyed one another’s company. Vig likened his ambition to create a monastery to Grønkjær’s desire to make this documentary, which in 2006 won the Joris Ivens Award for Best Film at the prestigious Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival. An empathic, brilliantly rendered account that tells a story of the creation of a monastery while telling another, even more compelling, story of a remarkable, almost larger than life relationship. (In Danish, Russian & English). Grade: A (02/19/08)

MONGOL (Sergei Bodrov, Kazakhstan/Russia/Mongolia/Germany, 2007, 120 m.). Mongol is a spectacular “Eastern” by Sergei Bodrov, who directed the 1996 Russo-Chechnyan War masterpiece, Prisoner of the Mountains (both films were also co-written by Bodrov, with Arif Aliyev). The first image we see in Mongol is a still, bearing a cautionary Mongolian proverb: "Do not scorn a weak cub. He may become a brutal warrior." This serves as a keynote for a story of Temudjin, the man who eventually would become Genghis Khan, covering his life from 1172 to 1206, from age 9 to 43. It is a story told by the adult Temudjin, reflecting back in time through a series of long flashbacks. The tale of his life is portrayed in epic splendor (aided by CGI), with a huge cast, high drama, and a lot of action, replete with bloodletting that would make Sam Peckinpah proud. Filmed in Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan, the cinematography by Rogier Stoffers & Sergei Trofimov is nothing short of majestic.

Mongolian commentators on the IMDb have derided Bodrov and the film for its historical inauthenticity, faux costuming, lack of character development, and the use, for the most part, of non-Mongolian actors whose command of the language varies from rudimentary to plain bad. All of this may be true, though the narrative line does conform rather closely to that provided in the only Mongolian source from that era, the saga-like “Secret History of the Mongols” (circa 1240), as reviewed in the Encyclopedia Britannica. For a westerner like me, and perhaps also for Russian audiences, lacking knowledge of the period and the background of Genghis Khan, and with no ear for the language, this film provides absolutely spot-on entertainment value. John Ford westerns were also often historically specious, but they too, like this eastern, were great fun to watch. (In Mongolian). Grade: A- (02/05/08)

MY BROTHER IS AN ONLY CHILD (Mio fratello è figlio unico) (Daniele Luchetti, Italy/France, 2007, 108 m.). Antionio (“Accio”) (Elio Germano) and his older brother Manrico (Riccardo Scamarcio) come of age in a small seaside town near Rome in the 1960s. Politics and women rule their lives. Manrico is a zealous Communist, Accio a dilettante Fascist who later converts to his brother’s cause. Accio initially is studying for the priesthood, but drops out because his sexual urges make him feel too impure to continue. Manrico, on the other hand, rejects religion: "Jesus was (just) a revolutionary who pissed off the Romans," he claims. Things turn ugly when Manrico adopts terrorist tactics. The plot offers no surprises: we all know that Italian male volatility fuel political extremism and sexual fervor, or so the stereotypes go. Elio Germano is a charming, roguish fellow, and the best scenes are those in which his Accio and Manrico scuffle. With Luca Zingaretti, Anna Bonaiuto and Diane Fleri as able supporters. (In Italian) Grade: B- (02/06/0

NOT BY CHANCE (Não Por Acaso) (Philippe Barcinski, Brazil, 2007, 90 m.). SPOILER ALERT! [NOTE: I missed the first 25 minutes of this screening; I saw the last 65 minutes (72%). Therefore I cannot grade it.] Set in contemporary São Paulo, this quirky, well crafted drama focuses on two men, who are strangers from different backgrounds that share in common a professionally channeled obsession to control their respective worlds with mathematical precision. Middle aged Ênio (Leonardo Medeiros) is an urban ground traffic controller, a virtuoso in the development and use of a system of computer controlled traffic lights to influence traffic flow throughout the city. The younger man, Pedro (Rodrigo Santoro), is a perfectionistic snooker billiards player who practices his sport for hours daily like a concert cellist, keeping detailed notes on shot angles and styles, and desired ball positions to increase his chances of running the table in competition. When Ênio’s ex-wife and Pedro’s wife both die in a common car accident, the bereavements of the two men drive each further into his attempts to achieve total control of his destiny. If only. Women unpredictably pop up in their paths to shake each in his pristinely ordered life. A first rate soap. The good visuals on display include the billiard game sequences and the sex scenes. Unlike the obligatory tedious graphic intercourse shots seen in nearly every other film these days, here we get lovely, silken close up shots of fingers caressing skin surfaces, in slow, overlapping fade-out-fade-in sequences. Oh, yes, there's also the greatest anti-chase sequence in film history: a monumental traffic tie-up orchestrated by Ênio (In Portuguese). Grade: ungraded (low B+ based on what I saw). (02/14/08)

OFF THE GRID: LIFE ON THE MESA (Jeremy & Randy Stulberg, US, 2007, 64 m.). [NOTE: I missed the first 10 minutes of this screening; I saw the last 54 minutes (85%), enough to justify grading the film, in my opinion.] On a high plain in New Mexico, some of society's outsiders, mostly military combat veterans and their families, have been drawn to a loosely organized community to live off the grid and away from mainstream America, which they had found insufferable. The film consists largely of segments from interviews with a dozen or so citizens of this encampment (most people live in RVs, some in more permanent structures). Most of the vets – from Vietnam, the first Gulf War, and even a few from the Iraq War – profess intense loyalty to their country but feel that the U.S. culture has failed them. American flags are very much in evidence. People home school their kids. One or more nurses tend to medical issues. Everybody is armed to the teeth. Shooting practice, rather than golf, is the most popular sport around. Some of the wives can’t stand living there, and long separations and divorces have resulted. Other families remain intact and seemingly the better for having moved to the high desert. There is a council of elders – we meet one of them, a white bearded, mandolin playing Vietnam vet – that deliberates on community problems that cannot be worked out among individuals. A pack of erstwhile homeless kids – the “Nowhere” group – moves into the area and begins to steal from others. The elders ponder what to do and decide to send in “the Mamas” – an ad hoc group of women of various ages and stations – to mediate matters. It works. The kids listen up and fly right in return for being allowed to stay on. The arrangement has now held up for a number of years.

The community and its citizens are presented in a sympathetic light. It is easy to admire these folks for minimizing their consumption of stuff (the money spent annually by the average family here is about $4 to $5 thousand, and many have government pensions that cover costs). The carbon footprints these people make are enviably tiny. Viewed from another perspective, however, the picture is less idyllic and more disturbing. For one thing, in most cases we taxpayers are subsidizing these folks, enabling them to live lives that center around idleness, music making, lots of pot smoking and booze guzzling, and gunslinging. Perhaps public support is a wise thing, though, when one ponders about how many of these men might have offed somebody by now, or themselves, had they remained in the mainstream. One elder had been educated at Exeter and Princeton. Isn’t his intellectual talent going to waste? Doesn’t the larger culture need the active participation of people who waste less, thus want less? Is it any of our damn business? Grade B (02/16/08)

OSS 117: CAIRO, NEST OF SPIES (OSS 117: Le Caire nid d’espions) (Michel Hazanavicius, France, 2006, 99 m.). If I tell you that this is an imaginative tour de farce, a brilliantly original, riotously funny, over-the-top, parodic send-up of the James Bond character and movies, is that enough? Just about. French comedian Jean Dujardin, a member of the five man improv comedy group “Nous C Nous,” pokes fun at Bond in an exquisitely spot-on manner: his character (named Hubert de la Bath, alias OSS 117) weighs in somewhere between Sean Connery’s Bond and Don Adams’s Maxwell Smart. His supporting cast are each and every one terrific as well. Amidst films of corruption, war, betrayal, violence, sexual indulgence and more reflective domestic comedy, OSS 117 shines through as a nonsense work of sublime comic genius, a welcome oasis, a breath of fresh air, if you can stop laughing long enough to breathe, that is. (In French). Grade: A- (02/17/08)

Add: My French language consultant is stumped just a bit on the English translation of the "Nous C Nous" group's name, but figures it is most likely to mean: "We, It's Us."

PARANOID PARK (Gus Van Sant, US/France, 2007, 90 m.). There is a tricky skateboard park tucked underneath the east end of the Burnside Bridge in Portland, Oregon, that was built clandestinely by skateboarders and subsequently legalized by the city as the Eastside Skateboard Park. I’ve been there more than once and can attest that the talent on display is amazing. You’ve got to be pretty good to want to skate there, where reputation and skill are always on the line. This place is also the principal location for Portlander Gus Van Sant’s latest meditation on the dark side of adolescent and young adult experience.

A security guard at a nearby train yard turns up dead - his body severed in half to be precise - after being run down by a train. According to a detective on the case, Richard Lu (Daniel Liu, in a superb first time film performance), DNA evidence links the death to a skateboard found in the Willamette River. Because of this evidence, Detective Lu questions a number of boys known to skate at the park, including the protagonist in this film, Alex (Gabe Nevins, who also performs outstandingly in his first film role). Alex is a humorless kid around 16 or 17 who may be depressed. His parents are separated and headed for divorce. His mother goes off to Las Vegas now and again. Though his father tries to remain connected to Alex, he's usually on his own, and his 13 year old kid brother seems to be his only reliable source of support in the family. Alex’s introverted moroseness permeates all of his interactions. At one point he tells a sort of girlfriend that “…something happened to me on some other level than daily events.” Is he simply reacting to the trauma of his family's dissolution? Is he suffering through the prodrome of a psychotic breakdown? Does he know something he’s not able to discuss with others, something he can only write about in a journal?

This story, based on a novel by Blake Nelson, is presented in a quiet, almost lyrical manner, very much in the style of Elephant, Van Sant’s last film about troubled teenagers. Problem-burdened young people have been the focus of other Van Sant films as well: think of Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting, Finding Forrester and Last Days. You might even say that the experience of troubled youths, especially boys/men, is the dominant theme in most of Van Sant’s projects. And what shines through especially is Van Sant’s understated, unsentimental compassion for these youths. Moreover, his ability to evoke excellent turns from first-time actors is exceptional. This is true not only with Nevins, Liu and several supporting actors cast in Paranoid Park, but also with previous young non-actors in Elephant and Finding Forrester.

The photography is always interesting. After collaborating with Harris Savides on four prior films, Van Sant has linked up this time with the internationally sought after cinematographer, Australian Christopher Doyle, with Kathy Li collaborating. So we don’t have Savides’s long tracking shots and over-the-shoulder, subjects’ perspective camera angles. Doyle and Li’s work is less about the subjects’ movement than more conventionally shot scenes, but many of these, like the opening scene of the neo-gothic St. John’s Bridge north of Portland, are beautiful. An exception is the brilliant slow motion footage of skateboarders doing their thing. The action shots here are better than most of those in Stacy Peralta’s skateboard documentary, Dogtown and Z-Boys (though in fairness, I should add that most of the historic skateboard shots in that film were stills taken by amateurs, not moving pictures: good archival material perhaps but poor in demonstrating the artistry and skill of the sport). A canny sense of - yes - paranoia is maintained by the use throughout Paranoid Park of ominous, discordant background sounds and murmured voices, not unlike the quality of auditory illusions and hallucinations described by persons suffering from schizophrenia or paranoid psychosis. At Cannes in 2007, Paranoid Park won the special, one-off 60th Anniversary Prize and was nominated for the Palme d’Or. Grade: A- (02/11/08)

PRICELESS (Hors de prix) (Pierre Salvadori, France, 2006, 104 m.). SPOILER ALERT! Audrey Tautou has come of age, in a sense. At 24, she played a convincing if somewhat quirky gamine in Amélie, then had a series of less than memorable roles. Now, at 30, she comes at us as a scheming, clever gold digger, Irène, who is willing to trade sex for financial security, or at least for unlimited credit to shop, in a frothy little sex farce set among the leisure classes. Despite her vamping manner and just barely dresses, Tautou's Irène falls short of being a femme fatale. She's sufficiently skinny to make you think, woops...Audrey's become anorectic. She has that emaciated physiognomy of a mannequin in a New Yorker couture ad. The film is saved by a crafty screenplay and by Gad Elmaleh, who plays Jean, a lowly bellhop and substitute barman at a classy Biarritz hotel where Irène is holed up with her latest sugar daddy. Bored one evening, she seeks some kicks in the bar, where she mistakenly thinks that Jean is another guest. Jean, with a face as soulful as a Bassett hound, and more than a little passive, may not be the brightest light on the tree, but he still knows more-or-less what to do with a willing lady. So he plays along, and, sure enough, it’s just a hop, skip and jump into bed, with Irène in the driver’s seat, so to speak. Later, of course, Irène drops Jean like yesterday’s underwear when she discovers his penury, and the rest of the film is an entirely predictable little journey bringing the couple back together again. (In French). Grade: B- (02/15/08)

ROMULUS, MY FATHER (Richard Roxburgh, Australia, 2007, 109 m.). SPOILER ALERT! This absorbing first feature film directed by Australian Richard Roxburgh, heretofore an actor, is based on Raimond Gaita’s autobiographical memoir of his childhood, in particular his relationships with his father and mother (see “Add” below). The film is set in rural Central Victoria, in southeast Australia, in the years 1960 to 1962, when Raimond was 14 to 16 years old (the role of Raimond or “Rai” in the film is played by Kodi Smit-McPhee, who was just 10 or 11 when the film was made). The story is told from Rai’s perspective; it is a story of immigrants from Eastern Europe who resettle. Rai’s father, Romulus (Eric Bana, Black Hawk Down, Munich) farms and builds outdoor wrought iron furniture. He’s the steady, faithful bulwark of the family.

Romulus’s wife, Christina (Franka Potente, Run, Lola, Run, The Princess and the Warrior), is another matter. Christina, at least as depicted here by Ms. Potente, suffers from a severe form of borderline personality disorder, marked by dependency, mood instability, promiscuity, excessive use of alcohol, and suicidal impulses. She shuttles back and forth between her family and another lover she lives with in town. This couple eventually have a child, and Christina is utterly unable (unwilling?) to properly care for the baby. Romulus tolerates this arrangement with the patience of a saint. Christina finally leaves Romulus for good, and he responds by becoming seriously depressed, to the point that he must be hospitalized. We see him in a state institution, virtually catatonic. Meanwhile, Rai is looked after by Romulus's older brother Hora (Marton Csokas in a shining support role).

The ending is bittersweet. Romulus comes home after months away, improved, and he rejoins Rai in what both hope will be a more tolerable life together. Judging by Rai’s subsequent life (see “Add” below), things did turn out pretty well. With small but good supporting performances by Russel Dykstra as Mitru, Christina's second husband, and Jacek Koman as Rai’s bearded older pal, Vacek. Bana and Potente are both excellent. Christina’s borderline disorder and Romulus’s depression are clinically quite authentic. The bond between father and son is especially well rendered. Kodi Smit-McPhee is rather too cute, and his face, with eyes wide apart, resembles that of an embryo, like Jackie Onasis. The film won several Awards from the Australian Film Institute. (In German, Romanian & English) Grade: low B+ (02/14/08)

Add : Raimond Gaita, now 60, was born in Dortmund, West Germany, in 1946, and in 1950 emigrated to Australia with his parents, Romanian-speaking, Yugoslavian-born Romulus Gaita and German-born Christina. Rai Gaita is an author and philosopher who divides his time these days between teaching at the Australian Catholic University (Melbourne campus), where he is Professor of Philosophy, and Kings College (London), where he is Professor of Moral Philosophy. His 1998 memoir was based on a eulogy he delivered at his father’s funeral in 1996.

THE RUSSIAN TRIANGLE (Rusuli samkudhedi; Russkiy Treugolnik) (Aleko Tsabadze, Georgia, 2007, 121 m.). A handful of Chechnyan rebels infiltrate a Russian city to assassinate former Russian soldiers who had committed atrocities against Chechen guerillas during the war. One of the former soldiers also has a grudge to settle with the rebels after his brother was blinded in the war. A thriller in which a young police apprentice, Kolya (Artyom Tkachenko – think Adrien Brody with long hair), shows up a nasty senior detective through persistent and often perilous efforts to minimize the mayhem. (In Russian) Grade: B+ (02/10/08)

SAVIOUR SQUARE (Plac Zbawiciela) (Joanna Kos-Krause & Krzysztof Krause, Poland, 2006, 105 m.). SPOILER ALERT! A widow, Teresa (Ewa Wencel), is, on the one hand, a tiny but tough, outspoken woman, employed in a high level job and physically fit, but she’s also prone to depression and regularly takes haloperidol (a very strong tranquilizer) and another psychoactive medication as well. Against her wishes, she has reluctantly taken in four houseguests in her somewhat cramped apartment, people who are open-endly staying on with her: her deadbeat son Bartek (Arkadiusz Janiczek), who can’t or won’t find work, and whom Teresa judges to be just like his abusive father, Bartek's wife Beata (Jowita [Miondlikowska] Budnik), who is chronically depressed, overweight, pouty, and also cannot work, she claims, because she must care for her two young children, also camping at grandma’s. This well wrought psychodrama follows the course and conflicts of these people over several weeks, or is it months? In the event, things go from bad to worse as the jagged edged, claustrophobic family circumstances grind on toward a critical resolution that lands Beata in prison for 15 years. The photography gives us many excellent close up views of the principals and the kids, which enhances the sense of people experiencing way too much togetherness for their own good. Wencel, Budnik and Janiczek collaborated on the screenplay, adding dialogue, suggesting that the Krauses work somethat in the fashion of Ken Loach. (In Polish). Grade: B+ (02/18/08)

SILENT LIGHT (Stellet licht; Luz silenciosa) (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico/Others, 2007, 127 m.). SPOILER ALERT! Writer/Director Carlos Reygadas creates lengthy, pensive, quietly mesmerizing, almost surreal tales about nearly mythical characters that seem to loom up out of the Mexican soil itself. So it was in his 2002 film Japón, and so it is again here, in a story of people living in a German Mennonite community in northern Mexico. The film begins with a slowly evolving sunrise, and ends similarly with a lingering sunset. Between these tranquil passages, and set in a context of the bucolic daily life of a wholesome farm family, a highly untranquil drama unfolds, one that involves an intense love triangle, an unexpectedly empathic father-son relationship, death, sealing and resurrection. It is a poignantly realized, heartbreaking tale, a film that is in nearly every sense superior to Japón. With Cornelio Wall (Johan), Miriam Toews (Esther), Maria Pankratz (Marianne) and Peter Wall (Johan’s father). This film won the Jury Prize at Cannes, and also awards at festivals in Bergen, Chicago, Havana, Lima and Rio de Janeiro. Filmed on location in Cuatemoc, Chihuahua , in northwest Mexico. (In Plautdietsch, Spanish, French & English). Grade: A (02/17/08)

Add: Plautdietsch is a low German language variant spoken by German Mennonites, over 300,000 of whom emigrated to the New World beginning in the 17th Century, to escape religious persecution. They settled in widely separated areas, including Canada, the U.S., Mexico, and several countries in Central and South America. Today the language is still spoken in Germany, Ukraine, Belize, Brazil, Paraguay, Mexico (“old colony” Mennonites), Canada (Saskatchewan, Manitoba) and the U.S.

SNOW ANGELS (David Gordon Green, US, 2007, 106 m.). [NOTE: I missed the first 25 minutes, saw the last 81 m. (76%); I think I saw enough to permit a fair review and grading of this film.] All of the usual suspects appear in the lineup of this ultraformulaic contemporary domestic psychflick: family dysfunction, alcoholism, infidelity, domestic violence, betrayal of friends, child custody battles, and three unnatural deaths caused by different means. It’s all so over-the-top that, were it not for everybody’s earnestness, you might mistake this psychodrama for satire. Writer/Director David Gordon Green chose to adapt Stewart O'Nan's novel for this film, and maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. His own original screenplay guided his earlier and much better film, All the Real Girls. Dubiously titled since it is in fact a first rate guyflick, Real Girls is a bittersweet and richly realistic story of a recognizable group of southern small town high school pals now in their mid-twenties and, to borrow a phrase, still crazy after all these years.

There’s only one rational couple in Snow Angels, and they are adolescents in the heat of first love: Arthur (Michael Angarano) and Lila (Olivia Thirlby), whose scenes together provide the only real substance to this movie. Oh, yes, there’s also one sane adult, Arthur’s mother, Louise (Jeanetta Arnette), but we seldom see her. The other adults are bonkers, though the actors do their bathetic turns well enough (Kate Beckinsale, Griffin Dunne, Nicky Katt, Sam Rockwell and Amy Sedaris – David S.’s kid sister). Filmed in a small town in Nova Scotia. Grade: B. (02/21/08)

Add: Filmmaker David Gordon Green and his adolescent star Michael Angarano (Arthur) were both present at this screening. Green, now 32 though he seems younger, at first in the Q & A was somewhat of a mumblecore type, an ‘aw shucks,’ frumpily dressed fellow who announced up front that he had just had braces installed on his teeth and thus would probably have trouble talking. But he warmed up in response to further questions, and his remarks gradually became more and more audible and interesting. Green said he elected to adapt another writer’s novel because his own imagination for original scriptwriting had sort of run dry at the time. He likes to create a relaxed atmosphere on set, and Angarano attests to this.

There was much talk about dialogue. Green's scripts are distinctive for the simplistic realism of the actors' lines. He says that he writes a script and has his cast first go through it adhering to what’s written. Then they go through it again, this time ad libbing in character. The final product is something of a Hegelian synthesis, scripted bits dotted with ad libs, he says. The result is, hopefully, something fresh. ‘In the end who cares what’s written on a scrap of paper,’ to paraphrase Green’s reference to the shooting script. Angarano says of Green’s approach that usually the cast more or less automatically reverted to primarily using the scripted dialogue. Green says he shrinks away whenever someone recommends a “clever” script for his review, because he knows this means “clever” dialogue that may play well on the page but will be unsatisfactory (i.e., too complex, to unlike real ‘talk’) on screen. [My take: the dialogue in Real Girls is especially noteworthy for its realistic simplicity, maybe more so than Angels.]

STILL LIFE (Sanxia haoren) (Jia Zhang Ke, China/Hong Kong, 2006, 111 m.). SPOILER ALERT! [NOTE: I saw the first 90 minutes of this film (80%) and missed the last 21 minutes. I feel I saw enough to be able to review and grade the film fairly.] A story of extreme social dislocation in contemporary China, focusing on the area around Fengjie, site of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. The film is part documentary, depicting activity surrounding the consequences of building the dam, and part a fictional narrative of individuals affected by changes, not only those caused by the dam but also more pervasive, long term economic and social forces in the country. Shot sometime before 2006, the film reveals the progressive stages of the dam's development and the consequences. The central town is now underwater. On somewhat higher ground, we see buildings being demolished that will be submerged by the next (3rd) stage of development of the dam. The demolition work is largely accomplished by manual labor – men wielding sledge hammers – that appears to be extremely dangerous. Walls collapse somewhat unpredictably. Indeed, we meet a character who has lost his right arm in an accident doing such work. Painted on the sides of many buildings is a mark indicating the eventual water level when stage 3 is completed. We see other buildings being marked with paint for future demolition and some of the individuals who will be dislocated. Now and again we glimpse from a distance the multi-tiered luxury boats ferrying tourists up river, as one sees in greater detail in the recent Canadian film production, Up the Yangtze.

Periodically we witness angry groups of local citizens demanding of officials long promised aid to these displaced persons. Now and again we also see groups of common people being entertained by a magician, mimes, singers and other performers. It is hot: these people sweat and the men wear just undershirts with their long pants. It’s difficult to know whether some of the group scenes are staged to resemble real events or spontaneously occurring non-fictional events. There are two complementary fictional tales. In one a man returns after an interval of 16 years, looking for his wife and daughter. He has been off working in the coal mines. This man’s old family home is in the part of the city that has already been completely submerged. After making contacts and learning of his wife’s whereabouts, he must wait for weeks until she returns to the area. Only then does he discover that his wife, whom he had originally purchased from her family many years earlier in order to marry, is in indentured circumstances requiring that he once again pay for her freedom. In the second narrative, a younger woman travels a great distance to locate her husband, and upon finding him serves notice that she has found another man she loves and wants a divorce.

This film has won high praise from critics internationally. Frankly I find it difficult to see why. Granted, it tells an epic story, writ both large and small, of social and physical upheaval in China. This subject of dislocation of millions of people - an estimated 2 million alone caused by the Three Gorges Dam, though this is but a fraction of the nationwide totals induced by economic change - deservedly has captured the interest of the director, Jia Zhang Ke, who previously made the film The World, about the dislocation of young adults from rural settings to the cities. I thought at the time that that film was plodding and uncompelling, though it was well received internationally. Still Life proceeds at a glacial pace, with frequent repetition of identical or highly similar scenes (demolition of buildings, high water marks painted on buildings, crowd scenes) to the point of inducing serious boredom for me (and for several others with whom I discussed the film afterward). In the fictional sequences, the actors are wooden and thus hold little interest after we initially meet them. They may well be non-actors engaged by the director for this film, but the use of amateurs is no excuse for bad acting: it simply means bad coaching or inadequate directing. Did Jia want these people to be so unexpressive because he sees their stoicism and lack of animation as representing the effects of the shock of change on people? Possibly. Who can tell. In any event, I could not sit for longer than 90 minutes, for I was on the verge of becoming a still life myself. Up against such acclaim, I guess I can only chalk up my reaction to an idiosyncratic dislike for most slow moving films. (In Mandarin). Grade: B- (02/20/08).

Add: we learn in the film that demolition workers make 50 yuan per day, while coal miners earn 300. The mines are far more dangerous than the dismantling of buildings, hence the larger wage. Many have protested the notoriously hazardous conditions in China's coal mines, and a number of mines have been shut down in response. The current Chinese experience of coal mining is very well explored in Li Yang's 2003 film, Blind Shaft.

TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE (Alex Gibney, US, 2007, 106 m.). [NOTE: I missed the first hour of this film, seeing just the last 46 minutes (43%), so I cannot grade it.] Alex Gibney’s (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) latest documentary confronts the use of murder, torture and the suspension of the rule of law by U.S. military and CIA personnel in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Iraq and rendition locales elsewhere in the world, since 9/11. Frank commentaries by various former government officials, most notably former FBI higher-ups, fairly sizzle with their implications of lies and criminal wrongdoing by top U.S. officials (Cheney, Rumsfeld, probably Bush, and, unwittingly, poor Colin Powell). Grade: ungraded (A- based on what I saw). (02/10/08).

Add: On February 24, this film won the 2008 Oscar for best feature length documentary.

TAXIDERMIA (György Pálfi, Hungary/Austria/France, 2006, 91 m.). SPOILER ALERT! Back in college, like me, or in the service, nearly every guy once witnessed some dude showing off by taking in a mouthful of cigarette lighter fluid, striking a match and holding it a few inches beyond his lips, then blowing out the fluid in a narrow stream through the match flame. The result is a blazing line of fire, like a human flamethrower. The effect on witnesses is one of eye-riveting incandescence and devastating concern about the uncertain fate of the stuntman. But having seen such an act in no way prepares you to see a man ejaculating an identical line of flame from the tip of his penis while masturbating. That’s exactly what you get early on in Hungarian writer/director György Pálfi’s latest edition of the strange, wild world of his imaginings. It was Pálfi, you may recall, who a few years ago gave us Hukkle, a decidedly quirky film about an old man with chronic hiccups and a conspiracy of women to poison all the men in their village, among other charming themes.

In Taxidermia, the onanistic rites of miserable army orderly Vendel Morosgoványi serve only to set up his assassination at the hands of Vendel's misanthropic superior, Lieutenant Balatony, whose wife produces his only child, a son, Kálmán, shortly thereafter. (Kálmán, by the way, is born with a pig-like tail, the appearance and disappearance of which is just one among many little tidbits casually tossed off in a Pálfi flick.) Kálmán naturally grows up into a huge fellow the size of a Sumo wrestler, who reaches the European “speed eating” championships, in a not quite delicious send-up of the more arcane Olympic sports events. This tale of three generations of men in the Balatony family ends with Kálmán’s son Lajos, a skinny little twit who reminds one of Andy Warhol. Lajos is a taxidermist who, besides stuffing dead animals, tends to three live cats being trained for speed-eating, and carries on a love/hate (mainly hate) relationship with his helpless father, who in old age has now oozed out into nearly boundaryless corpulence to resemble Jabba the Hutt. Definitely not a movie for folks who are unnerved by acts of necrobeastiality, copious vomiting or exercises in the practice of self-inflicted surgical evisceration. Hands down front runner for my 2008 Bizarro Award. The only films that come close to Pálfi's are those made by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children). (In Hungarian). Grade: “Z” (for zany; it's a film that defies being graded like other movies). (02/13/08)

TELL NO ONE (Ne le dis à personne) (Guillaume Canet, France, 2006, 125 m.). Absolutely first rate thriller, based on a novel by Harlan Coben, with a humdinger of a plot, a gorgeously shot whodunit full of marvelously wrought characters, replete with brutal killings, both remote and recent, martial arts feats, quests for truth as well as revenge, lies and cover-ups, super good guys and super bad, with a few at the margins in between, and a prolonged full throttle chase sequence that proves, once and for all, that a middle aged, cigarette smoking pediatrician can outrun a phalanx of younger Paris policemen in cars and on foot. What’s not to like in this sprawling crime story with a huge, stellar cast of actors, some of whom you’ve met before and a number you haven’t? Dazzling us with their fine turns are François Cluzet and Marie-Josée Croze as the pediatrician and his star-crossed partner, who’d been in love since childhood; the good “guys,” who pretty much turn out to be women, led by Nathalie Baye, Marina Hands and Kristin Scott Thomas; the bad “guys”: André Dussolier, Mikaela Fisher, Olivier Marchal and Jean Rochefort; the bad/good guys: Gilles Lellouche and François Bredon; and, finally, a very wise cop who resists leaping to premature conclusions: François Berléand.

The music is fabulous. Sometimes there is none. At other times we hear interludes of an enticing original score by Mathieu Chedid (billed here simply as “M”), featuring, for example, an especially lovely passage for cello and guitar. At still other moments, and often unexpectedly, there are wonderful songs performed by various male vocalists, including Otis Redding, Bono and the late Jeff Buckley, among others. Filmed in Paris and the rural/suburban department of Yvelines, west of Paris. The film won César Awards in 2007 for Best Actor (Mr. Cluzet), Best Director (Guillaume Canet), Best Editing and Best Music. (In French). Grade: A- (02/22/08)

Add: Guillaume Canet, the writer/director, who has also been a busy and popular actor for over 15 years, casts himself in a small part here, as a nasty fellow named Philippe Neuville. Canet also found bit parts for two presumed relatives, Philippe Canet, the pediatrician's father and possibly Guillaume's as well, and Marie-Antoinette Canet. Kristin Scott Thomas, who, for my money, has one of the sexiest noses in filmdom, speaks impeccable French (so far as I can tell, which isn't saying much) as Hélène, the lesbian partner of the pediatrician’s sister in this film. I had not been aware that Ms. Scott Thomas, now 47, has lived in Paris since she turned 19, where she is married but separated from her French obstetrician husband. She considers herself more French than English, though she was born and raised in Cornwall. Mikaela Fisher, a German actress with Eastern European roots who plays Zak, the sinewy woman with deadly martial arts skills, also lives in Paris. In addition to her martial arts prowess, she is proficient in horse riding, fencing, surfing, boxing, swimming and gymnastics. She plays French horn and flute, and her preferred dances are ballroom, tango and waltz. Oh, did I mention that she is also a comédienne? Hard to tell that based on the menacing role she performs in this movie.

THEN SHE FOUND ME (Helen Hunt, US, 2007, 100 m.). CONSUMER ALERT! This unfortunate film marks Ms. Hunt’s directorial debut (she also co-wrote the screenplay). She also stars in the film, as April, a woman who marries in her late 30s and desperately wants to have a child. After efforts at getting pregnant by her immature new husband Ben (Matthew Broderick) prove futile, he leaves her. Pregnancy, the death of a fetus, issues around adoption, and new romance keep April bouncing from one event to the next in a perpetual dither. This enterprise is a third rate soap opera. A number of scenes are poorly arranged (awkward intercourse between Ben and April in the rear seat of a car with the door open on a NYC residential street has got to be one of the least appealing movie sex scenes in memory). The photography is unimaginative, except that somehow, as a result of great effort, boom mikes are visible at the top of the frame at least a third of the time. While it is likely that the mikes were visible because the local projectionist selected the wrong aspect ratio, careful post-production work would have rendered each frame free of this nuisance in the first place, so that aspect ratio should not matter. This is the most egregious example of this flaw I’ve ever seen, and a telling note about the sloppiness of this production. The only reason to see it is author/public intellectual Salmon Rushdie acting in an uncredited bit role as