Month: June 2013

Resnais Adapts Anouilh: LFM Reviews You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet

By Joe Bendel. Can a play from the 1940’s, based on classical mythology, still speak to contemporary audiences? Alain Resnais will answer in the affirmative. As a consummate cinematic game-player, he naturally stacks the deck, casting a who’s who of French thespians in his meta-adaptation of Jean Anouilh’s Eurydice. Regardless, the star-crossed love still resonates in You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet, which opens this Friday in New York.

Orpheus and Eurydice supply the back bone of YASNY, but the framing device incorporates Anouilh’s Cher Antoine ou l’amour Rate. Playing themselves, the leading lights of French stage and screen are summoned to a memorial for their dear departed friend, playwright Antoine d’Anthac. As part of the ceremony, they are to watch a video of his/Anouilh’s Eurydice, to determine whether the avant-garde revival is worth staging. It is a work they are all familiar with, having each appeared in previous productions. Watching the screen, they get caught up in the story and their own memories and begin to act out Eurydice in concert with the recorded rehearsal.

Cast members overlap and echo each other, but Resnais always maintains the integrity of Eurydice’s storyline. It all sounds very post-modern, but it is really a case of the narrative overpowering its meta-conceits rather than being defined by them.

Of course, it is hard to go wrong with YASNY’s cast. While Resnais has three sets of Orpheus and Eurydice at his disposal, he clearly favors Pierre Arditi and Sabine Azéma (two of his longtime collaborators), with good reason. Watching this couple on the late side of middle age portraying the doomed young lovers is eerily moving. Their experienced faces seem to amplify the tragedy rather than distract from it. Nonetheless, Anne Consigny’s Eurydice is exquisitely brittle and dignified, overshadowing the aloof Lambert Wilson.

Former Bond villain Mathieu Amalric exudes a deliciously Mephistophelean vibe while maintaining the moral ambiguity of Monsieur Henri, death’s avatar, a role he mostly has to himself. Michel Piccoli nicely anchors the film with his warm gravitas, ostensibly revisiting the role of Orpheus’s father, while leading the cheering section within the elite audience. In addition to playing d’Anthac with eccentric flair, Denis Podalydès (from the Comédie Française) was recruited to direct the hipster Eurydice video segments, further complicating notions of what the film is and who is its author. It is Anouilh’s Eurydice, as well as d’Anthac’s, but it is also partially Cher Antoine, mostly reconceived by Resnais, but also shaped by Podalydès.

The key point is: it’s all good. With its cast members handing off their batons like relay runners, YASNY’s affection for the theater’s passion and artifice becomes infectious. Featuring music by X-Files composer Mark Snow and Eric Gautier’s richly noir-ish cinematography, it is an unusually elegant film. Cerebral yet strangely poignant, the highly recommended You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet opens this Friday (6/7) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on June 3rd, 2013 at 1:04pm.

After the Apocalypse: LFM Reviews In the Flesh; Premieres This Week on BBC America

By Joe Bendel. Here’s the good news: the zombie apocalypse is over and humanity won. Gracious in victory, we have developed something of a Marshall Plan for the undead. The proper term is now “Partially Deceased Syndrome.” With proper treatment, those afflicted can regain their consciousness and eventually be reintegrated into society. At least that is the theory. Reality is a lot trickier for one PDS teenager in series writer-creator Dominic Mitchell’s three part In the Flesh (promo here), which premieres this Thursday on BBC America.

The small town of Roarton suffered heavy losses during what is now called “the Rising.” The Human Volunteer Force (HVF) militias were first founded here and Roarton’s unit has yet to disband. It is the worst place a rehabilitated zombie to re-enter society, but it is where Kieren Walker’s family lives. His parents are walking on eggshells, determined to keep his homecoming a secret, but nonetheless overjoyed to have their son back. His younger sister Jem is a different story. Active in the local HVF, she now considers their militant leader Bill Macy a mentor. Kieren Walker already has some complicated history with the Macy family and it will soon get even thornier.

Following the lead of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, Flesh employs zombies as a vehicle for social commentary. However, this approach is always limited by the nature of the genre. We see through Walker’s flashbacks the terrors he wreaked in his feral state. It was not his fault according to his doctors, but it still isn’t pretty. With rumors swirling of rehabbed PDS cases deliberately going off their meds, it is hard to blame the good citizens of Roarton for being slightly on edge. Nonetheless, Mitchell stacks the deck against them, casting the fire-and-brimstone Vicar and the unhinged Macy as paranoid demagogues.

From "In the Flesh."

Flesh works considerably better on the micro level when it focuses on Walker’s guilt for both his zombie atrocities and the circumstances that led to his initial death. There is also an interesting relationship that develops between him and Amy Dyer, a more free-spirited PDS teen.

Luke Newberry is adequately morose as Walker, but he is frequently upstaged by other Walker family members. Harriet Cains shows potential star power as the forceful Jem, but Steve Cooper really gets to lower the emotional boom as Kieren’s still reeling father. Unfortunately, Steve Evets (so engaging in Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric) and Kenneth Cranham largely portray Macy and the Vicar as crude caricatures. In contrast, lefty comic Ricky Tomlinson nicely humanizes anti-PDS activist Ken Burton, while Emily Bevan adds some energy to the dour milieu as Dyer.

Already renewed for a second season in the UK, In the Flesh ends its first outing with some intriguing avenues open for further exploration. Yet it faces an obvious dilemma. To satisfy genre fans, eventually the show must produce the shuffling hordes, but to do so would undercut their peace and tolerance soap-boxing. Notable as an original premise, imperfectly executed but showing promise for future development, the first season of In the Flesh airs this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (6/6-6/8) on BBC America.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on June 3rd, 2013 at 1:03pm.

Our Voyeuristic Future: LFM Reviews Channeling @ The 2013 Dances With Films

By Joe Bendel. In the very near future, about five minutes from now, people will become even more exhibitionistic. Personal internet reality shows are the thing, made possible by special contact lens cameras. ‘Channelers’ broadcast themselves snowboarding, booty calling, and navel gazing. Some also broadcast criminal activity, such as an Army sergeant’s estranged brother. When the punk winds up dead, his avenging sibling assumes control of his channel in Drew Thomas’s Channeling (see viral teaser above), which screens tomorrow during the 2013 edition of Dances With Films.

The Maddox family was always pretty dysfunctional. The death of Wyatt, the Fast & Furious wannabe, does not help much. Returning on a bereavement leave, Jonah soon starts nosing around with the help of Tara, his brother’s on-camera co-host, sidekick, or whatever. Essentially, this leaves all the responsible stuff to his younger sister, Ashleigh. She broadcasts her life too, in hopes of finding validation from voyeuristic netizens. That is really the wrong place to be looking.

It is always pretty obvious who the bad guys are in this film, but it is never clear why they had it in for the Brothers Maddox. Wyatt’s ratings were always pretty good by channeling standards, unlike the late Howard Beale in Network. Regardless, it offers Jonah an excuse to boost some fast cars.

From "Channeling."

Channeling is a serviceable enough b-movie, but it pales in comparison to Bertrand Tavernier’s thematically similar Death Watch, which remains an eerily prescient critique of our media-driven society even over thirty years after its initial release. It is also hard to compete with Harvey Keitel, Harry Dean Stanton, and Romy Schneider.

Regardless, as a leading man, Dominic De Vore seems to have graduated from the Caspar Van Dien school of acting. He is adequately square-jawed in the action scenes, but that’s about all you get. However, Kate French (probably best known from The L Word and One Tree Hill) lends the film some style and presence riding shotgun as Tara, while Taylor Handley does a presentable James Dean impression as the ill-fated Wyatt.

Thomas and cinematographer Andrew Huebscher keep things looking slick and cool throughout. Cars will be wrecked and thugs will get their beatdowns. It’s all a cut above SyFy Channel original movies, but those primarily intrigued by the premise should checkout Tavernier’s underappreciated gem instead. For Kate French’s fans, it screens tomorrow night (6/2) as part of this year’s Dances With Films in Hollywood, CA.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on June 1st, 2013 at 1:02pm.