Month: October 2013

By Joe Bendel. The sheer scarcity of Johannes Vermeer’s paintings is guaranteed to maintain the art world’s fascination. It was partly why the notorious forger Han Van Meegeren was able to pass off a reportedly terrible fake on his National Socialist buyers—demand always outstrips good sense. However, one entrepreneur might just stand the polite art world on its ear when he suggests he can paint brand new Vermeers using Seventeenth Century technology. Jenison’s buddy Penn Jillette basically dared him to prove it for posterity. Jenison’s results are duly documented in Teller’s Tim’s Vermeer, which screens during the 51st New York Film Festival.

Building on the research of artist David Hockney and academic Philip Steadman, Jenison argues it is simply impossible for the human eye to perceive the photorealistic detail that distinguishes Vermeer’s paintings. Using the scientific process circa 1650, Jenison develops a method to duplicate the Vermeer look. It is complicated, but like the best magic, it involves the use of mirrors.

Both Hockney and Steadman agree Jenison is on to something, but to really prove the point, he embarks on an audacious experiment. He will recreate the setting of Vermeer’s The Music Room in a San Antonio warehouse, where he will use his proposed technique to recreate rather than forge the Vermeer masterwork. However, what started as an intellectual pursuit becomes an endurance challenge over time.

Director Teller and producer-narrator Jillette strike a shrewd balance throughout Tim’s Vermeer, injecting enough caustic humor to satisfy their fans, but never upstaging Jenison’s story. Frankly, it is a surprisingly provocative film that questions many widely held assumptions regarding the nature of art. Hockney’s participation is a particular coup. When he more or less buys into Jenison’s system, it carries considerable weight.

Essentially, Jenison argues Vermeer was the original photographer. The composition of The Music Room is still a work of art. He simply used a somewhat mechanical method to render it on canvas. Of course, he still had to do the work, which Jenison proves is a painstaking process.

Thanks to the developments in digital video, Teller and his associates were able to take an eccentric idea and fully follow through on it. It might shake up stodgier Academy members to hear Penn & Teller tipped for Oscar consideration, but they deserve to be in the mix. Consistently entertaining and rather shockingly erudite, it proves documentaries can cover prestigious subject matter, but still be fun to watch. Recommended for Penn & Teller fans and fine art connoisseurs, Tim’s Vermeer screens again this Wednesday (10/9) as an “Applied Science” documentary selection of the 2013 NYFF.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on October 7th, 2013 at 12:14pm.

By Joe Bendel. Lies and deceit hang heavy in the South African air. That should be good for Layla Fourie’s career. She is a freshly certified polygraph operator. Unfortunately, she also ensnares herself with a web of lies in Pia Marais’ Layla Fourie, which screens as part of the Goethe Institut’s German Currents: Festival of German Film in Los Angeles.

Fourie is a single mother with limited resources, but she stands on the brink of a better life. Hired by a polygraph company, she is sent to a large provincial casino to screen their next batch of prospective employees. Tragically, while in transit, Fourie runs down a stranded motorist she mistakenly takes for a carjacker. It was a dark and stormy night, and Fourie initially tries to do the right thing. Eventually, though, she just dumps the body and covers up her crime as best she can. Of course, there is a witness: her horrible brat of a son, Kane.

Duly proceeding with her work, Fourie starts polygraphing applicants, including Eugene Pienaar, one of the few white job seekers. He immediately resents her intrusive questions, but is also somewhat attracted to her. These responses make Fourie profoundly uneasy around him. As Fourie reluctantly comes to know Pienaar, she realizes his missing deadbeat father was the man she crashed into. The more time she spends with Pienaar, the more her conscience torments her. To make matters worse, Kane turns out to be a natural born blackmailer.

The ethically compromised polygraph operator is a fresh and intriguing noir premise, but Marais and co-writer Horst Markgraf never fully capitalize on its potential. Frustratingly, the polygraph machines entirely disappear after the first act. Still, the relationship that uneasily develops between Fourie and Pienaar is sharply written and smartly played by Rayna Campbell and August Diehl, respectively. They share some real screen chemistry, but also convey all the thorny collective history making them instinctively wary of each other.

LF really crackles when Campbell and Diehl share the screen. Regrettably, there is also an awful lot of utterly dreadful Kane, who makes a compelling case for child abuse. Frankly, his behavior never rings true. After all, kids are usually highly attuned to their parents’ circumstances and prone to show solidarity.

Conversely, the lawless milieu of LF feels very true to life. Ruthlessly naturalistic in her approach, Marais holds a mirror up to nature and finds its reflection bitter and two-faced. Now based in Germany, Marais split her childhood years between South Africa and Sweden. Clearly, she is not entirely sanguine about the prospects for her partial homeland’s social fiber. After all, nearly everyone in LF is morally suspect—the only question is to what extent.

LF vividly immerses viewers in its harsh reality. Cinematographer André Chemetoff nicely frames the character’s intimate angst and the harsh beauty of their surrounding environment. It might be a bit of a ringer at German Currents, but the work of Campbell and Diehl should still pull in viewers expecting something more like Young Goethe in Love. (It is also part of the trio of Match Factory films screening during the festival.) While not without flaws, Layla Fourie is consistently bracing. Recommended for those who prefer their cinema without any extraneous sentimentality, it screens this Sunday (10/6) at the Egyptian Theatre as part of this year’s German Currents.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on October 5th, 2013 at 1:50pm.

By Joe Bendel. It was supposed to be a simple temp job. A mainland university student in dire need of money agrees to be surrogate for an anonymous couple of considerable wealth. However, when Liu Yazi’s Hong Kong employers mysteriously cancel the contract, her maternal instincts kick in with full force. She might be a country naïf, but Liu will not be easily intimidated by wealth and privilege throughout Kiwi Chow’s A Complicated Story, which screens during the San Francisco Film Society’s annual Hong Kong Cinema film series.

For Liu, carrying the mystery couple’s child is about the only way she can pay for her older brother’s operation. She will temporarily defer her education, as she lives in luxurious isolation. Liu sees almost nobody except the couple’s doctor, her personal assistant, and Kammy Au, the lawyer who overseeing the entire sort of legal arrangement. After befriending the young woman, Au is forced to break the bad news to her: the divorcing couple demands she abort her pregnancy.

Not inclined to cooperate, Liu seeks out her own medical advice, which leads to the first of several revelations. Liu in turn will surprise her minders when she slips away, finding shelter at a combined women’s shelter-medical clinic. It turns out the father, Yuk Cheung, is not such a bad guy. Tracking down Liu, he makes it clear he intends to do the right thing. He and she just happen to have very different ideas of what the right thing might be. On the other hand, his ex-wife, actress Tracy T, is the sort who always makes matters more difficult.

Complicated probably sounds like sudsy soap opera fodder on paper, but its execution is admirably restrained and archly observant of HK social dynamics. It could also be the year’s most pro-life film without an overtly religious agenda, but third act developments will still limit its appeal to the evangelical market. Regardless, in terms of emotion, it certainly lives up to its apt but nondescript title.

Helmed by first-time director Chow with nine colleagues from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts’ film masters program contributing as crew, Complicate was conceived as a foot-in-the-door career calling card, but it looks far more polished than most American pseudo-indies. Obviously, executive producers Johnnie To and William Kong (producer of Hero, Fearless, and Crouching Tiger) lend it all kinds of credibility, along with marquee movie star Jackie Cheung.

No mere celebrity cameo, Cheung’s considerable screen time as Yuk is unusually disciplined in its understatement, yet deeply powerful. Likewise, the strong but not showy Liu should be a breakout role for Zhu Zhi-ying (who was excellent in the little seen Zoom Hunting). Still, it is Stephanie Che who ultimately defines the film with her richly complex performance as Au.

Granted, there are times when Chow’s adaptation of the Yi Shu novel (co-written with three other screenwriters) seems to be throwing out plot points just to force the drama. Nevertheless, it is rather nuanced in its social criticism, portraying upward social mobility as well as inequality. Featuring great turns from Che and Cheung, as well as a lovely slightly-more-than-a-cameo from the great Deannie Ip, A Complicated Story is one impressive “student film.” Recommended for those who appreciate complex relationship and social issue dramas, it screens this Sunday (10/6) at the Vogue Theatre, as part of the SFFS’s annual Hong Kong Cinema series.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on October 4th, 2013 at 9:55am.

By Joe Bendel. You know Gauss’s bell curve and you know Humboldt’s monkey. They were two of the most celebrated intellects of the Nineteenth Century German states. In addition to a common patron, Austrian Daniel Kehlmann’s fictionalized dual-biography suggests they also perhaps shared an intertwined fate. Adapted for a big, big screen by the novelist himself, Detlev Buck’s Measuring the World, has its American premiere this Friday as the opening night film of German Currents 2013 in Los Angeles.

Carl Friedrich Gauss was born into desperate poverty, but the boy’s stern schoolmaster recognized his remarkable gift for mathematical analysis. With a name like Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt, the future Prussian naturalist-explorer was clearly a child of privilege. However, the Duke of Brunswick supported both lads’ education at an early age.

After Gauss and Humboldt meet by chance as children, Measuring splits into two wildly divergent narratives. A mathematician in the purest form, Gauss will spend his life within the German states. He is difficult by nature, yet somehow the uneducated but supportive Johanna consents to marry him. Meanwhile, Humboldt embarks on a Latin American expedition that will make his name. His most significant companion will be his colleague and uneasy friend, Aimé Bonpland, the French botanist. As the title suggests, both men will take vastly different approaches to quantifying our earthly bounds through their work. Eventually, Humboldt and Gauss will meet again in their twilight years, carrying the baggage of two eventful lives.

For a prestige period production, Measuring has a surprisingly idiosyncratic sensibility. With its archly ironic narration and fits of absurdist humor, the film often feels like a distant cousin of Gilliam’s Munchausen. Visually, it is often quite inventive and the sheer scope of its wanderings is rather impressive. Yet, there are some nice, quiet moments shared between Florian David Fitz and Vicky Krieps, as the Gausses. At times, Albrecht Abraham Schuch risks veering into Fraser Crane territory as the adult Humboldt, but Jérémy Kapone’s earthier Bonpland helps compensate for and undercut his mannered fastidiousness.

Ironically, one of the most recognizable faces in Measuring for American audiences will be Karl Markovics (lead actor in Stefan Ruzowitzky’s The Counterfeiters), who is quite good in the very supporting role of young Gauss’ teacher, Büttner. Cineastes will also be intrigued to hear that the film was lensed by Krzysztof Kieslowski’s longtime cinematographer Sławomir Idziak. Measuring does not look like a Kieslowski, but it has a distinctive sheen nonetheless.

With Idziak and his talented crew, Buck immerses viewers in an era Americans do not often have the opportunity see on screen. Granted, Measuring is somewhat inconsistent in patches, but when it works, it works on a very high level. Recommended for fans of cerebral historicals, like Longitude and Pillars of the Earth, Measuring the Earth screens this Friday (10/4), kicking off this year’s German Currents at Egyptian Theatre. It should also be noted in closing: Measuring is one of three Match Factory films screening as part of the celebration of German cinema, along with Gold and Layla Fourie.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on October 3rd, 2013 at 5:16pm.