Day: January 19, 2014

By Joe Bendel. He was a mother’s boy married to twenty-seven wives simultaneously. In many ways, Fela Anikulapo Kuti is a maddeningly difficult figure to fully take stock of, but he sure could play. Wisely, Alex Gibney focuses more on Kuti’s music than his politics in the infectiously funky documentary Finding Fela, which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

Kuti was the leading innovator of Afrobeat, the blistering rhythmic fusion of highlife, jazz, and funk music—and he remains far and away the most influential exemplar of the style. In his day, Kuti was probably the only musician more esteemed than James Brown across the African Diaspora. Decades later, his music remained popular enough to spawn a Tony Award-winning Broadway show. That is where Gibney came in. On-hand to document the show’s creative development, Gibney also incorporates a treasure trove of Kuti performance footage to tell the multi-instrumentalist’s story.

Musically, Finding is a rich feast, with real deal Afrobeat band Antibalas performing the music for the Broadway show and living up to the example laid down by their inspiration quite nicely. However, Gibney the documentarian is reasonably forthright addressing some of the darker aspects of Kuti the historical figure.While his musical criticism of Nigeria’s military regime is celebrated at length, Kuti’s less than progressive attitudes towards women and sex are also acknowledged.

To his credit, Gibney also addresses the AIDS issue head-on. Tragically, the voracious Kuti denied the existence of the disease and refused to practice safe sex, even when he began to exhibit obvious symptoms. Admirably, the Kuti family was also rather courageously forthcoming after their patriarch’s death. In contrast, Bill T. Jones, the co-creator and choreographer of the Broadway show admits they basically punted on those problematic final days.

Gibney is a wildly inconsistent filmmaker, who can spin out unsubstantiated conspiracy theories in a film like Client 9, but then craft an insightful sports doc like Catching Hell. In Finding, Gibney obviously decided, when in doubt cut to some music, which is a winning strategy. Whether it is recorded in Kuti’s storied club, the Shrine, or in a Broadway theater, the collected performances are enormously entertaining. There is good stuff during the closing credits as well, so do not be like those squares who walked out of the Sundance premiere during Femi Kuti’s monster solo, recorded during a tribute to his father.

Finding Fela is the rare sort of doc that will have viewers nodding their heads and getting down. Editorially, it also happens to be reasonably balanced and comprehensive. There is really nothing on the negative side of the ledger for it—it is all positive. Enthusiastically recommended, Finding Fela screens again this Tuesday (1/21) in Salt Lake and Saturday (1/25) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on January 19th, 2014 at 3:00pm.

By Joe Bendel. This is Sundance, not Tribeca. Nevertheless, Robert De Niro has some family business to tend to. In revealing interviews, De Niro will discuss the life and artistic reputation of his painter father in Perri Peltz & Geeta Gandbhir’s Remembering the Artist Robert De Niro Sr., which screens as part of Documentary Shorts Program II at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, before its HBO premiere later in the year.

The senior De Niro is often lumped in with his Abstract Expressionist colleagues, but he was always a much more figurative painter. Championed by Peggy Guggenheim at an early point in his career, De Niro was once the leading contender amongst his fellow Hans Hofmann students. Yet, it just never happened for him. Deeply influenced by French Modernists (Matisse in particular seems to echo in his work), De Niro became increasingly out of step with the Pop and Op directions the American art world took.

Peltz & Gandbhir’s battery of experts do an excellent job placing De Niro senior within the context of American art history. After seeing the film, most viewers will be convinced De Niro the artist would be worthy of the documentary treatment even if he were not the father of De Niro the actor. Still, there is no denying the De Niro family connection adds an additional element of drama. As lead interview subject and the narrator of select excerpts from his father’s diary, the junior De Niro is pretty forthright about the senior De Niro’s depression and sexuality issues. Indeed, he opens up to a surprising extent regarding what sounds like a loving but problematic relationship.

Probably the most persuasive part of Remembering’s case for posterity are De Niro’s very paintings, which generously illustrate the film. His bold technique and rich, warm colors are quite striking. At just thirty nine minutes, it is like an especially economically installment of American Masters. Recommended for art lovers and De Niro fans, Remembering the Artist Robert De Niro Sr screens again in Park City today (1/19), Wednesday (1/22), and Saturday (1/25) during the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on January 19th, 2014 at 2:57pm.

By Joe Bendel. In a post-Heisenberg world, we have grown accustomed to the notion that perception influences reality, but what does that mean to you if you happen to be blind? For one woman who recently lost her sight, the world has become drastically smaller. Yet she will still exert a strange influence over it in Eskil Vogt’s Blind (nsfw trailer here), which screens during the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

Ingrid was once an outgoing Norwegian professional, but after the late onset of a congenital condition robbed her of her sight, she rarely leaves her flat. Her husband Morten is becoming increasingly frustrated with her reclusiveness. Yet, she suspects he might secretly spy on her in the flat, at times when he is supposedly at the office or his gym.

In fact, Blind’s small cast of characters can be divided into those who watch and those who are blind. Morten’s old college crony Einar is definitely a watcher. Vaguely resembling the out of shape Val Kilmer of today, Einar is an internet porn addict who graduated to real life peeping. The current object of his fascination is Elin, a struggling single mother and fellow Swede, with whom Morten strikes up a dalliance. Elin is certainly not a voyeur, nor is she initially blind. However, through Twilight Zone-like circumstances, Ingrid might just visit a fearful symmetry on her pseudo-rival.

Or perhaps not. Frankly, it is almost as hard for viewers to parse fantasy from reality in Blind as it is for the characters. Ostensive reality is a malleable, ever changing proposition that often involves nudity. Vogt constantly changes the rules on us, but for reasons of philosophic uncertainty rather than to extricate himself from a narrative corner. This is a very strange film, but the quality of the four principle performances and the oddly mesmerizing vibe help rehabilitate sexually charged hipster pretension.

Ellen Dorrit Petersen is absolutely haunting and maybe a little scary as Ingrid. Likewise, playwright Marius Kolbenstvedt humanizes the potentially creepy Einar to a remarkable extent. Vera Vitali is also quite effective expressing Elin’s fragile vulnerability, suggesting a woman trapped in a stage of arrested emotional development. In contrast, Henrik Rafaelson (somewhat reminiscent of Michael Nyqvist of the Dragon Tattoo franchise) has the least to work with as the coolly detached Morten.

Head-tripping movies are rarely rendered as elegantly as Blind. It is a film that begs for repeat viewing and obsessive analysis. Despite all the talk of pay cable television supplanting cinema as the dominant cultural force, you will only find surreal postmodernism like this in arthouse-festival films. Recommended for mature and adventurous viewers, Blind screens again this Wednesday (1/22) and Saturday (1/25) in Park City as well as this afternoon (1/19) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on January 19th, 2014 at 2:54pm.