Day: July 28, 2014

By Joe Bendel. Westerns were once a staple of American television, but now the genre has practically disappeared. Presumably, this was bad news for stunt horse-back riders. Though not quite to the same extent, production of Chanbara swordplay films has also steeply declined in Japan, greatly reducing work for kirare-yaku, the extras specially trained to be “cut-up.” It is the end of an era for Seiichi Kamiyama, but he always stays true to his art in Ken Ochiai’s Uzumasa Limelight, which screened during this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

Much to his surprise, Seizô Fukumoto has become the world’s most famous extra. Already the focus of several media reports on the kirare-yaku, he now appears in his first leading role, playing a character not so very different from himself. The Uzumasa establishment long recognized the beauty of Kamiyama’s death scenes. In fact, he was once given a carved rehearsal sword from the hero of a perennially popular samurai TV show (perhaps inspired by the long-running Mito Kōmon). Like a Japanese Gunsmoke, it continued for forty-years, providing Kamiyama regular employment, even when the star’s son took over for his late father. Unfortunately, it has just been canceled by the younger generation of executives.

Suddenly, Kamiyama and his colleagues are scuffling for work, making do appearing as corpses in yakuza dramas and performing in the suburban Kyoto studio’s live action show for tourists. Even though his stock is falling, young extra Satsuki Iga comes to Kamiyama for mentoring in his traditional skills. Thanks to his training and conditioning, she lands a stunt role on a new hipster Chanbara series, where she catches the eye of the obnoxious leading man. Suddenly, she is a star in her own right, but the Uzumasa old guard just keep getting older.

Yes, Uzumasa Limelight is a lot like A Star is Born crossed with Charlie Chaplin’s Limelight, with jidaigeki costuming and the occasional nods to Ozu, but it is profoundly moving and highly satisfying for genre fans. Fukumoto might be one of the great kirare-yaku (he was recruited for the Tom Cruise vehicle The Last Samurai), but his touching performance as Kamiyama suggests he could easily move into more conventionally dramatic roles. With unusual economy, his deeply lined face and subtly communicative body language eloquent express his pride in his craft and his pupil, as well as the weight of all his life disappointments. He proves the film’s axiom—if you can act convincingly during a sword fight than you are a good actor.

While Fukumoto has been practicing his art for fifty years or so, Limelight represents the straight up film debut of 2012 World Junior Wushu champ Chihiro Yamamoto, portraying Iga with a maturity beyond her years. Their teacher-protégé chemistry feels very real, but complex in a true-to-life way. Frankly, Fukumoto seems to bring out the best in everyone, because Limelight is stuffed with additional lovely little supporting turns.

The production design team headed by Takashi Yoshida creates a vivid sense of the old Kyoto studio world through their richly detailed work. However, one of the most important contributions comes from swordplay choreographer Mitsuhiko Seike, whose big film-within-the-film action-spectacle delivers the goods with style to spare. Although Limelight shares a certain nostalgic kinship with Ochiai’s previous film, The Tiger Mask, it is more closely akin to his very personal docu-essay short Frog in the Well. It is an absolutely super film that should be a breakout vehicle for Fukumoto, Yamamoto, and Ochiai. With a future American theatrical release to come, it was one of the high points of this year’s Fantasia, which continues through August 6th. Those in Montreal should definitely also check out the honest and touching anime historical epic Giovanni’s Island and consider the highly entertaining but slightly ragged around the edges White Storm and Seventh Code, as well as the generally amusing Premature.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on July 28th, 2014 at 12:21pm.

By Joe Bendel. During a zombie apocalypse, population density is considered a bad thing. That makes a sports stadium a very bad place to be, even in a simple country village like Caplongue. Everyone in town will be there for the grudge match with the Parisian professionals, including a zombie. One infection logically leads to another in Benjamin Rocher & Thierry Poiraud’s two-part zombie soccer epic Goal of the Dead, which screened in its entirety at the 2014 Fantasia International Film Festival.

The last time the Olympique de Paris squad played Caplongue, they hired away the highly ranked amateur team’s star player. Seventeen years later, Sam Lorit is at the end of his career. Expecting to be received like a returning hero, the over-the-hill center is quite taken aback by Caplongue’s hostility. It seems they never forgave him for abandoning the team and the town. In fact, the local doctor is so set on revenge he has his son, Lorit’s former teammate Jeannot, on an aggressive doping regimen. Unfortunately, the latest batch has some nasty zombie side effects.

Forget about zombie bites. Jeannot spreads the contagion through projectile vomiting to the face. Most of the two teams are quickly dispatched on the field, but Lorit is ironically saved by a meritless red card. Suddenly, he finds himself fighting to survive with Cléo, the daughter he never knew he had.

Finally, someone has combined soccer with zombie vomit. That is basically the kind of film or films the Goal duology is. Released as two separate installments in France, Rocher’s first half has far more exposition and scene-setting than your average zombie film. You will practically know Lorit’s career stats by heart when it is done. At least in the process, he very considerately sets up the pins for Poiraud to knock down in his rock ‘em sock ‘em second period, bringing more laughs with his elevated mayhem.

Rather unexpectedly, Alban Lenoir decides to do some acting as Lorit, taking him through a full range of emotions as best he can, given the carnage. Tiphanie Daviot’s Cléo also brings more energy and attitude than the typical horror movie teenager, but her fellow townsfolk are largely standard issue provincials.

Goal is a lot of gory, messy fun, but it never stands the zombie genre on its ear like Tommy Wirkola way-better-than-the-original Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead, which also screens at this year’s Fantasia. Still, Rocher, Poiraud, and their battery of screenwriters do not let a good concept go to waste. Delivering the promised madness, Goal of the Dead is recommended for zombie fans, fresh from its screening at this year’s Fantasia.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on July 28th, 2014 at 12:20pm.

By Joe Bendel. If the cast and crew of an Iranian film chose to work under conditions of anonymity, it usually is a good sign you are about to watch something bold and challenging. While that is not the case for these filmmakers, based in either Iran or America, most of their assembled films reveal much about the state of Iranian society. Alienation and uncertainty are themes cropping up throughout the Iranian Shorts Program, which screened during the 2014 Asian American International Film Festival.

The short block got off to a bracing start with Tara Atashgah’s For the Birds. It is not just a film—it is an indictment of Iran’s Sharia laws against adultery and those who enforce them. The title might sound comedic, but it is really a tribute. The “birds” are women like Atefeh Rajab Sahaleh, a sixteen year old girl executed for adultery in 2006, to whom the film is dedicated.

For artistic reasons, Birds is not subtitled, but it is painfully easy to follow the story nonetheless. Nazli K. Lou vividly expresses Sahaleh’s fear and bewilderment, while Chervine Namani powerfully captures the horror and impotence of a decent bystander. This is a film that will knock the wind out of people, yet visually it is quite polished and striking. Without question, it is the class of the field.

Since it is just an excerpt from a larger documentary, the sampling of Nahid Rezai’s Dream of Silk is sort of an apple among oranges. Still, the fatalism and lack of confidence in the future expressed by the high school girls she interviews at her Iranian alma mater is undeniably telling. The whole thing is probably worth seeing.

Clearly, Hamed Rajabi’s Turnabout and To Ride a Bicycle are intended to be seen in dialogue with each other. Both address the exile experience following the 2009 election protests and subsequent crackdown from different perspectives. Arguably, Bicycle is the stronger of the pair, following Mahsa as she struggles to dispose of the bike her former boyfriend precipitously left behind. Of course, she cannot ride it. That would be immodest. Turnabout does not quite have the same pop, but Rajabi conveys a strong sense of place, observing a soon to be exile fruitlessly searching for friends at his former university to say goodbye to.

Given its brevity, Mohammad Farahani’s The Theft is difficult to discuss without giving the whole game away. Regardless of the O.Henry-esque development, it depicts the grim realities of poverty, particularly those endured by women, in no uncertain terms.

After For the Birds, Anahita Ghazvinizadeh’s When the Kid was a Kid is likely to generate the most heated response. It is probably safe to say Taha has sexual identity issues, perhaps stemming from a problematic relationship with his often absent divorced mother. When the other kids in his apartment building play dress-up, Taha dons his mother’s dresses and make-up. Just what he gets out of the process remains ambiguous, but it is striking how readily the other children accept him as “Shohreh.” It is brave lead performance, but the entire youthful ensemble is quite engaging and unaffected.

The Iranian Short Block ends with another ringer. Frankly, Assal Ghawami’s A Day in Eden is respectably earnest and boasts a very fine performance from Briana Marin, but the American-set story of an Iranian cellist encountering an extremely difficult nursing home patient does not really speak to realities of contemporary Iranian life.

There is a lot viewers can glean and digest from the Iranian Shorts Program, especially the eye-opening For the Birds and the patient but forceful To Ride a Bike. Recommended for connoisseurs of short films and Iranian cinema, it screened Saturday (7/26) at the Village East, as part of this year’s AAIFF.

Posted on July 28th, 2014 at 10:59am.