Month: September 2014

By Joe Bendel. Nick Dunne looks the part of a Scott Peterson surrogate, but he is probably not guilty of murdering his wife, Amy. Probably. Nonetheless, nobody would call him innocent. Frankly, that is true of everyone involved in this sordid affair, but that does not stop the wolf-pack media from anointing victims and villains in David Fincher’s Gone Girl, the opening night film of the 52nd New York Film Festival.

It does not take very long to find the cracks and strains in the Dunnes’ marriage. A great deal of it involves money. Since both were laid off, they have had to rely on her much depleted trust fund. There are other issues as well, which will be revealed over time, but with varying degrees of credibility. Regardless, it is perfectly logical for the police to initially suspect Dunne when his wife disappears under mysterious circumstances. When they discover large pools of her blood have been freshly scrubbed from the Dunnes’ kitchen floor, the noose tightens. However, a number of game-changing shoes will drop in the second and third acts.

Adapting her own novel, first-time screenwriter Gillian Flynn is unusually adept at maintaining the unreliable narration and related narrative devices that are often sacrificed in page to screen transfers. Still, some things are crystal clear, such as her withering contempt for the baying media hounds. Missi Pyle plays a character named Ellen Abbott, but she might as well wear a name tag that says: “hello, my name is Nancy Grace.” It is not a flattering portrayal.

However, the depiction of marriage is just as jaundiced. While it might sound like some sort of “the stranger I married” Lifetime movie (a genre unto themselves that drew a snarky comment or two at the NYFF presser), the film really hinges on just how well the Dunnes know each other.

Rosamund Pike was very good in Barney’s Version and unjustly overlooked in Jack Reacher, but she takes her craft to a new level as Amy Dunne. For reasons that would be spoilery to explain, it is a physically and emotionally rigorous performance that brings to mind Bette Davis at her most noir (and that is not suggested lightly). Tyler Perry (yes, that Tyler Perry) is nearly as great a surprise, killing it as Dunne’s lawyer, Tanner Bolt (cool name). He deliberately refrains from channeling well known celebrity attorneys, but he projects the intelligence and charisma you would dearly want in a defense attorney.

Poor Ben Affleck took some Batman ribbing in stride at the press conference, but he is solidly good to very good as the highly flawed Nick Dunne. Neil Patrick Harris also has his moments as Desi Collings, Amy’s well heeled, but decidedly squirrely ex-boyfriend and possibly stalker. Nevertheless, it is hard for those who share the screen with Pike’s Dunne to get out of her dominating shadow.

Gone Girl is definitely a rebound film for Fincher after the completely unnecessary and largely uninspired Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake, but it still does not have the distinctive auteurist stamp of films like Fight Club and Se7en. Arguably, this is more of a writer and actor’s vehicle. Even though she does not exactly mirror the structure of her source novel, Flynn’s screenplay is still cleverly constructed, even though she allows the endgame to drag out a bit, rubbing our noses in the story’s implications.

Unfortunately, the film is probably too dark, too thrillerish, and far too morally ambiguous to garner much Oscar love, with the notable exception of Pike, who deserves to be in contention for best actress. For the rest of us civilians, it is quite a good suspenser. Recommended for fans of mainstream film noir, Gone Girl kicked off this year’s NYFF last night at Alice Tully Hall, in advance of its October 3rd opening.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on September 30th, 2014 at 10:08pm.

By Joe Bendel. It is a love letter to love letters. Without the benefit of e-mail and cell phones, Friedrich Schiller maintained ardent relationships with both von Lengefeld sisters, often communicating through neatly folded missives. Of course it was a secret, but only from society and not the siblings themselves. Naturally, there were complications, developing and intensifying over the course of years in Dominik Graf’s Beloved Sisters, which screens in its one hundred seventy minute entirety as a Main Slate selection of the 52nd New York Film Festival.

The von Lengefeld’s are technically aristocrats, but they hardly have a Mark to their names—hence Caroline’s marriage to the wealthy but boorish von Beulwitz. It is an unhappy union, but it provides the necessary support for Lengefeld’s younger sister Charlotte and their overbearing mother. Reluctantly resigned to her fate, Caroline tries to spend as much time as she can with her sister, who has been entrusted to her socially connected godmother, in hopes she can arrange a suitable match for “Lollo.”

As a commoner known to advocate a radical Enlightenment philosophy, Schiller would hardly qualify. Nonetheless, when the younger von Lengefeld sister spies him from her window, he makes quite the roguish impression. When Caroline subsequently meets him during a holiday, she is also quite taken. It eventually leads to an understanding of sorts to share Schiller as best they can. Of course, this is easier said than done, especially for a married woman like Caroline von Beulwitz. Eventually marital statuses will change, but the two sisters’ respective relationships with Schiller, Lolllo’s future husband, will necessarily remain unequal. This consequently leads to almost three hours worth of drama.

Yes, Beloved essentially revolves around a sort of ménage a trois situation, but Graf emphasizes the literary and philosophical tenor of the times more than the potential luridness of his subject matter. In fact, the film is relatively chaste, all things considered, but there is still plenty of passion and jealousy. Yet, bigger issues loom over their private scandals, especially the French Revolution, which initially thrills and then horrifies Schiller and his intellectual circle.

Like the three-hour historical epics of old, Beloved is a big, chewy melodrama, filled with simmering yearning and cold sweats. Supposedly inspired by Schiller’s only letter to Caroline she did not manage to destroy before her death, Graf’s screenplay relies on considerable speculation, but the earnestness of the central trio gives it all the ring of truth.

While Caroline might have the short end of the ménage, Hannah Herzsprung gets the juiciest scenes as the divorcee turned romance novelist, making the most of them. It is a wonderfully complex and tragic character. However, Lollo is no shrinking violet either, nicely played by Henriette Confurius, who convincingly segues from her youthful coquetry to her more mature resolve. If anyone is underwritten here, it is Schiller, but Florian Stetter portrays him with enough charismatic likability to suspend disbelief and generally hold the proceedings together.

In a sense, Beloved is like a sequel to Philipp Stölzl’s Goethe in Love (whose protagonist Graf references but never shows), but it calls and raises its predecessor in nearly every category (especially running time, but it never feels that long). It is a smart, literate, emotionally involving film that could honestly be considered old fashion, in a good way. Recommended for patrons who enjoy quality period pictures, Beloved Sisters screened today (9/30) at the Walter Reade and screens Wednesday (10/1) at the Gilman as a Main Slate selection of this year’s NYFF.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on September 30th, 2014 at 10:08pm.

By Joe Bendel. In a provincial town, there is no such thing as a no-tell motel. Nevertheless, Julien Gahyde thought he was being discrete in his regular meetings with the village pharmacy owner’s wife in the titular chambre bleue. Inconveniently, he learns that their affair was largely common knowledge when he becomes ensnared in a murder inquiry. Just who was killed by whom will be slowly revealed in Mathieu Amalric’s adaptation of the Georges Simenon novel The Blue Room, which screens during the 52nd New York Film Festival.

After a long absence, Gahyde returned to his home town, making good as a John Deere sales rep. It probably was not just lust that drove him into an affair with the sensual Esther Despierre. She also happens to be married to an old classmate, whose wealth and privilege Gahyde always resented. Regardless, her talk about a more permanent arrangement does not sit well with Gahyde, so he uses a near miss with her husband as a pretext for a cooling off period. However, her reckless letters portend bad things. Before long, Gahyde is in prison, fielding questions from the investigating magistrate, but the film’s fractured temporal-hopping narrative structure jealously guards its secrets.

One thing is certain: Gahyde is in a mess of legal trouble. Even if he is technically not guilty, he still bears considerable responsibility for the state of affairs. Amalric and editor François Gédigier keep audiences on their toes with their frequent cuts, often emphasizing oddly elliptical perspectives. There is more than a hint of the old school Nouvelle Vague in their almost Pointillistic approach. (Coincidentally, one of Picasso’s best known Blue Period paintings was also called The Blue Room and it fits the spirit of Amalric’s picture rather well.) Yet, what most distinguishes the film is the degree to which Amalric captures the vibe and essence of Simenon’s non-Maigret hothouse psychological thrillers.

Director-co-screenwriter Amalric also gives himself an important assist, portraying the thoroughly compromised and increasingly confused Gahyde. There is something Kafka-esque about the weasely philanderer that inspires rapt fascination. Frankly, both Madame Gahyde and Despierre are rendered somewhat simplistically, as the standard-issue wronged wife and Fatal Attraction mistress, respectively. However, in what might appear to be a disposable role, Serge Bozon (another actor turned director), adds a hard to quantify dimension, hinting there is much more churning beneath his magistrate’s poker face façade.

Amalric nicely distinguishes himself as a triple threat with Blue Room. Brainy and rather steamy at times, The Blue Room belongs in the top rank of Simenon adaptations, in the company of films from the likes of Chabrol, Leconte, and Duvivier. Recommended for fans of mature literary thrillers, The Blue Room screened this Monday (9/29) at Alice Tully Hall and Tuesday (9/30) at the Beale, as part of this year’s NYFF, in advance of its opening at the IFC Center this Friday (10/3).

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on September 30th, 2014 at 10:07pm.

By Joe Bendel. Why would a visitor from Japan spend so much time in Korea at a Japanese coffee shop? He is a Hong Sang-soo character, which explains a lot. As it happens, he is not in Korea to see the sights. He has come to woo back an ex-girlfriend. Unfortunately, she was not waiting to be wooed in Hong’s Hill of Freedom, one of the Main Slate selections of the 52nd New York Film Festival.

Two years after Kwon dumped him, Mori has returned to Korea on spec, hoping to win back his former language school colleague. Finding her out of town left him at loose ends. Despite his intentions, Mori kind of-sort of gets involved with the characters at his Bukchon guest house and the Hill of Freedom coffee shop across the street from Kwon’s apartment. He even has a halting romance with Young-sun, the coffee shop manager. He will explain to Kwon just how he spent his time in Seoul in a series of letters he leaves for her at their old school. However, after dropping the untidy bundle, Kwon will read and the audience will see Mori’s story out of sequence.

Although it is an unusually concise sixty-seven minutes, Hill could still be considered a perfectly representative Hong Sang-soo film. The Korean festival favorite instills the proceedings with a bittersweet vibe, but it is more neurotic than sentimental. It is all about connections made and broken, told with a gentle narrative gamesmanship to keep us on our toes.

Ironically, South Korea most likely could not have submitted Hill as their foreign language Oscar submission, because nearly all the film is English, or rather the stiff, formal version of English that serves as an awkward lingua franca for the Japanese and Korean characters. That would presumably present some acting challenges, yet it seems to play to the strengths of sad-eyed, American-reared Japanese movie-star, Ryô Kase. He measures his words and plugs away in understated fashion, as a good Hong protagonist should.

It is a strong supporting cast all around, particularly including Moon So-ri’s remarkably open and vulnerable Young-sun. Korean cinema’s grand dame and Hong regular Youn Yuh-jung also adds some salty vinegar as the tart-tongued landlady. There are also the brief but memorable supporting turns from various visitors to the guest-house that seem to practically fall out of the sky.

If you like Hong Sang-soo movies, this is a very good one. It certainly captures the zone of futility, where romantic frustration leads to exhaustion, ennui, and confusion. Characteristically sly, Hill of Freedom is recommended for those who appreciate Hong’s intellectually advanced relationship chamber-dramedies when it screens Wednesday (10/8) at the Gillman, as part of this year’s NYFF Main Slate.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on September 30th, 2014 at 10:06pm.

A Love Story, Lindenfield – Trailer from San Diego Film Festival on Vimeo.

By Joe Bendel. There are not a lot of Deutsch speaking ethnic Germans left in Romania. The Communists saw to that. Ulli Winkler was fortunate to escape when he could. Decades later, he will return to the ghost town here he once lived, searching for the love of his life in Radu Gabrea’s A Love Story, Lindenfeld, which screened during the 2014 San Diego Film Festival.

Germany was good to Winkler, or “the Chairman” as most of his employees know him. He even adopted a son, but he never married. The memory of his intended, Helga Kerber, simply remained too strong. When the Soviets came to ethnically cleanse Romania’s Banat region, they swept up Kerber in their net, but they missed Winkler through a twist of fate. However, a 2005 television report on the presumably abandoned town of Lindenfeld spurs a flood of memories. Through serendipity, Winkler soon receives reports that his beloved Kerber is still alive. With his health and faculties slowly but steadily declining, Winkler instructs his loyal servant-protector Boris take him back to Lindenfeld (a relatively manageable drive in today’s borderless Europe).

Lindenfeld is an unabashedly and achingly old fashioned film, in the best way possible. There is no unfinished business like first love—and Gabrea takes care of business quite well. The constant strains of Pachelbel’s Canon are admittedly a bit of a cliché, but the recordings featured on the soundtrack are unusually lush and pretty. Even if the audience resists, it does what it is supposed to do.

Victor Rebengiuc and Victoria Cociaş play the senior Winkler and Kerber with wonderfully wise maturity. There are no theatrics, thank you very much, but their ardor feels very real. Yet, the subtlest work might come from Alexandru Georgescu as the poker-faced but stout hearted Boris, with the sort of performance that stealthily sneaks up on viewers.

Based on a popular Romanian novel, Lindenfeld dramatizes one of the first tragic manifestations of the Soviet oppression in Eastern Europe and its lingering repercussions. It is a perfect story for Gabrea, who really ought to be more widely celebrated on the international festival circuit. However, his choice of subject matter, such as the National Socialist occupation, the Communist experience, and Yiddish culture (see films like Gruber’s Journey, Red Gloves, and Goldfaden’s Legacy) are apt to make European cultural arbiters rather uncomfortable. Throughout Lindenfeld he helms with a delicate touch and a forgiving allowance of human fallibility. Highly recommended, A Love Story, Lindenfeld screened last Saturday (9/27) as part of this year’s San Diego Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on September 30th, 2014 at 10:06pm.