Day: October 11, 2014

By Joe Bendel. In the late 1950s, Japan was still digging out from the devastation of WWII, while France was struggling with the lingering guilt and shame of the German occupation. A man and a woman representing their respective national psyches will come together in one of the greatest cinematic one night stands to ever carry over into the next morning. “He” and “She” (or rather “Lui” and “Elle”) find brief solace in each other’s arms during Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima Mon Amour, which screened as a revival selection of the 52nd New York Film Festival, in advance of its theatrical re-release next Friday.

She is a French actress who has been shooting a so-called peace film in Hiroshima. He is a Japanese architect, whose wife is usually out of town for extended periods of time. They are both attracted and lonely, on a deeply profound level, so things take their course. However, matters get rather complicated during the afterglow of passion. Despite his apparent contempt for her peacenikery, He has a hard time letting go. She is more inclined to make a clean break, yet she is clearly conflicted. They are both haunted by the past, but her ghosts are especially thorny, rooted in the morally ambiguous era of the National Socialist occupation.

HMA was largely shot in Japan, but it is one of the truly defining films of the French Nouvelle Vague. The long opening sequence plays out like an avant-garde documentary, contrasting newsreel-like images of Hiroshima survivors and the memorial museum with the refrains of an apparent lovers’ quarrel, albeit a rather politicized one: “You saw nothing in Hiroshima, nothing. I saw everything in Hiroshima, everything.”

Eventually, Resnais shows the lovers intertwined, generating eroticism, while also evoking the images and textures of the tragically fused bodies of the Hiroshima atomic blast area or Pompeii. Over fifty years later, HMA is still aesthetically bold, yet somehow Resnais’s radical stylistic shifts are never jarring, rather feeling like they are part of a cohesive whole. It also has a powerful sense of place. By the time it ends, viewers will feel they know Her severely appointed modernist hotel better than their own apartments.

As the lovers rouse themselves, HMA almost segues into film noir, following their impossible courtship through a series of late night bars and deserted streets. It all looks eerily beautiful thanks to Michio Takahashi’s arresting black-and-white cinematography. Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada also look like they were chiseled out of Roman statuary marble expressly for this film. They develop some scorching hot chemistry, but also dramatically convey the persistent pain they continue to bear inside. Indeed, HMA is a brutally realistic depiction of the push-me-pull-me dynamic. He and She are trying to use each other to forget, but they perversely spur each other to remember with uncomfortable clarity.

Arguably, you could not make HMA as is, in this day and age. Even though Hiroshima is still acceptable fodder for an anti-nuclear message, the concerted efforts to woo the gatekeepers responsible for Chinese film import quotas would probably demand equal time for Japanese atrocities in Nanjing. Honestly, there are only so many guilt trips one can take in a single film. Fortunately, there are many ways to relate to HMA beyond its anti-nuclear raison d’être. In fact, it is one of the great ships-passing-in-the-night films of all time. Highly recommended for patrons of French and Japanese cinema, the newly restored Hiroshima Mon Amour screened as part of this year’s NYFF, with a proper theatrical release to commence next Friday (10/17) at Film Forum downtown and the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center uptown.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on October 11th, 2014 at 2:45pm.

By Joe Bendel. It is loosely based Hans Christian Andersen’s The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep, but it includes elements of dystopia and steampunk long before they were cool. When production began in 1948, it was supposed to be France’s first animated feature (and it sort of was), yet it would take three decades for it to be completed to its creators’ satisfaction. You might think you have seen it, but if you have only seen the unfinished cut released by the producer under the title The Curious Adventures of Mr. Wonderbird, you really haven’t seen Paul Grimault’s complete and restored The King and the Mockingbird, which had a special screening at the 52nd New York Film Festival, in advance of its premiere American release this November.

In the kingdom of Takicardia, it is good to be the king, at least until the tyrannical Charles V + III = VIII + VIII = XVI is deposed by his own portrait come to life. However, the monarch is so unpopular and self-absorbed, nobody notices the change. He is not the only painting at large in the towering palace. The Shepherdess and her true love, the Chimney Sweep, have escaped the walls of the King’s private quarters to escape her forced marriage to the King’s portrait. They will find a resourceful ally in the Mockingbird, who rather resents the King’s attempts to hunt his young hatchlings. Fortunately, Charles V etc. is a blasted poor shot.

Written by Grimault and celebrated poet-screenwriter Jacques Prévert, Mockingbird is a kitchen sink movie that includes disparate elements, such as the Metropolis-like castle, with the King perched up top and the proles buried down below. There is also a trenchant commentary on personality cults, most vividly realized in the steampunky factory, a veritable mass of gears, cranking out busts of the despised king. Grimault even delivers a kaiju fix when the King’s portrait unveils his secret weapon: a giant killer robot.

Yet, most importantly, Mockingbird is great fun, featuring a sly sense of humor and a gentle, pure-hearted sensibility. There are some pretty profound stakes in the film, but it is never too intense for young tykes. In fact, the Mockingbird is a wonderfully reassuring father-figure, in addition to being an anarchic rebel.

Grimault’s animation is also pure joy to drink in. He inks some striking visuals, especially the action sequences set on precarious ledges around the castle exterior. However, there is an elegant simplicity to his hand drawn figures that is refreshingly nostalgic. While viewers can occasionally see the seams where the work from various years has been married together, the restoration gives it all a nice, clean spit polish.

Grimault’s definitive Mockingbird represents quite a tenacious victory for artistic integrity and creative control. Decades after it was completed for the final time, it still feels oddly contemporary, while evoking the joys of old school animation. Enthusiastically recommended for all ages, the complete and restored The King and the Mockingbird returns to the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center on November 21st, following its special screening at this year’s NYFF.

LFM GRADE: A+

Posted on October 11th, 2014 at 2:45pm.

By Joe Bendel. Taking stock of German filmmaker Arnold Fanck is a rather complicated business, considering he was a close associate of Leni Riefenstahl. Still, he remains one of the most accomplished mountaineering filmmakers of the silent era, so it is not outrageous when his documentary short Cloud Phenomenon of Maloja assumes a prominent place in Olivier Assayas’s Clouds of Sils Marria, which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 52nd New York Film Festival.

Fanck’s silent film never ceased to fascinate the soon-to-be-late Fassbinder-ish Wilhelm Melchior, who titled his most famous play The Maloja Snake in reference to the serpentine cloud formation it documents. Maria Enders’ career ignited when she appeared in the film version, also directed by Melchoir, playing a ruthlessly manipulative young woman engaged in a lesbian relationship-slash-power struggle with an older, more sophisticated woman. Although many years have passed, she is reluctant to accept the more mature and tragic role, for a variety of reasons rooted in insecurity and superstition (the actress who starred opposite her died shortly thereafter). However, her personal assistant Val thinks it is a fine idea, because of her respect for the innovative director, Klaus Diesterweg, and her prospective co-star, the Lindsay Lohan-esque Jo-Ann Ellis.

Val and Diesterweg apparently prevail, but Enders constantly threatens to pull out of the production. She is profoundly uncomfortable with the different meanings she finds in the text after her reversal of roles. In fact, it seems to speak directly to her relationship with Val, especially when they rehearse her lines. The tabloid circus following Ellis also spooks the extremely guarded Enders.

If the Weinsteins had picked up Clouds, Juliette Binoche would have been an instant Oscar frontrunner. It is a performance of strange and understated power, befitting the character clearly modeled to some extent on herself. The implied self-referential nature of the film thereby makes her scenes with Kristen Stewart’s Val feel even bolder and revealing.

Unlike the clumsy play-that-becomes-real in Polanski’s wildly over-praised Venus in Fur, Assayas stages the uncomfortably charged rehearsal sequences with such subtle ambiguity, we often lose our narrative bearings within the film, despite being on guard against that very contingency. Of course, everyone has known Binoche is one of the best in the business for some time, but the degree to which Stewart matches her intensity is almost revelatory. It is an especially bold performance for her, given the added meta-dimensions, such as Ellis’s affair with a married writer that echoes certain media feeding frenzies Stewart would probably like to forget.

While the film works best as a two-hander, Hanns Zischler is devilishly effective as the older actor with whom Enders once had an ill-advised affair, whereas Chloe Grace Moretz looks the part, but never really adds to our understanding of a hot mess like Ellis. Arguably, the third act is somewhat flat compared to the action that came before, in large measure due to Val’s deliberately mysterious exit. Yet, it is still fascinating to see Binoche’s Enders navigate the world of international celebrity they both know so well. While all signs seem to indicate her time in the spotlight is coming to a close, the Ellises of the world might just be playing Enders’ game after all.

Even with its late pacing issues, Sils Maria is a quite a wry valentine to actresses and the personal assistants who put up with their diva-ness. It is unusual when a film this smart is also so forgiving of human weaknesses. Helmed with considerable sensitivity, it also represents a return to form for Assayas after the messy and somewhat didactic Something in the Air. Recommended for fans of Binoche, Assayas, and Stewart (which really ought to cover just about everyone), Clouds of Sils Maria screens as part of this year’s NYFF.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on October 11th, 2014 at 2:45pm.

By Joe Bendel. Ever thought Asimov’s Laws of Robotics were too complicated? Happily, the ROC robotics corporation has distilled them down two prime directives. Essentially, all robots are hardwired to cause no harm and never alter themselves in any way. However, there seem to be a handful of rogue ‘bots, self-repairing and maybe even self-upgrading. An insurance investigator slowly starts to suspect singularity may really be nigh in Gabe Ibáñez’s Automata, which opened this Friday in New York.

By the year 2044, an environmental catastrophe and its radioactive aftermath have killed over ninety-nine percent of the earth’s population. Yet, enough people are still paying premiums without filing claims to keep Jacq Vaucan’s insurance company in business. ROC is their bread and butter client, so every nocturnal day, Vaucan goes out to debunk claims of robot wrong-doings. Frankly, it is easy work, because the First Protocol is ironclad (and people are idiots). Supposedly, the same is true of the Second Protocol, but Vaucan’s investigation turns up a maintenance robot that was reportedly healing itself before the crookedest cop in Oceania blew it away.

Before long, the trail of self-aware robots leads Vaucan to a “clockmaker” in the forbidden zone, who inadvertently awakens a sexbot, before company goons crash the party. Not exactly the sharpest sonic-screwdriver in the Tardis, Vaucan does not realize his own people are out to get him, but since the First Protocol is still in force, the newly sentient robots drag him through the desert to temporary safety in a ridiculously overlong sequence that cries out for the MST3K treatment (think “rock-climbing” in Lost Continent).

Sure, one might say Automata “owes a debt” to Bladerunner, but it still has the palpable feel of a lived-in world teetering on the brink of anarchy. Yet, it is also happens to be one of those strangely contradictory genre films that uses the specter of A.I. run amok to scare the willies out viewers during the set-up, but lectures us in the third act that we have had this coming all along for our environmental naughtiness and should therefore willingly resign ourselves to extinction and just toss the keys to the planet to our stoner roommate’s Xbox. Perhaps I am paraphrasing a little, but the point is that it gets preachy, in an apocalyptic way.

Nevertheless, Antonio Banderas does his moody hardboiled thing with authority as a Vaucan. Likewise, Robert Forster is reliably flinty as Vaucan’s boss, Bob Bold. Melanie Griffith is not wildly convincing as the underground robot tinkerer, but hats off for the professionalism she and Banderas show in their scenes together, considering recent events. The rest of the ensemble looks like they wandered in from the Network 23 boardroom in the old Max Headroom show.

While Automata’s robot design is not wildly dissimilar from scores of films, Ibáñez and production designer Patrick Salvador fully realize the grungy dystopian world, presumably on a limited budget. Too bad they are so determined to end it all. Ambitious but too self-important to fully deliver the genre goods, Automata opened this Friday (10/10) in New York.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on October 11th, 2014 at 2:44pm.

By Joe Bendel. It is supposed to be a near future dystopia, but the post-crash world where roving “numbers gangs” abduct young children for a Middle Eastern human trafficker is not as outlandish as it ought to be. However, a strung-out teenage girl wages war against the cartel with the help of a morally problematic flat foot. It should all sound familiar to anime fans, for good reason. Yasuomi Umetsu’s anime gets the live action remake treatment in Ralph Ziman’s Kite, which opens this Friday in select cities.

It looks like the return of the Dinkins Administration, but on a national scale. Anarchy reigns, as numbers gangs rove the streets and the cops are either too scared or too corrupt to interfere. Karl Aker is the exception. The hard-charging detective has been secretly working to bring down the shadowy white slaver known as the Emir with his secret weapon: Sawa.

After her father, Aker’s partner, was murdered by the Emir’s henchmen, Sawa allowed the cop to pump her full of more juice than major league baseball consumed in 1998. Aker’s narcotic makes her lethal and fast-healing, but it is also addictive and makes her forget. Still, in Sawa’s world there is not much worth remembering. At least, that is how she hazily sees it. Oburi begs to differ. Claiming to be a childhood friend, the would-be Samaritan purports to know important secrets from her past.

Arguably, the Kite concept simply works better in anime than as an exploitative remake. Frankly, India Eisley is not bad as the haunted Sawa, but she looks lighter than a box of Kleenex and more fragile than a crystal rose, making her butt-kicking scenes rather difficult to buy into, especially considering she does not have any super-powers beyond an anesthetizing buzz.

Of course, Samuel L. Jackson should be money in the bank for a film like this, but he is oddly restrained as Aker, only nibbling on the scenery rather gorging as we would hope and expect. Still, when he does his stone cold thing, it is still cool. Unfortunately, the rest of the ensemble is rather nondescript, including Callan McAuliffe, who certainly does not look like an Oburi.

Ziman’s take on Kite is not nearly as lurid or nihilistic as critics made the source anime out to be. In fact, there is a moral center to the film. Instead, its overriding sin is its general tepidness. Only for franchise fanatics, the under-performing Kite opened this Friday (10/10) in New York.

LFM GRADE: C-

Posted on October 11th, 2014 at 2:44pm.

By Joe Bendel. George Riley is dying, but don’t worry, you will not get too attached to the old playboy. In fact, the title character never appears in Alan Ayckbourn’s play, but we hear plenty about him from his friends. It is exactly the sort of sly theatrical device that would appeal to the late great Alain Resnais. For his final film Resnais went back to the Ayckbourn well a third time, adapting Life of Riley, which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 52nd New York Film Festival.

Colin and Kathryn are rehearsing for their roles in the latest production of their amateur theatrical company (Ayckbourn’s Relatively Speaking, naturally enough), but he is clearly preoccupied. Kathryn quickly extracts the truth from her doctor husband: their beloved friend Riley has less than a year to live. In violation of his professional ethics, the couple discusses his condition with their mutual friends, Jack and Tamara, deciding the play is the thing to keep Riley’s spirits up.

They also resolve to broker some sort of rapprochement with his estranged wife Monica, who has taken up with Simeon, a considerably older gentleman farmer. Despite their history together, Monica is not sure she can handle a reunion with George. Yet, she suddenly agrees to comfort her not quite ex-husband in his final hours, when it becomes clear Kathryn and Tamara might harbor eleventh hour romantic interests in Ayckbourn’s absent character.

Indeed, it all sounds like the stuff of midsummer French farce—and French it is indeed, even though Resnais retains the English trappings and Yorkshire country setting. He emphasizes the theatricality of it all with conspicuous fabric backdrops that look deliberately stagey, but give the film a rich, warm vibe thanks to the bold saturated colors. The cast of Resnais regulars hold up quite well in this slightly surreal environment, embracing their characters’ broad bourgeoisie anxieties. While everyone projects to the back row, so to speak, Sandrine Kiberlain and Hippolyte Girardot still manage to really connect on an emotional level, as Monica and Colin, respectively.

Of course, verisimilitude was never an obsessive preoccupation for Resnais, who throws it completely out the window in Life of Riley. Instead, he offers us the elegant illustrated transitions sketched by French cartoonist Blutch and X-Files composer Mark Snow’s uncharacteristically nostalgic soundtrack. There is even an apparent tip of the hat to Caddyshack (in did-I-just-see-that moments nearly as random as Wild Grass’s closing scene). In short, Resnais was not long for the world, but he was still having fun.

Indeed, that is the key to understanding Riley. On paper, the masterful You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet would seem to be the perfect career capstone, given its elegiac tone and its pseudo-resurrection made possible through the power of art. However, like George Riley, Resnais went out on his terms, having one last romp, damning the expectations of others. The result may not be a great film, like the late career masterwork YASNY, but it is a good film, which is always a welcome thing.

Even if Life of Riley is not Resnais’s greatest film, it might be perfectly representative of the auteur’s motifs and strategies. Regardless, it is appealingly wry and sophisticated. Recommended for fans of Resnais and Ayckbourn, Life of Riley screens this Saturday (10/11) at the Beale, as part of this year’s NYFF.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on October 11th, 2014 at 2:43pm.