Day: January 28, 2015

LFM Reviews I Am Hong Kong @ The 2015 Sundance Film Festival

From "I Am Hong Kong."

By Joe Bendel. It is eerily fitting that Hong Kong’s democracy activists chose the umbrella as their symbol. After all, they are now most definitely facing that proverbial rainy day. Aside from our colleagues at the Epoch Times, the largely AWOL American media did a terrible job of covering the Umbrella Protests. In contrast, HK filmmaker Flora Lau was there, capturing the images of a movement that deserved better in the brief but potent short, I Am Hong Kong, which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Based on her unusually subtle and nuanced narrative feature debut Bends, Lau will be a filmmaker to be reckoned with, assuming I Am Hong Kong does not cause her bureaucratic trouble down the line. Her approach for the short is elegantly simple, matching striking black-and-white stills with voiceovers from diverse protestors explaining what contemporary Hong Kong means to them, in either practical or metaphorical terms.

From "I Am Hong Kong."

These are the faces we have not seen—the mothers with young children, the senior citizens, and the attractive young college students, who surely would have had plenty of other requests for their time, were they not demonstrating for meaningful democratic reforms. Indeed, their signs are quite telling, proclaiming “No party, no karaoke, fight for democracy,” and “Keep calm and carry an umbrella.”

While Lau was there more to observe and report than to make a statement, just being there and recording it all faithfully is significant. Clocking in shy of the five minute mark, it is definitely a shorty, but visually it is powerful, almost overwhelming stuff. Very highly recommended, I Am Hong Kong is a work of journalistic art that screens again with the documentary feature The Chinese Mayor today (1/28), Friday (1/30), and Saturday (1/31) in Park City and Thursday (1/29) and Friday (1/30) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance.

LFM GRADE: A+

Posted on January 28th, 2015 at 4:54pm.

Paginini at the Crossroads: LFM Reviews The Devil’s Violinist

By Joe Bendel. Niccolò Paginini was the Robert Johnson of classical music. His ferocious technique and unparalleled popular success were seriously considered the fruits of a Faustian bargain. The talent was always there. Getting people to listen was the hard part. In fact, it was such a tricky proposition, the materialist maestro gladly makes that deal in Bernard Rose’s The Devil’s Violinist, which opens this Friday in New York.

Sulfur has not numbed the Mephistophelean Urbani’s nose for talent. He immediately recognizes the gifts of an aspiring Don Juan violinist scuffling in grubby music halls. He pledges to guarantee Paginini’s career and serve as his personal servant in this world, if Paginini agrees to do the same for him in the next. Shortly after signing a contract he probably should have read more closely, Paginini’s career ignites. He becomes a figure of dark romance and veiled controversy, like an early nineteenth century heavy metal rock star.

Eventually, Paginini gets bored with it all, spending long hours brooding in the tub, doing his best to resemble The Death of Marat. Fortunately, Paginini somewhat snaps out of his lethargy when he accepts upstart promoter John Watson’s offer to produce and conduct his London debuts concerts. However, Paginini’s demands will stretch the limits of Watson’s resources. Met by a mob of moralizing progressive protestors, Watson and his diva mistress Elisabeth Wells are forced to quarter Paginini and Urbani in their home. Of course, Watson’s daughter Charlotte immediately catches Paginini’s eye, but she is not inclined to swoon over the maestro, at least not yet.

We always thought Jared Harris just might be the Devil, so Violinist practically feels like a confirmation. He is delightfully sinister chewing on the scenery. Yet ironically, Urbani (who seems to be more of a minion than Old Scratch himself) is not infrequently portrayed as a more empathetic fellow than Paginini. Regardless, it is great fun watching him lurk and glower.

From "The Devil’s Violinist."

Violin prodigy and classical crossover artist David Garrett can certainly play. Acting is a little iffier. Perhaps the many scenes of his Paginini huddling in bed sheets in a state of near catatonia was a shrewd strategic decision on Rose’s part. Fortunately, Harris has some terrific supporting players to engage with, including Christian McKay, unflaggingly earnest as Watson, as well as Joely Richardson suggesting Eliza Doolittle’s morally flexible cousin as tabloid music critic Ethel Langham.

In a way, Devil’s Violinist reconciles the classy Jekyll films Rose has helmed, such as the Beethoven bio-pic Immortal Beloved and the superior Sophie Marceau version of Anna Karenina, with his Hydish scare fare, like Candyman and SXTape. For obvious reasons, he leans towards the former, depicting Urbani more as a Svengali than a figure of satanic horror. It works relatively well, despite Garrett’s awkwardness, which sometimes even feels fitting in context. Harris certainly does his thing and Garrett’s musical chops are also quite cinematic. Recommended for classical connoisseurs who appreciate a bit of uncanny garnish, The Devil’s Violinist opens this Friday (1/30) in New York, at the Quad Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on January 28, 2015 at 4:53pm.

LFM Reviews Darkness on the Edge of Town @ The 2015 Slamdance Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Young Cleo Callahan might not look like a vigilante, but she has the right skills. She is crack sharpshooter, particularly with a rifle-scope. Arguably, her investigative talents are somewhat subpar, but in such a small provincial village she is bound to find her sister’s killer sooner or later. However, the guilty party is closer than she could imagine in Patrick Ryan’s moody revenge drama Darkness on the Edge of Town, which screens during the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival.

Since the death of their parents, Callahan’s relationship with her older sister Aishling has been strained. She now lives with Foster parents, while Aishling lives the wild life—or at least she was. Although we see full well who the killer is, it feels like the sort of thing that should be held close to the vest. Regardless, Cleo Callahan soon sets out to even the score, presuming the murderer is one of the dodgy characters in her sister’s social circle.

Technically, they are innocent, but it is clearly implied they did sister Aishling wrong in more conventional ways, so there is no need to feel sympathy for their sorry hides. However, it is a different story when suspicion falls on Virgil O’Riley, the brother of her profoundly troubled best friend Robin.

The tone of Darkness is so dark, it is like Milton’s darkness visible. You do not want to know what goes on behind closed doors because it is sure to be awful. This is not a wish fulfillment vigilante movie like the later Death Wish films. It is scrupulously serious, even though there is a good deal of blood down the stretch. At times, Ryan plays with the themes and visual language of the western genre, but it is really more closely akin to a film like Heavenly Creatures, but executed in a drastically more naturalistic style.

From "Darkness on the Edge of Town."

Be that as it may, Darkness heralds the arrival of Emma Willis as a major new screen talent to watch. Her performance as Robin O’Riley is truly harrowing, riveting, and downright scary. It is bad luck for Emma Eliza Regan, whose intense slow-burning work as Callahan is likely to be overlooked, even though it is excellent, as well.

It is hard to classify Darkness as a thriller, because of its deliberate pacing and thoroughly realized sense of hardscrabble place. Still, this film has grit in abundance. Definitely recommended for patrons of Irish cinema and violent contemporary tragedies in general, Darkness on the Edge of Town screens again today (1/28) at Treasure Mountain Inn, as part of this year’s Slamdance.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on January 28th, 2015 at 4:53pm.

LFM Reviews Female Pervert @ The 2015 Slamdance Film Festival

From "Female Pervert."

By Joe Bendel. Some things sound sexier in theory than they frequently turn out to be in practice, like Murakami book clubs and dirty talk. Phoebe will learn both these things first hand. She would really like to make a connection, but she is her own worst enemy in Jiyoung Lee’s Female Pervert, which screens during the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival.

Phoebe works for a boutique PR agency and develops video games on the side. She is cute and hip, so you would think she would have no trouble attracting guys, until she starts talking. Frankly, the term pervert might be a bit harsh. It is like she has a form of sexual Tourette’s that compels her to make creepy, mood-killing comments.

Clocking in just over an hour, FP is relatively brief and a tad repetitive, as Phoebe falls into a predictable pattern of initially attracting guys with her idiosyncrasies and then repelling them with her inappropriate weirdness. However, there is a lot of sly satire directed at Nabokov-reading pseudo-intellectual hipsters, the shallow feel-good liberal activism of millennials, conspiracy theorists with a religious-like faith in cheaply produced documentaries, and organic-food-eating environmental paranoids. None of them can withstand Phoebe’s caustic attitude.

From "Female Pervert."

That necessarily means Jennifer Kim is the key to whether it all works and to what extent. Fortunately, she is absolutely terrific as the exquisitely problematic Phoebe. Her comic timing is pitch perfect and she radiates an eccentric charisma that truly lights up the screen. You cannot help falling for her, despite all the whacked out things she says and does. She somehow conveys a real heart underneath all the acting-out, which comes through clearly in Lee’s sweetly subtle closing sequence.

Even knowing full well how much trouble she is, you’d be tempted to try to make something work with Phoebe, which is sort of the acid test for a character like this. While a lot of critics have bought into Desiree Akhavan’s Appropriate Behavior, because it tries to milk some rather gross sexual situations for laughs, it utterly lacks the warmth and vulnerability of the imperfectly titled Female Pervert. Recommended for fans of edgy but still kind of sweet relationship comedies, Female Pervert screens again today (1/28) at Treasure Mountain Inn, as part of this year’s Slamdance.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on January 28th, 2015 at 4:52pm.