Day: March 27, 2015

LFM Reviews My Italian Secret

By Joe Bendel. Considering that the sport of cycling’s most important competition recently lost nine years of history to doping scandals, you would think they would celebrate a genuine hero from their past, but Italian champion Gino Bartali’s clandestine efforts to save Italian Jewry remain largely unsung. He was not alone in his secret defiance. Eighty percent of Jews in wartime Italy survived thanks to Bartli and a host of like-minded Italians. Oren Jacoby profiles many of Italy’s righteous and the grown survivors they helped save in My Italian Secret, which opens this Friday in New York.

Mussolini had been firmly entrenched in power since the 1920s, but the Holocaust was slow in reaching Italy. Yes, anti-Semitic laws were passed, but anti-Semitism never really caught on as an ideology. It was not until the German occupation that deportations started in earnest. Of course, there were more than enough Fascists willing to collaborate, but not Bartali.

The Fascists did there level best to co-opt Bartali as a symbol of Italian physical supremacy, but the cyclist refused to participate in their propaganda. Fortunately, his standing as Italy’s preeminent sportsman granted him certain liberties, such as an excuse for long distance bike runs. Soon, Bartali was shuttling counterfeited documents provided by the Catholic Church to Jews in hiding. Bartali further risked his neck by sheltering a Jewish family in his own home.

From "My Italian Secret."

Frankly, it is quite eye-opening to see the bourgeoisie or even privileged status of so many of the Italian Righteous, given the carefully romanticized proletariat image of the resistance. Granted, Bartali came from rugged smallholding farm stock, but Marchesa Gallo did not. Yet, she sheltered numerous Jewish families in her grand palazzo. Likewise, Dr. Giovanni Borromeo was a man of considerable position, who ran tremendous risks operating his special “K” wing, where he hid Jewish fugitives supposedly infected with the nonexistent “K” disease. Jacoby also makes it crystal clear how deeply involved the Catholic Church was in rescue efforts. In fact, it was the Archbishop of Florence who recruited Bartali in the first place.

Jacoby uses the tried and true methods of documentary filmmaking, to good effect. He sparingly employs recreations, but incorporates plenty of archival photos and video. However, the most dramatic sequences by far capture the heartfelt meetings between the survivors (now of advanced years) and the children of their protectors. The Hot Club soundtrack selections are also quite pleasant.

Frankly, it is strange that more of these incidents have not been more widely reported, especially given Italy’s remarkably high Jewish survival rate. However, Bartali was characteristically modest about his actions. Fortunately, he now has Oscar nominated actor Robert Loggia to literally speak for him. Jaded viewers might think they more or less know the trajectory of its collected stories and perhaps they do, but the details are unusually rich. Secret also helps counteract the ideologically-driven smearing of the WWII-era Church and Pope Pius XII, complimenting recent scholarship, like Rabbi David Dalin’s The Myth of Hitler’s Pope. Recommended for general audiences and especially students, My Italian Secret opens this Friday (3/23) in New York at the Cinema Village.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on March 27th, 2015 at 12:48am.

LFM Reviews Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet @ The New York International Children’s Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. He was born into a Maronite Catholic family and wrote his best known work in English, but Kahlil Gibran was subsequently embraced as a symbol of Arab culture. Without question, his best known work is The Prophet, arguably the original break-out New Age bestseller, whose celebrity admirers include Elvis Presley, John Lennon, and Salma Hayek. Her regard for the instantly recognizable Knopf title was such that she produced a big screen animated adaptation of the book few would have thought adaptable. The ambition and animation are definitely impressive, but the source material remains unwieldy in Roger Allers’ Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, which screened during this year’s New York International Children’s Film Festival.

In order to give the film a central storyline, Allers took some liberties with the framing device. The exiled prophet Mustafa (here more of a hipster painter and poet) is indeed bidding a fond farewell to the citizens of Orphalese, but he will not simply hop on the tall ship and sail off into the sunset. The oppressive Pasha and his thuggish police sergeant are planning permanent measures to halt his progressive influence before they let him go anywhere. The resulting narrative is like a weird passion play, with the assorted peasants in the countryside and merchants in town celebrating his presumed release with much feasting and drinking. At each stop along the way, Mustafa gives the crowd a pithy bit of prose poetry wisdom impressionistically rendered by a diverse roster of animators.

No longer is Almitra a seer. She is now the rebellious mute daughter of Kamila, the widowed housekeeper hired to tidy up the prophet’s exile cottage. Sharing a connection with the island’s seagulls, she is the first to suspect the fate awaiting Mustafa. Presumably, these liberties taken with the text pass muster with the Gibran establishment, given their active role in the production.

Regardless, the film as a whole is necessarily uneven, since Allers and Hayek-Pinault (as she is billed here) deliberately embrace its episodic structure. Not surprisingly, the best sequences are “On Love” animated by Tomm Moore (Song of the Sea) and “On Marriage” crafted by Joann Sfar (The Rabbi’s Cat). The abstract nature of the texts are also particularly well suited to the styles of Nina Paley (Sita Sings the Blues) and Bill Plympton (Cheatin’). However, the other four parables largely blend together.

From "Kahlil Gibran’s 'The Prophet.'"

Following in the footsteps of Richard Harris’s Arif Mardin-produced musical interpretation of The Prophet, Liam Neeson continues the Irish Gibran tradition as the voice of Mustafa. To be fair, his husky, reassuring tones are rather well suited to the film. Hayek-Pinault is perfectly serviceable as Kamila. (Since she is once again playing a mother facing difficult circumstances, Prophet should really be considered a companion film to Everly and the two should be screened together whenever possible). Quvenzhané Wallis gets precious little actual dialogue as Almitra (but perhaps that is just as well), while Alfred Molina does his best to keep up with the slapstick humor directed at his pompous Sergeant.

Whatever you do, always observe the authorial possessive in the title, like “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Although the film’s cultish impetus is a little creepy, it is intriguing to see such a high profile attempt at impressionistic, non-narrative animated filmmaking. Unfortunately, some of the contributing filmmakers are better suited to the task than others. A strange hybrid, Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet is recommended for animation enthusiasts who want to see something a little outside the norm (whereas younger viewers will probably find it indulgently lecture-y) when it screened as the closing film of the 2015 NYICFF.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on March 27th, 2015 at 12:48am.

LFM Reviews Ojuju @ BAM’s 2015 New Voices in Black Cinema

By Joe Bendel. There is no greater public health crisis than a zombie apocalypse. In this case, it is directly linked to a contaminated water supply, but high population density, unprotected sex, and some wicked strong weed are also contributing factors. Once infection takes hold, it runs like wildfire through a Lagos slum in C.J. “Fiery” Obasi’s Ojuju, which screens during the 2015 New Voices in Black Cinema at the BAM Rose Cinemas.

People think Romero (hat tip intentional) is a little strange, because the slacker actually seems to be serious about fulfilling his obligations to his highly pregnant girlfriend, Alero. Nobody is more confused by this then his former hook-up Aisha, but his buddies Emmy and Peju also have a hard time adjusting to his domestic bliss. Alas, it is not to last.

The first victim we see fall prey to the shufflers will be Fela, the local drug dealer, who has been selling some particularly potent product lately. He also samples the wares more than he should, so the strange figure staggering towards him just doesn’t set off the alarm bells it should. Inevitably infected, he and his crony begin the feverish process of transformation, despite the local prostitute’s efforts to care for his mystery illness. Soon, nearly the entire neighborhood except Romero, Emmy, and Peju are part of the shuffling horde. Unfortunately, there are limited egress points for the largely self-contained slum, so getting out of Dodge will be a tricky proposition.

Those who might be expecting the weird evangelical perspective often reflected in Nollywood films can just forget it. Ojuju will not begrudge its socially disadvantaged characters a little sin while the sinning is good. Everyone tokes up a little to get by, even the incredibly foul-mouthed adolescent known simply as “the Kid.” What really makes the zombie (or ojuju) outbreak so devastating are the hard facts of life in a Nigerian slum. Obasi gives us a vivid sense of what they are like, including the bottleneck exit and the razor wire encircling it.

From "Ojuju."

While Ojuju was obviously shot on a micro-budget, the gritty, low-fi aesthetic nicely suits the zombie genre. Obasi delivers enough gore to mollify genre fans, but the sweaty, claustrophobic vibe is what really generates the mounting dread. He also tacks on a long, almost entirely unrelated coda, but it largely works as a short film in its own right, so just consider it a bonus.

Perhaps Ojuju’s nicest surprise is the ensemble’s professionalism. Ranging from solidly presentable to legitimately polished, they are consistent in a good way, with Gabriel Afolayan and Chidozie Nzeribe particularly intense standouts as Romero and Fela, respectively. Making a virtue of its rough edges, Obasi exceeds expectations for his scrappy upstart zombie film. Recommended for undead fans, Ojuju screens this Friday (3/27) at BAM, as part of this year’s New Voices in Black Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on March 27th, 2015 at 12:45am.

LFM Reviews From Mayerling to Sarajevo

By Joe Bendel. This is why “Old Europe” is a term of such derision. In the early Twentieth Century Austro-Hungarian Empire, snobbery was at its most severe when applied within the noble classes. Privilege was assiduously protected and innovation was just as strenuously discouraged. The heir-apparent meant to shake things up, but alas, it was not to be. Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s courtship of Countess Sophie Chotek and their tragic final days take on further significance in Max Öphuls’ woefully overlooked but freshly restored 1940 classic, From Mayerling to Sarajevo, which opens this Friday at Film Forum.

Obviously, this story will end badly for Franz Ferdinand and Sophie. Everyone should know an assassin’s bullet awaits them in Sarajevo. Those who consider that a spoiler should go hang their heads in shame. The Mayerling reference may not be so obvious, but it was the murder-suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf and his mistress, Baroness Mary Vetsera at the Habsburg hunting lodge in Mayerling that thrust Franz Ferdinand into the immediate line of succession.

As the film opens, the current Emperor Franz Josef has resigned himself to Franz Ferdinand role as his successor, despite his misgivings over the younger noble’s reformist inclinations. Of course, it is his professed preference for decentralization and tolerance that makes the Archduke rather popular throughout the empire. It is generally good for business to keep him busy with inspection tours, but that is how he meets the Countess.

Sophie Chotek is a noble-born Czech, but that was not good enough for the Habsburgs. Supposedly, only nobility directly related to crowned heads of state were eligible to marry the Archduke. Frankly, their initial meeting goes rather badly, culminating with Chotek giving him a dressing down of sorts, but he loves every minute of it. Soon romance blossoms, but they try to keep it a secret for the sake of the Archduke’s future position. However, their love will not be denied, especially when oily court ministers start conspiring against them.

Sarajevo (as it is often more simply known) is one of the oddest star-crossed romances, because it openly invites sympathy for two lovers born into unimaginable good fortune, while it inexorably hurtles towards its catastrophic end. Indeed, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were a couple worthy of Shakespeare, but Öphuls and a small platoon of screenwriters (including Carl Zuckmayer and Jacques Natanson) do them justice. They also rather burnish the image of Franz Ferdinand, who is largely considered something of a footnote today. While opinions vary as to the extent of his liberalism, it is hard to dismiss his tentative support for the concept of a “United States of Austria” (duly featured in the film) and the necessary loss of status it implied.

Sarajevo also serves as a worthy re-introduction to American actor John Lodge, who is suitably commanding, yet slightly roguish as Franz Ferdinand. Fluent in French, Lodge (the brother of Henry Cabot, Jr.) is now better known for his political career as a Connecticut Congressman and Governor and later the U.S. Ambassador to Spain, Argentina, and Switzerland. He truly looks the part and develops some believably spirited romantic chemistry with French leading lady Edwige Feuillère. As Sophie, she must walk a fine line between fighting for her man and suffering for her country, but she makes her dilemmas feel quite real and pressing.

From "From Mayerling to Sarajevo."

Watching Sarajevo, we understand Franz Ferdinand and Sophie are not joking when they say the Empire needs him. It is easy to envision a far less turbulent (and bloody) Twentieth Century had he not been assassinated. With the National Socialist invasion imminent, Öphuls clearly invokes his democratic reputation for propaganda purposes, but Öphuls would take refuge in Hollywood, by way of Switzerland and Spain soon after its release.

Frankly, it is rather eerie watching how petty concern for court protocol inadvertently led to such horrific macro events. Throughout the film, Öphuls demonstrates a wonderfully shrewd eye for the trappings and architecture of power while portraying the royal romance with humor and sensitivity. Hugely entertaining in ways both grand and hauntingly sad, From Mayerling to Saravejo is very highly recommended when it opens this Friday (3/27) in New York, at Film Forum.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on March 27th, 2015 at 12:44am.