Month: March 2015

By Joe Bendel. Could you fall for a taxman? Two women from the provincial French town of Valence will do exactly that. Their similar tastes make sense, considering they happen to be sisters. Complications will necessarily ensue in Benoît Jacquot’s 3 Hearts, which opens this Friday in New York.

Marc Beaulieu is a revenue agency bureaucrat based in Paris, but he sometimes ventures out into the field for an audit. He missed the last train home on his first fateful night in Valence—the sort of sleepy town that rolls up the streets after eleven o’clock. However, Sylvie Berger is also roaming through the shuttered nocturnal streets. She guides him to a hotel, but they spend most of the night gliding through the quiet sidewalks together. Little is said, but a connection is formed. Beaulieu leaves for Paris in the morning, but they make hasty plans to rendezvous at the Jardin des Tuileries, but a few mild hassles like a heart attack make Beaulieu prohibitively tardy.

Naturally, the two would be lovers never exchanged cell numbers or even properly introduced themselves. That would have killed the mood, which is admittedly intoxicating. We wish the film would return to that vividly in-the-moment romantic vibe, so we can understand why Beaulieu will do some truly reckless things later in the film to recapture it.

For the time being, life goes on. Berger agrees to move to Minneapolis with the underwhelming boyfriend she had just broken up with, resigning herself to a crummy relationship and cold winters. Returning to Valence on business, Beaulieu looks for Berger, but instead he finds her sister Sophie weeping in the tax office over the state of her returns. Of course, the name Berger means nothing to him. Taking pity on her, Beaulieu straightens out her bookkeeping, winning her heart as a result. Through a carefully contrived set of circumstances, he never figures out who the absent sister is until their wedding plans are well underway.

When they finally come face-to-face, it is rather awkward. Sylvie Berger tries to avoid her new brother-in-law as much as possible, but their mutual ardor is constantly at risk of boiling over. As Beaulieu becomes rasher, the threat of scandal grows. Clearly, it is all building to a bad end for several sides of the love triangle, as Bruno Coulais’s surprisingly moody and somewhat discordant score has foreshadowed right from the beginning.

3 Hearts could be considered the dark analog of films like Brief Encounter and An Affair to Remember. While the romanticism of the initial meeting is overwhelmingly potent, it leads to an obsession that becomes toxic over time. Frankly, love at first sight is not a healthy proposition in 3 Hearts.

Much will be made of Catherine Deneuve once again portraying the mother of her real life daughter Chiara Mastroianni, but Madame Berger plays a tangential role in this drama. The real show is Mastroianni and Charlotte Gainsbourg complimenting and contrasting with each other as the needy, insecure Sophie and the reserved but passionate Sylvie, respectively. They are totally credible as the closest of sisters, but it is a bit harder to understand why they are both so profoundly attracted to a wheezing, walking coronary like Beaulieu. Regardless, Benoît Poelvoorde is uncomfortably compelling as the compulsive, self-destructive auditor.

While 3 Hearts sounds like a straight drama on paper, its tone approaches that of a thriller. Jacquot constantly maintains the nagging sense something dreadful might happen in the very next scene. It is tenser and more unsettling than most infidelity films, including those that venture further into violent or noir territory. Consistently effective despite, or because of its openly melodramatic inclinations, 3 Hearts is recommended for Francophiles when it opens this Friday (3/13) in New York at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on March 9th, 2015 at 11:06pm.

By Joe Bendel. Generally, in the western tradition, rising from the dead is usually either something miraculous or horrifying. The jury is still out whether an isolated Pacific Northwestern community’s sporadic resurrections are a blessing or a curse. For two formerly grieving parents, it is certainly the former case when their youngest daughter literally walks back into their lives. However, she is not the only formerly deceased to reappear in The Returned, an Americanized remake of the French television show of the same name, which premieres on A&E this Monday.

Four years ago, Camille Winship perished with most of her classmates in a school bus accident that devastated the town. As the show opens, she comes to near the fateful scene and rather confusedly makes her way home, unaware of her temporary death and the subsequent passage of years. Her all-but-separated parents, Jack and Claire, had tremendous difficulty dealing with her loss, particularly her father. Understandably, they are not quite sure what it means for their relationship when she comes back, but they are instinctively protective and secretive. It is almost too much for her older sister Lena to take, considering she always suspected Camille was their favorite.

Quite faithful to the original source material in the early episodes, co-writer-showrunners Carlton Cuse and Raelle Tucker give us plenty of backstory for the Winships, but slowly dole out tidbits of history on the other once dead characters for dramatic effect. Unfortunately, probably the storyline getting the second most screen time after Camille Winship’s family involves the formerly dearly departed bar band bad boy Simon Moran and Rowan Blackshaw, the fiancée he stranded at the altar in the worst way possible. However, the most intriguing story arc follows Victor, a mysterious little boy given shelter by Dr. Julie Han. After four episodes, viewers will truly have no idea what to expect from him, unless they have seen the French show. However, it is safe to say one returnee is a seriously bad cat, but his secrets remain closely guarded.

Cruse and Tucker might be faithful to a fault adapting The Returned, but there are plenty of similar thematic precedents out there already, including the Canadian film also titled The Returned and the BBC America show In the Flesh, both of which chronicle the challenges of the formerly deceased in treatment for their zombie condition. However, A&E’s The Returned still mostly works, if you come to it without any baggage from its source material, because of the strength of its cast.

Mark Pellegrino is convincingly guilt-ridden and surly as Jack Winship and Tandi Wright is similarly engaging as the more stable but equally pained Claire. It is quite compelling to watch them process an unimaginable turn of events. Likewise, India Ennenga and Sophia Lowe truly look like sisters and share believably catty sisterly chemistry as Camille and Lena, respectively. As usual, Sandrine Holt’s sophisticated presence just generally elevates the proceedings and she sensitively expresses Han’s frustrated maternal instincts in her scenes with the squirrely Victor. Strangely though, Agnes Bruckner, who has a bit of a cult reputation for films like The Pact gets little work of substance in the first four episodes as busybody copper Nikki Banks. If only the same could be said of the quickly tiresome Blackshaw and Moran, played with excruciating angst by Mary Elizabeth Winstead (so much better in Faults) and Mat Vairo.

Over the course of the initial four episodes, A&E’s The Returned remains light on allegorical pretension and heavy on its extreme form of family drama, which is all for the best. In fact, the local pastor played by Carl Lumbly is unusual sympathetic and down-to-earth. When unknowingly challenged by a rather embittered returnee, his words on faith sound heartfelt rather than rote. He is one of many in the ensemble who inspire optimism The Returned will continue to be quite watchable. Highly moody but weirdly grabby, The Returned is worth checking out for fresh viewers in search of new genre television when premieres this Monday (3/9) on A&E.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on March 9th, 2015 at 11:05pm.

By Joe Bendel. KITSAT-1 is sort of like Skylab, but when she fell to Earth, she turned into a girl. Kyung-chun used to be a boy, which would have made them a good match, but he turned into a cow, because that sort of thing regularly happens to the broken hearted in this world. So maybe she is a bit stiff and he is a bit bovine—love can still find a way in Jang Hyung-yun’s Satellite Girl and Milk Cow, which screens during the 2015 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

KITSAT-1 was Korea’s first satellite, but hardly anyone notices when she goes on the fritz. After decades of observing Koreans from all walks of life, she wants to join in. She will have the opportunity thanks to Merlin, who has assumed the form of a roll of toilet paper, because he could. Suddenly Kyung-chun is sharing his apartment with Il-ho, as KITSAT-1 now calls herself, and the wizard himself. At least thanks to Merlin’s help, Kyung-chun is able to temporarily return to his prior human appearance in a magical suit that is logically made out of enchanted toilet paper.

It turns out Kyung-chun could actually use the help going incognito. Lately, he has been stalked by a shadowy poacher, whose employer covets the reputed power that comes from ingesting the organs of broken-hearted changelings like Kyung-chun. Fortunately, Il-ho is there to protect him with her Inspector Gadget-like projectile limbs, in between their bickering.

SG&MC sounds completely bonkers and it probably is, but it feels relatively normal in the moment. Things just work differently in its world—roll with it. In fact, the vibe is more closely akin to a Korean rom-com. It’s your basic satellite meets moo cow story. However, nobody dies from cancer at the end, so it stays safely in rom-com territory rather than taking on the tone of a tragically romantic blockbuster.

Throughout the film, Jang maintains an appealing mix of sweetness and goofiness. After all, it is easy to identify with Kyung-chun because everyone has had their hearts ripped out, stomped to pieces, and then kicked into their faces at some point in time. He gets a key assist from Hong Sang-soo regular Jung Yu-mi (Oki’s Movie, In Another Country), who charming voiceover performance brings the awkward but earnest Il-ho fully to life.

This is a gentle film that should be perfectly appropriate for kids of eight years and older (as per the festival’s guidelines), but it will be the parents and big kids who fully appreciate its wackiness and empathy for the lovelorn. Jang’s animation is not exactly Studio Ghibli quality (to which it has been compared), but it has a lot of character and a healthy energy level. Highly recommended for those who can get behind some idiosyncratically romantic animation, Satellite Girl and Milk Cow screens again this coming Saturday (3/14) at the SVA Theatre, as part of this year’s NYICFF.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on March 9th, 2015 at 11:05pm.

By Joe Bendel. You’re supposed to make mistakes when you’re a kid. That’s all part of the growing up process. Unfortunately, there is a much smaller margin for error when an oppressive foreign power occupies your country during a time of war. That is the environment two Dutch twelve year-olds face in Dennis Bots’ Secrets of War, which screens during the 2015 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Initially, Tuur Ramakers and Lambert Nijskens are inseparable friends, but their families have already aligned on different sides of the war. Lambert’s politically ambitious father has become the town’s leading National Socialist collaborator. As a result, Tuur’s parents have largely cut their social ties with the Nijskenses. They might also be taking an even a more active role in the resistance, but they have shielded Tuur from any compromising knowledge. Naturally, he picks up on this and resents it. Nevertheless, young Ramakers and Nijskens largely carry on as they always did, thanks in part to the latter’s reluctance to join the Hitler Youth. However, everything changes when Maartje Holtermans arrives at school.

Supposedly, Holtermans is visiting her aunt and uncle from the north, as kids would do during the war. They live in a rather provincial town after all, but they are far from immune from air raids. Nevertheless, there is obviously more to Holtermans’ story than she lets on (but the audience should tweak to it right away). Of course, Ramakers and Nijskens are slower on the up-take, because they are kids. Regrettably, this will have dire consequences when three becomes a crowd. As feelings develop between the more sophisticated Holtermans and the bad boy Ramakers, the resentful Nijskens will do something impulsively rash.

Sure, most festival goers will have seen a fair number of thematically similar films—Martin Koolhaven’s occupation-set coming-of-age story Winter in Wartime being a particularly relevant comparative. However, Secrets is surprisingly smart and subtle showing how typically overheated adolescent drama could take on wider tragic implications. Things get dark and desperate, but in grimly logical rather than contrived ways.

The trio of young primaries are also quite polished and work remarkably well in-tandem. Maas Bronkhuyzen oozes mischievous charisma as Ramakers and Pippa Allen’s Holtermans could pass for a pre-teen Natalie Portman. Poor Joes Brauers is stuck with most of the film’s ignoble work, but he still manages to convey all of Nijskens’ humanizing insecurities and jealousies. Although far from a driving element, the white-haired local vicar is also refreshingly portrayed as a (much harassed) man of principle.

Karin van Holst Pellekaan’s adaptation of Jacques Vriens’ YA novel forthrightly addresses the realities of the Holocaust, but it stops short of showing viewers the actual horrors. Arguably, it could serve as an effective introduction to the National Socialist genocide without overwhelming young viewers. It definitely reflects a twelve year-old’s perspective, but that makes it quite touching for adult viewers. Recommended with a good deal of enthusiasm, Secrets of War screens tomorrow (3/7) at the IFC Center and Sunday (3/15) at the SVA Theatre, as part of this year’s NYICFF.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on March 6th, 2015 at 2:42pm.

By Joe Bendel. The internet is not forever, as a recent New Yorker piece on digital archiving makes abundantly clear. Yes, there is always the nefarious deleting, like the Russian-backed paramilitary commander who tried to memory hole a tweet bragging about shooting down what turned out to be Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Yet, more often than not, it is a question of hosts going out of business and links becoming corrupted. BL Reputation Management can hasten the process with a little scrubbing and a bit of astroturfing here and there. Their latest recruit is particularly skillful at navigating the twilight regions of the web, but one of the parties might be getting more than they bargained for in Cyril Morin’s Hacker’s Game, which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

Soyan did not hack into BL’s system cleanly enough to escape discovery, but his work was sufficiently skillful to convince the company to offer him a job in lieu of prosecution. Company chairman Russel Belial and his right hand femme fatale, Lena Leibovitz, will keep the hacker on a short leash, but it is not like he had much of a personal life anyway. The one promising development is his ambiguous friendship (and possibly romance), with fellow hacker Loise. They met on a rooftop catching open wifi signals. She has skills too, which she utilizes on behalf of human rights NGOs, but frankly she prefers ink-and-paper over digital alternatives. Yet, the somewhat immature Soyan manages to woo her (to an extent) with a virtual chess game.

There is a ton of backstory in Game, including the reported exploits of Angela King, a mysterious cyber activist who sounds like a cross between Edward Snowden and Neo in the Matrix trilogy. Somehow Soyan, Loise, and BL are all somehow involved in the wider intrigue, but Morin takes forever to close the loop—even though we can largely guess the broad strokes from the get-go. It just seems like an awful lot of the film consists of Loise and Soyan sitting next to each other, wearing VR visors, thereby preventing any real intimate chemistry from developing.

There are a few intriguing elements sprinkled throughout, including the highly ambiguous portrayal of Loise’s former do-gooder employer. Cinematographer Romain Wilhelm fittingly evokes the dark, murky look of the classic 1970s conspiracy thrillers. Strangely though, Morin’s screenplay never really taps into the current zeitgeist, mostly just feeling like another warmed over serving of anti-corporate paranoia.

Be that as it may, there is something strangely compelling about Pom Klementieff’s Loise. Even her halting delivery of the English dialogue seems to work in context. On the other hand, she and Chris Schellenger (with his anemic mustache and goat patch beard) never look like a believable couple. Prop specialist-turned character actor King Orba has some nice moments as Belial, the villain who maybe/sort of believes his own rhetoric. However, the rest of the supporting ensemble gets to be quite a source of adventure, producing some awkward line readings and plenty of general dramatic clunkiness.

Arguably, Hacker’s Game would have been more interesting if it depicted BL in more ambiguous terms. In all honesty, it is not hard to think of circumstances for relatively decent customers to seek out there services, like the CEO who married a long retired porn star mentioned early in the film. A little over a century ago, people could restart their lives by moving to the frontier, but that is no longer an option in the digital age. Regardless, Klementieff is probably due to breakout internationally, but this just isn’t the film to do it. Despite some style points, it is just too slowly paced and too logically-challenged. For the hardcore net neutrality fanatics, it opens tomorrow (3/6) in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema.

LFM GRADE: C-

Posted on March 6th, 2014 at 2:41pm.

By Joe Bendel. Alfred Henry “Freddy” Heineken was sort of like the Netherlands’ Lindbergh Baby, except he was nobody’s victim. A desperate group of disenfranchised construction workers pulled off the truly daring abduction, but getting away clean turned out to be a trickier proposition. Nevertheless, their crime-of-the-century had considerable long term consequences that are duly revealed in Daniel Alfredson’s Kidnapping Mr. Heineken, which opens this Friday.

Frankly, if Holland in the early 1980s had better respected property rights, Cor van Hout and his business partners might have never resorted to crime. They desperately needed a loan to keep their small construction enterprise afloat, but their only collateral was a building infested with legally protected squatters—not exactly a property the bank would be happy to assume should they default. Ironically, old man Heineken, a supporter of the Dutch People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, probably would have empathized. Regardless, when Van Hout and his hot-tempered mate Willem Holleeder resolve to follow Willie Sutton’s advice and go where the money is, it necessarily means Mr. Heineken.

Showing considerable patience, Van Hout, Holleeder, and their accomplices spend two years in planning, rather than rushing into the operation. They want the authorities to assume Heineken was grabbed by a well-funded international terrorist organization or the mob. Initially, it all goes according to plan, but old man Heineken is cool customer. His chauffeur Ab Doderer is a different story. Heineken tries to reassure his panicking employee through the walls of their makeshift cells, but the working class immigrant is not holding up well.

You can expect to see a lot of negative reviews of Mr. Heineken from those hung up on class warfare rhetoric because of its largely positive portrayal of Freddy Heineken. He is consistently calm, collected, and caring with respects to poor Doderer. It is also rich to learn how he responded to his kidnapping as a capitalist once he was released (no thanks to his captors).

In large measure, Mr. Heineken is the sort of caper film where the whole point is to watch it go spectacularly wrong. Getting the ransom is the easy part, as it usually is. The getaway is way more difficult. However, in this case, the endgame is especially long and twisty.

Screenwriter William Brookfield incorporates a number of fascinating historical details into the narrative and the mostly British Commonwealth cast looks appropriately continental and suitably beaten down where applicable. Of course, Sir Anthony Hopkins is totally credible as Freddy Heineken, instantly establishing his intelligence and charisma. Jim Sturgess does his best work in years as the angsty Van Hout, while Sam Worthington is reliably tightly wound as Holleeder (but not nearly as awesome-nuts as he was in the under-rated Texas Killing Fields).

Alfredson, who helmed the second two Swedish Lisbeth Salander films, keeps the action moving along and the tension cranked up, despite the fatalistic direction it must take. Cinematographer Fredrik Bäckar also gives it a gritty look that nicely suits the times. It is quite a well-produced period-thriller that does justice to fascinating real life events. Recommended quite highly, Kidnapping Mr. Heineken launches on iTunes and opens in select theaters this Friday (3/6), including George R.R. Martin’s Jean Cocteau Cinema in Albuquerque.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on March 6th, 2015 at 1:25pm.