Day: April 6, 2015

Calabria’s Crime Family: LFM Reviews Black Souls

By Joe Bendel. The ‘Ndrangheta is to Calabria what the Camorra is to Naples. Although they are considered more provincial amongst Italian criminal networks, they have an international reach and a presumed alliance with the Sicilian Mafia. Nonetheless, there are still organized along familial lines. Consequently, past grievances often lead to violence and normal family dysfunction can cause long term destabilization in Francesco Munzi’s decidedly un-romanticized Black Souls, which opens this Friday in New York.

Luciano is the oldest of the Carbone brothers, but he largely rejected the family business, preferring to keep a herd of goats and a modest farm in remote Africo, the ancient seat of the ‘Ndrangheta syndicate. His younger brother Luigi is the swaggering public face of the Carbones, while the youngest brother Rocco handles all the dodgy accounting. Luciano’s rebellious son Leo looks up to his uncles, particularly Luigi, the charismatic tough guy.

Impulsively, Leo shoots up a bar aligned with the Carbones’ long-standing rivals, the Barracas, who were responsible for the murder of the brothers’ father. Luigi knows this for a fact, because he was there when it happened. Naturally, Leo’s hasty actions will have serious implications. While Luciano and Rocco are inclined to keep a lid on things, Luigi is sympathetic to Luigi’s injured pride. He has also been planning against the Barracas, but unfortunately, they are way ahead of him.

Inspired by real life events described in Gioacchino Criaco’s novel, Black Souls combines the naturalistic ethnographic detail of Gomorrah with the honor-driven tragedy of a Puzo novel. It reminds us both the word and the concept of “vendetta” came from Italy. For Munzi, it is all about the ‘Ndrangheta’s tribalism and the tension between their old world traditionalism and New World commerce. What happens in Africo directly reverberates in Milan. Despite Rocco’s sophistication and Luigi’s indulgent lifestyle, there are never very far removed from Luciano’s goats. In fact, Luigi’s loyal deputy Nicola can butcher purloined livestock with the best of them.

As Luigi, Marco Leonardi struts like he means business, but Peppino Mazzotta is even more compelling as the bean-counting Rocco, suddenly thrust into a family leadership role. Barbora Bobulova is also terrific as his elegant trophy wife forced to confront the old school realities of the Africo clan. However, Giuseppe Fumo’s Leo is just another petulant teen, who seems to exist simply to move the narrative along with each successive poor decision.

Black Souls is not exactly a groundbreaking Italian gangster movie, but it creates its own distinctive identity in the mountains of Calabria. Munzi builds tension in the right moments and gives viewers an intimate peak inside the ‘Ndrangheta world. Recommended for fans of mob movies, Black Souls opens this Friday (4/10) in New York, at the Angelika Film Center.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 6th, 2015 at 9:22pm.

Faith and Forgiveness in East Texas: LFM Reviews Little Hope was Arson

By Joe Bendel. It was only the third time in history that the ATF mobilized two national response teams simultaneously. The first was the Oklahoma City bombing and the second was on September 11th. In 2010, East Texas was terrified by a spree of church fires. These were not merely cases of arson. They were designed to be deliberately transgressive and disturbing. However, the faith of the targeted congregations would not be shaken. Partly a true crime investigation and partly an exploration of the possibilities of forgiveness, Theo Love’s Little Hope was Arson is an unusually moving documentary that appropriately airs Easter Monday on most PBS stations, as part of the current season of Independent Lens.

Initially, the New Year’s Day fire at the Little Hope Baptist Church in Canton, Texas was blamed on faulty wiring. However, after nine subsequent Baptist and Methodist churches were torched, authorities found an ominous taunt carved into the wall of a hardware store’s men’s room: “Little Hope was Arson.” Someone apparently wanted credit for all their handiwork.

With dozens of law enforcement agencies assigned to the case, it is considered one of the biggest investigations in Texas history. Eventually, suspicion fell on Ben McAllister and Jason Bourque. At one time, the former Sunday school classmates were quite devout, but tribulations in their personal lives had left them bitterly resentful of God and the church—or so we gather.

Despite scoring prison interviews with both convicted arsonists, Little Hope is unable to conclusively establish their motives. Yet, Love is more concerned with the pastors and parishioners who strive to apply the teachings of their faith to such a difficult situation and the devastated family members who struggle to reconcile the loved ones they thought they knew with the monsters they now appear to be. This is especially painful for McAllister’s sister Christy McAllister, a civilian communications specialist with the Texas Department of Public Safety, who faithfully aided the investigation of her brother.

Very few filmmakers have ever shown as much empathy for the people of East Texas as Love does in Little Hope. He finds no snarky humor in the situation when anguished worshippers express their fears that the church fires were the work of Satan himself. Instead, it is a point of view he seems to understand, considering that they are standing over the smoking ashes that were once their beloved family church. Love clearly establishes the central role these churches played in the social and spiritual lives of their members. The pain of their loss is quite genuine, but so is the effort to forgive and to console.

Love chronicles the investigation and resulting legal negotiations, step by lucid step, but the real meat of the film captures the communities’ soul searching and emotional resiliency. It is rather shockingly touching and inspiring, making it perfect viewing for Holy Week (especially since the religiously themed Death of a Tree turned out to be something of a bummer). The point that each church is more about its people than its steeple might sound obvious, but it hits home hard. Highly recommended, Little Hope was Arson premieres tonight (4/6) on PBS’s Independent Lens.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on April 6th, 2015 at 9:22pm.

To Dance in Iran: LFM Reviews Desert Dancer

By Joe Bendel. “If you’re an artist, we’ll beat you artistically.” Yes, this is what passes for wit with the Basij, Iranian’s Islamist civilian paramilitary militia. Ironically, Afshin Ghaffarian got off relatively easily when a Basij chief spoke those words to him. Had he known Ghaffarian was actually a dancer, he most likely would have beaten him to death (quick, let’s make a nuclear deal with them). Ghaffarian and his friends were among the thousands brutalized by the Basij during the 2009 election protests, but they simply wanted to put on a public performance. Their brief moments of freedom are stirringly depicted in Richard Raymond’s based-on-fact bio-picture, Desert Dancer, which opens this Friday in New York.

Against all odds, Ghaffarian received clandestine arts education during his elementary years from a courageous teacher. He was a relatively experienced actor by the time he reached college, but his was always fascinated by the strictly forbidden discipline of dance. Of course, YouTube is duly blocked in Iran, but when he went online through a friend’s work-around access, he discovered a wealth of performances from the likes of Nureyev and Gene Kelly. Soon he convinces a handful of friends to join his proposed underground dance troupe. Everyone is understandable uneasy when the mysterious Elaheh invites herself into the group, but she turns out to be okay. She also has real technique, having been secretly trained by her former ballerina mother.

Longing to perform in front of a live audience, Ghaffarian and Elaheh will stage an intimate recital for a handful of carefully invited friends in a secluded desert location. Unfortunately, their friend Mehran’s older brother is a junior Basij commander, who is determined to ferret out Ghaffarian’s small ensemble. When another member is severely beaten by the Basij for his reformist allegiances, it puts further stress on the group. Soon Ghaffarian also finds himself be ruthlessly worked over in an unmarked Basij van. However, his fate will take a dramatic turn on the third act.

While the real life Ghaffarian has stressed the film’s thin layer of fictionalization, Raymond and screenwriter Jon Croker are scrupulously faithful to the tenor and circumstances surrounding the ill-fated 2009 Green Movement, as well as the general difficulties of being artistically inclined while living under a repressive regime. Desert is also closely akin to Bruce Beresford’s Mao’s Last Dancer (which won the Astaire Award for best film choreography) for the manner in which it portrays the powerful expressiveness of dance, while also using it as a symbol for freedom. In fact, Akram Khan’s choreography is unusually distinctive and Astaire Award-worthy, incorporating elements of ballet and modern interpretive dance.

To their estimable credit, co-leads Reece Ritchie and Freida Pinto clearly trained hard for their roles, because they do Khan’s steps justice. Frankly, when they are standing still, their romantic chemistry is just so-so, but when they move together, they heat up the screen. There are ably supported by a fine ensemble, particularly including the deeply humanistic performances of Makram Khoury, as Ghaffarian’s old teacher Mehdi, and Bamshad Abedi-Amin as the quietly courageous Mehran. It is also nice to see Nazanin Boniadi, albeit ever so briefly, in a near cameo as Ghaffarian’s progressive mother, Parisa.

Desert vividly captures the ominous atmosphere of the 2009 crackdown, as well as the liberating power of dance. In his feature directorial debut, Raymond maintains a tense, paranoid vibe, but also exhibits an intuitive sense for when to go for the emotional jugular. It is an inspiring story that is undiminished by the real life Ghaffarian’s recently more circumspect rhetoric. Enthusiastically recommended, Desert Dancer opens this Friday (4/10) in New York, at the Landmark Sunshine and the Loews Lincoln Square.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on April 6th, 2015 at 9:19pm.

Simon Pegg, Heavily Armed: LFM Reviews Kill Me Three Times

By Joe Bendel. It is easier to find a good hitman than a good dentist in this small Australian beachfront town. Unfortunately, Nathan Webb is not much of a DDS, but Charlie Wolfe is a highly reliable assassin. Both are out to kill Alice Taylor, but the defiant wife is surprisingly hard to kill, as the title indicates. Still, there will be plenty of other bodies piling up in Kriv Stenders’ Kill Me Three Times, which opens this Friday in New York.

Granted, Alice Taylor has been unfaithful to her husband, Jack, but it was as much a reaction against his abusive and hyper-controlling behavior as it was an attraction to likable lunk-head Dylan Smith. True to form, when Taylor says if he can’t have her, nobody can, he really means it. Initially, he only retained the hired gun to investigate her suspected affair, but when Wolfe provides the confirmation, Taylor contracts his full services.

As if that were not bad enough, Alice Taylor’s dentist also plans to bump her off. Nathan Webb has a mountain of past-due gambling debts. Most inconveniently, his bookie’s brother happens to be Bruce Jones, the local corrupt copper, who aims to collect. The plan is to stage a fiery car crash rendering Taylor unrecognizable, allowing Webb to collect on his scheming wife Lucy’s insurance policy when he switches their dental records. Obviously, these two plans will complicate each other.

Right, so let the conspiring and double-crossing commence. Arguably, there is nothing radically new in James McFarland’s screenplay, but he keeps the mayhem coming fast and furious. It also helps that Simon Pegg sets the tone right from the start, playing Wolfe with maniacal glee. He makes contract killing look like a ton of fun, which might hold less than wonderful implications for the social compact, but it works like a charm in a genre film. Likewise, Teresa Palmer makes a seriously impressive villain in the Lady Macbeth tradition as the equally sociopathic Lucy Webb. Yet, Bryan Brown tops them all for ruthlessness as the stone cold Jones.

From "Kill Me Three Times."

Right, there are not a lot of “likable” characters in KM3T, but that way nobody should get too upset when misfortune and painful death starts to befall the motley crew. Logically, given their relatively straight roles, Alice Braga’s Taylor and Luke Hemsworth’s Smith (the other, other Hemsworth) are the least interesting characters. Frankly, Pegg is the star here and Palmer will get the potential breakout attention. However, fans will be amused to see Sullivan Stapleton (best known for hardnosed work in Strike Back and Animal Kingdom) as Webb, the acquiescent loser.

Australia’s sun-drenched beaches still look quite inviting, despite all the skulduggery Stenders unleashes. He lets the driving rock soundtrack and Pegg’s evil smirk set the vigorous pace and never looks in the rearview mirror. It is quite a lot of fun if you do not object to shamelessly violent humor (and what’s not to like about it?). Recommended for fans of blackly comic one-darned-thing-after-another thrillers, Kill Me Three Times opens this Friday (4/10) in New York, at the Landmark Sunshine.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 6th, 2015 at 9:18pm.