Day: April 30, 2015

LFM Reviews Reality

By Joe Bendel. Something about Philip Glass’s Music with Changing Parts brings to mind Torgo’s theme from Manos: the Hands of Fate. That is not a criticism. In fact, it is another reason why it works so well as the soundtrack to Quentin Dupieux’s latest mind-trip. Reality with get twisted up and bent over double in Dupieux’s ironically titled Reality, which opens tomorrow at the IFC Center.

Her name is “Reality” and her hunter father just bagged a wild boar. Nobody believes her, but she knows she saw a blue VHS tape pop out of its stomach while her Pops was removing the entrails. She will duly retrieve that tape, but the director filming her story will take his sweet time before he lets us watch it. His name is Zog and he is driving his French producer Bob Marshall to distraction with his cost-overruns. Marshall is the decisive type. He is fully willing to fund Jason Tantra’s horror movie if he can produce the perfect groan of misery to express its essence.

In between his groan sessions, Tantra works his day job as a camera man for a cooking show hosted by a man in a rat costume suffering from phantom eczema. All that scratching is starting to turn viewers against him. Frankly, the viewing experience can be trying in Reality, as when Tantra accidentally takes his wife to see his film before he starts making it. Rather upset with the sound mix, he tries to stop the screening, so he can fix it in the future. Then things start getting strange.

As weird as Dupieux’s first act undeniably is, it is nothing compared to the lunacy that follows. Dreams and films will interrupt and fold back into each other, as each strange subplot doubles back and refers to itself. Edited by Dupieux (a.k.a. Mr. Ozio), Reality has an extremely complex structure mere mortals could not even begin to diagram.

Granted, Reality lacks the warmth and sweetness that made Wrong such an unexpected pleasure, but it is still a blast to watch Dupieux juggle an infinite number of balls in the air. Each new reverse is a thing of beauty onto itself. It is easy for actors to get overwhelmed in such an auteurist spectacle, but John Glover gives one for the ages as the supremely confident Zog. Alain Chabat’s Tantra is like an everyman from an alternate universe (and maybe he is), while Napoleon Dynamite’s Jon Heder really looks like he is suffering from a nasty rash in that rat suit.

By now, you really should know within a 99.99 degree of certainty whether Reality is your cup of tea or not. If you’re not sure, go anyway, because part of Reality’s subversive fun is watching other audience members getting confused and upset. Highly recommended for Dupieux fans and connoisseurs of cult cinema, Reality opens tomorrow (5/1) in New York, at the IFC Center.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on April 30th, 2015 at 4:49pm.

LFM Reviews Hungry Hearts @ Tribeca 2015

By Joe Bendel. It is based on an Italian novel, but echoes of the notorious Atlanta vegan baby starvation case ring throughout Saverio Costanzo’s mostly English language drama. A new Italian mother parents too much with her intuitive feelings, ignoring conventional pediatric nutrition and medicine in Costanzo’s Hungry Hearts, which had its U.S. premiere at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, with a screening at the Montclair Film Festival soon to follow.

Jude, an Upper Westside engineer, and Mina, a PR flack for the Italian consul, meet-cute, under slightly gross circumstances. Enjoy the scatological humor while it lasts, because there will be major friction in their married lives. There are ominous portents of trouble to come during her difficult pregnancy, but Mina’s manic New Aginess really starts to manifest in highly problematic ways when she starts imposing a strict vegan diet on the infant.

At first, Jude is more worried about his underweight son’s persistent cold-like symptoms. However, when he finally sneaks the crib monster to a doctor, he is told the sniffles are “the least of his concern.” The boy is so malnourished, he simply isn’t growing. However, whenever Jude questions Mina’s dietary decisions, she takes it as a personal attack on her legitimacy as a mother and a person. Yet, some things should be said before it is too late.

Hungry paints an alarming portrait of everyday extremism and the slow but steady evolution of conventional vegetarianism to reckless child endangerment. It springs some abrupt course corrections on viewers, but there are reasons for the sharp tonal shifts. While the jokey prelude seems like it belongs in a different film, it helps explain why Jude defers to Mina for so long. There is always love there, but it turns into something very dark and ultimately dangerous.

Ordinarily, the nebbish Adam Driver and the pixyish Alba Rohrwacher would never look like a convincing couple, but cinematographer Fabio Cianchetti’s lens serves as a harsh leveler, ruthlessly focusing on and magnifying the imperfections of their skin. Frankly, in the case of Rohrwacher (who steamed up the screen in Soldini’s Come Undone) this is a much more complicated process, but she compellingly portrays Mina’s physical and emotional decline as she starts to shun direct sunlight and protein. It is a seriously scary transformation.

From "Hungry Hearts."

In contrast, Driver’s Jude always seems to be a step behind the beat, for no good reason. Just for the record, Mina never says to him: “Hey Jude, don’t let me down,” which seems like an obvious oversight. Regardless, they often seem to nurse special resentments only possible through intimate familiarity. There are also brief but pitch perfect supporting turns from Medium co-star Jake Weber as the calm but concerned pediatrician and Roberta Maxwell as Jude’s concerned but not necessarily calm mother.

Hungry is an honest and direct film, but the nearly two hour running time starts to feel punishing after ninety minutes or so. It is like the film is holding us hostage until we pledge to feed our future children healthy slabs of meat. Still, you can’t say it isn’t convincing on that score. Meat is good. The film is also quite good, despite a few stylistic excesses here and there. Recommended for fans of Italian cinema (in exile), Hungry Hearts screens this Sunday (5/3) at Montclair, but the Tribeca Film Festival had it first.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 30th, 2015 at 4:48pm.

LFM Reviews A Sinner in Mecca @ The 2015 Hot Docs

By Joe Bendel. The extra security provided openly gay Muslim filmmaker Parvez Sharma at this year’s Hot Docs is an ominous development, but in a perverse way, the death threats prompted by his latest film constitute a ringing endorsement. Nonfiction-filmmaking does not get much gutsier than Sharma video-documenting his hajj. Frankly, it is a bit surprising the ever-so open Saudi government granted his hajj visa. They probably already regret it, but not for reasons you suspect. Ignore the overheated internet trolling and honestly engage with the issues raised by Sharma’s A Sinner in Mecca when it screens again at the 2015 Hot Docs in Toronto.

Sharma had already been on the receiving end of a minor fatwa, because of his prior documentary on the Muslim LGBT experience, A Jihad for Love. After marrying his partner, Sharma decided to take his hajj, hoping to reconcile his faith with his sexuality. Of course he will secretly document the process. He is a filmmaker. That is what he does. Frankly, nobody is more aware of the potential danger for an internationally recognized LGBT activist in Wahhabist Saudi Arabia than Sharma. He was consciously risking his life to make the film, but he was completely unprepared for the rampant exploitation and abuse all pilgrims must endure.

Critics of Sharma will latch onto his sexuality because they are homophobic (and misogynistic and anti-Semitic), but the real arsenic in the film are the many scenes exposing the Saudi government’s neglect and overt commercialization of Islam’s holiest site, bar none. Tellingly, one fellow pilgrim tells Sharma: “I’m glad they don’t allow non-Muslims, so the Western world cannot see this.”

As Sharma struggles to complete the pilgrimage rituals, he must navigate filthy streets teeming with rubbish, amid what is supposedly a holy and protected city. Unquestionably though, the most disturbing incident comes when Sharma relates a conversation he had with a man whose wife was sexually molested while circling the Kaaba, which Muslims consider to be the first house of worship, constructed by Abraham. Apparently, this is not an uncommon experience.

From "A Sinner in Mecca."

Much of Sinner would be legitimately horrifying, even if Sharma was not constantly worried his true identity might be revealed. That is why the coda in which he declares his faith is renewed feels completely out of place and inconsistent with everything that preceded it. One suspects that Sharma is trying to convince himself for his own personal reasons. We have to respect that, but the footage he covertly shot (on mini-handhelds and his iPhone) speak thunderously.

First and foremost, Sinner thoroughly indicts the Saudi custodianship of Mecca. If you really wanted to be provocative you could argue the global Muslim community would be much better served if Mecca were in Israel, because the Israeli government understands how to respect and preserve artifacts and landmarks associated with other religions (exhibit A: the Dead Sea Scrolls). Regardless, Sharma’s hajj is a very personal act, but his documentation has much greater implications. Bold and stingingly truthful, A Sinner in Mecca is very highly recommended when it screens again tonight (4/30) and Saturday (5/2), as part of this year’s Hot Docs.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on April 30th, 2015 at 4:48pm.