Month: May 2015

By Joe Bendel. The image in your mind’s eye of a bridge in Bosnia-Herzegovina is probably the destroyed and subsequently rebuilt Stari Most in Mostar. Nevertheless, there are plenty of bridges in the capital city of Sarajevo, architecturally and metaphorically. Indeed, they serve as both backdrops and symbols in Bridges of Sarajevo, an anthology film conceived by French film critic Jean-Michel Frodon, which screened during the 2015 Bosnian Herzegovinian Film Festival in New York, now underway at the Tribeca Cinemas.

Yes, anthology films are usually uneven and Bridges is especially so, with the highs being particularly high and the lows being Jean-Luc Godard. Happily it starts off with a strong entry, Kamen Kalev’s “My Dear Night,” depicting the final hours of Archduke Franz Ferdinand much like a moody, almost Shakespearean tragedy. True, we know how it must end, but Samuel Finzi is quietly riveting as the doomed aristocrat. It is probably the one segment that has both the merit and the elastic capacity to be expanded into a feature.

WWI is a major focus in Bridges, continuing with Vladimir Perišić’s somewhat experimental “Our Shadows Will,” which overlays audio excerpts from Gavrilo Princip’s pan-Slavic, crypto-socialist confession with contemporary scenes of disaffected nationalist and leftist youth. It is a bold juxtaposition, but Perišić simply does not have the time to fully develop the idea.

Leonardo di Costanzo’s “The Outpost” is a technically polished segment portraying the exploited enlisted Italian peasantry struggling with the horrors and absurdities of WWI. The tactile feeling of the constituent film is impressive, but it is more of a sketch than a full dramatic arc. Likewise, Angela Schanelec’s “Princip, Text” takes much the same approach as Perišić’s contribution, but it is less provocative. Cristi Puiu also shows a preoccupation with text, much in the spirit of Porumboiu’s Police, Adjective. As satire, “Das Spektrum Europas” seems to cut both ways, eavesdropping on a tired married couple as they dissect Keyserling’s early Twentieth Century analysis of the Balkans from an anti-American and borderline anti-Semitic perspective.

Godard’s “The Bridge of Sighs” is an eight minute mashed together collage that is more watchable than his last two features, for what that’s worth. Regardless, if you seriously follow or cover world cinema, you really need to see it, just to be able to render a fuller judgement on his late career years. Sergei Loznitsa’s “Reflections” is also collage-like in form, but visually it is exceptionally arresting. Essentially, Loznitsa overlays Milomir Kovacevic’s war photographs with present day Sarajevo street scenes, achieving a truly ghostly effect.

Marc Recha’s “Zan’s Journey is more or less an exercise in oral history, but his subject’s memories are truly moving. Aida Begić (whose feature Children of Sarajevo played the 2013 BHFF) incorporates many such voices into “Album,” selecting several brief but unusually telling recollections of the workaday trials of life during the war.

Then Isild Le Besco adds a graceful humanist touch to Bridges with “Little Boy,” the story of a plucky five year old survivor, now living with his grandmother. Themes of youth and the loss of innocence also factor prominently in Ursula Meier’s concluding “Quiet Mujo,” featuring an extraordinary lead performance from Vladan Kovacevic, as a young orphan who encounters a grieving professional woman at a cemetery’s boundary between Muslim and Christian sections.

Frankly, the contributions of Meier, Loznitsa, and Kalev easily justify a ticket to Bridges. Recha, Le Besco, Begić, and Perišić also have some real substance to offer. For film snobs, it even represents an opportunity to catch up on recent work from major auteurs like Meier, Puiu, and (Heaven help us) Godard. While viewers need to go in understanding some pieces work better than others, the entire package is highly recommended because the good parts are so good. It screened as part of this year’s Bosnian Herzegovinian Film Festival in New York.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on May 27th, 2015 at 9:55pm.

By Joe Bendel. There is a reason some people stay in hostels even when they can afford nicer digs. They crave those brief but memorable incidental encounters. Travel is broadening, especially for those coming from or going to Berlin in the five-part multinational anthology film A Quintet, which screened during the resiliently scrappy 2015 Bosnian Herzegovinian Film Festival in New York.

Of the five constituent short films, one of the best is the late night tale set in Sarajevo—a fact that should hardly surprise anyone. In Kosovar filmmaker Ariel Shaban’s “The Tourist,” a disgusted Sarajevan reluctantly protects a German visitor from the consequences of his hedonism. Slowly, a connection is forged, but the fatalistic Bosnian understands better than the naïve German that their friendship mostly likely expires when the sun rises. Bosnian actor Armin Omerovic is terrific as the Samaritan, but what really distinguishes “The Tourist” is the way Shaban captures the strangely calm feeling one gets when completely lost in an Eastern European city late at night, when you do not speak the language. If you have ever been there, you will recognize it immediately.

Lebanese filmmaker Elie Lamah’s “Friend Request” is the other head-and-shoulders high point and it also happens to be the boldest. Rami, who coincidentally happens to be a Lebanese filmmaker, has been enjoying the German festival that programmed his film, until a colleague invites a group of Israelis to join them for drinks. While the Israelis are more than happy to overlook past tensions between their countries, Rami is not so gracious. However, he has some reason to be cautious, since, as he pointedly reminds everyone, he could be tried for treason by his government merely for associated with citizens of Israel. Nevertheless, he might just start to loosen up a little when he walks back to the festival hotel with Ayala, the Israeli director.

“Friend Request” packs a real punch precisely because Lamah never resorts to facile sentimentality or Pollyannaish takeaways. Instead, he suggests in no uncertain terms, hatred and misunderstanding are allowed to persist when average people like Rami are afraid to take the tiniest of stands.

There are also some lovely performances in Sanela Salketić’s opener, “The House in the Envelope.” It is a small story about a Turkish woman briefly returning home from Germany and the cabbie she keeps hailing, but it is a crowd-pleaser. Screenwriter Demet Gül brings a wonderfully subtle and refined presence to the film as the expat Leyla, while Salketić fully capitalizes on the Istanbul backdrops.

Despite its brevity, the narrative of Roberto Cuzzillo’s “Polaroid” is oddly (but not intentionally) disjointed. However, the work of cinematographer Roberto Montero and segment composer Enrica Sciandrone is quite striking. Unfortunately, Mauro Mueller’s New York-set closer, “The Cuddle Workshop” is about as cloying as it sounds.

A Quintet is all about fleeting moments and there are enough good ones in the film to make it worth your time. Recommended for fans of Bosnian-Kosavar-Turkish-Lebanese-German-Italian cinema, it screened at the Tribeca Cinemas, as part of this year’s BHFFNYC.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on May 27th, 2015 at 9:55pm.

By Joe Bendel. The 1967 Mofilm adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s short story “Viy” is considered the first Soviet horror movie, aside from whatever real life torture porn might be hidden away in the KGB archives. Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Stepchenko originally set out to remake Gogol’s tale, but the scope of their long stop-and-start production expanded over the years. The guts of the macabre story are still there, but there is also plenty of witch-hunting and map-making in Stepchenko’s Forbidden Empire (as it was bafflingly retitled for the international market), which launches today on VOD.

British cartographer Jonathan Green hopes to make his fame and fortune mapping the sleepy hamlets of southern Europe and Ukraine, so he can return home to claim his loyal fiancée from her judgmental father. However, he will reluctantly find himself swept up in the dirty dealings of a small village. As will soon be explained to Green, when a wealthy Cossack’s daughter died under suspiciously supernatural circumstances, a baffled divinity student was brought in to pray over her body for three bump-filled nights, per her last request. The precise blow-by-blow of that third night will be revealed over time. Regardless, the aftermath was disturbing enough for the sheepish villagers to seal off the church and shun it thereafter.

Distressed that his daughter never had a proper funeral, the Cossack hires Green to map the area surrounding the church. You might well ask why, but it certainly shakes things up. Before long, Green and a mute servant girl are accused of witchcraft, while the malevolent spirit known as Viy continues to terrorize the village with impunity.

Empire is a weird viewing experience, due to a number of factors, including the feverish religious imagery, the fairy tale-like stylization of the sets and backdrops, and the disembodied dubbing voices. Frankly, this film would probably be a good deal better with subtitles. Czech Airlines used to show a garish looking 1960s fairy tale film, sans subtitles, during the breakfast service of its New York bound flights. Watching Empire produces a similarly disorienting effect.

Ironically, the best sequences by far are those that harken back to the original Viy source material. It is impossible to not appreciate the scene in which the coffin animated by foul spirits chases the divinity student throughout the church, trying to ram him like a sinister bumper car. That is the kind of stuff movie magic is all about.

On the other hand, when the narrative focuses on Green, it wildly veers from broad shticky comedy to demonic horror, throwing in didactic jabs at religion’s supposed hostility towards science and reason for good measure. Reportedly, without the story’s rustic, folkloric elements, the materialistic Soviet authorities never would have greenlighted the 1967 Viy. However, they would have loved Stepchenko and co-screenwriter Aleksandr Karpov’s depiction of the venal, power-hungry priest.

There are a lot of bald dudes with Fu Manchu mustaches in Empire, so it is often devilishly difficult to differentiate the various cast-members. However, Jason Flemyng (probably just famous enough to justify some British co-production investments) is a good sport, pivoting at a moment’s notice to be goofy one moment and resolute the next. This is a loud, dark, defiantly illogical film, but at least the resulting spectacle is a strange sight to behold. In short, it is a mess, but in bizarrely compelling, can’t-stop-watching kind of way. Recommended accordingly (I guess), Forbidden Empire hit VOD platforms last weeek and recently had a special screening at the Arena Cinema in Los Angeles.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on May 27th, 2015 at 9:54pm.

By Joe Bendel. Arnaud Labrède would prefer to be a lover rather than a fighter. Madeleine Beaulieu will opt for the fighting every day. That is the only way she believes she will be prepared for the coming doomsday. Clearly, it will be an awkward courtship for Labrède, but that is always the case when you are young and stupid. However, if Armageddon holds off long enough, they might just mature a little (or perhaps not) in Thomas Cailley’s Love at First Fight, which opened this past Friday in New York.

Times are tough in the wooded Landes region of France. The Army seems to be the only employer recruiting in town. Labrède has gone to a few information sessions to pick-up the free swag, somewhat befriending the recruiters in the process. However, he assumes he will stay at home and help his older brother Manu rebuild the family carpentry business. Like their recently deceased father, both brothers are handy with tools. Yet, it is still hard for Labrède to get Beaulieu to acknowledge him.

Granted, their first meeting is hardly ideal. She will put the big hurt on him during an Army-sponsored self-defense exhibition, until Labrède pulls a Tyson and bites her. Labrède finds she is still rather sore over the whole thing when her parent hire him and his brother to build a shed in their backyard. Little by little, Beaulieu slowly thaws, until Labrède feels sufficiently encouraged to sign up for her special summer training camp for prospective commando enlistees.

To his credit, it is hard to get a blanket sense of how Cailley views the military, preppers, and End Times anticipators. It is safe to say Beaulieu is . . . intense. Nevertheless, there is no denying the credible fashion in which their relationship develops or the electric chemistry shared by co-leads Adèle Haenel and Kévin Azaïs. At times, their verbal sparring is rather sly and quite revealing. Unfortunately, the third act reversal, in which Labrède’s easy going nature turns out to be better suited for team-building and unit cohesion, becomes predictably formulaic. Even the mildly apocalyptic climax feels like a pre-programmed inevitability (nonetheless, it is executed surprisingly evocatively).

Haenel (recently seen in In the Name of My Daughter) is convincingly surly, but it is hard to understand the initial attraction. Maybe you just have to be French, since she seems to be the latest minor “It” sensation. On the other hand, Azaïs pulls off something trickier and more interesting, showing how his character quietly changes in response to the people and environments he is exposed to. Antoine Laurent also has some nice moments as the big brother out to prove his worth.

First Fight is a small film that does not amount to much, despite a few sharply written scenes and some deftly turned performances. It has probably received disproportionate critical and festival attention, just because smart setters are so amazed by the notion of French survival preppers, as if that would be a phenomenon confined to the mountainous regions of southern border states. Many of the cast and crew should have very bright careers ahead of them, but this will probably be remembered as a promising early minor work. Mildly recommended for Francophiles and Francophones, Love at First Fight opened this past Friday (5/22) in New York, at the Village East.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on May 26th, 2015 at 3:55pm.

By Joe Bendel. For centuries, Greeks have maintained a commanding share of the global shipping business. Arguably, Ioannis Varvakis was part of that tradition. He specialized in re-routing Ottoman shipments. He was a proud pirate, but he became a Russian officer and nobleman, while never relinquishing his Greek identity. Yannis Smaragdis, Greek cinema’s prestigious bio-pic specialist turns his attention to the swashbuckler in his English language production, The Pirate (a.k.a. God Loves Caviar), which just released on DVD and is still available on multiple VOD platforms from Vision Films.

The dreaded pirate Varvakis will end up old and infirm, living as a secret captive in a remote British “clinic” for infectious diseases. We know this because the film starts at this cheery point, telling his story in competing flashbacks. Lefentarios, a dodgy veteran of the Greek resistance, will explain to the British superintendent how he goaded the buccaneer into more direct action, while Varvakis’s former servant will explain to a group of street urchins how great his former master truly was.

Varvakis had always fought the Turks ship to ship, claiming the spoils for his efforts. However, at Lefentarios’s urging, Varvakis hatches an unlikely plan to wipe out the entire Ottoman fleet (apparently by setting his ship on fire and pointing it toward several hundred Ottoman vessels). Needing safe haven, Varvakis offers his services to Catherine the Great, who appoints Varvakis her personal agent for the Caspian.

The mostly reformed rogue makes decent coin tending to her interests, but he becomes vastly wealthy when he develops methods to ship caviar without spoilage. Russians love caviar. So do the Persians, which lends his operations additional strategic significance. Catherine is well satisfied with Varvakis, bestowing rank and title upon him. Unfortunately, his personal life is a mess.

Frankly, the Greek resistance to the Ottoman occupation is not exactly over exposed in Western media. The Pirate’s home viewing release comes at an opportune time, countering Russell Crowe’s ripping well-made Water Diviner, which views Greco-Turkish conflicts through the lens of Smyrna. However, Smaragdis devotes an awful lot of time to Varvakis’s loveless marriage to the unfaithful Helena, his strained relationship with a grown daughter from a previous union, and the whiny son who can never live up to his father’s expectations.

Even though it is a minor role, John Cleese not surprisingly delivers all the best lines as McCormick, the British administrator. Sebastian Koch (still best known in America for The Lives of Others) has the appropriate presence for a figure of Varvakis’s stature, but despite no shortage of makeup, he never looks like he is the right age for the character’s successive stations in life. In contrast, Evgeniy Stychkin never ages a day as Ivan, the loyal servant who manages to make his way to Varvakis’s double-secret island prison without arousing any suspicion. Of course, Catherine Deneuve does her stateliest as Catherine II, but her screen time is limited.

The Pirate was a big hit domestically, arriving to bolster national spirits in a time of austerity. Tellingly, the Greeks would look to a pirate, who lives off contraband appropriated from others, as a source of inspiration. Still, there is something appealingly old school about its earnest approach to historical drama. You can practically hear the voiceovers announcing “special guest stars” Cleese and Deneuve. Recommended for those looking for some unselfconscious, slightly creaky, throwback entertainment, The Pirate (a.k.a. God Loves Caviar) is now available on DVD, as well as on VOD services like iTunes, DirecTV, and Vudu.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on May 26th, 2015 at 3:54pm.