Month: June 2015

By Joe Bendel. The industrial district of Kiev still known as “Stalinka” is so soulless and depressed, its nickname is probably more fitting than ever. It is here that Sergey will attend a state run boarding school for the deaf. He will learn the school’s lessons quickly, despite hardly attending any classes in Myroslav Slaboshpytkiy’s The Tribe, which opens this Wednesday at Film Forum.

Perhaps more than any previous film, Slaboshpytkiy’s Tribe was conceived as means of putting the shoe on the other foot and forcing us to walk a while with it. Following a bold and already celebrated/notorious strategy, Slaboshpytkiy shot Tribe entirely in Ukrainian sign language, without offering any subtitles or narration to guide us through. Frankly, we will get lost from time to time (that’s sort of the point), but we can follow the broad strokes fairly well. After all, these kids are not exactly chatty.

Sergey soon learns the school is run by a very real high school mafia, led by King and “advised” by the shop teacher. Their primary illicit business involves pimping out classmates to drivers at the nearby truck-stop, like the apparently willing Anya and Svetka. After some initial hazing, Sergey quickly rises through the ranks, taking over the day-to-day operations following King’s jarring death by misadventure. However, he breaks the unspoken rule when he falls for Anya.

The overall effect of Slaboshpytkiy’s silent treatment is a mixed bag, but there are two scenes in Tribe that are so viscerally shocking, they will make you audibly gasp. A good deal of their power is indeed derived from the silence. They are also masterly blocked out by Slaboshpytkiy, causing us to wonder if his non-professional actors (who are also deaf in real life) walked away from their scenes unscathed, while underscoring the dangers of deafness in the wider, unaccommodating world. Of course, the school is supposed to be a shelter, but it is anything but.

Disturbingly, viewing The Tribe feels like watching a cold, violent documentary unfold. The young cast is so utterly convincing and free of mannerisms or artifice, they never seem to be performing. Still, it is worth noting the chemistry developed by Grigoriy Fesenko and Yana Novikova, as well as the gutsiness of their explicit but decidedly non-erotic sex scenes.

In a way, The Tribe is the anti-boarding school movie. Usually, the audience is invited to vicariously share the student camaraderie and sense of belonging, whereas Slaboshpytkiy deliberately keeps us on the outside looking in. Many times, we might actually wish we could join the pupils at Hogwarts or wherever, but in the case of The Tribe, no thanks. Yet, the self-contained nature of their environment makes it such an effective analog for the pre-revolutionary, Russian-backed Ukrainian regime.

Regardless, The Tribe’s vibe is totally distinctive and completely uncompromising. Timid patrons should be warned of its style, content, and pretty much everything else, but it is a truly immersive cinematic experience that edgier cineastes will appreciate. Recommended highly but selectively, The Tribe opens this Wednesday (6/17) in New York at Film Forum.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on June 15th, 2015 at 10:11pm.

By Joe Bendel. It is a film that inspired a children’s book for adults in the Philippines. Mace has an old romantic story about a heart and an arrow, while Anthony is a talented illustrator. These kids are probably perfect for each other, but fate or karma is not necessarily so accommodating in Antoinette Jadaone’s box office hit That Thing Called Tadhana, which screens during the 2015 edition of New Filipino Cinema at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

They do not exactly meet cute, but Mace and Anthony first encounter each other on the flight back from Rome. Mace had scrimped and saved to surprise her guest-worker boyfriend Marco—and did she ever. The trip also had emotional significance for Anthony, who made a point of seeing all the sights his beloved late mother dreamed of seeing for herself.

At first, Anthony gives the distraught Mace a bit of help, countryman to countryman. However, when they start to talk, they really begin to listen to each other. Instead of plunging back into their lives, they take a Linklater-style daytrip to Bagiuo that turns into a day-and-night-into-the-next-morning trip. As you might expect, Mace is still hung-up on her ex, whereas Anthony is hung up on being hung-up. Obviously, they are meant to be with each other, but Jadaone is not exactly setting us up to expect a tidy rom-com ending.

Tadhana roughly translates from Tagalog as destiny or fate. It is often sealed pretty early and sometimes even worse than death, but it always has a fickle finger. Frankly, it is a little surprising how bittersweet and reserved Tadhana actually is, considering what a monster hit it was domestically. There are no fireworks scenes, but since it is in the Philippines, there is a good deal of rain, but it is not cheesy rom-com rain.

It should also be noted the co-leads are enormously winning. As Mace and Anthony, Angelica Panganiban and JM de Guzman are cute, but hardly inapproachable super-model waif-types. They really look like they fit together. They also have a good handle on the dialogue (some of it reportedly improvised) that often sounds deceptively casual but deep down is really kind of heavy. When that sort of discourse doesn’t connect, it can be painful, but they mostly pull it off.

Granted, we have seen these sorts of film before, besides the Before trilogy. Recent Korean films like A Midsummer’s Fantasia and Gyeongju evoke a similar vibe, but are far deeper and richer. Nevertheless, the charm of Panganiban and Guzman is undeniable. Jadaone also deserves credit for avoiding cheap sentiment and manipulation. It is a pleasant, nicely turned little film that should be a crowd-pleaser when it screens this Saturday (6/20) as part of  New Filipino Cinema 2015 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on June 15th, 2015 at 10:10pm.

By Joe Bendel. In 1942, Marc Chagall became one of the last Jewish refugees ferried to safety by Varian Frye’s clandestine network. However, to survive National Socialism Chagall would first have to survive Soviet Communism. Initially, the post-revolutionary days were a time of opportunity for artists (and Russian Jews had little reason to mourn the Romanovs), but Chagall was never very astute when it came to the macro political forces in play, unlike his rival Kazimir Malevich. Eventually, this will become a problem for him and his beloved wife Bella in Aleksandr Mitta’s Chagall-Malevich, which opened this Friday in New York.

Chagall’s Left Bank friends and colleagues all recognized the Russian expat’s talent, but they were a bit puzzled by his unwavering fidelity to his fiancée, Bella Rosenfeld. With his star ascending, Chagall made what he intended to be a brief trip home to Vitebsk, where he would marry Rosenfeld and whisk her back to Paris. The outbreak of WWI scuttled those plans, but at least the wedding still happens, much to the distress of Naum, a rival suitor with socialist sympathies. Instead of Rosenfeld, he will embrace the revolution, returning to Vitebsk as its political commissar.

Despite his resentment, Naum humors Chagall, building his state-sanctioned art school. Thanks to Chagall’s reputation, the Vitebsk academy quickly draws scores of eager students. Space in Chagall’s classes is eagerly sought after, but the rest of the faculty is dismissed as rather sorry substitutes, until the arrival of Malevich. Both politically and artistically ambitious, Malevich champions Suprematism as the quintessentially Soviet art movement. Although the bold colors and geometric shapes impress the school’s mediocre rank-and-file, Malevich still has trouble managing Naum and the local Party apparatus, despite his political acumen.

In all honesty, the events in Vitebsk did not precisely unfold in this fashion, but Mitta’s film is true in spirit. Although C-M is somewhat adapted from Chagall’s memoirs, it is really more of an adaptation of his paintings (140 of which are incorporated into the film). In many ways it is a throwback fabulist fable or a cinematic exploration of folklore and historical mythology, sort of like Alexey Fedorchenko’s Angels of Revolution and Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari, but with a stronger narrative drive.

C-M deliberately attempts to render Chagall canvases on the big screen, striving but falling short of a look reminiscent of What Dreams May Come. In fact, the first half of the film suffers from an over reliance on whimsy, but the energy level kicks up appreciably when Malevich finally blows into town. Mitta along with Leonid Bichevin and Anatoliy Beliy, as Chagall and Malevich respectively, capture the intriguing ambiguities to their evolving rivalry. After all, Chagall recruited Malevich for the sake of stylistic diversity and intercedes with Naum on the Suprematist’s behalf at a critical juncture. Yet, Malevich had a far greater understanding of their new masters. (In subsequent real life, Malevich even anticipated he would fall out of favor with Stalin and accordingly took steps to protect his work for posterity.)

When not playing off Beliy, Bichevin’s Chagall is basically an exuberant shaggy dog. In contrast, Beliy always conveys a sense of the wheels moving within Malevich’s head. Kristina Scheidermann is a good likeness of Rosenfeld and brings a refreshingly dry wit to the otherwise loyal and sacrificing wife. Yakov Levda and Nona Buylgina are also quite compelling as Chagall’s ardent followers, even if their subplots remain half-baked.

Frankly, it is rather impressive how Mitta remains true to his idiosyncratic vision throughout C-M. He directly addresses the mounting fear and oppression of the early Soviet state, but the film never feels heavy-handed or didactic. Of course, he has been making films since the 1960s, including the USSR’s first disaster movie, Air Crew, in 1979. Having only sixteen prior directorial credits (per imdb) after navigating the Soviet and Russian film bureaucracies for six decades, one can see how Chagall and Malevich’s stories would resonate for him. Regardless of its rough edges, it is a wistful and wise film, recommended rather fondly for connoisseurs of modern art and Russian cinema when it opens this Friday (6/12) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on June 13th, 2015 at 11:57am.

By Joe Bendel. Think of it as a Lady Snowblood style payback drama set within the delicate serenity of a rock garden. Born to a Japanese father and a Chinese mother, Nagiko is a fashion model who enjoys the grace of fine literature and calligraphy just as much as the pleasures of the flesh. She also appreciates the satisfaction of revenge served stone-cold. As sensual, transgressive, and erudite as it was when it was initially released nineteen years ago (nearly to the day), Peter Greenaway’s The Pillow Book has now been freshly restored and reissued on DVD and Blu-ray by Film Movement Classics.

As a cherubic young girl, Nagiko always delighted in her father’s birthday face-writing ritual. Since she idolized her novelist father, literature will always play a critical role in her life. However, it is her aunt who first introduces her to the most significant book in her life, Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book. Throughout the film, Greenaway incorporates scenes of the Heian-era lady-in-waiting reading her timeless meditations, usually in compartmentalized windows that become part of Greenaway’s wider visual composition.

While Nagiko was still too young to fully understand, she witnesses her father’s publisher sexually exploiting him, as a clear quid pro quo for publishing his work. As she becomes older and more experienced, her father’s humiliation haunts her. Years later, Nagiko will also be published by the same lecher, but he is not the least bit interested in her. To sell the first of her unconventional pillow books, Nagiko paints it on the body of their mutual lover, Jerome, a bisexual British translator. For a while, this method of delivery is quite effective, but love triangles always engender jealousy. In this case, it also leads to tragedy, desecration, and retribution.

Greenaway has always been a distinctive stylist, but Pillow is an especially rich feast for the eyes. He engages in plenty of his characteristic boxing and tiling, but he also channels the look and vibe of Kabuki and Noh theater. It is a gorgeous film, made even more so by Vivian Wu in her breakout, career-defining role. Yet, there is substance underneath Greenaway’s lush surface beauty. Arguably, Pillow Book represents a milestone in experimental storytelling in that it tells a distinct, compelling, and easily followed narrative, within a boldly avant-garde framework.

Quiet but fierce as a lion, Wu commands the screen while steaming it up. A young Ewan McGregor also gives viewers the Full Monty as the immature but passionate Jerome (Obi-Wan, oh behave). Their scenes together explain why the film was never rated. Still, it is important to remember Pillow is not all about sex. In fact, Chizuru Ohnishi and Ken Ogata are quite memorable and engaging as young Nagiko and her father, thereby setting up everything that follows.

With Pillow, Greenaway taps into some deep archetypes, while celebrating Japanese and Chinese culture with the obsessive devotion of a western expatriate. It might just be the greatest Gaijin film ever. Exquisitely crafted, Pillow could still be too scandalous for the timid (arguably, the Lord’s Prayer body painting scene might be needlessly vexing some, since it is not really intended as a provocation), but it is an eerily beautiful film. Highly recommended for fans of challenging auterist cinema, The Pillow Book released this week on DVD and Blu-ray, from Film Movement Classics.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on June 13th, 2015 at 11:56am.

By Joe Bendel. Mitsuko Unagi was a detective prodigy, like a Japanese Nancy Drew, but her latest adult case would turn the hair of the various Carolyn Keene ghostwriters ghastly white. A serial killer has been running circles around the Tokyo police, including Unagi. Thus far, she has been the only copper able to discern his patterns, but she is always a step behind the sinister mastermind throughout Tony Sebastian Ukpo’s Random 11, which releases today on DVD from Fenix Pictures.

On significance dates (Leap Year February 29ths, ironic holidays), an unknown mass murderer somehow orchestrates the simultaneous deaths of eleven victims. Ten are chosen at random, but the eleventh is specifically chosen for some reason. At least that is Unagi’s current working hypothesis. Unfortunately, the killer seems to know she knows. He apparently deviated from the pattern during his latest horror show, leaving Unagi back at square one.

Rather embarrassed by the lack of progress, the political establishment perversely cuts the funding for Unagi’s task force, leaving only her and her trusty junior Junichi Otomo to work the case. It might not be farsighted, but it ironically gives Unagi greater flexibility. When she and Otomo discover the eleventh victim was murdered eleven thousand miles away in London, she duly picks up the trail there.

Random 11 features one of the creepier opening credit sequences in years. It is not wholly unprecedented in conception, but the execution is quite effective, setting the tone for what follows. In fact, that is true for the whole film. Although Random 11 was likely produced under severe budget constraints, its sparsely severe mise-en-scène is altogether chilling. This is a textbook case where less really is more.

Ukpo also has the advantage of a dynamite lead. If you liked the concept of the gothy wunderkind sleuth, but thought L. from the Death Note franchise was too chipper, than you have to meet Unagi. As the detective, Haruka Abe is convincingly brilliant in a social awkward kind of way. She maintains a sense of mystery and vulnerability that keeps us locked in right from the start.

In fact, Death Note is a decent comparison for Random 11, since Unagi and her Scotland Yard colleague seem to be fighting an almost omniscient foe. There is an intricate system to killings in both films, elevating them both well beyond standard issue serial killer thrillers.

Not exactly a spoiler per se, but the only real drawback to Random 11 is that it offers absolutely no closure whatsoever, trumpeting the coming of part two as the final credits roll. Otherwise, Random 11 is a genuinely suspenseful, hugely atmospheric micro-budget surprise. Highly recommended for genre fans, it is now available on DVD from Fenix Pictures.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on June 13th, 2015 at 11:56am.

By Joe Bendel. You could say this former hitman runs a particularly effective faith-based initiative. He will seek out the unjustly victimized that are pure of heart, to rain down payback on those who wronged them. In many cases, the faithful do not even know he has taken on their causes. He simply hears their prayers and answers them in Ernesto Díaz Espinoza’s Redeemer, which opened this Friday in New York.

He was once a happily married killer by the name of Nicky Pardo, but he is now known simply as “The Redeemer.” He starts each morning with a refreshing round of Russian roulette. Every time he survives, he interprets it as sign the man upstairs still wants him to continue administering retribution in his name. Some really heavy business went down in his past, involving his nemesis, “The Scorpion.” Unbeknownst to the Redeemer, the Scorpion trails along after him, killing the innocent people the Redeemer set out to avenge, in elaborately Biblical fashion. That might sound terribly cruel, but he is not called the Scorpion because he likes to play patty-cake.

The Redeemer will have his work cut out for him when he blows into a seaside village dominated by a drug cartel. When he saves a sad sack fisherman from his drug trafficking tormentors, the syndicate essentially declares war on the vigilante. It will not work out so well for them, but it gives the Scorpion time to catch up with his prey.

When someone as hardnosed as the Redeemer offers you a chance to repent, you should probably take it. Conversely, taking him on is not such a hot idea, even you are part of a pack of six or seven thugs. Let’s face it, Redeemer is not the most sophisticated action film to strut into theaters, but holy cats, can Zaror fight. He has weird grappling style MMA moves like you have never seen before, all of which look awesome on screen. Frankly, Zaror never talks much, but he does not need to say a lot when his piercing eyes glower out from under his hoodie.

In many ways, Redeemer is like a throwback to the grittily effective but not exactly over-ambitious films that launched the careers of butt-kicking superstars like JCVD and even Bruce Lee. The narrative is a rather simplistic affair, intentionally designed to keep out of the way of the action showcases (yet, somehow Espinoza manages to have three credit co-screenwriters. Seriously, how many scribes did it take to write “they squint at each other and then start fighting?”) It doesn’t matter. The martial arts is the thing in Redeemer, spectacularly choreographed by Zaror. In fact, there is a show-stopping one-on-one with a no-name henchman midway through the film that could easily stand as the climax of most action releases.

This is Zaror’s show, but José Luís Mósca is all kinds bad ass as the Scorpion, while American Noah Segan provides some legitimate, non-cringey comic relief as Bradock, the new Yankee cartel boss. It might be too unpolished for casual viewers, but for genre fans there is something refreshingly honest about a film like Redeemer. It is also one of the rare Chilean films old man Pinochet would probably have approved of. After all, what’s not to like about an ultra-devout vigilante? Recommended for action fans hungry for red meat, Redeemer opened Friday (6/12) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on June 13th, 2015 at 11:56am.