Month: June 2015

LFM Reviews Maiko: Dancing Child @ The 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. For a prima ballerina, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake is one of the most demanding ballets to perform. You’ve seen Black Swan, right? Well, try dancing the featured role a few months after pregnancy. Maiko Neshino set out to do exactly that. The question is not whether she has the drive or the talent, but whether she has enough time to rebound physically. Åse Svenheim Drivenes follows Neshino through rehab and rehearsals in the intimate documentary Maiko: Dancing Child, which screens during the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival.

It is almost too much, but the name Maiko really means “Dancing Child.” As is the case with truly elite dancers, her talent was indeed discovered at an early age. Neshino’s family made substantial lifestyle-effecting sacrifices to send her abroad to study. Consequently, she understood quite clearly failure was not an option. At the point the film picks up, she has been remarkably successful, maintaining her position as a principal dancer with the Norwegian National Ballet well into her thirties—and then she finally gets pregnant.

This was something she and her husband always wanted but never knew how to schedule, so they do the best they can. Most importantly, they have a happy and healthy baby. However, Drivenes is far more interested in the comeback process than the pregnancy. Swan Lake is the last significant role Neshino has yet to play, so she intends to honor her commitment, but it would be tough even under the best of circumstances.

Ballet is a graceful form of artistic expression, but those who are not part of its exclusive world will be a bit taken aback by the punishing nature of her training regimen. This is not for the faint of heart. Viewers might also get sick of hearing the same musical passage over and over again.

Frankly, it is a minor miracle the dancers never snap from the mind-torturing repetition.

Of course, the camera absolutely loves Neshino. She is elegance personified, so we can well understand why she has become the face of the Norwegian company, while her Horatio Alger-esque background makes her an even more compelling figure to root for. Drivenes also gives the audience an inside peak into to the training and rehearsal process, sort of in the spirit of Wiseman’s La Danse, but in more economical and contextualized servings.

Throughout the film, everyone makes it acutely plain nothing is guaranteed when it comes to ballet. Although it clocks in at a relatively concise seventy minutes, viewers will walk away feeling they have a good understanding of who Neshino is and what sort of professional and artistic challenges she faces. Recommended for patrons of dance and performing art docs, Maiko: Dancing Child screens this Sunday (6/14) and Tuesday (6/16) as part of this year’s LAFF.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on June 13th, 2015 at 11:55am.

LFM Reviews A Midsummer’s Fantasia @ The 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Japan and Korea share a lot of complicated history, but recent films too often reduce it all to wartime rebellion and revenge dramas. However, the sleepy village of Gojo is delighted to have Korean visitors and the Korean filmmakers are quite charmed by their hosts. Frankly, they are not precisely sure what they are looking or whether they find it, but they still find their trip rewarding in Jang Kun-jae’s A Midsummer’s Fantasia, which screened during the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival.

A filmmaker has come to the provincial mountain village of Gojo to research his next film, bringing along his assistant director Mijung to translate. They definitely stand out, but not because they are Korean. Due to economic and demographic factors, nearly all of Gojo’s younger generations have migrated to the big cities, leaving a dwindling elderly population behind. While their stories are somewhat commonplace, the director and Mijung still find them compelling. Perhaps it is just something about their interview subjects’ presence.

Soon, they meet up with Gojo’s most eligible bachelor: a city official who was once an aspiring actor. He will take them on a special guided tour, impressing the Koreans with his choice of more telling, off-the-beaten-path locales. In fact, it might provide the inspiration the filmmaker is hoping for. The resulting film will probably be Well of Sakura, which also constitutes the second half of Jang’s Fantasia, rendered in color, as a change up from the elegant black-and-white of the first segment.

Mijung is now a scuffling Korean actress, who has come to Gojo as a tourist, seeking some sort of spiritual detox. A local persimmon farmer offers to serve as her guide after a chance meeting near the station. As they revisit the sites the film director visited, he becomes rather smitten. Unfortunately, despite their undeniable chemistry, Mijung does not feel free to reciprocate his romantic interest. Yet, she does feel something.

With its parallel structure and ships-passing-in-the-night themes, it is easy to liken Fantasia to Hong Sang-soo’s Hill of Freedom. In a way, they are inverse films, with Hong following a Japanese visitor to Korea desperately searching for the ex-girlfriend he never got over. Hill is one of Hong’s better films, so it is a rather apt comparison, regardless of his rep for mannered and precious filmmaking.

It is hard to describe, but Jang completely captures the sense of summer laziness morphing into something more serious. It is a carefully constructed film, but Jang privileges vibe and atmosphere over narrative, which provides quite a supportive platform for his small cast. As Mijung and Mijung, Kim Sae-byuk is simply incredible, managing to be simultaneously sad and seductive, as well as flirty and wise. Ryo Iwase is nearly unrecognizable as her two very different guides, cranking up the romantic yearning in the second half. Although he only appears in the black-and-white sequences, the distinctive maturity and humanism of Lim Hyeong-gook’s director also wears well on viewers.

In a way, Fantasia gives a slightly postmodern twist to the gentle, bittersweet Local Hero style of comedy, in which city folk take the time to smell the roses while temporarily ensconced in a picturesque provincial community. Yet, even with its gamesmanship, Fantasia is unusually fragile and fragrant, lingering pleasantly as a hazy memory after the initial viewing. Recommended for fans of summer breezes and brief but significant romances, A Midsummer’s Fantasia next screens this Sunday (6/14) during the Korean Film Festival at the Freer Gallery in DC (following Hong’s Hill).

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on June 13th, 2015 at 11:54am.

LFM Reviews Reptilia in Suburbia @ New Filipino Cinema 2015

By Joe Bendel. In the 1990s, there were no suburbs per se, where upper middle class residents of Metro Manila could retreat from crime. Instead, affluent gated enclaves sprung within the urban sprawl. In most cases, the gates kept the criminal element out, but in the case of Eden Homes, the insanity is fenced in. Words fail to describe the madness that is Timmy Harn’s Reptilia in Suburbia, which screens as part of the 2015 edition of New Filipino Cinema at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Dr. Dimalanta is a Satanic mad scientist who keeps Jake, a serial killer “gimp” chained up in his living room. Jake is mostly likely responsible for a rash of canine murders that have recently terrorized Eden Homes, but what really has some of the Borromeos distressed is Alan the underachiever’s decision to move back in with his mother. Her favored grown son Greg is openly contemptuous of his brother, but at least the Borromeo cousins get along reasonably well. Greg’s son and daughter even introduce the eczema suffering Jasper to weed, but he is more interested in helping Brook Lyn, the girl next door, find her missing lap dog. At least, that is an attempt to impose some narrative structure on Reptilia’s unruly tripppiness.

Frankly, Reptilia just might be a work of demented genius. The demented part is certainly beyond question. Harn deliberately gives it the look of a hacked-up grade-Z DIY flick, as if seen on an old school UHF channel, received through a coat-hanger wrapped in tin foil. You can tell extraordinary effort was expanded to craft such a consistently dingy look, because any other ultra-grubby indie would try to find some way to look more polished than its budget constraints would allow. In fact, the unity of Harn’s vision is strangely impressive.

From "Reptilia in Suburbia."

Despite the lack of continuity and structural logic, Harn’s game cast takes their roles quite seriously, including trailblazing Filipino animator and independent filmmaker Roxlee unleashing his inner Angus Scrimm as “Waldo” Dimalanta. There are a lot of whacked out things happening throughout the film, but the chemistry shared by the young cast members is actually rather winning.

Cinematographer Danilo Salas III, editor Sandra Santiago, and Harn’s post team make Reptilia look like it is on scratchy, crackly film stock that barely survives the decay of age and neglect. It feels more like an artifact of a mad outsider artist than a proper film. Yet, it is much more watchable than it sounds, once viewers acclimate themselves to Harn’s idiosyncratic aesthetic.

In all honesty, anyone whose tastes are remotely conventional should skip Reptilia, or risk having their heads explode. On the other hand, anyone who seriously follows cult cinema should see it, just so they can say they have seen it. Defying all sense of reason and good taste, Reptilia in Suburbia is required viewing for those who are still reading when it screens this Sunday (6/21) as part of New Filipino Cinema 2015 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on June 13th, 2015 at 11:54am.

LFM Reviews Der Samurai; Now on DVD/Blu-ray

By Joe Bendel. Could Brian De Palma still make a film like Dressed to Kill today? Maybe in Germany. You will find more than wolves terrorizing this quaint little German village. There is also a cross-dressing, samurai sword-wielding psychopath running amok in the woods. Have no fear, plenty of homophobes will get their bloody comeuppance during his violent spree, so that ought to make it okay to enjoy Till Kleinert’s Der Samurai, which releases today on DVD and Blu-ray.

Jakob Wolski represents the Barney Fife tradition of nebbish provincial lawmen. None of his contemporaries respect his authority and his commander is not exactly encouraging. The crusty copper is particularly skeptical of Wolski’s plan for dealing with the wolf that has been preying on the town’s animals. Rather than killing it, Wolski wants to lead it away with butcher-fresh meat. However, he will have to back-burner the wolf when a mysterious squatter calls him out to an abandoned farm house. Somehow, the violent man bearing the vintage sword seems to know quite a bit about Wolski. He may or may not have some sort of connection to the wolf as well. Regardless, when the Samurai unleashes his fury on the town, Wolski will be hard pressed to stop him.

From "Der Samurai."

Frankly, it is hard to say in today’s hyper-sensitive world whether Der Samurai is politically incorrect or a sly consciousness-raiser—and why should we even care? What’s important here is the generous helpings of gore and the eerie moodiness Kleinert offers up. While it is not as deliberate an homage as It Follows, the unsettling electronic score and stifling small town setting feel like a postmodern synthesis of old school John Carpenter.

Although Der Samurai is an indie production bordering on outright DIY, it is surprisingly polished looking. Kleinert builds a strong atmosphere of mystery (albeit through devices that are never fully explained), while steadily cranking up the tension. Michel Diercks also sells the madness quite credibly, while looking so obviously repressed, his head might explode. Likewise, Pit Bukowski pretty much goes unrestrainedly nuts as the feral Samurai.

Despite getting a tad heavy handed with the sexual identity games down the stretch, Kleinert has crafted a distinctive genre picture with a strong sense of place. Even with its excesses, it is tightly paced and generally grabby. Recommended for cult cinema connoisseurs, Der Samurai is now available for home viewing on DVD and Blu-ray.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on June 13th, 2015 at 11:53am.

LFM Reviews Mariquina @ New Filipino Cinema 2015

By Joe Bendel. Imelda Nunez is the nicest sweatshop owner ever. Her Marikina garment factory is small enough for her to know all the employees, but industrious enough to have international customers and supply chain issues. In some ways, she learned from her father, Romeo Guevarra, who was a master shoemaker, but not such a hot businessman. His unexpected suicide will come at a precarious time for her factory, but it will lead to considerable soul searching in Milo Sogueco’s Mariquina, which screens as part of the 2015 edition of New Filipino Cinema at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Yes, Imelda is the daughter of a shoemaker and the namesake of the former First Lady, Imelda Marcos (who is still a political force to be reckoned with). This irony will become a running gag in the film, with a lookalike even professing her respect for Guevarra’s shoes. However, when she looks back on her early childhood, Nunez realizes neither she, nor her mother fully appreciated how much soul Guevarra put into his soles.

Frankly, for Nunez, this is a terrible time for reflection. She has a quality control inspection coming up and a machine on the fritz. Yet, as she searches for a traditional Marikina shoemaker to make Guevarra’s final wingtips, she cannot help revisiting her formative years. They were dramatic, especially when her mother left home, ultimately settling in Hawaii. Through her omniscient flashbacks, we can see how the young Nunez misinterpreted incidents to blame her devastated father and Tess, his business partner turned live-in lover, rather than the mother who simply grew tired of Guevarra and a life of shoes.

The list of potential shoe clichés is as long as your arm (walk a mile in someone’s shoes, etc.), but Sogueco never gets fatally caught up in any of them. Granted, Nunez is on a shoe quest, but it is presented in rather practical terms. After all, they need shoes for his funeral, since for some reason those that he was wearing that fateful night have gone missing. While going through the process, Domeng, Guevarra’s last real protégé, helps her get some perspective on her father.

Mylene Dizon is pretty much perfect as Nunez. She can be both tough and vulnerable. We see in no uncertain terms how tightly she has controlled her life, up until it is time to release the floodgates. She also develops some appealing platonic chemistry with Dennis Padilla as the older, more accepting Domeng. As Guevarra, Ricky Davao leaves no heartstring unpulled, but it is indeed difficult to withstand the power of his sad-eyed pathos. However, it is Bing Pimentel who will deliver the real emotional body blow as the achingly dignified Tess.

Granted, there is no shortage of melodrama in Mariquina, but Sogueco earns the unabashedly sentimental climax, fair and square. The down-to-earth ensemble led by Dizon looks at home in the Marikina workshops and showrooms, while being attractive enough to have private lives worth getting worked up over. There are dozens of points where it all could have gone off the rails, but the discipline of Sogueco and Dizon keeps it all on the straight and narrow. Recommended for those who appreciate tearful family dramas and popular Filipino cinema, Mariquina screens this Friday (6/12) and Sunday (6/21), as part of New Filipino Cinema 2015 at the YBCA.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on June 13th, 2015 at 11:52am.

Jazz at Film Forum: LFM Reviews Syncopation

By Joe Bendel. Kit Latimer could have been a Marian McPartland from New Orleans. She was a proper lady who played a mean piano and married a trumpet player from Chicago. Unfortunately, the Hollywood of 1942 would only give a woman character limited time on the bandstand. While Latimer spends most of the film cheering on her future fiancé, the fictionalized jazz creation story in which she appears is still pretty progressive for its era and swings quite nicely. Jazz musicians get one of their better big screen treatments in William Dieterle’s Syncopation, screening in its DCP restored glory this coming Monday, as part of a special day of jazz programming at Film Forum.

As a little girl, Latimer loved New Orleans, especially the music. She could pound out boogie-woogie piano at a tender age and as fate would have it, her nanny is the mother of Rex Tearbone, a trumpet phenom transparently based on Louis Armstrong. During those early days, the young Tearbone is taken under the wing of King Jeffers, a clear King Oliver analog, played by longtime Ellington band member Rex Stewart.

At first, Latimer resents Chicago, but on her twenty-first birthday a chance meeting with scuffling trumpeter Johnny Schumacher changes her opinion. He takes her to her first rent party, where she hears Chicago-style jazz in its infancy. That rent party nearly ruins Latimer’s reputation, leading to her acquittal in a bizarre “jazz trial.” Regardless, Latimer and Schumacher are meant for each other, but her childhood sweetheart and WWII complicate matters.

It is easy to nit-pick details, but Syncopation deserves credit for getting so much right, starting with the opening montage depicting slavery and the subsequent hardships endured by African Americans. It is an evocative sequence not unlike the Ellington short Rhapsody in Black and Blue, playing as part of Film Forum other special Monday jazz program. One can also discern a good deal of Bix Beiderbecke in Schumacher, who learns how to really swing when jamming after hours with Tearbone, but finds himself stuck blowing in a symphonic so-called jazz orchestra unambiguously modeled on the Paul Whiteman outfit.

From "Syncopation."

The performances are mostly rather earnest and engaging, as well. Jackie Cooper has the right balance of innocence and street smarts for Schumacher (whose solos were mostly played off-screen by the tragic Bunny Berigan), while Bonita Granville’s Latimer makes a glamorous and largely credible hipster (with Stan Wrightsman handling her bluesy piano). Todd Duncan also adds considerable energy as Tearbone, playing him as an unflaggingly cheerful figure, but in a way that is sociable rather than servile. Although not a jazz musician, Duncan the opera baritone will still be of interest to jazz fans for originating the role of Porgy in Gershwin’s opera. Plus, Connee Boswell appears as herself (and convincingly so), sitting in with Schumacher’s band.

Syncopation is a very good film that holds up for contemporary viewers surprisingly well, considering it addresses (albeit gingerly) issues of race in the early 1940s. Granted, the appearance of an all-white all-star band in the closing scene is problematic, but evidently someone made the decision to assemble the winners of a Saturday Evening Post readers’ poll. Frankly, we are probably lucky they voted for legit swingers like Benny Goodman and Charlie Barnett. If only Dieterle and company had used Downbeat instead. Still, the film is quite sensitive and inclusive for its time and swings rather hardily. Recommended for fans of jazz and classic Hollywood, Syncopation screens this Monday (6/8) at Film Forum, along with the Jazz on a Spring Day collection of musical shorts.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on June 5th, 2015 at 2:51pm.