Author: Joe Bendel

LFM Reviews Madonna @ The 2015 New York Korean Film Festival

MadonnaBy Joe Bendel. There is a horrific organ harvesting scheme afoot in this swanky hospital, but the vibe is more Theodore Dreiser than Robin Cook. Everyone more-or-less knows the ruthless son of the hospital chairman will have the heart literally ripped out of a pregnant comatose street walker, killing both mother and child in the process. Sadly, this is just another injustice to befall the young woman, as a recently hired nurse’s aide learns during the course of her case history research in Shin Su-won’s Madonna, which screens during the 2015 New York Korean Film Festival.

Moon Hye-rim is in desperate financial straits, but there is no shortage of money around her while she is on the job. She works in the exclusive VIP ward of an elite, well-funded hospital. Chairman Kim Cheol-oh is by far their most important patient. Clearly, his ventilator dependent body has had enough of life, but his son Kim Sang-woo will go to any length to prolong his miserable existence, primarily for financial reasons. Once the chairman dies, his fortune will be donated to charity, leaving virtually nothing for the entitled son. However, the junior Kim also seems to take sadistic satisfaction from his father’s miserable state.

Having exhausted their Chinese suppliers, Kim intends to plunder the heart of Jang Mi-na, a very pregnant young prostitute, nick-named Madonna because of her full figure. Frankly, it is questionable just how brain dead she truly is. However, everyone understands perfectly well the donation procedure will kill the baby. Moon agrees to track down a next of kin to sign Kim’s dubious consent forms, but in the process, she learns the magnitude of the tribulations endured by Jang.

Madonna is probably the most thoroughly and unremittingly heartbreaking film since Tetsuya Nakashima’s utterly draining Memories of Matsuko. Both films completely pummel the audience from start to finish, giving only us the leanest, subtlest payoffs imaginable. Yet, both are profoundly moral films. Yes, on a surface level, Madonna is a scathing indictment of class privilege and unchecked male sexual predation. Yet, it cuts far deeper, addressing basic human issues of empathy and exploitation.

From "Madonna."
From “Madonna.”

In her feature debut, Kwon So-hyun is absolutely extraordinary as poor Jang. It is a harrowing performance, forcing her to endure all manner of physical and verbal abuse, but she is utterly convincing every step of the way. She never resorts to cheap histrionics, earning tears fair and square. Indeed, if she does not have you at least a little choked-up before it is all said and done, than you’re pretty suspect as a human being.

Although it initially appears to be the lead role, the ultra-reserved Moon is actually a rather thankless part. However, Seo Young-hee still quite compellingly portrays the slow awakening of her conscience. In contrast, the large supporting cast of exploiters and indifferent bystanders are credible enough, but largely pedestrian compared to the remarkable Kwon.

Shin will totally put you through the wringer, but it is worth it to witness the arrival an enormous young talent. Madonna should absolutely be the start of something big for Kwon So-hyun. Highly recommended for those who appreciate socially charged drama with a pinch of a noir thriller thrown in for garnish, Madonna screens this Sunday (11/8) at the Museum of the Moving Image, as part of the 2015 NYKFF.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on November 5th, 2015 at 3:18pm.

LFM Reviews The Shameless @ The 2015 New York Korean Film Festival

ShamelessBy Joe Bendel. It is hard for a femme fatale to age gracefully. Kim Hye-kyung might look like she is, but the hostess is having a particularly tough time of it, due to the constant harassment of loan sharks and mobbed-up businessmen. She fell for the wrong guy and never stopped falling. Undercover Detective Jung Jae-gon is probably an even more wrong guy, but he manages to insinuate himself into Kim’s life just the same in Oh Seung-uk’s The Shameless, which screens during the 2015 New York Korean Film Festival.

Once, Kim was the kept woman of a high-ranking VP at Jay Investments. Unfortunately, there were some betrayals and a number of bad investments. The upshot is Kim now owes hundreds of thousands to her creditors, including Jay Investments, but has little hope of paying off her debt through her toil in a hostess bar. To make matters worse, whenever Park Joon-kil comes calling, he usually takes on more debt in her name. Yet, she can never deny him.

Det. Jung is technically a cop, but his division is about as rogue as it gets. He still takes orders from his mentor, even though the senior officer was forced to resign by a corruption probe. Jung’s latest assignment is to find Park and cripple him in retribution for killing a rival mob associate. Knowing Park always returns to sponge off Kim, Jung tries to get close to her, posing as her lover’s former cellmate. Despite their frosty initial meeting, Kim soon hires Jung to be the club’s muscle. As they spend time together, some major sexual tension develops. There might even be some emotional substance to it, deep down somewhere in their malfunctioning psyches.

You can call Shameless a noir or a melodrama, but either way, Jeon Do-yeon’s performance as Kim is absolutely staggering. To get a sense of the impact of her work, try breaking ten boards with your head. They both sting like Hell, but the results will amaze you. This is the kind of meaty, complicated role Hollywood actresses over thirty-five would commit blue murder to land. Jeon nails it with a perfectly modulated, harrowingly realistic feat of screen acting.

From "The Shameless."
From “The Shameless.”

Even the gruffly charismatic Park Sung-woong’s Park Joon-ki is swimming in Jeon’s wake. Nevertheless, Kim Nam-gil deserves credit for keeping up to any extent as the icily reserved, borderline sociopathic Det. Jung. However, Kim Min-jae makes a memorably odious villain in the person of Min Young-ki, who apparently works as Jay Investment’s chief liaison to gangsters and crooked coppers.

Jeon took best actress honors at Cannes for Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine, which was also pretty impressive, but her work as Kim Hye-kyung truly deserves a standing ovation. Even though it has been fifteen years since he last helmed a feature, Oh also definitely holds his end up. His striking sense of visual composition and blighted urban backdrops further elevate Shameless above and beyond the realm of conventional gangster melodrama. Highly recommended, The Shameless screens this Saturday (11/7) at the Museum of the Moving Image, as part of the 2015 NYKFF.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on November 5th, 2015 at 3:18pm.

LFM Reviews Confession @ The 2015 New York Korean Film Festival

ConfessionBy Joe Bendel. There are not a lot of 1980s style video arcades left in the world. Unfortunately, one of the few remaining in Seoul is about to go up in smoke. What starts as a dodgy scheme quickly turns tragic in Lee Do-yun’s Confession, which screens during the 2015 New York Korean Film Festival.

While playing hooky from their middle school graduation, In-chul, Hyun-tae, and Min-soo nearly died during a mishap in the mountains. In-chul was able to return with help just in the nick of time, but for a while it looked like he had abandoned his chums. As grown-ups, the trio are still inseparable. Although Hyun-tae has married, the slick In-chul and slow-witted Min-soo treat his lovely deaf wife Mi-ran and loving daughter Yu-ri like family.

Oddly, In-chul is closer to Hyun-tae’s mother than her own son. Although the details are vague, Hyun-tae, the squeaky clean fire-fighter resents her dubious dealings, whereas In-chul can relate only too well. Naturally, when she hatches a plan to torch the subterranean arcade for the insurance money, In-chul is the one she calls. After much browbeating, Min-soo agrees to help his sleazy pal. Inevitably, things go spectacularly sour, leading to the accidental death of Hyun-tae’s mother (fire in a basement dive is just an awfully bad idea). Soon, Hyun-tae is hunting the perpetrators, utterly oblivious to his friends’ involvement, while a humorless insurance investigator suspects all three amigos.

As noir morality plays go, Confession makes A Simple Plan look upbeat and whimsical. Accidentally killing your pal’s mom is pretty darned Biblical stuff. In fact, screenwriter-director Lee gives the deceit and betrayals genuinely tragic heft. The way he calls back to their boyhood misadventure is particularly heavy, almost Shakespearean.

From "Confession."
From “Confession.”

Those elegiac highs help smooth over some of the rough patches, including Hyun-tae’s profound lack of intuition. That the only sympathetic grown woman in the film never has any spoken dialogue is also slightly problematic. Nevertheless, Lee is devilishly adroit at dropping one darned thing after another on In-chul. Ju Ji-hoon plays the increasingly desperate In-chul to the hilt, with just a touch of Nic Cage mania, but not too excessively much. Ji Sung is perfectly fine as the ploddingly righteous Hyun-tae. However, the dignity and reserve of Lee Kwang-soo’s work as the potentially offensive Min-soo really saves the film’s bacon.

Confession never breaks any new cinematic ground, but it sure closes strong. If you enjoy noirs served with grit and angst than you will find it to be a rich feast. Recommended for thriller fans, Confession screens this Saturday (11/7) at the Museum of the Moving Image, as part of the 2015 NYKFF.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on November 5th, 2015 at 3:17pm.

LFM Reviews Friends and Romans

By Joe Bendel. The great Charlton Heston played Mark Antony twice, in little seen film adaptations of Julius Caesar produced twenty years apart. That is all well and good, but Nick DeMaio is more interested in the 1953 Joe Mankiewicz version starring Marlon Brando. Not surprisingly, Brando is an icon for the blue collar Italian American actor, who specializes in extra work on mafia movies. DeMaio is determined to produce and star in a staging of Julius Caesar to broaden his acting horizons. However, along with his gangster extra cronies, he will unknowingly cast a real life Mafia boss and an undercover Fed in his very Italian-American Caesar. Complications will ensue, as they do, in Christopher Kublan’s Friends and Romans, which opens this Friday in Jersey and Long Island.

DeMaio was in Godfather III, Goodfellas, and The Sopranos, but he only had one slightly embarrassing speaking part. Nevertheless, the movie extra work has nicely supplemented his income as a wholesale produce deliveryman. Still, the broad ethnic stock characters are starting to bug him. He would like to be taken seriously as an actor, so he latches onto Shakespeare’s Caesar as the vehicle to make it happen.

As luck would have it, he rents the abandoned theater where real life mobster and aspiring actor Joey “Bananas” Bongano is hiding out. Even though he is wanted for murdering a Broadway producer (seriously, that is probably just a misdemeanor), he can’t stop himself from auditioning for DeMaio. FBI agent “Paulie” Goldberg also successfully auditions, suspecting DeMaio and his cronies are involved with the secretive Bongano, whose features and thespian pseudonym remain unknown to the Feds.

FriendsandRomansGranted, FAR is a bit sitcom-ish, but it is immensely likable. Kublan and co-screenwriters Michael Rispoli and Gregg Greenberg also incorporate a number of clever references to Shakespeare’s original text. Frankly, it is a much smarter film than one might expect, even though there are no shortage of jokes derived from Italian stereotypes.

As DeMaio, Rispoli balances goofiness and earnestness rather well, never overindulging in either. We just so get exactly who he is supposed to be, but he still wears well over the course of time, like a broken-in pair of shoes. Annabella Sciorra is grossly underemployed as Angela DeMaio, but at least she develops some pleasant chemistry with Rispoli. It is also nice to see her character support her husband’s eccentric ambitions right from the start, rather than merely serve as an emasculating dream-deflator.

Almost by necessity, most of the gangster-looking supporting cast is serving up shtick of some kind, but Paul Ben-Victor’s shtick is funnier and flashier than the rest as Dennis Socio, DeMaio’s limo driving buddy, who agreed to direct because he once did a limited run of Tony & Tina’s Wedding on the Island.

FAR is not exactly getting over-distributed this weekend, but it is destined to become a word of mouth sleeper hit on DVD and VOD. It gently spoofs gangster movie conventions, before tying everything up in a big “feel good” bow. You can be snarky all you want, but it works at the audience level. Recommended for fans of backstage comedies, the entertaining, low stress Friends and Romans opens this Friday (11/6) in the Tri-State Area.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on November 5th, 2015 at 3:16pm.

LFM Reviews Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom

By Joe Bendel. Until the Yanukovych’s regime’s brutal assault on the peaceful Maidan protests, St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery had not rung all its bells simultaneously since the Mongol invasion of 1240. Of course, this fact comes with an asterisk. Technically, the Soviets destroyed the Kiev landmark in the 1930s, but it was subsequently rebuilt following independence. Appropriately, the working Orthodox monastery played a significant role in the events that unfolded on and around Maidan Square. Russian-Israeli filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky captured history in real time, documenting step by step how the demonstrations evolved into a revolution. Rightfully considered an Oscar contender, Afineevsky’s Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom screens during the San Francisco Film Society’s Doc Stories—and also streams on Netflix.

The Euro-Maidan movement and its supporters have been well documented by filmmakers such as Sergei Loznitsa, Andrew Tkach, and Dmitriy Khavin, yet the Western media still gives credence to Soviet propaganda claiming the popular uprising was merely a prolonged tantrum thrown by skinheads and neo-National Socialists. However, with the exposure granted by Netflix’s platform, those lies should finally be permanently put to rest.

In fact, one of the big “scoops” of Afineevsky’s film is the extent to which Kiev’s Major Orthodox Archbishop, Catholic Archbishop, and the Islamic Mufti of Religious Administration supported the Maidan activists. Their early blessings (literally) were important, but it is impossible to overstate the leadership of His Eminence, Agapit, the Vicar of St. Michael’s and Bishop of Vyshgorod. It was he who approved the tolling of the bells and gave shelter to protestors fleeing from steel truncheon-wielding of agents of the Berkut, Yanukovych’s personal shock troops, who were truly the barbarians at the gates.

WinteronFireUnlike Loznitsa’s film, Afineevsky takes the time to single out individual protestors. While this gives the film greater emotional resonance, it is also necessary in some respects, for viewers to fully understand the dynamics in play. One such protestor we meet is the popular but self-effacing Serhiy Nigoyan, whom many fellow Maidan activists identified through social media as an inspirational figure for them all. When Nigoyan became the Berkut’s first gunshot fatally, his face began appearing on makeshift shields across the Square.

Working with twenty-eight credited cinematographers, Afineevsky captures just about everything that transpired, including the savagery Yanukovych and his Russian puppet-master so strenuously denied to the world media. Viewers should be warned, Afineevsky will introduce them to Ukrainians who will be murdered in the ensuing assaults and sniped attacks. Yet, he and editor Will Znidaric whittled and stitched the voluminous raw footage into a tight, cogent, and cohesive narrative.

Another aspect of the Euro-Maidan that comes through more clearly in Winter than prior documentaries is the genuine grassroots nature of the revolution. It was truly bottom-up rather than top-down. In fact, opposition leaders (including Vitali Klitschko) are often seen trailing after movement, earning jeers for their parliamentary caution. It is probably the most cinematic document of the Maidan protests to-date and perhaps also the most damning of the Yanukovych regime (and the big boss Putin, by extension). Very highly recommended (especially for Academy members), Winter on Fire screens this Thursday (11/5) as part of the SFFS’s Doc Stories.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on November 3rd, 2015 at 6:45pm.

LFM Reviews Sembene!

By Joe Bendel. For a while, Ousmane Sembene was a Senegalese B. Traven. While working on the docks in Marseilles, the expat became of a self-taught novelist and radicalized Communist Party member. Although his early films reflect those prejudices, Sembene would become the leading critic of the Islamization of Africa. His cinematic legacy is particularly challenging to fully digest and analyze, so Samba Gadjigo & Jason Silverman mostly hit his career high notes in Sembene!, which opens this Friday in New York.

Having long-admired Sembene’s films and novels, Gadjigo eventually became his assistant, protégé, companion, and spiritual son. He assisted the auteur on his later pictures and now oversees efforts to restore and promote Sembene’s oeuvre. Much like Quincey Troupe’s work as Miles Davis’s biographer, Gadjigo’s story will become fundamentally intertwined with Sembene’s, at least while he is doing the telling. While that might not make for the most objective documentary filmmaking, it gives viewers an emotionally resonant relationship to grab hold of.

However, when it comes to surveying Sembene’s work, Sembene! (with the Broadway-style exclamation point) mostly relies on film clips and archival interview footage, proceeding forward in an orderly film-by-film manner. Still, what we see of Ceddo is undeniably intriguing. Chronicling a village’s forced conversion to Islam, it was duly banned by Socialist president Leopold Senghor’s government. Decades later, it is easy to see it as an eerie predecessor to Abderrahmane Sissako’s devastating Timbuktu. If all that is not interesting enough, it also has an original score performed by Manu Dibango.

From "Sembene!"
From “Sembene!”

Gadjigo & Silverman probably devote the most time to Sembene’s final film, Moolaadé, which makes sense considering Gadjigo helmed the “making of” documentary. It was also one of Sembene’s most controversial works, directly attacking the practice of female genital mutilation. The mere fact he was helming an eventual Cannes award-winner while losing his eye-sight is also rather dramatic.

Throughout the documentary, Gadjigo & Silverman emphasize Sembene’s stature as a pan-African icon, but hint at his increasing frustration with the corruption and brutality of the newly independent African states. Yet, they are obviously treading on eggshells whenever addressing this tension. As a result, Sembene! often feels too sanitized and not nearly messy enough. Still, there are not a lot of feature length profiles of Sembene out there. Gadjigo & Silverman give viewers a solid survey and leave them wanting to see more, which probably constitutes a mission accomplished, given their plans to restore and re-release Sembene’s work. Recommended for Sembene’s fans and film snobs looking for the Cliff Notes on the Senegalese filmmaker, Sembene! opens this Friday (11/6) in New York, at the Lincoln Plaza.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on November 3rd, 2015 at 6:45pm.