Author: Joe Bendel

LFM Reviews True Grit

By Joe Bendel. Rooster Cogburn is not just a familiar character, he is an icon. Considering the critical drubbing the Coen brothers’ last classic movie remake (The Lady Killers) received, taking on such a storied figure of Americana certainly was gutsy. Yet thanks to their satisfying command of the western genre, the Brothers Coen’s True Grit is able to establish its own identity while keeping faith with the spirit of the original film and source novel. Considered to be a major player for Oscar campaigning (despite being blanked by the Golden Globes), Grit recently opened in select theaters nationwide.

Of course, Grit has an Academy Award winning lineage. John Wayne won his only Oscar for playing the one-eyed, cantankerous old Cogburn. Given the large shadow the Duke casts, it is quite impressive how comfortably Jeff Bridges eases into the role. In a weird way, there might be a similarity between Cogburn and Bridges’ “Dude” from the Coens’ Big Lebowski. Both have a healthy disregard for social convention – however, Cogburn is not exactly what one might call laidback.

As in the Henry Hathaway classic, young Mattie Ross is looking to avenge her father, so she hires the grizzled old Cogburn to track down the killer, Tom Chaney. La Boeuf, a Texas Ranger, is also on Chaney’s trail in hopes of collecting the reward offered for another murder the fugitive committed. Ross is not looking for courtroom justice though, but justice of the frontier variety. Despite Cogburn’s questionable commitment, they press on into forbidding country, in a halfway alliance with La Boeuf.

Hailee Stenfeld as Mattie Ross.

Though Grit is a tad slow out of the blocks, the Coens show a deft touch staging old school western shootouts. Genre purists will be happy to know that not only is Cogburn’s famous battle cry still in the film, Bridges totally nails it. And exhibiting assurance on-screen beyond her years, Hailee Stenfeld invests Ross with considerable grit as well. Unfortunately Matt Damon often seems distractingly off target as La Boeuf, almost portraying the Texas lawman as a caricature of Talladega Nights’ John C. Reilly. Still, Cogburn is the key to the film and Bridges really does pull it off.

Slightly more wistful than the original, the Coen Grit will pleasantly surprise diehard fans of the John Wayne film, nevertheless. Indeed, Bridges ought to be in contention for Oscar consideration. Executed with the gusto the filmmakers are known for, Grit represents a welcome big time return of the western genre to the American film industry. Definitely recommended, it is now playing in select theaters around the country.

Posted on December 23rd, 2010 at 1:30pm.


Afghanistan’s Oscar Entry: The Black Tulip, A Film Worth Supporting Even if The Academy Won’t

By Joe Bendel. The Taliban are not what you might call big movie buffs. Of course, anything involving free expression is pretty much a non-starter for them. After shutting down Pakistan’s cottage Pashto film industry, for example, they did their best to harass the cast and crew of Sonia Nassery Cole’s The Black Tulip. Yet she persevered, eventually completing the only film produced in Afghanistan this year.

Though duly submitted as the country’s official submission for best foreign language Oscar consideration, the Academy unfortunately disqualified Tulip on grounds that seem highly debatable.

Since Cole and company are presumably working to secure festival slots and theatrical distribution, a review as such would be premature. However, having seen it two weeks ago at a New York Times event, one hopes more people will have a chance to share the experience. As writer, director, producer, and lead actress, Cole was nearly a one man band. Still, she and cinematographer Dave McFarland produced a slickly professional looking film that bears no resemblance to zero-budget Pashto films featured in George Gittoes’ jaw-dropping documentary The Miscreants of Taliwood (trailer below).

Rejected by The Academy on questionable grounds.

In fact, Cole displays a real talent for pacing and shot composition. Conversely, her acting is not exactly at the same level. To be fair, she was reportedly a last minute substitution when the Taliban hacked off the feet of the woman she had originally cast as the protagonist, Farishta. Naturally, the same New York Times has devoted a fair amount of article space to those who dispute this account – largely it seems, because they prefer not to deal with its implications. Had Cole had an actress like the great (and great really is the word) Shohreh Aghdashloo in the lead, the mind reels at what could have been. Perhaps the film’s greatest revelation though, is the consistent quality of the Afghan cast, particularly Haji Ghul Aser as her husband Hadar.

There are many reasons why Tulip is an important film. Indeed, it is truly fearless in its portrayal of the Taliban’s savagery. Even more controversially, it also depicts the American military as a positive presence in Afghanistan, forging links of friendship with average citizens. Yet, the most valuable aspect of Tulip is the window it opens into an Afghan middle class most Americans probably assume does not exist. Tulip shows audiences that not all Afghans are toothless mujahedeen with a Koran in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other. Rather, there are many people like Farishta and Hadar, who simply want to work hard and raise their family.

Considering the state of filmmaking in the region, one would think the Academy would try to support films like Tulip as best they can. However, they disqualified Tulip from the best foreign language film category – apparently because Cole, an Afghan expatriate working with a largely American crew, were not deemed authentically Afghan enough.

Yet similar issues could be raised regarding the Algerian Oscar submission, Rachid Bouchareb’s Outside the Law. Bouchareb was born in France to a family of Algerian immigrants. And aside from the opening scenes, the film is also set entirely in France – featuring French movie stars, like Roschdy Zem and Jean-Pierre Lorit.  Somehow though, this was apparently forgivable to the Academy given that the film is a critique of French colonialism.

Law is an excellent picture that deserves to be in Oscar contention, but if it meets the foreign language division’s criteria, it is hard to understand why Tulip would not. Maybe Cole’s film can still qualify for consideration in the best song category. Natalie Cole (no relation) recorded three originals for the soundtrack, including one legitimately stirring anthem with a popular Farsi vocalist.

Contact your local film festivals and societies about Tulip, because a film like this will need a groundswell of support.

Posted on December 15th, 2010 at 11:40am.


Whitewashing History: Communist China’s Oscar Entry Aftershock in IMAX

By Joe Bendel. The 2008 Sichuan earthquake was not simply a tragedy—it was a scandal. Average citizens were appalled by the government’s ineffectual response and the corrupt state building practices that amplified the quake’s severity. Yet what most outraged many survivors was the extent to which the Sichuan quake and its controversies paralleled that of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. Clearly, lessons had not been learned. However, the People’s Liberation Army and a liberal dose of revisionist history ride to the rescue in Feng Xiaogang’s disaster drama Aftershock, which China has officially submitted for Oscar consideration in the best foreign language film category.

From "Aftershock": smiling PLA parents.

The summer of 1976 began as a happy, peaceful time for Yuan Ni and her family. Evidently, there was no Cultural Revolution to worry about in Tangshan, but the devastating earthquake made up for it in spades. Saved by her husband at the expense of his own life, Yuan Ni is faced with a devastating Sophie’s Choice. Both her twins are trapped under a concrete slab, but to save one child, the other will surely be crushed in the process. This being China, she chooses her son Fang Da.

Cruelly, his sister Fang Deng hears her own mother consigning her to death. Yet, through some twist of fate, Fang Deng lives, discovered relatively unscathed within a mountain of corpses. Having understandable abandonment issues, the young girl claims to have no memory of the traumatic events when asked by her adopted parents, a kindly couple serving in the PLA. Years pass and much melodrama happens, but when the 2008 quake hits Sichuan, both Fang Deng and Fang Da rush to join the Tangshan survivor volunteer relief workers. Right, you should definitely be able to guess where the third act is headed from there.

Aftershock is billed as the first commercial IMAX film produced in China. While the first fifteen minutes or so are probably pretty cool, as the Tangshan buildings fall like houses of cards, the next two hours of family drama must feel like overkill on the giant screen. Though relatively brief, Feng’s Irwin Allen scenes are tense and convincing. Indeed, he is a talented “big picture” director, but he is also something of a propagandist for the PLA. 2007’s Assembly, a well done war film that follows a grizzled army officer as he fights in the Chinese Civil War and the Korea War (against us), is a case in point.

The young Zifeng Zhang is absolutely heartrending as Fang Deng. As the adult Fang Deng, the striking Jingchu Zhang also tugs on the heartstrings quite effectively. Unfortunately much of the plot depends on characters deliberately making life harder than necessary, which quickly taxes viewer patience. It’s as if the film hopes the overblown angst can somehow fill up the giant IMAX screen.

Of course, there was plenty of heaviness going on in China during this time, but Aftershock scrupulously ignores the death rattle of the Cultural Revolution, the downfall of the Gang of Four, and the Tiananmen Square massacre. However, scenes of Mao’s funeral are shown with reverence and PLA soldiers are regularly hailed as heroes of the Tangshan rescue effort. Granted, not every film needs to address political issues, but the lack of context in Aftershock is as glaringly obvious as a film set in 1940s Germany that never mentions the National Socialists.

Though not wholly unwatchable, thanks in large measure to its Fang Dengs, Aftershocks is definitely a flawed film. Too long and too white-washed, it is more of a curiosity than a contender in this year’s foreign language Oscar contest.

Posted on December 14th, 2010 at 10:20am.

One City, Three Drivers: Beijing Taxi

By Joe Bendel. It is an open question just how beneficial the 2008 Olympics were to average Chinese citizens. They were a source of pride perhaps, and certainly the well-connected made money through construction contracts and the like. Yet for the city’s working class cabbies, the Olympics – as well as China’s precipitous industrialization – have been a decidedly mixed bag. Indeed, life is not particularly easy for any of the three drivers director Miao Wang unobtrusively follows in Beijing Taxi (trailer above), which opens this Friday at Brooklyn’s reRun Gastropub Theater.

Starting two years prior to the Beijing Games, Taxi documents a city in flux. The games should be a boon to the drivers, what with all the tourists expected. Of course, nothing is so simple in China. Facing new language requirements (ironically, it seems travelers would be more likely to find an English speaking cabbie in Beijing than in New York) and rising costs, Taxi’s subjects are feeling increasingly pinched.

In various ways, the three cab drivers represent the inherent contradictions of contemporary Chinese society. While critical of China’s go-go economic policies, fifty-four year-old Bai Jiwen also fully recognizes his opportunities are limited because the Cultural Revolution permanently cut short his education. By contrast, thirtysomething Wei Caixia embraces China’s entrepreneurial ethos, but she is not so keen on the hard work part. Perhaps Zhou Yi is the most contented with his lot, but he still tries to maintain links to traditional Chinese culture.

Eschewing celebrity narration and talking head interviews, Taxi is not incompatible with the work of China’s so-called “Digital Generation” or “D-Generate” filmmakers. Though in many ways it functions as a critique of China’s comrade capitalism, Taxi is not the gritty, unremittingly depressing cinematic experience one finds in documentaries like Lixin Fan’s Last Train Home. Granted, Taxi’s three central POV figures certainly endure life’s challenges, they nonetheless prove to be quite resilient and even optimistic, at least to an extent.

Their real life dramas are also bookended by a surprisingly cool opening and closing credit sequence, which give the film a bit of panache. Indeed, it is well conceived and executed by the New York based Wang, who immigrated to America in 1990 (one year following the massacre at Tiananmen Square).

Cinematographers Ian Vollmer and Sean Price Williams dramatically capture the pulse and power of Beijing. However, this is a glass and steel urban jungle – which might disappoint viewers hoping to see an ancient and exotic capitol city, much like the underwhelmed tour groups Zhou Yi chauffeurs. Still, the cabbies offer a perfect vantage point for Wang to essentially ask “where are we and how did we get here?”  Considerably more accessible for general viewers than one might expect, Taxi is worth a trip out to Brooklyn when it opens at the reRun Gastropub this Friday (12/10).

Posted on December 10th, 2010 at 10:06am.

Bunnies Under Communism! The Oscar Nominated Rabbit à la Berlin + Nurith Aviv’s Loss

By Joe Bendel. Was it possible to thrive under Communism? Yes, for a short while, if you happened to be a rabbit in East Berlin. But their salad days did not last forever. In a story too strange not to be true, a population of rabbits temporarily flourished in the green belt running down the center of the despised Berlin Wall. Part nature documentary and part parable, directors Bartek Konopka and Piotr Rosolowski offer a truly original perspective on the Communist experience through the eyes of those East German bunnies in Rabbit à la Berlin (trailer above), a 2009 Academy Award nominee for best documentary short, which opens today in New York as part of a double bill of short docs examining Twentieth Century German history.

During the immediate post-war years, a hearty band of rabbits survived by raiding the garden patches on Potsdamer Platz. Much to their supposed surprise, sheltering walls were suddenly erected around them in 1961. With a nice grassy run, plenty of shade, and precious little human contact the whiskered critters made like rabbits and multiplied. The East German guards even began adopting them to help pass the time.

However, for many West Berliners, especially artists, the rabbits’ ability to burrow beneath the walls made them symbols of something greater—coyote tricksters for their divided age. Then, as escape attempts became more frequent and daring, the rabbits’ peaceful lives were upturned. Their lush grass was destroyed so that fugitive footsteps would be easier to track in the dirt beneath. Formerly their protectors, the guards declared open season on the rabbits, like a red army of Elmer Fudds.

One of Rabbit’s many surprises is the extent and quality of archival film capturing Berlin rabbits in their former environment. Credible simply as a wildlife film (even featuring the smoothly placid narration of Krystyna Czubówna, a well-known Polish voice-over artist for nature docs), it also has a slyly subversive sensibility, particularly when it incorporates news footage of the likes of Fidel Castro and Yassir Arafat come to gawk approvingly at the Wall. Wistful without being nostalgic, it is one of the more inventive and entertaining documentaries to reach theaters this year.

A meditation on the Holocaust.

While the fate of the Berlin Wall rabbit warren is not widely known outside of Germany, the Holocaust and its implications are certainly well established terrain for documentarians. Yet, French-Israeli filmmaker Nurith Aviv finds fresh insights in Loss. Returning to her father’s ancestral home of Berlin, Aviv explores the cultural and scientific losses Germany imposed on itself through the Holocaust.

While relatively conventional in her approach, Aviv superimposes interviews with four prominent Berliners and a vintage television appearance by Hannah Arrendt over sights seen from the S-Bahn train as it makes its way through the city. It makes the talking heads more visually dynamic, and also gives viewers a good feeling for the still-grim looking city.

Frankly, the fifty minute Rabbit was robbed at last year’s Oscars. Highly recommended, it is unquestionably the main event of Film Forum’s Berlin documentary double feature. That said, the thirty minute Loss is also a thoughtful film worth seeing in tandem with Rabbit. Both screen together at New York’s Film Forum, beginning today (12/8).

Posted December 8th, 2010 at 2:07pm.

Women in the Islamic World: Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story

Actress Mona Zaki in "Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story."

By Joe Bendel. Hebba Younis wants to be Chris Wallace. Her husband wants her to be Oprah Winfrey. However, when at his behest she temporarily forgoes her hard-hitting newsmaker interviews in favor of women’s interest features, it winds up antagonizing the Egyptian government even more in Yousry Nasrallah’s Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story (trailer below), a recent selection of the Venice Film Festival which has its New York premiere during this year’s African Diaspora International Film Festival.

They should be Cairo’s most fearsome media couple. Younis is the formidable host of a morning talk show. Karim Hassan is an up-and-coming journalist in line to become editor-in-chief of one of Egypt’s state-owned newspapers. Unlike Younis though, Hassan never met a government official he wouldn’t suck up to. Reluctantly, she agrees to lay low during the upcoming editor selection process. Yet, as she invites average Egyptian women on her show to tell their stories, a portrait of a corrupt and misogynist Islamic society emerges that hardly thrills Hassan. When cabinet ministers start to be implicated in her guests’ stories of victimization, we know there will be trouble.

Hebba Younis with her husband, played by Hassan El Raddad.

Essentially, Scheherazade is four films in one, telling three discrete story arcs in flashbacks within the framework of Younis’ show. As the least controversial (and therefore least memorable), her first interview with a late middle-aged volunteer social worker gives Hassan reason for hope. While it runs a bit long, the second woman’s story is a much different matter. Convicted of murdering the man who was playing her and her two spinster sisters, it raises hot button questions about women’s legal rights in Egypt specifically and under Islamic law in general—not exactly territory Hassan and his political masters are eager to explore. When Younis’ third guest Nahed, a dentist from a prominent family, accuses a sitting minister of sexually and financial preying on mature unmarried women, all bets are off.

While cinematographer Samir Bahsan gives Scheherazade a lush, sophisticated look, it is a surprisingly tough film. Though Hassan might appear to be a modern dope-smoking yuppie, it becomes clear he would prefer his wife veiled and cloistered rather than more famous than him. Evidently, Mona Zaki has been the target of some heated disparagement from Egypt’s medieval quarters for her portrayal of the relatively liberated and assertive Younis. While she is a smart and attractive lead, Sanaa Akroud really steals the picture as Nahed, an older but still striking and all too vulnerable woman. Akroud brings out her intelligence and resoluteness, making her not-so uncommon circumstances a particularly effective indictment of Islamist Egypt.

Scheherazade would be bold for any Islamic country and is especially so in an Egypt where most media is wholly owned by the Soviet-sounding State Information Service. A feminist film in the best sense of the term, Scheherazade is a surprisingly forthright look at the status of Egyptian women today.  Timely and recommended, it screens as part of the 2010 ADIFF at the Anthology Film Archives on Sunday (12/12) and next Tuesday (12/14, the concluding night of the festival) at Symphony Space’s Thalia Theater.

Posted on December 6th, 2010 at 10:12am.