Author: Joe Bendel

China’s Great Migration: Last Train Home

By Joe Bendel.  Whether you consider it an unintentional disconnect stemming from China’s rapid industrialization or outright hypocrisy, the chasm between official rhetoric and reality is wide and stark in the Communist People’s Republic of China.  It might be go-go times in the big coastal commercial centers, but the rural areas are desperately poor.  An estimated 130 million migrant workers leave for those cities, working long hours for exploitative wages. They only make one annual return home for the traditional New Year holiday. Considered the world’s largest migration of people, documentarian Lixin Fan examines the taxing ritual through the eyes of one struggling Chinese family in Last Train Home, which opened Friday in select theaters nationwide.

Zhang Changhua and Chen Suqin are second class citizens, veritable illegal aliens within their own countries. Under the government’s restrictive residency laws, they have few formal rights and no access to social services outside their home district. Yet, they have had little choice but to seek work in China’s teeming urban centers. As a result, they have rarely seen the pre-teen daughter and young son they left to be raised by their grandmother.

Mother-daughter relationships can be difficult even under easier circumstances, but the three years Chen and her daughter Zhang Qin have been separated are taking a toll. Yet Chen cannot entirely blame her for feeling abandoned, even while lamenting that she has not been a good mother.  Unfortunately, the resentful daughter spitefully drops out of school, becoming a migrant worker herself. It is a bitter turn of events for her parents, who now must face the possibility that many of their sacrifices will have been for naught. They also know only too well the rough education she is in for, especially when navigating the yearly mass exodus.

Sharing an obvious stylistic affinity with the Digital Generation of independent Chinese filmmakers, Chinese-Canadian director Lixin Fan is not afraid of holding long, quiet shots. However, he captured some uncomfortably intimate family drama, while conscientiously refraining from adding outside commentary.  Clearly, the filmmaker built up a large reservoir of trust with his subjects. In return, he lets them speak for themselves in their own words, unfiltered and unhurried.

Train is a very personal film, but it is hard to miss the underlying point that approximately 130 million more migrant Chinese workers currently endure similar conditions. Ironically, China’s peasants used to be the PRC’s politically privileged class, but now the laws are rigged against them.

Should digital auteur Jia Zhangke ever remake John Hughes’ Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, it would probably look a lot like this.  An unvarnished exercise in cinema vérité that takes on tragic dimensions, Train is a pointed corrective to the uncritical media coverage the Chinese government carefully cultivates. It is all the more difficult to shake, since it is not at all clear everything will ultimately work out alright for the Zhang family. Indeed, such is the nature of life.  Uncompromising but deeply humanistic, Train opened last week in select theaters nationwide.

Posted on September 2nd, 2010 at 9:53am.

Review: Mesrine, Part I: Killer Instinct

[Editor’s Note: Mesrine was the #1 film at the indie box office this past weekend.]

By Joe Bendel. Jacques Mesrine was white and bourgeoisie, but he wanted to be the French Iceberg Slim.  A veteran of Algeria, Mesrine became France and Canada’s “Public Enemy #1,” eventually getting his wish, dying in a hail of bullets.  Before the inevitable, he glamorized his exploits in two memoirs/novels, making him something of a cult hero to the French-speaking counter-culture.  As a result, he became a very PR-conscious public enemy, who would be delighted to know his story has now been adapted in Jean-François Richet’s two-film bio-epic, the first of which, Mesrine: Killer Instinct opened Friday in select theaters nationwide, with Part Two to follow a week later.

In Algeria, Mesrine killed and tortured without a second thought.  Returning to France, he is incapable of following in his timid father’s footsteps of working, middleclass respectability.  Of course, he has certain talents to offer, which the “establishment” gangster Guido recognizes.  While Mesrine takes to racketeering like a fish to water, his wild streak is an obvious liability.  He also has issues with women.  While his conquests are many, he also seems primed for some rather ugly misogynistic violence.

Vincent Cassel as Mesrine.

Despite his unruliness, Mesrine eventually finds himself married with children.  When he even gets a straight job after an early prison stretch, it appears Mesrine might be ready to settle down.  Unfortunately, when he is laid off during an economic downturn, Mesrine soon returns to Guido’s organization.

Ironically, as the violence of Mesrine’s criminal endeavors escalates, his press becomes increasingly favorable.  He became the gentleman bandit, with a strict code of conduct and New Left street cred.  When things get too hot for Mesrine in France, he takes a sojourn to Quebec, falling in with French nationalists – further refining his revolutionary persona.

Killer Instinct is a decent gangster movie on its own, but it is really meant to establish the characters and storyline that continues in Public Enemy No. 1, the second film (that confusingly has the number one in the title).  True to its function, Instinct handles the heavy-lifting of character development, setting up the slam-bang action sequences of Enemy.  Yet, Richet presents a compellingly unvarnished portrait of Mesrine in the first film, never ameliorating his abusive behavior.

The bulked-up Vincent Cassel is like a French old school De Niro as Mesrine, vicious yet undeniably charismatic.  Gérard Depardieu also adds plenty of color as the Jabba the Hutt-like Guido.  Unfortunately, Mesrine’s women (even his Spanish wife) are not well delineated either in the script or in the various supporting performances, problematically seeming to exist only as plot devices.  Still, Instinct is not bereft of humanity, thanks to Michel Duchaussoy’s touching turn as Mesrine’s father.

After a tour-de-force opening, Richet allows Instinct to lag somewhat in the middle.  This is definitely not a problem with the next installment opening September 3rd.  Essentially, Instinct sets up the pins and Enemy knocks them down.  Altogether, it is an ambitious, shrewdly executed crime drama worth the investment of two trips to the theater.

Posted on August 30th, 2010 at 8:11am.

Centurion: No Pax Romana Here

By Joe Bendel. It is 117 A.D. and the Roman “conquest” of Britain has been a miserable, blood-soaked experience—for the Romans.  Just ask Centurion Quintus Dias, whom we first meet running for his life from a very ticked-off war party of Picts in Neil Marshall’s Centurion, which opened this Friday in select theaters nationwide.

Posted to the most distant Roman outpost, Dias is miserable in Caledonian Britain (what is more or less Scotland today).  Things only get worse when his fort is over-run by a Pict surprise attack.  The sole survivor, Dias escapes his captors, making his way to what just became the newly Northern-most Roman outpost.  Tired of taking a beating to his prestige back in Rome, the local governor commands General Virilus to hunt down the mysterious Pict leader Gorlacon with his vaunted Ninth Legion, to which Dias is now attached.

Virilus is not thrilled with his assignment, but he supposedly has the advantage of the services of Etain, a Pict tracker ostensibly civilized by the governor.  Given the way her eyes smolder with hatred, following her into battle is probably a bad idea, but they do it anyway, with predictable results.  Now Dias must lead the remnant of the Ninth as they try to rescue their revered General behind enemy lines.

Centurion is a fairly straight-forward historical hack & slash, with maybe a hint of the fantastical.  At one point Dias and his men find refuge with Arianne, a woman shunned by the Picts as a purported witch—not that she really is one.  She just seems to know a lot about healing herbs.  Neil (The Descent) Marshall definitely has a knack for gritty battle scenes, and the clever symmetry of his opening and closing scenes perfectly suits the story of ancient (if misplaced) heroism.  Unfortunately, the film lags a bit in-between, with too many scenes of rock-climbing and weary shuffling through the Caledonian forests.

Michael Fassbender is one of the few actors working in film today with potentially movie star-like screen presence.  Yet in Centurion, the grizzled badness of Dominic West’s Virilus somewhat outshines him.  Still, he has some credible chemistry with Imogen Poots as Arianne the witch.  Unfortunately, Ulrich Thomsen is a bland villain as Gorlacon (probably because the film is too conscious of its alleged modern parallels), while as Etain, former Bond girl Olga Kurylenko looks distractingly blue, almost like she walked out of Avatar.  Oddly, the Centurion’s Romans are played by Brits, whereas the Britons are mostly played by Scandinavians, Slavs, and even the Belgian Axelle Carolyn.

Centurion’s craftsmanship is definitely above average for action films.  Cinematographer Sam McCurdy’s dazzling vistas make the Caledonian mountains look like the Alps.  It also boasts one of the cooler opening title sequences of the year.  Still, its heavy-handed “occupiers” versus “insurgency” themes often sabotage the film’s momentum.  Ultimately, it is an okay summer diversion, but it is effectively limited by its reluctance to definitively pick a side and stick with it.

Posted on August 28th, 2010 at 9:55am.

State Sanctioned Theft: The Art of the Steal

By Joe Bendel. Americans expect their property rights to be respected, even posthumously. However, those rights evidently do not apply to when the property in question is especially valuable. At least that seems to be the case in Pennsylvania, where the state government, the city of Philadelphia, and a group of powerful non-profit foundations have in effect legally plundered the priceless Barnes Collection according to Don Argott’s eye-opening documentary, The Art of the Steal, now available on DVD.

Steal opens with the unseemly yet so appropriate video of former Mayor John Street’s news conference, in which he overflows with glee at the prospect of finally getting the Barnes in Philadelphia. All that is missing is a football for Street to spike before doing an end-zone dance. However, this display is problematic on multiple levels.

Albert C. Barnes hated Philadelphia. The self-made entrepreneur and Roosevelt Democrat amassed probably the greatest private collection of impressionist and early modern art. Yet, when he unveiled his collection in the City of Brotherly Love, it was panned by the local press and mocked by the chattering classes.  Eventually, Philadelphia realized what they had missed, but it was too late. Barnes had established his Foundation in exurban Lower Merion, where career-defining Renoirs, Cézannes, Matisses, Picassos, and Degases were integrated into a progressive art school, with only limited opportunities for public viewing.

When the childless Barnes passed away, the terms of his will were explicitly designed to keep his collection intact and out of the grasping hands of Philadelphia and its despised Art Institute. However, as the original trustees passed away, control of the Barnes Foundation eventually fell to Lincoln University, a traditionally African American school safely outside the Pennsylvania establishment in Barnes’s day that became state affiliated in 1972. As Argott makes crystal clear, from that point on, Barnes’s intentions no longer governed the Foundation that still bears his name.

One of the unspoken ironies of Steal is that Barnes, the New Dealer and sworn enemy of Nixon confidant Walter Annenberg, was ultimately undone by Democrats like Street and Governor Ed Rendell. At least the governor consented to an on-camera interview, justifying the hijacking of the Barnes on grounds that incontrovertibly contradict the spirit of his will (like the fact that more people will be able to gawk at his collection on the Franklin Parkway). Conversely, representatives of the Pew Charitable Trust, which Argott identifies as the shadowy power player in the takeover of the Barnes, conspicuously declined to participate in the film.  (In a further irony, the only political figure in Argott’s film speaking on behalf of Barnes’s intentions is Lower Merion’s Republican congressman Jim Gerlach, to his credit.)

Producer Sheena Joyce, exec. producer Lenny Feinberg, director Don Argott.

Though he is covering the rarified art world, Argott approaches the Barnes case like a criminal investigation, and with good reason. He also memorably establishes the mind-blowing dimensions of the stakes involved, establishing the term “Barnesworthy.” As art-dealer Richard Feigen explains at a supposedly blockbuster Sotheby’s early modern show, most of the work on display that would soon be bought for millions of dollars would not have merited a second glance from Barnes. Though Feigen himself declined to assign a dollar figure to the entire collection, its value would be estimated in court filings at twenty five billion (with a “b”) dollars. This is what “Barnesworthy” means.

Steal is a smart, persuasive documentary that challenges some previously sacrosanct notions regarding the merit of museums as public institutions. While some of the finer points of estate law might sound dry, Argott makes it all quite compelling, pulling viewers through step-by-step with remarkable assuredness.

Unfortunately, the establishment considers the Barnes’ impending move to downtown Philly a done deal, even though the rag-tag Friends of the Barnes group still fights on.  Maybe so, but Argott’s film could make it a pyrrhic victory.  It is hard to imagine how anyone could willingly step foot in a Barnes bastardized by machine politics after watching Steal, regardless of the significance of the collection within.  Highly recommended, Steal is now available on DVD and streams on Netflix.

Posted on August 24th, 2010 at 11:29am.

Review: Miyazaki’s Tales from Earthsea

By Joe Bendel. Forget the Syfy (Sci-Fi) Channel’s Earthsea miniseries.  Ursula K. Le Guin, the author of the Earthsea novels and stories, would certainly prefer you did.  Her reaction to Gorō Miyazaki’s anime adaptation of her fantasy world has also been decidedly mixed, but arguably not as vehement.  In fact, Miyazaki’s film is not without merit, especially for those not intimately grounded in the Earthsea mythology.  Three years after its Japanese premiere, Miyazaki’s Tales from Earthsea, finally has its American theatrical release, now screening in select theaters courtesy of Walt Disney.

While the legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki long sought to adapt Le Guin’s Earthsea stories, it was his son Gorō, a relative new comer to animated filmmaking, who was assigned the project by Studio Ghibli, the anime house co-founded by Miyazaki the elder.  The result is a visually striking, if thematically familiar, fantasy.

Like the epics of Tolkien and Robert Jordan, Tales follows a young protagonist of destiny, Arren, a confused prince who has apparently just murdered his father, the king.  Fleeing in shame, he encounters the wizard Sparrowhawk on the road.  Like his late father, Sparrowhawk is concerned about the chaos sweeping over Earthsea.  The weather is unseasonable, crops are failing, livestock are dying, and two dragons were recently spotted off the coast fighting to the death – an unprecedented event in the Earthsea fantasy world.

From Miyazaki's "Tales from Earthsea."

Naturally, there is a Sauron-like evil overlord to contend with.  In this case, it is the androgynous sorcerer Cob, whose slave-trading minions are out to get Arren.  Indeed, Tales follows the standard epic fantasy template, but does so reasonably well.  There is also a pseudo-environmental motif of a world out of balance that should have appealed to Le Guin, but it is subtler and more nuanced than most “green” movie messages.

Miyazaki the younger is most successful creating an epic look in the film, employing watercolor backgrounds and hand-drawn animation for dramatic effect.  Indeed, his fantasy landscapes and cityscapes have an exotic beauty that elevates Tales well above standard issue anime.

Redubbed for an American audience (not an uncommon practice with anime distribution), the English language cast mostly ranges from adequate to fairly good.  Timothy Dalton (the under-appreciated James Bond) is the class of the field, lending his commanding voice to Sparrowhawk.  In contrast, Willem Dafoe’s work as Cob often sounds campy, in the wrong way.

The first Disney animated release to carry a PG-13 rating, Tales is similar in intensity (and subject matter) to Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 animated Lord of the Rings.  Richly crafted but predictable (as is the case with most contemporary fantasy fiction), Tales is better than genre diehards might have heard at their conventions.  It is currently screening in New York at the Angelika Film Center, and in Los Angeles at The Landmark.

Posted on August 20th, 2010 at 8:11am.

Review: Mao’s Last Dancer & Artistic Freedom

By Joe Bendel. For fifty-plus years, Mainland China’s Communist government has experienced bitter factional rivalries and instituted enormously destructive campaigns for ideological purity.  While the pendulum has swung back and forth from relative stability to institutionalized insanity, it has remained an authoritarian state where artistic freedom is simply impossible.  That is why twenty year-old ballet dancer Li Cunxin defected to America in the early 1980’s.  It was a bold decision that would define Li’s bestselling memoir and Oscar-nominated director Bruce Beresford’s subsequent big-screen adaptation, Mao’s Last Dancer, which opens this Friday (8/20) in select theaters nationwide.

As a young boy, Li was slight but flexible as enough to be accepted at Madame Mao’s ballet academy.  Diligently training to build his strength, his natural talent blossomed -even in the didactic productions foisted on the academy by their ideologue patron.

Eventually Li was entrusted to study with the Houston Ballet as part of a cultural exchange program.  Primed to expect unspeakable misery, Li slowly discovers America is not as he was led to believe.  Acclimating to the new environment, he actually finds he dances better in the land of class enemies because he “feels freer.”  He also falls in love with Elizabeth Mackey, an aspiring dancer.  Then his life really starts to change.

Li indeed decides to defect, news the Chinese government does not happily receive when he ill-advisedly delivers it in-person.  In fact, they forcibly detain him in the Consulate, with the intention of whisking him out of the country against his will.  However, Li’s friends refuse to leave quietly (fortunately Texans can be an unruly lot), precipitating an international incident.

Dancer is a truly inspiring crowd-pleaser of a film, but it is not an overly-sanitized or conveniently simplistic reduction of a complex, real life story.  In fact, the guilt-wracked Li, fearing dreadful repercussions for his family, frequently quarrels with Mackey, eventually even divorcing her.  Yet, as a result, Li emerges as a flesh-and-blood human being.  We can also forgive the film for indulging in its manipulative coda, having more or less earned its triumphant freeze frame.

As wildly improbable as it might sound, much of Dancer was shot on-location in China.  Reportedly, once shooting was underway, the authorities began demanding changes to the script, but to his credit, Beresford rebuffed them.  As a result, there are indeed scenes of Madame Mao (who remains an official non-person in China), played by a truly eerie dead-ringer for the Gang of Four leader.  We also watch as Li’s mentor at the academy is purged for perceived ideological offenses, such as teaching the techniques of counter-revolutionary defectors like Nureyev and Baryshnikov.  (Granted, the film also seems to imply contemporary China may be loosening up, at least to an extent.)

Amanda Schull & Chi Cao.

Perhaps Dancer’s greatest challenge was casting credible dancers for its key leads roles.  Again, fortune smiled with the discovery of the considerable acting chops of Chi Cao (currently Principal Dancer with the Birmingham Royal Ballet) and Chengwu Guo (a member of the Australian Ballet) as the adult and teen-aged Li, respectively.  Both prove to be charismatic performers, with Chengwu making a surprisingly strong impression, even with his limited screen time.  (Hopefully, they will both be allowed to return home, despite their participation in the film.)

Dancer also boasts two Twin Peaks alumns – including Kyle MacLachlan, making the most of a small supporting role as crafty immigration attorney Charles Foster.  It is Joan Chen who really delivers the film’s emotional punch though, as Li’s spirited mother Niang.  Even thoroughly glammed down for the role, she still remains a radiant beauty.

Dancer is a well-rounded, fully satisfying bio-picture.  The product of Australian filmmakers, it refreshingly refrains from kneejerk political cheap shots, even implying then Vice President Bush played an important role securing Li’s freedom.  It also vividly captures Li’s passion for dance, which is the fundamental cause of nearly every event that unfolds in the film.  Emotionally engaging and politically astute, Dancer opens this Friday (8/20) in select theaters nationwide.

Posted on August 18th, 2010 at 11:58am.