Category: 4. Joe Bendel

Afghanistan in the Spotlight: LFM Reviews George Gittoes’ Love City Trilogy

Filmmaker George Gittoes.

By Joe Bendel. Pashto cinema has an unlikely godfather: an Australian graphic artist and documentary filmmaker, who seems more at home in a war zone than walking the red carpet. To get inside the oppressed Pashto film industry, George Gittoes financed his own Pashto films. The results, as seen in The Miscreants of Taliwood, look rather awful, but they were just a start. Perhaps mindful of previous lost opportunities, Gittoes and an entirely Afghan cast and crew produced an interconnected trilogy of films that directly address issues of gender roles, religious intolerance, and political corruption. They are also love stories. A significant cultural accomplishment (if not necessarily high art), the Love City trilogy has its American premiere this weekend as part of the Anthology Film Archives’ Gittoes retrospective.

If (like myself) you have not seen the first film, also titled Love City, not to worry. Gittoes essentially shotguns the gist of it into the first five minutes of Talk Show. Basically, it is Romeo & Juliet with a happy ending. A young filmmaker falls in love with Jasmin, the daughter of a former mujahedin who happens to own Love City, a Jalalabad wedding hall, but he opposes their love match. Eventually true love wins out, but this is the exception rather than the rule in Afghanistan.

In the second film, Talk Show, the focus shifts to Jasmin’s older sister Asma, who is studying in Peshawar with her Afghan-American friend Ghuty. Unfortunately they are kidnapped by Taliban terrorists while returning home from the wedding. Enlisting the help of Karim, a reputedly mobbed-up restaurateur, her father orchestrates their rescue. Unfortunately Asma falls for Karim in the process, forgetting about cousin Ikram, who has long carried a torch for her. Of course, getting involved with the wrong sort of man is exponentially worse in Afghanistan. However, Asma is not without her own resources. As the host of a groundbreaking issue-oriented talk show, she has a forum to challenge the caddish and corrupt Karim. Continue reading Afghanistan in the Spotlight: LFM Reviews George Gittoes’ Love City Trilogy

Russian Film Week 2011: LFM Reviews The Ambitious Sci-Fi Epic The Target

By Joe Bendel. In near future Russia, red signifies good and blue designates evil. Ahem. Russia’s powerful natural resources minister is preoccupied with a device that reveals the good-to-evil ratio of everyone and everything viewed through it. He would like to put this information into practice and he ought to have the time to do so, considering he will more or less live forever. Of course, nothing is quite so simple in Alexander Zeldovich’s science fiction fable The Target (trailer above), which screens during the eleventh annual Russian Film Week in New York.

Somewhere in Nowherestan, there is a colossal abandoned Soviet astrophysics research facility. Built into the ground, it looks like a giant target from the surrounding mountains. The bull’s eye collects not just radiation, but also chi force. Those who spend the night in the focal point will apparently live forever. For a man of privilege like Minister Viktor Chelshchev and his increasingly discontented wife Zoya, it is a trip worth the expense and inconvenience.

With Zoya’s brother Dmitri and his friend Nikolai, a thrill-seeking border enforcement officer, they make the long journey east. They also share their passage with another postmodern pilgrim, who turns out to be the woman of Dmitri’s dreams. Together they spend a fateful night in the Target, which turns out to be everything it was promised to be and then some.

Initially, everyone feels energized, buzzed even. However, it quickly becomes clear the target acts as a karmic steroid shot. Their emotions become rawer and their passions more intense, overriding their empathic affinities. As Zoya and Nikolai launch into an affair, taking the film on a futuristic Anna Karenina detour, Chelshchev boldly announces his intention to screen mines and worksites to avoid evil deposits (for real). How do you think that goes over?

A strange but not implausibly exotic environment, Target initially brings to mind the austere, almost antiseptic near future vibe of classic 1960’s-70’s science fiction films like 2001, World on a Wire, and, dare we say it, Solaris. However, things get rather messy in a hurry. Indeed, Target is a tricky film to get a handle on, because it veers into some trippy territory that has very real narrative consequences. Yet, despite the nature of its themes and motifs, there is nothing New Agey about the film. It is never proscriptive. Rather, it returns to one of the central cautionary principles of speculative fiction: those who would become like gods . . .

As Zoya/Anna, South African born English actress Justine Waddell (who had a smaller supporting role in Bernard Rose’s Anna Karenina) is a brittle, haunting presence, bringing to mind Anouk Aimée and Anna Karina in the films of Fellini and Godard. Likewise, Maxim Sukhanov finds unexpected depths of humanity in Chelshchev, somewhat resembling a Russian Mastroianni. Indeed, Target is better thought of in Nouvelle Vague and surrealist traditions than as genre cinema per se.

From the Russian sci-fi epic "The Target."

Ambitious in scope, cinematographer Alexandre Ilkhovski’s wide vistas of the Target and surrounding mountains are visually arresting. This is definitely big picture filmmaking. Still, in several respects Target is an alarmingly current film, positing a Russia ever more dominated by a resource hungry China. It also depicts the violent cruelty of mobs in no uncertain terms. Even if they are poor, they can still be evil.

In just about every way, Target is an uncompromising film for the ‘top one percent’ rather than a simpleminded rabble. For those who enjoy science fiction at its most challenging, Target is strongly recommended. It screens again tomorrow night (11/1) during Russian Film Week in New York.

Posted on October 31st, 2011 at 12:13pm.

The Cold War Returns: LFM Reviews The Double

By Joe Bendel. The Cold War is over, technically speaking, but a lot of unfinished business remains. A notorious Soviet assassin is one of those loose ends. Never captured but presumed dead for years, the American intelligence services are slightly concerned when the body of a murdered senator bears the signature techniques of the killer code-named Cassius. Unfortunately, the game is afoot once again for his temporarily retired CIA nemesis in Michael Brandt’s The Double, which opens this Friday in New York.

Paul Shepherdson thought it had all ended with a bang. Cassius’s body was never recovered, but since the killings stopped, closure appeared to be achieved. Years later, the Senate’s leading critic of neo-Soviet Russian aggression is brutally murdered. Pointing to a few variations here and there, Shepherdson insists it is the work of a copycat. However, FBI analyst Ben Geary is certain it is Cassius’s work. He is also something of an expert on the old Soviet bogeyman, having written his master’s thesis on Shepherdson’s investigation. Reluctantly, the CIA veteran agrees to an inter-agency odd-couple pairing with Geary, trying to pour cold water on his enthusiasm every step of the way.

Refreshingly, the Russians and the Soviets before them are the villains in The Double, while the Americans simply scramble to counter their infiltration campaign. (It is a bit of a stretch making the murdered hawkish senator a Democrat and his Russian puppet counterpart a Republican, but if that is the concession that had to be made, so be it.) On the macro political level at least, Double is quite sound and realistic.

Double takes great delight in springing two big twists on the audience, yet inexplicably gives away the first one in the trailer (above). Several more follow, which naturally alter our perceptions of characters a second time. While viewers will be primed for the second switcheroo, Double has some very smart investigative detail that makes the dot-connecting process considerably more engaging than usual.

As Shepherdson, Richard Gere has the right steely, grizzled presence, maintaining a consistent world weary character throughout his character’s revelations. Frankly, Double is his best work in years (maybe since Chicago). Conversely, Topher Grace’s Geary looks like a mere boy among men. Granted, he is a rookie, but he does not even look convincing wearing a suit. His presence is a major albatross weighing down the film. Still, the film has Martin Sheen, suitably commanding as CIA director Tom Highland and True Blood’s Stephen Moyer nicely projects feral cunning as Brutus, the only captured member of Cassius’s team.

In his directorial debut, 3:10 to Yuma co-writer Brandt maintains a decent if not exactly breakneck pace. He has a nice handle on the details, but never delivers a centerpiece action sequence. Still, it is a solid Cold War-reloaded thriller genre fans and Russophobes should enjoy when it opens Friday (10/28) in New York at the AMC Empire and Village 7.

Posted on October 28th, 2011 at 10:11am.

A Russian Freedom Jazz Dance: LFM Reviews Hipsters

By Joe Bendel. During the Cold War, Willis Conover’s jazz program was the most popular Voice of America show with listeners behind the Iron Curtain, despite the constant barrage of Soviet propaganda crusading against America’s greatest original form of music. With its unmistakable message of freedom, the Communists were right to be concerned. One young soon-to-be-former Communist becomes a convert while pursuing the coolest chick he has ever seen in director-co-librettist Valery Todorovsky’s outstanding period musical Hipsters (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in Los Angeles.

Named after Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, Mels is a Communist Youth member who looks like a young Conan O’Brien. Polly is a classic Russian beauty, who runs with the jazz-listening extravagantly-dressing hipster crowd. A decided underdog, Mel makes little headway trading in his drab proletarian wardrobe for a candy-colored suit. However, when he takes up the saxophone, he finally turns her head. Of course, their romance will be difficult. As hipsters, they are constantly harassed by Mels’ former comrades. It hardly helps matters that Katya, youth brigade leader, has been carrying a torch for him.

By 1955, most American teenagers were more interested in Elvis Presley than Charlie Parker, but rebellious teens in the USSR had to take what they could get. Hipsters’ music is definitely jazz, but it leans towards jumpier big band arrangements, which are a lot of fun and work well in the film’s context. The film also makes no bones about jazz’s American origins, clearly associating it with notions of freedom. Even one of Conover’s fondly remembered VOA broadcasts is heard briefly.

Sexy and stylish like a hipster, the film dramatically contrasts the color and flair of the rebel jazzers with the drabness of their Soviet environment. Todorovsky created some wonderfully energetic, period appropriate musical numbers, which display a respect and affection for jazz. The hip jitterbuggery choreography is quite entertaining, yet perhaps the musical highlight comes relatively early, when Mels fantasizes playing “Summertime” as a duet with a Parker-esque alto player in New York. It’s a beautiful scene.

Oksana Akinsha in "Hipsters."

Yet Todorovsky never ignores the ugliness of the Communist era, either. At times, the enforcement of Party discipline at Mels’ school resembles scenes from The Wall. Clearly this was a time of paranoia and petty abuses of power.

As Mels, Anton Shagin passes the likability test, but hews rather closely to a zone of reserved shyness. In contrast, Oksana Akinsha smolders up the screen with old school movie star appeal. In an acutely human supporting turn, Igor Voynarovsky adds further depth and pathos as Boris (or Bob if you’re hip), Mels’ initial tutor in the school of cool. It is also nice to see veteran Russian actor Sergey Garmash as Mels’ gruff but sympathetic father.

Visually dynamic, Hipsters is a refreshingly inventive, jazz-centric take on the movie musical. It is easily the best Cold War era musical since the Czech film Rebelove, which might not mean much to a lot of people, but is high praise indeed. A wonderfully entertaining film with serious substance, Hipsters is one of the year’s best. It opens tomorrow (10/28) in Los Angeles at the Nuart, with a New York engagement currently scheduled for January.

Posted on October 27th, 2011 at 11:39am.

India Cranks the CGI: LFM Reviews RA.ONE

By Joe Bendel. Two video game characters will continue their epic struggle of good versus evil in the real world. At least one of them also sings and dances. It’s not the super-villain. Combining Bollywood style musical numbers with Terminator and Tron inspired science fiction motifs, Anubhav Sinha’s RA.ONE (trailer here) opens today in New York after already setting box-office presales records in India (a feat that should stand for at least another month, possibly six weeks).

Shekhar Subramanium is a game designer with a bratty son who prefers villains to heroes. For his birthday, Subramanium obliges him with RA.ONE, the monstrous bad guy more powerful than G.ONE, the good guy in his latest cyber-VR game, modeled on its creator. Lucifer, as the kid dubbed himself in gaming circles, is delighted, kicking RA.ONE’s tail in the game’s first round. However, when Lucifer is pulled away before RA.ONE has a chance for payback in the virtual world, the dark lord decides to go get him some in the real world.

While the film pretends to present a scientifically plausible explanation for RA.ONE and then G.ONE making the big Matrix leap to reality, it is really all just hocus pocus. Yes, there are ample science fiction elements, but the film also diligently hits all the traditional Bollywood and Tamil bases. A father dying before his son can tell him he loves him? Check. Flashbacks in the rain? Check. Redemption arriving by way of a surrogate father figure? Maybe, just maybe.

Though at first just a shortening of “Random Access One,” RA.ONE became a digital reboot of Ravana, the Hindu demon king, during Subramanium’s game development process. Similarly, G.ONE became a derivation of the Hindi word for life. That’s about as Joseph Campbell as the film gets, but there are some cool musical numbers. Continue reading India Cranks the CGI: LFM Reviews RA.ONE

LFM Review: My Tehran for Sale

By Joe Bendel. Recently, in response to the categorical rejection of Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s appeal and the truly barbaric sentence of one year in prison and ninety lashes handed down to actress Marzieh Vafamehr, many prominent Iranian artists (including the great Shohreh Aghdashloo) have called on the world to “boycott official Iranian film and television organizations and sanction its members.” While their outrage is appropriate, the work that caused Vafamehr’s plight should not be thrown out with the bathwater. An important film even before the arrest of its lead actress, the Iranian born Australian-based filmmaker Granaz Moussavi’s My Tehran for Sale (trailer here) recently screened during the inaugural Dialogue of Cultures Film Festival in New York.

In what will become an ever more self-referential turn, Vafamehr plays Marzieh, an avant-garde actress seeking to expatriate because her plays have been banned by the censors. She is well educated, middle class, and ideologically moderate, none of which are much of an advantage in contemporary Iranian society. Navigating the Kafkaesque immigration process for years, Marzieh is hoping to soon liquidate all her possessions to finance her move. Of course, complications arise.

Initially, Marzieh has a bit of good fortune. Attending an underground rave in the countryside with her friend Sadaf, Marzieh happened to be in the stables with Saman, the recently repatriated son of immigrants looking to make his fortune in Tehran. Given the unambiguous nature of their encounter, this scene probably did not help Marzieh’s case. However, the real scandal is the conduct of the morality police, terrorizing women like Sadaf for their unadorned heads.

Quickly Marzieh and Saman become something of an item. Despite his myriad of faults, Marzieh enjoys a somewhat pleasant interlude. Still, grim realities are ever-present in the margins of Sale, represented by a woman committing suicide rather face the disgrace of pregnancy out of wedlock, the whispered news of yet another colleague’s arrest, or simply the general sense of unease surrounding her life. Continue reading LFM Review: My Tehran for Sale