4. Joe Bendel – Page 343 – LFM: Libertas Film Magazine

LFM Sundance Review: Abraxas

By Joe Bendel. This might be the quietest film about punk-rock ever produced. Sure, Jonen could peel the paint off the walls when he was shredding, but his subsequent gig as Buddhist monk is much more sedate. Yet there is a connection between the two that screen writer-director Naoki Katô intriguingly explores in Abraxas (trailer above), which screens during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Abraxas will likely shatter most viewers’ preconceptions of Buddhist monks. In addition to his punk-rock past, Jonen is a bit of drinker with a cute but increasingly exasperated wife Tae and young son Riu. Genshu, the resident temple priest, also has an attractive younger wife, making Abraxas quite the recruitment film for Buddhist religious service. Genshu however, is at peace with his path. Jonen by contrast, hears the siren call of the extreme music he used to make. Yet it is not the past glory he misses, but the oneness with sound. He is not looking to fill a void, rather he seeks the void.

Indeed, the punk-rock playing monk might sound precious, but there is nothing cutesy about Abaraxas. To his credit, Katô never dumbs down the material, crafting one of the more thoughtful and thought-provoking films about Buddhism (or any religion) in quite some time. Despite the importance of punk, it is only heard sparingly in Abraxas. Instead, it is the sounds of rain and even more prominently silence that Katô shrewdly employs to set the tone throughout the film.

Still, Katô ‘s film is hardly the cinematic equivalent of a scholarly religious treatise. Dealing with universal issues like loss and the need for belonging, Abraxas would be an excellent companion film to Yojiro Takita’s Oscar-winning art-house breakout hit Departures.

Appropriately Zen-like, the entire ensemble demonstrates ease and restraint in their parts. Though Japanese alt-rocker Suneohair (a.k.a. Kenji Watanabe) gets to rock-out and act a little crazy from time to time, it is still a very grounded and sincere performance. In many ways, Kaoru Kobayashi quietly supplies the heart and soul of the film as Jonen’s senior Genshu, expressing wisdom and tolerance while sounding like a fully dimensional character instead of a cliché in the Kung Fu tradition. Manami Honjo brings a warm, smart presence as Genshu’s wife Asako – while as Tae, Rie Tomosaka supplies surprising depth and nuance in what could have easily been a standard issue nagging wife role.

Abraxas may very well be too subtle to generate the heat it merits in Park City. Yet, it is a richly accomplished film that deserves to find audience (and an American distributor). Highly recommended, Abraxas screens again on Tuesday (1/25), Wednesday (1/26), Thursday (1/27), and Friday (1/28) as part of the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Posted on January 23rd, 2011 at 10:01pm.

LFM Sundance Review: Kaboom

By Joe Bendel. For college kids, secret societies should only involve getting hammered after performing silly rituals. Unfortunately, ‘Smith’ has stumbled across an apocalyptic death-cult intent on igniting nuclear Armageddon. It’s kind of a bummer, but at least he never lets it cramp his sex life in Gregg Araki’s Kaboom (see the trailer here), which screens at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in advance of its New York opening next week at the IFC Center.

Smith’s orientation vacillates between gay and bi, but his considerable unrequited lust for his surfer roommate Thor remains constant. Though undeniably hetero, the dumb blond exhibits enough meterosexual tendencies to keep hope alive. About the only person on campus Smith wouldn’t sleep with is his lesbian BFF Stella. Acting as Stella’s wingman at a party, Smith eats a bad cookie, if you know what I mean. Much to his mild surprise, he hooks up with London—a chick. Soon thereafter, Smith thinks he witnessed the murder of a mysterious Red-Haired Girl from the party while tripping his lights out on the way home. There is no evidence to be found in the light of day, but strange occurrences seem to suggest “they” know he knows. Then things get weird.

This is a Gregg Araki movie, so there is more sex of various persuasions than an MTV show aimed at young teens. If you can deal with that, it’s all rather amusing watch Smith, his platonic friend Stella, and friend-with-benefits London get pulled into a totally outrageous end of the world scenario. It turns out that Stella’s new lover is a witch—not a Wiccan, but a real witch, and quite a possessive one at that. Meanwhile, Smith learns that his father did not die when he was young after all, but succumbed to the dark side of the Force, taking over a doomsday cult he had been researching.

Despite its goofiness, Kaboom is rather bold in one respect: explicitly comparing Smith’s cultist father to L. Ron Hubbard. Most likely half of Hollywood will never work with Araki now, but he is probably less inclined to care than Ricky Gervais. Yet, the strange thing about Kaboom is that in between all the hooking-up and snappy snark, the secret conspiracy story is actually fairly tense, at least until Araki goes all-in with an outrageously over the top third act.

Even with his creepy unblinking eyes, Thomas Dekker makes a surprisingly compelling hipster protagonist. Clearly comfortable with acid-drenched dialogue, he establishes a nice bantering rhythm with Haley Bennett as Stella. Kelly Lynch also adds a welcome measure of mature tartness as Smith’s unsentimental mom, Nicole. She helps to compensate for the ridiculously broad (even clumsy) supporting turns from Chris Zylka as Thor and James Duval as “The Messiah,” their stoner R.A.

Though Araki is steadfastly indie, cinematography Sandra Valde-Hansen gives it a professional luster that rivals the disposable studio teen comedy of the week. Thanks to production designer Todd Fjelsted, Kaboom has a legit campus atmosphere as well. Make no mistake, though: those who look for things to be offended by will have no trouble finding them in the film. It is over-sexualized and nihilistic, but also more funny than not. Recommended to those who already know they’ll dig it, Kaboom screens at Sundance tonight (1/22), Monday (1/24), and Saturday (1/29) and opens real next Friday (1/28) at the IFC Center in New York.

Posted January 22nd, 2011 at 2:15pm.

LFM Sundance Review: All Flowers in Time

By Joe Bendel. A French cowboy just sounds wrong—disturbing even. It turns out that such trepidation is justified, yet it makes for interesting viewing in Jonathan Caouette’s hard to explain new short film, All Flowers in Time, which screens tonight as part of the New Frontiers shorts programming block at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

The French Cowboy in the film is sort of like the old MTM cat, giving the sign-off at the end of a warped Dutch children’s program. His barrage of subliminal images seems to give kids strange ideas and red glowing eyes, sort of like the monkey spirits of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee (although if you haven’t seen that, you’re not really missing much).

Those prone to obsess over questions like why and how this is happening are likely to be frustrated by Flowers. However, anyone who ever wanted to see Dutch kiddie television produced somewhere deep within the Black Lodge of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks will delight in Caouette’s bizarre visuals (no giants or dwarves, though). The greatest surprise in store for viewers is Chloë Sevigny’s unexpectedly likable and charismatic lead performance, especially given the macabre twist of her central scene, as well as Flowers’ overall surreal vibe and experimental aesthetic. Indeed, the let-me-show-you-a-scary-face game she plays with the young boy in her charge (relationship unknown) is an effective set-up vehicle for creepy chills, not that Caouette is really going for that (or maybe he is, who can say really?).

One thing is certain: Caouette is indulging in quite a bit of gamesmanship throughout Flowers. However, it actually builds towards something somewhat interesting, even if it leaves a ten gallon hat full of question unanswered. Strangely watchable (‘strange’ being the key word), Flowers screens tonight (1/21), Saturday (1/22), Monday (1/24), Tuesday (1/25), Friday (1/28), and Saturday (1/29) at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Posted on January 22nd, 2011 at 1:49pm.

LFM Sundance Review: Troll Hunter

By Joe Bendel. Norway faces a number of tricky public policy challenges, like an aging population, an influx of culturally dissimilar immigrants – and the increasingly belligerent troll colonies. The Norwegian government would like to keep that last one a secret. However, a student film crew stumbles onto the truth in screenwriter-director Andre Øvredal’s The Troll Hunter, a darn well put together monster movie that screens as part of the Park City at Midnight track during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Our title character is the most grizzled civil servant you will ever meet. Hans has no hatred in his heart for the ginormous ogres he hunts. He just has a job to do, working for the double-secret government office of troll affairs. Suspecting he is a bear poacher, aspiring journalist Thomas and his classmates start rather unsubtly tracking the tracker. Fed up with his bureaucratic boss and the piles of departmental red tape, the hunter decides to show them the truth: the trolls are out there.

Though it probably cost less to produce Troll Hunter than to ship the film to Park City, the trolls look shockingly good (more or less resembling big, hulking gnomes), thanks to the canny work of VFX supervisor Oystein Larsen and cinematographer Hallvard Bræin. Presented as the student crew’s salvaged videotape, much in the manner of Blair Witch, the film’s rough look well serves their troll effects. No harsh close-ups here, just flattering wide shots.

While the college kids are all essentially expendable, Otto Jespersen is all kinds of awesome as Hans. The found footage conceit always makes character development problematic, but his cranky Troll Hunter feels like a fully formed, flesh and blood person, albeit a considerably difficult one. In fact, given Jespersen’s rep as the Bill Maher of Norway, his time is probably better spent chasing trolls through the forests of Vestlandet.

Øvredal truly engages in kitchen-sink filmmaking, cherry-picking some clever traditional troll lore while slathering it all in generous helpings of black humor (much of which comes courtesy of the acerbic Troll Hunter himself). Øvredal also sprinkles a thimble full of socio-political “relevance” on top, but wisely never belabors his points. While it is hard to read too much into the trolls’ ferocious response to the smell of the blood of Christian believers, there is an unmistakable anti-developmental message weaved into the subtext. Fortunately, it is not pronounced enough to distract from a good clean troll hunt.

Troll Hunter is one of the most entertaining Norwegian monster movies in years. Øvredal really pulls it off, getting a key assist from Jespersen as his crusty protagonist. Proudly representing the Kingdom of Norway, Troll Hunter screens tonight (1/21), tomorrow (1/22), Tuesday (1/25), next Friday (1/28), and the following Saturday (1/29) at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Posted on January 21st, 2011 at 5:37pm.

LFM Review: Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance

By Joe Bendel. In the future, child labor laws will be loosened in Japan. It will be for a good cause though: the salvation of humanity. Only pre-teens can fit into the cockpit of the Evangelions, the huge cyborg-like fighting machines created to protect the earth from the otherworldly peril it faces. It is a grueling task that extracts a costly toll from the young pilots in Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance, the second film in screenwriter and “chief director” Hideaki Anno’s big-screen “rebuild” of the popular Japanese anime, which opens this Friday in New York and San Francisco.

As 2.0 opens, the Earth is once again under attack by “Angels,” hulking robotic extraterrestrial beings apparently impervious to all conventional weaponry. Shinji Ikari still flies his Eva unit in hopes of winning the approval of his severe father, who oversees NERV’s Evangelion program. His feelings for Rei, the emotionally fragile lead Eva pilot, continue to percolate. Into their midst comes a new pilot, Asuka, a Euro hotshot who arrives on the scene like Maverick at the Miramar TOPGUN school. Unfortunately, none of them expect the radical transformations in store for the Evas, nor the resulting implications for their own humanity.

Also crediting co-directors Masayuki and Kazuya Tsurumaki, 2.0 shrewdly incorporates proven elements from popular film and television, like the shadowy cabals of The X-Files and armored behemoths pounding each other silly, a la The Transformers. However, Anno’s anime utilizes strangely inverted Christian imagery, like the killer “Angels” that often explode into crosses when they are destroyed and “Lilith,” the life-giving angel, preserved beneath NERV central command disturbingly crucified on her cross. In fact, the original anime was somewhat notorious for its dense mythology, which has reportedly been streamlined for the rebuild. While its symbolism has the potential to become deeply troubling in future installments, for now it earns the first two Evangelions credit for ambition and novelty.

Frankly, elements of the meta-conspiracy revealed in 2.0 might even confuse those who saw 1.0, but most viewers going in cold will pick up enough to appreciate the rock-em-sock-em action sequences. Anime fanboys though might be disappointed by the lack of “fan service” aside from an Austin Powers shot of Asuka. Yet as animation, Evangelion represents the high-end of anime, featuring some rather striking imagery.

For those who sparingly partake of anime, the Evangelion series is one to check out. Smarter and more neurotic than the industry standard, it is an oddly compelling excursion into apocalyptic science fiction. Many theaters, including the Manhattan Big Cinemas (1/20) and the Viz Theater at New People (1/20) are screening 1.0 prior to 2.0’s opening (on the 21st both in New York and in San Francisco).

Posted on January 20th, 2011 at 1:08pm.

LFM Review: Cabaret Polska at The New York Jewish Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. 1968 was truly a year of infamy. Perhaps most notorious was the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia crushing the brief “Prague Spring” interlude of openness, but that awful year also witnessed the Polish Communists orchestrating an anti-Semitic purge, as a part of a virulent propaganda campaign against Zionism. Essentially it completed the country’s complete disillusionment with its Communist government, leaving a lingering sense of shame and loss that is expressed in unconventional but eloquent terms in Nir David Zats and Zuzanna Solakiewicz’s Cabaret Polska, which has its American premiere tomorrow during the 2011 New York Jewish Film Festival.

Ryszard Wojcik is not Jewish, but the purge cost him many close friends, including Stach and Joasia Gomulka. Hounded into immigrating, the Gomulkas were forced to abandon nearly all their worldly possessions, including a book Wojcik still prizes as a memento of their interrupted friendship. Yet as Joasia Gomulka ironically remembers, many of those persecuting her family were also jealous of them, because at least they were allowed to leave (and the sooner, the better).

Cabaret is not merely an oral history-style documentary. As the title indicates, there are several slightly surreal musical interludes, as well as a highly stylized animated sequence incorporating surviving photos of the Gomulkas circa 1968. While it all might sound out of place, those familiar with the absurdist theatrical productions of Grotowski and the dissident Theater of the Eighth Day will recognize and understand Cabaret’s influences. Indeed, it is a fittingly absurd way to address Communism and its institutionalized anti-Semitism.

As one probably gathers, Cabaret veers far and wide, yet it never loses sight of the big picture, delivering a number of heavy moments. At just under an hour’s running time, it is also a manageable excursion into experimental documentary filmmaking. Given the Polish experience in WWII, the 1968 anti-Semitic purges were particularly appalling. Fortunately, Cabaret is part of an organized effort to prevent that difficult episode of Polish history from slipping into the memory hole. Highly recommended to modestly adventurous viewers, Polska screens Wednesday (1/19) at the Walter Reade Theater as part of a double bill of long short-form documentaries during this year’s NYJFF.

Posted on January 18th, 2011 at 12:16pm.